assilem

Link

I read this very disturbing article in Time today. I was struck by the last line, a quote from an insurgent in Iraq. I encourage you all to read the entire article. Coming from a guy who supported the Iraq war or "battle in the war on terrorism" as some administration figures like to call it, I am more than a little concerned about American soil. My questions are: If they bring the Jihad to our shores (not that they already haven’t). What do we do? Will we fight? Here? Can we stop this? Canadians as well. Sorry for dragging you guys into this shit.

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Sunday, Jun. 27, 2004
Meet The New Jihad
A TIME investigation reveals how insurgents in Iraq aim to create an Islamic state and turn the country into a terrorist haven
By MICHAEL WARE/FALLUJAH
The safe house lies on the outskirts of Fallujah in a neighborhood where no Americans have ventured. Inside, a group of Arab sheiks has gathered to discuss the jihad they and their followers are waging against the U.S. The men wear white robes and long beards and greet each other solemnly. They are all Iraqi, but their beliefs are those of the strict Wahhabi strain of Islam repressed under Saddam Hussein. Unlike most Iraqi sitting rooms, this one has no pictures adorning its walls or a television or radio nestled in a corner. Such luxuries are forbidden, just as they were under the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the back of the room are a few men from Saudi Arabia, who stand silently as one of the sheiks, the group's leader, addresses me in Arabic and stilted English. The war in Iraq, he says, is one of liberation, not just of a country but of Muslim lands, Muslim people, Islam itself. There is no room for negotiation with the enemy, no common ground. What he and his men offer is endless, righteous resistance. "Maybe this war will take a long time," he says. "Maybe this is a world war."

After the meeting, they adjourn to the garden and drink sweet black tea in the twilight. As they lecture me on Islam, a roar cuts across the conversation. From the other side of the farmhouse, less than 50 yds. away, a missile soars over us with a thunderous screech—bound for a nearby encampment housing U.S. Marines. "Allahu akbar," they all mutter—God is great. Minutes later, the imam makes the evening call to prayer. The 50 militants gathered at the safe house form tight lines behind one of the imams and bow reverently in prayer. Then some leave to get ready to try to kill more Americans.

While the U.S. hopes that the fighting and dying in Iraq will begin to dissipate after the hand-off of power to an interim Iraqi government this week, militants like these sheltered outside Fallujah are just as determined to wreak more carnage. The ruthlessness of the insurgents was evident across Iraq last week, as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks that were stunning in their scale and coordination. In a single day, insurgents attacked in six cities, blowing up police stations, seizing government buildings, ambushing U.S. forces and killing more than 100 people, including three American soldiers. Though U.S. commanders continue to say they can contain the insurgency, Iyad Allawi, the incoming Iraqi Prime Minister, said he may impose martial law once he takes office, a move that would at least temporarily suspend many of the liberties the U.S. ostensibly intended to bring to Iraq. "We were expecting such an escalation, and we will witness more in the next few weeks," Allawi said. "We will deal with it, and we will crush it."

The insurgents have no intention of laying down their arms. Indeed, the nature of the insurgency in Iraq is fundamentally changing. Time reported last fall that the insurgency was being led by members of the former Baathist regime, who were using guerrilla tactics in an effort to drive out foreign occupiers and reclaim power. But a Time investigation of the insurgency today—based on meetings with insurgents, tribal leaders, religious clerics and U.S. intelligence officials—reveals that the militants are turning the resistance into an international jihadist movement. Foreign fighters, once estranged from homegrown guerrilla groups, are now integrated as cells or complete units with Iraqis. Many of Saddam's former secret police and Republican Guard officers, who two years ago were drinking and whoring, no longer dare even smoke cigarettes. They are fighting for Allah, they say, and true jihadis reject such earthly indulgences.

Their goal now, say the militants interviewed, is broader than simply forcing the U.S. to leave. They want to transform Iraq into what Afghanistan was in the 1980s: a training ground for young jihadists who will form the next wave of recruits for al-Qaeda and like-minded groups. Nearly all the new jihadist groups claim to be receiving inspiration, if not commands, from Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the suspected al-Qaeda operative who the U.S. believes has masterminded the insurgency's embrace of terrorism. Al-Zarqawi's group kidnapped three Turkish workers last Saturday and threatened to behead them within 72 hours unless Turkish companies withdrew from Iraq. And now the conditions are ripening for the insurgents to turn their armed struggle into a political movement that aims to exploit the upheaval and turn parts of Iraq into Taliban-style fiefdoms. A potential leader is Sheik Mahdi Ahmed al-Sumaidai, a hard-line Salafi imam recently released from Abu Ghraib prison and now based in Baghdad's radical Ibn Taimiya Mosque. Mujahedin leaders and U.S. military and intelligence officers in Iraq say many jihadists are also rallying behind Harith al-Dhari, who leads the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's most significant Sunni organization. Al-Dhari, who operates out of the Mother of all Battles Mosque, is said to have played a key role in mobilizing fighters during April's uprising in Fallujah; during a gathering of militants there on April 9, one of his lieutenants called on Muslims outside Iraq to join the fight. As a result, al-Dhari has built support among both Iraqi and foreign insurgents, who believe he may emerge as a figure akin to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Insurgents also say al-Zarqawi may have intended last week's onslaught to be even more catastrophic. As militants attacked in cities like Fallujah and Baqubah, a cell of an Iraqi resistance group working with al-Zarqawi roamed Baghdad, insurgent sources told Time. Working in small teams in separate cars, the insurgents cased targets and waited for their commanders, including al-Zarqawi himself, to issue strike orders. When the cell didn't receive the call, it withdrew and waited for another opportunity to attack.

U.S. intelligence officials say they now believe Iraq is a magnet for fanatical Muslims around the world. "It's become the proving ground," says a senior U.S. intelligence official. The jihadists are convinced they can continue fighting indefinitely. "Jihad is not made by us," says a midlevel insurgent leader. "It is made by the Prophet and will continue to Judgment Day." With the U.S. ceding political power to Iraqis this week, here's an inside look at how the new jihadists operate and the threats they pose to stability in Iraq. The Godfather

Before the U.S. invaded iraq last spring, al-Zarqawi was a fringe player on the global terrorist stage. According to U.S. intelligence officials, the 37-year-old Jordanian spent months traveling from Afghanistan to Iran to Georgia, offering his services as a terrorism consultant to Islamist groups. His firmest prewar connections were with Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish-based militant group associated with al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials suspect that last spring al-Zarqawi fled to Iran and joined the terrorist group's leadership there before slipping back into Iraq.

Over the past six months, al-Zarqawi's profile in jihadi circles has risen with the increase in terrorist attacks in Iraq, including suicide bombings. Through aggressive use of the Internet, al-Zarqawi has promoted himself and his group, Attawhid wal Jihad, or Unity and Holy War. A senior U.S. military official says the U.S. believes that al-Zarqawi played a chief role in the coordination of last week's violence and is gearing up for more. "This guy knows his [stuff]," says the official.

From what Iraqi members of jihadist groups closely affiliated with al-Zarqawi's network describe, the Jordanian operates more as a godfather-style mafioso than a traditional military commander. Insurgent commanders told Time that al-Zarqawi does not direct day-to-day operations but guides strategy and is involved in the planning of major operations. Al-Zarqawi possesses an unmatched ability to persuade and indoctrinate. "Some of the emirs just have to sit with him and listen," says a senior Fallujah-based commander, "and they walk away committed to him."

Al-Zarqawi's role at the center of the insurgency was cemented in April, during the standoff between militants and U.S. Marines in Fallujah. Foreign fighters from throughout the Middle East, including Syria and Saudi Arabia, manned the barricades alongside Iraqi fighters during the Marines' offensive. This kind of on-the-ground cooperation was rare in the past, according to Iraqi cell leaders, in part because foreigners were viewed as terrorists interested only in major attacks against civilian targets. Now foreigners team up with Iraqis to employ more traditional guerrilla tactics, such as roadside ambushes and mortar attacks against U.S. forces.

Despite al-Zarqawi's efforts to attract Iraqi insurgent groups into his network, his inner circle of lieutenants and bodyguards is said to consist entirely of foreign fighters. No one can pinpoint how many are operating in Iraq, partly because they remain shadowy even to those who work with them. "The foreigners trust no one, not even their own clothes," says an Iraqi resistance fighter. He adds that al-Zarqawi has become an inspirational figure, like Osama bin Laden, for militants who espouse his methods and religious fervor. "Most are not members of his group in a formal sense," says the insurgent. "But everyone, especially the foreigners in Iraq who share his ideals of jihad, considers himself part of Attawhid wal Jihad."

The lieutenants

Among those who have thrown their support behind the jihad is insurgent leader Abu Ali. A ballistic-missile specialist in Saddam's Fedayeen militia, he fought U.S. troops during the invasion and has served as a resistance commander ever since, organizing rocket attacks on the green zone, the headquarters of the U.S. administration in Baghdad. When interviewed by Time last fall, he spoke of a vain hope that Saddam would return and re-establish a Baathist regime. But at a recent meeting near a rural mosque, he said he is fighting to rid all Muslim lands of infidels and to set up an Islamic state in Iraq. "The jihad in Iraq is more potent than it was in Afghanistan in the 1980s because the insurgents today have better weapons and are developing new ones," he says.

The insurgency's shift toward a religious outlook is in part driven by financial necessity: the capture of Saddam and his henchmen drained the insurgency of its former sources of funding. That forced Iraqi groups to turn to foreign financiers in places like the gulf, and they have demanded that the insurgents adopt a more radical religious identity. "After we rolled up Saddam, we hit them pretty hard, and this is what they turned to," says a senior U.S. military official. "It would appear there are not only some marriages of convenience but also some groups that have crossed over to the jihadi side." One such group, whose leaders met with Time, is the Kata'ib al-Jihad al-Islamiyah, or Battalions of Islamic Holy War. Founded by frontline officers from Saddam's intelligence services and the Republican Guard who once shunned terrorist attacks that killed innocent Iraqis, the group represents a significant Iraqi wing of al-Zarqawi's network. The group's leaders say they now accept mass-casualty attacks as legitimate; they claim that innocents killed in such strikes go straight to paradise. A fund-raising video made by the group and given to Time shows its members citing exhortations by bin Laden and referring to fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran. Kata'ib has incorporated foreign fighters into its cells. One member says the group has formed an entirely foreign unit, dubbed the Green Brigade. The group's commanders say their fighters joined last week's attacks against U.S. Marines in Fallujah and helped lead the uprising in Baqubah.

Kata'ib has drawn new members from the ranks of former detainees at Abu Ghraib. Scores of men like Abu Mustafa, a former military officer, say they spent their time in jail studying Salafi Islam and receiving lessons in jihad from bearded Iraqis and detainees who came from places like Syria and Saudi Arabia. Abu Mustafa claims that cellblocks have secretly become mini-madrasahs, or religious schools. "We studied hard every day and often into the night," he says. The U.S. has released hundreds of detainees in recent weeks, supplying the insurgency with a fresh crop of jihadists. "There was one man who didn't even know how to pray," says Abu Mustafa. "When he got out, he was like an imam and is one of our most ferocious fighters on the front line."

The Future of Jihad

The U.S. does not believe that the insurgency has an organized command structure; even al-Zarqawi's network seems to be less a military unit than a decentralized terrorist operation. Iraqi commanders say the shape of the network shifts constantly, with no formal membership of any one group. The amorphous nature of the resistance also means it has the potential to spread more easily into the Sunni heartland, where U.S. forces are still struggling to maintain order. Fallujah is already a terrorist sanctuary; insurgent sources say the safe haven is set to expand into Baqubah and Samarra.

With U.S. forces stretched thin and Iraqi security forces still months away from being able to assert authority, the fear is that the al-Zarqawi-led jihadists may carve out their own fiefdoms across the country from which they can recruit and train zealots to join their struggle—a version of the northwest province in Pakistan, which al-Qaeda has turned into a safe haven. The insurgents' aspirations are growing. Abdullah, a midlevel leader of Kata'ib, says he's happy U.S. troops are staying in Iraq: it means he can be part of the jihad. Asked what the jihadists will do if U.S. forces finally pull out, one of Abdullah's comrades offers this answer: "We will follow them to the U.S."

__________________
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels

tecoyah

Karma?

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

assilem

But did you read the article!? Please elaborate. Of all people I know you have level head and articulate mind. I would like to hear your opinion techoya as well as others?

__________________
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels

wonderwench

Fascinating article in many aspects.

1. The ongoing doom and gloom about what is going on in Iraq despite the evidence of progress.

2. The fact that Bush successfully moved the front line of the jihad back to the MidEast is something which one must infer.

3. It offers additional proof that they hate us for who we are, not what we do.

powerclown

Get yer popcorn here!

/sits back and waits for the show to start

Shades

Amen. Take that to heart, it's the unadulterated truth. It's too bad that some people just can't believe it.

SLM3

Edward Said in "The End of The Peace Process: Oslo and After":

"In 1991 the Washington Post leaked news of a continuing study in the US defense and intelligence establishment of the need to find a new common enemy: Islam was the candidate. Many of the authoritative foreign policy journals, seminars, newspapers of record have held symposia, published articles and studies proclaiming the threat of Islam.

The Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has made Islam the preferred candidate for demon status in that study; neither Jewish nor Christian, not to mention Slavic or Hindu, fundamentalism gets much attention. By now the media equates Islam with terror and fundamentalism, so that no matter where a bomb goes off in the world, the first suspects are always Muslims and/or Arabs.

Every article published about Hamas of Islamic fundamentalism or Iran - about which it is now nearly impossible to speak rationally - describes an ahistorical world of pure despotism, pure rage, pure violence, all of it in some way targeting 'us', a group of innocent victims who happen to ride busses or go about some harmless daily business, as unconnected with the decades of suffering imposed on an entire people. There is never an indication at all that for centuires there has been one form or another of Western infringement directed against the land and peoples of Islam."

Take it for what it's worth in this discussion. Perhaps the topic of the demonization of Islam is best left for another thread. However, I couldn't help but remember Said's words when I read this thread.


SLM3

Johnny Rotten

I came away with the impression that Iraq has become an international terrorist incubator.

...Since we haven't done much to upset them.

__________________
"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

Pacifier

yep, it reminds my of a quote from a Pakistani Jornalist i read some time ago

"They're missing so much and getting such a biased picture, but they get this shopping list from America every morning. For instance, I was asked to find some people for the 'Why do they all hate us?' story. So I went and got a section of academics, politicians and high profile commentators. The sort of people you'd expect if you were doing it in America. And they said 'No, no, no. What we want is a really angry mullah with a turban and a beard who looks like he hates us.'"
- Pakistani Jornalist working for USA news TV station CNN in Pakistan during the 2001 bombing of Afghanistan.

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

tecoyah

Very well.

The Karma statement refers to possible fallout from a war we are waging against an enemy we have not bothered to attempt to understand. The United States went into Iraq for reasons I have yet to grasp, and I have tried very hard. To this day I am confused as to the current explanation for an attack, and occupation of another nation.
Now, if I, as an American citizen, with enormous amounts of information at my disposal cannot understand why we are there, and am forced to "guess" about such an important issue, what of the people under occupation? We cannot expect acceptance from the people of Iraq.
Karma is similar to the Threefold Law. Whatever you do, good or bad, expect a return threefold.
We have, in my opinion, done a great injustice to an entire population of people. Indeed an entire culture. By starting this war, we have in reality, started the Jihad. If we had attempted to understand the culture (Which I do not claim to fully understand), we would likely have been able to avoid much of the miscommunication that has lead to our current nightmare scenario.

In short, we fucked up, and Karma is in payback mode.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

onetime2

Does anyone really think a jihad in the United States would be successful beyond limited attacks?

The entire terrorist network in Iraq (a place where they have substantial numbers of safe havens, intimate knowledge of the culture, people, geography, plenty of monetary and political support, etc) has been able to achieve, in their most successful large scale attacks, a few hundred deaths (most of them innocent Iraqis).

What makes anyone believe they will be more successful in the US should they take their jihad to us?

I have little doubt they will try. And I have little doubt they will ultimately fail.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Sun Tzu

Scenerio: Imagine over the course of 4 weeks; suicide attacks begin happening in random cities in random states within random places of business.

A library in Galveston, TX; a department store in Los Angles, CA; a movie theater in Vining, MN; a grocery store in Chicago, IL; a surf shop in Kailua, HI; etc. Image that after 4 weeks multiple bombings were commited on US at very random places; in towns with populations from 100 to cities with 1,000,000 in various places of social gatherings and commerce. Every attack was claimed to be part of the Jihad and that any place could be a target.

The goal wouldnt be how to kill the largest amount of people, but to promote that no where is truly safe. They could even take it a step further and have a small number go straight to random houses and when the occupant answered the door; they would ignite the bomb.

What if this continued until steps had to be taken to stop them.


1) what would the steps be?

2) what would happen to the economy?

3) why is a scenerio such as this NOT possible? (if you believe it's not possible)

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking

cosmoknight

I don't think it would have a great success. The hard core Jihadist from AQ who came over here in advance of the 9/11 attacks were "corrupted" by our way of life. Many had to have replacements flown in and these would have been the extreme hard core willing to blow themselves up not just shoot people. An organized campaign by them would eventually fail because of this. Also the FBI is very good at tracking most terrorism down inside this country.

onetime2

After the first one steps have to be taken to stop them.

As stated, they can barely achieve such results in Iraq. They have little to no hope of achieving it over the course of weeks within the US.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

cthulu23

Certainly it's possible.....it's probability is a seperate issue.

Zeld2.0

I highly doubt they would succeed in a jihad insurgency in the U.S. Unless you mean exploding nukes or chemicals or something - otherwise, a lesser way?

Given the number of soldiers stationed at home (not to mention guns too) as well as other means of stopping them, I would doubt they would succeed well.

I think it's a bit paranoid to think suddenly millions will die in a wave of fighting across the U.S. when the Arab Muslim population is already pretty small in the U.S. not to mention that most of them aren't terrorists at all.

Sun Tzu

I'd say their results are a little higher than barley; but their hopeful eventual failure is a good thing.

It just seems if a person knows the right connections; explosives are not that hard to obtain or make.

Like I said the idea wouldnt be to destroy as many lives as possible with the bombings; their purpose would be to cause a critical prejugdice against the American Arab population. A goal of promoting the idea that wherever a person went and they saw an Arab they could be a potential victim. A goal of forcing the governemnt to do something simliar to what it did in Japanese people during WWII. Initially it may not make sense why arab would want to make their fellow arabs look bad and become extremely discriminated, but what potetnial problems could evolve from such a situation? Again I think the economy would be their true target.

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking

wonderwench

It really wouldn't take much to wreak a great deal of havoc. Consider the impact of a few dozen suicide bombers blowing themselves and a great many shoppers to bits at malls across the country? Low capital requirement and no training required. The economic impact would be horrendous. They do not need to take out a large part of the population to inflict tremendous damage.

kutulu

That would be very effective and there is little, if any way to fight against those types of attacks. Our system is set up to take care of large threats, not small random attacks. 50 people whose backgrounds are clean enough to pass customs could come here and cause substantial terror and havoc.

Look at how paranoid people were with the snipers in the Virginia area. Imagine something similar to that happening in each state. They could set it up in a way that each person just picked out targets at random and none of them knew the other attackers. If one was caught, we could torture them all we want and never get anything usefull from them.

assilem

All very possible attack scenarios and some great points about our relationship or lack there of with the Arab and Islamic communities (here and abroad). What I would like to know is what position it would put our country (USA and possibly Canada)) in on a social and "military" level. Would we, like Sun Tzu said, intern American Arabs? Would martial law be imposed on our citizens? Would vigilantly groups rise up and fight these people innocent or not? Would the Arab community believing that there was no hope and that this is truly a holy war, fight our national guard? All very frightening possibilities.
And what of the probability? Not directed at cthulu23 but a question for us all.

__________________
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels

wonderwench

If the jihad reached critical mass on U.S. soil, it is a safe bet that martial law would be declared. Given the countrywide guilt over the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII, I doubt that such would be repeated with Americans of Arab descent. There would also most likely be widespread vigilantism, which would then lead to more stringent enforcement of martial law.

If this scenario does take place, liberty in America will be a faint memory for a long time.

cthulu23

To tell you the truth, I'm more concerned with that earthquake movie that they played on TV a few months back.....we need to elect Beau Bridges quick!!!

As Arabs are a pretty small minority in this country, I'm not losing too much sleep over the idea of an American Jihad, although I'm sure Tom Clancy will spin a good tale about one soon.

wonderwench

It would not take a vast amount of people to wreak enormous havoc.

cthulu23

I didn't say it would. I do feel that paranoia about any kind sustained, organized campaign that hasn't happened and hasn't even been hinted is slightly unjustified. Don't get me wrong, there will undoubtedly be another terrorist attack in the US one day....I don't think that we have to worry about the collapse of our economy or society, though.

wonderwench

I don't take liberty for granted. It is quite easy to construct scenarios of severe overreaction on the part of the government.

assilem

ROTFLOL! Very funny and a damn good point.

__________________
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels

cthulu23

Point taken, but I still feel that there's no need to brace for impact quite yet.

wonderwench

Agreed, now that the front line has been moved back to the Mid-East. I would not be quite so sanguine if it were not.

cthulu23

Ahhh, the flypaper theory...where it is assumed that all the terrorists are too busy shooting at our soldiers to shoot at us. Unfortunately, this theory is predicated on the belief in a fixed number of terrorists that can all be distracted in Iraq, ignoring the fact that our actions there are almost quaranteed to create new recruits from around the globe.

onetime2

I think there is some confusion as to how difficult it really is to carry out successful attacks.

For those who claim it would be so easy, please explain why exactly it hasn't happened in the US since 9/11? After all, it's a target rich environment right? A successful attack would create such utter havoc right? It must be a high priority then, no?

The answer, of course, is that it isn't as easy as the press amd some here make it out to be. It takes organization, funding, willing participants, access to weapons, training, coordination, secrecy, etc, etc, etc.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Sun Tzu

onetime2 the one ideal that I'll maintain whether or not I agree with how easy it would be is; I hope they never start and indeed every path that one would desire or follow to carry out such is saturated with obstacles and resistance.

and methods that are feasible remain novelty.

http://roguesci.org/megalomania/explosives.html

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking