Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

What We Learned From the Report of the 911 Commission X

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In the mid- to late-Eighties, Khadr Abu Hoshar, a Palestinian terrorist resident in Jordan, was recruiting young men who had been through the Afghan training camps. In 1996 Abu Hoshar was imprisoned for a time by the Jordanians. By 1998 he had been released and was back to his old tricks. During 1998 he and a group of 15 fellow terrorists worked up an ambitious plan for attacks. During 1999 he got in contact with some Islamic terrorist jihadis in Afghanistan who had some sort of ties to OBL. They were providing technical advice and training to Abu Hoshar’s group. (pp. 252-253.)

Abu Hoshar’s security practices had not improved during his stretch in a Jordanian prison, however, because the Jordanian intelligence service spiked his phone and kept his whole group under observation. On 30 November 1999 the Jordanians intercepted a conversation between Abu Hoshar and Abu Zubaydah, the Afghan with connections to OBL, which seemed to herald an imminent attack. They rolled up all but one of the group, turned the screws on the prisoners until they got a bunch of intelligence in short order, and told the Americans what was up. (pp. 252-253.)

The CIA situated this report in a larger context during the first few days of December 1999 by reporting the possibility of a planned series of attacks by OBL at the “millennium,” some of which might involve weapons of mass destruction. (pp. 253-254.) Various efforts were made to hinder any such attacks by various means: by diplomacy (the Taliban were threatened, the Paks were cozened); by disruption in cooperation with friendly intelligence services; by loosening the leash on CIA operations. (pp. 254-255.) In December 1999 the leader of the Northern Alliance offered to plaster al Qaeda’s training camp at Derunta with rockets. Again, the CIA thought that this would violate a ban on assassinations, so they waved him off. (p. 270-271.)

Canada was awash in terrorists and aspiring terrorists in the late Nineties. Ahmed Ressam, a Moroccan petty criminal who had managed to find refuge in Canada in 1994, was recruited in 1998 by another jihadi then resident in Canada. Ressam spent part of 1998 training an Afghanistan terrorist camp. Here he joined a group of other Algerian jihadis who had been recruited for anti-American terrorist action. Back in Canada in the first half of 1999, Ressam received assistance from three other Algerians who were hiding out in Canada from French authorities, who wanted to talk to them about some stuff that had happened in France. By December 1999 he was in Vancouver, BC, preparing to enter the United States to attack LAX. (p. 255.)

On 14 December 1999 Ressam behaved oddly when attempting to enter the United States at Port Angeles, Washington, and was arrested. (p. 257.) The Ressam arrest coming on top of the report of the Jordanian plot caused great alarm in Washington. The FBI started tapping numerous telephones under FISA warrants. Richard Clarke’s office warned that “Foreign terrorist sleeper cells are present in the US and attacks in the US are likely.” Clarke also asked Berger rhetorically “Is there a threat to civilian aircraft?” (pp. 258-259.) In late December 1999 the US received a report from a foreign intelligence service that OBL planned to bomb several transatlantic flights. (p. 259.)

What We Learned From the Report of the 911 Commission IX.

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In February 1999, there seems to have been no confusion among the NSC and CIA people about what they wanted to accomplish: they prepared to use intelligence about Bin Laden visiting a desert hunting camp favored by some important people from the United Arab Emirates to launch another cruise missile strike (and tough luck for any Emiratis who happened to be present). The report seems to me to suggest that Clarke first blocked this strike because he saw the UAE as America’s ally in the fight against terrorism, then in March 1999 basically exposed to the Emiratis the CIA’s knowledge that the campers welcomed Bin Laden. The camp immediately folded up and Bin Laden never passed through there again. (p. 202.)

In February 1999 Tenet persuaded President Clinton to allow the CIA to try to recruit the Northern Alliance to capture or kill Bin Laden. The Northern Alliance leader showed little enthusiasm for capturing an enemy and, besides, the Northern Alliance had no ready access to the areas where Bin Laden was located. (pp. 203-204.)

In May 1999 the CIA thought it had a 50-50 chance of nailing Bin Laden in Kandahar, but they had just botched the targeting of a “smart bomb” in Belgrade and had hit the Chinese embassy. Naturally a little touchy about accuracy, Tenet seems to have backed away when it looked like everyone was getting ready to John-the-Baptist him if the attack did not succeed. (pp. 205-206.)

The rest of 1999 got frittered away trying to come up with a plan to get Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Nothing emerged. However, in 1999, and again in 2000, a group of Americans from different agencies traveled to Saudi Arabia in an effort to sort out the source of al Qaeda’s money. To their surprise they discovered that Bin Laden was not financing operations out of a vast private fortune—as had long been the assumption. Belatedly, they discovered that Bin Laden had rebuilt the “Golden Chain” of donations. How to penetrate, let alone destroy, that network remained a mystery to the CIA. (p. 268.)

These developments really left the US with no option but to try to disrupt any offensive operations outside of Afghanistan. What were they doing on this front during 1998-2001? For one thing, the National Security Agency kept watch on the communications of known terrorists.

Real trouble was at hand. In 1994 a group of Algerian terrorists had hijacked a jet, possibly with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. Later in 1994, Ramzi Yousef, then based in the Philippines, plotted to bomb twelve US airliners flying over the Pacific. (p. 90.) This plot was broken up. In early 1995, Ramzi Yousef’s accomplice in the Manila airlines plot told interrogators that the two men had discussed crashing a plane into CIA HQ. Khalid Sheik Mohammed had adopted this plan.

In mid-1996 KSM had pitched OBL on a plan to crash airliners into American buildings. (pp. 214-215.) OBL did not commit and KSM seems to have doubted that OBL was serious about attacking the Americans.

Then the embassy bombings persuaded KSM that OBL was serious about attacking the United States. He renewed his proposal for al Qaeda support for the “planes operation.” In March or April 1999, OBL agreed to support the plan. (pp. 216, 223.)

Thus, during 1999 both the Americans and al Qaeda were searching for ways to get at one another to deadly effect. Of the two, al Qaeda operated with fewer restraints and more imagination.

What We Learned From the Report of the 9/11 Commission VII.

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What was more important in 1998, fending off a nuclear war on the Indian sub-continent or working out on Pakistan to get it to pressure the religious fanatics running Afghanistan to evict a co-religionist who hated Americans? After Pakistan had tested a nuclear weapon in May 1998, the Congress had slapped heavy sanctions on the impoverished, unstable country. This left American diplomacy with little leverage in the effort to apply pressure on the Taliban. Now Pakistan’s relations with India were at an apparent breaking point because of the struggle over Kashmir. Most American diplomats involved in South Asia policy-making preferred to downplay the terrorism issue until the possibility of nuclear war had been contained. Diplomacy got nowhere by the end of 1999. (pp. 177-185.)

 

Covert Action.

After the August 1998 embassy bombings, President Clinton signed a Memorandum of Notification that instructed the CIA to attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden, but authorized the use of deadly force only for self-defense. (pp. 185, 192.) By Christmas 1998 Berger, Tenet, and Clinton purportedly had all come around to favor killing Bin Laden if he could not be captured; Clinton approved a new Memorandum of Notification to this effect. (p. 193.) However, this memo referred only to the tribal fighters in touch with the CIA, it was circulated only to a handful of people at the highest level of government, Clinton greatly diluted a similar proposed agreement with the Northern Alliance, and no CIA officials ever got the idea that Clinton seriously desired to kill—rather than capture for trial—Osama Bin Laden.

While the “sissies in striped pants” at State were doing their thing to no visible effect, the CIA and the FBI were busy busting up Al Qaeda operations overseas. During August and September 1998 al Qaeda people were arrested in Britain, Italy, Germany, and Azerbaijan.

The Afghan tribal fighters seemed to provide valuable intelligence on the location of Bin Laden, although no one in Langley thought that their purported efforts to kill Bin Laden were very credible. [NB: Reading between the lines, it appears that the tribals were milking the CIA for money and were not going to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by killing or capturing OBL.]

In October, November, and December 1998 concern that al Qaeda meant to launch a terrorist attack within the United States led to various alerts and to discussion of an attempt to hit Bin Laden in Kandahar, but the decision-makers choked on the latter option—much to the annoyance of lower level officials.[1] Lieutenant General William Boykin, a snake-eater from way back and subsequently the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, later said of this time that “opportunities were missed because of an unwillingness to take risks and a lack of vision and understanding.” (quoted, p. 199.)

[1] This lower-ranks frustration with the caution of the upper-ranks is similar to the later improvisation of a response to the 9/11 hijackings. This emerges as one of the key factors in understanding American vulnerability to attack. The Federal government appears to recruit and promote cautious, consensus-oriented CYA people.

What We Learned form the Report of the 9/11 Commission VI.

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“The modest national effort exerted to contain Serbia and its depredations in the Balkans between 1995 and 1999, for example, was orders of magnitude larger than that devoted to al Qaeda.” (p. 487.) Neither the American public nor American leaders seemed to even notice terrorism as a problem in the post-Cold War environment.

 

Crisis: August 1998.

Immediately after the embassy bombings CIA Director George Tenet knew that there would be a big gathering of terrorist leaders at Khowst in Afghanistan on 20 August 1998, and CentCOM commander Tony Zinni had his cruise missile plan already to go. The responsible decision-makers talked over the issues until 20 May and sent the Vice-Chairman of the JCS to warn the Pakistanis that the cruise missiles flying through their air space were not an Indian attack. Nobody wanted a nuclear war on the sub-continent as an unintended by-product of the strike at Bin Laden, but this probably constituted a serious breach of security. The missiles missed Bin Laden by a few hours and some people think that he was warned off by Pakistan’s intelligence service. (pp. 169-171.)

Clarke wanted the cruise missiles strikes of 20 August 1998 to be the opening act for continuous efforts to kill Bin Laden. It was not to be. (pp. 175-176.)

Although JCS Chairman Hugh Shelton ordered CENTCOM to plan for additional measures, he “did not recommend any of them.” “Shelton felt that the August 1998 attacks had been a waste of good ordnance and thereafter consistently opposed firing expensive Tomahawk missiles merely at ‘jungle gym’ terrorist training infrastructure. In this view, he had complete support from Defense Secretary William Cohen. Shelton was prepared to plan other options, but he was also prepared to make perfectly clear his own strong doubts about the wisdom of any military action that risked U.S. lives unless the intelligence was ‘actionable.’”(pp. 502, 503.)

CENTCOM commander Tony Zinni, who actually had to come up with a possible scheme, believed that a long-term development of relationships with neighboring countries made the most sense. Covert action of any kind would require some kind of local base. Zinni got the feeling that Washington was picky about doing business with dictators merely because they could help out the United States. (p. 197.)

Already haunted by memories of “Desert One” and “Black Hawk Down,” decision-makers probably became even more cautious about using force to solve the Bin Laden problem in the wake of the failed cruise missile strikes of 20 August 1998. (pp. 172-173.)

In addition to missing Bin Laden, there were serious downsides to this attack: international opinion heaped abuse on the US for being “bomb-happy”; the Republicans ridiculed Clinton for “pinpricks.” (pp. 172-173.)

Soon afterward, American diplomatic and military power was being applied in the Balkans against Serbia (October 1998-March 1999) and in the Middle East against Iraq (December 1998). This distracted most of the key people from problem of terrorism.

At the same time it is important to note that people working for Allen Holmes, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, produced a paper calling on the Defense Department to assume the lead in the global fight against terrorism. (pp. 176-177.) This paper did not get very far up the chain of approval during the Clinton Administration, but it may have lain dormant until Rumsfeld came to the Pentagon.

What we learned from the Report of the 9/11 Commission V.

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Between 1996 and 1998, Bin Laden rebuilt al Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, “Pakistan was the nation that held the key to [Bin Laden’s] ability to use Afghanistan as a base from which to revive his ambitious enterprise for war against the United States.” (p. 95.) Pakistan is a failed democracy in which the army’s most recent intervention in politics had led to an appeal to Islamist sentiment as a form of legitimization. Pakistan also is a failed economy in which large numbers of refugees from the Afghan war were educated in Saudi-funded Wahhabist “madrasas” that taught religious fervor in place of life skills. Bin Laden had long-standing ties with Pakistan’s intelligence service. [NB: Which is scary when you think about the ties between the ISI and A.Q. Khan.]

Bid Laden was hurting for financial resources, a number of al Qaeda members or allies went off on their own on the assumption that he was in decline, and one of his chief operations people had died in a ferry boat accident on Lake Victoria.

Not everything was against Bin Ladin by any means. Most of Afghanistan was governed by the Taliban, a bunch of religious fanatics who thought that anything and everything OBL said made a lot of sense. While the Pakistanis may have wanted a friendly government in Afghanistan to give their country “strategic depth,” Pakistan also provided Afghanistan with the same sort of strategic depth against American retaliation. Afghanistan swarmed with terrorist-wannabes and jihadist from all over the Muslim world.   Various veterans of the war against the Soviets ran terrorist training camps, and supplied weapons, and arranged travel for jihadis. Donations from all over the Arab world, but especially from Saudi Arabia, kept most of these enterprises afloat. As one of the American counter-terroism people would later phrase it, “Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is not so much a state sponsor of terrorism as it is a state sponsored by terrorists.” (p. 263.)

 

Bin Laden revived his activities of the Afghan war and shared the results with the Taliban: the “Golden Chain” fund-raising system provided money and the recruiting system among Islamic fundamentalists provided manpower. Bin Laden seems to have creamed off the best of both for his own movement. (pp. 97-99.) Thus, the “Golden Chain” raised about $20-30 million a year. Al Qaeda paid the Taliban about $10-20 million a year for protection and support, so al Qaeda had about $10 million a year to spend on all his projects. (pp. 247-248.) Al Qaeda ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. About 70 percent of the people in the al Qaeda camps were Saudis; another 20 percent were Yemenis; and 10 percent came from various other places. (p. 336.) By 1998, after a year to a year-and-a-half of hard work, Bin Laden and al Qaeda were back in business.

Along the way, Bin Ladin renewed contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They had known each other in the Afghan war in 1987, but had not been in contact since 1989.

One thing worth noting is that Bin Laden was rebuilding al Qaeda at the same time that George Tenet was rebuilding the CIA. While bin Laden’s efforts were smaller than were those at CIA, they were also more tightly focused. Who would be ready first?

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: St. Martin’s Press

What did we learn from the Report of the 9/11 Commission? III

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Osama bin Laden seems to have encountered Sayidd Qutb’s philosophy through the tape recordings of a Palestinian evangelist named Abdullah Azzam, while attending Saudi Arabia’s Abdul Aziz University in the late Seventies. (p. 82.) Bin Laden adopted this worldview and only the conversion of everyone everywhere to his version of Islam would end his war with them. (pp. 76-77.)

Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to support a threatened Communist regime. The Afghans fought back and devout Muslims from all over the world came to participate in the “jihad” against the Soviets. While the CIA channeled immense amounts of American aid to the “mujahideen through the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), a parallel private network—the so-called “Golden Chain”—also raised money in Saudi Arabia and recruited fighters for Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam played an important part in this latter effort.

At some point Bin Laden developed “a vision of himself as head of an international jihad confederation.” (p. 86.) When, in April 1988, the Soviets cried uncle and announced their plans to leave Afghanistan by the end of the year, Bin Laden and Azzam cast around for a new enemy to attack. Azzam argued for struggling to create a pure Islamic state in Afghanistan, then attacking Israel; Bin Laden argued for a global war. (p. 84.)

In fall 1989 Hassan al Turabi, an important Islamic fundamentalist leader in Sudan, invited Bin Laden to use Sudan as a base of operations. Turabi had a vision of Sunni and Shi’a putting aside their religious differences to make common cause against Israel and the United States. (p. 90.) Did Azzam oppose this move? On 24 November 1989 Azzam died in a car bombing. At the time, the bombing was attributed, but which now looks suspiciously like Bin Laden settling the debate.

Bin Laden then accepted al Turabi’s invitation. He sent men to begin buying property, while he himself returned to Saudi Arabia. Soon afterward, Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia. A broad international coalition formed, led by the United States, to oppose a move that threatened the stability of the world oil market. Between August 1990 and April 1991 Bin Laden made himself deeply unpopular with the Saudi government by bitterly criticizing its decision to ally with the United States rather than calling on Islamic volunteers to oppose the invasion of Kuwait. By this time he was already profoundly anti-American. (p. 87.)

In April 1991 he escaped from Saudi Arabia and established himself in the Sudan. For the next few years Bin Laden worked hard at building covert international networks for finance and operations. He called his group al Qaeda. In this effort he seems to have had the strong support of Hassan al Turabi. The Sudanese leader created a “Popular Arab and Islamic Conference” as a forum for “violent Islamist extremists” who came to confer in the Sudan. Most of these groups forged links to al Qaeda. (p. 90.) Sudan also provided a safe haven for other terrorists who would attack surrounding Arab countries.

 

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004).

The Weight of the Past in Iraq

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The Americans invaded Iraq in 2003. The Sunni minority, which had traditionally dominated Iraq, didn’t like the invasion or the empowerment of the Shi’a majority, so they fought a guerrilla war against the Americans. Then Al Qaeda in Iraq joined in as allies of the Sunni. Then, Al Qaeda in Iraq sought to foster a civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites in order to a) make the American position in Iraq unsustainable, and b) punish the Shi’ites for being “in error” about religious truth. Death squads and suicide bombings and car bombings and deaths-by-power-drills abounded.

Then Al Qaeda in Iraq tried to force their Sunni allies to submit to “sharia” (Islamic religious law). The Sunni Iraqis living in Anbar Province didn’t much like this. In 2006 many tribal leaders began to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq, forming “Awakening Councils.” They sought a truce with and help from the Americans. The Americans responded positively, then General David Petraeus made this a central part of his “surge” strategy in 2007. Awakening Councils spread from Anbar Province into the other areas with large numbers of Sunnis. With the US paying $300 a month and providing equipment to each “volunteer,” there were soon about 80,000 Sunni militia men fighting against Al Qaeda rather than against the Americans. Al Qaeda in Iraq took a savage pounding, while the Sunni component of the insurgency all but disappeared.

American politicians and even many in the media are prone to down-play the role of the “Awakening Councils” in the ending of the insurgency. Instead, they laud “the Surge” of American troops into Iraq. As is so often the case with American political discourse, the reality was different. In 2009 there were about 30 million Iraqis. About 20 million were Shi’ite Arabs; about 5-6 million were Sunni Kurds; and about 5 million were Sunni Arabs. US Army counter-insurgency doctrine held that 20 soldiers per 1,000 people were needed to defeat an insurgency. The US would need 100,000 troops, just to deal with the Sunni Arab part of the country, with many more troops required to garrison the Shi’ite parts. Thus, the “Awakening Councils” and their fighters made possible a radical shift in the balance of forces.

What did the future hold for the “Awakening Councils”? One problem is that the Sunnis have multiple hostilities. Al Qaeda had risen to the top of the list in 2007-2008, but next on the list were the Shi’ites and then the US itself. To take one example, the leader of a Baghdad neighborhood “Awakening Council” was a former officer of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. In 2008, he saw the Iraqi government as a pawn of Iran. Another problem was that the Americans hoped to see the councils and their militias integrated into the police and military of the new Iraq. The Shi’ites always opposed this and wanted the militias disbanded as soon as possible. They foresaw a civil war following the American withdrawal. Finally, in the absence of a single strong leader among the Sunnis, the various Awakening Councils fell fall into conflict with one another as they struggled for turf, weapons, American aid, and control of the local economy.

Thus, by early 2008 it was possible to foresee ugly developments. It all depended upon what the Shi’ites did with power once the Americans departed. Now we know.

Putting the pieces back together again isn’t going to be easy. Islam allows “taqiyya” (dissembling) to avoid persecution. Long oppressed by the Sunni minority, the Shi’ites are regarded as habitual dissemblers. How to build trust once again?

“The Sunni Awakening,” The Week, 1 February 2008, p. 9.

Yemen and Nomen.

