Tag teaming on this listed below. If our enemy has this type of Admin. support, it will be awhile till we eliminate them. The good news is that this admin stuff gets left behind when good young lads from the US Army or Marines kick down the doors and kick some ass.
http://tank.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTBiMjY3ZmI4ZWVkNTU0NGFiY2E3MGUxMWI1YTBiMWU=
Al-Qaeda In Pakistan -- Blades Of A Fan [Steve Schippert]
If the latest National Intelligence Estimate left anyone unconvinced, rest assured that al-Qaeda is most certainly not a cave-dwelling and decentralized movement. (Newest NIE is not to be confused with this one, nearly schizophrenic by comparison, dated April 2006 & released [unclass] in September 2006.)
What brings this to mind? The Jose Padilla conviction.
A key piece of evidence used by prosecutors against Padilla was a form that he allegedly signed in Afghanistan to join an al-Qaida training camp in 2000.
An application form. Quite an administrative undertaking for a decentralized movement. Yes, their camps were destroyed in Afghanistan in 2001 & 2002.
But al-Qaeda has rebuilt in Pakistan, in many ways stronger than they were in Afghanistan. They have constructed at least 29 training camps there. 28 of them abandoned recently, yes. But with so many camps and so many recruits over the past 12-24 months, it would be safe to presume that al-Qaeda is managing them the way they know how — with significant administrative organization and structure, including application forms, just to cite an example.
Most have probably heard of the application forms and the administrative guidelines that delineate pay levels, vacation allowances for different types of jihadists, etc. (PDF translations currently no longer available from the Center for Combating Terrorism at West Point.) My point is simply to remind that, while there is most certainly a decentralized global jihadist movement that al-Qaeda has inspired but does not directly manage, they most certainly operate with a functional central authority and exercise a definite influence toward a global strategy (relative to both geographical and ideological proximity).
The 2006 NIE stated that the US had "seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations." Yet, only months later, a new NIE — one in which another 'view' clearly won the internal IC debate — significantly toned down the language to read that US counterterrorism efforts had only "constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again." It went on to note the resurrection (my language) of al-Qaeda's global headquarters, this time inside Pakistan. Nearly all of this infrastructure was in place at the time the 2006 NIE was written and released (hence the heated internal IC/CT debate).
So while the 2006 NIE also assessed that "the global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy, and is becoming more diffuse," let's not confuse the 'global jihadist movement' at al-Qaeda's periphery with the al-Qaeda central command structure clearly in place inside Pakistan. Al-Qaeda most certainly operates with a "coherent strategy." They simply exercise little direct control of the periphery they in large part have inspired, but rather trust that their message (as-Sahab videos, etc, etc.) will rightly guide those fellow travelers beyond their direct management.
The al-Qaeda infrastructure and senior leadership (AQSL) in Pakistan are like the spinning blades of a fan. The "global jihadist movement" is then the air before it, beyond the blades' direct reach but influenced, pushed and guided nonetheless.
They are not one and the same, per se. Likewise, be careful not to dismiss one for the other. They both exist, which is my point here via the Padilla trial reference to his al-Qaeda employment application form.
08/17 12:01 AM
