Monday October 1, 2007
IEDs and the Failure to Adapt
The Washington Post has devoted an inordinate amount of space to get into the nitty-gritty of one of the largest structural difficulties facing the military in the new wars it will be fighting-ability to adapt quickly to low-tech enemies.
The two-part series looks at the effectiveness of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and the long, late, multi-billion dollar effort by the military-ultimately unsuccessful-to combat them. IEDs are responsible for the vast bulk of the U.S. casualties in Iraq, and are increasingly used in Afghanistan as well. It has become the weapon of choice, along with suicide bombings, of the Islamist insurgencies.
(For a fascinating look at how the bombs are build, see this NEFA Foundation footage taken at a Taliban training camp just a few miles from Kabul.
One of the problems is the huge reliance, both in the combat theater and the intelligence community, on technology. This is highly useful in some areas, but it others it is far less useful than human resources, particularly human intelligence gathering capabilities.
The growing reliance on technology, or the inability to look for non-technological solutions to problems was highlighted by the 9/11 commission and other reports. It is still not being addressed in a significant manner.
The key paragraphs of the series, to me, are the following:
_"Insurgents have shown a cycle of adaptation that is short relative to the ability of U.S. forces to develop and field IED countermeasures," a National Academy of Sciences paper concluded earlier this year._
_An American electrical engineer who has worked in Baghdad for more than two years was blunter: "I never really feel like I'm ahead of the game."_
_The IED struggle has become a test of national agility for a lumbering military-industrial complex fashioned during the Cold War to confront an even more lumbering Soviet system. "If we ever want to kneecap al-Qaeda, just get them to adopt our procurement system. It will bring them to their knees within a week," a former Pentagon official said._
"We all drank the Kool-Aid," said a retired Army officer who worked on counter-IED issues for three years. "We believed, and Congress was guilty as well, that because the United States was the technology powerhouse, the solution to this problem would come from science. That attitude was 'All we have to do is throw technology at it and the problem will go away.' . . . The day we lose a war it will be to guys with spears and loincloths, because they're not tied to technology. And we're kind of close to being there."
This, again, is not new. During the Central American wars the FMLN started using Soviet-made mines to hurt the army. The U.S. supplied the army with mine detectors. The FMLN countered, after some trial and error, with mines made out of PVC tubing, entirely undetectable by the high-tech mine detectors.
The same was true with rebel communications. When the U.S. provided jamming devices for FMLN communications, the rebels discovered they could transmit over the barbed wire that encircled many of the fields, again bypassing the high-tech jamming devices.
We will be fighting small, counter-insurgency wars for the next century. There has to be at least a part of the intelligence and military establishments that can develop the flexibility and the capacity to do things the old fashioned, low-tech way-developing personal relationships, learning local languages and customs, getting a granular feel for the country in which they are engaged.
There are many brave folks over their fighting, and I have been privileged to deal with the Special Forces and others in the military establishment. I don't think anyone would argue that, in the current climate and situations likely to last decades at least, that we need the low tech, not to replace the high tech, but to compliment it. It is getting late in the game to be this far behind in the adaptation arena.
The two-part series looks at the effectiveness of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and the long, late, multi-billion dollar effort by the military-ultimately unsuccessful-to combat them. IEDs are responsible for the vast bulk of the U.S. casualties in Iraq, and are increasingly used in Afghanistan as well. It has become the weapon of choice, along with suicide bombings, of the Islamist insurgencies.
(For a fascinating look at how the bombs are build, see this NEFA Foundation footage taken at a Taliban training camp just a few miles from Kabul.
One of the problems is the huge reliance, both in the combat theater and the intelligence community, on technology. This is highly useful in some areas, but it others it is far less useful than human resources, particularly human intelligence gathering capabilities.
The growing reliance on technology, or the inability to look for non-technological solutions to problems was highlighted by the 9/11 commission and other reports. It is still not being addressed in a significant manner.
The key paragraphs of the series, to me, are the following:
_"Insurgents have shown a cycle of adaptation that is short relative to the ability of U.S. forces to develop and field IED countermeasures," a National Academy of Sciences paper concluded earlier this year._
_An American electrical engineer who has worked in Baghdad for more than two years was blunter: "I never really feel like I'm ahead of the game."_
_The IED struggle has become a test of national agility for a lumbering military-industrial complex fashioned during the Cold War to confront an even more lumbering Soviet system. "If we ever want to kneecap al-Qaeda, just get them to adopt our procurement system. It will bring them to their knees within a week," a former Pentagon official said._
"We all drank the Kool-Aid," said a retired Army officer who worked on counter-IED issues for three years. "We believed, and Congress was guilty as well, that because the United States was the technology powerhouse, the solution to this problem would come from science. That attitude was 'All we have to do is throw technology at it and the problem will go away.' . . . The day we lose a war it will be to guys with spears and loincloths, because they're not tied to technology. And we're kind of close to being there."
This, again, is not new. During the Central American wars the FMLN started using Soviet-made mines to hurt the army. The U.S. supplied the army with mine detectors. The FMLN countered, after some trial and error, with mines made out of PVC tubing, entirely undetectable by the high-tech mine detectors.
The same was true with rebel communications. When the U.S. provided jamming devices for FMLN communications, the rebels discovered they could transmit over the barbed wire that encircled many of the fields, again bypassing the high-tech jamming devices.
We will be fighting small, counter-insurgency wars for the next century. There has to be at least a part of the intelligence and military establishments that can develop the flexibility and the capacity to do things the old fashioned, low-tech way-developing personal relationships, learning local languages and customs, getting a granular feel for the country in which they are engaged.
There are many brave folks over their fighting, and I have been privileged to deal with the Special Forces and others in the military establishment. I don't think anyone would argue that, in the current climate and situations likely to last decades at least, that we need the low tech, not to replace the high tech, but to compliment it. It is getting late in the game to be this far behind in the adaptation arena.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday September 27, 2007
New Schisms Among the Iraqi Jihadists and Muslim Brotherhood
The NEFA Foundation has translated a fascinating document from the main spokesperson for al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).
The message of Abu Omar al -Baghdadi is striking because it consists almost entirely of attacks on other Muslim groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. These are not merely passing shots or polite disagreements, but fighting words and calls to executions.
There have been vitriolic outbreaks of angry attacks of the old guard al Qaeda against Hamas and the broader Ikhwan, particularly when Hamas chose to participate in elections.
But these attacks accuse the Muslim Brotherhood in general and Hamas in particular of treason to Allah and the _jihadist_ cause, calls for their death and urges a further purging of _jihadist_ ranks of traitors.
While the ultimate objective of the Brotherhood and al Qaeda is the same, there are clearly deep tactical differences over what victory is and how to achieve said victory. It is also clear from the speech that the Brotherhood, in the form of Hamas In Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, have armed groups in Iraq.
The question is, whose side are they fighting on? The answer from al Baghdadi indicates that, while these groups were once allied with al Qaeda, they have switched sides recently, leading to accusations of treason.
This has clearly hurt and enraged the ISI, and could be both a tactical victory for the United States and a motivating factor in U.S. policymakers' recent sudden willingness to want to engage the Muslim Brotherhood on a broad level.
The list of crimes attributed to the Brotherhood and others ranges from aiding and abetting the enemy in combat to serving in an illegitimate government to broadcasting "false propaganda against the Islamic state-from questioning the faith of its soldiers to finally backstabbing them."
This seems to indicate that the U.S. strategy of peeling off some of Sunni leadership and other tactical alliances has badly hurt the ISI and its allies.
The document is also interesting because it acknowledges mistakes made by al Qaeda in dealing with civilians in Iraq, and other splits within the _jihadist_ movement there. It is a useful reminder that what often appears to be a monolithic force from the outside is often a divided enemy within.
