From Statfor.com:
Posted on 09/20/2001 11:58:19 AM PDT by sanchmo
From Statfor.com:
The operational resources required to pull off last week's attacks suggest the existence of a multinational radical Islamic network with operatives and sympathizers all across the globe. No one group would be able to supply all the resources. Instead, various aspects of the operation would be farmed out to different groups or individuals within the network. Al-Qa'ida as an umbrella organization is but one group within a network of radical Islamic groups...
separate departments with directors to handle counterintelligence, logistics, training, diplomatic covers and passports, finances and recruitment. At the same time, security likely was maintained by isolating each department from the others so that the organization was not compromised.
Although in the past most of these focused on local issues and did not operate beyond their national borders, a new picture is now emerging. This picture is one of a global network tying all Islamic militant groups together in a loose coalition. Like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, this network comprises organizations and sympathetic individuals from all over the Muslim world, including financiers and aid donors, government officials and diplomats, former and possibly current military officers, intelligence agents, former and current guerrilla and militant groups, information technology specialists and operational commanders and their lieutenants.
The entity we are facing is an amorphous, shifting collection of small groups, controlled in a dynamic and unpredictable manner and deliberately without a clear geographical locus... This is a group, therefore, that has been deliberately constructed not to provide its enemies with a center of gravity. Its diffusion is designed to make it difficult to kill with any certainty.
One of the principles of the attackers appears to be redundancy, not in the sense of backup systems, but in the sense that each group contains all support systems. In the same sense, it appears possible that they have constructed relationships in such a way that although they depend on state backing, they are not dependent on the support of any particular state.
The attackers have organized themselves to be parasitic. They are able to attach themselves to virtually any country that has a large enough Arab or Islamic community for them to disappear into or at least go unnoticed within. Drawing on funds acquired from one or many sources, they are able to extract resources wherever they are and continue operating. If such is the case, then even if Iraq or Afghanistan gave assistance, they are still not necessarily the attackers' center of gravity. Destroying the government or military might of these countries may be morally just or even required, but it will not render the enemy incapable of continuing operations against the United States.
The emerging trend seems to be:
1. Greater interaction and cooperation between existing groups and individual cells of various groups
2. Expansion of scope from national and regional targets to global ones.
3. Change in tactics, from acts to attain demands to maximum casualties.
4. Cooperation between Sunni originally main focusing on Saudi Arabia / Mecca and Shiite groups originally focusing on Israel.
Groups originating in Central Asia:
Al-Qaida (associated with Mouhajiroun)
Extreme anti-Western, anti-modern Sunnis - want to establish a pan-Islamic state and expel the west. Current goal may be to spark regional West-vs-Islam conflic. Has issued fatwahs vs USA and westerners, bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (301 dead, 5000 injured), killed US servicemen in Somalia, bombing in Yemen.
Ties to Islamic Jihad, Islamic Group (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya), Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Supported by Bin Ladin's fortune; by individuals in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and many others scattered globally; by many false front organizations worldwide; and by the Taliban.
Main threats to the US, Phillipines, Kenya, Tanzania, and Jordan.
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Seeking expulsion of non-Muslim and moderate governments from former soviet republic of Uzbekistan, and other central asian republics.
Supported by Al-Qaida and the Taliban; individuals in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgystan.
Main threats to the Uzbeki government.
Army of Mohammed (aka Jaish-e-Mohammed)
Army of the Righteous (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba)
Harakat ul-Mujahidin (Harakat ul-Ansar)
Local Pakistani / Kashmiri - seeking expulsion of non-Muslim and moderate governments from Pakistan and Kashmir. Also help Chechen causes.
Receive support for Al-Qaida, individual Pakistanis and the Taliban.
Main threats to India; also Phillipines, Russia.
Al Ummah - Indian Muslim group targeting India. Supported by Abu Nidal; by the Taliban; by individual Pakistanis.
Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) (also: National Liberation Army of Iran, People's Mujahedin of Iran, Muslim Iranian Student's Society)
Strict, shiite Iranian groups, with some Marxist ideology. Attackes vs Us (esp US embassy and employees) in 1970s; attackes vs moderate Iran in 1990s.
Support from Marxist and Shiite groups; from Iraq.
Main threats to Iran, USA.
Kurdistan Workers Party
Want Marxist Kurdish state in Turkey.
Support from Marxists; Syria, Iran, Iraq.
Possible threats to Syria, Iran, Iraq. Opposed by Turkey.
Groups originating in Africa:
Islamic Group (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya)
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Jihad Group, al-Jihad)
Originally founght for stricted Egyptian government. During the 90s has attacked foreign & American targets. Assasination of Anwar Sadat and attempts against Mubarek. Targeted Egyptian tourists. 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Supported by Al-Qaida; Iran and Afghanistan; individuals in Egypt and Syria.
Main threats to Egypt and the USA.
Algerian Terrorist Groups
Main threats to France. Any present activity??
Groups originating in Arab Asia:
Palestine Liberation Organization (also Al-Fatah, Al-'Asifa)
Palestine Liberation Front
Local struggle to destroy Israel & create a Palestinian state. Claim to have renounced terrorism, and to have converted their operations to a governing and policing force for the Palestrinian Authority.
Has been attacked by other Palestinian groups since the early 1990s.
Support from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan; Iran, Iraq, Syria; China and North Korea.
Main threats to Israel, Tunisia, and the US (Achille Lauro).
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Palestine Islamic Jihad
Abu Nidal (Black September, Arab Revolutionary Brigades, Fatah Revolutionary Council)
HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement)
Anti-Israel Palestinian groups that have turned against the PLO-associated groups (and against each other).
Supported by Iran; Syria, Iraq, Lybia. Hamas supported by Saudis.
Main threats to Israel (esp 1972 Munich Olympics), moderate Arab states, the US and various European countries. Have lately attacked each other, the PLO and Hamas.
Hizballah (Party of God) - (also Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine)
Anti-Israel Shiite Lebanese group. 1980s Lebanese bombings and kidnappings. Has started cooperating with Al-Qaida and Egyptian Islamic Jihad to expand activities regionally and internationally.
Support from Al-Qaida, Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Iran, Syria.
Main threats to Israel, USA.
Other Groups
Irish Republican Army (Provisional Irish Republican Army, The Provos)
ETA (Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna) - Basque Fatherland and Liberty
Independence movements in Europe.
Suggestions of links to each other and support from PLO; Lybia. Support from Cuba to ETA.
Main threats - Britain, Spain, France.
Alex Boncayao Brigade, New People's Army - Phillipines.
Tamil Tigers (Ellalan Force, Sangillan Force) - Sri Lanka
National Liberation Army (ELN), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - Colombia
Sources and Further Reading:
Terrorist Group Profiles
Stratfor.com - U.S. Faces Islamic Radical Network
Stratfor.com - No Easy Battle
The Bush Doctrine: Hunt Down Terror
However, this is a very good reference of the major terrorist groups that we will have to target.
There is but one God, and I expect he is plenty PO'd. It is more than amazing how in the Name of Religion, this world is full of fanatics for what they perceive is the right way. Doesn't anyone read the true word anymore?
God, accepts the many names he is given, but I expect he doesn't like the new rules that man has given him on little bit!
Pakistan-trained Islamic Militants
Link: A Paradise Turned into Hell by Terrorists</font color></font size>
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Great job, sanchmo. This "deliberately without a clear geographical locus" aspect needs to be stressed, IMHO. The "center" of international terrorism cannot be located in physical space-time because -- like the Comintern in the early twentieth century -- is exists as a community of Mind -- as a "like-minded community" of dispersed individuals united primarily by shared values and goals, and only secondarily by nominal leaders (usually issuing orders through cut-outs). It stays loose and compartmentalized so that members of its various elements or cells cannot identify each other or the goals of the others. All each knows is that they are "all in it together, in prosecution of their common cause." So hospitality and help from one to the other can be expected in time of need.
Yet to say IT is a community of mind is not to say that it is a community of intellect per se. These people may be fiendishly clever, but they are mainly what we would call "ignorant." They are ideologically committed, tricked out with a fig-leaf of religious doctrine because religion is what "sells" to ignorant, impoverished people in the third world. (Who are ignorant and impoverished largely because the regimes which govern them ignore their basic human rights and needs, and often even victimize their own populations.) They may be able to employ Western technology for their purposes; but mainly they do not possess much real knowledge or understanding of the world or of the human heart. IMHO.
They certainly don't understand America or our culture of ordered liberty under the rule of law, of equal justice under law. The weird thing is that Islam is about the divine law for man in his full human nature. Yet I haven't seen much evidence that terrorists generally read the Koran, let alone understand what it says. Koran forbade slavery in the late 7th century; Sudan openly practices it on a massive scale today. Allah demands respect and charity for widows and orphans, who are to be cherished by the community of believers. In Afghanistan today, widows cannot earn money to feed their starving children, there is no help from the Taliban regime. Koran was the first document in human history to formally accord rights to women; in Afghanistan today, women have zero civil rights and no protections. They are treated like dogs. (If say, a woman's leg were to be seen in public, it would be cut off.)
Judging by their actions, to terrorists, the foundation of law and justice is not really Allah (though there is plenty of lip-service to that effect), but merely human will and power (disguised, of course, in the robes of a mullah or holy man).
They do not understand modernity; moreover, they hate what they do not understand. In a sense they share Luddite tendencies: They'd like to take the world back to the simpler times and organizational forms of, say, the tenth century.... To secure this goal, they employ the techniques of the Comintern routinely, including random violence, terror, fifth columns, sleeper agents, useful idiots, etc.
Study what international communism did to extend its influence in the early 20th century. It spectacularly succeeded in the USSR, and is still a "vibrant success" (choke, choke) in PRC today.
That influence still lingers in American institutions -- as we have started to see this past week or so in the denunciations (or "sensitivities") of the "Blame America First" crowd. I tend to characterize such folks either as useful idiots or as a fifth column. Point is, sympathy for "the plight" of known terrorist-sponsoring nations undermines American security from within our borders. That's an added "freebie" or side benefit of an international community of (revoltingly disordered) Mind. IMHO.
Anyhoot, this enemy is not as unfamiliar to us as he looks at first sight. JMHO. Thanks for your great work, sanchmo. best, bb.
Clinton's final gift to GW?Dec.20, 2000...give us Osama in 30 days (inaugeration day) or else! Tough talk, teeny stick. Osama yawned.
From Who Did It? (from Janes):
Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah[...]
Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden[...] The Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers were shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri[...] The Iraqis are also reported to have established strong ties with Imad Mughniyeh.
From Bush's Speech:
The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole... This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
These various sources tie together the following:
Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Egyptian based Jihad Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, all of which have already proven a desire and ability to strike at international and US targets to produce massive casualties.
Also implicated are Lebanon based Hizbullah (which has attacked Israelis on foreign soil, and the US in Lebanon) and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
And for states that aided them, Afghanistan and Iraq.
And see this Jane's Article for specifics re: the WTC atrocity.
Kofi (UN) and Clinton have been appeasing and making empty threats to these terrorists for so many years that even countries supporting them are apt to rise up in anger like spoiled children.
Can you imagine what we'd be going through if the terrorists attacked last September?
Blowback && Penetrating Al-Qaeda from Jane's - description of the AlQaida network.
Suicide terrorism: a global threat
The same groups keep emerging: Al-Qaida, Hamas, Hizbulla, and Egypt's Islamic Jihad and and Islamic Group.
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