Terrorist Attacks Coming This Fall?

2008 Threat Season Heats Up

August 27, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Summer has arrived, bringing with it rumors of attacks against the U.S. homeland. Currently, we are hearing unconfirmed word of plans in place for jihadists to be dispatched from Pakistan to conduct coordinated suicide attacks against soft targets in as many as 10 U.S. cities.

This year, the rumors seem to be emerging a little later and with a little less fanfare than last year, when we saw a number of highly publicized warnings, such as that from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate saying al Qaeda was gaining strength. Last year also brought warnings from a former Israeli counterterrorism official that al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven American cities, and of a dirty bomb attack against New York.

These warnings were followed by the Sept. 7, 2007, release of a video message from Osama bin Laden, who had been unseen on video since October 2004 or heard on audiotape since July 2006. Some were convinced that his reappearance — and veiled threat — signaled a looming attack against the United States, or a message to supporters to commence attacks.

However, in spite of all these warnings — and bin Laden’s reappearance — no attack occurred last summer or autumn on U.S. soil. As we discussed last October, there are a number of reasons why such an attack did not happen.

We are currently working to collect more information regarding this summer’s rumors. So far we cannot gauge their credibility, but they pique our interest for several reasons. First is the issue of timing, and second is the ease with which such attacks could be coordinated.

Timing is Everything

It is a busy time in U.S. politics. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) takes place this week in Denver, and the Republican National Convention (RNC) takes place next week in St. Paul, Minn. After these conventions, politics will be on the front page until the November elections. In addition, Americans are returning from summer vacations, with schools and universities resuming classes. The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is also coming up.

While the al Qaeda core generally conduct operations when they are ready — rather than according to external calendars and anniversaries — their pattern of releasing statements on the 9/11 anniversary demonstrates their awareness of its significance and the painful emotions it evokes in the American psyche.

In 2004, just days before the U.S. presidential election, Osama bin Laden made a rare video appearance. In the video, he said al Qaeda’s problem was not with the two candidates, George Bush or John Kerry, but with U.S. policy regarding the Muslim world and the situations in Iraq and Israel. Bin Laden also pointed out that neither Bush nor Kerry could be trusted to keep the United States secure from more attacks. By creating such a message and releasing it at that time, bin Laden was demonstrating his organization’s understanding of the U.S. presidential election dynamic.

Furthermore, the al Qaeda core has historically planned or supported substantial operations in advance of elections. In 2004 we saw this with the Madrid train bombings, which took place prior to Spanish elections. Several other plots might also fall into category. In the summer of 2004, for example, we saw a plot to target a number of financial targets in the U.S. thwarted.

Another election-year attempt was the 2006 al Qaeda-tied plot against a series of airline flights originating from London’s Heathrow airport. While the plot was hatched in the United Kingdom, the selection of flights bound for Washington, Chicago, San Francisco and New York meant that the attack was actually targeted primarily against the United States. For perspective, we look at Operation Bojinka in the mid-1990s, the predecessor to the 2006 plot. Although planned to be launched from Asia, the plot was clearly an attack against the United States.

In another example, Jose Padilla was arrested in May 2002, a congressional election year, as he attempted to enter the United States. Padilla, according to the interrogation of captured al Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had been sent to there to conduct attacks.

Attacks certainly occur in non-election years (and plots have been thwarted in off years), but the fact remains that jihadists appear mindful of election cycles in the United States. And al Qaeda is not alone in this thinking. Grassroots al Qaeda sympathizers have also attempted to interfere in election-related events. In August 2004, on the eve of the RNC in New York, authorities arrested a Pakistani man and his Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accomplice who claimed they were planning to attack a subway station in Manhattan two blocks from RNC site. The men were later convicted for the plot, with the main organizer receiving a 30-year sentence.

Speaking of elections, it is also interesting to consider that the last two U.S. presidents were forced to deal with jihadist strikes on American soil shortly after assuming office. Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, and the World Trade Center was bombed in late February 1993. George W. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, and the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked in September 2001. In all likelihood this is a coincidence, but it is worth watching to see if the trend continues in 2009.

Of course, let’s put this in perspective. In the last 15 years — election year or not –- there has rarely been a time when some jihadist somewhere was not planning an attack against the United States. However, the al Qaeda core organization clearly attempted to conduct major attacks in 2002, 2004 and 2006, all of which were election years. These attempts (other than Madrid) were all thwarted. The fact that we haven’t seen an attempt during this year’s election cycle has us watchful — we sense that there must be plot out there somewhere.

Ease of Attack

Another thing that interests us about recent rumors is the concept behind the alleged plot: the simple and elegant idea of sending 10 independent actors to 10 cities. One factor that has sunk many past jihadist plots against the United States has been poor operational security and poor terrorist tradecraft. These mistakes have allowed U.S. authorities to identify and shut down the militant networks involved.

By using compartmentalized operatives, militants could more easily circumvent counterterrorist efforts. Furthermore, even if one or more of the operatives were detected and arrested by authorities, details of the operation at large would not be compromised. Each operative would only know about his own particular targeting instructions and would be unable to provide other details if captured.

In such a case, al Qaeda would most likely attempt to dispatch 10 “clean skin” operatives (those not obviously associated with the group) who are trained to construct improvised explosive devices using readily available materials and ultimately willing to undertake martyrdom missions. Due to changes in the immigration processes since the 2001 attacks, these operatives will likely be Westerners — U.S., Canadian or European citizens able to travel to the United States without the need to obtain a visa.

Recruiting such operatives could be easier that one might expect. Thousands of potential candidates who currently attend militant madrassas in Pakistan (including somewhere from 500 to 1,000 U.S. citizens) fit this description. In fact, no one really knows how many of these potential jihadist operatives exist at present. The government of Pakistan has not been forthcoming in answering requests from the United States and United Kingdom for lists of their citizens currently attending these institutions. Regardless, the idea of al Qaeda recruiting 10 “clean skins” for such an operation is not beyond the realm of possibility. Consider past recruits such as Mohammad Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell behind the July 7, 2005, London bombing, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam al-Amriki), or even the warnings o f German Muslims planning to conduct attacks in the West.

Levels of Severity

If this rumored operation is in fact legitimate, it would be the first one conducted using only operatives sent from the core al Qaeda group in Afghanistan or Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks. This is what we refer to as an al Qaeda 2.0 operational model. However, while sending operatives to work solo rather than in a group or with local grassroots jihadists increases operational security, it also reduces operational ability. Quite simply, it is more difficult for an individual to arrange a large attack than it is for a group working together. This means that lone operatives are unlikely to assemble major explosive devices like the truck-borne IED used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Instead we would anticipate attacks similar in scope to grassroots undertakings; suicide bombings such as the July 7, 2005, London bombings or the 2002 armed assault on the El Al Ticket counter in Los Angeles. These theoretical attacks also would likely be conducted against soft targets such as buses, subways or shopping malls, where they can create a high number of casualties, rather than harder targets like the White House or Pentagon, where they would prove ineffective.

The October 2005 incident in Norman, Okla., in which a University of Oklahoma student detonated an IED outside a packed football stadium highlights the ease with which a device can be manufactured from readily available items without detection. But suicide operatives could undertake a number of different types of attacks. Recently we have seen Palestinian suicide operatives embarking on extremely simple plots, such as driving heavy vehicles into crowds.

While the individual attacks themselves would likely be small in magnitude, when combined and spread across the country they could have a far larger impact, similar to past attacks in places such as Madrid, London, Amman in Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Bali, Indonesia. Although the botched attacks in London and Glasgow last summer were conducted by the same cell, the planners also clearly sought to use multiple devices in geographically diverse locations. While such attacks would not be a strategic threat to U.S. existence, they would certainly kill people and create a great deal of fear and confusion.