Here is the main accusation:
_Nation of Islam: presently, the jihadi project in Mesopotamia is facing a fierce attack by those who have decided to betray us._
_These people have a history of being agents and traitors. Every
time a region awakens from its deep sleep, they make sure to attack back and eliminate its nascent awakening._
_They implement their agenda under the guise of preserving the interests of the Muslims. Both our local and international enemies benefit from these internal battles and use them to implement their own plans._
_We shall be frank with you no matter how bitter the truth sounds. Our nation should realize that the Muslim Brotherhood in Mesopotamia under the leadership of the Islamic Party is engaged nowadays in the ugliest campaign to bury the signs of Islam in Iraq, especially in the field of jihad..._
_Simultaneously, we are witnessing the Moslem Brotherhood under the leadership of the [Sunni] Accordance Front working hard to assist the occupation while ignoring the blood and resources spent in our battle._
_Additionally, they persistently request that the occupation should continue until the military and security apparatus of the apostate state in Iraq is fully and completely established._
Regarding the current role of "armed factions from the Muslim Brotherhood,"-meaning Hamas in Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Front and the 1920 Revolution Brigades-al Baghdadi says the groups "worked hard to uncover the concealed weapons of the mujahadeen and finally stood side-by-side with the occupiers and fought us while wearing their civilian outfits that carry a special identification mark for the occupiers to identify them with."
Al Baghdadi also seems to be veering back to the Zarqawi line of attacking Shites and other Muslims, a stance that put the late leader at odds with the old guard al Qaeda leadership.
Are these splits permanent? Don't bet on it. Does it seem like the new U.S. strategies of engaging Iraqis to take on al Qaeda and the ISI are having some impact? It does to me.
The message of Abu Omar al -Baghdadi is striking because it consists almost entirely of attacks on other Muslim groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. These are not merely passing shots or polite disagreements, but fighting words and calls to executions.
There have been vitriolic outbreaks of angry attacks of the old guard al Qaeda against Hamas and the broader Ikhwan, particularly when Hamas chose to participate in elections.
But these attacks accuse the Muslim Brotherhood in general and Hamas in particular of treason to Allah and the _jihadist_ cause, calls for their death and urges a further purging of _jihadist_ ranks of traitors.
While the ultimate objective of the Brotherhood and al Qaeda is the same, there are clearly deep tactical differences over what victory is and how to achieve said victory. It is also clear from the speech that the Brotherhood, in the form of Hamas In Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, have armed groups in Iraq.
The question is, whose side are they fighting on? The answer from al Baghdadi indicates that, while these groups were once allied with al Qaeda, they have switched sides recently, leading to accusations of treason.
This has clearly hurt and enraged the ISI, and could be both a tactical victory for the United States and a motivating factor in U.S. policymakers' recent sudden willingness to want to engage the Muslim Brotherhood on a broad level.
The list of crimes attributed to the Brotherhood and others ranges from aiding and abetting the enemy in combat to serving in an illegitimate government to broadcasting "false propaganda against the Islamic state-from questioning the faith of its soldiers to finally backstabbing them."
This seems to indicate that the U.S. strategy of peeling off some of Sunni leadership and other tactical alliances has badly hurt the ISI and its allies.
The document is also interesting because it acknowledges mistakes made by al Qaeda in dealing with civilians in Iraq, and other splits within the _jihadist_ movement there. It is a useful reminder that what often appears to be a monolithic force from the outside is often a divided enemy within.
Here is the main accusation:
_Nation of Islam: presently, the jihadi project in Mesopotamia is facing a fierce attack by those who have decided to betray us._
_These people have a history of being agents and traitors. Every
time a region awakens from its deep sleep, they make sure to attack back and eliminate its nascent awakening._
_They implement their agenda under the guise of preserving the interests of the Muslims. Both our local and international enemies benefit from these internal battles and use them to implement their own plans._
_We shall be frank with you no matter how bitter the truth sounds. Our nation should realize that the Muslim Brotherhood in Mesopotamia under the leadership of the Islamic Party is engaged nowadays in the ugliest campaign to bury the signs of Islam in Iraq, especially in the field of jihad..._
_Simultaneously, we are witnessing the Moslem Brotherhood under the leadership of the [Sunni] Accordance Front working hard to assist the occupation while ignoring the blood and resources spent in our battle._
_Additionally, they persistently request that the occupation should continue until the military and security apparatus of the apostate state in Iraq is fully and completely established._
Regarding the current role of "armed factions from the Muslim Brotherhood,"-meaning Hamas in Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Resistance Front and the 1920 Revolution Brigades-al Baghdadi says the groups "worked hard to uncover the concealed weapons of the mujahadeen and finally stood side-by-side with the occupiers and fought us while wearing their civilian outfits that carry a special identification mark for the occupiers to identify them with."
