121Contact

Al-Qaeda—while you were sleeping.

The decimated al-Qaeda ‘core’ may in fact be seriously weakened since the death of its charismatic leader Osama bin Laden but still we see daily reports of violence by al-Qaeda and  its offshoots, affiliates, and wannabes. The core ideology, on the other hand, is quietly spreading its tendrils.

While the ISIS (or ISIL-the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Levant) focus on training adult fighters (who are encouraged to return to carry jihad back to their homelands), al-Nusra Front (more closely allied with al-Qaeda Core) schools have opened to teach the Salafist ideas of Ibn Tamiya. Children, whose regular schools have been closed by the chaos, are taught the path of jihad, learning that Islam will prevail “with god’s book and a sword.” Along with free food and supplies come exercise, entertainment, and studies of Koran. The 10-15 year-olds study mathematics ‘and some other subjects.’ There is also, for select students, light-weapons training and an indoctrination into the importance of following the orders of the mujahidin. Young bodies are fed and young minds are steered into the path of violence. Child warriors have already been found among the anti-Assad forces.

Meanwhile, in the desert tracts of the Sahara, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has launched preaching convoys to visit villages and spread a jihad-focused version of Islam.

In spite of the excited reports of al-Qaeda’s use of videos, Face Book, Twitter, and their own social networks the most effective means of radicalization to violence is simple face-to-face conversation. And al-Qaeda is aware of this.

February 7, 2014, by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

U.S. prepares for attacks as Hezboulah takes note of the August 6 new moon

Days after Yemeni al-Qaeda leader Abu Sufyan al-Azdi was murdered by a U.S. drone strike al-Qaeda Core issued a call for revenge, referring generally to U.S. actions in Muslim states. Several Jihadist web sites have also been calling for retaliation. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda core, explicitly called for attacks on U.S. interests. No specific date was mentioned, but the U.S. has responded by closing embassies, putting out travel alerts, and upping security for all inbound flights to America.

The U.S. intelligence services cite “high level intercepts” indicating imminent attacks. Other nations have also raised alert levels and Interpol has called on countries to increase vigilance.

Yesterday saw a posting on Hezboulah’s Facebook page noting the coming new moon ” …when it appears shook the ground…"

Is this a hint about the date of the attacks?

 

Yesterday Mali, Today Mauritania: U.S. Gen. Ham is getting a Workout in Africa

General Carter F. Ham became commander of U.S. Africa Command headquartered  on March 9, 2011. He’s got a lot to learn, and so do we all. We recently trained and equipped a bunch of Malian forces to protect the government and citizens of Mali. When the Islamists came riding in to ‘help’ the Tuareg in their nationalist efforts many of the Mali forces just ran off to join ‘the Enemy’, taking a bunch of the U.S. supplied weapons with them. In our rush to make them technically ready we forgot to think about what they were thinking.

 General Ham is bright and hopefully he’ll be able to apply lessons learned in the next battle, which is already taking shape: Mauritania. And hopefully his learning will have included the fact that military means will not defeat al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda? You thought they were dead with bin Laden? Not so. “al-Qaeda” has become a ghost, a disembodied collection of ideas bound in a coherent global narrative that is available to any and all, individuals (the lone wolves) and groups, on many internet sites.

Ansar al-Shariah is one such group (of groups) that has adopted al-Qaeda’s goal of world domination by a radical, violence embracing ideology. And look! It has already metastasized! It was first named in Yemen in on Apr. 12, 2011. Then came Ansar al-Shariah (Tunisia), following the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine.  Following the Arab Spring al-Shariah spread to Egypt, Syria, Mali, and…now it has announced, on the al-Sharq News Agency, its arrival in Mauritania.

There was forewarning. Abu Mundhir Shanqeeti, a prominent theorists of Ansar al-Sharia wrote an article back in 2012 titled, "We are Ansar al-Sharia," [al-monitor] I don’t who was listening then, but I’m sure Gen. Ham is listening now.

Note the global aspect of their creed: “We announce that we will defend our religion and the ...and all the Muslims who carry the burden of the call and who demand the implementation of the Shariah of Allah without rest and under any circumstances and conditions.” There is no sense of single-nation effort here. They are just a branch of a global effort, al Qaeda's global narrative, to blanket the world with their narrow interpretation of Islam: an extremist Islamic view that espouses violence against all, civilians or not, who stand in their way.

