Never Forget . . . Never Forgive

Video compliments of KG at Crusader Rabbit

It has been seven years since a terrorist attack on our soil that took the lives of 2,998 civilians. Osama bin Laden justified this cowardly attack on the dogma of Salafi Islam. Bin Laden believed, based on his understanding of the history of the United States from days of Vietnam though the Clinton years, that any U.S. response to these attacks would be ineffectual. He expected the U.S. to exact retribution against Muslim Americans, inflaming Muslim sentiments world-wide. He could not have been more wrong on both points.

Seven years later, bin Laden and his second in command, Zawahiri, preside over a greatly weakened movement from their foxholes dug in the backwaters of Pakistan. They were driven from Afghanistan before 2001 drew to a close. They tried to ignite civil war in Iraq and drive America from that country. They would have won had those in our country who placed partisan interests over national security had their way. They did not - but we should not forget who these people were, nor forgive their perfidy.

Thanks to George Bush, American soldiers were given a new mission. Well led, they executed with a precision that should make all Americans proud and all of our enemies shudder. Al Qaeda's dreams of a caliphate suffered fatal blows in Iraq when they were decimated by our soldiers in the "surge" and rejected by the very Sunni Muslims they hoped to rule. The ramifications of the performance of our soldiers, the failure of Allah to grant al Qaeda victory over the infidel, and the rejection of al Qaeda by the Sunnis in Iraq have been and will continue to be far reaching.

Al Qaeda is down but not dead. They still hold on in the hinterlands of Pakistan and are weaved into the incredibly troubled politics of that country. They still seek to carry out attacks on the west and they still seek WMD. Should we act foolishly in the Middle East, al Qaeda can arise again. They must not be allowed that opportunity.

We must never forget al Qaeda's cowardly attack upon defenseless civilians. We must never forget that their goal is the destruction of our society. We must never forget that their goal is to impose their 7th Century version of Islam upon each and every person on this earth. We must never forget that they have no moral restraints. We must never forgive them for their brutal attacks and the massive death and mayhem they have wrought. We must not rest until the scourge of radical Islam is destroyed in all its facets.

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The Decline Of The Al Qaeda Brand

The New Republic (TNR) has published an article, "The Unraveling," on the decline of jihadism and the pushback within the jihadi community against the type of indiscriminate and extreme violence regularly practiced by al Qaeda. The decline is well documented, as well as the changing attitudes towards al Qaeda in the Muslim world. The TNR authors do a good job of documenting the tactical differences within the jihadi community. Unfortunately, the authors misdiagnose both the cause of radical Islam and the reason for the pushback against the violence. The TNR article is also of note for the facts it raises about al Qaeda’s pre-9/11 belief in America’s weakness and how that played into the decision to attack the U.S.

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You can find the TNR article here. It traces the growth of resistance to al Qaeda from within the jihadi community and is well worth the read.

Unfortunately, the resistance the author’s document to al Qaeda and its brand of indiscriminate violent jihad comes not from the type of rethinking of values that might lead to a true revolution within Islam. Rather, it is largely rooted in abhorrence of the indiscriminate violence that seems most directed at innocent Muslims. This is important, but it is at best a small step towards lessening the fundamental problems presented by radical Islam. For every radical who turns away from al Qaeda today, there are tens of thousands of children around the world being trained in a Saudi Salafi / Wahhabi curricula that has among its explicitly stated goals "to prepare students physically and mentally for jihad for the sake of Allah." Another stated goal of the curricula is "to arouse the spirit of Islamic jihad in order to fight our enemies, to restore our rights and our glory, and to fulfill the mission of Islam." In other words, the wheels of the jihadi factory are turning on a daily basis around the world in Saudi funded schools and mosques. The TNR authors completely miss this.

The authors don't seem to fully grasp that there are two prerequisites to ending Islamic radicalism. One is that Wahhabi / Salafi Islam must be engaged and either moved into a process of moderation through ijtihad or be de-legitimized. Wahhabi / Salafi Islam is a brutally repressive strain of Islam originating out of Arabia. It presents a very rigid, utopian view of Islam based on the millenium old teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah as embraced and interpreted by Ibn Wahhab in the 18th century. It is a strain of Islam that has only gained ascendancy in the Muslim world in the past 50 years on the back of the Saudi oil wealth.

Rather than identify terrorism with the dogma of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam, the TNR authors blame a particular doctrine as being at the heart of radical Islam’s problems:

Why have clerics and militants once considered allies by Al Qaeda's leaders turned against them? To a large extent, it is because Al Qaeda and its affiliates have increasingly adopted the doctrine of takfir, by which they claim the right to decide who is a "true" Muslim. Al Qaeda's Muslim critics know what results from this takfiri view: First, the radicals deem some Muslims apostates; after that, the radicals start killing them. . . .

