Ilyas Kashmiri: Not as Dead as Previously Thought?

The Long War Journal, citing reporting by the Daily Times of Pakistan, reports that senior al-Qa'ida leader Ilyas Kashmiri recently met with Hakeemullah Mehsud in North Waziristan.  This is significant because -- for those who don't remember -- U.S. intelligence officials claimed that Kashmiri was killed in a Predator strike in Pakistan on June 3, 2011. 

Well, damn!

As I noted at the time, Kashmiri's death was (or would have been) significant given his effectiveness as an operational commander and the importance of taking out al-Qa'ida's broader network in addition to killing bin Laden. 

Sadly, it turns out Ilyas Kashmiri was only mostly dead, and as Miracle Max can attest, "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead!"

Saif al-Adel Captured! (Or Not)

Yesterday, as I was preparing to board a plane to Boston for a book talk at MIT, I caught a glimpse of a BBC headline proclaiming that senior al-Qa'ida commander Saif al-Adel had been arrested after taking a plane from Pakistan back to his native Egypt.
I was unable to get to a computer for the rest of the day, and was surprised that I didn't see a headline about the capture of the terror network's former military commander in any of the bars I occupied while waiting for my flight delays to end.

Finally, this morning I was greeted by the news that the arrest may have been a case of mistaken identity, and that Egyptian authorities likely had arrested the wrong man.

Well, it did seem a little odd that al-Adel, a former Egyptian Army colonel with a $5 million bounty on his head, would be so foolish as to fly from Pakistan to Egypt under what U.S. officials believe to be his real name, Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi. 

Saif al-Adel: Apparently, not a complete idiot after all.

Abu Musab al-Suri Released?

This might be very bad.

A "prominent member" of an al-Qa'ida-linked web forum claims that rumors Abu Musab al Suri was released from a Syrian prison sometime last year are true.  The Syrian jihadist has been active with various extremist groups groups for three decades, including working as a military trainer at al-Qa'ida's notorius Darunta camp, before establishing his own camp near Kabul. It is believed that he trained terrorists in poisons and chemical weapons at both camps.

More importantly, he is a prominent al-Qa'ida strategist, who opposed the 9/11 attacks because he correctly predicted the Western backlash in response would significantly damage the terror network.  He is the preeminent theorist of "leaderless jihad," in which Muslims would establish decentralized cells that would acquire the tactical knowledge necessary to conduct attacks via the internet.  Such a "starfish" network would be more exponentially more difficult to defeat than al-Qa'ida's present hierarchical structure.

In 2004 the United States issued a $5 million reward for information leading to al Suri's capture.  He was subsequently captured in Quetta, Pakistan, in November 2005, transferred to U.S. custody, and eventually transferred to Syrian custody.

Abu Musab al Suri, the Clausewitz of "leaderless jihad."

Meanwhile, in Pakistan (January 2012 edition)

An interesting report from Reuters claiming how a network of Pakistani "spotters" are assisting in U.S. drone strikes in Waziristan.  Two major caveats to this story:

1. First, the headline is misleading, as stating "How Pakistan Helps the U.S. Drone Campaign" implies this cooperation is officially sanctioned by the ISI or other senior elements of the Pakistani army.  Although the story alludes to Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officers meeting to determine whom to target, this does not imply similar Pakistani control over the spotters who locate these targets.  In other words, it is entirely possible that these may be operatives recruited by our intelligence agencies for observation/targeting purposes wholly outside the Pakistani military's chain of command, as was the case with the local agents who assisted in intelligence collection leading up to SEAL Team Six's Abbottabad raid (and whom were subsequently arrested by the ISI).  They could be officially sanctioned, but I don't think the case made by the reporter's sole Pakistani source support the certainty of the headline.
2. Second, in the bottom half of the story, the reporter notes: "It was impossible to verify the [Pakistani] source's claims and American experts, who decline to discuss the drone program, say the Pakistanis' cooperation has been less helpful in the past."  In other words, the entire report should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yet even if the reporting here may be dubious, clearly our targeting efforts are reliant on some indigenous support, as it is highly improbable to think that U.S. personnel could travel in Pakistan's tribal areas with the freedom of movement necessary to execute this campaign.

In the meantime, last Thursday it was announced that Aslam Awan, a "senior operations organizer" for al-Qa'ida was killed in a drone strike on January 10.  This was a separate operation from the January 12 strike that was intially alleged to have killed Hakimullah Mehsud, a claim that Pakistani officials have stepped away from since the early reports.

My apologies if my lag in posting created any confusion on this point.