Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban

Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11

Syed Saleem Shahzad

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2011
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783714360
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

President Obama may have delivered on his campaign promise to kill Osama bin Laden, but as an Al-Qaeda strategist bin Laden has been dead for years. This book introduces and examines the new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders who have been behind the most recent attacks. Investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad dedicated his life to revealing the strategies and inner workings of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He had access to top-level commanders in both movements, as well as within the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. Shahzad's work was praised by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for 'bringing to light the troubles extremism poses to Pakistan's stability.' Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban explains the wider aims of both organisations and provides an essential analysis of major terrorist incidents, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In May 2011, Shahzad was abducted and killed in Pakistan, days after writing an article suggesting that insiders in the Pakistani navy had colluded with Al-Qaeda in an attack on a naval air station. This book is a testament to his fearless reporting and analytical rigour. It will provide readers worldwide with an invaluable introduction to a new phase of the ongoing struggle against terrorism which threatens lives in so many countries.

1

A NEW WORLD: DESTRUCTION, MIGRATION, FRIENDS, AND FOES

Soon after 9/11, Osama bin Laden broadcast messages on television channels while moving from one secret location to another to evade capture. This phase of Al-Qaeda tactics began well before the US invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Bin Laden’s emissaries in the meantime made new connections in Pakistan through contacts already established there. They hired houses in Pakistan to which they planned to relocate the family members of Al-Qaeda fighters. Abu Zubaida, a Palestinian, was sent to Lahore (in Pakistan) with US$100,000 to meet with the chief of Laskhar-e-Taiba¹ (LeT), Hafiz Muhammad Saeed,² make formal arrangements for the women’s and children’s passports and tickets, and arrange for their interim accommodation. Saeed was selected for this sensitive mission because he was an old confidant of both Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda leadership.

In 1988 Abu Abdur Rahman Sareehi, a Saudi and one of bin Laden’s deputies, had founded an organization in the Afghan Kunar Valley to recruit Pakistanis from the Bajaur Agency (a Federally Administered Tribal Area – FATA) to fight the Soviets. Sareehi was the brother-in-law of Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, who is now the commander in chief of LeT and the main suspect for the Mumbai attack on November 26, 2008. (He has been named by the US Treasury and the Security Council as head of operations for LeT.)

Seed money for the training camps was provided by bin Laden, and the organization flourished in the Kunar Valley and Bajaur. Hundreds of young men from Pakistan belonging to the Salafi³ school of thought joined the organization to fight alongside their Afghan brethren. In short, by 1989 bin Laden had set the tone and tenor of a global resistance movement.

In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bin Laden offered Saudi Arabia his volunteers to defend the country, so that it had an alternative to looking for help from the United States, and sent the details of the resources he could control. They included Sareehi’s set-up in the Kunar Valley. Laskhar-e-Taiba was born in Kunar Valley in those days, as a branch of Sareehi’s set-up whose foundation was laid by Osama Bin Laden. Soon after, the communist regime in Afghanistan fell, and before the Taliban took up the reins of government, an Islamic Emirate, based on Salafi tenets supported by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, was founded in the valley.

On October 7, 2001, the United States and its allies attacked Afghanistan. A one-sided war (with the United States dominant) continued for about two months, after which the entire leadership of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban retreated to Pakistan. This was not the end of the war as the United States had optimistically supposed, but the beginning of a new global conflict.

The 9/11 attacks had become the focal point of a global war against Western hegemony and interests. The origins of this lay with the dissident Muslim groups who had met up in the militant camps of Afghanistan two decades earlier. The first arrivals were Egyptian youths from the Muslim Brotherhood, and they were later joined by others from a number of underground organizations opposed to various Arab governments. This was the nucleus of the movement that, by defeating communism in Afghanistan, played a major part in bringing the great Soviet empire to an end.

But taking on the mighty US war machine, along with the hostility of the Western world, was another matter. The combined onslaught of the US and allied forces was lethal, and it saw most of the militants annihilated. The US casualties numbered just twelve in the two-month-long war, whereas thousands of Al-Qaeda militants (and civilian bystanders) were killed by aerial bombing. When this two-month phase of the long Afghan war ended in December 2001, it was estimated that at least 3,000 Al-Qaeda fighters had been killed. Dozens more had been arrested, and by the time the remaining trickle reached Pakistan’s tribal areas of Bajaur, Mohmand, South and North Waziristan (near the Hindu Kush mountain range, these territories have among the world’s most inhospitable terrain, and provide natural mountain strongholds), their numbers had been reduced to a few thousand. There is no credible information on the exact numbers of foreign fighters who escaped from Afghanistan after the US invasion, but a rough estimate is that 10,000 Uzbek, Chechen, Uighur, Chinese, and Arab fighters in total arrived in Pakistan. Of these, no more than 2,000 could be considered bona fide Al-Qaeda members.

Al-Qaeda was in no shape to challenge US hegemony when these remnants of the Afghan resistance were in such a pathetic condition, but in reality its losses were less heavy than might have been imagined, because core Al-Qaeda members had not really fought in Afghanistan during the invasion. The only exceptions were special circumstances like the Tora Bora siege, where its men were trapped, and left with no option but to fight. Al-Qaeda’s strategy had always been to conserve its energies and resources for the next phase of the war, after US forces had been completely routed in Afghanistan. It launched its war of attrition to this end from the Pakistani tribal areas.

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Shortly after the Taliban’s defeat in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda’s network in Pakistan – its main strategic backyard to fight the Afghan war – had seemingly collapsed. In March 2002 a top Al-Qaeda commander, Abu Zubaida, was arrested. A few months later, on September 11, 2002, Ramzi bin Al-Shib was captured. The arrest of Abu Zubaida in particular reflected the weakness of Al-Qaeda’s planning in Pakistan. He had been assigned to contact the LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and arrange the onward travel of Al-Qaeda family members to safe destinations. I documented this fact in Asia Times Online on January 27, 2006:

According to sources in the LeT, the amount of money was US$100,000, which was to be used to take care of Arab Jihadis and their families displaced from Afghanistan by the US-led invasion of 2001. The LeT was the only organization in Pakistan the Arabs from Afghanistan would deal with. There were a number of reasons for this, apart from both having Salafi backgrounds. The most important of these being the ties established during the Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s. So the LeT organized temporary housing for many Arab families after the fall of Kabul and Kandahar. The next step was to arrange forged travel documents and air tickets. But Hafiz and the money were not forthcoming. Abu Zubaida, who was living in a safe house of the LeT in Faisalabad, traveled to Lahore to speak to Hafiz, who complained he did not have enough money to help the Arabs. Abu Zubaida was incensed, and returned to his safe house. A few days later the house was raided and he was arrested. These events are part of Jihadi folklore. However, what’s new is added by a source that left the Pakistani army to join the LeT, with which he soon became disillusioned and parted for Africa to become a businessman. Abu Jabran was the chief bodyguard of Abu Zubaida. He was also arrested along with Abu Zubaida. “The logical conclusion is that he should be in Camp X-Ray, the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” my source had said. “But he is serving as the personal adviser to the No 1 man in the Laskhar-e-Taiba, Zakiur Rehman, commander-in-chief of the LeT in Indian-administered Kashmir.” Asia Times Online inquiries indicate that Abu Jabran was freed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation eight days after being arrested with Abu Zubaida. As soon as he was released, he was elevated as adviser to Zakiur Rehman. Abu Jabran is known in the internal circles of the LeT as Janab Jabran Chaca.

In her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (2008), Jane Mayer wrote that a CIA official had said the United States had paid US$10 million to the Pakistani government, which in turn bribed an informant to learn of Abu Zubaida’s whereabouts. Abu Zubaida’s capture led to dozens of other arrests. Within months Al-Qaeda’s network was in a shambles – so much so that its very survival became questionable.

Pakistan had been under pressure from Washington since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001, and launched a major operation against the Taliban on June 22, 2002, at Azam Warsak, in South Waziristan, which is located near the Afghan border. The Azam Warsak operation by Pakistan’s armed forces was their first-ever attack on Al-Qaeda. The assault included paramilitary forces from the Frontier Corps and the Waziristan Scouts. The total number killed was 17: 11 members of the security forces and 6 Chechen and Uzbek militants. More than 50 foreigners are said to have fled the attack. But the operation failed because of the sympathy of Pakistan’s tribes for the defeated Taliban regime and its allied foreign fighters. Their anger heightened at the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, and when Pakistan’s armed forces tried to catch fleeing members of Al-Qaeda, the tribesmen turned on the Pakistanis. Their fury manifested itself when the Mehsud tribe, long known for its pro-establishment view, resisted Pakistan’s military and provided safe passage to foreign fighters. The Wazir chiefs and elders of other tribes warned Pakistan of retaliation. They denounced the operation as US-sponsored, and announced that if more operations were carried out in the tribal areas it would be tantamount to declaring open war on all of the Pashtun tribes.

On June 27, 2002, several Pakistani army officers, including Brigadier Shaukat Hayat and Colonel Saeed Khan, met with the tribal jirga (council). The two military officers pledged that before any future action was taken against Al-Qaeda, the tribes would be given an opportunity to handle the issue themselves. They promised the army would only enter the fray if the tribes failed to deliver. Despite this agreement, however, Pakistan’s security forces and the local administration continued to conduct small operations in which foreigners were arrested. The tribes took serious exception to this, but did not make as much of an issue of it as might have been expected. Then on October 2, 2003, Pakistan armed forces blatantly violated his understanding when, without warning, 2,500 commandos were airlifted into the village of Baghar, near Angor Ada, with aerial support from 12 helicopter gunships.

According to local residents, some of the helicopters had flown from the Machdad Kot US airbase across the border in Afghanistan. Witnesses reported that 31 Pakistani soldiers and 13 foreign fighters and local tribesmen died in the attack. However, a large number of militants escaped. Major-General Faisal Alvi commanded the operation, and several high-profile Al-Qaeda commanders, including Abdul Rahman Kennedy, were killed. Al-Qaeda took its revenge for the attack when Major-General Alvi was shot dead in 2008 by retired Major Haroon Ashik. (There is a detailed account of that event and the life of Major Haroon on pages 85–6.) But the situation demanded that Al-Qaeda move to a new battle strategy, and with that, one of the main characters of this real-life A Thousand and One Nights tales emerges.

The October 2003 military operation forced the Al-Qaeda leaders to act quickly. Al-Qaeda now understood that the only useful function of the old Taliban cadre was to play host to its members. Commanders like Jalaluddin Haqqani had only survived because of their Pakistani connections. They did not have the backbone to stand up to the Pakistani establishment. Al-Qaeda had been on the lookout for new young blood with no connections to Pakistan’s security establishment. It had been interacting with dozens of such young tribesmen, and its trained eyes spotted Nek Muhammad as the man for the hour. This was the beginning of the Neo-Taliban – the new generation of South Asian youths born of Al-Qaeda’s ideology and strategic vision.

AL-QAEDA’S NEW APPROACH

Nek Muhammad was a half-literate and poor man in his mid-twenties hailing from the Wazir tribe of South Waziristan. The Al-Qaeda leaders found in him a natural warrior. He was provided with guns and money. Nek and his tribal friends, who used to run around the mountains on public transport when they wanted to visit the tribal headquarters in Wana, now had several smart SUVs to move about in. Armed guards accompanied him. In Pashtun tribal societies, guns, money, and men signify a leader. With all this at his disposal, Nek Muhammad was acknowledged as the real leader of South Waziristan.

The old fiefdoms of the tribal elders started to collapse. Young men in their teens and twenties were organized by Nek Muhammad to challenge the old order. Within months, the centuries-old tribal structure had melted. The younger generation was calling the shots. Their insubordination knew no bounds. Tribal elders and senior Muslim clerics lost their grip. The traditional tribal dynamic had literally changed overnight. The younger militants were not ready to tolerate the presence of anybody who might rival them. The tribal chiefs were either killed or fled to the cities. Their fiefdoms fell into the hands of this new generation, who were totally committed to Al-Qaeda.

Pakistan’s military establishment evaluated these setbacks as temporary, and was confident that a proper military operation would wipe out all signs of Al-Qaeda’s ideology. The establishment became certain of this when Nek Muhammad was killed by a CIA predator drone strike in South Waziristan in 2004. However, both the United States and Pakistan had underestimated Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda did not rely on individuals. It had devised a dynamic strategy. Behind the force of Nek Muhammad’s personality, it had raised a motivated cadre that could both perpetuate the war against the US–NATO forces in Afghanistan, and fend off pressure from Pakistan.

Under the command of Al-Qaeda were the twin forces of Jundullah and Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami in South Waziristan, which had been formulated in 2003–04 by Al-Qaeda’s high command. Jaishul al-Qiba was assigned the work of conducting international operations, including those in Afghanistan, while Jundullah was to target US and other Western interests in Pakistan, and conduct operations to neutralize Pakistan’s support to the United States. (Jundullah in Pakistan was different from the Iranian organization that was also called Jundullah.)

These organizations were raised not for military operations alone, but also to promote Al-Qaeda’s mission among the masses and add to its strength. In fact, this was investment for Al-Qaeda’s future plans. The organizations also produced propaganda literature, including documentary films, and had a studio named Ummat, which undertook similar work for Al-Qaeda’s media wing, as did the Al-Sahab Foundation.

By the end of 2004 Al-Qaeda had released a state-of-the-art CD containing Osama bin Laden’s selected speeches from 2002 to December 2004. This was circulated in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. It was the first step towards the broader Al-Qaeda goal of shedding its former “shadowy” image, and openly announcing mass Jihad against the United States and other foreign occupation forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The speeches on the CD addressed several specific audiences. The one from 2002 addressed the Pakistani nation, the 2003 speech was aimed at the United States, the 2004 one at Europe, and the December 2004 speech addressed the people of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia).

The lengthiest and most impressive of these speeches was Osama bin Laden’s December 2004 video address to the people of the Arabian Peninsula. In this he explained why the rulers of Saudi Arabia were being targeted by Al-Qaeda. The reasons given included their corruption, tyranny, human rights abuses, and finally deviation from the true Islamic faith. The CD included horrifying images of war and destruction in Iraq, and paid tribute to the Iraqi resistance. In contrast to some earlier Al-Qaeda productions, this CD appeared to have been made by professionals in a modern and well-equipped studio. The audio and visual effects are clear, with English subtitles for non-Arabic speakers. Additionally, separate files included transcripts in languages such as Urdu, Persian, English, Pashtu, and Arabic.

The package clearly showed that Al-Qaeda had regrouped and, in an organized manner, was ready to spread its message to the whole of the Muslim world. But unlike in the past when Al-Qaeda’s propaganda only urged people to join the Afghan resistance, from 2005 onward its aim was to connect with Muslim masses for worldwide resistance. The speeches selected for the CD were therefore not pure and simple propaganda designed to stir people to make war, but an in-depth analysis of Al-Qaeda’s approach and clarification of its various actions – with justifications. Generally, underground groups do not engage in debate to justify their actions. They resort to rhetoric to attract fresh blood. However, when they do try to connect with the masses through the media to cultivate collective thinking, it shows their interest in linking with mainstream activities, which include mass mobilization and mass participation programs for a larger purpose.

In 2004–05, Al-Qaeda was looking to do precisely that – especially in Pakistan. The idea of launching Jundullah was to open Al-Qaeda doors to Pakistani youths through these media outlets and charge their sentiments through films. This was the basic tool used to create a new generation of Jihadis. But Al-Qaeda did not organize Jundullah for this purpose alone. It also aimed to raise a Pakistani Jihadi cadre which could work towards limited objectives in Pakistan followed by Afghanistan, then move forward to the field of international operations, working against Western interests through Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami. Jundullah’s most sought-after audience was members of the Pakistani Jihadi organizations fighting in Indian-occupied Kashmir. They were to be convinced that the liberation of the Muslim lands would only be possible if struggles were waged under the Al-Qaeda banner. Prospective recruits were then invited to work for the cause of a global Jihad. In a few months the stage was set for this new game.

Al-Qaeda understood that Pakistan was fertile soil for ideological cultivation. There were at least 600,000 youths there who had been trained and had fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir since 1979. At least 100,000 Pakistanis were active members of different Jihadi cadres. Over 1 million students were enrolled in various Islamic seminaries, and there were several hundred thousand supporters of Pakistan’s Islamic religious parties. The main handler of the Afghan Jihad against the Soviets had been Pakistan’s army, which itself was not immune to the influence of radicalism. Several army officers had pledged their allegiance (bait) to different Jihadi spiritual leaders, including Maulana Akram Awan of Chakwal. These groups were known in the Pakistan army as pir bhai groups (pir bhai are those who pledged their allegiance to a person, in a way that means the whole circle of disciples act as brothers to each ot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Prologue
• 1 A New World: Destruction, Migration, Friends, and Foes
• 2 The Politics of War and Peace
• 3 First Step: Leadership Building and Transformation of the “Sons of the Soil” to “Blood Brothers”
• 4 Takfeer and Khuruj: An Ideological Thesis for the Separation of Islamists and States
• 5 Antithesis: Debate on the Legitimacy of the Resistance
• 6 The Synthesis
• 7 Building the Eagles’ Nest
• 8 The Theater of War
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Maps
• Index