The authors completely misperceive this. The doctrine of takfir has always been at the very heart of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam. It was the religious justification the Saud clan used to massacre their way to power within the past century. It is not innovation by al Qaeda. To the contrary:

The radical medieval Islamic scholar . . . Ibn Taymiyyah established a precedent for the declaration of takfir . . . The 18th Century Islamic Revivalist Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab referred back to Ibn Taymiyyah in constructing an interpretation of Islam that allowed him to fight his fellow Muslims. He condemned many mainstream Muslim traditions (such as Sufism) as bid'a (innovation of the religion) and his followers slew many Muslims for allegedly kufr practises. . . .

Read the entire article. The problem is the sect of Wahhabi Salafi Islam – and as several insightful commentors have noted before, it is not that bin Laden has bastardized Wahhabi Salafi Islam, it is that bin Laden has fully effectuated its teachings. Winston Churchill, who spent many years in Middle East, described Salafi / Wahhabi Islam as "a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relationship to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of [Europe's] religious wars." You can find a list of some of the more radical aspects of Wahhabi / Salafi Islam here, and you can read former Salafi terrorist Tawfiq Hamid’s missive about the incredible dangers posed by Salafi / Wahhabi Islam here.

So long as Wahhabi / Salafi Islam remains in its current form and the practitioners of that sect continue to be supported by vast oil wealth of the Middle East, we will not see an end to radical Islam. And indeed, Islamic terrorism, while it may recede in the interim, will always be a threat. It is one that will increase exponentially should the Middle Eastern countries – and in particular Saudi Arabia – join the club of nuclear armed nations. That is a distinct possibility as Saudi Arabia, along with most countries in the Middle East, are looking to develop nuclear capability in response to Iran.

Which brings us to the second prerequisite if we are to see the end of radical Islam. There must be a moderating or de-legitimization of the Khomeinist Shia variant of radical Islam practiced in Iran. It is every bit as radical, expansionist and triumphalist as Wahhabi / Salafi Islam and, indeed, Khomeini appears to have been directly effect by Wahhabism in the development of his own philosophy, the velyat e faqi. It is a philosophy that broke with over a millenium of Shia apolitical tradition to require theocratic rule and that seeks the expansion of its revolution throughout the Middle East and the larger world.

Another aspect of the TNR article is quite troubling. At one point, the authors describe the severe problem that Britain has as the West’s home with radical Islamists:

. . . It is in Britain that many leaders of the jihadist movement have settled as political refugees, and "Londonistan" has long been a key barometer of future Islamist trends. There are probably more supporters of Al Qaeda in Britain than any other Western country, and, because most British Muslims are of Pakistani origin, British militants easily can obtain terrorist training in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Al Qaeda's main operational hub since September 11. And now, because it is difficult for Al Qaeda to send Middle Eastern passport holders to the United States, the organization has particularly targeted radicalized Muslims in Britain for recruitment. . . .

The authors go on to note that the British government has allied with organizations that are off-shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood to combat violent jihadism in Britain. The authors portray the Brotherhood as a type of moderate organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, relying on the Brotherhood to stop radical Islam is akin to making a deal with the devil to fight evil. The difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda is purely one of tactics.

The Muslim Brotherhood eschews the indiscriminate violence of al Qaeda, but it seeks to subvert the freedoms of the West and to achieve precisely the same goals of Islamic dominance – and it too is founded in the Wahhabi / Salafi ideology. It is neither non-violent nor non-radical. Indeed, yesterday, the head of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was on television praising bin Laden. The motto of the organization should be a hint: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Fjordman has done an extensive essay on the Muslim Brotherhood and the dangers it poses to the West that I posted here. If Britain is looking to the Brotherhood as its ally against radical Islam, it is in even deeper trouble than I have articulated in previous posts, such as here.

Lastly, the article brings up a fact well worth remembering, particularly by those on the left who are wedded to declaring Iraq a defeat and withdrawing from that country while simultaneously undertaking direct talks with Iran. The TNR article opens with discussion of a meeting held by al Qaeda in 2000 as bin Laden sought to enlist other terror organizations under his banner:

Within a few minutes of Noman Benotman's arrival at the Kandahar guest house, Osama bin Laden came to welcome him. . . . It was the summer of 2000, and Benotman, then a leader of a group trying to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, had been invited by bin Laden to a conference of jihadists from around the Arab world, . . .

. . . Benotman also told bin Laden that the Al Qaeda leader's decision to target the United States would only sabotage attempts by groups like Benotman's to overthrow the secular dictatorships in the Arab world. "We made a clear-cut request for him to stop his campaign against the United States because it was going to lead to nowhere," Benotman recalls, "but they laughed when I told them that America would attack the whole region if they launched another attack against it." . . .