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The Christmas Day 2009 “Underwear Bomber” brought attention to a little-known, impoverished, physically desolate, ill-governed, violent corner of the world. No not Detroit. Yemen, on the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

Conditions in Yemen are miserable. Yemen consists of mountains and deserts and tribes. Furthermore, there are fewer than thirty million Yemenis, but they own sixty million guns. Then, the economy is dead: about half the population lives in poverty and over a third of the work force is unemployed. What little oil there is won’t last much longer. There is a shortage of water that will only get worse. Yemeni women have an average of six children, so the population is rising rapidly.

Political conditions make this dire situation even worse. First, the recent President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was seen as a crook and a tyrant. After two successive presidents had been assassinated, the army put him into power in 1978. He quickly entrenched himself. Then, in 1990 his government managed to get control of the southern region, which is home to the oil resources of the country. Since then it has bled the region of the oil revenue while starving it of resources. So there is an insurgency underway. Then, in the north there are Shi’a Muslims who dislike being ruled by a Sunni government. So there is an insurgency under way. Then, because the economy is in poor shape, unemployed young men tend to have a lot of time to kill. Fundamentalist religious preachers abound, usually spewing stuff about Islam establishing its world predominance through struggle. One of these preachers was the Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who was in touch via internet with Major Nidal Hasan before he killed thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood in November 2009, and he met with the “underwear bomber” before his mission in December 2009. Guy appeared to be in a rut.

So, it is a natural environment for Al Qaeda. The first Al Qaeda people showed up as early as 1992. In 2000 Al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole when it was entering port in Yemen. Later on, Yemeni jihadists went to fight the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the survivors of those adventures have returned home over the years. When the Saudi Arabian government stomped down on jihadists sympathizers after 9/11, many of them fled to Yemen. Right now it is estimated that anywhere from 300 to 500 committed Al Qaeda fighters are somewhere in Yemen. (For obvious reasons, it’s a little tricky to go door to door doing a proper census.) More recently the British and American embassies in the capital city of Sanaa were attacked. Most recently, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Muslim studying in Yemen, was recruited as the “Underwear bomber.” So, the place is a pain-in-the-neck for the United States.

Generally, Yemenis don’t like the United States as an abstract concept. The government is less anti-American than are the people generally, but people don’t like the government either. If the government co-operates too openly with the United States in opposing Al Qaeda, it will become even less popular than it is now. The result may be that it will be over-thrown by people who are pro-Al Qaeda. So, we can let the situation sort of fester in hopes that nothing worse will appear, or we can push for action against Al Qaeda and make that worse situation appear. I suppose we could invade the place to bring them hope and change, just like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. “How’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?”

“Terrorism’s new hideout,” The Week, 22 January 2010, p. 11.

The Origins of al Qaeda

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In the beginning all Muslims were supposed to belong to one community, not to many communities, and there was to be no division between politics and religion.  By the start of the Twentieth Century the Ottoman Empire expressed these unities.  At the same time, the Ottoman Empire—called the “Sick Man of Europe”—fell farther and farther behind Western countries, while the Turks bullied the Arabs inside the empire.

Then secular (non-religious) nationalism (which divided Muslims into Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis, Saudi Arabians, etc.) created the first countries in the Muslim world.  Secularism and nationalism were Western ideas, so this amounted to Westernization.  Turkey provided the example here after the First World War.  Many other countries followed it after the Second World War.  Unfortunately, many of these governments did not serve the interests of their people.  The early nationalist leaders held on to power in ways that looked like dictatorship.  Economic development and the opportunity to make a better life did not keep pace with population growth.  Countries often seemed to cringe before the Western countries.

The dissatisfaction with secular nationalist governments made their religious critics the natural alternative in the eyes of many people.  Religious feeling became increasingly strong throughout the Muslim world.  However, the emergence of leaders with a strong religious motivation did not begin in the Arab world.  Rather, the movement which overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1978-1979 put power into the hands of religious leaders.  Subsequently, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 sparked a rebellion by Afghans which drew in many Muslims from all over the Middle East to wage “jihad” against the Russians.  Among them was a Saudi Arabian soccer enthusiast named Osama bin Laden.  ObL’s father was rich, but he wasn’t.  He fought some, but mostly he organized people to fight and raised money to give people the weapons with which to fight.  In 1989 the Afghans succeeded in driving out the Russkies.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia ObL suggested that the “Afghan Arabs” who had defeated the Soviets should now fight the Iraqis.  The Saudis preferred to put their faith in the Americans.  Enraged by allowing these “unbelievers” into Islam’s holy land, bin Laden turned his attention to the “far enemy”—America.  Again he served as an organizer/fund-raiser.  (A National Endowment for Inhumanity.)

First, he based himself in Sudan.  When that got too hot, he moved to Afghanistan.  The Taliban, a movement of Muslim fundamentalists which had gained control of Afghanistan, protected ObL.  From these bases he organized the simultaneous bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanganyika, then the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, an American warship visiting Yemen.  Then he agreed to support the “planes operation,” which had been pitched to him—purportedly—by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.  This—purportedly–involved hijacking a bunch of planes in America and crashing them into buildings and hijacking a bunch of planes over the Pacific and crashing them into the ocean.  The second part of the plan had to be abandoned because the CIA snagged a bunch of the Pacific Ocean plotters in the Philippines.  Bin Laden concentrated on the American part of the operation.

On 9/11/2001 the attack came off as planned.  The Americans then invaded Afghanistan.  ObL fled to the lawless border regions of Pakistan.  Then the US invaded Iraq in 2003.  Eventually the Americans killed ObL.  The war in Afghanistan goes on to prevent the Taliban from coming back.

Yemen and Nomen

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The Christmas Day 2009 “Underwear Bomber” brought attention to a little-known, impoverished, physically desolate, ill-governed, violent corner of the world.  No not Detroit.  Yemen, on the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

Conditions in Yemen are miserable.  Yemen consists of mountains and deserts and tribes.  Furthermore, there are fewer than thirty million Yemenis, but they own sixty million guns.  Then, the economy is dead: about half the population lives in poverty and over a third of the work force is unemployed.  What little oil there is won’t last much longer.  There is a shortage of water that will only get worse.  Yemeni women have an average of six children, so the population is rising rapidly.

Political conditions make this dire situation even worse.  First, the recetn President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was seen as a crook and a tyrant.  After two successive presidents had been assassinated, the army put him into power in 1978.  He quickly entrenched himself.  Then, in 1990 his government managed to get control of the southern region, which is home to the oil resources of the country.  Since then it has bled the region of the oil revenue while starving it of resources.  So there is an insurgency underway.  Then, in the north there are Shi’a Muslims who dislike being ruled by a Sunni government.  So there is an insurgency under way.  Then, because the economy is in poor shape, unemployed young men tend to have a lot of time to kill.  Fundamentalist religious preachers abound, usually spewing stuff about Islam establishing its world predominance through struggle. One of these preachers was the Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who was in touch via internet with Major Nidal Hasan before he killed thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood in November 2009, and he met with the “underwear bomber” before his mission in December 2009.  Guy appeared to be in a rut.

So, it is a natural environment for Al Qaeda.  The first Al Qaeda people showed up as early as 1992.  In 2000 Al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole when it was entering port in Yemen.  Later on, Yemeni jihadists went to fight the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many of the survivors of those adventures have returned home over the years.  When the Saudi Arabian government stomped down on jihadists sympathizers after 9/11, many of them fled to Yemen.  Right now it is estimated that anywhere from 300 to 500 committed Al Qaeda fighters are somewhere in Yemen.  (For obvious reasons, it’s a little tricky to go door to door doing a proper census.)  More recently the British and American embassies in the capital city of Sanaa were attacked.  Most recently, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Muslim studying in Yemen, was recruited as the “Underwear bomber.”  So, the place is a pain-in-the-neck for the United States.

Generally, Yemenis don’t like the United States as an abstract concept.  The government is less anti-American than are the people generally, but people don’t like the government either.  If the government co-operates too openly with the United States in opposing Al Qaeda, it will become even less popular than it is now.  The result may be that it will be over-thrown by people who are pro-Al Qaeda.  So, we can let the situation sort of fester in hopes that nothing worse will appear, or we can push for action against Al Qaeda and make that worse situation appear.  I suppose we could invade the place to bring them hope and change, just like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.  “How’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?”

“Terrorism’s new hideout,” The Week, 22 January 2010, p. 11.