The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat

From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden's Death

Bruce Hoffman, Fernando Reinares, Bruce Hoffman, Fernando Reinares

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780231537438
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Examining major terrorist acts and campaigns undertaken in the decade following September 11, 2001, internationally recognized scholars study the involvement of global terrorist leaders and organizations in these incidents and the planning, organization, execution, recruitment, and training that went into them. Their work captures the changing character of al-Qaeda and its affiliates since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the sophisticated elements that, despite the West's best counterterrorism efforts, continue to exert substantial direction over jihadist terrorist operations.

Through case studies of terrorist acts and offensives occurring both in and outside the West, the volume's contributors investigate al-Qaeda and other related entities as they adapted to the strategies of Operation Enduring Freedom and subsequent U.S.-led global counterterrorism programs. They explore whether Osama bin Laden was indeed reduced to a mere figurehead before his death or continued to influence al-Qaeda's global activities. Did al-Qaeda become a loose collection of individuals and ideas following its expulsion from Afghanistan, or was it reborn as a transnational terrorist structure powered by a well-articulated ideology? What is the preeminent terrorist threat we face today, and what will it look like in the future? This anthology pinpoints the critical patterns and strategies that will inform counterterrorism in the coming decades.

[ I ]

In the West

[ 1 ]

The Evolution of the Post-9/11 Threat to the U.S. Homeland

LORENZO VIDINO

On March 10, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man the United States government accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks, finally stood before a military panel convened to judge him at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. Before closing the introductory procedures, the presiding judge asked KSM, the acronym under which most Westerners know the man, if he wished to make a statement. KSM’s legal representative informed the panel that the detainee had written a statement that KSM wanted him to read. “I was a member of the Al Qaeda Council,” he began, “[and] I was the Operational Director for Sheikh Osama Bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 Operation.”¹ KSM’s admission confirmed a fact that few had doubted. For years American authorities had divulged ample evidence pointing to KSM’s key role in the attacks, and KSM had boasted about it when al-Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda secretly interviewed him in 2002 in his Karachi hideout.²

What came as a surprise was the rest of the statement. It detailed thirty-one terrorist plots, some of which were previously undisclosed to the public, that KSM claimed full or partial involvement in planning. The attacks, some carried out, some simply planned, spanned four continents and more than a decade. Among them, KSM indicated his role in “planning, training, surveying, and financing the New (or Second) Wave of attacks against the following skyscrapers after 9/11: a. Library Tower, California b. Sears Tower, Chicago c. Plaza Bank, Washington State d. The Empire State Building, New York City.”³ The “Second Wave” was not the only attack KSM claimed to have planned against the U.S. mainland after 9/11. He added that he plotted an attack against the New York Stock Exchange and other financial targets, a “shoe bomber operation” to down two U.S.-bound airplanes, and entirely different plots (separate from the Second Wave) to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago using tanker trucks and to bomb suspension bridges in New York.

Puzzled by the breadth of such a confession, intelligence analysts, terrorism experts, and forensic psychiatrists have debated both the validity of KSM’s claims and the reasons behind them.⁴ Some believe that KSM simply wished to take advantage of the opportunity to spread misinformation in order to intimidate the public and increase his stature as a terror mastermind. Others maintain that his confession should be attributed to the alleged torture he suffered while in captivity, and they question the confession’s veracity. KSM, in fact, later told the International Committee of the Red Cross that while subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, he gave “a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.”⁵ Yet many believe that KSM was, for the most part, telling the truth.⁶ Stressing that most of his claims are corroborated by information obtained from related investigations and other detainees’ statements, many analysts are convinced that KSM was indeed a central figure in the terrorism world for more than a decade and that his involvement in thirty-one plots is not far-fetched and epitomizes the evolution and increased complexity of al-Qaeda’s planning.

Of particular interest for this chapter is KSM’s involvement in planning operations against the American homeland after 9/11. Since that tragic day in 2001, American authorities have thwarted dozens of attacks planned by terrorists of Islamist inspiration against various targets throughout the country. The characteristics of each plot, from the sophistication to the profile of the individuals involved, vary significantly. An analysis of the plots allegedly hatched by KSM is extremely useful to highlight these differences and to identify long-term trends in al-Qaeda’s evolution and the post-9/11 terrorist threat to the American homeland. In particular, this chapter aims to show that the shift from sophisticated and remotely controlled operations to homegrown and inevitably amateurish efforts, though particularly evident over the last couple of years, began in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as KSM struggled to follow up on his terrorist masterpiece.

Before analyzing the plots, it is necessary to address the sources used for this chapter. Despite being a key player in terrorist networks for more than a decade and having been in custody since March 2003, KSM managed to hide many aspects of his life and activities. Information on his background was gained from some journalistic sources and his extensive profile in the 9/11 Commission Report. More problematic was the collection of detailed and corroborated information on the plots masterminded by KSM. Some of the foiled plots resulted in trials in U.S. federal courts, generating ample information and allowing defendants to challenge the prosecution’s arguments according to the standards of due process. For other plots, however, the only available sources are declassified and highly redacted portions of U.S. government reports originating from interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay. This information inevitably raises doubts about completeness and reliability.

It is unclear, at the time of this writing, whether U.S. authorities have the full picture of KSM’s plots and whether they ever will. Assuming they do, a large amount of information on them is still classified and, therefore, not publicly available. Accordingly, this chapter cannot and does not claim to provide the definitive account of all the post-9/11 plots orchestrated by KSM. Its aim, rather, is to describe such plots with as much accuracy as possible given the limitations of the sources and to draw conclusions based on the analysis of their known characteristics.

A GLOBAL TERROR ENTREPRENEUR

KSM was born in 1965 in Kuwait, one of the five children of a family of Baluchi immigrants who, like many others, had moved to the small Gulf emirate attracted by the oil boom.⁷ KSM’s family was known to be quite religious. His father was the imam of a local mosque, and in the early 1980s, his older brother Zahid became one of the leaders of the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood while attending Kuwait University.⁸ KSM himself joined the Brotherhood while a teenager and became immersed in Islamist ideology, along with his brothers and his nephew Ramzi Youssef, who would later gain worldwide notoriety for masterminding the 1993 bombing of New York City’s World Trade Center.

Upon graduation from secondary school, KSM traveled to the United States, where he attended college in North Carolina. Fellow students remember him as religious but not fanatical: an intelligent but unremarkable student who socialized mostly with fellow Muslims.⁹ According to the memoirs he wrote during his detention in Guantánamo, KSM did not enjoy his experience in the United States. He was briefly detained for unpaid bills, and his limited contacts with Americans confirmed his views of America as a “debauched and racist country.”¹⁰ In 1986, upon obtaining his degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, KSM left the United States but, instead of returning to Kuwait, joined his brother Zahid in Peshawar. At the time Peshawar was the gateway to Afghanistan, and Arab charities such as the Kuwaiti Lajnat al-Dawa al-Islamiya, of which Zahid was regional manager, provided aid to Afghan refugees and support to foreign volunteers who wanted to join the mujaheddin to fight against Soviet forces.

Thanks to his brother’s influential position, KSM established connections with important leaders of the Afghan jihad. Like most non-Afghans, KSM joined the forces led by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan who headed one of the most ideological factions fighting the Soviets. Fluent in Arabic and a strict Salafist, Sayyaf was the natural point of contact for most foreign mujaheddin and one of the favored recipients of financial aid flowing in from the Arab Gulf. After a period with Sayyaf, KSM returned to Peshawar and took up various administrative jobs working for Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual leader of the “Afghan Arabs.” As the war ended, KSM reportedly left for a short stint in Bosnia but soon returned to Pakistan to continue his work for the network set up by Azzam, who had been assassinated in 1989, and Sayyaf.

During that time, he reunited with his nephew Ramzi Youssef, who had traveled to Afghanistan to receive training in explosives. Youssef allegedly told KSM about his intention to use his newly acquired skills to attack the United States. The two relatives kept in contact after Youssef left for America and KSM moved to Qatar to work as an engineer at the Ministry of Electricity and Water. According to U.S. authorities, KSM wired Youssef a small amount of money from Qatar to fund the attacks.¹¹ But if KSM’s support for attacks against America was until then limited to a negligible money transfer, the relative success of Youssef’s bombing of the World Trade Center galvanized him. It was, in fact, after the attack that KSM began to build his career as a freelancer and entrepreneur of terrorism. Working independently of any organization, KSM began to travel around the world under dozens of aliases to build a network of contacts; acquire expertise in document forgery, explosives, and money transfer; and, finally, carry out terrorist operations.

In 1994 KSM joined Youssef in Manila. There, his enterprising nephew had established a cell of Arab militants, most of them veterans of the Afghan camps or childhood friends from Kuwait, who were planning various terrorist operations. KSM began to hone his skills as a terrorist mastermind during his time in the Philippine capital. The men bombed a local movie theater and made plans to kill the pope and President Bill Clinton during their visits to that country. In January 1995, Youssef inadvertently set fire to an apartment used by the cell to mix chemicals for homemade explosives. Because of the blaze the Philippine authorities stumbled onto the cell and arrested some of its members.¹² KSM and Youssef, however, managed to flee the country. But ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Introduction
• Part I: In the West
• Part II: Outside the West
• Conclusion
• List of Contributors
• Index