The affiliated cells were small, dispersed groups of adherents who enjoyed some direct connection with al Qa’ida, though it was often tenuous and transitory. These units were not large insurgent organizations attempting to overthrow their local government but often self-organized and radicalized small groups, much like the Hamburg cell that helped plan and execute the September 11 attacks in the United States. That cell included Muhammad Atta, Marwan al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah. In some cases, they comprised individuals who had some prior terrorism experience in previous jihadi campaigns in Algeria, the Balkans, Chechnya, Afghanistan, or perhaps Iraq. Others were individuals who had recently traveled to camps in Pakistan and other locations for training, as with the British Muslims responsible for the July 2005 London bombings.25
Finally, the informal network included individuals who had no direct contact with al Qa’ida central but were outraged by Western attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and the Palestinian territories and thus were inspired to join the jihadi cause. Without direct support, these networks tended to be amateurish and clumsy. The four men charged in June 2007 with plotting to blow up fuel tanks, terminal buildings, and the web of fuel lines running beneath John F. Kennedy International Airport (which was code-named Chicken Farm by the plotters) belong in this category. They had no direct connections with al Qa’ida but were prepared to conduct attacks in solidarity with it.26
Though less reliable, the informal network could occasionally be lethal. The terrorist cells that conducted the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 emerged from a loose association of Islamic extremists. What links there were to al Qa’ida and other groups were tangential at best. According to court documents from the case, the terrorists “were part of a cell that was formed, both locally and internationally, to operate in Spain (Catalonia and Madrid) and outside the country (Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Morocco, Syria, and Iraq).”27 In December 2003, intelligence officials discovered an al Qa’ida Internet strategy document that showed the Madrid attack to have been motivated by Spain’s unpopular involvement in the Iraq War. “In order to force the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq,” it said, “the resistance should deal painful blows to its forces.”28 Another example of this category included the so-called Hofstad Group in the Netherlands, of which a member (Mohammed Bouyeri) murdered the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in November 2004.29
Musical Chairs
In 2008, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri still ran al Qa’ida’s Pakistan contingent. But security concerns prohibited many of al Qa’ida’s operational commanders from gaining daily access to bin Laden and Zawahiri. For security purposes, al Qa’ida adopted a four-tiered courier system to communicate. There was an administrative courier network designed for communication pertaining to the movement of al Qa’ida members’ families and other administrative activities. Another courier network dealt with operational instructions. Where possible, unwitting couriers were substituted for knowledgeable people in order to minimize detection. A media-support courier network was used for propaganda. Messages were sent in the form of CDs, videos, and leaflets to television networks such as Al Jazeera. Finally, a separate courier network was used only by al Qa’ida’s top leadership, who usually did not pass written messages to each other. Often, their most trusted couriers memorized messages and conveyed them orally.
By 2008, there had been some recent successful apprehensions of senior al Qa’ida operatives by Pakistani and American intelligence forces. One was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, whose real name was Nashwan Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Baqi. He was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1961, served in the Iraqi military, and was one of al Qa’ida’s highest-ranking and most experienced senior operatives. Abd al-Hadi served on al Qa’ida’s ruling Shura Council—a ten-person advisory body to Osama bin Laden—as well as on the group’s military committee, which oversaw terrorist and guerrilla operations and paramilitary training. The U.S. Department of Defense said, “He had been one of the organization’s key paramilitary commanders in Afghanistan from the late 1990s and, during 2002–04, was in charge of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan against Coalition forces.” It continued: “Abd al-Hadi was known and trusted by Bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Abd al-Hadi was in direct communication with both leaders and, at one point, was Zawahiri’s caretaker.”30
Abd al-Hadi also served as a conduit between al Qa’ida in Iraq, the Taliban, and al Qa’ida senior commanders operating inside Pakistan, and he was involved in the foiled 2006 transatlantic-aviation plot. According to a report compiled by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center, based at MI5’s London headquarters, Abd al-Hadi “stressed the need to take care to ensure that the attack was successful and on a large scale.”31 He was captured in 2006 in Turkey.
In 2007, al Qa’ida appointed a new leader to run operations in Afghanistan: Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid. Abu al-Yazid was born in Egypt’s al-Sharqiyah governorate in the Nile Delta in 1955; in his youth, he became a member of the country’s radical Islamist movement. In 1981, he took part in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and spent three years in prison, where he became a member of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Abu al-Yazid left Egypt for Afghanistan in 1988 and accompanied bin Laden from Afghanistan to Sudan in 1991. While there, he served as the accountant for bin Laden’s Sudan-based businesses, including his holding company, Wadi al-Aqiq.32 He also may have arranged the funding for the June 1995 failed assassination attempt by the Egyptian Islamic Group against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa. Convicted in absentia in several trials in Egypt, he was sentenced to both life imprisonment and the death penalty.
Abu al-Yazid apparently returned to Afghanistan with bin Laden in 1996. By that time, he was a confidant of bin Laden, a senior al Qa’ida leader, a member of its Shura Council, and a key manager of the organization’s finances. He was reported to have supplied the requisite funding for Muhammad Atta—the leader of the September 11, 2001, attackers—and to have received from Atta the return of surplus funds just before the attacks occurred. In 2002, the U.S. government placed Abu al-Yazid’s name on the list of terrorists and organizations subject to having their financial accounts frozen. Pakistan’s Daily Times (Lahore) reported in December 2004 that Abu al-Yazid had some unspecified duties in maintaining the relationship between al Qa’ida and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.33 One of his daughters married the son of the incarcerated Egyptian Islamic Group spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman. The daughter and her husband, Muhammad Abd al-Rahman, were captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in early 2003.
There were a number of other senior al Qa’ida leaders operating out of Pakistan, such as Abu Ubaydah al-Masri, an Egyptian who died of hepatitis in 2007. Al-Masri served as one of al Qa’ida’s senior external-operations figures after the death of Abu Hamza Rabi’a, who was killed by a missile strike in Pakistan in 2005. He was implicated in the 2006 transatlantic-aircraft plot, which was to be carried out by a terrorist cell operating in London, but which involved al Qa’ida’s central leadership. Another operative, Fahid Muhammad Ally Msalam, a Kenyan, served as a facilitator for communication between Osama bin Laden and the East Africa network and was located for a time with senior al Qa’ida leaders based in Waziristan. He was reported as killed in a U.S. missile strike on January 1, 2009.
Despite the loss of these key leaders, however, al Qa’ida remained capable of conducting lethal attacks regionally and globally. According to a CIA assessment of al Qa’ida, “the group’s cadre of seasoned, committed leaders has allowed it to remain fairly cohesive and stay focused on its strategic objectives.”34 In fact, they began opening new channels of communication by issuing propaganda directed specifically at American audiences, either in translation or given directly by English-speaking al Qa’ida members based in Pakistan. One of the spokesmen most visible to the West was Adam Gadahn, an American raised in Southern California who converted to Islam at the age of seventeen and moved to Pakistan in 1998. With his
head wrapped in a black turban and sporting a jet-black beard, he expressed profound rage in his video exposés on YouTube. “We love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels,” he thundered in one video. In another, he callously quipped: “It’s hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines’ housing facilities at Camp Pendleton.”35
A Force Multiplier in Afghanistan
Afghanistan remained the most important strategic component for al Qa’ida. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis, “Al-Qa’ ida remains committed to reestablishing a fundamentalist Islamic government in Afghanistan and has become increasingly successful in defining Afghanistan as a critical battleground against the West and its regional allies.” Al Qa’ida was also able to leverage its resources through its “increasingly cooperative relationship with insurgent networks.”36 Al Qa’ida personnel met with wealthy Arab businessmen during the Tablighi Jamaat annual meeting in Raiwind, Pakistan, which attracted one of the largest concentrations of Muslims after the hajj.37 Appealing to the international jihadi network was consistent with historical patterns. During the rise of the Taliban, an important source of funding was the “Golden Chain,” an informal financial network of prominent Saudi and Gulf individuals established to support Afghan fighters. This network collected funds through Islamic charities and other nongovernmental organizations. Bin Laden also drew on the network of Islamic charities, nongovernmental organizations, and educational institutions to recruit volunteers.38
The Golden Chain provided financial backing, but bin Laden offered Afghan fighters much more than financial assistance. Afghan groups were able to tap into the broad international jihadi network. For example, al Qa’ida was instrumental in improving the communications capabilities of Afghan groups. These groups leveraged Al-Sahab, al Qa’ida’s media enterprise, to distribute well-produced video propaganda and recruit supporters. “Al-Qa’ida spreads its propaganda through taped statements,” a CIA assessment reported, “sometimes featuring relatively sophisticated production values.”39 A UN report similarly found that there was an “increasing level of professionalism achieved by Al-Sahab, the main Al-Qaida media production unit.” It continued by noting that Osama bin Laden’s September 2007 video was “expertly produced and, like previous videos, was subtitled in English and uploaded almost simultaneously onto hundreds of servers by what must be a large group of volunteers.”40 In January 2007, federal prosecutors in Chicago indicted Rockford, Illinois, resident Derrick Shareef (also known as Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef) on one count of attempting to damage or destroy a building by fire or explosion and one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He had been inspired by watching one of Adam Gadahn’s propaganda videos that justified killing women and children.41
Senior Afghan leaders began to appear in videos produced with the help of al Qa’ida, reciting passages of the Qur’an and outlining their ideology. Taliban leaders such as Mullah Omar increasingly adopted al Qa’ida’s global rhetoric. In a statement in December 2007, for example, Omar turned to Muslims across the globe: “We appeal to Muslims to help their Mujahideen brothers against the international invader economically…. Now you know both religion and country are in danger, you follow the way of good and religious leaders and leave the way of bad and dishonest and do Jihad.”42 And jihadi Websites with links to al Qa’ida, such as those run by Azzam Publications (including www.azzam.com and www.qoqaz.net, which were eventually shut down), helped raise funds for the Taliban.43 Some solicited military items for the Taliban, including gas masks and night vision goggles.44
Insurgent groups also used al Qa’ida support to construct increasingly sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including remotely controlled detonators.45 For example, al Qa’ida ran a handful of manufacturing sites in the Bush Mountains, the Khamran Mountains, and the Shakai Valley in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. They ranged from small facilities hidden within compounds that built IEDs, to much larger “IED factories” that doubled as training centers and labs where recruits experimented with IED technology. Some of this explosives expertise came from Iraqi groups that provided information on making and using various kinds of remotely controlled devices and timers. In return for this assistance, al Qa’ida received operational and financial support from local clerics and Taliban commanders in Waziristan. They recruited young Pashtuns from the local madrassas and financed their activities through “religious racket”—forced religious contribution, often accompanied by death threats.
There is even evidence of cooperation between insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Islamic militants in Iraq apparently provided information through the Internet and face-to-face visits with Taliban members, Hezb-i-Islami forces, and foreign fighters from eastern and southern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas. In addition, there is some evidence that a small number of Pakistani and Afghan militants received military training in Iraq, and Iraqi fighters met with Afghan and Pakistani extremists in Pakistan. It is clear that militants in Afghanistan had great success with homemade bombs, suicide attacks, and other tactics honed in Iraq.46
One effective IED was the “TV bomb,” which was pioneered by Iraqi groups. The bomb was a “shaped”-charge mechanism that could be hidden under brush or debris on a roadside and set off by remote control from 300 yards or more. It was useful for focusing the energy of a bomb toward a specific target. Taliban commanders learned from Iraqi groups to disassemble rockets and rocket-propelled-grenade rounds, remove the explosives and propellants, and repack them with high-velocity shaped charges—thus creating armor-penetrating weapons. In addition, Afghan groups occasionally adopted brutal terrorist tactics, such as beheadings, used by Iraqi groups. In December 2005, insurgents posted a video of the decapitation of an Afghan hostage on al Qa’ida-linked Websites. This was the first published video showing the beheading of an Afghan hostage, and it sent the message that the Taliban was no less serious about repelling the Americans than Iraqi insurgent groups were.47 The Taliban also developed or acquired new commercial communications gear and field equipment from the Iraqi insurgents, and they appeared to have received good tactical, camouflage, and marksmanship training, too. Some Taliban units even included al Qa’ida members or other Arab fighters, who brought experience from jihadi campaigns in Iraq and Chechnya.48
Perhaps most troubling, insurgents increasingly adopted suicide tactics, especially in such major cities as Kandahar and Kabul.49 Afghan National Police were common targets of suicide bombers. Al Qa’ida leaders in Pakistan encouraged the use of such attacks. Ayman al-Zawahiri argued that “suicide operations are the most successful in inflicting damage on the opponent and the least costly in terms of casualties among the fundamentalists.”50 Al Qa’ida’s involvement was particularly important in this regard because Afghan insurgent groups were surprisingly inept at suicide attacks. Even a UN study of suicide bombing led by Christine Fair acknowledged: “Employed by the Taliban as a military technique, suicide bombing—paradoxically—has had little military success in Afghanistan.”51
Despite their initial reluctance, Afghan insurgents began to use suicide attacks for a variety of reasons.52 First, the Taliban had begun to rely more and more on the expertise and training of the broader jihadi community, especially the international al Qa’ida network, which advocated and condoned such attacks. These militants—with al Qa’ida’s assistance—helped supply a steady stream of suicide bombers. Second, al Qa’ida and the Taliban saw the success of such groups as Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and Iraqi groups, and they concluded this was an effective method for disrupting Coalition actions.53 Suicide attacks allowed insurgents to achieve maximum impact with minimal resources, and the chance of killing people and instilling fear increased exponentially with suicide attacks.54 Th
ird, al Qa’ida and the Taliban believed that suicide attacks raised the level of insecurity among the Afghan population. This caused some Afghans to question the government’s ability to protect them and further destabilized the authority of local government institutions. Consequently, the distance widened between the Afghan government and the population in specific areas. Fourth, suicide attacks provided renewed visibility for the Taliban and al Qa’ida, which previous guerrilla attacks did not generate. Because each attack was spectacular and usually lethal, every suicide bombing was reported in the national and international media.
Most of the bombers were Afghans or Pakistanis, though some foreigners were also involved.55 Many were recruited from Afghan refugee camps and madrassas in Pakistan, where they were radicalized and immersed in extremist ideologies. Taliban-affiliated Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan afforded ready access to bombers, and the Taliban prevailed on some teachers and administrators to help recruit them.56 Al Qa’ida continued to play an important role by funding suicide bombers, and they paid as much as several thousand dollars to the families of suicide bombers.
Al Qa’ida’s role in Afghanistan can be accurately summed up by the advertising slogan used by the German-based chemical giant BASF: “We don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better.” Al Qa’ida leaders improved the tactical and operational competence of Afghan and Pakistani groups, who were able to manufacture a better array of products—from improvised explosive devices to videos. Al Qa’ida strengthened the competence of insurgent groups, although its leaders generally shied away from direct involvement in ground operations in Afghanistan, leaving the dirty work to local Afghans. Instead, it operated as a force multiplier, improving the groups’ capabilities. Even as al Qa’ida enjoyed a resurgence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, however, some U.S. military forces began to make limited progress in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 and early 2008.
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