Reply #2: I haven't been here long enough so I can't post this...

[hummingbird]

But maybe one of you can. This is a story that has been ignored by the regular news. I can't post it yet because I'm new here, so I can't get it under it's own post... but this is very, VERY important.

So I'm posting it here, and hoping a "regular" here will cut and past this to the hot news area.

There's a follow up to this article, and my husband is still in the process of translating it from the German. I will post it to whomever emails me, so that they can post it up to whatever list it gets to.

This is critically important, and it's being ignored by the regular news.


The New Al Qaeda Doctrine

By Yassin Musharbash

As early as December 2003 in an Arabic language Jihad handbook, al Qaeda called for attacks against Spain in order to force the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. This and other documents indicate a paradigm shift: For the terrorists, strategic analysis and refined tactics are gaining favor.

Berlin­The book is so soberly written that is doesn’t seem to fit the normal usage of language for al Qaeda. Iraq in Jihad: Hopes and Risks is the title of a 42-page document written in Arabic which has come into the hands of Der Spiegel and is considered by international experts to be genuine.

This guide for the struggle against the occupation troops in Iraq reveals that al Qaeda and its allies are no longer a troup that simply lashes out at random. The careful selection of targets and the consideration of the political consequences have now taken on a central role.

The attacks in Madrid that took the lives of 202 people last Thursday and wounded another 1500 could be part of a new and intellectually supported strategy of terror. Some passages of the Jihad book that surfaced last December on the Internet and were examined by the Norwegian Center for Defense Research sound in retrospect downright prophetic: “We believe that the Spanish government cannot take more than two, at the most three blows before it pulls troops out of Iraq due to the great pressure from the population,” is the statement on page 33.

“Even if Spanish forces should remain after these attacks, it would guarantee the victory of the Socialist Party and place the withdrawal of Spanish troops on the agenda of the elections campaign,” the document continues. It should therefore be attempted, suggest the authors, who are suspected to be high ranking al Qaeda cadres, to profit from a proximity of attacks to the Spanish election.

Spain is described in the Jihad handbook as a suitable “first domino.” After a six page analysis of Spanish internal politics and the discrepancy between public opinion on the Iraq war and the position of the conservative government under Jose Maria Aznar the authors reach the conclusion that this country can be the first to be motivated to withdraw its troops. The atmosphere at the anti-war demonstrations in Madrid is described as having been “that of a genuine popular uprising.” Once Spain has given in, the terror strategists hope, then other countries could follow. Poland and Italy are identified as potential next dominos. The message is clear: The Jihad fighters are making well-considered use of their resources and not leaving them to chance.



Less Practice, More Theory


The idea that those who attacked Madrid actually had such considerations in mind is supported by another document that came to light on an Internet site associated with al Qaeda shortly after the Madrid attacks but yet before the election on Sunday. The author asks rhetorically, “What is behind the mystery that the Spanish government blamed ETA?” He then explains that the conservative government would have had to fear a loss of power if al Qaeda turned out to be behind the bombed-out trains of Madrid. The letter is signed “Abu Musab,” an indication toward the chief logistician of al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarkawi. Of course, it is almost never possible to verify the authenticity of Internet publications.

The fact that the letter speculates about whether al Qaeda is responsible for the attacks in Madrid at all appears to indicate that al-Zarkawi is not the author. Al-Zarkawi himself would certainly have had no doubt. In recent days international terror experts have suggested the possibility that the top leadership of al Qaeda has removed itself from the business of operations. According to this theory, individual cells are operating fully autonomously as could be explained by the speculations of the alleged “al-Zarkawi.”

The Jihad handbook of December 2003, whose authenticity is significantly more certain and which was presumably written as early as the summer of 2003, differentiates itself enormously from most al-Qaeda publications known to date. For one thing, it is much less oriented toward practice than the normal instructions on how to build bombs that have come out of Afghan training camps. At the same time it is much more analytical and intellectual than the otherwise normal propaganda material.



Al-Qaeda Quotes Western Newspapers


Where in the past, the al-Qaeda spokesman Sliman Abu Ghaith has often simply compared the USA with the “House of Pharo” described in the Koran as a lair of injustice, the Terror Guide has instead multifaceted discussions of the US military budget and the text is sprinkled with US government pronouncements.

The authors of the document conclude from their analysis of internal political debates in the US, “We believe (…) that the Iraqi resistance is capable of driving the costs for the USA into the region that represents the upper limit for them (…) namely 400 billion US dollars.” This is the manner in which the Islamist terrorists have thought their way into the thinking of their enemy. Apparently the notion that one can learn a great deal about the opponent’s weaknesses from the opponent himself has gained acceptance in the terror network.

Al Qaeda­a learning organization? It certainly seems that way. In earlier publications, the downfall of the USA is simply treated as a matter of faith without relationship to reality. It is simply described as a matter of time. In contrast, for the first time the Jihad handbook acknowledges risks and recognizes that certain goals are unrealistic.



A High Degree of Differentiation


The “only factor” that can motivate Great Britain to a troop withdrawal, for example, would be massive public pressure. But in contrast to the cases of Spain or Italy, the authors do not believe that the British would cave in after two or three attacks by the Mujahidin. This relatively high degree of differentiation is new.

Equally astonishing is the almost total lack of propaganda. Of course, the text does contain a number of didactic passages aimed at the Mujahidin. However, there is also, for example, the caution that not all non-Muslims are the enemy. Even the possibility of cooperation is mentioned.

A new realism­still ideological, but not simply religiously hard-headed, is apparent in the document. The analysis of the world political situation of the Jihad, for example, concludes, “We can describe the international system (…) as a spider’s web. And even though everything is connected like in a spider’s web, it takes only a light breeze to tear apart this web.” Al Qaeda hopes to be this light breeze. In this document there is not much left of the image of the army of Islam and its million soldiers, usually a beloved image of the terror groups. The method here is targeted stabs of the needle instead of apocalyptic mass slaughter.



Germany only on the Edge


The extensive analysis of the inner political tensions and foreign policy position of the USA and its allies forms the greater part of the book­about a half. Spain, Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan and the Ukraine are mentioned by name. Germany and France are mentioned only in passing as opponents of the Iraq war.

Barely a third of the book concerns itself with the present situation and the next steps for the Jihad activists in Iraq. Here, for example, the fighters are encouraged to use no mobile telephones and not to store their ammunition in one place. They are encouraged to destroy oil installations and to form Sunni Mujahidin cells in the Shiite south.

Yet here, too, where it concerns the concrete battles in Iraq, tactical, strategical and theoretical considerations take the most room. “In this phase (…) we will attack the US forces on a daily basis, which will lead to a weakening of their practical capabilities and their morale.” After a thoroughly realistic analysis of the goals of the USA in Iraq the authors come to the conclusion that the answer to those goals must be to drive a wedge between the US-led coalition and to drive up the financial costs for those states taking part in the occupation.



Preparation and Planning


Among their own goals they define the establishment of an Islamic state without external influence. Attacks on civilians, it says, should be avoided. The instruction book does not reveal how many al-Qaeda fighters are in Iraq nor with which groups they are cooperating. In any event, this is an example of the professionalization of al-Qaeda in respect to military tactics. The Mujahidin are repeatedly admonished not to act spontaneously and without considerations. “Preparation and planning are the basis for the success of any project,” is the advice of the authors. “Only that will guarantee (…) great efficiency, will shorten the time required and lessen the confrontation with danger.”

Part of the sobering impression of this Jihad instruction book is certainly achieved through the fact that it is directed at cadres that are already in the fight and not at inspiring recruits. The authors, who are not identified by name, don't present themselves as the “Coalition against the Jews and Crusaders,” a title with which Bin Laden and his colleagues described their first publication, but rather sparingly as the “Service Center for the Mujahidin.” In this respect, it concerns an allusion to a similarly named Mujahidin recruiting office that was personally maintained by Bin Laden in Pashawar.

But more important than the dictates of the text is the new mode of thinking that it carries. In its murderous effectiveness has become difficult to doubt after the attacks in Madrid.