By the way, Ansar al-Shariah doesn’t just blow things up. They have an active, expensive, expansive social services program that provides clinics, repairs roads, gives monetary support, and generally instills itself in the minds and hearts of the people among whom it can hide when things get rough.

General Ham’s got a lot on his plate.

 

February 12, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abu Ayyub al-Mahdi (AKA Ahmed Salim bin al-Hassan), an imprisoned Mauritanian Salafist, announced the creation of Ansar al-Shariah in the Land of Chinguetti (Mauritania) as a means to promote Shariah-based governance.

The statement attributed to Hassan was posted on the website of the Mauritanian news organization al-Sharq News Agency on February 12, 2013, and was subsequently distributed by users on jihadist forums. Al-Sharq News Agency had received prior messages from Abu Ayyub that it posted on its website, including a piece called "Breaking the Cross," concerning the French-led military intervention in Mali. In the statement, the prisoner declared that Ansar al-Shariah in Mauritania represents a "counter campaign" against the alleged war on Islam and what it entails of harming the faith and halting the implementation of Shariah.

He stated: "We confirm our adoption of Salafism and that we represent only part of it, and we express our ideas and not the ideas of other Salafists and other Muslims in general. We announce that we will defend our religion and the Sunnah of our Prophet and all the Muslims who carry the burden of the call and who demand the implementation of the Shariah of Allah without rest and under any circumstances and conditions. From this standpoint, we will respond with argument and explanation for all the falsehoods and the exaggerations of the secularists, the deniers and others who dared to touch our creed. We will never allow anyone to assault our religion and the Sunnah of our Prophet no matter who he is."

 

 

Al-Qaeda Loses Again as Mali Fighting Turns a Corner

Timbuktu and Gao have fallen. Ansar Dine has abandoned Ansongo, and Mali may have reached a tipping point. The Guardian reported that a new group of fighters has formed: the Islamic Movement for Azawad (IMA). This is a great loss for al-Qaeda. It has failed, once again, in its vain attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people and bring them into its global jihad.

Composed of indigenous Mali fighters, the group has committed to talks with the government. Its two main components are former members of the Tuareg separatist MNLA and former Ansar Dine members. Ansar Dine is a Tuareg-dominated Malian Islamist group that has been allied with foreign Islamic fighters. The foreigners are mainly al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). They came to Mali claiming to help the Tuareg but quickly moved to the forefront of fighting and publicity as they pushed their own global Islamic agenda.

The IMA’s leader, Ag Intallah said, "We want to wage our war and not that of AQIM."  IMA is willing to fight against the al-Qaeda allied groups.

 Bringing the IMA to the table will once again allow the legitimate grievances of the Tuareg to be seriously considered by the Mali government. This did not happen by magic. The French assault has been extremely successful and town after town has fallen from the rebels. international negotiators have been working hard to move things toward a non-violent solution. It is possible that the frustration of these losses and the realization that violence will not win their fight has forced them to consider political solutions.

This may be the first time al-Qaeda has come to the aid of the Tuareg, but this is not the first ‘Tuareg rebellion.’ Now it’s up to President Traore and the Mali government to forge a lasting peace that recognizes the rights of a people disenfranchised, much as the Kurdish were, by arbitrary lines drawn by European occupiers. Anything less will leave a smoldering bitterness to burst out again. Their first step will have to be cutting their ties to AQIM, which has been silently tolerated for years.

January 29, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

One Man’s Terrorist is Another’s Freedom Fighter

To hear the French tell it, the January 13, 2013 French attack on Ansar al-Din (probably allied with “al-Qaeda”) forces near Konna, Mali led to the deaths of over 100 Islamist fighters. 11 Malian soldiers, one French pilot, and about 10 civilians (including at least 3 children) were also killed.

Taking on the mantle of liberator and protector of the Malian people, Ansar al-Din told a markedly different tale in a statement distributed on jihadist forums on January 19, 2013. In their version they were forced to fight to protect Mali from French assaults in a colonial grab for more power and territory. "This was not an easy decision, for everyone knows the extent of the difficulty of waging this war, especially in such a time when the colonial powers are gathering their forces to invade us, and in light of the imbalance in number and equipment."