The important point here is that we were attacked in large part because bin Laden and his associates did not fear us. They believed the West was weak and would not respond forcefully. The starting point for that belief was our legislated defeat in Vietnam – a point repeatedly raised over the years by Ayman al Zawahiri in his speeches. It was a view further strengthened when al Qaeda attacked the West and America at the margins throughout the 1990's. The U.S. response to each provocation was seen by the jihadis as weak and ineffectual. Remember the Khobar Towers bombing, the bombing of our embassies in Africa, Blackhawk Down and the bombing of the USS Cole. The 9-11 attacks were simply the natural evolution of the jihadi paradigm. That should be an abject lesson in why pulling out of Iraq at this point would be suicidal folly. It would only reinforce the same beliefs that led to the 9-11 attacks.

This is an important point as to Iran also. A motto of the leader of Iran’s revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, was that the "U.S. can’t do a damned thing." He was utterly convinced of the impotence of the West, and it is a central theme within the Iranian theocracy to this day. The theocrats in Iran do not believe the West has the stomach to challenge them, and they are acting accordingly. They have regularly attacked U.S. interests in the Middle East and are doing so now in a proxy war in Iraq. They do not believe the West will do anything to stop them as they move forwards towards a nuclear arsenal, dominate Lebanon, attack Israel through Hamas, and wreak bloodshed and havoc throughout the Middle East. We have no chance of engaging Iran and making them alter their murderous ways until they come to believe that we are not impotent and we are quite willing to pull the trigger. It is why Obama’s utopian strategy to eschew the stick and engage Iran in presidential talks is the height of folly.

While this is an informative article by TNR, to the extent that it gives the impression that our problems with radical Islam are ameliorating within the Jihadi community, it is only partly correct - and only a small part at that.

(H/T The Belmont Club)

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Iraq News You Won't Hear From The MSM

U.S. and Iraqi forces are succeeding decisively in Iraq, against both al Qaeda and Iran's proxies. As to al Qaeda, the scale of their defeat was sufficient by November of last year to move Osama bin Laden to sound the call of defeat, stating "the darkness [in Iraq] is pitch black." Al Qaeda is now fighting and losing in its last stronghold of Mosul, where the Iraqi Army is leading the charge against them in Operation Lion's Roar. And from an al Qaeda website comes evidence in hard numbers of just how crushing their defeat in Iraq has become.
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This update from Long War Journal on Operation Lion's Roar from Mosul:

With the Mahdi Army subdued in Basra and a cease-fire under way with the Sadrist movement in Sadr City in Baghdad, the focus of the Iraqi government has shifted to the northern city of Mosul, where al Qaeda maintains its last urban stronghold. On May 10, the Iraqi security forces launched Operation Lion's Roar in an effort to roll back al Qaeda and allied Sunni insurgent groups.

Al Qaeda in Iraq's last major ratline into Syria spans westward from Mosul into Tal Afar and the crossing point at Sinjar. The terror group is waging a brutal campaign to prevent the Iraqi Army and US forces from securing the province and to keep their supply lines to Syria open.

The Iraqi security forces started the operation by declaring a curfew in the province and conducting operations to round up wanted terrorists. In the six days since the operation began, Iraqi forces detained 1,068 suspects, according to General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of the Ninewa Operational Command.

Of those captured, "just under 200" Tier 1 and Tier 2 al Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq operatives have been detained, said Major General Mark Hertling, the commander of Multinational Division North said during a briefing on May 15.

"There have been some very big fishes caught," Hertling said. Tier 1 operatives are operational leaders. Tier 2 operatives are foreign fighters or weapons facilitators, bomb makers, and cell leaders.

US and Iraqi forces have killed or captured several key al Qaeda leaders in Mosul over the past several months. Fourteen of the top 30 al Qaeda operatives who have been killed or captured in the past three months were al Qaeda leaders in Mosul, including three al Qaeda leaders from Saudi Arabia.

The release of captive terrorists and insurgents has been a problem in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq. US military officers have complained that the Iraqi courts are ill-equipped to deal with captured suspects, as judges are bribed or intimidated to released detainees known to have conducted attacks. Or some judges are corrupt. "The bad judges here make it difficult to keep them in," Lieutenant Colonel Eric Price, the leader of the 8th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division’s Military Transition Team told The Long War Journal. Only 57 detainees have been released in Mosul since the operation began.

To counter the problems with the courts, the Ninewa Operational Command has established a special court. "Detainees will go from brigade to division and then to the NOC [Ninewa Operational Command] instead of the Iraqi Police (the usual route)," Price said. "Maybe, that will make the difference here."

The Iraqi government is also providing an opportunity for members of the insurgency to lay down their weapons. "We have decided to grant clemency to members of armed groups in return for handing over their medium and heavy weapons to the security agencies or tribal chiefs in their areas within a period of 10 days," said Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. The prime minister flew to Mosul on May 14 to personally direct operations in the northern city.

Read the entire post. And this from Iraqi blogger, Talisman Gate:

A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year and half ago Al-Qaeda accounted for 60 percent of all jihadist activity!

The author, writing under the pseudonym ‘Dir’a limen wehhed’ [‘A Shield for the Monotheist’], posted his ‘Brief Study on the Consequences of the Division [Among] the [Jihadist] Groups on the Cause of Jihad in Iraq’ on May 12 and it is being displayed by the administration of the Al-Ekhlaas website—one of Al-Qaeda’s chief media outlets—among its more prominent recent posts. He's considered one of Al-Ekhlaas's "esteemed" writers.

The author tallies up and compares the numbers of operations claimed by each insurgent group under four categories: a year and half ago (November 2006), a year ago (May 2007), six months ago (November 2007) and now (May 2008). He demonstrated that while Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq could claim 334 operations in Nov. 06 and 292 in May 07, their violent output dropped to 25 in Nov. 07 and 16 so far in May 08. Keep in mind that these assessments are based on Al-Qaeda's own numbers.

The author also shows that similar steep drops were exhibited by other jihadist groups, and he neatly puts it all together in these two charts:

Read the entire post. Unbelievable, is it not, that Obama or anyone who calls themself an American can pine for a defeat in Iraq and promise to toss away the amazing success we have had there.

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NYT Struggles Under The Weight Of Carrying Obama's Water

Hillary’s near 10 point win in Pennsylvania means that the contest goes on and Obama will be unable to duck the many legitimate questions about his character, his judgment, and his weaknesses in numerous areas, particularly national security. All of this has the NYT editorial board quite upset as they see an Obama nomination on the horizon and the potential for disaster in November.


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The NYT, with its editorial today, "The Low Road to Victory," has clearly decided that Obama is going to win the Democratic nomination. Their editorial is written to two audiences, Hillary and the rest of America that is not part of the far left of the Dem base. The NYT wants Hillary to stop any criticism of Obama and, in particular, does not want Hillary to legitimize criticism of Obama on national security issues. In a larger context, the NYT is trying to frame the boundaries of all future political debate so as to place any question of Obama's character or judgment out of bounds and to delegitimize any criticism of him on the issues of national security and terrorism.

The NYT begins their editorial by calling the result of yesterday’s primary in Pennsylvania an “inconclusive result.” While there are many ways to assess yesterday’s primary, “inconclusive” is not among them. The NYT's canard of calling the results inconclusive is necessary for them to then be able to claim that Obama's glaring weaknesses are unimportant to voters and should not be part of the political debate.

Hillary’s near ten point drubbing of Obama saw her perform exceptionally well, and Obama perform poorly, in all of the demographics the Dems will need to capture in order to win the general election. Rick Moran, writing at PJM, dissects the results and discusses why the Keystone primary should have Dems very worried about selecting Obama as their candidate for president. The NYT eventually articulates its real premise, that Hillary’s “negativity” will harm “her opponent, her party, and the 2008 election.”

The NYT is so upset because Obama doesn't just have feet of clay, he's clay from the vocal cords down. I did not hear one cheap shot from Hillary in the run up to yesterday's primary. To the contrary, all Hillary did was highlight Obama's self-inflicted, perhaps mortal wounds. What the NYT wants her to do is adopt the far left position that those wounds are meaningless and beyond mention. The NYT wants to establish as a threshold that shining a light on these gaping holes in the Obama narrative - from Rev. Wright to Bittergate - constitutes "unfair attacks." Moreover, the NYT is horrified that Hillary has committed the unforgivable sin of deviating from the far left dogma laid down by the Soros/Kos crowd – that any serious discussion of national security issues is not to be tolerated.

The far left of the Democratic wing, in ascendance ever since the ideological purification of the party in 2006, want a national security policy that reflects their belief that America, its war on terror and its capitalist economy are the primary sources of evil in the world. They have adopted the canard that terrorism is fundamentally a figment of the conservative imagination and its mention a mere tool in the conservative bag of dirty tricks. Thus any criticism of the far left's policies on Iraq, Iran, 9-11 and the war on terror - all embodied in the utterances of Obama - is beyond the bounds of reasonable discourse and is to be labled illegitimate pandering to the “politics of fear.” They have no desire to debate these issues, only to label them and lock them away.

Hillary not only criticized Obama for his self-inflicted wounds on the eve of the Democratic primary in the Keystone state, she also took him to task on the issue of national security and terrorism. The ad, a variant on the 3 a.m. ad that worked in Texas, was designed to highlight the fact that Obama’s performance under pressure was very poor and, in the process, it mentioned 9-11. Thus the NYT apoplexy.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Obama is the weaker of the Democratic nominees in terms of foreign policy and national security. Clinton has always remained relatively quiet on this point and, in occasional bouts of mindnumbing stupidity, tried to get to the left of Obama as a means of currying favor with the far left – almost all of whom are now fully in Obama’s camp anyway. With nothing to lose, Clinton has decided to expound upon the national security theme. The problem of course is, however much Hillary tries to morph from ardent dove into Atilla the Hen, she has zero chance of winning on the national security issue against McCain. And to the horror of the NYT editorial board, she will likely only legitimize questions of Obama’s national security weakness for the general election.

At any rate, this editorial by the NYT is a forlorn cry to Hillary just let the inevitable occur without, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, raging against the dying of her electoral light. It is written carefully in the far left venacular to insure that all who read it will know that any attacks on Obama’s character or his national security credentials are illegitimate and mere dirty politics. I think we should leave the combined Clinton and conserative response to the NYT editorial board to our current leader of the Republican Party, President Bush:

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Zawahiri Calls Iraq Al Qaeda's Main Effort

Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al Zawahiri, recently issued an audio tape that has now been translated and posted at Iraq Status Report. The speech is notable for several things, among them:

- clearly identifying Iraq as al Qaeda's main effort

- displaying an utter hatred of the Awakening Council phenomena - a diatribe that gives truth to just how threatening this movement is to al Qaeda

- an astute analysis of Iran's goals and the likely effect of a "democrat" attempt to negotiate with Iran.

- a scathing critique of the unstable Sadr

- a call to use mosques and the halls of academia to foment jihad and pursue the radical Islamist goals - which, in fact, seems to be happening in the West.
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This translation of Zawahiri's speech from Iraq Status Report:

. . . As for the status of the US invasion of Iraq today and after five years, it is, with God's grace, failure and defeat. [General David] Petraeus went to Congress to request the postponement of the date of the US additional forces' withdrawal by six weeks after the set date of next July, and Bush announced that he will grant Petraeus all the time he needs. A ridiculous farce to cover up the failure in Iraq and to help Bush dodge the decision to withdraw forces, which is considered a declaration of the Crusader invasion of Iraq defeat by transferring the problem to the new president. So where are the Awakening Councils, which Petraeus announced six months ago that they will achieve victory in Iraq? Were not these Awakening Councils supposed to expedite the date of the US forces' withdrawal? Or are they in need of someone to defend and protect them? Bush's administration is deceiving its people so as not to acknowledge failure in Iraq and Afghanistan? Let the soldiers of this Administration go to hell. Petraeus and Bush are trying to convince the Americans that their salvation will begin six weeks from next July. In fact even if Bush keeps all his forces in Iraq until doomsday and until they go to hell, they will face only defeat and incur loss, God willing.

"The impasse in Iraq and Afghanistan is simply that if the US forces withdraw they will lose everything, and if they stay on they will be bleeding to death. This is what Bush has chosen for his army and his people, who elected him twice. Today he is evading this impasse and procrastinating on making a decision to escape from this deadlock.

"As for the Democrats, they are trying to deceive their people by claiming that they will withdraw their forces from Iraq by reaching an understanding with Iran in order to concentrate on Al-Qa'ida and Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Iran's aims are clear; namely, annexing southern Iraq and the eastern part of Al-Jazirah [area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers] and expanding to establish contacts with its followers in southern Lebanon. If an understating is reached with Iran based on meeting all or some of its aims in exchange for overlooking the US hegemony over the region, this understanding will add fuel to the already flaming fire, will bring the situation to a head in this already explosive region, and will cause an ever increasing Islamic awakening. This awakening will be engendered by the US-Iranian collusion, and it will direct further blows to US interests.

. . . The Americans are being routed. They are fighting in Washington over the date of their withdrawal. The Awakening Councils are being pursued. There, the Mujahidin follow the tradition of Abu-Bakr Al-Siddiq [the first caliph after Muhammad], may God be pleased with him: Either a victorious war or an ignominious peace. The Iranians are in confusion. Their henchmen are fighting each other. In their fighting, they are bombing the domes of Husayn and Al-Abbas, may God be pleased with them.

"Muqtada al-Sadr has become the laughing stock of the world because of his use of Al-Taqiyah [expediencies, Shiite principle]. Sometimes he hands over his weapons and joins the political process. Sometimes he leaves this process, and sometimes he freezes Al-Mahdi Army, and then says he will postpone this freeze. Sometimes he says he will stage a demonstration against the occupation and then he says he will not. Sometimes he says he will sound the religious authorities on dissolving Al-Mahdi Army. Thus, the Iranian intelligence has used this naive boy as a puppet. He claims that he is waging resistance against the occupation, sometimes by handing his weapons over to them and sometimes by demonstrating against them.

"The people of Islam and jihad in Iraq have only to be persistent and remain firm. The signs of victory are now clear and the breakthrough is looming on the horizon. Shortly Iraq will become the fortress of Islam which will become a springboard from which expeditions and troops will leave to liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque [of Jerusalem], God willing.

