Tuesday, September 27, 2011

'Bin Laden's Plan' For The Saudis & Iraq.

'Bin Laden's Plan' For The Saudis & Iraq. Below is an article by Michael Scheuer out on Jan. 12 by TheJamestown Foundation. (Dr Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years beforeresigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at theCounterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is said to be theanonymous author of 'Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing theWar on Terror and Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama bin Laden, RadicalIslam, and the Future of America'. Dr Scheuer is a senior fellowwith The Jamestown Foundation. Bracketed explanations and theunderlining are by APS): "Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's latest message is oneof the richest, most comprehensive and starkly realistic he has issuedsince...[March 2003]. This essay considers al-Qaeda's dourrecognition of its inability to control...events in Iraq as a smallvanguard organization and a non-Iraqi presence in the country. "On December 29, 2007, bin Laden issued a 56-minute statementthat addressed Muslim insurgents in Iraq and built on his earliermessage from October 22. The new statement was issued viaal-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, and appeared on several Internetsites without pre-publication excerpts on al-Jazeera television.Al-Jazeera's editing of the October 22 audiotape distorted binLaden's message, incorrectly giving the implication that he wassaying 'all is lost' for the mujahideen in Iraq. (Al-Jazeeracustomarily deletes anything critical of the Saudi regime from binLaden's messages. This occurred in the case of the Oct. 22 tape andal-Qaeda apparently did not want to take a chance on al-Jazeera'spenchant for politically correct editing with its most recent message). "The latest bin Laden tape is - like its October 22predecessor - pre-eminently a post-Iraq war tape. In both tapes, binLaden declares that the...[US] recognizes that its Coalition has beenmilitarily defeated in Iraq and predicts that US and other foreignforces will leave. "Bin Laden does not provide the date US-led forces willwithdraw; he focuses...on working with Islamist [Neo-Salafi] insurgentsin Iraq to ensure the Americans and their Arab-government allies cannotbuild a national unity government that is an 'agent toAmerica', dominated by non-Islamists and ready to permit the USbasing rights and access to Iraqi oil. "Because US-led forces have accepted military defeat, binLaden argues, Washington and its allies must look for other means toprevent the consolidation of an Islamic state in Iraq. 'My talk toyou', bin Laden explained, 'is about the plots that are beinghatched by the Zionist-Crusader alliance, led by America, in cooperationwith its agents in the region, to steal the fruit of the blessed jihad(holy war) in the land of the two rivers, and what we should do to foilthese plots'. History's Lesson: "As always, bin Laden speaks as aproduct and close observer of the Afghans' jihad against the SovietUnion. In appealing for unity among the Iraqi mujahideen (holywarriors), he makes no demand that they join al-Qaeda and follow itsinstructions. He points rather to the failure of the Afghan insurgentsto consolidate victory after the Red Army's 1989 withdrawal:'It would be useful here to recall an effort in the past to unifythe leaders of the Afghan mujahideen, which includes important lessonsthat are related to our topic', bin Laden tells the Iraqi fightersin an almost avuncular tone. "'We had made these efforts with Sheikh Abdullah Azzam[bin Laden's late Palestinian mentor in Afghanistan - and a Salafiideologue - who died in a road-side bomb in 1989], may God have mercy onhim. After months of seeking to achieve unity among [the Afghan leaders]and removing the obstacles that some of them used to claim that theyobstruct unity, [but then] after removing these obstacles...they [would]claim that there was another obstacle [preventing unity], and so on andso forth... "'One of the mujahideen had a strong opinion about these[obstructing] leaders. He was an old wise person who had long experiencein life with people. At the time we used to reject his strong-wordedstatement about them. I will try to convey to you some of what he said. "'The conclusion is that those leaders are tradesmen whocare more about their leadership and give priority to their personalinterests over the cause. We used not to believe what he said aboutthem. "'This has delayed our realization of the soundconception of persons and events [presented by this mujahid]. Theharmful consequences of this are no secret...In fact, developments havecome to confirm things that we had never expected due to the fact thatwe were young and lacked experience at the time'". Riyadh Is The Main Enemy: "Bin Laden urges the Iraqi fightersto heed the lesson of the Afghans' historic post-Soviet debaclebecause 'the same thing applies to Iraq today'; leaders aremore interested in their own power and status than in making Islam andthe ummah (Muslim nation or community) victorious. "And while bin Laden warns that Washington is using promisesof money, military training and arms to entice the 'Islamic Partyand some fighting groups [to] support America against Muslims', heleaves no doubt that the Islamists' main enemy in Iraq is now SaudiArabia, not the supposedly militarily defeated United States. "After the Soviets' withdrawal from Afghanistan, binLaden reminded the Iraqi fighters that 'America exerted greatefforts...to convince the Afghan leaders through the governments ofRiyadh and Islamabad to join a national unity government with communistsand secularists from the West'. Bin Laden explained that the Saudiregime was then - and is again today in Iraq - the main enemy of themujahideen: "'[In post-Soviet Afghanistan] the government of Riyadhsought the help of its unofficial scholars to infiltrate the ranks ofthe mujahideen. These were influential speakers who incited the peopleto perform jihad and collect huge funds for the leaders of themujahideen. At the set time, [the Saudi regime] asked the Afghan leadersto unite with the communists and secularists under the so-callednational unity state. "'[The Saudis] obstructed the plan to achieve unity amongthe leaders of the mujahideen when they tempted one of them with a bigamount of money and promised him to be the president of Afghanistan...We do not have much time here for more details. So the current situation[in Iraq] is similar to the past one [in Afghanistan]. The government ofRiyadh continues to this day to carry out the same malicious roles withmany Islamic action leaders and commanders of the mujahideen in ournation'. "Bin Laden goes on to claim that the Saudis are trying toco-opt some of the Sunni mujahideen in Iraq by allowing 'somegroups to confidently move in the Gulf to receive [financial]support'. Riyadh is careful to avoid officially funding its Iraqiinsurgent favorites, so its support 'is channeled under the bannerof raising donations by some unofficial scholars and preachers'. "Bin Laden warns that 'many of them...are loyal to thestate and seek to implement [Riyadh's] policy by pulling the rugfrom under the honest mujahideen's feet' and forcing them tosupport a national-unity government that is designed to be the agent ofthe United States and Saudi Arabia. He asks the Iraqi mujahideen howthey can trust Saudi King Abdullah, who is the 'malignant foe'of Islam, the 'main US agent in the region' and a man who tookit on himself 'to tempt and tame every free, virtuous, and honestperson with the aim of dragging him to the path of temptation andmisguidance...[and] the path of betraying the religion and nation andsubmitting to the will of the Crusader-Zionist alliance'. "The Americans are defeated, bin Laden concludes, but toassure God's victory the Iraqi mujahideen must reject Saudiovertures and direction if they are 'not to waste the fruit of thischaste and pure blood that was shed for the sake of consolidatingreligion and entrenching the state of Muslims'. A Way Out? "Bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are relivingwhat for them is a familiar nightmare. In one of the greatest ironies ofthe post-1945 era, Islamist fighters have proven that with great,prolonged and bloody effort they can claim the military defeat ofsuperpowers - the USSR and the United States - but cannot consolidatevictory when confronted by the wiles, funds and religious establishmentof the Saudi leadership. "While it is clear in the December 29 tape that bin Ladenrates the Saudis as the main obstacle to God's victory in Iraq,there is little indication of what he intends to do to destroyRiyadh's ability to stymie the mujahideen there as it did inAfghanistan. "One possibility - though bin Laden did not allude to this -would require a rethinking of al-Qaeda's grand strategy. "Although bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been consistent in theirthree-fold grand strategy - to drive the...[US] from the Muslim world,destroy Israel and incumbent Muslim regimes and settle scores with theShi'ites - they now face a situation where the Saudi regime has notonly so far prevented the unification of Islamist leaders, but isallegedly preparing the Sunni Iraqi insurgents it supports for a civilwar with Iraq's Iranian-backed Shi'ites. "Bin Laden, of course, is correct in arguing that Riyadh wantsno genuine national-unity government; the Saudis may be intending tofund and equip a Sunni insurgent force that could join forces with theUS-armed and trained Sunni Awakening Councils to battle for control ofpost-US Iraq against the Shi'ites and seek...a Saudi-like Sunnitheocracy in Baghdad. "If this occurs, the third step of bin Laden's grandstrategy - settling scores with the Shi'ites - will immediatelybecome the top priority of the Islamic world, as both Sunnis andShi'ites focus on assisting their brethren in the Iraqi civil war.This scenario would severely erode bin Laden's ability to keepSunni militants focused on the 'far' US enemy. "If bin Laden's assertions are true, and SaudiArabia's Afghanistan-like intervention in Iraq continues to preventthe mujahideen unity bin Laden advocates, the al-Qaeda chief and hisshura (consultative) council may soon confront the very unpalatablenecessity of having to break with their traditional grand strategy andmove to try to destroy the Saudi regime. "In such a scenario, al-Qaeda would abandon the pinprickinsurgency-and-terrorism campaign it has conducted in the kingdom sinceSeptember 11, [2001] and employ all the force it commands and can incitethere - and bring in from Iraq - to take on the well-infiltrated Saudimilitary and security services. "Such a campaign probably would combine attempts toassassinate the king, interior minister and senior intelligence andmilitary officials with attacks to disrupt Saudi oil production. Thelatter operations would be staged in the hope of forcing...[the US] to aHobson's choice between standing back and allowing havoc to reignin the world's oil market - with the immense damage it would entailfor the US economy - and ordering US military forces into action againstMuslims in order to restore oil production on the sacred soil of theProphet Muhammad's birthplace and what bin Laden refers to as'the land of the two holy mosques'. "The foregoing clearly is not an option that al-Qaeda is eagerto undertake; it is an option that amounts to an almost desperategamble. But that said, if such a campaign successfully triggered a USmilitary response in the kingdom, the focus and militancy of the entireMuslim world - both Sunni and Shi'ite - would be switched from Iraqto Saudi Arabia, and the enmity and weapons of all Muslims would, atleast temporarily, be refocused on the 'far enemy' in NorthAmerica". Major Iraq Offensive On Al-Qaeda; To Stop Infiltrations From Syria:More than 75,000 US and Iraqi soldiers were on Jan. 17 preparing tolaunch the widest military operation since 2003 in three Sunni provincesin what was described as a crucial attempt to uproot al-Qaeda from Iraq.The provinces are Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Nineveh in northern Iraq. Therewill be special focus on the Sinjar area in Nineveh which is on theborder with Syria and the main point for Neo-Salafi infiltrators to joinal-Qaeda in Iraq. This offensive is part of a law enforcement planlaunched on Feb. 14, 2007, focusing on both Sunni insurgents includingthe Neo-Salafis and on Shi'ite militias backed by Iran. In a Jan. 17 talk-show on the US TV channel al-Hurra, Saudi andIraqi experts confirmed that Syria was the main transit point forNeo-Salafi volunteers, mainly from Saudi Arabia and North Africa (mostlyLibyans and Moroccans), joining al-Qaeda. They said Syria'sintelligence and other elements of the 'Alawite/Ba'thistregime of Damascus were directly involved in training as well asfacilitating the flow of Neo-Salafis to Iraq. Other media have saidSyria was also moving al-Qaeda terrorists to Saudi Arabia. Gulf News on Jan. 17 quoted a "military source close to Chiefof Iraqi Army Staff Babaker Zebari", as saying: "The next fewdays will witness...air shelling and wide ground operations". Gen.Zebari, a Kurd, said more than 90% of al-Qaeda were in these provincesafter they had left Baghdad and Diyala. National Security AdviserMuwaffaq al-Ruba'ie says the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq is close. Gen. Qassem Atta, in charge of security in Baghdad and a key man inthe Interior Ministry, on Jan. 17 told al-Hurra documents obtained fromNeo-Salafi bases over-taken by US and Iraqi forces and captured al-Qaedamilitants showed that, apart from the Syrian role, Neo-Salafis were alsomoving into Iraq from Iran and other neighbouring countries. The expertstold al-Hurra al-Qaeda and other Neo-Salafi groups were becoming soshort of human resources and so desperate that they were now usingwomen, children and elderly men - as well as mentally deranged persons -as suicide bombers. Atta said several factors had made many volunteers disillusionedwith al-Qaeda and its Neo-Salafi ideology - "the culture ofdeath" via suicide bombing. As a result, he said, the number ofvolunteers moving into Iraq from Syria had dropped from 110/month in2007 to just 30/month. The factors reflect the five basic elements ofsociety in the Muslim world: the tribe, hence the US focus on tribalawakening councils (ACs); the sect which is less strong an element thanthe tribe; the ideology, far less strong than the first two elements,geo-politics, globally and regionally controlled by US-led forces; andnatural resources, in the hands of those in control (seesbme1-IraqImprovementJan1-08). On Jan. 16, a woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up near apopular market and a Shi'ite mosque in Khan Bani Sa'd, a town15 km south of Baq'uba, Diyala's capital north-east ofBaghdad, killing eight civilians and wounding seven others. The numberof women suicide bombers involved in such attacks has risen in recentmonths. A suicide bomber on Jan. 17 hit outside a Shi'ite mosque inBa'quba during Ashura, marking the seventh-century slaying of ImamHussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson and a revered figure toShi'ites. At least 11 people were killed. The government imposed aDec. 17-19 vehicle curfew in Baghdad, Diyala and southern provinces toprotect about 1.5m pilgrims walking to Karbala'.

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