We are not attempting to hype anything here and we do not want to create any kind of panic. These are just rumors, and unconfirmed ones at that. We have not seen any formal announcements from the U.S. government raising the alert level. However, it certainly seems to us to be a prudent time to increase situational awareness and update contingency plans in anticipation of the worst.


Taken from Stratfor.com

Al Qaeda Leadership Under Fire

The Jihadist Threat and Grassroots Defense
August 13, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Egyptian al Qaeda contingent in Pakistan. On Aug. 12, Pakistani security sources confirmed that an Aug. 8 operation in Bajaur resulted in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy.

If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid. Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization. Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured. Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic in the death of al Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, aka Sheikh Said al-Masri. Some posters on jihadist message boards have denied the reports, but al Qaeda itself has yet to release a statement on the issue. Al-Yazid was reportedly al Qaeda’s operational commander for Afghanistan, and some reports also claim he was responsible for planning attacks within Pakistan, such as the June 2 attack on the Danish Embassy. If confirmed, al-Yazid’s death came just 11 days after the July 28 missile strike in South Waziristan that resulted in the death of al Qaeda’s lead chemical and biological weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri. The strike against al-Sayid also killed three other Egyptian al Qaeda commanders. In an ironic twist, the official al Qaeda eulogy for al-Sayid and his companions was given by al-Yazid.

Unconfirmed rumors also have swirled since the July 28 attack that al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri was either killed or seriously wounded in the same operation. An audiotape in which al-Zawahiri speaks out against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was recently released in an odd manner, in that it was given directly to a Pakistani news channel rather than via al Qaeda’s usual release pattern of having As-Sahab Media upload it directly to the Internet. The tape, in which al-Zawahiri speaks in English for the first time in a public pronouncement, is not convincing proof that al-Zawahiri was not wounded or killed. Obviously, al-Zawahiri’s loss would be another serious blow to the organization.

Al Qaeda’s current problems are nothing new. In fact, the United States and its allies have been attacking al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure consistently since 9/11. While the United States has not yet located and killed the al Qaeda apex leadership, it has done a very good job of eliminating senior operational commanders — the men in the al Qaeda hierarchy who actually plan and direct the militant Islamist group’s operations. The nature of their position means the operational commanders must have more contact with the outside world, and therefore become more vulnerable to being located and killed or captured.

Because of this campaign against al Qaeda’s operational infrastructure, Stratfor has been saying for some time now that we do not believe the core al Qaeda group poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland. However, that does not mean that the United States is completely free of danger when it comes to the jihadist threat. While the core al Qaeda group has been damaged, it still poses a tactical threat — and still can kill people. Furthermore, as the jihadist threat has devolved from one based primarily on al Qaeda the organization to one based on al Qaeda the movement, al Qaeda’s regional franchises and a nebulous array of grassroots jihadists must also be accounted for.

With al Qaeda’s operational structure under continued attack and the fact that there are no regional franchises in the Western Hemisphere, perhaps the most pressing jihadist threat to the U.S. homeland at the present time stems from grassroots jihadists.


Beyond the Cliches

There are many cliches used to describe grassroots jihadists. As we have long discussed, grassroots operatives tend to think globally and act locally — meaning they tend to be inspired by events abroad and yet strike close to home. Additionally, these operatives tend to be a mile wide but an inch deep — meaning that while there are many of them, they are often quite inept at terrorist tradecraft. These cliches are not just cute; they have a sound basis in reality, as a study of grassroots jihadists demonstrates.

There are two basic operational models that involve grassroots jihadists. The first operational model is one where an experienced operational commander is sent from the core al Qaeda group to assist the local grassroots cell. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 1.0 operational model” since it literally is the first one we became familiar with. We saw this model used in many early jihadist operations, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa. It has also been employed in a number of thwarted plots, such as Operation Bojinka in 1995 and the millennium plots in 2000. This model also was used in the thwarted 2006 Heathrow airliner plot.

The second grassroots operational model involves operatives who launch attacks themselves without external funding or direct operational guidance. This is what we refer to as the “al Qaeda 3.0 operational model.” Examples of attacks committed using this model include the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, the July 21, 2005, London bombings, the July 2002 armed assault of the El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport and the botched June 2007 bombing attacks in London and Glasgow.

Something of a gray area exists around the borders of these two operational models, and at times it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. For example, Mohammed Siddique Khan, the leader of the cell that carried out the July 7, 2005, London suicide bombings, had attended training camps in Pakistan with another member of the cell. While there, he had at least some contact with al Qaeda, since al Qaeda released a copy of the martyrdom videos the two made during their time in Pakistan.

Notably, these attacks show that most of these grassroots jihadists, whether as part of a 1.0 or a 3.0 structured cell, selected targets in close proximity to their place of residence. Even when such cells have established safe houses to store chemicals, to manufacture improvised explosive mixtures or to construct improvised explosive devices, those safe houses quite often have been close to the target and the attacker’s residence. Grassroots jihadists really do think globally and act locally.

A second notable aspect of several of these attacks is that these operatives lack terrorist tradecraft such as operational security and surveillance techniques. Blunders in these areas have frequently led to the groups being identified and nabbed before they could launch their attacks. Plain old police traffic stops have exposed jihadist cells such as the Virginia Jihad Network and have helped to thwart several other terror plots.

Even when a grassroots group is able to execute its attack without detection, it often has been hampered by a lack of bomb-making skill. The failed July 21, 2005, London bombings and the June 2007 London and Glasgow attacks exemplify this flaw. Grassroots groups simply do not have the same level of training and operational experience as the professional operatives comprising the core al Qaeda group. Operationally, they are a mile wide and tend to be an inch deep.

Another consideration that comes to light while contemplating past grassroots cases is that lacking funding from al Qaeda core, grassroots operatives are likely to indulge in petty crimes such as credit card theft, cargo theft or armed robbery to fund their activities. For example, in July 2005, a grassroots cell in Torrance, Calif., was uncovered during an investigation into a string of armed robberies. After arresting one suspect, Levar Haney Washington, police who searched his apartment uncovered material indicating that Washington was part of a militant jihadist group planning to attack a number of targets in the Los Angeles area.

Truthfully, most grassroots operatives are far more likely to commit a criminal act such as document fraud or receiving stolen property than they are to have telephone conversations with Osama bin Laden. When they do commit such relatively minor crimes, it is local cops rather than some federal agency that will have the first interaction with them. This means that local police are an important piece of the counterterrorism defenses — they are, in essence, grassroots defenders.


Beyond Grassroots Jihadists

A recent study led by Brent Smith of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas’ Fulbright College suggests that these trends extend beyond the grassroots jihadist threat. In a July article in the National Institute of Justice Journal, Smith noted that his research team studied 60 terrorist incidents in the United States over the past 25 years. The terrorist actors were from a cross-section of different ideological backgrounds, including domestic left-wing, domestic right-wing, domestic single-issue and international terrorists.

In the study, Smith and his colleagues identified the residences of 431 terrorist suspects and found that, overall, 44 percent of the attacks were conducted within 30 miles of the perpetrator’s place of residence and 51 percent were conducted within 90 miles of the residence. When broken down by type, the numbers were actually highest for international terrorists, with 59 percent of the suspects living within 30 miles of their target and 76 percent of the suspects residing within 90 miles.

Smith’s study also noted that many of the preparatory actions for the attacks occurred close to the attack site, with 65 percent of the environmental terrorists and 59 percent of the international terrorists studied conducting preparations for their attacks within 30 miles of their target sites. Of course, some preparatory actions, such as preoperational surveillance, by their very nature must be conducted within close proximity to the attack site. But still, the percentage of activity conducted near attack sites is noteworthy.

One other interesting result of Smith’s study was the timeline within which preparation for an attack was completed. For international groups, the preparation could take a year or more. But environmentalist and left-wing groups proved to be far more spontaneous, with a large portion of their preparation (88 and 91 percent, respectively) completed within two weeks of the attack. This means that prior to an attack, international terrorists are generally vulnerable to detection for far longer than are members of a domestic left-wing or environmentalist group.


Application

While there are always exceptions to the percentages, with people like Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta traveling long distances to conduct preparatory acts and execute attacks, most people conducting terrorist attacks tend to operate in areas they are familiar with and environments they are comfortable in.

When we examine the spectrum of potential terrorist actors — from domestic people such as McVeigh and Eric Rudolph to international figures such as Mohammed Atta and Ahmed Ajaj — it is clear that a large number of them have had no prior interaction with federal law enforcement or intelligence officials and therefore no prior record identifying them as potential terrorism suspects. That means that even if they were stopped by a local police officer (as Atta was for driving without a license), any national-level checks would turn up negative. Because of this, it is extremely important for police officers and investigators to trust their instincts and follow up on hunches if a subject just doesn’t feel right. The Oklahoma state trooper who arrested McVeigh, the New Jersey state trooper who nabbed Yu Kikumura, or the rookie Murphy, N.C., officer who apprehended Eric Rudolph are all examples of cops who did this.

Of course, following your instincts is difficult to do when management is pressuring police officers and agents investigating cases such as document and financial fraud to close cases and not to drag them out by pursuing additional leads. Indeed, when Ahmed Ajaj was arrested in September 1992 for committing passport fraud, the case was quickly closed and authorities pretty much ignored that he had been transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including bomb-making manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six months in jail for committing passport fraud and was then scheduled for deportation.

Had authorities taken the time to carefully review the materials in Ajaj’s briefcase, they would have found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was traveling with a companion — a companion named Abdel Basit who entered the United States on a fraudulent Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef and who built the large truck-borne explosive device used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

While many state and local departments have specialized intelligence or counterterrorism divisions, training on how to spot potential terrorist preparatory activity often does not go much further than those officers specifically assigned to the counterterrorism portfolio. In some jurisdictions, however, law enforcement managers not only give investigators the leeway to investigate potential terrorist activity, they also encourage their street officers to do so — and even provide training on how to identify such behavior.

In many jurisdictions, serious problems in information sharing persist. Much has been written about “the wall” that separated the FBI’s intelligence investigations from its criminal investigations and how that separation was detrimental to the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts prior to 9/11. The FBI is not the only place such a wall exists, however. In many state and local law enforcement departments, there is still a wide gulf separating the intelligence or counterterrorism division officers and the rest of the department. This means that information regarding cases that general crimes investigators are looking into — cases that very well could have a terrorism angle — does not make it to the officers working terrorism cases.

As the shift toward grassroots operatives continues, information pertaining to preparatory crimes will become even more critical. Identifying this activity and flagging it for follow-on investigation could mean the difference between a thwarted and a successful attack. As the grassroots threat emerges, the need for grassroots defense has never been greater.


From www.stratfor.com.

No Terrorist Attacks this Summer

I received the following bulletin from Stratfor.com

SUMMER 2007: THE ATTACK
THAT NEVER OCCURRED

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

The summer of 2007 was marked by threats and warnings of an
imminent terrorist attack against the United States. In addition to the
well-publicized warnings from Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate that al Qaeda was
gaining strength, a former Israeli counterterrorism official warned that
al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven
American cities. Another warning of an impending dirty bomb attack
prompted the New York Police Department to set up vehicle
checkpoints near the financial district in Lower Manhattan. In
addition to these public warnings, U.S. government counterterrorism
sources also told us privately that they were seriously concerned
about the possibility of an attack.
All these warnings were followed by the Sept. 7 release of a video
message from Osama bin Laden, who had not been seen on video
since October 2004 or heard on audio tape since July 2006. Some
were convinced that his reappearance -- and his veiled threat -- was
the sign of a looming attack against the United States, or perhaps a
signal for an attack to commence.
In spite of all these warnings and bin Laden's reappearance -- not
the mention the relative ease with which an attack can be conducted
-- no attack occurred this summer. Although our assessment is that
the al Qaeda core has been damaged to the point that it no longer
poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, tactical attacks
against soft targets remain simple to conduct and certainly are within
the reach of jihadist operatives -- regardless of whether they are
linked to the al Qaeda core.
We believe there are several reasons no attack occurred this
summer -- or since 9/11 for that matter.

No Conscious Decision
Before we discuss these factors, we must note that the lack of an
attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11 has not been the result
of a calculated decision by bin Laden and the core al Qaeda
leadership. Far too many plots have been disrupted for that to be the
case. Many of those foiled and failed attacks, such as the 2006
foiled plot to destroy airliners flying from London to the United
States, the Library Tower Plot, Richard Reid's failed attempt to take
down American Airlines flight 63 in December 2001 and Jose
Padilla's activities -- bear connection to the core al Qaeda
leadership.
So, if the core al Qaeda has desired, and even attempted, to strike
the United States, why has it failed? Perhaps the greatest single
factor is attitude -- among law enforcement and intelligence
agencies, the public at large, the Muslim community and even the
jihadists themselves.

Law Enforcement and Intelligence
Prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the FBI denied the
existence of an international terrorism threat to the U.S. homeland, a
stance reflected in the bureau's "Terrorism in the United States"
publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even after the radical
Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane was killed by a jihadist with connections
to the Brooklyn Jihad Office and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdul-
Rahman, the FBI and Department of Justice denied the act was
terrorism and left the investigation and the prosecution of the
gunman, ElSayyid Nosair, to New York police and the Manhattan
District Attorney's Office. (Though they were greatly aided on the
federal level by the Diplomatic Security Service, which ran
investigative leads for them in Egypt and elsewhere.)
It was only after Nosair's associates detonated a large truck bomb in
the parking garage of the World Trade Center in 1993 that the
existence of a threat to the United States was recognized. Yet, even
after that bombing and the disruption of other plots -- the July 1997
plot to bomb the New York subway system and the December 1999
Millennium Bomb Plot -- the apathy toward counterterrorism
programs remained. This was most evident in the low levels of
funding and manpower devoted to counterterrorism programs prior to
9/11. As noted in the 9/11 Commission Report, counterterrorism
programs simply were not a priority.
Even the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing made no real
difference. Some changes were made, such as physical security
enhancements at federal buildings, but they were merely window
dressing. The real problems, underlying structural problems in the
U.S. government's counterterrorism efforts -- resources, priorities
and intelligence-sharing -- were not addressed in a meaningful way.
Prior to 9/11, experts (including the two of us) lecturing to law
enforcement and intelligence groups about the al
Qaeda/transnational terrorist threat to the United States were met
with indifference. Of course, following 9/11 some of those same
groups paid careful attention to what the experts had to say.
Transnational terrorism had become real to them. The 9/11 attacks
sparked a sea change in attitudes within law enforcement and
intelligence circles. Counterterrorism -- aggressively collecting
intelligence pertaining to terrorism and pursuing terrorist leads -- is
now a priority.

Citizen Awareness
Before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing the American public
also was largely unconcerned about international terrorism. Even
after that bombing, the public remained largely apathetic about the
terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. This was partly the result of the
media's coverage of the 1993 bombing, which seemed to focus on
the hapless, bumbling Mohamed Salameh and not the cunning and
dangerous Abdel Basit (who is more widely known by his alias,
Ramzi Yousef). Furthermore, the follow-on plot to that attack, the
1993 New York bomb plot -- for which Abdul-Rahman and some of
his followers were accused of planning strikes against the Lincoln
Tunnel and other New York City landmarks -- was thwarted. This led
many to believe that the government had a handle on terrorism and
that the United States was protected from such attacks. The second
plot was thwarted before it could be executed, and most Americans
never saw the gigantic crater (nearly 100 feet across) that the
February 1993 truck bomb created through several floors of Building
One's reinforced concrete parking garage. Instead, they saw only a
bit of smoke billowing from the damaged building. The 1993 cases
lacked the stunning visual displays of the 9/11 attacks.
The events of 9/11 also created a 180-degree change in how people
think about terrorism and how they perceive and respond to
suspicious activity. "If you see something, say something" has
become a popular mantra, especially in New York and other large
cities. Part of this stems from the changed attitudes of law
enforcement officials, who not only have issued appeals in the press
but also have made community outreach visits to nearly every flight
school, truck driving school, chemical supply company, fertilizer
dealer and storage rental company in the United States. Through
media reports of terrorist plots and attacks, the public also has
become much more aware of the precursor chemicals for improvised
explosive mixtures and applies far more scrutiny to anyone
attempting to procure them in bulk.
U.S. citizens also are far more aware of the importance of
preoperational surveillance and -- fair or not -- it is now very difficult
for a person wearing traditional Muslim dress to take a photograph of
anything without being reported to the authorities by a concerned
citizen.
This change in attitude is particularly significant in the Muslim
community itself. Contrary to the hopes of bin Laden -- and the fears
of the U.S. government -- the theology of jihadism has not taken root
in the United States. Certainly there are individuals who have come
to embrace this ideology, as the arrests of some grassroots activists
demonstrate, but such people are very much the exception. In spite
of some problems, the law enforcement community has forged some
strong links to the Muslim community, and in several cases Muslims
have even reported potential jihadists to law enforcement.
Even in places where jihadism has more successfully infiltrated the
Muslim community, such as Europe, North Africa and Saudi Arabia,
the jihadists still consider it preferable to wage the "real" jihad
against "crusader troops" in places such as Iraq, rather than to
attack soft civilian targets in the West or elsewhere. As unpopular as
it is to say, in many ways Iraq has served as a sort of jihadist
magnet, drawing young men from around the world to "martyr"
themselves. Pragmatically, every young jihadist who travels from
Europe or the Middle East to die in Baghdad or Ar Ramadi is one
less who could attack Boston, London, Brussels or Rome.

Attitude is Everything
In late 1992 and early 1993, amateur planning was all that was
required to conduct a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In
addition to the almost comical mistakes made by Salameh, serious
gaffes also were made by Ahmed Ajaj and Basit as they prepared
for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. However, because of the
prevailing apathetic attitude among law enforcement officials and the
public in general, those mistakes were not fatal to the operation.
Given the changes in attitude since 9/11, however, no operation
conducted as poorly as the 1993 bombing would succeed today.
Before the bombing, the FBI investigated the cell that carried it out,
made the determination that the men were harmless fanatics and
closed the investigation. That would not happen today, as even
slightly goofy, wannabe terrorists such as the Miami Seven are
vigorously investigated and prosecuted when possible.
When Ajaj and Basit flew into JFK Airport in September 1992,
authorities pretty much ignored the fact that Ajaj was found
transporting a large quantity of jihadist material, including
bombmaking manuals and videos. Instead, he was sentenced to six
months in jail for committing passport fraud -- a mere slap on the
wrist -- and was then to be deported. Had authorities taken the time
to carefully review the materials in Ajaj's briefcase, they would have
found two boarding passes and two passports with exit stamps from
Pakistan. Because of that oversight, no one noticed that Ajaj was
traveling with a companion. Even when his co-conspirators called
Ajaj in jail seeking his help in formulating their improvised explosive
mixtures and recovering the bombmaking manuals, the calls were
not traced. It was not until after the bombing that Ajaj's involvement
was discovered, and he was convicted and sentenced.
These kinds of oversights would not occur now. Furthermore, the
attitude of the public today makes it far more difficult for a
conspirator like Niday Ayyad to order chemicals used to construct a
bomb, or for the conspirators to receive and store such chemicals in
a rented storage space without being reported to the authorities.
Another change in attitude has been on the legal front. Prior to the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, there were no "terrorism"
statutes concerning the use of weapons of mass destruction or acts
of terrorism transcending national borders. Instead, prosecutors in
terrorism cases struggled to apply existing laws. The defendants in
the 1993 New York bomb plot case were not charged with
conspiring to build bombs or commit acts of international terrorism.
Rather, they were convicted on "seditious conspiracy" charges.
Similarly, Salameh was convicted of violating the Special Agricultural
Worker program and with damaging U.S. Secret Service cars stored
in the basement of the World Trade Center building.
The U.S. security environment has indeed improved dramatically
since 1993, largely as a result of the sweeping changes in attitude,
though also to some extent due to the magnet effect of the war in
Iraq. Success can engender complacency, however, and the lack of
attacks could allow attitudes -- and thus counterterrorism resources -
- to swing back toward the other end of the spectrum.

America’s Secret War

In America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies, George Friedman, chairman and founder of Stratfor, has written an excellent book on the history behind the current war on terror, tracing its roots back to the Carter administration and explaining the reasons things are the way they are. Stratfor provides strategic intelligence on global business, economic, security and geopolitical affairs. According to their website, “Stratfor - the world's leading private intelligence firm -- provides corporations, governments and individuals with geopolitical analysis and forecasts that enable them to manage risk and anticipate political, economic and security issues vital to their interests.” As Stratfor’s founder and chairman, Friedman is highly qualified to write on this topic.

Friedman sees this current war as the fourth modern global conflict. Just as World War II grew out of World War I, and the Cold War grew out of World War II, the current global war on terror has grown out of the Cold War. The situation we face today is the direct result of the geopolitical changes that occurred as a result of the fall of the Soviet Empire. Both the events leading up to the collapse and the resulting global situation after the collapse set the stage for the conflict between radical Islam and the West.

One of the Soviet’s favorite techniques to weaken American power around the world was to support insurgents and guerillas in order to bog down U.S. forces. One of the most successful was the support of the North Vietnamese, ultimately driving the U.S. from the region. America, on the other hand had a lousy track record with supporting guerillas. When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan, it was an opportunity for the U.S. to use this technique against them. This was an opportunity to “make the Soviets bleed” like they made us bleed. President Carter authorized the recruitment, organization and supplying of guerilla warfare in Afghanistan by utilizing indigenous forces that were already rising to resist the Soviets. Carter signed the first “Intelligence Finding” authorizing covert military operations in Afghanistan in order to “harass” soviet troops. It was this “Finding” that served as the legal basis for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It was also this “Finding” that would culminate, via a long, circuitous and unpredictable route, in September 11.

The first problem was how to fund the covert war. Ever since senator Church passed legislation requiring the CIA to get authorization for such funding, it would impossible to get money from Congress, and if it tried, then the operation would no longer be secret. Saudi Arabia realized that an America weakened by the oil embargo of the 1970s was dangerous to its national security, because if the Soviets or Iran won out in the region, they would be destroyed as a nation. Therefore, Saudi Arabia had a greater interest in what was happening in Afghanistan than America did. The United States was worried that the Soviets were attacking Afghanistan in order to push into the Middle East and capture the oil fields for itself.

Second, the United States had very little intelligence on Afghanistan, and what we did have was only from the CIA agents monitoring the narcotics trade and the poppy fields in the country. Therefore, America had to turn to Saudi Arabia for money and intelligence, making an alliance with the Wahabis in order to gain what we needed.

The U.S. structure a deal with the Saudis to provide funding and personnel to work with the CIA to build a guerilla force to bog down the Soviets in Afghanistan. This was the beginning of an alliance between the U.S. and Muslim fundamentalists.

The third fractor was Pakistan, a long-term American ally. It was torn between the secularism of its founders and the radical Islam of the majority of its population. It was also afraid of being trapped between a Soviet dominated Afghanistan and a pro-Soviet India. Pakistan had a lot of intelligence on Afghanistan and a long contiguous border where training camps, logistic systems, and bases of operations could be set up. The North Vietnamese had Laos and Cambodia; the U.S. had Pakistan.

A three-way alliance was formed. The United States would provide training, coordination and strategic intelligence; the Saudis would provide the money and the guerillas; the Pakistanis would provide the territory and the intelligence needed.

Jimmy Carter was the one who presided over this alliance. Yet, his goal was not to destroy the Soviet Union but to find a balance while restoring America’s power in the world after its decline over the last decade. Carter had no idea that the war in Afghanistan would lead to the destruction of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al Qaeda. When Reagan took office in 1981, he intensified Carter’s alliance and wove it into a larger plan to destroy the Soviet Union and intensify America’s global power.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Al Qaeda was well-trained and well-equipped, possessing many Soviet and American weapons along with the expertise to use them. The Soviets were brutal in their attempts to squash the guerillas, killing many, so that those who lasted the decade-long war were well-trained, experienced, hardened and determined. These radical Islamic fighters saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a Muslim victory, as it was the first victory a Muslim army had achieved against a non-Muslim force in centuries. After the war, these Islamic fighters were irate at America because it threw them away without any hint of gratitude.

The United States saw the war in Afghanistan differently. The war in Afghanistan was only a part in a larger plan that brought the Soviet Union down. America felt it also played the major role, providing the support and training needed for victory. Without the U.S. backing, the guerillas would have been completely annihilated by the Soviets. Because the U.S. ignored their allies and expected them to maintain some kind of bond with us after the war, a rift was created between the Jihadists and America.

In the same way, the first Bush administration mistakenly believed that the Arab countries would be happy with America for helping them free Kuwait and a bond would be created between us and the Arab states. President Bush expected gratitude; he never expected rage. It is clear that the United States was ignorant of the Islamic world and made some serious blunders that caused so much anger and hatred that laid the foundation for Al Qaeda.

While Shiite Muslims are a minority in the whole Arab world, they are the majority in the Gulf region, especially in Iran. The Saudis, by contrast, are not only Sunni, but they are Wahabi, the most radical of the Sunnis. So the Saudis saw the Shiites of Iran not only as a threat to their religion but also a threat to their oil fields. The problem for Saudi Arabia was how to contain Iran and the Soviets at the same time, and the answer was Iraq. Both nations wanted to contain Iran and the Soviets, so America felt is was the best policy to back them as well. Unwittingly, however, the U.S. ended up supporting the most radical form of Islam as a negative unintended consequence. And this radical Wahabi Islam has proved to be even more dangerous to the United States than Shiite Iran.

In order to bog down Iran, the United States sent signals to Iraq that it wouldn’t oppose them if they decided to attack Iran. The resulting war tied up both countries for a decade, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars on both sides. The United States kept shifting its policy towards Iraq to keep it destabilized and to prolong the war. The United States knew that Iraq could not beat Iran, and the Saudis gladly backed the war in order to keep both armies bogged down for nearly ten years.

American foreign policy has chosen to make alliances of necessity with evil states in order to oppose even more evil states. The U.S. made alliances with Stalin and Mao in order to counter worse leaders. America also tends to create solutions that solve the short-term problem at the risk of creating greater problems down the road.

Saddam Hussein wanted to take over Iran and Kuwait in order to become the dominant power in the region. The U.S. quietly assured him, with deniability, that if he won the war we would allow him to have Kuwait as well. Then for the next ten years the U.S. kept shifting the balance of power to make sure Iraq never accomplished its goal and achieved its prize. After ten years, Iraq was less exhausted than Iran, and Saddam declared victory and demanded his prize. The American Ambassador, unaware of the intricacies and policy shifts, assured Saddam Hussein that while the U.S. was opposed to his taking Iraq, they would do nothing to stop him. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. worked with the Saudis to launch Operation Desert Shield and then Desert Storm.

The soldiers returning to Saudi Arabia from Afghanistan were outraged by the presence of non-Muslim forces on holy soil. They believed that Muslim states were not naturally weak and could defend themselves if they were willing to sacrifice and persevere. But they also believed that the current Muslim leaders were corrupt and incapable of defending their countries. Therefore, they felt that America had to be humiliated in order to break the psychological dependency on the United States and to generate confidence among the Islamic masses.

These fighters knew America’s strengths, but they also knew its weaknesses. They knew how the American intelligence agencies worked and how they carried out covert operations. These returning fighters were not the poor and disposed, but many were from wealthy families, educated and some even had advanced degrees in secular fields. They also had financial backing from the Saudi royal family and other wealthy Saudis. The financial network that had supported the guerillas in Afghanistan had never been shut down and now it was being used to fund Al Qaeda long after America had lost interest in it.

They knew they needed to take a long time to prepare to strike hard at the United States in order to pull it into a full-scale war against the Islamic world. By doing this they hoped to discredit secular Islamic states in the region and to sap American strength. Through a series of increasing attacks on American targets, the Embassies in Africa, the barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, they hoped to illicit a hard response from America. Bill Clinton, however, didn’t want to seem impotent and make Al Qaeda look powerful, nor did he want to be drawn into a full-scale war, so he chose to respond in a half-hearted way.

The first mistake America made was to pull the plug on the resistance fighters in Afghanistan and not give them back their papers so they could return home. This was not solely America’s fault, since most of the governments didn’t want these fighters to come back and cause trouble at home. Stranded in a strange land, scarred by war, this band of about 1,000 soldiers united and became a fierce fighting force in the battles for supremacy after the war with the Soviets was won. Most ended up going back home, but the bond between them was strong. Being abandoned by the U.S. and rejected by their home governments was not only seen as a personal affront but as endemic of the malaise that shrouded all the Islamic governments in the Middle East. They viewed the outside threats to Islam, America and the Soviet Union, as manageable and insignificant compared to the inner threats of corrupt Islamic governments.

The first major incident leading up to the current situation goes way back to the Crusades and the loss of the Caliphate. At the height of its power, the Muslim Empire was actually larger than the Roman Empire. The goal of Al Qaeda was to take over one Islamic state in order to set an example and to establish a base of operations. Afghanistan became that base, with the Taliban running the internal affairs and Al Qaeda operating around the world. Al Qaeda hoped to sweep the Muslim world and establish fundamentalist governments throughout the Middle East, unifying the Islamic world and reestablishing the Caliphate.

The key element in their strategy was to show that America is weak and vulnerable in order to break the illusion of the super power’s dominance and remove the Muslim world’s fear and subservience. They felt that the United States lacked to power and moral character to assert its will in the long run. Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Beirut, Somalia, and failure to depose Saddam Hussein all seemed to demonstrate the fact that America could strike a hard first blow but could not sustain a prolonged conflict.

Al Qaede realized that it had to strike a blow to the United States that was enormous and for which there was no easy defense, in order to send a clear message to the Islamic masses. The plan was to draw the United States into a prolonged conflict with multiple Islamic states to solidify the Islamic world and to drain the U.S. military dry.

In a society with many unguarded targets, a small group with explosives is very difficult to stop. The fewer the operatives, the more difficult it is to find them. The nearly infinite number of targets and the sparsity of operatives is what makes defending against terrorism a nightmare. The physical damage caused by terrorists is minimal while the psychological damage is extraordinary, making it a powerful political tool.

Al Qaeda’s strategy and ideology were different, and it wasn’t trying to send a message to the United States but to the Islamic world. They saw the United States as an actor that could be manipulated into behaving as they wanted it to behave.

After the end of the Cold War, America didn’t have a major enemy that could threaten its security. Attention was focused on rogue states, such as North Korea, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and Cuba, and these were not allied together against the United States. The major threat was threat was that they might develop nuclear weapons. The secondary threat was that they might invade their neighbors. The third level of threat was that they might violate the human rights of their own citizens. All of these were considered containable and manageable through international organizations, such as the United Nations.

The way the United States responded to the small crises throughout the world was triggering unexpected responses in the Islamic world. While the United States saw itself as neutral, impartial and doing good, the Islamic world saw America encroaching on Islamic territory and siding with those who were against Muslims. The intervention by the United States in Kosovo and Somalia, for example, were considered by the Muslim world as struggles between America and Muslims. The United States failed to realize that there was no such thing as a neutral intervention. The United States also saw the fact that these nations were Islamic as incidental while the rest of the Muslim world saw it as fundamental. Al Qaeda used these incidents to mobilize support against Americal Confusion was also created when the United States declined to get involved in other conflicts, making it seem as if America had no coherent foreign policy in place.

The United States also wrongly assumed that nations would be willing to trade a little bit of their sovereignty in order to have stability and security. This was true for many countries, but it infuriated the Muslim nations. The great powers in Europe were also uneasy about America’s growing power and unpredictability, and many were hoping, and even helping, that America would trip and fall, in order to limit America’s power and make us easier to predict and control. After the Cold War ended, America saw the global economy as the most important issue and assumed everyone else did too. However, most nations, especially Islamic countries, viewed national autonomy as more important than prosperity and security. The United States thought that all countries would welcome transnational prosperity, but some Islamic countries were ready to resist, even to the death.

When Al Qaeda started its global terrorism operation, most analysts either ignored it or misunderstood it. They viewed Al Qaeda like any other Palestinian terrorist organization, with limited political goals and operations. The term “terrorist” tended to obscure the issue, since there are vast differences between different organizations as to their ideology and strategy. They didn’t understand how different Al Qaeda was from any other terrorist organization. Al Qaeda wasn’t interested in symbolic gestures and affecting local politics but had a much more complex ideology that drove its global strategy to implement their international political goals. While most other terrorist organizations were based on Arab ethnicity and were trained by the Soviets to further local political agendas, Al Qaeda was based on Islam and they had a global religious agenda that was based on centuries of Islamic history and tradition. By merely focusing on its attacks and not its ideology, the United States totally misunderstood what Al Qaeda was about.

While the United States didn’t create Al Qaeda, we created the atmosphere and climate for it to grow and flourish. When Bill Clinton responded in a half-hearted manner to the embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole, he unwittingly empowered and emboldened Al Qaeda.


This is a summary of the first few chapters of the book which I found extremely helpful in understanding these events. Friedman goes on to dissect the problems with the American intelligence system and why it missed 9/11. He then goes on to explain how America’s military had been stripped down after the Cold War and was totally unprepared for a major military conflict on the scale that was needed to confront Al Qaeda. Friedman’s detailed analysis of what was involved in the September 11 attacks is impressive and chilling, clearly showing that Al Qaeda is highly trained, extremely disciplined and very determined to destroy the United States. He then shows how it is impossible to defend against such attacks and explains why most of what is being done in response to 9/11 is worthless.

I thought Friedman’s detailed account of how the United States prepared for and implemented a major military offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in less than a month was amazing. While Al Qaeda knew we would attack, they expected a massive assault in the following spring, but Operation Enduring Freedom was totally unconventional and unexpected, catching Al Qaeda by surprise. He goes on to describe how America fought the war, the alliances that had to be made with former, and current, enemies, and the problems of working with nationalistic forces within Afghanistan.

The book goes on to cover the war in Iraq up to the end of July, 2004. Friedman concludes that the United States is winning the war. Al Qaeda has failed to achieve any of its strategic goals. There has been no uprising in the Islamic world, no regimes toppled. In fact, most Islamic governments have increased their cooperation with the United States. Al Qaeda has been backed against a wall. The game is far from over, but the U.S. certainly has the lead -- in spite of an extraordinary array of blunders, some inexplicable.


You can read chapter summaries and learn more about the book at: http://www.americassecretwar.com/index.html

Pulling out of Iraq

A letter sent between high level Al Qaeda leaders in July, 2005 clearly outlines their four step strategy in Iraq for establishing a Caliphate within the heart of the Islamic world:

First, expel the Americans from Iraq.

Second, establish a fundamentalist Islamic government in Iraq.

Third, extend the Jihad wave to the secular Islamic countries in the region.

Fourth, initiate a clash with Israel.

It is clear that even if we pull out of Iraq, it will not be the end of Jihadist activity. As long as they are able, they will carry on this war until they have unified the Muslim world under the control of a fundamentalist Caliph.

Al Qaeda has always had a long-term strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as for the whole region. Osama bin Laden is convinced that the American military, government and people are incapable of sustaining a long war and will quickly withdraw when it gets inconvenient. The current push to withdraw troops from Iraq within a year plays right into Al Qaeda’s hands. Those calling for the withdrawal are short-sighted and playing with America’s security in order to win political points for the upcoming election.


Check out this website for some excellent analysis of what is going on in the war on terror: http://www.stratfor.com/

Which Islam is the True Islam

In an excellent review of Lawrence Wright’s book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Stephen Prothero claims that Islam is not simply at war with the West but it as war with itself. Prothero traces the current political situation in radical Islam back to the Egyptian cleric Sayyid Qutb, executed in 1966, who began calling all Muslims who didn’t believe as he did as apostates and idol-worshippers. In this way, killing women and children became acceptable, and even mandatory, since the Qur’an calls for true Muslims to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them.”

Not only are Jews and Christians under this sentence of death, but all Muslims who do not hold to the radical view of Islam found in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other fundamentalist Islamic countries. While we might think that no true Muslim would fly an airplane into a skyscraper in order to kill thousands of innocent women and children, a radical Muslim would think that no true Muslim would refuse such an honor.


You can read this article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/070319.html

Preachers of Hate

Kenneth Timmerman is a journalist who has spent most of his life covering the news in the Middle East. In Preachers of Hate he traces the roots of anti-Semitism and how it is growing around the world, especially in the Middle East. He covers much of the same ground as other books I have read recently, but he uses a lot of primary source materials, interviews, and quotes to illustrate first-hand the hatred and racism of leaders and major figures not only in the Middle East but around the world.

One of the main sources of modern anti-Semitism is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fictional document published by the secret police in Russia around 1890 to 1900 to stir up hatred toward the Jews. The book pretends to be the minutes of secret meetings by Jewish leaders where they plot to take over the world. This document has been published in many languages and spread around the world. Even today, the lie that there is a worldwide conspiracy of Jews to take over the world is rampant in many countries.

Every fanatical Islamic radical is familiar with this document and they believe it is true. Islamic religious leaders use this work to indoctrinate young men and stir up in them a hatred for the Jews. Millions of copies are available in Arabic in every Arabic language bookstore around the world. It is one of the primary texts used to stir up animosity towards Israel and all Jews living around the world.

Another interesting fact is the alliance between Hitler and radical Islamists before and during World War II. Because of their mutual hatred of the Jews, an agreement was made to work together to eradicate the Jews from the earth. Prominent Nazi leaders had high level meetings with Arab leaders in order to facilitate the murder of millions of Jews not only in Europe, but throughout the Middle East during the war.

I also found the story behind how Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace prize in 1994. The prize was shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin in order to quell public outrage. How any of these men could be considered candidates for a peace prize is beyond belief, especially Arafat. Yasser Arafat was adept at manipulating public opinion, mainly by promoting peace in English to the Western press and then turning around in Arabic and promoting the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. If his statements in English were taken at face value without any consideration of his actions or true beliefs, it might be possible for him to be seen as a peacemaker. However, his actions and undeniable public statements leave no doubt that he had no intention of making peace with Israel. Instead, he worked tirelessly for Israel’s destruction and would settle for nothing less than complete annihilation of the Jews.

Here are some quotes from the book that clearly illustrate this point.


Here is a quote that clearly shows the message Arafat publicly declared he wanted to send to Palestinian children:

In an interview with Arafat broadcast on TV he was asked what message he wanted to share with the Palestinian children he quickly replied, “A Child who is grasping a stone, facing a tank, is it not the greatest message to the world when that child becomes a martyr. We are proud of him. Such a child will be given a new life.”

In addition to this, children are taught how to achieve martyrdom. One of the main roles of religious clerics is to educate young children in the art of suicide bombing. In Palestine, religious leaders are not men called by God but appointed by Arafat. They have no interest in religious education unless it is useful for stirring up hatred for the Jews. They are commanded to preach Jihad against Israel or be damned as the very word of God. This is a direct call to murder Jews for no other reason than hate. Killing Jews is not a political need but a religious requirement, and it is not an order from Arafat but the word of God Himself.

This is the message that has been pounded into them at the mosques week after week, year after year; if they want to be good Muslims they have to kill Jews. This is an important lesson we in the west have to heed. The enmity being preached against America and the West has nothing to do with politics or support for Israel but the simple fact that we are not Muslims.

Arafat’s top appointed cleric in Gaza preached: “The Jews are the allies of the Americans and the Americans are the allies of the Jews, and they are against you, Oh Muslims. Wherever you are, kill the Jews and those Americans who are like them and those who stand by them. They are all in one trench against the Arabs and the Muslims.


At the end of a video for children urging them to become martyrs, the official seal of the Palestinian Authority comes on at the end with a written message in Arabic and English: “Ask for death; the life will be given to you.”

Timmerman points out that not even Hitler’s youth were urged to commit suicide; they were taught to kill, not be killed. This is the ultimate in child abuse. That young children are being indoctrinated to hate Israel and the West and commit suicide in order to murder them still hasn’t been fully understood by the West.


Another important distinction to be made is that the present political conflict in Israel today is not the cause of the hatred of the Jews. Rather, it is the hatred of the Jews that is causing all the violence in the Middle East. It is not a matter of Israel’s political policies or defensive measures. No matter what Israel does, the only solution for the radical Muslim extremists is the total annihilation of Israel and the death of all Jews.

What Arafat and other Muslim leaders have done is take a minor border conflict in Palestine and have transformed it into a global conflict between Islam and non-Muslims, an eternal battle between Good and Evil. The Muslims have taken the position of no peace, no accommodation, no compromise, no coexistence. Muslims are being taught that the conflict between Muslims and Jews is total and eternal, and it will end only when the Muslims have murdered the last Jew hiding behind a tree or a stone.


Timmerman also gives some important information on Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Saudi support of global terrorism through the takeover of mosques around the world by radical Wahhabi teachers.

Osama bin Laden boasted about his terrorist training camps, saying that “the only expense for a new trainee is the cost of travel to the camp. Everything else is paid for by Al Qaeda. We are building an international army, Mohammed’s army, to combat occupying governments. There are 26 million Muslims in Europe, and in the United Kingdom we have over 385 Islamic fundamentalist organizations, 1,200 mosques, and 800 fundraising organizations. We form a fifth column and we will create chaos. We won’t stop until we see the Muslim flag flying over Number 10 Downing Street.”

According to CIA former head George Tenet, “Al Qaeda’s terrorist network is present in over 60 countries. An estimated 20,000 men have received military and intelligence training in their camps before returning to their home countries. They form the backbone of a deadly worldwide Jihad.”

Hatred’s Kingdom

Written by Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.

Wahhabism has been the major influence on global terrorism. It started in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1700’s and evolved into the leading religious influence in the Kingdom. It struck a deal with the Saud family, and they government and the clerics have had a symbiotic relationship ever since. Wahhabi schools and mosques are funded by the government and their teachings are authorized by ruling family. The government of Saudi Arabia sends and supports Wahhabi teachers throughout the world, including in the US. In the 1980’s Wahhabism became even more radical and began teaching that Christians are polytheists, therefore must be killed. Clerics preach that Muslims must destroy the idols of the West: Capitalism, Freedom, Secularism, Crusaderism. They even changed their doctrine to teach that the women and children of polytheists must be killed. This teaching is the religious foundation for Osama bin Laden and his global terrorism crusade.

Osama bin Laden was raised in Saudi schools filled with anti-American hatred and went to a Saudi university run by Wahhabis. He was personally trained by a leading Wahhabi teacher. Bin Laden spoke in support of Wahhabi teachings and clearly indicated that he was religiously motivated to attack the West, especially America. He was also funded by Saudi Arabi through charities. When he went to Afghanistan h took over the resistance to USSR. After the war, Afghanistan became his base for Al Queda.

Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia was the major supporter of the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were also supported by the Saudi government. The Taliban was radically transformed by Wahhabi doctrine after bin Laden took over. Before the 1980’s the Taliban was a moderate Islamic government but it was transformed into one of the most extreme and repressive governments within a decade by bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia is the most rigid fundamentalist Islamic nation in the world. Wahhabi clerics constantly preach hatred of any US presence, corporate and military, on Saudi soil. They want to cleanse holy nation of all corruption and corrupting influences, and view terrorism as a legitimate means to accomplish this end. These extremists want to spread this cleansing to other secular Islamic nations. They hate secular Islamic states, such as Jordan, because they see this as a corruption of Islam. And through terrorism, they want to spread this cleansing to the whole world

Many Russian states were influenced by Wahhabi teaching. There are 20 million Muslims in Russia. 21 of Russia’s states have a majority Muslim population. One of Russia’s most difficult problems is dealing with extremist Islamic groups within these states and Russia itself. Saudi clerics praised both Hamas bombings and Chechnya bombings by Islamic radicals. The destruction of the Soviet Union was a primary goal of Saudi clerics.

Many Saudi fighters in Afghanistan went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, taking their Wahhabi teachings with them. These Saudi fighters were brutal, more inhumane than the Bosnian Muslims, beheading Serbs and dismembering them. They also brought their Wahhabi teaching to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia raised $100 million dollars to support Islamic fundamentalist fighters in Bosnia. The Wahhabi Saudi Muslims sought to cleanse Bosnian Muslims and turn them into fanatics like themselves.

Since 1960 Wahhabi Islam has been taught in the US. Half of the mosques in the US were built by Saudi money. Al Qaeda recruited through these US mosques. Terrorism, martyrdom, and hatred for the West, Christians, and Jews is taught in these US mosques. Radical Islam in South East Asia has also been supported by Saudi Arabia in the same way.

Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars to Iraq to support its war against Iran. Saudi Arabia was more afraid of Iran than Iraq, though both posed a great threat to its security. Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 it was clear that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia next. Yet, in the 1980’s revolutionary Iran was a greater threat to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia agreed to US troops on its soil in order to protect it from Iraq. The first Gulf War was fought not only to free Kuwait but to protect Saudi Arabia. Yet most Saudis were angry that US troops were allowed on its holy soil. The government had to face a huge political and religious backlash even after the majority of the US troops left. The fact that some US troops were left in Saudi Arabia caused tremendous turmoil in the nation. Many Islamic clerics claimed that the real threat to Saudi Arabia was the US, not Iraq. The US Air Force used Saudi air bases to patrol the no-fly zones in Iraq which had been set up to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. When President Clinton asked for permission to base more troops in Saudi Arabia, he was firmly denied. The religious and political climate had changed since the first Gulf War so much that it was impossible for the Saudi government to allow more US troops on its soil. At this time there was a great outcry to drive the US out of the Gulf region, especially Saudi Arabia.

It was in this climate that Osama bin Laden became increasingly irate over the US presence in Saudi Arabia. He had even offered the use of his Afghan rebels to protect the Kingdom in place of the US military before the first Gulf War. During the 1990’s bin Laden formed an alliance with the leader of Hezbollah, which was responsible for the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Bin Laden moved to Sudan and began his anti-American operations. In 1993 he took his terrorism to the West by bombing the World Trade Center. Because he spoke out harshly against the Saudi government and its compromises with the West, his Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994. He decried the governments poor defense strategy, its wasting of oil revenue and the use of foreign troops to protect the Kingdom. In 1995 he planned the bombing of the Saudi National Guard barracks, killing 7 Americans.

Bin Laden’s concern was not with Israel per se, but only with the fact that the West backed Israel. His primary concern was the presence of US troops on Saudi soil. The Islamic extremists claimed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union through their victory in Afghanistan and warned that the United States was next.

In 1996, bin Laden bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans, 1 Saudi, and wounding 372 others. The Saudi government blocked the FBI from conduction a thorough investigation because they were afraid they would discover evidence linking leading governmet and royal family members to terrorist organizations within Saudi Arabia. Saudi Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing, and many of its members were Saudi citizens supported by the government.

In 1999 bin Laden made his declaration of war against the West. In addition, he ceased all terrorist activity within Saudi Arabia after making a deal with the government. He also called on all Muslims to stop fighting each other and unite against the West. He then took his terrorist campaign to Africa, Yemen, and then to the US.

In 1995 the Saudi government began to make regular payments to Osama bin Laden. Two Saudi princes also began to support him regularly. The Saudi government clearly supported terrorism, and made a deal with bin Laden to keep his attacks outside of the Kingdom, even if it meant attacking the US directly. In 1998 bin Laden bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, using Saudi citizens to carry out the attacks. On October 12, 2000 the attack on the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors and wounding hundreds of others, was carried out by Saudi citizens using a rubber boat owned by a prominent Saudi businessman. A wealthy Saudi merchant family gave the financial support for the bombing.

Before the second Gulf War, Al Qaeda had a formidable presence in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used Saudi Arabia as a base to launch terrorist attacks with full knowledge of the government. 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. Most of them had never fought in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but were trained in Saudi Arabia.

There was a distinctive shift in Wahhabi teaching starting in the 1980’s. Saudi Clerics began teaching and preaching that Americans, Christians and Jews should be killed and wiped off the face of the earth. This was also taught in the schools and universities. Saudi textbooks for grade school and high school students were filled with hate-filled invective against the West. For twenty years a whole generation was brainwashed with hatred and murder. In this atmosphere of hate it was easy to recruit young men to become terrorists and suicide bombers.

In the 1980’s Saudi Arabia became a haven for radical extremists who had been kicked out of their own countries. These radical Islamists became teachers in Saudi schools and universities. The Muslim Brotherhood was supported by the Saudi government and when its members fled Egypt, Saudi Arabia welcomed them with open arms. Along with Saudi Wahhabi clerics, these extremists formed the backbone of all Saudi education. Every child educated in Saudi Arabia was force-fed radical Islam, hatred for the West, and the necessity of Jihad against America.

Saudi Arabia publicly spoke out against terrorism, yet they poured billions of dollars into these schools and terrorist organizations. Immediately after 9/11 the Saudi government flatly denied that any Saudi citizens had been involved in the attacks. It wasn’t until the evidence was undeniable that they changed their position to saying that the attackers were fringe elements. While telling the world that they regretted the attacks on the US, internally they praised the attacks and called for more. In fact, it took the Saudi two weeks before severing ties with the Taliban and two months before moving to freeze bin Laden’s assets.

After the 9/11 attacks, Saudi Arabia spent tens of millions of dollars on an extensive public relations campaign in the US to convince Americans that Saudi Arabia was a friend of the US. But at the same time, internally they were praising the attacks and even supporting the Palestinian Intifada. The Saudi government gave money to the families of the suicide bombers in Israel, giving more incentive for young Palestinians to blow themselves up. In a poll taken of Saudi men between 25 and 41, 97% supported Osama bin Laden and his cause. After 9/11 the political and religious situation in Saudi Arabia has not changed. The Saudi government has been working hard to convince the world that it stands for peace while at the same time funding terrorism all around the world.

Much of the support for terrorist groups comes from Islamic charities. While these charities do some humanitarian good, most of the money is funneled to extremist groups. The heads of these charities are Saudi government officials and royal family members. Several are official branches of the Saudi government. Any claim of the Saudi government that they don’t know where the money is going is clearly false. In fact, documents seized in raids on terrorist organizations have produced spreadsheets with Saudi government logos clearly listing all the funding given to terrorists, families of suicide bombers, and weapons and bomb materials.

Saudi Arabia talked about peace in Palestine while supporting suicide bombers. Now they are talking about peace around the world while still supporting global terrorist organizations. Saudi schools and mosques around the world still preach hatred and murder, and these schools and mosques are built and supported by Saudi government funds. It will take more than a war in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring an end to global terrorism. These are merely the outward manifestations of an internal problem. Until the culture of hatred is changed and the teaching of murder is stopped, global terrorism will be a problem. Terrorism is no longer local in scope and limited in its focus, but it has become international in its scope and catastrophic in its effects. It no longer is used to achieve limited political objectives but is bent on total destruction of its opponents. The terrorists will not rest until the West is destroyed, Israel wiped off the map and Christians either subjected to radical Islam or killed. America’s war on terror has overlooked the source of terrorism, the ideology and religious ideas that drive terrorism. It is deeply ingrained hatred that motivates terrorism, not economic or political injustices. The problem is not Islam but Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Islam. Without the support of the Saudi government and the funds generated by oil revenue, Wahhabism would have remained a small lunatic fringe group. Wahhabism developed an anti-Western hatred system and the Saudi government provided the vehicle to deliver that hatred to the rest of the world. The key is to stop the state funding of terrorism and get governments to bring an end to hate-filled teaching through international agreements.

Other books I have read that give additional information and different perspectives on this issue are:

Sleeping with the Devil, by Robert Baer, former senior CIA operative in the Middle East.

Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, by Richard Minitar.

Inside the Kingdom, by Carmen bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law, gives a personal description of what living under the oppressive Saudi regime is like, as well as the inside story of Osama bin Laden’s rise to power.

Terrorist, by John Updike, is a fascinating novel by a great author, giving the personal story of a young Muslim man growing up in America and his pursuit of radical Islam.

My FBI, by Louis J. Freeh, former head of the FBI, has a great personal description of how the FBI had to fight with the Saudi government to investigate the Khobar tower bombing.