"Iraq today is now the most important arena in which our Muslim nation is waging the battle against the forces of the Crusader-Zionist campaign. Therefore, backing the mujahidin in Iraq, led by the Islamic State of Iraq, is the most important task of the Islamic nation today.

. . . "Abu-Bakr Al-Siddiq, may God be please with him, said: 0 people. Read this Koranic verse: "O ye who believe! Guard your own souls: If ye follow (right) guidance, no hurt can come to you from those who stray." [Koranic verse; Al-Ma'idah; 5:105] He said: I heard the messenger of God, may the blessings and peace of God be upon him say: If people recognize the oppressor and fail to punish him, God will punish all of them.

"Those who stole the bread and the means of life of the people are the ones who blocked all means of peaceful change. What happened at the Shura Council elections and then the local elections in Egypt, and before that the Jordanian elections, the Moroccan elections, and the threat to dissolve the Justice Party in Turkey represent the new US policy, now that the method of change through elections has exhausted itself and after the Americans exploited this current by diverting the nation from jihad and serious resistance against the nation's internal and external enemies. When this policy failed to confront the wave of the expanding jihadist awakening, they moved to the current policy; namely, the policy of creating Awakening Councils in Iraq, introducing the constitutional amendments, exercising complete control over the elections, and the document of rationing in Egypt. This is the policy of imposing the ignominious, humiliating, and corrupt reality on the nation by oppression, forgery, repression, and lies.

. . . "Workers, employees, and students must transfer their anger to the streets. They must transform mosques, factories, universities, colleges, and high schools into centers for supporting jihad and resistance. "All must move because the battle is not that of a certain group or organization but that of the entire nation. The Islamic nation must unite, through its mujahidin, men, women, and children; its ulema and shaykhs, its thinkers, leaderships, and masses, to drive out the Crusader and Jewish invaders from the land of Islam and establish the Islamic state that rules by the Islamic sharia, which defends the rights of Muslims, and which punishes the robbers and the plunderers of the wealth of the nation. . . .

Read the entire speech.

(H/T Belmont Club)

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Assessing Ayman

Ayman al Zawahiri is al Qaedas’s second in command. He gave an interview to al Sahab in December, 2007, and, most recently, answered written questions in a kind of jihadi talk radio show. Both provide a wealth of information and insight into the mind of a man who is in equal measure a religious fanatic and psychopath.
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I've been going through Zawahiri's most recent communiques as time has allowed over the past week. They are worthwhile for spelling out the goals and intentions of al Qaeda, as well as for giving a window into the logic of a true Salafist:

1. Iraq remains al Qaeda’s central front:

As-Sahab: And what is the most important field in which this Mujahid vanguard is wrestling with the enemies of Islam?

Zawahiri: Iraq is the most important of these fields.

2. One of the points I have repeatedly made is that pulling out of Iraq would have dire long term consequences for our ability to conduct foreign policy and gather allies, particularly among nations threatened by radicals. Zawahiri thinks so too. He fully expects the U.S. to retreat from Iraq, repeatedly referring to Vietnam. He later explains that he forsees al Qaeda reasserting itself after America leaves Iraq and that the Anbar Awakening cannot keep al Qaeda out of Iraq without American support:

Zawahiri: And I also call on all Muslims to stop supporting the armed groups which have cooperated with the Americans against the Muslims and mujahideen. And I warn those individuals from among the armed factions who have been involved in cooperating with the occupation against the mujahideen that history is recording everything, and that they will lose both their religion and life, and that the Americans will soon be departing - Allah permitting - and won't keep defending them forever. And let them look at the fate of America's agents in Vietnam and the fate of the Shah of Iran, and intelligent is he who learns from other's mistakes.
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That is why those who conspire against the Jihad and Mujahideen in Lebanon with American weapons, Zionist collusion and Saudi money must know that they are digging their graves with their own hands, and that the Americans and Jews will not defend them, because they are looking for those who will defend them, and whoever doubts this should remember Vietnam and look at Iraq and Afghanistan."
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I expect the Jihadi influence to spread after the Americans’ exit from Iraq, and to move towards Jerusalem (with Allah’s permission). As for the militias mentioned, they have failed to eliminate the Jihad with the help of what is called the strongest power in the history of mankind, so will they succeed by themselves or with the help of Iran?

3. Zawahiri, whose al Qaeda organization that regularly slaughters women and children of whatever faith, has the same difficulty with veracity that our own politicians seem to have. When confronted with some very angry questions as to why al Qaeda was slaughtering Muslims in Algeria and in Iraqi marketplaces, Zawahiri claims that al Qaeda kills no "innocents" while, at the same time, accusing the U.S. of taking human shields.

1/1: The questioner Mudarris Jughrafiya [Geography Teacher] asks, "Excuse me, Mr. Zawahiri, but who is it who is killing with Your Excellency’s blessing the innocents in Baghdad, Morocco and Algeria? Do you consider the killing of women and children to be Jihad? I challenge you and your organization to do that in Tel Aviv. Why have you – to this day – not carried out any strike in Israel? Or is it easier to kill Muslims in the markets? Maybe it is necessary [for you] to take some geography lessons, because your maps only show the Muslims’ states."

My reply to Mudarris Jughrafiya is that we haven’t killed the innocents, not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else. And if there is any innocent who was killed in the Mujahideen’s operations, then it was either an unintentional error, or out of necessity as in cases of al-Tatarrus [taking of human shields by the enemy]. . . .

I would like to clarify to the brother questioner that we don’t kill innocents: in fact, we fight those who kill innocents. Those who kill innocents are the Americans, the Jews, the Russians and the French and their agents. Were we insane killers of innocents as the questioner claims, it would be possible for us to kill thousands of them in the crowded markets, but we are confronting the enemies of the Muslim Ummah . . .

The scale of untruth on this one is amazing, and it is obviously not lost on Muslims in the Middle East - a reason why al Qaeda's popularity is in a tail spin in the Middle East. As a side note, what appears to be going on here is actually pretty typical among Salafists like Zawahiri. They routinely engage in Koranic linguistic contortions to justify their actions. And in that vein, the word "innocent" has been so interpreted as to mean anything the Salafist’s want it to mean. A little later on, Zawahiri adds:

"It is not hidden from you that the enemy intentionally takes up positions in the midst of the Muslims, for them to be human shields for him. And here I emphasize to my brothers the Mujahideen to beware of expanding the issue of al-Tatarrus, and to make sure that their operations targeting the enemies are regulated by the regulations of the Shari’ah and as far as possible from the Muslims.

Evidently, U.S. soldiers handing out candy and the like to Iraqi children classifies the children as human shields during the seconds in which that occurs. Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah regularly make use of human shields. Zawahiri does not not address that practice, but I assume that it is justified both on some passage in the Koran that likewise has been interpreted beyond the bounds of any reasonable logic.

4. One of the Muslim traditions has been that if you are allowed to live in a foreign land, there is a covenant of security and that no Muslim should carry out attacks in the country in which they are guests. This was the deal with the devil that kept Britian, home to the world's most radical Islamists, free of major terrorism through 7/7. Whatever the tradition may have been, Zawahiri no longer honors it:

I don’t believe that the entry visa of the infidels is a security contract, . . .

Later, Zawahiri goes beyond that, noting that such a visa is no excuse for refraining from "obligatory jihad against them."

5. Zawahiri is wholly opposed to democratic rule, seeing a theocracy as the only legitimate form of government. He is sharply critical of Hamas for taking part in the democracy in Gaza as well for the Muslim Brotherhood for their choice of attempting to gain power through existing political systems:

[T]he methodologies of the jihad movements must be founded on the rule of the Sharia, not on the rule of the majority. . . .

First: HAMAS abandoned the right of the Shari’ah to rule because it – contrary to the slogan "the Quran is our constitution" – agreed to enter the elections, then come to power on the basis of the secular basic law which does not rule according to the Shari’ah. This is one of the disasters of the Muslim Brothers. . . .

6. Zawahiri’s views of Moqtada al Sadr:

Muqtada al-Sadr is one of Iran's lieutenants in Iraq. . . . And the skirmishes which take place between him and the Americans are American-Iranian disputes over expansion of influence.

7. Jihad is an individual obligation so long as any piece of land once ruled by Islamists during the course of history is occupied and/or ruled by non-Muslims. And it should be noted that this includes much of Spain. Zawahiri takes the UN to task and deems it a legitimate target because it considers Andalusia – conquered in 718 by Muslim invaders, reconquered by Christians in 1248 – a part of Spain.

. . . [J]ihad in Iraq and the rest of the Islamic lands is obligatory against the invaders and Crusaders and their agents so everyone who is hostile to Islam and Muslims and allies himself with the Crusader invaders against the Muslims whether Iraqi or non-Iraqi must be confronted and jihad waged against him. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), (who) fought his polytheistic people, was hostile to them and invoked Allah against them as did the Companions (with whom Allah is pleased) and when the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) chose to ransom the prisoners of Badr, Allah sent down on him a verse of the Koran, in which he reproached him (peace and prayers of Allah be upon him), 'It is not for a Prophet to have captives until he inflicts great slaughter (or is empowered) in the land. You (O Muslims) desire the goods of this world while Allah desires for you the hereafter. And Allah is Mighty and Wise' (8:67) (Qu’ran verses; Al-Anfal 8:67).

. . . The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: it is the one which codified and legitimized the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims’ lands. It is the one which considers . . . Ceuta and Melilla inseparable parts of Crusader Spain.

8. And lastly, Zawahiri clearly spells out al Qaeda's intentions for jihad, quoting Osama bin Laden:

"I also reassure our people in Palestine in particular that we will expand our Jihad – Allah permitting – and will neither recognize the borders of Sykes-Picot nor the rulers whom colonialism put in place. We – by Allah – haven’t forgotten you after the events of the 11th, for can the man forget his family? But following those blessed raids which struck the head and heart of global unbelief and the biggest ally of the Zionist entity, America, we are today occupied with attacking and fighting it and its agents, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Islamic Maghreb and Somalia. And if it and its agents are defeated in Iraq – Allah permitting – then it won’t be long before the armies of the Mujahideen set out, brigades followed by brigades, from Baghdad, al-Anbar, Mosul, Diyala and Salahuddin to bring back to us Hittin, Allah permitting.

"And we won’t recognize any state for the Jews, even if on one hand span of the land of Palestine, the way all the Arab rulers did when they adopted the governor of Riyadh’s initiative a few years ago. And it wasn’t enough for them to commit that major catastrophe until the people recently saw the shepherdess of surrender herd them in flocks to Annapolis, doing with them what the Americans did with their forefathers before, but not for them to be sold: no, for them to sell, and sell what? Sell Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque and the blood of the martyrs, and there is neither power nor strength except with Allah. May Allah do to them as they deserve. . . .

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A Major Jihadi Ideologist Rethinks His Positions

This from IPS News:

The Al-Jihad Group, partly responsible for killing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the nest for some of most aggressive smaller violent groups, has begun publishing a "review of its positions" in two Arabic language newspapers.

The leading al Qaeda faction -- once led by al Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahri -- has altered its traditional course by publishing this series of critiques of the religious justifications long relied on in calling for followers to take up arms against ruling regimes and foreign powers.

In the new "document", al-Jihad Group's founder and leading ideologue, Sayed Imam, renounces violent activities and calls for ceasing all armed operations in Egypt and in other Arab or Muslim countries.

Imam -- al-Zawahri's teacher and long time friend -- is currently in custody at a high-security Egyptian prison.

. . . "This al-Jihad initiative is very important, it is directed mostly to the outside world and more explicitly to the leaders of al-Jihad Group and al Qaeda because the author of those reviews is Sayed Imamal-Sharief, the very same person whose former writings are the point of reference for the al-Jihad members," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic groups at al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Imam was the first Amir, or leader, for the al-Jihad Group in 1968 and the first leader of an armed cell who ever decided to fight fellow Muslims.

Imam also authored, "The Principle Book for Preparations", a reference book that al Qaeda uses to justify its operations and win new recruits on religious grounds.

. . . For decades, Imam's writings have also formed the backbone for the philosophical arguments touted by several other armed groups to validate their attacks.

But in the new review he now says his group "erred enormously from an Islamic point of view" by allowing "killing based on nationality, color of skin and hair or based on religious doctrine".

"Those are actually the methods of secular revolutionaries and not the methods of Islam. There's no such a thing as the goal justifies the means in Islam, even when the goals are noble are legitimate. Muslims worship God by using legitimate methods too," he wrote.

. . . The review calls for an end to targeting of "all civilians", and "tourists of all races".

The al-Jihad Group and its offshoots have in the past targeted local police and military officers, foreign tourists and other Muslims who disagree with their philosophy.

Imam says he was prompted to write the review after noticing persistent "violations" by members of the al-Jihad Group in its decades-long fight with authorities that has included excessive bloodshed, random killings and targeting of civilians.

. . . The documents that are being serialized simultaneously in a local newspaper and a Kuwait newspaper are also important because they are expected to rekindle a debate in the Muslim world that is likely to include academic scholars, religious scholars and political activists over the methods employed by some of the militant groups and the true meaning of armed Jihad in Islam.

"A huge debate will happen after those documents are finished," said Kamal Habib, an independent expert on Islamic groups who was formerly a member of Islamic militant groups.

A member of al-Gamaa al-Islamia, Essam Derbala, said the initiative was welcome news for all active Islamic groups, especially those who took up arms in the past, because it helps Muslim groups "work peacefully to strengthen their societies" against what he called Western "attempts to dissolve the Islamic nation" and against "the state of occupation we are experiencing" -- referring to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Israeli occupation of Arab land.

Read the entire article here. This news is the type of thing we need to see from Salafi Islam, though its impossible to tell from the article how much of a reform to jihadist ideology is actually being suggested by the author, Imam Sayed. That judgment will have to wait more information and review by people smarter than me. Having said that, it sounds as if the Imam's writings are limited to stopping Muslim on Muslim violence. Also, it is also questionable how much significance will be given his writings in the jihadi circles, as he is composing from an Egyptian prison cell. Nonetheless, this news has the potential to be significant.

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