Page 2 of 2 Al-Qaeda regrouping points to
US attack By Michael Scheuer
our performing his personal duty.
The reason for joining the Islamic organizations
and foundation is to attain obedience to Allah, so
if these organizations become an obstacle to
performing Allah's obligations, then we must free
ourselves from their shackles and confinement."
[7]
He further states: "As for the point
of view of doctrine and Islam, the Muslim
ummah and its mujahid vanguard do not make
alliances and hold animosities
on the basis of tribalism and nationalism, nor to
help the Arabs against the Persians, or the Kurds
against the Arabs, or the Amazight against the
Arabs. Rather, Islam commands us to fight for
Allah's word to be supreme.
"We ally
ourselves to the helpers of Islam, even if they be
Afghans, Persians, Turks or Kurds, and we are
hostile to its enemies who collude with the
Crusaders and Jews, even if they are pure-blooded
Hashemite, Qurayshite Arabs ... I ask my Muslim
bothers in general and the callers and the
mujahideen and their media organizations in
particular to highlight the concept of Islamic
brotherhood and disown all partisanship, loyalties
and animosities based on nationalism, and I ask
them not to allow the wrongdoing of a faction or
entity to motivate to speak evil of that party's
entire people or race. [8]
"And I think
these are the emotions [toward unity] of all
mujahideen in Iraq - and indeed, in all lands of
Islam - toward each other, even if their opinions
and judgments differ," Zawahiri continues.
"But the thing which I want to emphasize
is that we must strengthen one another, and guide
one another, and advise and instruct our brothers,
even if we differ with them, and that we must
study how to take the upright middle path, in
order to make use of and benefit from every
achievement by our mujahid bothers and develop and
support it with brotherly affinity, faith-based
love, doctrinal brotherhood and jihadi
companionship, even if we see in it shortcomings
or something less than perfection ... Thus the
mujahideen must solve their problems among
themselves ... And I don't see any benefit for
them in making public the problems of the
mujahideen for all to see. In fact, I believe that
its harm is much greater than its good." [9]
Clearly, Zawahiri has focused on promoting
worldwide Islamist unity more in recent months
than at any other time since the September 11,
2001, attacks. Yet making the effort does not
guarantee success, and measuring the progress he
has made is most difficult.
One possible
measure is the more than 40 Islamist groups that
have pledged fealty to al-Qaeda's philosophy and
leadership in the past several years. Another may
be the independent cells that have been caught and
dismantled since 2005 in Australia, the United
States, Canada and the United Kingdom, each of
which was found - after their disruption - to have
been inspired by bin Laden's leadership and
al-Qaeda's actions and propaganda.
Whatever the true measure of Zawahiri's
success, it seems clear that he and bin Laden want
the broadest possible degree of Islamist unity to
be in place before the next attack, using
al-Qaeda's core organization to apply what
Zawahiri has described as "the new theory which
al-Qaeda brought with it", which is "confrontation
with the central states, comprising the United
States and Europe ... by taking the war from the
outlying states [in the Muslim world] to the
central states, in which case the damage and
consequences of this damage will take place in the
central states". [10]
It is impossible to
know whether al-Qaeda's leaders are satisfied that
enough unity has been achieved to attempt another
attack in the United States, but the demonstrable
progress toward greater unity they have made,
together with the US government's assessment that
al-Qaeda's core is as strong as it was on
September 11, suggests that Chertoff's "gut" may
have good reason to be astir.
Michael Scheuer served as the
chief of the Bin Laden Unit at the Central
Intelligence Agency's counter-terrorist center
from 1996-99. He is now a senior fellow at The
Jamestown Foundation.
Notes 1. Peter Bergen,
The Osama bin Laden I Know, New York, Free
Press, 2006, p 356. 2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The
Advice of One Concerned", July 4, 2007. 3.
Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, July 9, 2005,
October 11, 2005. Zawahiri's mention of the
Taliban's problem in consolidating power in
Afghanistan is often teamed by him and bin Laden
by pointing to the example of the even greater
failure of the Afghan insurgents of the
anti-Soviet-jihad era to consolidate power and
prevent civil war after the Red Army
withdrew. 4. The dates of the Zawahiri
statements reviewed for this article are: July 9,
2005; December 21, 2006; December 30, 2006;
January 5, 2007; January 22, 2007; February 13,
2007; March 12, 2007; May 5, 2007; May 23, 2007;
July 4, 2007; July 10, 2007; and July 11, 2007.
The transcripts used in this article were
published by IntelCenter. In regard to Zawahiri's
statements toward Imam Ali and his sons Hasan and
Hussayn, on December 21, 2006, he described each
of the latter two men as "our chief", while on May
5, 2007, he termed all three "our masters".
Furthermore, al-Qaeda's leaders also publicly
supported Lebanon's Shi'ite organization Hezbollah
during the latter's 2006 war with Israel and urged
all Sunni Islamists to do likewise. 5.
Zawahiri: "Realities of the Conflict Between Islam
and Disbelief", December 21, 2006;
"Congratulations on the Eid to the Ummah of
Tawhid", December 30, 2006; and "Rise up and
Support Your Brothers in Somalia", January 5,
2007. 6. Zawahiri, "Congratulations on the Eid
to the Ummah of Tawhid". 7. Zawahiri,
"Statement on President Bush's Surge", January 22,
2007. 8. Zawahiri, "Lessons, Examples, and
Great Events in the Year 1427," February 13,
2007. 9. Zawahiri, "The Advice of One
Concerned". 10. Ibid.
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