What
the Bin Laden files could tell us
By Walid Phares
The
free world has waited for 10 to 20 years to learn
the master plans of international jihadism's
"al-Za'im" ("the leader"), Osama bin Laden.
Because a United States Navy SEALS team in
early May dropped in on the al-Qaeda leader's
Abbottabad domicile in Pakistan unannounced, he
was unable to marshal a defense or dispose of the
stockpile of strategic documentation he had
preserved on digital storage media and in paper
files.
It is safe to assume that the
information he had accumulated over a period of
years is in the US being thoroughly scrutinized by
members of the intelligence community.
American officials characterized the files
seized from Bin Laden's
vault as a veritable
cornucopia of actionable intelligence that should
keep analysts and Arab-language translators busy
for a very long time.
Analysts who have
monitored Bin Laden's activities since the
mid-1990s have had to rely on sometimes-obfuscated
statements he made in his speeches in their
intelligence estimates. Now they have a mountain
of hard data to excavate.
Because Bin
Laden's domicile hadn't changed much since his
December 2001 flight from the Tora Bora mountains
in Afghanistan, one would assume that his Afghan
archives accompanied or were reunited with him at
his Pakistani safe house.
More
importantly, we now know that Bin Laden's compound
was the command center from which he continued to
direct al-Qaeda's strategic operations.
We
have also learned that Bin Laden always
communicated via courier to avoid detection and he
was punctilious about keeping digital copies of
his communiques on hard drives. So what is in the
mountain of intelligence we now possess?
Almost immediately after Bin Laden's
elimination, bits and pieces of the intelligence
taken from his compound were gradually released
for public consumption and, to some degree,
satisfaction.
Debates quickly ensued over
the appropriateness of publishing images of the
deceased al-Qaeda leader's corpse and its burial
at sea. Media pundits and the public dove into the
debate with both feet.
When that debate
was winding down, another wave of photographs and
video was released showing Bin Laden watching a TV
show about himself and the terrorist's narcissism
fueled the next heated debate. Additional material
has been gradually released, most of it suitable
for tabloid publication and less so for tactical
purposes.
Doubtless, the material released
to date has been interesting and in some ways
placating. But the "beefy" strategic information
that experts, intelligence analysts, lawmakers,
military strategists and the public really need is
yet to be produced.
For instance, it is
essential that individuals in these and similar
roles understand the ideology that inspires and
guides jihadis and jihadi movements globally.
How does al-Qaeda see its role in the
global jihad and how do they relate to other
jihadi movements? What anticipated final event
must occur before Islamists' vision of a restored,
global caliphate is fulfilled?
If the
global jihad was World War II and the jihadists,
Nazis, Allied Intelligence would search beyond the
psychological profile of Nazi leaders to learn
everything there is to know about the enemy.
We would expect a mountain of intelligence
such as the following:
Bin Laden's views of his potential
relationship with his protectors inside Pakistan,
particularly those connected to or part of the
Inter-Services Intelligence. We know the latter
has ties to the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group
because of the situation with India, at least in
the past.
For years, Bin Laden and his deputy (now
leader) Ayman al-Zawahiri were able to get their
video messages rushed to the front of the
programming queue on Qatari-funded al-Jazeera TV
as exclusive news stories.
That Bin Laden
and Zawahiri relied on couriers to ferry their
messages to the Arab TV network boasting the most
powerful broadcast antenna in the Arab world
raises an obvious question: What group prompted
the premier television network in the Arab world
to facilitate world-wide distribution of the views
of the world's most-wanted terror fugitive?
Intelligence mining should be able to skim
all we need to know about Bin Laden's symbiotic
relationship with propaganda operatives.
Numerous journalists and media pundits in the
Arab world claimed on air and in print to know
better than anyone what Bin Laden wanted and what
he was thinking.
Harsh disagreement between the two
organizations over the mechanics of jihad
notwithstanding, the Ikhwan (Muslim
Brotherhood) has turned out many of al-Qaeda's
senior leaders.
The two camps were birthed
out of the same Salafi womb and their sibling
rivalry has gone on for years. This raises another
interesting question: How did Bin Laden perceive
the Muslim Brotherhood? What was the basis of his
criticism of it? In his view, how did it fail and,
more importantly, who within the Ikhwan did
Bin Laden like?
While the two are at odds ideologically and
both consider the other to be an enemy, reported
numerous contacts between the Iranian regime, or
parts of it, and al-Qaeda are not out of the
question since they share common enemies in the
West, the US, and some Arab regimes. Therefore, it
is logical to assume that mediated and perhaps
direct exchanges took place.
Mining Bin Laden's files to discover the
degree to which al-Qaeda has penetrated Islamist
networks in the US and elsewhere in the West would
be of immeasurable value to their intelligence,
law enforcement, military and homeland security
efforts.
What pressures and influence has
al-Qaeda brought to bear on those groups. We
already know of cases where al-Qaeda-linked
jihadis have embedded themselves in Islamist
political networks in America and the West.
Obviously, Bin Laden knew much more about this
infiltration than we did. This is a critically
important issue with dramatic implications for
homeland security that needs to be a top priority
in the mining of Bin Laden's files.
Bin
Laden's mountain of archives should be a gift that
keeps on giving high-value intelligence to US and
international security agencies. Bin Laden
watching himself on TV may have been entertaining,
but locating the pillars of his war on the West is
a top priority.
Dr Walid Phares
is the author of The Coming Revolution:
Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East,
teaches Global Strategies in Washington, DC,
and advises members of the US Congress and the
European parliament.
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