Personalized Jihad?

April 25th 2013 - The Boston Attack and what we know about it at this point doesn't exactly turn conventional wisdom of the terrorism research community upside-down: vulnerable young men, a vacuum to fill, a family falling apart, a personal re-invention, ties to a homeland and a region affected by bloody conflict, perhaps a radical friend, perhaps a lot of radical video consumption, perhaps a fatal journey abroad, a bit of Inspire... And yet, there are a few aspects in this case I am still chewing on. To put it another way: Maybe we should call in the psychologists.

It's mainly these points that strike me as possibly significant when trying to draw conclusions from the Boston attack:

1.- While this is obviously not even remotely the first terror attack in which brothers took part, it's still different from most others that I am aware of in that we have reason to believe that Tamerlan was the driving force and that Dhzokhar submitted to his idea. We have a lot of indication of a radicalization of Tamerlan, but as of now very little, if anything at all, that would suggest that Dhzokhar even was a committed Jihadist when he signed up for it. In what sort of capacity, and for which reasons did he take part? They may lie in a sphere to which political scientists, Arabists, journalists or whatever else most of us may be don't necessarily have the best understanding of and access to. What I mean, to put it bluntly: What if this was an attack that meant something different to each of the perpetrators?  I am aware that there are other instances in which one participant exerted undue influence over others. And yet, if we are trying to take it from here and to assess what may be coming next, we should probably bear in mind that apparently even a jihadist terror attack may be something that someone can be drawn into even though his "real" motivation may much rather be that he doesn't want to be the one left behind or the one leaving someone else behind.

2.- There is one other dimension to this attack that I can't get out of my head: This was two excelling sportsmen attacking a sporting event. Why the Marathon? Only because it was the biggest event that fit the schedule? Perhaps. But maybe this is also something that other professions have interesting perspectives on. I personally find it distantly but oddly reminiscent of school shootings: Going back to something you were once part of and maybe experienced humiliation at.

I am no psychologist and I feel bad even trying for a second to think like one. But it is exactly this discomfort that makes me wonder if I have sufficient analytical tools at my disposal to see all important dimensions in this attack.

To elaborate a little: My background, for example, is in Arabic and Islamic Studies and Political Sciences and I work as a journalist. I tend to stress the importance of ideology. For example, I made great efforts trying to explain to people that what may look like illogical and arbitrary targets to "us" are in many cases perfectly reasonable targets from a Jihadist perspective if you are acquainted with their sources and ways of thinking. But the more attacks by "lone wolfs" or self recruited Jihadists we see, the higher the chance is that they might mix personal with ideologically prescribed considerations. Since no-one is leading them (in many cases), no-body gets to "correct" them. So with Jihadism becoming more individual, it also may become more personalized. And that would perhaps mean we have to take into consideration additional or slightly different factors in order to do risk analysis or threat assessment, etc.

This is just a blog post, not an academic paper, not a newspaper editorial, not a conference contribution. Please take it as such. It is just a few thoughts that I have been developing over the past few days. They may be absurd, already proven wrong or considered solved. But then, what's a blog for if not (also) for throwing thoughts at people to see what they have to say.

So, I am curious about your reactions!

Cheers, Y. 

In the Twitterverse (Re: Boston)

April 21st 2013 - I knew why I was feeling so tired when a colleague of mine who is currently in the US asked me by email if I was Boston: „You twitter so intensively and so late at night that I thought you must be on Boylston Street.“ I can only hope I didn't really give anyone the impression via Twitter that I was in Boston when in fact I was in Berlin. (I don't think I did.) But in a way being on Twitter is akin to „being there“ – only that the „there“ is not a physical place but a debate revolving around such a physical place and something that's going on there. On Twitter I can chose whose messages about that particular going-on I want to expose myself to. By doing so, I willfully expose myself to an unfiltered stream of messages – some true, many wrong, most half-half. As long as I bear that in mind, Twitter is a grand medium.

Of course it is also a mind boggling medium. Just think about how people on Friday starting live tweeting Police scanner info, leading to the Boston Police requesting people to refrain from doing so (passed on via Twitter) for fear that the fugitive might learn about police positions via Twitter. More real time experience is hardly possible any other way.

At the same time that episode hints at the potential power of Twitter – in both ways, good and bad. On the one hand you had Bostonians offering shelter and help via Twitter to those effected by Monday's bombing. On the other hand you have preachers of hate constantly disemminating and re-inforcing false, premature, biased and uninformed Pseudo-information – let't not forget, for example,  that for many hours in parts of the Twitterverse first a Saudi and then an Indian student were „the“ culprits. Neither of them ever where suspects. Almost no-one on Twitter who re-tweeted that bullshit apologized. Of course not. Because all they wanted was that people believe it. 

On the other hand, Twitter is just great to stay tuned to real news (as in: provided by proper journalists). Google news can't compete when you want to know what has just been published, anywhere in the world, on the particular issue you are interested in. Plus: you may receive the link via someone you know and trust, so you really want to check that article out because that person thought it important.

For parts of the past week I scanned Twitter and watched CNN in parallel. By comparison, CNN lost. It lost against MY Twitter feed, though. It may have won in comparison to other peoples' feeds. Because there is no single entity called Twitter. YOU are following but ONE of any number of possible debates and streams of messages. But in this regard one very valid question is: If I am really interested in an issue, like the Boston bombing and the ensueing manhunt, why would I wait for a journalist to pick up the news, produce and edit and launch it online, if I can simply and just as well follow the Police Department, the District Attorney, the FBI, etc. myself – and by doing so be the very first to receive their statements? (News outlets have to learn to think of ways of dealing with that. If something was on Twitter a half hour earlier, it it really still breaking news?) 

Twitter though can be unreal at times – ironically, by way of it's built-in hyperrealism. In the case of Boston, one such moment was when Watertown was locked down and resident live tweeted from areas Journalists had no access to any longer -- but maybe even more so when a little later the fugitive's Twitter account became known, and suddenly his words, his thoughts were becoming part of the debate. Plus comments about them. Plus comments about them by people who claimed to have known him. (Of course the checking of such claims is left to you – which is whay Twitter is not a substitute for Journalism.) Twitter is, in a lot ways, best compared to tuning in to a stream of chatter of people you don't know. Like being able to eavesdrop on conversations. It's what people will say, much as in the analog world, withouth thinking too hard: „Have you heard...?“ – what follows may well be wrong, or half right, or even true. You have to able to deal with that, if you want to really use Twitter as a resource. But it can be fruitful. (Plus: Of course, speaking as a Journalist here, even wrong or hateful or willfully misleading Tweets can be interesting, as they also tell stories.)

In any case, here is why I love Twitter despite of all the hectic, the chaos, the unorderliness: I can be part of a global conversation, the limits of which I define. I like to expose myself to chatter as it can lead me towards valid information or avenues of inquiry worth persueing. But at the same time I cherish reasonable discussion and debate, which can also be found on Twitter. In my case, having been on the terrorism beat for over a decade, the latter means that I follow a number of international terrorism experts, many of whom (not all) I know personally from the real world. I want to know what they have to say. Twitter allows me to have a five day on-and-off debate with them without having to call them, one by one. What a resource!

Much of what I have said so far you all probably know and maybe you have experienced it in a similiar way. But I feel the urge to point out that I think it is unfair to discredit Twitter, as some do, for being generally too fast, too loud, too quick, too little cautious. The opposite is also true. There were times during the Boston crisis when the better experts on Twitter (and I could name more, but I want to particularly point out @azelin, @intelwire and @muradbatal) were soooo much better than what TV networks had on offer, that one question needs to be asked: Shouldn't these networks, rather then feel threatened by Twitter (as they seem to be) look at ways of how they could become better by following the right people on Twitter?

There may be little news in this post for many of you. But let me conclude by saying that as a Journalist with access to wire services, I preferred Twitter throughout the past week. Because I follow just the people I need to in order to not miss anything, to be in many many cases even be informed earlier.

Twitter of course is a better resource for gaining information than for sharpening your argument. I personally need times off Twitter to contemplate. But I love Twitter. Even if it is redundant, exhausting, intensive, loud and immediate. I simply find too much valuable info, debate and input in it that I wouldn't get any other way. Plus: Some Tweeps are just great people to hang out with, even digitally. 

Cheers, Y.

PS: This post is an adapted version of a German language blog post I wrote for my blog at @zeitonline, the website of the weekly newspaper I work for, DIE ZEIT.  

Jabhat al-Nusra responds

April 10, 2013 - Today, Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) responded to yesterday's declaration of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) according to which they were in fact a union and shared the common name of Islamic State in Iraq and reader Syria (ISIGS). The 7 min Audio is by al-Jawlani, a known JN leader. There is little reason to suspect it is not authentic: The download links were supplied by JN's twitter account, Jihadists on their websites take it to be true.

The audio is interesting, but also somewhat confusing.

Here are a few points and a few thoughts on what they could mean.

1.- Jawlani says JN leadership only learned about AQI statement from the media. He refers to it as "if it is authentic..." - This clearly indicates there was little in the way of synchronizing the declaration. Jawlani can be understood as being not too happy about the process.

2.- Jawlani does, however, explicitly swear (literally: "repeat") allegiance (bai'a) to Ayman al-Zawahiri. He does it in the name of all JN members. - This means that, despite of whatever differences there may remain between AQI nd JN leaderships, JN does consider itself part of th AQ universe.

3.- Jawlani does, however, NOT embrace the common name of ISIGS. He also maintains that "nothing will change" in JN and that "JN will stay as you have gotten to know it". - I take this to show that Jawlani fears that the AQ-Connection may cost JN sympathies in Syria (re-visit @azelin's piece from yesterday for the dynamic involved here!)

4.- Jawlani's talks a little about the history of JN. He describes it as a "project" put before AQI's al-Baghdadi in Iraq. Al-Baghdadi approved of it, Jawlani says. He also says there is a "long history" they share. - So there definitely is a strong tie between JN and AQI.

However, there seem to remain certain differences in the interpretation of the exact nature of their relationship. Are they one, as al-Baghdadi suggested yesterday? Or are they two? Or one and and a half? Does Jawlani think that al-Baghdadi's statement was premature? Today's statement didn't make this any clearer.

So, there is a lot to interpret, discuss and debate for all of us. I am curious about your input!

Cheers, Y

PS: I mistakenly twittered at a very early moment in time that Jawlani did in fact confirm the existence of ISIGS. I corrected that later. I would like to repeat this correction here. He did not explicitly embrace that term and make it his own. My bad. It was based on a misunderstanding of the original Arabic. 

AQI + S = ISIGS

April, 9th, 2013 - Cole Bunzel on Jihadica has already made a number of crucial points about the declaration by AQI Amir al-Baghdadi that Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria is in fact part of AQI's Islamic State of Iraq, which as Al-Baghdadi claims, should from now on be referred to as „Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria“.

In any case, I just want to add a little to his analysis with which I almost entirely agree.

First of all, I believe it is important to bear in mind that this is NOT a merger. I think al-Baghdadi is speaking the truth when he claims that AQI sent people to Syria to start a platform there. Jabhat al-Nusra therefor IS AQI right from the start. As such, it has profited from transfer of cadres as well as know-how (esp bomb making, I would imagine.) Jabhat al-Nusra also implemented some of the „leassons learnt“ from AQI - like trying not to alienate local population too much. (They aren't consistantly good at that, though – I have interviewed refugess from Aleppo and Homs who told me how Jabha-cadres hunted down and executed Christians. This is reminiscent of what AQI did with Shiites in Iraq.)

Secondly, though, the union means that we are now pretty much dealing for the first time with the equivalent of something like AQAP in the Near East. Iraq and Syria together are the defining places in this region. AQ has now transcended the last reserve of national borders.

Thirdly, the union being what it is (namely a brain child of AQI and AQI's original ideology, as is apparent from al-Baghdadis speech), we should expect a rise in the threat level in the region, esp in Jordan and Lebanon, but also Turkey and Israel. Al-Sarqawi, the founder of AQI, always made it quite clear that Jihad in Iraq for him was a means of getting closer to Jerusalem. This is Jihadist dialectics. AQ has now come much closer to Israel, thanks to their network in Syria. They will try to close in, so to say. And given the more or less destabilized areas available to them (Lebanon border, partly also the Iraqi and Turkish and Jordanien border) they have room to manouver. More chaos = more opportunites for AQ.

So, in a nut shell: I believe it is IMPORTANT, even though it might have been little surprising, to know that AQI and Jabhat al-Nusra form a unified body. This is not about AQ supporting Jihadists in Syria, this is AQ expliting another local conflict. In the end, the aim is larger: dominance on the ground where it can be won; attacks on Israel; international attacks.

Cheers, Y.

AQ, Mauretani & Internet Cables

March 29, 2013 - Egypt's naval forces yesterday reportedly intercepted scuba divers who were trying to cut submarine internet cables. Some of you noted that in the previously unknown letter of Sheikh Younis al-Mauretani to Osama Bin Laden that I reported about last week attacks of this kind had been floated as ideas. Of course it is way too early to say anything meaningful about the actual background of the operation foiled in Egypt, let alone about a potential connection to Al-Qaida. At this point, I believe it could very well be a coincidence.

But just in case you are interested, here is what al-Mauretani had to say on the issue in the OBL-letter: 

* We will delegate people to study maritime issues and to personally prepare for the fact that the organization will one day need them for Jihadist activities. These people will be asked to specialize, since it is necessary to master the technique of trafficking and everything else in connection with the seas, as we have in mind attacks on maritime targets such as pipelines and internet cables and tankers. 

* ... not to even talk about an operation like the one you have suggested and for which we would need a special apparatus with the highest capabilities... . This apparatus demands the highest degree of precision and simultaneity as well as a huge amount of information and activities. Not to mention the destruction of all cables of the internet at different places worldwide -- we have seen, after all, how a simple problem a year ago led to unrest at the stock exchanges in the Near East. 

You think these passages are somewhat cryptic? I agree. But if anything, these sentences rather clearly corroborate the notion that AQ was at least thinking about targeting internet cables. Can they do it, though? Is it still a live plan? I daresay no-one knows right now. Maybe results of the Egyptian investigation will tell us more. 

Have a good night, 

Y. -

The 18th Document, Part II

March, 27th, 2013 - Some of you have asked me whether the Abottabad document that surfaced in a trial here recently and that I have reported about last week had been declassified. I do assume that the U.S. government had to declassify it in some way or another, at least technically, so as to be able to share it with a foreign government. But I am not familiar with U.S. procedures.

However, as far as Germany is concerned, court documents aren't usually made available by the authorities here, and this document hasn't. It is therefor not in the public domain in this country. It was talked about abstractly in the court room, though (I wasn't at the trial in Düsseldorf. But I gather that this must have been the case from some of the reporting from there.)

Be that as it may, since some of you are experts in the field and as such also interested in details, I am happy to share a few more points mentioned in this letter by Abu Yunis al-Mauretani to Osama Bin Laden. They are not as exciting, naturally, as what I ran in my original report. But maybe some of it relates to a question or two some of you might be working on. 

I will do this is a short list of bullet points. But please bear in mind that this does not represent the chronological order or any other order of the actual letter. The document in question somewhat jumps between points, spheres, places and times, so I feel it is justifiable to impose another kind of order on it. 

1.- When al-Mauretani speaks about his plan to have a group of recruits ready to go back to the West and take up work there, he names the following areas of expertise as examples: "Research and Study", Business, Infiltration, secure recruitment, organizing training. So these are categories important to him. It is not entirely clear, however, whether he is talking about actual or imagined recruits possessing those capabilities. 

2.- Repeatedly, he makes it clear that the recruits he is talking about will need time to settle in or find the positions appropriate for their later task. This is clearly a mid term to long term scheme he is discussing. I don't like the term, but what he really seems to be describing is how he plans to plant "sleepers" in the West. 

3.- Al-Mauretani seems to be hinting at Africa as being the place where recruits would (and perhaps re-group) go if something went wrong along the way. In this context he also mentions the Shabaab, making it sound as if there existed (at the time) working relations betweens them and AQc. But again: This passage is not entirely lucid. 

4.- As far as finances go, al-Mauretani makes an interesting hint in that he talks about plans to start companies, preferably in "remote and poor African states" that are far away from conflict. He even suggests bribing government officials. The backdrop of this idea partly seems to be that al-Mauretani feels that in Arab states the security institutions are too aware and too alert. 

5.- Al-Mauretani talks a lot about maritime terrorism and underwater targets or targets in the oceans. But interestingly he also says that there is a huge black market in the open seas and that he would like AQ to profit from it. 

6.- Al-Mauretani in one passage makes an interesting distinction between those recruits who are "willing to assume martyrdom (shahada)" and those who aren't. He evens mentions a "commission for martyr operations". 

7.- In regard to Abu Yahya al-Libi, back then one of AQ's most important cadres and responsible to a large degree for all things theological and ideological, he says: Abu Yahya will "decide personally about an appropriate place" to be at, or will task a third person with finding such a place. I find this interesting as it tells us a little bit about the degree of autonomy of top leadership as regards their whereabouts in the face of drones. 

8.- Al-Mauretani suggests that there was still a degree of book keeping happening between AQc and the branches at the time. 

9.- He also names as one aim the plan to undermine certain Western policies like "We will not negociate with terrorists". He says that the West did just do that in hostage situations in the Maghreb. And this policy will become obsolete one companies would one day directly negotiate with "us". 

Ok, that's it for tonight. Good night. Y. 

The 18th Document Or: News from Abottabad

March 20^th, 2013 - OK, folks, this is an exclusive: Until today the US government has only published 17 of the probably thousands of documents it seized in Abottabad during the raid on Osama Bin Laden. But now an 18^th document has surfaced – and surprisingy enough here in Germany. I have had a chance to study the document. In this Thursday's issue of DIE ZEIT I have a brief report about it, but there is also an extended online version I did for ZEIT ONLINE, already up on the website. If you can't read German, here are some key points.

• The document is a letter by Junis al-Mauretani to Osama Bin Laden, dated March 2010. It is 17 pages in the original Arabic.
• It was sent to German authorities by the US Department of Justice in April 2012 after the Germans had asked if the US did perhaps have any information about three young men standing trial in Düsseldorf at the moment for alleged membership in al-Qaida.
• The reason the US shared this particular document with the Germans is that in it, al-Mauretani refers to a Moroccan recruit whose date of birth he gives - and which is the same as the date of birth of one of the defendants in said trial.
• In essence, the letter is a sketch or rather a vision of a comprehensive plot against the West, including maritime, economical and other sensitive targets. There is a certain emphasis on critical infrastructure, as al-Mauretani singles out water dams, underwater gas pipelines, bridges between cities and tunnels connecting countries, as well as internet cables as potential targets.
• He even suggests to explore underwater pipelines with civil submarines, and he maintains that the pipelines have safety valves every 10 km – a fact, he says, that would need to be taken into account.
• He also says that airborne terrorism is still a possibility but suggests that AQ cadres after learning how to fly should try to get themselves employed (I assume: by airlines). Then they could, he says, for example put their co-pilot to sleep with a seditive and fly the plane into the intended target. As one possible target he suggests the Saudi oil installation at Abqaiq.
• He also claims that there is a process in place by which followers would be asked to enter into sensitive jobs, e.g. in the transport business for oil and gas. By this, he suggests, it could become easier to attack targets like airports, love parades (sic!) and highly frequented tunnels.
• Other operatives would be asked to study physics or chemistry so that they could be made use of at a later time. The term he uses a lot in this respect is „infiltration“.
• There is also an interesting passage in which he claims that AQIM has enough funds to help finance his ideas and that the cadres there trust him personally.
• He also asks OBL to prepare a speech in which he would threaten Europe. This should be done in sync with the operational planning. Around two weeks after the speech, in which he asks OBL to say that patience with the Europeans had run out, the first strike would happen, al-Mauretani says. And shortly after that, the US would be struck.

These are the key facts in the documents. If you are interested in my analysis, I will say the following:

• First of all, the stlye (and some of the content) of the document does seem generally reconcilable with the 17 documents published thus far. For example, Mauretani addresses OBL as "Zamarai". 
• The content also seems to fit rather nicely with information gleaned from other terror trials. It seems to support the notion that AQ was in and around 2010 trying rather hard to plot attacks against the West. For example, two German Jihadists after their apprehension stated that they had met al-Mauretani in Waziristan and that he had spoken about a plot against the West in which no-one would have to die and that it would concentrate on economic targets.
• I have the impression that al-Mauretani was trying to achieve three objectives by his vision: being economically hurtful; being original; and being risk avert.
• The document as such though is not what most in the West would consider a coherent memo. It is much rather the typcal AQ mixture of megalomania and micromanagement that is also reflected in other documents. This is why I call it a vision or attack sketch rather than a plan. There are fairly wild jumps between what I would consider viable ideas (like letting people train how to fly and have them employed by airlines) and the fantastic – like passages about the future military generals of the future Islamic State.
• In essence, the document has definitely great historical value: It offers a rare glimpse into AQ thinking at that ca. 2010. I daresay though that is not operationally important in the now, even if some ideas may have trickled down and be alive elsewhere in the network. This is mainly for four reasons: Al-Mauretani was captured in September 2011; OBL is dead; many recruits from Western countries possibly involved with this very scheme have been arrested; and AQ 2013 is under much more pressure than AQ 2010. And this is not even taking into consideration other factors like the Arab spting and its repercussions.

Apart from the other 17 Abottabad documents, there is one other set of documents that I suggest should be read together with this new letter, and that's the three English documents German authorities believe to stem from AQ core and which were found on a memory device of another terror suspect. I wrote about those documents in March last year on this blog, too. If you then take into consideration what apprehend terror suspects have said in trials or at other occasions, the Euro Plot Scheme of AQ of 2009/2010 becomes almost palpable. I would argue that three aspects of it are now grounded evident due to what we have seen, heard and observed:

1.- Al-Mauretani seems to have been responsible for the reporting to OBL, perhaps the finances, most likely the "grand vision", too. He seems to have wanted to strike economic targets and infrastructure in the West, using Western recruits who he wanted to infiltrate into potentially interesting positions.

2.- AQ during that time actively recruited Westerners - even from among other Jihadist groups like the IMU. I think this means that they wanted this to be large and comprehensive effort - probably sending all of them back around the same time but not striking immediately but rather asking them to recruit even more people and then lie down until told to act. Al-Mauretani in several cases made sure there would be secure means of communications.

3.- The other set of documents seized here in Germany strongly suggest that there was also a Pakistani contingent working inside the larger AQ effort, probably clustered around Rashid Rauf. It could, I believe, also have included Ilyas Kashmiri.

The whole thing, of course, failed in a lot of ways, as you all are aware. But then again: Our visibility is not very good at the moment. So I will only say it is unlikely the Euro Plot is still on the table in its original form.

Lastly, a little aside:

Johannes Pausch, an attorney for one of the defendants, in fact the one possibly mentioned in the document, told me that he was „doubtful“ of the authenticity of the document. He said he couldn't believe that AQ would be careless enough to e.g. put a real date of birth into writing just like that. Today, three FBI agents will be called as witnesses in the Düsseldorf court and they will be asked to describe how the document was seized, transported and logged and who had access to it. This is supposed to help answer questions like: Was the document put into the right context? And did somebody have a theoretical chance to manipulate it?

What I would say in this regard is that in fact there does remain an issue of authenticity. But this issue relates to all of the Abottabad documents. We now know 17 (– well, 18 –) of what are very likely thousands of documents seized on that day in May 2011. Obviously, there is no material acquired by independent sources to compare it against. We have never really seen documents of this kind before. It is therefor near impossible to prove beyond doubt that any of these documents are authentic. We can believe it and work with them. Maybe we even should. And I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist. But for the sake of academic purity I will nonethelesse maintain that there is no proof of authenticity in the true sense of the word.

But be that as it may, I have to say I had a few very interesting days with this one document. And of yourse I am very interested in your thoughts. So, bring it on, please!

(PS. Please bear in mind that this is my private blog. You can't attribute any of it to DIE ZEIT, the paper I work at. At least not without asking.)

Cheers, Yassin