Al Baghdadi also seems to be veering back to the Zarqawi line of attacking Shites and other Muslims, a stance that put the late leader at odds with the old guard al Qaeda leadership.
Are these splits permanent? Don't bet on it. Does it seem like the new U.S. strategies of engaging Iraqis to take on al Qaeda and the ISI are having some impact? It does to me.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Wednesday September 26, 2007
Another Round of Reform in the FBI-Will it Make a Difference
There is another long-overdue reform brewing in how the FBI handles terrorism cases. This one, six years after 9/11, would finally bring together analysts and field agents in an effort to spot trends and set investigative strategies.
This has been a crying need for analysts to be elevated above their traditional second-tier status to be given more say in driving counterterrorism. The career paths available, the status within the agency and other factors mitigated against attracting the best and the brightest there.
This is a worthwhile endeavor, but one that is likely to run into entrenched institutional norms and conceptions that have consistently hobbled serious reform efforts in the past, to our detriment.
A new book and depressing book by Amy Zegart, Spying Blind, argues that there were 12 major intelligence reform studies from 1991 and the end of the Cold War, to just before 9/11.
Out of those, she finds 340 terrorism-related reforms, almost all of them the major themes of the 9/11 Commission, where most were recommended again.
Of those 340 recommendations, mostly directed to the CIA and FBI, only 35 were fully implemented. Another 30 were partially implemented and seven were implemented to an unmeasurable extent, meaning that 79 percent of the total-268 recommendations-were not acted on at all.
Many of those that were implemented, she notes, were "minor recommendations that urged continued study of a problem rather than adoption of a particular solution."
Her argument, and I am still reading the book, so I don't know how much I agree with her in the end, is that organizations matter more than the individuals in the organizations.
In other words, in the proper organization, intelligence will flow across what are now stovepipes and the rational self interest of different stakeholders in the process will be toward reform rather than against it.
Did 9/11 change the dynamic? It would seem that only a little. Efforts to reform the intelligence community, even driven by a sense of urgency, Congressional pressure and public outcry, have brought less than a full refocusing of the community in the four areas where change was most needed (again, I am stealing from Zegart, where she found almost unanimous consensus in the reform recommendations for these);
1) Lack of Coherence or "corporateness;"
2) Lack of attention by the IC and policy makers in setting intelligence priorities;
3) The need to revitalize human intelligence capabilities. I would say this is slowly turning around, but has a long way to go.;
4) Roadblocks posed by personnel and intelligence sharing bottlenecks.
So, it will take high-level pressure to make sure this latest attempt at fundamental and long-overdue reform is not another stillborn effort to remake the IC into more nimble and efficient creature for the 21st century.
And read the book, it is thought-provoking.
This has been a crying need for analysts to be elevated above their traditional second-tier status to be given more say in driving counterterrorism. The career paths available, the status within the agency and other factors mitigated against attracting the best and the brightest there.
This is a worthwhile endeavor, but one that is likely to run into entrenched institutional norms and conceptions that have consistently hobbled serious reform efforts in the past, to our detriment.
A new book and depressing book by Amy Zegart, Spying Blind, argues that there were 12 major intelligence reform studies from 1991 and the end of the Cold War, to just before 9/11.
Out of those, she finds 340 terrorism-related reforms, almost all of them the major themes of the 9/11 Commission, where most were recommended again.
Of those 340 recommendations, mostly directed to the CIA and FBI, only 35 were fully implemented. Another 30 were partially implemented and seven were implemented to an unmeasurable extent, meaning that 79 percent of the total-268 recommendations-were not acted on at all.
Many of those that were implemented, she notes, were "minor recommendations that urged continued study of a problem rather than adoption of a particular solution."
Her argument, and I am still reading the book, so I don't know how much I agree with her in the end, is that organizations matter more than the individuals in the organizations.
In other words, in the proper organization, intelligence will flow across what are now stovepipes and the rational self interest of different stakeholders in the process will be toward reform rather than against it.
Did 9/11 change the dynamic? It would seem that only a little. Efforts to reform the intelligence community, even driven by a sense of urgency, Congressional pressure and public outcry, have brought less than a full refocusing of the community in the four areas where change was most needed (again, I am stealing from Zegart, where she found almost unanimous consensus in the reform recommendations for these);
1) Lack of Coherence or "corporateness;"
2) Lack of attention by the IC and policy makers in setting intelligence priorities;
3) The need to revitalize human intelligence capabilities. I would say this is slowly turning around, but has a long way to go.;
4) Roadblocks posed by personnel and intelligence sharing bottlenecks.
So, it will take high-level pressure to make sure this latest attempt at fundamental and long-overdue reform is not another stillborn effort to remake the IC into more nimble and efficient creature for the 21st century.
And read the book, it is thought-provoking.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday September 24, 2007
A Time to Remember the Iran-al Qaeda Connection
One of the more surprising things about Iran and the
visit of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is that Bush administration's unwillingness to lay out the case of Iran's unusual complicity with al Qaeda.
I say unusual only because Shi'ite governments do not often make common cause with Sunni radicals, although tactical alliances among non-state actors is not so unusual.
But, it seems, if the cause is big enough, tactical alliances can be made and endure. Hatred for the United States and a shared desire to create Islamist states seem to be enough in this case to unite the old guard of al Qaeda with the Ahmadinejad regime.
The tactical alliance is not new, but it is passing strange that, in light of the relationship, the current administration does not focus more explaining the Iranian threat.
This alliance alone is enough to negate Ahmadinejad's request to visit Ground Zero in New York. He scored tactical points by making the request and having it denied, although it would be akin to allowing an accomplice to lay a wreath at the grave of the victims.
The Bush administration squandered the opportunity to make the point that this is not a free speech issue as Ahmadinejad claims, but a terrorism-related issue. Iran is harboring senior al Qaeda leaders, has trained with al Qaeda and maintains at best an ambiguous relationship with al Qaeda in Iraq.
And, while I am a strong advocate of freedom of expression here and abroad, would it not be an interesting experiment to let demagogues like Ahmadinejad and others speak to university groups here on the condition that they allow a reciprocal speech on one of their country's premier university campuses?
It need not be a U.S. official, but perhaps a dissident, a Nobel laureate, or any number of options, but force the closed societies to give something in exchange for their willingness to use the freedoms offered here.
The evidence of Iran's support for al Qaeda, lacking in the Iraq case, is clear in public testimony from al Qaeda defectors long before 9-11 as well as testimony of Iranian officials in European court cases and intelligence dossiers both in the United States and Europe.
The collaboration is also amply noted by the 9/11 Commission, which found that eight to 10 of the hijackers traveled to Iran in the year before 9/11. That speaks to how safe the al Qaeda operatives felt moving there as they planned their spectacular attacks, when no any security breach would have been lethal.
This is not to argue in favor of military action against Iran, only to point out that, as many in the U.S. intelligence community said before the misadventures in Iraq, the real danger to the United States and the stability of the Middle East was Iran, not Iraq.
Perhaps after the fiasco of the Iraq intelligence it is simply not politically viable. However, given the constant, if veiled nods to the idea that Iraq was al Qaeda's ally prior to 9/11, it is hard to understand why a more tangible relationship is with Iran not discussed more publicly.
The chief interlocutor between the Iranian security forces and al Qaeda is the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, the elite unit that manages Hezbollah as well as the arms flows to Iraq. The unit protects Sayf al-Adel, Sa'ad bin Laden (Osama's son), and other senior al Qaeda leaders that reside in Iran.
Maybe our inability to articulate the danger of Iran except from the nuclear side is a direct consequence of the inability to get Iraq right on the intelligence front. Or, as David Ignatius points out in the Washington Post, some in the Community's inability to get it right overrode the voices of those who got it right.
So the United States has largely mounted no credible response to a person who spews hatred, offers ridiculous platitudes for answers to the most basic questions about freedom in his own country, and has little to offer the world.
In order for the record to speak for itself, the record has to be credibly laid out. Iran's record has not been. Technorati Profile
visit of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is that Bush administration's unwillingness to lay out the case of Iran's unusual complicity with al Qaeda.
I say unusual only because Shi'ite governments do not often make common cause with Sunni radicals, although tactical alliances among non-state actors is not so unusual.
But, it seems, if the cause is big enough, tactical alliances can be made and endure. Hatred for the United States and a shared desire to create Islamist states seem to be enough in this case to unite the old guard of al Qaeda with the Ahmadinejad regime.
The tactical alliance is not new, but it is passing strange that, in light of the relationship, the current administration does not focus more explaining the Iranian threat.
This alliance alone is enough to negate Ahmadinejad's request to visit Ground Zero in New York. He scored tactical points by making the request and having it denied, although it would be akin to allowing an accomplice to lay a wreath at the grave of the victims.
The Bush administration squandered the opportunity to make the point that this is not a free speech issue as Ahmadinejad claims, but a terrorism-related issue. Iran is harboring senior al Qaeda leaders, has trained with al Qaeda and maintains at best an ambiguous relationship with al Qaeda in Iraq.
And, while I am a strong advocate of freedom of expression here and abroad, would it not be an interesting experiment to let demagogues like Ahmadinejad and others speak to university groups here on the condition that they allow a reciprocal speech on one of their country's premier university campuses?
It need not be a U.S. official, but perhaps a dissident, a Nobel laureate, or any number of options, but force the closed societies to give something in exchange for their willingness to use the freedoms offered here.
The evidence of Iran's support for al Qaeda, lacking in the Iraq case, is clear in public testimony from al Qaeda defectors long before 9-11 as well as testimony of Iranian officials in European court cases and intelligence dossiers both in the United States and Europe.
The collaboration is also amply noted by the 9/11 Commission, which found that eight to 10 of the hijackers traveled to Iran in the year before 9/11. That speaks to how safe the al Qaeda operatives felt moving there as they planned their spectacular attacks, when no any security breach would have been lethal.
This is not to argue in favor of military action against Iran, only to point out that, as many in the U.S. intelligence community said before the misadventures in Iraq, the real danger to the United States and the stability of the Middle East was Iran, not Iraq.
Perhaps after the fiasco of the Iraq intelligence it is simply not politically viable. However, given the constant, if veiled nods to the idea that Iraq was al Qaeda's ally prior to 9/11, it is hard to understand why a more tangible relationship is with Iran not discussed more publicly.
The chief interlocutor between the Iranian security forces and al Qaeda is the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, the elite unit that manages Hezbollah as well as the arms flows to Iraq. The unit protects Sayf al-Adel, Sa'ad bin Laden (Osama's son), and other senior al Qaeda leaders that reside in Iran.
Maybe our inability to articulate the danger of Iran except from the nuclear side is a direct consequence of the inability to get Iraq right on the intelligence front. Or, as David Ignatius points out in the Washington Post, some in the Community's inability to get it right overrode the voices of those who got it right.
So the United States has largely mounted no credible response to a person who spews hatred, offers ridiculous platitudes for answers to the most basic questions about freedom in his own country, and has little to offer the world.
In order for the record to speak for itself, the record has to be credibly laid out. Iran's record has not been. Technorati Profile
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday September 20, 2007
The Sudden Rush of Al Qaeda Communications
Perhaps one of the most successful achievements of the old guard al Qaeda, besides staying alive, is the vast expansion of its propaganda outreach arm.
Not only are the videos and tapes coming fast and furious, but in multiple languages aiming at a wide variety of audiences.
This indicates a level of sophistication and and stability that is both deeply alarming and indicative of how secure the group feels. The videos, with different scenes, subtitles, translations and rapid turnaround time (indicated by the references to recent events) shows that the old guard al Qaeda is dedicating significant resources to the propaganda/outreach wing and has a desire to retain a place of preeminence within the _jihadi_ world.
It is interesting that both Bin Laden and Zawahiri have become ubiquitous after years of long silences. This indicates to me that not only do they have the wherewithal to run the operation, but that they feel it is imperative to get their message out repeatedly.
For non-state groups, cut off from the normal media channels, such outreach is vitally important to survival. I draw an imperfect parallel to the success of Radio Venceremos, run by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s.
The radio broadcast daily, and often with live combat reports as the fighting was happening. The constant voice of rebels was not just an irritant to the government, but a source of ideological sustenance to the cadres scattered around the country, as well as a vital recruitment tool.
Despite the dedication of significant resources and intelligence assets to getting rid of the radio, the U.S.-backed military could never take it down. It remained a thorn in the side of the Salvadoran army for 12 years, and a vital part of the FMLN's ability to survive.
Al Qaeda does not broadcast daily, but the production unit has demonstrated a recent ability to greatly increase its operational tempo. This shows that they are likely in a stable location, with good equipment and not on the run or under significant pressure.
Why the sudden surge in communications with the network? That, to me, is the most important question. The content is important and should be analyzed, especially the call to war against Musharraf in Pakistan and the call to retake Spain for Islam. But much of the statements are simply restatements of old positions and rhetoric.
Perhaps, as the "Base" takes on a life of its own, the old leadership sees a need to reassert its relevancy. Or perhaps the old guard no longer holds a great deal of appeal to the young men wanting to fight the "hot" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are drawn to different _jihadi_ organizations, rather than the old men living in caves or apartments.
Or perhaps the productions are largely intended as morale boosters for the cadre in the absence of significant successful attacks in the United States and Europe.
What does seem clear to me is that this propaganda machine, run at some risk and expense, is vitally important to the leadership. It is also vital for those in a virtual world, looking for some point of connection, to have access to this material, as well as being useful to those seeking to recruit.
I am not sure what it means, but it is another sign of how much work there is to do in shutting down the message as well as the messenger.
Not only are the videos and tapes coming fast and furious, but in multiple languages aiming at a wide variety of audiences.
This indicates a level of sophistication and and stability that is both deeply alarming and indicative of how secure the group feels. The videos, with different scenes, subtitles, translations and rapid turnaround time (indicated by the references to recent events) shows that the old guard al Qaeda is dedicating significant resources to the propaganda/outreach wing and has a desire to retain a place of preeminence within the _jihadi_ world.
It is interesting that both Bin Laden and Zawahiri have become ubiquitous after years of long silences. This indicates to me that not only do they have the wherewithal to run the operation, but that they feel it is imperative to get their message out repeatedly.
For non-state groups, cut off from the normal media channels, such outreach is vitally important to survival. I draw an imperfect parallel to the success of Radio Venceremos, run by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s.
The radio broadcast daily, and often with live combat reports as the fighting was happening. The constant voice of rebels was not just an irritant to the government, but a source of ideological sustenance to the cadres scattered around the country, as well as a vital recruitment tool.
Despite the dedication of significant resources and intelligence assets to getting rid of the radio, the U.S.-backed military could never take it down. It remained a thorn in the side of the Salvadoran army for 12 years, and a vital part of the FMLN's ability to survive.
Al Qaeda does not broadcast daily, but the production unit has demonstrated a recent ability to greatly increase its operational tempo. This shows that they are likely in a stable location, with good equipment and not on the run or under significant pressure.
Why the sudden surge in communications with the network? That, to me, is the most important question. The content is important and should be analyzed, especially the call to war against Musharraf in Pakistan and the call to retake Spain for Islam. But much of the statements are simply restatements of old positions and rhetoric.
Perhaps, as the "Base" takes on a life of its own, the old leadership sees a need to reassert its relevancy. Or perhaps the old guard no longer holds a great deal of appeal to the young men wanting to fight the "hot" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are drawn to different _jihadi_ organizations, rather than the old men living in caves or apartments.
Or perhaps the productions are largely intended as morale boosters for the cadre in the absence of significant successful attacks in the United States and Europe.
What does seem clear to me is that this propaganda machine, run at some risk and expense, is vitally important to the leadership. It is also vital for those in a virtual world, looking for some point of connection, to have access to this material, as well as being useful to those seeking to recruit.
I am not sure what it means, but it is another sign of how much work there is to do in shutting down the message as well as the messenger.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH