Posted on 06/01/2007 9:30:26 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber struck a safehouse occupied by an insurgent group that has turned against the terror network. Friday's attack northeast of Baghdad killed two other militants, police said, the latest sign that an internal Sunni power struggle is spreading.
The U.S. military also announced the deaths of five more servicemen. At least 125 American troops were killed in Iraq in May, the third-deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war began more than four years ago.
May was also the third-deadliest for Iraqis since The Associated Press began tracking civilian casualties in April 2005. At least 2,155 Iraqis were killed last month, according to the AP count. The government figure put the number at 2,123, according to officials at the Interior Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
The explosion in Baqouba came as Iraqi and U.S. troops fanned out in the Sunni stronghold of Amariyah in the capital, enforcing an indefinite curfew after heavily armed residents clashed with al-Qaida in Iraq fighters, apparently fed up with the group's brutal tactics.
"Al-Qaida fighters and leaders have completely destroyed Amariyah," said Abu Ahmed, a 40-year-old Sunni father of four who said he joined in the clashes. "No one can venture out, and all the businesses are closed. They kill everyone who criticizes them and is against their acts even if they are Sunnis."
Other residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution, said the clashes began after al-Qaida militants abducted and tortured Sunnis from the area. That prompted a large number of residents, including many members of the rival Islamic Army armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, to rise up against the terror network. U.S. forces joined them in the fighting Wednesday and Thursday.
Ahmed denied being a member of any insurgent group but said he sympathizes with "honest Iraqi resistance," referring to those opposed both to U.S.-led efforts in Iraq and to the brutal tactics of al-Qaida.
With the insurgency appearing increasingly fragmented, Iraqi officials congratulated Amariyah residents for confronting al-Qaida.
"Government security forces are now in control of the Amariyah district," Iraqi military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi was quoted as saying by Iraqi state TV. He also lauded "the cooperation of local residents with the government."
U.S. and Iraqi officials have claimed recent success in the effort to isolate al-Qaida, particularly in the western Anbar province, where many Sunni tribes have banded together to fight the terror network.
A growing number of Sunni tribes have reportedly been turning against al-Qaida elsewhere as well, repelled by the terror network's sheer brutality and austere religious extremism.
The extremists also are competing with nationalist groups for influence and control over diminishing territory in the face of U.S. assaults, a situation exacerbated by the influx of Sunni fighters to areas outside the capital as they flee a nearly 4-month-old security crackdown.
But the clashes in Amariyah appeared to be the fiercest fighting between Sunni groups in the capital.
"I think this is happening because of al-Qaida's brutality," said Ehsan Ahrari, professor and specialist in counterterrorism at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. "They have been hurting the Sunni population in Iraq and that is coming back to hurt al-Qaida."
"The event itself is significant because it looks like the U.S. is making some breakthrough in terms of establishing consensus with the Sunni population," he said. "Of course we have to hold our breath and see, but this is important no doubt."
Official casualty figures from the fighting in Amariyah were not available. But a local council member, who declined to be identified because of security concerns, said at least 31 people, including six al-Qaida militants, were killed and 45 other fighters were detained in the clashes. The council member also said an indefinite curfew was imposed starting at 6 a.m. on Friday, confining people to their houses.
The explosion in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, came as residents said al-Qaida is trying to regain control of the central Tahrir neighborhood from the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a group composed of officials and soldiers from the ousted regime who have allied themselves with local security forces against the terror network.
Local police said at least two members of the rival insurgent group were killed. The bomber was affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq, according to police who would not be named because they feared they would be targeted.
Nationwide, at least 32 Iraqis were killed or found dead on Friday, including 15 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up on the streets of Baghdad, apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias.
The deadliest months in the past two years were December 2006, when at least 2,309 were killed, and November 2006, when at least 2,250 were killed.
The number of bodies found — usually attributed to sectarian death squads — dipped slightly in February 2007, immediately after the Baghdad security crackdown began Feb. 14, but has been steadily increasing in recent weeks. Since April 1, at least 1,974 bodies have been found across Iraq. At least 1,186 of these were found inside Baghdad, and 788 outside the capital.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced that three American soldiers were killed by small-arms fire in Baghdad over the past three days.
Another soldier died Thursday at a hospital in Maryland, two weeks after he was seriously wounded by a sniper while searching for American troops captured by al-Qaida-linked militants south of Baghdad.
The military also announced the death of a soldier from wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Wednesday. The statement did not say which day the soldier died.
Meanwhile, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, returned to Baghdad from Iran after completing the first phase of his treatment for lung cancer, according to the Web site of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq.
Separately, the State Department said the publication of computer-generated projections for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad on an architecture firm's Web site would be a factor in future security considerations but would not affect the operation as a whole.
"Obviously, the fact that some of this material has been out in the public domain is something our security folks will have to take into consideration as they move forward with construction and occupancy of the facility. But it hasn't in any fundamental way altered our plans," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington.
___
AP writers Sinan Salaheddin and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad and AP's News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
Consider yoursleves pinged
“Al-Qaida fighters and leaders have completely destroyed Amariyah,” said Abu Ahmed, a 40-year-old Sunni father of four who said he joined in the clashes. “No one can venture out, and all the businesses are closed. They kill everyone who criticizes them and is against their acts even if they are Sunnis.”
Over the years now I’ve noticed that where ever Al Qaida shows up soon after the locals start to fight back against them, they do not play well with others. Unless you believe exactly what they do they will kill you.
The radical loser (Long Read)
Der Spiegel ^ | 1/12/05 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694568/posts
There is also no mistaking other similarities, such as the fixation with written authorities. The place of Marx and Lenin is taken by the Koran, references are made not to Gramsci but to Sayyid Qutb. Instead of the international proletariat, it takes as its revolutionary subject the Umma, and as its avant-garde and self-appointed representative of the masses it takes not The Party but the widely branching conspiratorial network of Islamist fighters. Although the movement can draw on older rhetorical forms which to outsiders may sound high-flown or big-mouthed, it owes many of its idées fixes to its Communist enemy: history obeys rigid laws, victory is inevitable, deviationists and traitors are to be exposed and then, in fine Leninist tradition, bombarded with ritual insults.
The movement’s list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.
(snip)
Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of “collateral damage”. In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.
The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.
Like the Thugees and the Assasin and the Mahdi in the Sudan. The only way to victory is to hunt down each and very one we can. They will be dormant for a while, then crawl from under their rocks again.
you are correct sir. Intel and counter guerrilla action works....
funny thing is that these guys are so stupid that they lost the local populace. The only hope they had to defeat us, besides the democrats and JAG/NCIS lawyers, was the local populace.
but they got to big for their britches and started killing anybody that wasn't "pure" to the cause. Maybe some of those boys have developed a taste for the killing and are undisciplined enough to just kill at will. Either way, it looks like the whole area is going to be a free fire zone...... I've got the popcorn and beer out....should be neat when the Syrians start going off at the Lebanese....then Jordan....then just for giggles...Iran, Pakistan and Israel start getting it on.
It sounds like you have studied guerilla war. I believe that we are in a world-wide guerilla war against the islamofascists. As in other guerilla wars, the best way to win is to get the people on our side, send local boys out who know the language and culture, and back them up with U.S. firepower, intel, technology, etc. Over time, our muslim allies will kill 100X as many guerillas as we will. The muslim world will slowly change as the people decide collectively that they would rather live in the 21st century instead of the 8th. This may take a very long time.
We can quibble about "civil rights" having been violated in the disappearances of the leftist scum but by the early 80's the left had been decimated as a military force, but it was an effective strategy. They eventually won some electoral victories after the military were forced from power as they have in Chile also. But their ability to impose their will by arms has for the time being been neutered.
Fighting the War on Terror
A counterinsurgency strategy
James S. Corum
http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-War-Terror-Counterinsurgency-Strategy/dp/0760328684
page 26
Counterinsurgency Theories
(snip)
The American and British counterinsurgency experts outlined the following basic principles of counterinsurgency warfare
1 The civilian population is understood as the center of gravity in an insurgency. One cannot fight insurgents effectively without winning the support of the population. Ideally the counterinsurgency strategy should be geared to driving a wedge between the population and the rebels.
2 Successful counterinsurgency requires a comprehensive strategy that combines military, political, and economic action. Since insurgencies grow out of large scale dissatisfaction with the government, the means must be found to address the social, political, and economic problems that provide the fuel for insurgency.
3 There needs to be a unity of effort by government forces, that is close coordination between the military and civilian agencies at every level.
4 Effectively fighting the insurgents, who usually live among and draw support from the civilian population, requires good intelligence. Military and police action without good intelligence is largely a wasted effort. To fight the insurgent one has to find him.
5 Military and civic action campaigns need to proceed simultaneously and be coordinated with each other.
6 The government needs to wage an effective media campaign to reassure the population and undermine support for the insurgent.
7 Military and police powers needs to be applied carefully and with discrimination. A heavy handed approach is wasteful and can cause discontent among the population.
______________________________________________________________________
In addition to the British/American theory of counterinsurgency some officers in the French army developed their own theory
(snip)
The French view, expressed by French army Colonel Roger Trinquier and published as Modern Warfare in 1961 was widely read in both French and English editions. The French model differed considerably from the British/American model. Trinquier, who had long experience in counterinsurgency, outlined some very useful tactics in dealing with urban rebellion, including discussions of how to seal off a city district, collect comprehensive data on the population and register the whole population as a means to identify the insurgents from outside the area, and limit the ability of the insurgents to move within the country.
Trinquier’s theory differed enormously from the Anglo-Saxon model on several key points.
First he saw counterinsurgency primarily in military terms. For Trinquier, establishing military presence and crushing the insurgents by force was the first priority. In contrast with the British and America view that military action had to be carried out simultaneously with civic action programs, Trinquier argued first for military action to crush the insurgents. While civic action programs were important, they would be carried out only after the insurgency had been crushed by force.
Whereas British and American theorists of the 1950’s and 1960’s believed that building up a legitimate government and supporting indigenous institutions were the key elements of counterinsurgency strategy, there is little of this in Trinquier’s work. Essentially, Trinquier believed in strong arming the population into compliance with French rule.
Trinquier’s approach could bring short team success. The most notable example was Algeria, where the French army essentially broke the back of the insurgent movement by 1960. However in the long run, by ignoring the need to build public support for the government, the French approach led to strategic failure. One illustration of the French approach’s lack of political considerations was to policy of torturing and abusing insurgent prisoners in Algeria. Trinquier advocated the widespread use of such means’s of obtaining intelligence information, although he did not advocate the widespread use of such means. He failed to understand the breakdown in army discipline that occurs when moral and legal boundaries are crossed.
(snip)
The problem of course is that the leftist guerrillas don’t read the same books. They read Guevara and Debray and Abraham Guillen the father of the “urban guerrilla”. The problem is the guerillas understood after the failure of guevara in bolivia that they could not count on popular support. An insurectionary foco as guevara and debray theorized never developed. In fact the proved total failures. The urban guerilla on the other hand could work in secret hiding in the general population and carrying out acts of targeted terror force the state to retaliate in a massive way against the population thus turning the population to sympathize with the guerrillas. It almost worked with the Tupamaros in Uruguay and Montoneros in Argentina until the point people got tired of living that way. The urban guerrilla needs initially to keep the general population neutral and hope the government becomes repressive to turn them on their side. That almost happened to a point excpet the population eventually blamed their troubles on the guerrillas. The Muslim Al Qaida are on the other hand totally inpet at the game. They started out by trying to intimidate the local population rather than evoke their sympathy, a mistake Guevara made in Bolivia to a fatal conclusion and it appears Al Qaida is making in Iraq. However, it would be a mistake to think these guys are stupid and are not re-evaluating their strategies as we speak.
Oh yes, in war (any kind of war) it’s move and counter move.
But (IMO) by following these 7 principles we win. What agrivates me is when I see Freepers who say, just go in and kill everyone, level the place. I don’t expect people to obess on this like i do, but I do expect people to think, I mean we’re conservatives not leftests were supposed to think not just react. This war really is about “Hearts & Minds, and “Nation Building”. Killing the bad guy is part of that, but only part.
1 The civilian population is understood as the center of gravity in an insurgency. One cannot fight insurgents effectively without winning the support of the population. Ideally the counterinsurgency strategy should be geared to driving a wedge between the population and the rebels.
2 Successful counterinsurgency requires a comprehensive strategy that combines military, political, and economic action. Since insurgencies grow out of large scale dissatisfaction with the government, the means must be found to address the social, political, and economic problems that provide the fuel for insurgency.
3 There needs to be a unity of effort by government forces, that is close coordination between the military and civilian agencies at every level.
4 Effectively fighting the insurgents, who usually live among and draw support from the civilian population, requires good intelligence. Military and police action without good intelligence is largely a wasted effort. To fight the insurgent one has to find him.
5 Military and civic action campaigns need to proceed simultaneously and be coordinated with each other.
6 The government needs to wage an effective media campaign to reassure the population and undermine support for the insurgent.
7 Military and police powers needs to be applied carefully and with discrimination. A heavy handed approach is wasteful and can cause discontent among the population.
Our democratic and libs will wax and wane about the support of our country but in the end they'll have to face the facts that Danny Pearle and any other liberal did in the twin towers...the islamo-facists don't care if you like them, respect them, love them like brothers, pay them, whatever...they want you to die.
My "hypothetical" question to you is this.
What do you think the response will be to the first wave of mall suicide bombings, elementary/high school car bombs, industrial sabotage on large scale in our country?
If you're interested you should read some first hand accounts about anti-guerrilla warfare in otherwise "stable" societies.... Northern Ireland, Beirut, Northern Spain, Guatemala, Indonesia, El Salvador....
We are heading for very "complicated" times.
Do you all think it is possible for a "civil war" to occur in this country? I don't think so, but it all depends if our economy holds out and if we can unite rather than splinter when the sh#t hits the fan.
I kinda of hope to be around to see the democrats and libs look like the Neville chamberlain-like quislings that they are.
Originally, terrorism was the instrument of communists, anarchists, and extreme nationalists. The invention of dynamite in the mid-19th century gave the destructive power of artillery to small groups of individuals who before this would have been nothing more than insignificant malecontents. Terrorism would become a tradition of the radical left so that post-revolution communist states continued to sponsor various terrorist groups throughout much of the 20th century. The Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist governments trained, harbored, and equipped international terrorists, including key members of the PLO, the Baader-Meinhoff group, the Italian Red Brigades, etc. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, terrorism lost its chief benefactor. Since then terrorism of the extreme left has been largely replaced by that of radical Islam.
By 1996 only two communist nations were left that supported terrorism--North Korea and Cuba (lately, neither nation has been particularly active in this kind of activity). At the time the United States government classified five other nations as terrorist sponsors: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. All five are Muslim nations. One writer associates only two of these states (Iran and Sudan) with radical Islam (Huntington, p. 216). Actually, the term "radical" or "fundamentalist" Islam is little more than a quibble. All of the nations in question are "fundamentalist," i.e., founded upon Islamic law and precepts. As we have seen, nearly every Muslim, at least in principle, accepts Islamic teachings concerning jihad. Certain Western political, academic, and religious leaders are fond of referring to Islam as "the religion of peace" and of the bad guys who engage in terror as "highjacking a great religion." However, a sizable proportion of Muslims, perhaps even the vast majority, do not view the jihadists as the bad guys. They are actually folk heroes throughout the Islamic world, although their image has been somewhat tarnished of late in the Mid-East. This is because the jihadists have now largely targeted fellow Muslims.
Libya definately falls into the category of "fundamentalist Islamic state." The country's ruler, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, is a Muslim religious zealot. He advocates a revolutionary, pan-Saharan socialsm drawn not from the pages of Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto, but from the Quran and the Hadith. Like Chairman Mao of Communist China, he has issued his little book of his revolutionary sayings for his followers edification called the Green Book (green being the color of Islam as red is that of Marxism).
Qaddafi's grandiose scheme to create a unified Islamic Saharan empire (with him as its "ceasar," of course) has gone no where. For one thing, his military, which looked strong on paper, proved to be incompetent in battle. His military intervention into Chad in 1982 ended in failure. His army had been badly mauled the year before in a short border war with Egpyt. Deposed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin even referred to Libyan troops unsuccessfully sent by Qaddafi to keep him in power as "a bunch of women" (Lawson, p. 98). Although awash in oil cash, which continues to pile up in Swiss bank accounts, the Libyan people get little but empty promises and anti-American rants (Hamza, p. 312).
Qaddafi was a major player in international terrorism. He provided weapons and training to both leftwing (the Provisional IRA and Red Brigades) and Islamic terror groups (the Moro Abu Sayyif and the PLO). His agents were involved in assassinations and airport bombings. Terror attacks on American and British citizens in Europe and the Middle East led to American bombing raids on Libya in mid-April of 1986. Thereafter, Qaddafi seems to have gotten directly out of the terror business (though, he doubtless is still involved in a smaller, more clandestine way). He continued to develope a nuclear bomb, however. But following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the United States and its allies in March of 2003, Qaddafi thought it prudent to abandon entirely his nation's nuclear weapons program.
Even more so than Libya, the Baathist regimes of Syria and Iraq have been seen as "secular." However, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of the Baathist Party would disagree.
The Baath, or Arab Socialist Resistance Party is like Qaddafism in that its pan-Arab nationalism and socialist agendas are based on an ideological synthesis of Islam and communism. The goal of the Baath Party is the establishment of a single Arab state from the Tigris to the Atlantic and the transformation of this state's society by means of an inkilab ("revolution," or "overturning"). (This sounds suspiciously like the khalifa and jihad of the militant Islamists).
Baathism was first conceived by Michael Aflaq, a Syrian Greek Orthodox school teacher who became a communist while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. Aflaq seems to have converted to Islam. He saw no conflict with this religion and with the secular ideology of communism. In 1953 Aflaq and Salah Bitar (a Sunni) joined forces with the organizer of the pro-peasent Arab Socialist Party, Akram Hourani. The Baath Party was the result of this merger.
The merger of communism and Islam greatly appealed to Arabs everywhere, since the sharing of wealth and natural resources seems to fit with the primitive practices of Islam's founder. The Baath Party borrowed from the communists a tight, clandestine organization with seperate units or "cells" whose members are unknown to each other (Spencer, pp. 70, 71). Terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda, have adopted the same kind of cell organization.
In 1963 the Baath Party came to power in Syria. After power struggles between Baathist leaders, General Hafez al-Assad took over the government after a 1970 coup. He was elected president in 1971 in the kind of "election" we have come to expect in totalitarian regimes. His son Bashar became president following the death of General Assad in 2000.
The Assad family are Alawi Shiites. This explains Syria's good relations with the Shiite mullahs who run Iran. Consequently, the Iranian sponsored terror group known as Hizbollah is able to openly operate against Israel from Syrian-occupied Lebanon. Syria also supports Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.
The Baathists came to power in Iraq in 1968. Saddam Hussein became president of the country in 1979 after rising to the top of the Baath Party. Saddam's background would influence the way he would rule the country. He came from a particularly violent part of north-central Iraq beset by crime and intrigue (Hamza, p. 41). So assassination and terrorism would be particularly suited to Saddam the President as instruments of policy.
Saddam supported terrorism against Israel and the West. The families of Palestinian suicide bombers were paid a reward of $25,000 by the Iraqi government. PLO members and other terrorists were trained by the Estikhabarat (Iraqi Military Intelligence) at the Salmon Pak facility southeast of Baghdad. Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda affiliate, was also established at a training camp in northeastern Iraq. Saddam provided safe houses in Baghdad for some high-profile terrorists. There is more than just a little evidence that his terror reach went far beyond the Middle East.
The average person is convinced Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were solely responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing that took 168 lives on Apr. 19, 1995. However, neither McVeigh nor Nichols between them had the expertise or the technical skill to carry out such and operation. Hidden Middle Eastern hands are all over the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building.
First of all, the ammonium-nitrate bomb used in the OKC bombing is favored by Middle Eastern terrorist groups While the formula is not quite "high tech," it would be a hazardous undertaking for a novice. The amount of munition needed to bring down the Murrah Building had to be carefully calculated. The munition, the trigger mechanism, and other bomb components were just not something that could be slapped together by the average Joe from a do-it-yourself manual, as many assert McVeigh and Nichols were able to do. Bomb experts of the highest repute have disputed that either of them could have done so unassisted (Davis, pp. 267, 268). Incidentally, a Ryder truck using the same homemade explosive was used in the first World Trade Center attack on Feb. 26, 1993, an incident perpetrated by men of Middle-Eastern descent.
Secondly, the Ryder truck containing the explosive was spotted at precisely the right part of the building where it would do the maximum amount of damage. Middle Eastern terrorists have known for years that it is not the blast nor even the flying debris that causes the largest number of deaths in a bomb detonation of this kind, but the collapse of the structure itself. Hence, an examination of photos of terrorist destruction of known Middle Eastern origin will look eerily similar to photos taken of the Murrah Building's destruction.
Thirdly, the Ryder truck had hidden VINs (vehicle identification numbers) removed. This is also part of standard Middle Eastern terrorist operating procedure. A vehicle used in such bombings will often have the VINs removed to prevent authorities from tracing the vehicle back to the perpetrator(s). Whoever altered the truck failed to remove a rear-axle VIN. Whether this was an oversight or done by design to implicate McVeigh and Nichols we cannot say. Nonetheless, it led to McVeigh's capture just two days after the bombing (Apr. 21, 1995). It is very likely the Ryder truck was altered at an auto repair shop near the Murrah Building. This business was owned by another Middle Eastern immigrant (ibid., pp. 198-201).
Fourthly, both McVeigh and Nichols were seen by eyewitnesses with Middle Eastern men prior to the terror strike. Edwin Angeles, cofounder of Abu Sayyif, a Islamic-Philippine terror group, witnessed Nichols meeting with Ramzi Yousef in the Philippine town of Cebu City. Yousef was Osama bin Laden's chief bombmaker until his capture in Pakistan on Feb. 14, 1995. Nichols also frequently called a boarding house in Cebu City that was a known hangout of Islamic militants (ibid. pp. 244, 245). McVeigh was observed by the owner of an Oklahoma City motel in the company of Iraqi "refuges." Among them was a former Iraqi Air Force officer who was seen in the Ryder truck with McVeigh just before the bombing. This man, identified as "John Doe #2," was also seen by eyewitnesses exiting the Ryder truck in the minutes prior to the explosion and leaving the scene in a car driven by McVeigh. All these Iraqis worked for a Palestinian immigrant who was suspected by the FBI of having connections to the PLO (ibid., pp. 1-7).
Saddam Hussein was gradually moving Iraq more and more toward Islamic militancy. In his earlier years he showed not a hint of religiousity. Toward the end of his despotic career he came to embrace the Islamic fundamentalism he once persecuted. He had one of the largest mosques in the Middle East built. He also had a Quran written in his own blood, something only a very dedicated Muslim would do. His ties to jihadist Islam would only have grown tighter were he not removed from power.
Although he was not an immediate threat, he represented a permanent and abiding threat to Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities, to the region, and beyond. The mainstream press has beat the "there-were-no-weapons-of-mass-destruction" drum for so long that many people actually take that statement to be somehow etched in stone on the Holy Mount. However, the Saddam Hussein regime was actively acquiring and developing WMDs and other strategic weapons system in violation of the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War in 1991.
Three years after Iraq was supposed to have terminated its nuclear-weapons program, two thousand scientists and engineers and thousands of technicians were working 24 hours every day to develope a nuclear weapon. At least one device was actually assembled. All it required was a complete nuclear core. There was to be no test detonation. With the complete insanity characterizing this man, Saddam planned to drop it unannounced on Israel (Hamza, pp. 333, 334).
Saddam was apparently still actively involved in trying to obtain fissle material right up until just before Gulf War II. Ambassador Joe Wilson denied that the Iraqi dictator was trying to purchase "yellow cake" (i.e., uranium oxide ore) from the African nation of Niger. Yet, the intelligence services of Britain and other nations confirm this. Just days before American tanks rolled across the Iraqi border from Kuwait, Saddam's regime was attempting to acquire forbidden ballistic missles from North Korea. Coalition forces have found chemical weapons caches and mobile labs capable of making anthrax and other biological agents. There are tons of this stuff yet to found in Iraq. That we haven't heard more about this very likely is because coalition officials don't want to alert terrorists to the existence of WMD caches.
America's first modern encounter with jihadist Islam came about as a result of the revolution that brought Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to power in Iran on Feb. 1, 1977. Khomeini demanded the return of the exiled Shah Muhammed Reza Pahlavi. When the United States refused, Iranian students entered the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages. They were held for 444 days. This incident and President Carter's perceived inability to deal with it undoubtedly led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Under Khomeini and his successors, Iran has become the chief sponsor of international terrorism. In fact, the Iranian Revolution signaled both a new rise in Islamic militancy and a concomitant rise in terrorism. Iran's support of terrorism is both cynical and Machiavellian. Iran supplies weapons to both the Shiite militias in Iraq and the Sunni insurgents, who then use these weapons to kill each other. We will begin to understand the method to this madness in coming paragraphs.
The Sudan at one time provided assistance and sanctuary to the worst of jihadist bad actors, including Osama bin Laden. In a effort to improve its relations with the United States, the Sudanese government even offered to deliver up bin Laden back in 1998. The Clinton administration refused the offer and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then Sudan has seen fit to terrorize only its own citizens in the southern part of the country.
III. Fourth Generation Warfare and Jihadist Islam
"Fourth generation" warfare was envisioned by William S. Lind and other military thinkers as the type of conflict that would charactize the 21st century. The four generations of warfare are as follows:
First Generation Warfare: Napoleonic battle tactics based on massed artillery at a critical point of the enemy's infantry line followed by overwhelming infantry attack en masse. This system was to be supported by the entire nation's economy and citizenry. Clausewitz termed this type of warfare "total war" in contrast to the limited warfare conducted by the European Grand Monarchies in the previous era. These tactics culminated in mass bloodletting and stalemated trench warfare during World War I. The introduction of armored vehicles and combat aircraft introduced mechanized warfare toward the end of the war.
Second Generation Warfare: War of mobility based on the tank, mechanized infantry, and aircraft (especially the dive bomber). These ideas were first advocated by H. Liddell Hart and other British army officers. Guderian and other German generals perfected the technique they termed "blitzkrieg." The English Channel halted the blitzkrieg in the West and in the East the Russian winter and the sheer vastness of the country proved too much for the technique, at least as it was practiced by the Germans.
Third Generation Warfare: Nuclear weapons made the overwhelming conventional forces of the Eastern bloc superfluous. Consequently, the communists began to use guerrilla warfare as a means of grand-strategically out flanking the West. Chinese leader Lin Piao called it "encircling the cities of the world," i.e., using national liberation guerrilla movements to deny the West essential Third World raw materials and the exploited cheap labor upon which these extracted raw materials depend.
Fourth Generation Warfare: Also known as "asymmetrical" or "low-intensity" warfare. This kind of warfare is characterized by terrorism and the response of civilized nations to it. It has become the favored weapon of Islamic jihadists everywhere. As an instrument terrorism has really become an end in itself. Terrorism creates social and political chaos. Areas of instability then become safe havens for jihadist groups. These "jihadistans" can then be turned into staging areas for further terrorist operations. We will explain this more fully in a moment. In this type of warfare the line between criminal and political activity has become almost completely erased, since jihadists often finance their terror operations by narcotics trafficking, smuggling, piracy, extortion, etc. Terrorist groups also frequently make ad hoc alliances with criminal syndicates or even hire them out to do some of their dirty work. We could say fourth generation warfare is fedayeen activity of a far more dangerous nature that has gone global.
The last sentence in the previous paragraph is exemplified in Mustafa Nasar's book The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance, a 1600-page pseudo-academic jihadist tome. The dispersion and autonomy of terrorist cells Nasar's book advocates has already inspired bombings in Madrid, London, and Bombay (Cozzen, May 2, 2006). However, it is hard to see how terrorist activity absent even a loose command structure reaching back to a bin Laden or Zarqawi could be fit into an effective overall strategic plan.
Militant Islamic terror groups turn Marx-Leninist guerrilla warfare theory on its head. The communist guerrilla/national liberation movements of the later half of the 20th cen. would always first create a civilian council composed of loyal members of the communist party or the liberation movement. This group would seek safe haven in another Communist country or in one sympathetic to their cause. They would then recruit idealistic college students and others to train as guerrillas, under experienced mentors who were either veterans of other such wars of liberation, or who were graduates of communist schools of political warfare.
Eventually these cadre would infiltrate into the target country and go through further training in a remote area. They would establish ties to student and other front groups in the capital and other major cities. These groups would raise money, collect necessary equipment, disseminate propaganda, act as spies and couriers, organize demonstrations, and eventually engage in assassination and acts of terror.
When the guerrilla movement was properly trained and equipped in-country and ties to the aforementioned groups established, low-level military operations would begin. These operations would be conducted, at first, by squad and platoon-sized units. Eventually, as sympathy for the movement grew and more recruits began to pour in, larger units would be created and the local people in the countryside would be formed into part-time militia units. The goal was the establishment of a regular army and the creation of a "parallel hierarchy" (i.e., a rival government).
Unlike the jihadists, any terrorism conducted in the above scenario would have a specific purpose, i.e., to eliminate agents or supporters of the central government or to intimidate and strike fear in anyone who might contemplate betraying the movement. These jihadists seem to lack any "party" discipline in their use of terror. It looks more and more like an indiscriminate exercise of violence. In this sense, jihadist terror hasn't even reached any stage described in the literature dealing with guerrilla warfare.
Thus, jihadists operate more like disjointed criminal gangs whose only hope is to create complete chaos so that faith in an established government is completely eroded. They may ensconce themselves in tribal areas where the writ of the established government is already weak. They may make alliances with the local tribes with bribes of money and promises of protection against government agents or rivals. Rival thugocratic jihadistans will be set up in various parts of the country where all governmental authority has broken down. These jihadist gangs may cooperate to bring down the established government. If these rival gangs cannot unify to form a radical Islamic government, they will fight it out until one is top dog.
This seems like an "anti" strategy rather than a legitimate one. However, it has a mad kind of logic to it. It worked to bring in the Taliban regime in Afghanistan from 1995 until it was toppled by a coalition of Western powers and the Northern Alliance in 2001. It also seems to be working for the present in Somalia, where a Taliban-like government with ties to Al Qaeda was installed in the city of Mogadishu. It also had some success in Lebanon. After years of civil war Hizbollah was given autonomy within the country so that a jihadistan can operate openly almost as a state-within-a-state. The jihadists have high hopes terror will be the weapon that will bring Iraq into their tyrannical orbit.
Conclusion
We ought not to despair about radical Islam and its use of terror. Undoubtedly, there will be horrific terror incidents in coming years, perhaps even with weapons of mass destruction. It must also be noted that each of the strategic revolutions just discussed was introduced by a totalitarian and aggressive regime. We can take some comfort in the realization that Bonapartism, Communism, and Fascism were defeated in spite of the strategic vision of these ideologies. There is no reason to believe Jihadism will fare any better in the end, the terror weapon they wield so effectively notwithstanding.
we’ll be fighting this “war” for about the next 20-30 years.
If by “this war” you mean the GWOT...the answer is yes, at least that long. When looking at this war, I like to look at it like it’s the Cold War and it’s 1951, we’ve only just begun, and in many ways we’re still getting our ducks in a row.
“Our democratic and libs will wax and wane about the support of our country but in the end they’ll have to face the facts that Danny Pearle and any other liberal did in the twin towers...the islamo-facists don’t care if you like them, respect them, love them like brothers, pay them, whatever...they want you to die.”
The radical loser (Long Read)
Der Spiegel ^ | 1/12/05 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694568/posts
(snip)
The radical loser has not disappeared either. He is still among us. This is inevitable. On every continent, there are leaders who welcome him with open arms. Except that today, they are very rarely associated with the state. In this field too, privatization has made considerable advances. Although it is governments which have at their disposal the greatest potential for extermination, state crime in the conventional sense is now on the defensive worldwide.
To date, few loser-collectives have operated on a global scale, even if they were able to count on international flows of cash and weapon supplies. But the world is teeming with local groupings whose leaders are referred to as warlords or guerrilla chiefs. Their self-appointed militias and paramilitary gangs like to adorn themselves with the title of a liberation organization or other revolutionary attributes. In some media, they are referred to as rebels, a euphemism that probably flatters them. Shining Path, MLC, RCD, SPLA, ELA, LTTE, LRA, FNL, IRA, LIT, KACH, DHKP, FSLN, UVF, JKLF, ELN, FARC, PLF, GSPC, MILF, NPA, PKK, MODEL, JI, NPA, AUC, CPNML, UDA, GIA, RUF, LVF, SNM, ETA, NLA, PFLP, SPM, LET, ONLF, SSDF, PIJ, JEM, SLA, ANO, SPLMA, RAF, AUM, PGA, ADF, IBDA, ULFA, PLFM, ULFBV, ISYF, LURD, KLO, UPDS, NLFT, ATTF ...
“Left” or “Right”, it makes no odds. Each of these armed rabbles calls itself an army, boasts of brigades and commandos, self-importantly issuing bureaucratic communiqués and boastful claims of responsibility, acting as if they were the representatives of “the masses”. Being convinced, as radical losers, of the worthlessness of their own lives, they do not care about the lives of anyone else either; any concern for survival is foreign to them. And this applies equally to their opponents, to their own followers, and to those with no involvement whatsoever. They have a penchant for kidnapping and murdering people who are trying to relieve the misery of the region they are terrorizing, shooting aid workers and doctors and burning down every last hospital in the area with a bed or a scalpel – for they have trouble distinguishing between mutilation and self-mutilation.
(snip)
The movement’s list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.
(snip)
Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of “collateral damage”. In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.
The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.
Experts around the world are not the only ones wondering how the Islamist
(snip)
“We are heading for very “complicated” times”
When has it not been? :-)
“Do you all think it is possible for a “civil war” to occur in this country? I don’t think so,”
No I also don’t think so, (but I reserve my God given right to be wrong). I do however think there are folks (on both sides of the spectrum) who not only think it will happen but year for it to happen, would rejoice if it happened.
The Baath, or Arab Socialist Resistance Party is like Qaddafism in that its pan-Arab nationalism and socialist agendas are based on an ideological synthesis of Islam and communism. The goal of the Baath Party is the establishment of a single Arab state from the Tigris to the Atlantic and the transformation of this state’s society by means of an inkilab (”revolution,” or “overturning”). (This sounds suspiciously like the khalifa and jihad of the militant Islamists).
Except that the Baathist/pan-Arabists have killed (Hama massacre by Assad) and drove underground and generally oppressed the Islamists when they got into power (Gamal Abdel Nasser). They view the Islamist as tools to get and hold power. Remember when the modern Islamist movements started they were direted against the pan-Arabist/Baathist governments. It was only when they failed to overthrow them that they turned their wrath against the west.
Now this from the article: "May was also the third-deadliest for Iraqis since The Associated Press began tracking civilian casualties in April 2005. At least 2,155 Iraqis were killed last month, according to the AP count."
Notice that the liberal media have been telling us (lying) that at least 3,000 Iraqis were killed every month for the last 2 years but here they contradict themselves and say that 2,155 killed Iraqis in May represent the third highest month since April 2005. The problems with liars is that they cannot remember their lies and that is how they get caught.
How DARE you question them! Don’t you know they have gatekeepers, unlike the wacky ultra rightwing bloggers sitting in their mothers basement in their pajamas.
Sorry, I shall not doing it again ;)
Well see that you don’t. Otherwise I may be forced to report you to...Them.
good article
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