So strong were the Ansar al-Din warriors that the French forced “the African nations to throw in their soldiers so as to be human shields for them." Ansar al-Din’s retreat was self-characterized as a strategic choice not forced upon them. They declared that a message was sent to everyone that the people of northern Mali are prepared to sacrifice everything in order to live under Sharia-based governance and not return to the “age of enslavement.”

Whatever ‘truth’ you wish to embrace, one thing is clear: the recent, less than one-year-old, Tuareg/”al-Qaeda” rebellion against the Mali government is not over. It seems as if the historically nomadic Tuareg of the Sahara have been coopted by radical Islamic forces.  The nomads were seeking a land to call their own since the colonizers didn’t bother giving them one when they chopped the continent into Euro-pieces. It does sound a bit like the plight of the Kurdish people.

Who came riding to their assistance? “Al-Qaeda” groups who first pledged to help the Tuareg. Although Ansar al-Dine denies any links with al-Qaeda, it effectively functions as a local umbrella under which members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) can operate. It is true that many members are Tuareg, but the rhetoric has changed drastically, altering the frame of the struggle a fight for liberation and homeland to a desire for an extremist Islamic Sharia-land.

Woe to those who reach out to “al-Qaeda” for help. They will get more than they bargained for.

If only Mali and its allies in the struggle against Islamist extremism had carefully listened to, intelligently  thought about, and compassionately responded to the voices of the Tuareg before the nomads felt total frustration and a need for a violent solution…we would all have been on a path closer to more peaceful tomorrows.

January 24, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact

The Angry Serpent of Tunisia’s Salafists

Like an angry serpent, the hissing beast of Tunisia’s Salafist movement slithers across the revolution's path.

Enter stage right: a preacher from the hardline Tunisia Salafist movement. He urges Tunisians (in his mind he thinks this is a Fatwa) not to exchange New Years greetings. “Sharing the feast days of the infidel or even sending them greetings to mark them is a big sin,” Sheikh Beshir Ben Hassine said in sermon posted on Facebook. His speech is indicative of one of the challenges the Tunisian revolution faces. [AFP] Enter stage left: Alaya Alani, a professor of contemporary history at Manouba University. He  told Radio Tataouine today that imams in mosques were encouraging Tunisian youths to participate in jihad in Mali and Syria. He urged the government to put an end to this "indoctrination". [magharebia]

About a year ago we began to hear of a rise in Salafist activity. In the tobacco farming community in Bizerte people spoke of sharia tribunals, secret jails and attacks by sword-wielding mobs on wedding photographers, beer drinkers, statuette-makers, wine vendors and young men who fail to attend prayers. Even schoolgirls who refuse to wear the veil are subject to assault. This is serious stuff and has aroused the interest of international human rights groups as well as Tunisia’s own Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH). "The Salafist phenomenon is present throughout the country. The reason it was able to proliferate in Sejnane is due to the lack of security or functioning government institutions in the area," LTDH chief Abdessatar Ben Moussa said.

Some think the poverty and lack of central government presence in the area is enabling the extreme Salafists to recruit and impose their will on the people. Education levels seem not to matter as some unemployed university graduates are part of the Salafist movement.

Meanwhile there is another conflict emerging over the freedom of expression. There have been a number of journalists, bloggers, and artists accused of ‘security infractions’ and worse. Some of their work pointed to corruption in government and other works, like the controversial art show at the Palais Abdellia in La Marsa were modernist expositions of cultural focus. [The art show generated three days of Salafist protests led to rioting that forced the government to order curfews in several Tunisian cities. Over a dozen Salafists have been arrested.

Tunisians are divided on the free speech issue. Travel bans and threats of jail face several journalists and bloggers. Journalist Mona Bouazizi was charged with slander. "The article revealed administrative corruption in the co-operative for school and university accidents (MASU)," Bouazizi said. "I was surprised to be summoned for investigation.”

On the other side, prosecutor Mostafa Dalleji, "Prosecuting those who attempt to distort the actions of the government is an obligation so the perpetrators can be used as examples for others."  "The corrupt and leftist media want to bring down this government by fabricating false charges. Therefore we must stand against the enemies of the revolution," he concluded.

In these first years of hope there are many ways to navigate the new-found freedoms. Let us pray that Tunisia finds the path to more peaceful tomorrows. Inshallah.

January 21, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact