Ayman al-Zawahiri, Guantanamo, and Fifty Shades of Gray

Reuters reports that al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri slammed U.S. treatment of hunger striking inmates at Guantanamo Bay and vowed to "free all our prisoners."

Perhaps Zawahiri is feeling a little cocky given the successful jail break in Iraq, and a similar mass escape in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan yesterday that freed 250 Pakistani Taliban prisoners.

Or perhaps Zawahiri has been asked to get his comrades out in time for next year's movie version of female-friendly soft-porn/S&M novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which is allegedly the most requested book by the camp's high-value detainees, even more so than the Koran.* (This takes the concept of "make love not war" to a whole new level, I suppose).

Note: This nugget is according to Congressman Jim Moran, so take it with the appropriate-sized grain of salt.

The War of Ideas is hell, but somebody has to fight it!

Al Qa'ida on the Ropes or Reborn?

Two weeks ago, separate from his piece declaring al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula on the ropes, Peter Bergen wrote that although the Benghazi consulate attack and the Boston Marathon bombing "were victories for 'Binladenism,' the ideological movement that al Qaeda has spawned," al Qaeda itself "is going the way of the VHS tape." Citing the lack of a successful attack in the West since the London underground bombings in July 2005 and the attrition of al-Qa'ida core's leadership due to kinetic CT operations, "Al Qaeda 'Central,' . . . remains on life support."

On Friday Bruce Reidel argued that the jailbreaks in Iraq and the massive influx of jihadists into Syria (and possibly Lebanon) indicates al-Qa'ida's influence is on the rise. Reidel argues that "Syria has become what Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Iraq were to earlier generations of jihadists: the epicenter of global jihad," and Ibrahim Talib of the Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus says there are more than 130,000 foreign jihadists currently fighting in Syria. Even if this number is questionable, if it is even half that, the comparison to Afghanistan in the 1980s and what emerged from that war is sobering. (Reidel also makes an excellent point that the regeneration of al-Qa'ida in Iraq in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal demonstrates the significant danger of the "zero option" the Obama administration has floated for post-2014 Afghanistan).

So who is correct, Bergen or Reidel? Well, both, but Reidel's argument is more pertinent. Whereas Bergen is correct that the al-Qa'ida leadership as it existed on September 2010 has been decimated, it would be dangerous to conclude the War on Terror is over as well. (Stephen Hayes in the Weekly Standard, citing Thomas Jocelyn, suggests the attempt to the conflate the two is a brazenly political move by the Obama administration, but I'll let others decide for themselves the merit of that argument).

Bergen is correct that al-Qa'ida's affiliates haven't struck the west, but the key word may be YET. The network that Bergen calls al-Qa'ida was just a former bunch of ex-jihadists who'd fought in Afghanistan making anti-American declarations in 1998 until they launched the African embassy bombings. This isn't to say it is inevitable that these affiliates will  try to attack the U.S. homeland, only that once upon a time terrorism experts didn't belive al-Qa'ida Core could/would attack us and consequently underrated the organization as a threat with tragic consequences.

If Reidel is correct, even if by some miracle Syria sorts itself out in a way not wholly damaging to U.S. strategic interests, there will be a massive number of combat hardened young men who've sworn loyalty to al-Qa'ida to consider. Again, this isn't to say that direct military intervention is the answer. I think Jocelyn is correct when he notes: "The right course for combating al Qaeda’s aggression, including the appropriate uses of American military force, should be a matter of debate." However, triumphalism about the defeat of al-Qa'ida Core could blunt such a debate and risk a return to a pre-9/11 complacency.

Al-Qa'ida to Target U.S. Allies in Iraq?

In yesterday's Daily Beast, Eli Lake reports on one possible result of al-Qa'ida in Iraq's daring jailbreak from Abu Ghraib that I hadn't considered. Specifically, Lake writes that the Sunni tribal leaders who revolted against al-Qa'ida in 2006 now fear they will now face mass retribution from the jihadists they helped U.S. and Iraqi forces capture during the Anbar Awakening and subsequent Surge in 2007. 

This is a sobering thought, especially the lesson other potential indigenous forces the US wants to use as proxies against al-Qa'ida affiliates may draw from it: if they side against the jihadists, the United States will eventually abandon them just as they did by withdrawing completely from Iraq in 2011 whereas the terrorists will remain. The "decade of war" may have ended for us (likely only in the short-term, however), but it certainly hasn't for al-Qa'ida, and it is our putative allies who will suffer the terrible costs of our irresolution.

Also, Lake quotes an unnamed intelligence analyst who is much more pessimistic about the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to assist the Iraqis in locating the escaped fugitives than DOD spokesman George Little. "We just lost track of everyone we didn't kill who was in al Qaeda during the surge," one U.S. intelligence analyst said. "We don't have the analysts or the human source networks to track these guys." Lake's source added that most of the Iraq analysts have been reassigned to other areas since the US withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011.

Al-Qa'ida's Ice Cream Social

Forget the heart eating, priest beheading, and book burning.

If you really want to understand the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, you should know that they also sponsor ice cream eating contests for children.

This news comes via a Washington Post report on the al-Qa'ida affiliate's attempt to soften its image and gain more popular support in its struggle against the Assad regime (and every other rebel group in Syria). 

On the one hand, this ranks right up there with Michael Moore's attempt to summarize Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq through images of a kite festival in his odious Fahrenheit 911. On the hand, however, this is of a piece with previous anecdotes suggesting the ISIL has learned some lessons about the second-order effects of harrassing residents for not adhering to strict Islamic codes. (See previous stories about ISIL's complaint department, and their attempt at stewardship of Syrian resources). That brutality is what backfired on them in Iraq and led to the Anbar Awakening. If so, they may prove more formidable than previous iterations of al-Qa'ida, a scary thought to be sure.

Jihad with a cherry on top, courtesy of al-Qa'ida's Syrian affiliate. (Just don't give them a hard time about the lack of sprinkles . . . )

New Report on Civilian Drone Casualties

Speaking of the New America Foundation, Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland report on a leaked internal Pakistani government document on civilian casualties from drone strikes which concludes they are much lower than has often been claimed in Pakistan (i.e. Interior Minister Rehman Malik's claim that 80% of people killed in drone strikes were civilians) but higher than the Obama administration has claimed (i.e. John Brennan's absurd claim in 2011 that "there hasn't been a single collateral death" from drone strikes).

Interestingly, the report finds that the civilian casualty rate has declined over time as both the technology and intelligence-gathering/analysis behind drone strikes has improved. Whereas civilians made up about 20% of the death toll from 2006 to 2009, in 2012 civilians represented only 2% of the total deaths, and thus far in 2013 only one civilian has been confirmed killed.

If accurate, these findings suggest three conclusions:

1. The rhetoric against drone strikes outstrips the reality;
2. Drone strikes have steadily declined from 2010 to the present due to greater discrimination in targeting rather than to public or diplomatic pressure (contra the AP story cited below); and
3. Drone strikes continue to have positive strategic utility (i.e. they kill more terrorists than they create) if signature strikes and "double-tap" strikes are removed from the equation, and if the public diplomacy of drone strikes could be better managed (i.e. don't let Pakistani Islamists like Maulana Sami ul-Haq, leader of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Islam party, claim that drones kill "dozens of innocent people daily" without a response).

The End of Signature Strikes?

The Associated Press, citing statistics from the New America Foundation, reports that "the United States has drastically scaled back the number of drone attacks against militants in Pakistan." Specifically, the CIA is limiting strikes "to high-value targets and dropping the practice of so-called "signature strikes", and has only conducted 16 drone strikes in Pakistan so far in 2013, compared to 122 in all of 2010, 73 in 2011, and 48 in 2012.

The anonymous officials the AP spoke to say this drop is because the CIA was "feeling the drone program may be under threat from public scrutiny" and "as a concession to the Pakistani army." But they also say that the reduced tempo is the result of "concern that civilian casualties were breeding more militants."

If this reduction stems from a sense that we are creating more terrorists than we are killing through drone strikes, however, this suggests the drop in attacks results more from a strategic calculation than in response to external criticism, as the AP's headline suggests. If criticism from Congress or Pakistan alone were the cause of the drop, then how would one explain the consistent drop since 2010?

Al-Qa'ida in Yemen - Up or Down?

Following on the heels of the announcement of the death al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)'s second-in-command Said al-Shihri, Peter Bergen wrote on CNN.com that "Shihri's death in the U.S. drone strike is part of [a] larger story of AQAP decline over the past two year."

Bergen goes on to argue that the jihadist group lost all the territorial gains it made during the confusion sewed by Yemen's Arab Spring uprising in 2011, that Shihri was one of more than 30 al-Qa'ida leaders/senior operatives killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen in the past three years, and "despite its focus on attacking U.S. targets, AQAP has not tried to attack one since its October 2010 attempt to plant bombs hidden in printer cartridges on cargo planes destined for the United States." He discounts last year's AQAP plot to detonate an underwear bomb on a plane bound for the United States because the operative designated to carry out the attack was working for British and Saudi intelligence.

Because success or failure in counterterrorism is inherently a binary proposition in which infrequent, low probability events still have devastating consequences. Thus, saying a terrorist group is "on the ropes" as Bergen proposes is always an iffy proposition, since it only takes one successful attack to propel them back to the ranks of a significant threat. Bergen is certainly correct that AQAP has declined from its highwater mark two years ago when then-head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, told the House Homeland Security Committee that AQAP was "probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland." But why doesn't the Boston Marathon bombing represent an AQAP operation given that the Tsarnaevs drew their inspiration and technical know-how from Inspire, the group's propaganda materials, which was their intent in publishing the bombmaking recipes/diagrams? And what if AQAP had decided to use another operative besides the mole to conduct the 2012 airplane bombing?

Regarding that intercepted plot, the head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, John Pistole, provided new details regarding the bomb at the Aspen Security Forum last week. Perhaps more important than the technical details of the explosive device was Pistole's revelation that Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, the feared-AQAP bomb maker behind the 2009 Underwear Bomber and the printer cartridge bombs, "has unfortunately trained others" in making bombs sophisticated enough to avoid detection.

Pistole describes Asiri as "out greatest threat," and Bergen that as long as he remains at large AQAP is a threat. Until Asiri and his proteges are apprehended or killed, I think it would be foolish to let up in our efforts to combat AQAP.

Update: Although the Yememi government has generally been a reliable ally in the fight against AQAP, news that they released a journalist accused of collaborating with al-Qa'ida isn't a reassuring sign.

AQAP master-bombmaker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, called by some "the most dangerous man in the world."

Al-Qa'ida Gaining Strength in Syria?

Yes, according to David Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who over the weekend told the Aspen Security Forum: "It is very clear over the last two years they have grown in size, grown in capability and ruthlessly grown in effectiveness. Their ability to take the fight to the regime and Hezbollah in a very direct way has been, among those groups, the most effect."

Shedd said at least 1,200 rebel factions have been identified in Syria, and that the U.S. ability to distinguish "good guys" from "bad guys" inside Syria was limited.

An example of these fissures and the confusion they spawn was demonstrated last week in Ras al-Ain. On Thursday it was reported that Kurdish militias had seized control of the Syrian town on the Turkish border, and that fighting between them and Islamist fighters from the al-Nusra Front over control of the areas oil fields has erupted. At first, one might be inclined to simply say:

Kurds = Good

But Ras al-Ain was captured by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish party with links to the Kuridstan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has committed numerous terrorist attacks in its fight autonomy in Turkey. Although we love the Iraqi Kurds, U.S. policy has generally tended towards:

PKK Kurds = Bad

And given that the violence on the border -- to include two RPGs from Syria striking a border post on the Turkish side of the frontier -- threatens to provoke Turkish intervention, we are left with:

PYD = ???, but 

PYD > al-Nusra Front, Bashar Assad, Hezbollah, etc.

Probably.

U.S. Helping Manhunt in Iraq?

Is the U.S. helping the hunt for the hundreds of escaped al'Qa'ida members currently on the loose in Iraq after Sunday night's jailbreak?

Yes, according to Pentagon press secretary George Little, although he wouldn't say how, only saying DOD counterterrorism officials are "monitoring the situation and are maintaining close ties with their counterparts in Baghdad," and that U.S. troops are definitely not engaging in any "direct military involvement" with Iraqi forces.

Soooo . . . what's the over/under on how many al-Qa'ida in Iraq emirs we can catch strictly through drone surveillance, SIGINT, and processing HUMINT provided by the Iraqis in our analytic databases? (I'm not being cynical, here, I swear. If not for the potentially high stakes of so many trained terrorists on the loose, this would be a really interesting experiment in coordinating our remote assets with an indigenous proxy force for manhunting purposes).

But don't worry, because Little added that a small influx of AQI gunmen into Syria is "not necessarily going to tip the balance" of power in Syria's ongoing civil war.

Phew! (Okay, now I am being cynical . . . )

Al Qa'ida's Great Escape

This is bad.

On Monday, the Iraqi Interior Ministry announced that hundreds of al-Qa'ida in Iraq operatives were sprung from Abu Ghraib in a major assault on the prison. The attack was initiated by suicide bombers who breached the prison gates, followed by sustained suppressive fire by mortars and RPGs as assault squads wearing suicide vests stormed the prison and freed the inmates. Ten policemen and four militants were killed in the raid, and combined with a second, unsuccessful attack on Taji prison north of Baghdad, at least 26 members of the security forces total were killed. Iraqi parliamentarian Hakim al-Zamili told Reuters, "The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qa'ida and had received death sentences."

So remember all that success JSOC had decapitating AQI through targeted raids during the Surge? Never mind, its back to square one.

More than 2,700 Iraqis have already been killed in suicide bombings this year, and AQI may have just further increased its strength by 25% in one fell swoop. Alternatively, they may redeploy these experienced jihadists to Syria now that they are the Islamic State of Iraq and Lebanon, further complicating an already wicked problem.

But, hey, at least by failing to negotiate a SOFA, handing over the prisons holding al-Qa'ida emirs captured by U.S. forces, and pulling all troops from Iraq, we ended the war in Iraq!

Today in Manhunting History -- July 22, 2003: The Demise of Uday and Qusay Hussein

At 10AM on July 22, the doorbell to Nawaf al-Zaydan Mohammed’s house in the Falah district of Mosul rang. Outside, amongst the tall, Greek-style columns were 20 operators from Task Force 20. Reinforcing them were some 200 soldiers from the 326th Engineer Battalion and the 3-502nd Infantry of the 101st Air Assault Division under Brigadier General Frank Helmick. The 101st had established support-by-fire positions on the south and northeast sides of the huge stone and concrete house, with additional troops in blocking positions on the road parallel to the house. Mohammed – who three days earlier had approached U.S. forces and told them Uday and Qusay were staying at his house – answered the door and then, as arranged, fled with his son. An interpreter with a bullhorn called out for Uday and Qusay to surrender, and at 1010 Task Force 20 stormed the house.

As the commandos climbed the stairs, they received intense small arms fire from behind a barricade on the house’s second floor. Three Task Force operators were wounded, as well as one soldier in the street. The commandos withdrew, and the 101st opened up with vehicle mounted .50 caliber machine guns. Yet when the operators attempted to storm the house again, they were repelled by AK-47 fire. At 1045 the 101st fired AT-4s and Mark 19 automatic grenade launchers, but the house had two-foot thick concrete walls and bulletproof windows – reinforced with mattresses used as sandbags – and the light anti-tank rockets and 40mm high explosive grenades failed to penetrate the structure or stop the return fire coming from the house.


Troops from the 101st firing on the Hussein brothers position in Nazil Mohammed's house.

 Although only four men defended the house – Uday, Qusay, a bodyguard, and Qusay’s son Mustafa – the commanders on the ground decided against simply laying siege to the house as U.S. forces had done with the Papal Nunciature in Panama City during the hunt for Manuel Noriega in 1990. Because of the house’s prepared fortifications, commanders feared it might also have an escape tunnel to nearby buildings allowing Uday and Qusay to escape. Moreover, the brothers had spent much of the firefight frantically calling for reinforcements. Consequently, a prolonged siege might have given insurgents time to assemble and surround the 200 troops surrounding the house, trapping U.S. forces in an ambush similar to Mogadishu in 1993. As it became clear that Uday and Qusay were not going to let themselves be taken alive, U.S. forces evacuated the residents from nearby houses and escalated their attack.

At 1100 a pair of Kiowa Warrior helicopters flew southeast to northwest, firing their .50 caliber machine guns and 2.75 inch rockets at the target. Around noon, Task Force 20 tried to move in and seize the objective, but once again were forced back. The 101st fired more .50 cal and Mark 19s, and 15 minutes later launched a barrage of 18 HMMWV-mounted TOW wire-guided antitank missiles, enough to knock out a company of tanks. BG Helmick had communicated by radio with the 101st’s commander, then-Major General David Petraeus, and they decided to “put TOW missiles right into the window” of the house in order to shock the inhabitants and to damage the building structurally so that it was unfeasible to fight in.” Fired from 200 meters away, they were guided through the windows from which the blocking force had drawn fire, and knocked holes through the mansion’s walls.

At about 1320, Task Force 20 made a final assault on the house. Blasted furniture lay everywhere, and the walls were pockmarked and gouged by the intense American barrage. Although two of the defenders had survived the volley of TOW missiles, there was no movement upstairs. Uday had barricaded himself in a bathroom, clinging to a briefcase full of condoms, Viagra, and cologne. The operators forced entry with an explosive charge and killed the notorious psychopath with aimed shots to the head. Mustafa, firing from under a bed, was killed in the same way.

Although Iraqis celebrated in the streets at the news of the Hussein brothers’ demise, their killing did not significantly affect the growing Sunni insurgency. It also did not bring U.S. forces any closer to capturing their father as Saddam appeared to have completely separated himself from the Ba’ath Party leaders who comprised the deck of cards. Consequently, U.S. forces began to shift the focus of their seizure operations from concentrating on HVTs to Saddam’s “enbablers.”

The bodies of the Hussein brothers were eventually shown on Iraqi television to head off conspiracy theories that they had not actually been killed.

Today in Manhunting History -- July 19, 2003: The Tip that Doomed the Hussein Brothers

On July 19, U.S. forces received a tip that Uday and Qusay were hiding in the northern city of Mosul. The informant failed a polygraph test, however, causing U.S. military officials to dismiss the tipster. But intelligence units soon picked up signal intercepts suggesting the possible presence of HVTs in the same location in Mosul that the source had identified. Just as they began investigating this lead, an Iraqi businessman named Nawaf al-Zaydan Mohammed approached U.S. forces and told them the brothers were staying at his house in Mosul’s Falah district. The Americans told him to go back to the house, act normally, and wait for U.S. troops to arrive . . .  

Saddam and sons (Uday on the left, Qusay on the right) sometime before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Abbottabad Commission Report, Part IV: Mark Stout

Another interesting take on the Abbottabad Commission's report by Mark Stout, Director of the MA Program in Global Security Studies at Johns Hopkins, and an experienced academic and practitioner on intelligence issues. Mark emphasizes the report's description of the May 2011 Abbottabad raid as a humiliation, but notes the Commission's conclusion that it was a humiliation Pakistan brought on itself, saying: "It is possible to understand if not agree with the US decision to unilaterally implement its special operations mission."

Mark also notes the Commission's criticism of the ISI, who failed to commit to searching for Osama bin Laden despite numerous statements from U.S. leaders stating that the al-Qa'ida head was in their country. The report notes that when the CIA passed on a set of telephone numbers that included those belonging to the al-Kuwaiti brothers who were living with him in the Abbottabad compound, the ISI did not properly monitor the numbers.

Thus, Mark concludes, "The Commission seems to have thought that had the ISI been less dysfunctional and had it not 'closed the file' on Bin Laden, Pakistan might have gotten Bin Laden itself or done so in visible cooperation with the United States, either one of which scenarios would have avoided the humiliation of the May 2011 raid."

Tsarnaev Manhunt Photos Released

In case you have not already seen these, Boston Magazine has published a series of photos from the hunt for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in response to Rolling Stone's controversial use of a soft-focus glamour shot of the young terrorist. The photos were taken by Sgt. Sean Murphy, a tactical photographer with the Massachusetts State Police, who apparently was furious with Rolling Stone for "glamorizing the face of terror." My favorite shot is the photo below, with a sniper's laser-sighting prominent on his forehead as he surrenders . . .

Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev climbing out of the boat in which he'd been hiding on April 19.

More on the Capture of Miguel Angel Trevino Morales

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales' mugshot was released yesterday. (Mexican Navy, via Associated Press)
 

Three relevant pieces on Monday’s capture of Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas kingpin Miguel Angel Trevino Morales worth reading for new details of the operation and analysis of whether the decapitation campaign against the Zetas will have any strategic effect.

The Associated Press notes that Trevino Morales is “at least the eighth capture or killing of a high-ranking cartel leader since 2011,” as Mexican president Pena Nieto continues his predecessor’s strategy of decapitating the cartels. Although Trevino Morales’ brother is expected to succeed him, the AP cites experts who warn that this could lead to a fragmentation of the gang into a less-hierarchical organization, and that consequently more violence may result in the ensuing power struggles. Even if the Zetas in their current form are crippled, this only strengthens Mexico’s most-wanted man, Sinaloa cartel head Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.”

The New York Times provides more details on the capture operation, and notes the possibility of U.S. involvement. Despite Mexican sensitivity regarding U.S. influence on its security agencies,

"The two governments began sharing information on Mr. Trevino several months ago, with the Americans passing along word of the birth of Mr. Trevino’s child a little more than a month ago . . . . The Americans also shared the information that he appeared to be making trips to visit the baby in the Nuevo Laredo area, near where he was captured. . .

“The authorities traded intelligence gleaned from conversations caught on wiretaps and informants’ tips that led Mexican authorities to Mr. Trevino’s truck, moving before dawn on a highway near the border, the official said. Mexican marines in a helicopter intercepted Mr. Trevino and arrested him and two aides without a shot.”

Finally, Nathan Jones observes in the Houston Chronicle that yesterday’s operation “demonstrates the continued potency of the Mexican Navy when it comes to capturing or killing kingpins or high-value targets,” but notes the potential for increased violence if the Sinaloa cartel and its allies sense weakness within the Zeta network.

Even if the operational success of capturing Trevino Morales does not lead to immediate strategic success in terms of violence or volume of drug trafficking, in the words of a U.S. Ranger en route to capture another drug kingpin (Manuel Noriega) in 1989, “If anybody deserved to be slammed, he was the one.” Trevino Morales is believed responsible for the massacre of at least 265 migrants, amongst other charges of murder, torture, and trafficking. He was also known for his favorite terror technique, the “guiso,” or stew, in which his enemies would be placed in 55-gallon drums and burned alive. So regardless of whether the attack on the broader Zeta network is successful, or whether the broader conditions in Mexico will allow for a drop in violence, Trevino Morales [again, in the Ranger’s words] “deserved to be got.”

AQAP Number Two Killed

Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announced today that its second-in-command, Said al-Shihri, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Al-Shihri,was a former Guantanamo detainee released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 before fleeing to Yemen to join AQAP. He has been reported dead twice before, but each time the terror group denied the reports. (This, incidentally, is the one convenience of fighting a fanatically religious organization, as their obligation to ask their followers to appropriately mourn the deceased outweighs operational secrecy).

Although AQAP's announcement gave no date for the drone strike that killed al-Shihri, Yemeni security officials claimed he died from serious injuries from a strike in November 2012. AQAP's chief theologian, Ibrahim al-Robaish, did say al-Shihri was hit by the drone while speaking on his mobile phone in the province of Saadah, north of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

An undated screen capture of a web video featuring Said al-Shihri, who somehow rose to the #2 position in al-Qa'ida's most dangerous affiliate without knowing to stay off his cell phone.

Pakistani Taliban Denies Syria Deployment

Yeah, remember that story I linked to a long time ago (okay, yesterday) stating that the Pakistani Taliban has deployed “experts in warfare and information technology” to assist Syrian jihadists.

Well, never mind.

Pakistani Dawn reports that although some militants -- mainly Arabs and Central Asians -- have gone to fight in Syria as individuals, a senior commander who sits on the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)'s shura council denies either a tactical shift or a decision to deploy forces to Syria.

"There is no reality in these reports, we have far better targets in the region, NATO troops headed by the Americans are present in Afghanistan," said the unnamed TTP commander. "We support the mujahideen's struggle in Syria but in our opinion, we have a lot more to do here in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Al-Qa'ida's Big Week in Syria

Last week al-Qa’ida’s two affiliates in Syria -- the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- were in the news quite a bit.

First, on Wednesday it was reported that American-born jihadist Adam Gadahn had appeared in a new al-Qa’ida video urging Syrian rebels to reject Western assistance and turn their insurgency into a global jihad.

That same day, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad of The Guardian offered an in-depth look at al-Nusra’s strategy, including its management of resources such as the oil and gas fields and fertile agricultural areas in northeastern Syria. Initially, hearing “The Emir of Gas” describe the jihadists approach to governance is frightening, as it recalls why the Taliban was initially popular in Afghanistan, and how terrorist groups have learned the lesson from Hezbollah of the necessity of providing public services. However, as the “Emir” outlines the brutal logic behind an operation against a potentially disloyal village, and one oil worker laments that “We got rid of one despot [Bashar] and replaced him with another,” it is not so clear that they have learned from al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI)’s mistakes.

Abdul-Ahad reports that roughly 80 percent of the foreign fighters that had joined al-Nusra left after the fissure with AQI to form the ISIL. On Friday, it was revealed that this splinter group had assassinated one of the top commanders in the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria’s Latakia province, one of several such attacks by the jihadists against their more secular counterparts. Initially, the FSA said this was tantamount to a declaration of war, and issued a 24-hour deadline to turn over the ISIL commander responsible. But by Sunday Al Jazeera (h/t Bill Roggio) was reporting that FSA leaders were walking back their threats, quoting a senior FSA commander as saying al-Qa’ida-affiliated fighters “are welcome if they help us fight the regime.”

Also on Friday, Bill Roggio reported that the Pakistani Taliban has deployed “experts in warfare and information technology” to assist Syrian jihadists. Wait, what? How does the TTP have the resources to do this? Has al-Qa’ida decided to shift its strategic center of gravity away from the Af/Pak region to Syria, or is this a way to fight somewhere without having to face U.S. drone strikes in the FATA? If the former, how are these operatives will transiting across theaters? If the latter, how the announced “reduction” in U.S. drone strikes and eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan affect AQ’s strategic calculus?

This also points to the inherent dangers of letting a conflict metastasize, as the question of whether or not to support the overthrow of Assad has taken on an entirely different character now that U.S. inaction has allowed the extremists to take over the rebellion against the regime. Although there are still legitimate arguments for/against assistance and/or intervention, the number of variables that we can not control either way has increased exponentially. This makes the potential margin for a successful outcome to the civil war from a U.S.-strategic perspective much, much, much narrower than it would have been if the White House had a clear idea of our interests in the region and decided which side to support in 2011, to say nothing of the humanitarian disaster that has emerged.

The Abbottabad Commission Report, Part Three: Stephen Tankel's Take

My former RAND colleague, Pakistani terrorism expert Stephen Tankel has part one of a two-part analysis of the Abbottabad Commission Report, focusing on the question of how Pakistan missed Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country for nearly a decade. Similar to Omar Farooq’s analysis, Stephen notes the significance of “endogenous deficiencies” that allowed the Saudi terrorist to remain undetected, and argues “many of these infirmities also militate against Pakistani efforts to confront the country’s own jihadist insurgency.” Stephen discusses at length the implications of these findings (which he lauds as "an important step forward . . . in a country too often prone to conspiracy theories) for the future of U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Stephen also notes the finding that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence lost interest in the hunt for bin Laden “once it stopped receiving intelligence from the U.S. on the issue” in 2005. Although no answer was provided for why the ISI did not continue the pursuit on its own, Stephen suggests it was likely a case of the same benign neglect that Pakistan often takes towards jihadists who refrain from attacking Pakistani targets.

This, to me, remains the great counterfactual of the bin Laden hunt. Given that the history of strategic manhunts shows that bilateral assistance is a key variable determining success or failure, would the bilateral assistance gained by keeping the Pakistanis in the loop have expedited bin Laden's capture thanks to improved access to HUMINT within Pakistan? Or was the ISI too corrupted ideologically (or were other relevant Pakistani institutions too incompetent) that such sharing would have destroyed the thin connection we made to bin Laden through his courier Ahmed al-Kuwaiti? Evidence in the Pakistanis favor would be the series of al-Qa'ida number threes captured before 2005; evidence against them is the strong suspicion they were tipping off members of favored militant groups (i.e. the Haqqani Network) to U.S. drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Although the Commission does not rule out the complicity of rogue members of the ISI, it does not present any positive evidence of such complicity and chooses the "Occam's Razor" explanation of incompetence and weak institutions instead.

*NOTE: Stephen’s piece runs on a new web journal devoted to conflict and international affairs, www.warontherocks.com, whose launch party I attended last Friday. The site looks incredible graphically, and so far the roster of contributors is impressive. I recommend checking it out.

Leader of Los Zetas Cartel Captured

There are several media reports that Mexican forces (the Mexican Navy, specifically) captured the leader of the brutal Los Zetas drug cartel in Northern Mexico on Monday. The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Miguel Angel Trevino (a.k.a. Z-40)’s capture under its Narcotics Rewards Program. There has been no word yet as to whether U.S. forces or intelligence assets were involved in the operation, although there have been reports of this occurring in the past.

Miguel Angel Trevino, head of the Los Zetas cartel, was reportedly captured by the Mexican Navy yesterday.

Follow Ups on General Keith Alexander and Joseph Kony

Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick profile National Security Agency director/Cyber Command commander General Keith Alexander in today’s Washington Post. Nakashima and Warrick are able to thoughtfully assess the scope of Alexander's innovations at NSA, and balance against the various legitimate criticisms of their scope of the power the subsequently accrues to one man. And they manage to do this without the paranoia, hearsay, and factual inaccuracies of the James Bamford piece in Wired last month.

General Keith B. Alexander

Also, Kasper Agger of the Enough Project follows up on the Project’s expose on the Lord’s Resistance Army’s elephant poaching with a report on recent defections from the LRA, claiming “roughly 60 people have been set free or escaped within the last two months.” Given that the LRA’s estimated strength is estimated to be as low as 250-300 fighters, these are significant losses. Agger ascribes the increasing disaffection within the militia to the coming of age of the child soldiers abducted by the LRA in the 1990s.This may be correct (although it begs the question of why they don’t just replenish ranks with more raids), but also suggests the LRA will have even more incentive engage in illegal activities such as ivory smuggling in order to create new incentives (i.e. profit instead of divinely-inspired revolution) to attract retain fighters.

Joseph Kony: Will defections be the key to his capture?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the World's Most Highly Classified Vacuum Cleaner

In one the greater "strange but true" revelations of the War on Terror, the Associated Press has reported that while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was confined to a secret CIA prison in Romania after his capture in Pakistan, he asked his jailers whether he could be allowed to design a vacuum cleaner.

No, really.

Apparently at this point, KSM -- who held a bachelor's in mechanical engineering -- had already been broken by waterboarding and was providing intelligence to his interrogators.* Thus, as a former senior CIA official said about detainees at this stage, "We didn't want them to go nuts," so the request was approved and KSM began re-engineering a vacuum based upon schematics obtained from the internet. (He also passed the time reading Harry Potter books, and holding "office hours" during which he lectured the CIA officers on his path to jihad, his childhood and family. "Tea and cookies were served," according to the AP).

So where is the ultimate jihadi-approved dust buster now, you ask? KSM's lawyer says he is prohibited from "confirming or denying the very existence of a vacuum cleaner design." When the AP tried to obtain copies of the vacuum designs through the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA responded that any record of the designs, "should they exist," would be considered operational files of the CIA and therefore exempt from ever being released to the public.

If Edward Snowden had really wanted to help the American people, I think he should have leaked the vacuum cleaner designs instead of the NSA Prism slides.

Because nothing says "clean" like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed!

*As the article notes, it was after KSM's waterboarding that he began to talk, and inadvertently revealed the importance of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti when he as caught trying to hid a message in a book warning his fellow prisoners not to talk about Osama bin Laden's courier.

The Abbottabad Commision Report (Part Two): Willful Ignorants?

Freelance journalist Umar Farooq comments on the Abbottabad Commission's report in ForeignPolicy.com, arguing that it suggests the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) "is either shockingly inept or duplicitous, or both.

Farooq notes that between 2002 and 2005 bin Laden was not sitting in a cave, but rather that he and his family moved between cities such as Karachi, Quetta, and Peshawar. "Bin Laden might not have had a Facebook account," he writes, "but his social network was vast." For example, Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti's wife recalls that her wedding party took place at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's home in Karachi, and was attended by bin Laden's wife Amal. While in Swat, bin Laden felt secure enough to go to the bazaar with his family, and KSM and his family stayed with the bin Laden's for two weeks in 2003. KSM was arrested in Rawalpindi a month later.

Farooq also notes that the Abbottabad compound itself was roughly a mile from the Kakul military academy (the Pakistani equivalent of West Point), had four separate electricity and gas connections, an illegal third story, and that its walls were well above the maximum height allowed by the military housing scheme the house was situated in. "Pakistan's top military officials, constant targets of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, must have passed by the home on a regular basis," Farooq writes. "Surely, someone in charge of their security detail must have made a mental note to look into what paranoid Pakistani lived in that fortress."

Yet at the same time, Farooq notes the depressing weaknesses of Pakistani institutions that made that government's ignorance plausible. The Abbottabad compound was located in a cantonment that was home to 7,000-8,000 unregistered buildings. There are no regular checkpoints on the highways connecting Pakistani cities, so it is understandable why bin Laden or his wives were never intercepted on the road (one speeding ticket excepted), and that where checkpoints do exist the police disproportionately stop the poor rather than those who appear well-off.

In other words, assuming the Pakistanis were willing to hunt for bin Laden, it is unclear whether they possessed the institutional capacity or sheer competence to do so effectively.  

Drones at the Battle of Gettysburg?

Just as the U.S. Navy was in the process of successfully landing its first drone on an aircraft carrier yesterday and possibly ushering in a new era of naval aviation and naval strategy*, Popular Science weighs in with an important question regarding this critical weapons system: What would have happened if Robert E. Lee and the Confederate army had had drones at the Battle of Gettysburg?

No, really.

This is reminiscent of the debate that went viral a few years ago about whether a U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit could have defeated the entire Roman empire. If you are a military history geek, suspend your disbelief (and don't blurt out the easy answer that with modern technology the Civil War would have either looked like World War II or Operation Iraqi Freedom depending upon the balance of forces) and have fun with it. 


* For those more firmly planted in the real-world, Gordon Lubold and John Reed discuss some of the implications of automated, carrier-borne drones on ForeignPolicy.com.

Why yes, General Lee, that model of  Predator does come in gray . . .

ABI, ORCA, and Mapping Adversary Networks

Following up on last month's post about the utility of metadata in manhunting, two interesting recent articles on the methodolgy and applications of social network analysis caught my eye.

First, Gabriel Miller of DefenseNews.com has a report on "Activity-Based Intelligence," or ABI, a methodology that "has primarily been used in the kinds of operations that have defined Iraq and Afghanistan: manhunting and uncovering insurgent networks." Instead of recounting tales of terrorists captured/killed because of this network analysis (i.e. Slate's interesting-but-flawed 2010 series on the role of social network analysis in hunting Saddam Hussein), Miller concentrates on ABI's theoretical/technical aspects. Simply put (or at least as simply as my decidedly non-technical mind can explain it), ABI marries improved technological ability (i.e. the computing necessary to collect, store, and interpret metadata) with the concept of "data neutrality" (i.e. not prioritizing one method of collection over others, and accepting open-information as potentially of equal value to classified information) and improved information sharing between different intelligence and analytical organizations.


Miller further suggests ABI may be applicable to a broader array of problems of interest to the intelligence community, and in a similar vein, the MIT Technology Review reports how the West Point team behind the ORCA (Organizational, Relationship, and Contact Analyzer) software -- invented to conduct social network analysis in Afghanistan -- are working to adapt the technology to help police tackle gang violence in the United States. Specifically, the software allows police analysts to visualize the networks that gang members create, to identify influential members of each gang and to discover subgroups, to assess the probability that an individual may be a member of a particular gang even if they have not admitted membership, and to determine how centralized specific gangs are.

In the end, I'm skeptical as to whether these programs are all that useful for hunting individuals, as targets such as Saddam Hussein, Musab al-Zarqawi, and Osama bin Laden are generally smart enough to cut off contact with all but a few key individuals once they know they are being targeted, and therefore set themselves outside the network they sat atop.

Yet if these programs are of limited utility operationally, they have much greater strategic value, as metadata and social network analysis are undoubtedly useful in developing a clearer picture of broader networks such as terrorist organizations, insurgent networks, and possibly criminal gangs, even to the point of determining key nodes that need to be mitigated/eliminated. The history of strategic manhunts shows that although pursuing an individual leader and forcing him to go to ground renders him strategically ineffective, it also creates space for other actors to step to the fore. From a strategic standpoint, therefore, the successful targeting of an individual is usually less important than the successful targeting of the network that either supports him or will carry on the struggle in his absence.

The Aweys Dilemma

The Financial Times reports on the dilemma facing Somali officials -- and by extension, U.S. policymakers -- now that al-Shabaab's spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is in custody.

Although Aweys has been listed by both the US and the UN as a terrorist since 2001 for his alleged role in suicide bombings and terror attacks in the Horn of Africa, it is not readily apparent that he should be turned over to international authorities, as his fate may influence whether key Somali clans reignite their struggle against the Somali government, and whether or not other potential pragmatists in al-Shabaab who were pushed out by the group's hardline leader Ahmed Abdi Godane come in from the cold, potentially further isolating the extremist movement.

Thank You, Mexico!

No, not for surpassing the United States as the most obese country in the world (I'm sure we'll regain that dubious honor soon enough), but rather for its recent aid in apprehending two U.S. fugitives who had fled there.

In June, Walter Lee Williams was arrested in the beach resort of Playa del Carmen on Mexico's Carribean coast.  Although Williams' name sounds eerily like a serial killer's, the University of Southern California gender studies professor was actually on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for charges of sexual exploitation of children.

On Saturday, Wanda Lee Ann Podgurski was arrested in Rosarita in Baja. Although Podgurski was only wanted for insurance fraud, she failed to show up for her trial in January, and subsequently made headlines in June when she taunted authorities from her Twitter account: "Catch me if you can." Well, they did, and she is facing more than 20 years in prison.

I've argued elsewhere that the critical difference between the successful Geronimo Campaign in 1886 and the failure of the Punitive Expedition to capture/kill Pancho Villa in 1916-1917 was the level of cooperation U.S. forces received from the Mexican government and the local population in Northern Mexico, which in turn determined the availability of intelligence on the targeted individual's movements. Although both manhunts were conducted over roughly the same terrain, Mexican troops and peasants supported the U.S. pursuit of the Apache war captain whose deadly raids had terrorized the peasants of Chihuahua and Sonora provinces for years. Conversely, the Mexican peasants considered Villa to be something of a Robin Hood figure, and even the Carrista government -- which was engaged in a violent struggle against Villa's forces -- refused to assist John Pershing's troops in any way.

Although neither the Williams or Podgurski case rises to the level of strategic manhunts (i.e. there were no U.S. forces or covert personnel deployed), when contrasted to the recent revelations about Pakistan's inability to locate Osama bin Laden for a decade (or other countries' refusal to turn over Edward Snowden, if you like), these cases reinforce the importance of bilateral assistance when targeting an individual abroad.

Pakistan's Bin Laden Dossier

Following the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the Pakistani government set up a commission to examine two points:

• How Pakistan's "intelligence establishment apparently had no idea that an international fugitive of the renown or notoriety of [Osama bin Laden] was residing in [Abbottabad]"; and
• "How the US was able to execute a hostile military mission, which lasted around three hours, deep inside Pakistan"

The Abbottabad Commission interviewed over 200 people -- including bin Laden's family, local and regional officials, and Pakistan's intelligence leaders -- and completed its report six months ago. But of course, this being Pakistan, the government immediately suppressed the report, and the findings remained secret until Al Jazeera published a leaked copy on Monday.

The report itself is 336 pages, so I won't pretend to have read the whole thing yet. But thus far some interesting details have been revealed, including:

Bin Laden's life on the run in Pakistan: While in Pakistan from 2002-2011, Bin Laden is said to have shaved his beard and worn a cowboy hat to avoid detection by Pakistani or American forces;

The depth of Pakistan's incompetence in hunting for bin Laden: Although the report says "Connivance, collaboration and cooperation at some levels cannot be entirely discounted," the Commission's findings suggest incompetence was more likely to blame than conspiracy. Specifically, they cite: inept border guards who let one of his wives to cross into Iran; inept local officials who failed to spot the unusual construction at his house; intelligence officials who hoarded information; and, according to the testimony of Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti's wife Maryam, in 2002 or 2003 while living in the Swat Valley bin Laden's car was pulled over for speeding, but the Pakistani traffic cop apparently failed to spot him.

Pakistan's ineffective response to  U.S. intelligence activities and Abbottabad raid: Bottom line up front: Pakistan is not happy with us. The Commission is scathing in its criticism of U.S. intelligence activities in Pakistan ("The U.S. acted like a criminal thug," according to the report) and declares that the failure of Pakistani officials to halt CIA activities was "a case of nothing less than a collective and sustained dereliction of duty by the political, military and intelligence leadership of the country." The Commission considers the Abbottabad raid to have been an "act of war," one which the Pakistani Air Force learned about on television, and was not able to scramble fighter jets until after U.S. helicopters were already back in Afghanistan. "The extent of incompetence," the report said, "to put it mildly, was astounding, if not unbelievable."

I'll provide updates on the report throughout the week as either: a) I find the time to read the full report; and b) Other experts way in on the Commission's findings.

Howdy, y'all!!

Today in Manhunting History -- July 9, 1993: The SNA Strikes Back

Over the month following the unsuccessful June 17 attack on Aideed's compound in Mogadishu, the 1-22nd Infantry conducted several raids aimed at capturing the Somali warlord. Yet having been alerted that he was a wanted man, Aideed went underground. He reorganized his intelligence service, purging suspected double agents or using them to spread disinformation regarding his movements. He changed his location once or twice a night, masquerading as a sheikh, a woman, an old man, an Islamic mullah, or a hospital patient. He appeared on television, weary yet defiant, declaring: “I’m not concerned by the search being conducted now. They are trying to arrest me unjustly.”

As the tempo of the strategic manhunt intensified, Aideed and the SNA kept the military pressure up, increasing their sniping at UN forces. On July 2 Aideed’s men attacked an Italian checkpoint, killing three and wounding 24. Five days later six Somali UN employees died in an ambush. And on July 9, the SNA lobbed the first mortar rounds into the U.S. embassy compound that housed the American QRF.

Bin Laden Documents Now Even . . . Secreter

Today the Associated Press reported that shortly after the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Special Operations Command commander Admiral William McRaven ordered military files about the operation to be transferred from Defense Department computers to the CIA, where they are more difficult to access via Freedom of Information Act requests.

On the one hand, Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archives when he describes this as a "shell game in place of open government."

On the other hand, however, I think that given the potential threat to the SEALs who conducted the operation, as well as the need to protect SOCOM's tactics, techniques, and planning considerations for future operations, these files deserve unique protection. Considering how quickly elements of the operation leaked from other sources in DOD, McRaven's actions seem not only to be justified, but also prescient.

The problem is that the Obama Administration, which promised to be "the most transparent in U.S. history," has gone to such extreme lengths in the past to create smoke screens (i.e. the Caribou Coffee meetings to avoid signing guests into the Executive Office Building; the EPA chief and other senior officials conducting Administration business on fake personal accounts to avoid scrutiny; the refusal to share the legal justification for drone strikes against U.S. citizens with Congress; the firing and failure to replace Inspectors General, etc.) has rendered even perfectly reasonable actions suspect.

Nirvana, Soundgarden, and the Taliban: The Jason Everman Story

In case you missed it over the holiday weekend, the New York Times Magazine has a fascinating story about Jason Everman, a Green Beret who participated in the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom and Afghanistan (and by extension, the hunt for Osama bin Laden)* and numerous other capture/kill missions during multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq before retiring from the Army in 2006 to pursue a degree in philosophy from Columbia University.

But as interesting as Everman's military accomplishments -- about which he says little -- may be, what makes him uniquely interesting are the "failures" that Everman overcame before enlisting. Specifically:

Jason Everman has the unique distinction of being the guy who was kicked out of Nirvana and Soundgarden, two rock bands that would sell roughly 100 million records combined. At 26, he wasn’t just Pete Best, the guy the Beatles left behind. He was Pete Best twice.

Okay, so this may be at best tangential to manhunting/counter-terrorism. But given that Seattle Grunge was the soundtrack of my youth (i.e. Soundgarden at Bender Arena in DC was my last concert before reporting for active duty at Ft. Sill back in 1994), this easily makes Everman one of the coolest military/CT stories of the past decade.

* Given that the article's author, Clay Tarver, notes that Everman was "one of those bearded guys riding around on horseback in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban," I'm making the assumption that he was in Afghanistan sometime between October and December 2001, when the SOF fought as "Horse Soldiers" alongside the Northern Alliance. If our SOF still used horses after Tora Bora, Everman may have not actually had anything to do with the hunt for bin Laden, in which case . . . this is still a pretty cool story, and Everman is still just as impressive!

Jason Everman (top right) with Nirvana in 1989

Everman (top) with Soundgarden



Everman somewhere downrange more than a decade later . . . Thank you for your service, Jason!

 

Apparently Anwar al-Awlaki Loved Pizza and Prostitutes

Josh Gerstein of Politico reports that, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act, FBI surveillance trailed Anwar al-Awlaki around Northern Virginia in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 looking for possible links between Osama bin Laden and the then-leader of a mosque in Falls Church, VA. Among the more interesting observations were his taking the Metro into Foggy Bottom to eat at the Bertucci's near George Washington University (alas, no word on which toppings he preferred), and that at least seven times in late 2001 and early 2002 he hired "high end escorts" who charged several hundred dollars for their . . . um, services.

Awlaki eventually moved to England later in 2002, and then to Yemen in 2004, where he became the spiritual leader/chief propagandist for al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, and later was involved in organizing the 2009 Underwear Bomber attack before being killed by a U.S. drone strike in September 2011.

Anwar al-Awlaki: Loved his hos and Bertucci's

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, the FBI tailed Muslim cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki around the Washington area, following him to an NPR interview and watching him as he munched on pizza at Bertucci's, according to documents obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch - See more at: http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/overnightbrief070313#sthash.18Oc92uL.dpuf

In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, the FBI tailed Muslim cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki around the Washington area, following him to an NPR interview and watching him as he munched on pizza at Bertucci's, according to documents obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. - - See more at: http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/overnightbrief070313#sthash.oNcfJ1pw.dpuf

Joseph Kony: Elephant Poacher

As if the massacres, large-scale mutilations and child kidnapping (for use as child soldiers and sex slaves) weren't bad enough, according to the Enough Project, Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army have now branched out into ivory poaching in the Congo's Garamba National Park as a means to raise funds and obtain arms/supplies.

Whereas it is true that after more than two decades of terrorizing the region, Kony has attained bogeyman status, and villagers tend to ascribe almost all banditry and crime to his group, the Enough Project's reporting is pretty damning. There is also no shortage of precedent for ideologically-founded militias converting to criminality in order to raise funds (i.e. the FARC's transition from Marxist vanguard to narcotics empire, or Hezbollah's deep involvement in narcotics trafficking), so it would not be surprising to see the LRA make a similar transition in order to survive.

Unfortunately for the elephants, the persistent political instability amongst the human governments in central Africa has translated into a lack of the bilateral support necessary for a successful manhunt, which in this case has actually led to the suspension of the hunt for Joseph Kony.

Because when you've spent two decades destroying villages, hacking off limbs, and enslaving children, elephant poaching really isn't much of a step down, morally speaking.

Al-Qa'ida and Leaks

Apropos of the news that General (Ret.) James Cartwright is under investigation for allegedly leaking details of U.S. involvement in the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, two recent stories explore how al-Qa’ida takes advantages of U.S. intelligence leaks.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported that prosecutors in the PFC Bradley Manning court-martial introduced uncontested evidence that al-Qa’ida sought to benefit from the classified documents Manning downloaded and released through WikiLeaks, “urging members to study them before devising ways to attack the United States.”

Similarly, last week the AP’s Kimberly Dozier reported that intelligence officials are already observing changes in al-Qa’ida’s communications patterns in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leak revealing the NSA’s secret PRISM surveillance program. In particular, they say that al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula – the affiliate responsible for the “Underwear Bomber” who in 2009 nearly detonated an explosive on a flight to Detroit – “has been among the first to alter how it reaches out to its operatives. Dozier notes that Osama bin Laden quit using his Thuraya satellite phone in 1998 after newspapers revealed that U.S. intelligence was able to intercept his calls, and quotes one forensic intelligence expert as saying that many terrorists “are increasingly switching the temporary phones or SIM cards they use and throw them away more often” due to books and media coverage of how U.S. forces mine information from cellphones found at sites raided in war zones.

The U.S. Military in Africa

Just as I was writing about the saga of Sheikh Aweys and the infighting within al-Shabaab, two accounts of the growing U.S. military mission in Africa happened to appear. (Okay, given that President Obama was in Africa for the past week, these articles are pretty far from a coincidence). James Kitfield of the National Journal focuses on the counterterrorism aspect of AFRICOM’s mission, whereas Reuters’ account focuses on the use of broader training missions such as clearing landmines and anti-piracy patrols to win influence in a rising Africa (particularly vis-à-vis China) in addition to the effort to counter al-Qa’ida and other militant groups.

Although Major General H.R. McMaster has warned against over-reliance on SOF raiders and proxy forces, I think Africa is the perfect theater in which to test such a model. Although the continent has been experiencing both an economic boom of late and a rise in jihadist activity, the United States has few vital strategic interests there. Consequently, what better place to see whether John Nagl’s idea for an Army Advisory Corps could build partnership capacity on a national scale, or whether al-Qa’ida affiliates can be defeated through a combination of decapitation strikes and SOF conducting FID missions, possibly supported by broader civil affairs operations?

Which Way for Mr. Aweys and al-Shabaab?

There were conflicting reports last week on the status of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the firebrand cleric seen by many Somalis as the spiritual leader of al-Shabaab, but who recently has been mired in a power struggle within the group over the question of whether al-Shabaab should be a nationalist insurgency for Somali Islamists or welcome foreign fighters as part of al-Qa’ida’s global jihad.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Aweys had been arrested in central Somalia by a regional government friendly to the Somali Federal Government.

On Friday, however, the BBC reported that elders from Aweys’ Habr Gidr clan said he was travelling with permission of the administration in Adado, and that he had not surrendered to local authorities. (The Habr Gidr was also Mohammed Farah Aideed's clan, which is ironic given that Aideed offered to conduct joint operations against Somali Islamists before UN forces started targeting him in June 1993).

But on Saturday Reuters reported that Aweys had been flown to Mogadishu “to hold talks with the federal government about his fate,” and published the photo below. Aweys is believed to have participated in the Battle of the Black Sea fighting against U.S. forces in 1993, and was linked to terrorism by the United States shortly after 9/11. Although he is on a UN Security Council terrorism sanctions list, it is unclear how much influence Aweys currently has within al-Shabaab, and therefore whether his arrest or reconciliation will have much of an effect on al-Shabaab's capabilities.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, spiritual leader of al-Shabaab, in custody of the Somali government and en route to Mogadishu.

Meanwhile, two of al-Shabaab’s top leaders were apparently killed in the same infighting that may have driven Aweys into the arms of the Somali government, including Ibrahim al Afghani, whom the BBC described as al-Shabaab’s second-in-command, and for whom the Rewards for Justice program offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his apprehension earlier this month. Interestingly, according to Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal, al Afghani, Aweys, and other al-Shabaab leaders had criticized its top leader Ahmed Abdi Godane for being too heavy-handed in his treatment of American jihadist Omar Hammami, and Roggio reports that Hammami is now thought to be dead. (See an earlier post on Hammami here). In the meantime, al-Shabaab noted on its official Twitter account that it is conducting an internal purge.

As they say, interesting . . .