Page 1 of 2 Al-Qaeda regrouping points to US attack By Michael Scheuer
(For the latest US National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda's threat to the
United States, click
here .)
When Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a "gut feeling"
that the United States faced an increased chance of a domestic terrorist attack
in the months ahead, he brought into sharp relief the fact that al-Qaeda has
been working since 2001 to prepare Islamist organizations to take advantage of
its
next US attack.
Given al-Qaeda's own statements, Chertoff's sense of timing is roughly in the
ballpark. Senior al-Qaeda lieutenant Sayf al-Adel has written that after the
US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, al-Qaeda and the Taliban
estimated that the Taliban would return to power in Afghanistan in about seven
years, and that its return would be accomplished as part of and "in harmony
with a well-examined plan that will defeat the Americans and their supporters".
[1]
This October will mark the sixth of those seven years, and that fact might well
bestir Chertoff's "gut". Another hint that al-Qaeda's pre-US-attack phase may
be winding down is found in the intense emphasis the group's deputy commander,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, has put on promoting unity among jihadist groups - Sunni and
Shi'ites - since mid-2005.
Disunity is particularly dangerous at this time, Zawahiri warned on July 4,
because at "the stage preceding victory ... there is most [often] seen an
increase in conspiracies, plots and inciting of discord, in an attempt by the
enemy, who has begun to see his defeat approach, to push back and delay the
defeat as much as he can". [2]
Zawahiri first firmly established this theme in a July 2005 letter to the late
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then al-Qaeda's commander in Iraq. Warning Zarqawi "that
things may develop faster than we imagine" in regard to the defeat and exit of
US-led forces in Iraq, Zawahiri explained that the mujahideen must be united
and ready to fill any political void.
Zawahiri said that "the mistake of the Taliban" in not expanding participation
in their government must be recalled and avoided by all Islamist groups. When
the mujahideen take over in Iraq or elsewhere, Zawahiri wrote, insurgent
leaders must direct political as well as military action "by [working for]
alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion in the Iraqi
arena". Zawahiri pointedly noted that this meant Shi'ite-Sunni cooperation and
not just intra-Sunni unity. [3]
Worthy of a parenthetical digression is the question of what Zawahiri's letter
to Zarqawi and his consistent subsequent emphasis on unity among all mujahideen
groups - Sunni and Shi'ites - mean vis-a-vis the veracity of claims by Western
officials and media that al-Qaeda in Iraq is the driving force of the Sunni vs
Shi'ite violence there. In each of the statements by Zawahiri under
consideration in this article, Zawahiri has urged unity of all mujahideen and
on several occasions has stressed that the most iconic figures of Shi'ite Islam
- Imam Ali, and his sons Hasan and Hussayn - would be demanding such cross-sect
unity at this time. [4]
In addition, since Zarqawi's death, al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq, Abu Hamza
al-Muhajir, has said virtually nothing that could be regarded as gratuitously
anti-Shi'ite, thereby implementing the advice Zarqawi refused to accept.
Finally, Osama bin Laden has consistently stressed that Sunnis must not seek a
final score-settling with the Shi'ites - unless they or some Sunnis aid the
US-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan and thereby become killable apostates
- until after the United States is driven as far as possible from the Middle
East and the incumbent Arab regimes and Israel are destroyed.
Therefore, based on the combination of the documentary record and bin Laden's
oft-stated and seemingly ironclad strategic priorities, it seems exceedingly
unlikely that al-Qaeda is the driving - or even a major - force fomenting
Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq.
As noted, Zarqawi continued to push for unity after his letter to Zarqawi, and
in the past six months he has markedly increased his focus on the issue in his
media messages, moving beyond the Iraqi theater and addressing Sunni and
Shi'ite Islamist groups worldwide.
In speaking to Islamist fighters in Palestine, Algeria, Sudan, Kurdistan,
Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, the Philippines, Kashmir, Chechnya, Lebanon, Jordan,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Somalia, Zawahiri said that without unity
Muslims would only be able to live "on the margins of the New World Order ...
under the control of the arrogant enemies of Islam, dishonored, humiliated,
plundered and occupied, with them meddling in your beliefs and true religion".
In such a condition, Zawahiri concluded, the Muslim world would be subject to
"bombing, destruction, torture, occupation, abuse and infringement ... not
eligible for human rights, due to it being a species of animal which has
attacked its Western masters".
To prevail, Zawahiri argues, Muslims must understand that the US-led West only
fears war and that only the united mujahideen will "intimidate" the West.
Without unity, no one in "the Islamic world [will] gain their freedom because
lambs have no place in the middle of a world of wolves". [5]
In addition to playing down sectarian differences, Zawahiri has tried to break
down inter-group barriers that derive from each group's pride and concern for
its organizational independence and sovereignty. He has, for example, made a
point of not specifically speaking to Muhajir's al-Qaeda in Iraq when
addressing the Iraqi resistance, but rather addressing "the emir of the Islamic
State of Iraq, the Mujahid Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and all the groups of
the champion mujahideen engaged in jihad in defense of Iraq and the caliphate.
And I call on them to unite and be as one in accordance with the command of
Allah, the most high and glorious, and his messenger, peace be upon him." [6]
In doing so, Zawahiri has begun to ease the anger generated among Iraqis by
Zarqawi's blatant attempt to impose non-Iraqi leadership on the Iraqi
insurgency.
Further afield, Zawahiri has delivered the same message of unity time and
again, explaining that Islamist groups must aim only at making God's word the
most high, and that they cannot be regarded as legitimate if they are merely
the agents of personal, sectarian or nationalist aspirations.
Muslims must not be "restrained by the shackles of organizations and
foundations from entering the fields of battle", he explains. "We must destroy
every shackle which stands between us and
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