Allthingsct is taking a holiday!

Well sort of.

Folks I’m going to call it a year, unless something pops up that I just can’t help myself and must post about.

I have a bucket load of study to do and still have to answer Abu Walid’s questions. Then I have to get organised for Christmas and see the family. And then for a few days in the New Year ‘captain sensible’ will be locked in the cupboard along with the thesis so I can unwind and have just the teeniest little bit of FUN!!!

So allthingsct will be back in the new year around the 9th of Jan.  I’ll try to tidy up the site a bit over my break and post some more  translations.

In the meantime Seasons Greetings to you all. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday with your families.

My new article on my Abu Walid al Masri dialogue

Folks apologies for the delay in posting. There has been an issue I needed to iron out.

My new article in The Australian is out, as many of you are already aware. However the earlier version you all saw contained a sentence  that was added without my knowledge and after I had approved what I thought were the final edits.  Hence my delay in posting a link, while we got this ironed out.

The sentence related to Abu Walid’s Australian wife. As you can appreciate, in building and maintaining our dialogue  all I have to go on is my word. And when we started talking I gave an undertaking that personal lives of all concerned are off limits, and I intend to uphold this.  So, at my request this sentence has been removed.

You can find the article here.

You won’t find it on the internet version, but the paper also ran a photo of Abu Walid I obtained for the piece. I’ve included it below.

I had hoped that we had the space to run some excerpts from Abu Walid’s letter to me, because it really is quite remarkable.

However, I have placed a translation of the letter on my blog, which  you can find here. The original can be found on Abu Walid’s blog here.

I strongly recommend you read it. And I hope this finds its way into wider reading, I really do. It’s the first explanation we’ve had of the dynamics of the al Qaeda-Taliban relationship and as I indicated in my article I think it offers some important insights.

The above pic is of Abu Walid in 1990 reading before going off to fight in Khost.

John L. Esposito: Tom Friedman on Muslims and Terrorism: Getting it Wrong Again

Clearly I just can’t help myself.

I was so glad to see John Esposito take Tom Friedman to task for his disgracefully ignorant op-ed piece in the NYT that I just had to post this.

John L. Esposito: Tom Friedman on Muslims and Terrorism: Getting it Wrong Again.

29 Tips for Bad Writing on Afghanistan « Ghosts of Alexander

I love this and am no doubt guilty of some of these.  Shall be printing out and pinning to the wall.

29 Tips for Bad Writing on Afghanistan « Ghosts of Alexander.

Bank blasted after giving Al Qaeda terrorist 100% mortgage | Mail Online

This article is interesting. Also has some details on the manuals sourced online for the plot and the bomb making materials this guy had collected. Skeptical of the Hezbollah manual link since most of the info here comes from the militant salafist milieu, but I haven’t been following this case too closely.

Bank blasted after giving Al Qaeda terrorist 100% mortgage | Mail Online.

See If You Can Spot What Tom Friedman Misses « The Washington Independent

Glad to see Spencer Ackerman picked this up. I’m  saving my comments until cynical friday, but for now suffice to say that  Friedman’s piece has me all shades of annoyed.

See If You Can Spot What Tom Friedman Misses « The Washington Independent.

Perspectives on Terrorism – Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan

This looks absolutely fascinating.

Perspectives on Terrorism – Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan.

Critics blast ‘great firewall of Australia’ – restrictions to internet access

Hello nanny state.  I have such huge issues with censorship. For starters if this goes ahead how on earth would I do my research?  The same research I might add that over the years  a good number of departments here have sought  out. Since although this is ostensibly meant to target online child exploitation and pornography, hidden in there is also mention of  terrorism  and other criminal acts. This pisses me off immensely on many levels.

But what astounds me is a) it’s not possible and b) the sheer stupidity of blocking content and webpages –especially given the impact this would have on LEA and other agencies trying to do covert work in child porn and online child exploitation  if all the sites are blocked and the culprits of this type of activity know they are blocked in Australia.  Have the idiots actually thought about the impact of that on the ability of cops to do their work and to prosecute on the basis of covert work if these changes go ahead?

Oh no.

That’s because KRudd is on some political point scoring  moral crusade in this country and wasting public money on something that is already effectively dealt with via LEA and other mechanisms in place.   Meanwhile our public health system goes down the drain.  Hopefully he’ll get his a*rse handed to him in the next election. Two things Australians don’t like in politicians – moralism and arrogance. And he has both of those in spades. Sadly the other idiot in opposition isn’t any better. I have never heard so many people  say they’d just rather not vote than have to vote for either of them as I have in the past little while.

Critics blast ‘great firewall of Australia’ – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Some comments on Atran’s recent NYT op-ed

Scott Atran put out an interesting op-ed this week in the NYT.   He raised some good points in it, however, I also found a few things in his piece questionable.

• That al Qaeda has not successfully attacked since 9/11.

No other way to say this except that this is just plain wrong, which is disappointing to see.  There is plenty of OS material that shows AQ’s clear involvement in attacks since then. And it is very clear that the London subway plots in 2005 were al Qaeda directed, and supported.

• The US invasion of Afghanistan devastated al Qaeda’s core of top personnel.

It didn’t. Al Qaeda has lost a few of its top personnel but not nearly as many as people think because a good number of them were not al Qaeda to begin with. What has happened is that KSM’s network got routed, but al Qaeda recovered from this. It lost quite a few foot soldiers but its core strength remains essentially the same. There are new faces in the mix to replace those who were lost, and most of them have come in from other linked groups, or have re-joined the jihad so to speak.

• The threat is home-grown youths who gain inspiration from OBL but little else beyond an occasional self-financed spell at a degraded Qaeda-linked training facility.

This quite frankly has me stumped. Aside from my intense dislike for “home-grown”, which is useless as an analytical term of reference, this comment goes against everything we know.

A spell at an al Qaeda linked or al Qaeda run training facility gives people a hell of a lot more than inspiration. It’s the most important element in the entire equation. And a desire to get training is universal. As I have noted repeatedly, going to prepare is a key part of jihadist doctrine and anyone worth their salt will try to do it. Of course there are always exceptions but I can think of only a handful of cases internationally where this hasn’t been one of the defining features of radicalisation (and also operationalisation) and even then its not clear that this wasn’t in the background.

The danger is precisely when people arrive at camps. Actually this is something I recall discussing with General Tito.  He has, I think, one of the best understandings of radicalisation trajectories around. He noted that once someone does hijra (and here in this context he meant to go off and head for a location for training and jihad) it becomes exceptionally more difficult to deradicalise them. Then of course there are the implications for counter terrorism once they return from such training.

Here I’d note too that most people who seek training don’t actually go with the intention of joining al Qaeda. They want training to fight jihad. Al Qaeda’s skill lies in ‘turning’ them to its agenda. So, I think that minimising this process of training or seeking training is  dangerous. It clouds understanding of the dynamics that are crucial to understanding how plots evolve and people are radicalised in that final stage–when they move from seeking training for armed jihad, to becoming involved with a group and carrying out a terrorist attack on its behalf and at its direction.

• That we are pushing the Taliban into al Qaeda’s arms

Here I presume Atran is referring to the Pakistan Taliban, because this is certainly not the case with the Afghan Taliban. I note he later mentions that the Pakistan Taliban does not have an International Agenda so I found this statement confusing. I do agree that lionising al Qaeda makes it a bigger threat, but I don’t think that on the basis of this one can then make the analytical leap to this somehow causing the Taliban to jump into its arms.

• I read Atran’s comments about using the Southeast Asian experience on al Qaeda with interest. While there are some similarities, I think this type of generalisation can be harmful. I may have misunderstood Atran here, but my reading of his argument is that the experience of Southeast Asia can somehow be transplanted onto either Afghanistan or Pakistan. Following on from this was the assumption that the Taliban or al Qaeda for that matter are similar enough in structure to use the same types of CT approaches used in Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular.

I think this is confusing apples and oranges on many levels. First in terms of similarities between al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyyah and how they recruit and radicalise, and also in terms of similarities between JI and Noordin’s faction. And then the assumption that any of this can be parlayed onto the Taliban.

JI, as Atran would know has one of the most sophisticated recruitment programs around. It takes years to become a member of JI proper, unlike al Qaeda. The radicalisation, recruitment and membership process is completely different. And that’s because the doctrine and manhaj of al Qaeda is actually entirely different to JI when you get down to the nitty gritty of it.

In JI the role of ustads is critically important in recruitment process as Atran notes when he observes that discipleship is a key element. But there is more to it than this. One of the main keys to understanding this is the different oaths of allegiance taken during the radicalisation process. Often those in the study group under their ustad don’t know they are being recruited for JI  but during their study they make an oath to follow their ustad, so their oath isn’t for JI at this point. But it ties them to their ustad and this relationship is crucial to their further progression into JI. But here’s where it gets interesting and where it also gets complicated.

NT’s faction didn’t work like this. He didn’t recruit along the same ways JI did. He couldn’t obviously because he was on the move and JI’s recruitment process is not only long but quite static.

NT was able to stay on the run for so long and continue his attacks by hitting up his old mates in JI. He just went along to an old ustad mate (here’s where the Afghan alumni plays in) and asked him for some help. The ustad agrees and gives him shelter and some students to help out with hiding and logistics.

Those students swore an oath to their ustad. They then essentially get transferred by virtue of their oath to their ustad to NT—without their knowledge for the most part. Besides which an oath is an oath, and so they end up being bound by it, and are radicalised enough to not break it. This is why many of them didn’t know they were working for NT or his faction or have knowledge of JI or chose to go along if they did know. Those he wanted for operational roles were targeted for further radicalisation, which tended to occur quite quickly. They often moved on with him unlike the others who were only limited to providing support while he was hiding out with a particular ustad’s support.

Here I’d add I’m not contradicting what General Tito says, because I understand the context in what he was saying because it was the same discussion I had many many times with the INP in the course of my work with them. What I am trying to highlight is that these factors were especially key to nabbing those senior figures who supported Top and his faction.

They don’t work so well in getting recruits of JI proper because not all ustad are aulumni, nor are the recruits these days, and the recruits are often not as interrelated in the early stages of their radicalisation process. Again something I discussed many times and something the INP has got a great handle on, especially now with General Tito at the helm of CT efforts.

I think the context in where the factors Atran identified are applicable is important to point out, if we are talking about transferring CT approaches, especially when the JI and NT case is the most unique in many respects.

Bottom line: Apples and Oranges.

Al Qaeda doesn’t recruit in the same way JI does. It’s not structured in the same way. It doesn’t have the same organisational processes, or even doctrine. And the Taliban is a completely different case again.

Having said all of that I do agree wholeheartedly with Atran’s general argument that less is more, and the importance of appreciating local dynamics in resolving the Afghan conflict.

However, it is precisely the point I would make in relation to using Indonesia and SEA in general as an example. While CT efforts in Southeast Asia have been truly impressive, they deal with a unique local dynamic, and also have a functioning state and juridical system to underpin them, as well as a great police force. This cannot be transplanted onto the Afghan conflict. Nor should it. Al Qaeda and the Taliban in any of its manifestations do not function in the same way as JI.

Translation of Abu Walid’s second response is done

Folks, I’ve just posted the translation of Abu Walid’s second response, which you can find here.

The first two responses from Abu Walid were in response to comments I posted on my blog, as opposed to questions I posed to him.

Those posts were my ponderings on why he had reemerged to write for the Taliban and what I thought it all meant. You can find them here, and here and here.

I’ll get to the rest when I can over the next little bit. As always my request stands that you honour the good faith in which I have put this material up and I’ll continue to have something to say about it very loudly if you don’t.

Pakistani officials search for Virginia men’s online Taliban recruiter |

I’m interested to see what comes of any computer forensics in relation to this case. I’d be very surprised if the forums don’t figure in this, on both sides.

Pakistani officials have said that Saifullah first contacted one of the men, Minni, on YouTube in August after Minni praised YouTube videos showing attacks on U.S. forces.

A Pakistani police official said Saifullah and the men exchanged coded e-mail messages for months thereafter. After their arrival in Pakistan, he advised them to wear local dress and instructed them to take buses to a city near the edge of the tribal areas, where they could then be transported to North Waziristan, home base of al-Qaeda. They were arrested before they could make the journey.

The men have told investigators that Saifullah was the only one who welcomed them in Pakistan, and that they were rejected by at least two other extremist groups.

In most cases, experts said, potential recruits are the ones who reach out to radical Web sites and chat rooms in hopes of finding someone to introduce them to a militant group.

“A recruiter does not radicalize a person from scratch,” said Manuel Torres Soriano, a terrorism expert in Spain. “They deal with people who are already ready to die.”

Pakistani officials search for Virginia men’s online Taliban recruiter | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Headline | International News.