Influential al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Worldfocus takes a look at the evolution of al-Qaeda into a fragmented network of jihadi terrorist elements, often united more by philosophy than by concrete linkages between AfPak and cells in Iraq, Yemen, North Africa and beyond.

The escalated drone war in northwest Pakistan has brought attention to the attenuated al-Qaeda core that moved from Afghanistan in late 2001.

But two events in late December — a failed Christmas Day bombing and a suicide attack on CIA operatives in Afghanistan — have led analysts to re-assess al-Qaeda’s perceived decline in popularity and power.

The somewhat resurgent organization is highly decentralized and relies more on a brand name and local franchises than on ideological, communications and operations control by the group’s top leaders.

An Asia Times commentary article from 2004 addresses the al-Qaeda brand name:

Legitimized by President George W Bush’s administration’s declaration of war, al-Qaeda has now become a global phantom, plagued by its own reputation and in need of solid ground. Indeed, the post-September 11 security environment finds al-Qaeda lacking not only a physical safe haven as it had in Afghanistan, but also the critical manpower and expertise that it had in the moments prior to September 11.

This, by any means, is not the end of al-Qaeda, however. The ultimate power in such groups is not necessarily the leadership, but always the cause that defines the legitimacy of the group and the leadership that guides it. Bin Laden’s existence, perhaps as it always has been, is largely political and symbolic - but will nevertheless remain a powerful source of his straining influence on various members of the global umma. Thus the “war on terror”, although controversial in many minds, has undermined both the conventional and unconventional abilities of al-Qaeda and its global entities…

In sum, the power of the al-Qaeda cause, once inherited and customarily altered from the Muslim Brotherhood, has remained close to the political spirit of many radical variations of Islam. The twist here is that the elimination of the “physical” al-Qaeda nexus and the resulting decentralization of its regional elements into like-minded, local leadership groups may ultimately prove more of stratagem advantage versus US policy than a vulnerability.

Then a 2005 BBC article examined the terrorist organization as a global, corporate franchise:

Most newspaper reports encourage us to visualize al-Qaeda as an army, with a high command; or perhaps as a multinational organization, with bin Laden as its chief executive officer and men like Ayman al-Zawahri as his senior management.

We are told that the Bali bombings, like those in London, Madrid and half a dozen other places since the attacks of 11 September 2001, “bear all the hallmarks of” al-Qaeda - formulaic language that has not varied since the days when the violence of the IRA and ETA was at its peak.

The implication is that its senior figures order these attacks, and that local operatives carry them out…

Just as you can buy the franchise for, say, a Holiday Inn or an Intercontinental Hotel, so you can adopt the principles of Osama bin Laden and set up your own deadly group, murdering those you identify as the enemies of the faith - and anyone else, of course, who happens to be passing at the time.

And an AP article from July 2009 compares al-Qaeda’s expansion to fast food franchising:

The al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaeda is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaeda’s brand name and some corporate know-how.

“The relationship with the al-Qaeda mother company works like in a multinational,” says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. “There’s a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own.”

Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, “only for terrorism.”

The cover of The Guardian Weekly from September 11, 2009. Photo: Wikipedia

The Guardian published a piece in September 2009 — on the 8th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — about the organization’s perceived decline:

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in Western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organization…

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to “affiliates” or “franchises” in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the center are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaeda’s Pakistani “core,” in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

“Core” al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.

Yet, after a failed Christmas Day bombing and a successful Khost attack on CIA operatives, The Economist ran a piece last month that refuted assumptions about al-Qaeda’s imminent demise:

ONLY a few months ago, intelligence experts were saying that al-Qaeda and its allies were in decline, both militarily and ideologically. But two bombs less than a week apart, one failed and the other successful, have put an end to such optimism.

The talk of al-Qaeda’s downfall did not come from thin air. In the view of many analysts, the network’s central leadership had been decimated through drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal belt; al-Qaeda’s Saudi branch was all but defeated; its brethren in Iraq were marginalized; and those in other regions could mount only local attacks. Al-Qaeda had failed to land a blow in the West since the London bombs of 2005. Funds were dwindling, and more Muslims were eschewing global terror.

Though still dangerous, “al-Qaeda is under more pressure, is facing more challenges and is a more vulnerable organisation than at any time since the attacks on 11 September 2001,” declared Mike Leiter, the director of America’s National Counterterrorism Center last September.

Such assessments are being hurriedly revised. Mr Leiter, Barack Obama’s favorite spook, is now among those having to explain why his newish organization, which is supposed to fuse all information on terrorist threats, failed to connect several partial warnings about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, who moved from London to Yemen last year, tried to set off explosives sewn into his underpants on board a Northwest Airlines flight, carrying 290 people from Amsterdam, as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day.

For more on al-Qaeda in Yemen, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

- Ben Piven

A Predator armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. Photo: USAF

This week, the Pakistani Taliban finally confirmed what the Pakistani army had claimed many days ago — that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed last month in a missile strike by U.S. drones.

While there are conflicting reports about which strike dealt Mehsud the mortal blow, the Pakistani Taliban are left leaderless for the second time in six months.

As the late Mehsud’s faction — as well as various other Taliban-affiliated groups — scramble to defend themselves from unmanned aerial vehicles, some policymakers are wondering whether these assassinations are strategically sound.

Although many of President Barack Obama’s harshest critics at home have lavished praise on the administration for its escalation of the drone campaign, some naysayers now contend that the U.S. may be killing high-value targets before being able to extract information from them — in northwest Pakistan, as well as in other anti-terror arenas such as Yemen.

Marc Thiessen explains this problem in Foreign Policy:

The Predator has become for President Obama what the cruise missile was to President Bill Clinton — an easy way to appear like he is taking tough action against terrorists, when he is really shying away from the hard decisions needed to protect the United States.

To be sure, unmanned drones are critical in the struggle against al-Qaeda. They allow the United States to reach terrorists hiding in remote regions where it would be difficult for special operations forces to reach them, or to act on perishable intelligence when the only choice is to kill a terrorist or lose him. Constantly hovering Predator (or Reaper) drones also have a psychological effect on the enemy, forcing al-Qaeda leaders to live in fear and spend time focusing on self-preservation that would otherwise be used planning the next attack. All this is for the good.

The problem is that Obama is increasingly using drone strikes as a substitute for operations to bring terrorist leaders in alive for questioning — and that is putting the country at risk…

With every drone strike that vaporizes a senior al-Qaeda leader, actionable intelligence is vaporized along with him. Dead terrorists can’t tell you their plans to strike America.

Meanwhile, Dawn reports that the Obama administration’s recent budget proposal includes a 75 percent increase in funds for the drone campaign, which also includes new, more advanced crafts.

View our interactive map showing approximate locations of all U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004:

See larger map. [Yellow = pre-2008 strikes / Red = 2008 strikes / Green = Obama administration strikes]

In a Sydney Morning Herald analysis piece America’s Deadly Robots Rewrite the Rules, Paul McGeough writes:

The changed ground rules making extrajudicial killing more acceptable are a product of post-September 11 thinking. In 2001 Bush overturned President Gerald Ford’s 1976 prohibition on assassinations by US intelligence agencies - but there’s something else in the works, too…

But, as critics of the drone wars struggle to get traction in public debate, it is curious that in the absence of any negative reaction to Obama’s expansion of his remote killing program last year, the former Bush administration was under attack for revelations that it had considered dispatching more traditional hit-squads abroad to take out al-Qaeda operatives.

Forty-four countries now use unmanned aircraft for surveillance - only the US and Israel deploy them as killers.

In the first weeks of his presidency Obama reportedly wrestled with the moral and strategic implications of the program. But, as reported in The New York Times, he pointedly declared to one of his earliest Situation Room gatherings: “The CIA gets what it needs.”

The American Civil Liberties Union explained in a Freedom of Information application last month: “It appears … that lethal force is being exercised by individuals who are not in the military chain of command, are not subject to military rules and discipline; and do not operate under any other public system of accountability or oversight.”

A Democrat’s targeted killings, it seems, are not quite the same as those of a Republican.

The first drones flew before the September 11 attacks - searching for Osama bin Laden. Now the US Air Force estimates that about 15 per cent of its $US230 billion ($260 billion) arms-procurement program will be spent on robot equipment within five years.

Predators can fly [420 miles], then hover for 30 hours at a stretch, feeding real-time video and other data through 10 simultaneous streams to controllers in 10 locations. Priced at $4.5 million, Predators carry sensors that intercept electronic signals and listen in on phone conversations - and they carry missiles. The newer Reapers cost $17 million and can fly nearly [3600 miles].

The US Air Force now has more drone operators in training than fighter and bomber pilots.

A recent article from the Associated Press argues that two main factors have enabled the drone war to take off: the drawdown of troops and resources in Iraq and the Obama administration’s increased intelligence-sharing with the governments of Pakistan and Yemen:

Intelligence officials and analysts say the drawdown of troops in an increasingly stable Iraq is part of the reason for the increase in drone strikes. The military once relied on drones for around-the-clock surveillance to flush out insurgents, support troops in battle and help avoid roadside bombs.

With fewer of those missions required, the U.S. has moved many of those planes to Afghanistan, roughly doubling the size of the military and CIA fleet that can patrol the lawless border with Pakistan, officials said.

“These tools were not Obama creations, but he’s increased their use and he has shifted the U.S. attention full front to Afghanistan,” said Thomas Sanderson, a defense analyst and national security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The article goes on to explain the second reason for the drone war’s escalation:

Obama has also abandoned terms like “radical Islam” and “Islamo-fascism,” rhetoric that was seen as anti-Muslim by many in the Arab world and which [Yemen's Ambassador to the UN] al-Saidi said made it harder for governments to openly cooperate with Washington.

View our original post: U.S. intensifies drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal region

- Ben Piven

The Washington Post reports today that U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies have been deeply involved in joint operations with Yemeni troops for the last six weeks.

Thus far, the combined effort has killed six of the top 15 leaders of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.

Mohamed Vall of Al Jazeera English reports from a conference of Yemeni tribal leaders in Sana’a.

Should the U.S. military help Yemen deal with al-Qaeda, while still fighting against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please be respectful and on-point. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.

A report this week from a former senior C.I.A. official warns that al-Qaeda is being patient but has not abandoned its goal of carrying out another major attack on the U.S. — with a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon.

For more, Daljit Dhaliwal interviews Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

(View full post to see video)

The man who allegedly tried to blow up a U.S. jetliner on Christmas day spent several years studying in Britain.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was president of the at University College London’s Islamic Society — which has been under scrutiny in recent weeks.

Nadim Baba of Al Jazeera English reports from the university and interviews students who knew Abdulmutallab.

Soon afterward, General David Petraeus visited the Yemeni capital of Sana’a for a meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, where he delivered a message of support from President Barack Obama.

The U.S. is pledging military aid to Yemen, a close U.S. ally and one of the world’s poorest countries, which is facing a civil war in the north and a separatist movement in the south.

Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a conference to be held in London on January 27, 2010, to assist Yemen in its fight against al-Qaeda.

Mohammad al-Kassim interviews Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen’s Ambassador to the U.N., about the Yemen’s battle against al-Qaeda in light of its own internal difficulties, as well as the Christmas day bomb attempt.

Also, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

Mutallab purportedly has links to radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric known to have contacted alleged Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hassan.

Martin Savidge hosts Christopher Boucek and Sudarsan Raghavan.

We examine the situation with al-Qaeda in Yemen and then address additional angles of the shifting circumstances.

The show analyzes the background of three different ongoing conflicts:

• al-Qaeda in Yemen (current activities, terror threat, government efforts)

• Houthi rebels in North (independence goals, Iran v. Saudi, Shia minority)

• South Yemen separatists (historical roots, central government weakness, clans)

The Yemeni capital of Sana’a. Photo: Flickr user Eesti

GUESTS:

Christopher Boucek is a research associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on regional security challenges. He has written widely on the Middle East, Central Asia, and terrorism.

Sudarsan Raghavan is the Washington Post’s correspondent in Yemen. He was recently their Baghdad bureau chief and next month will become their Africa bureau chief. He has reported from more than 50 countries and nine war zones in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the former Soviet Union and Central America.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Ben Piven and Lisa Biagiotti

While drone attacks are more frequent than ever before, there is wide disagreement about civilian deaths.

On the New America Foundation’s AfPak Channel, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann wrote in October that about one-third of those killed in drone attacks since 2006 were civilians.

Yet, Pakistani government statistics, as reported by the Dawn news service, said that these strikes killed more than 700 civilians — amounting to 90% of casualties.

The Long War Journal, a site that tracks drone attacks, reported that U.S. missiles have assassinated 16 al-Qaeda leaders and 16 mid-level al-Qaeda or Taliban militants since January 2008.

View our interactive map showing approximate locations of all U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004:

See larger map. [Yellow = pre-2008 strikes / Red = 2008 strikes / Green = Obama administration strikes]

According to published reports, most of the strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles are against terrorists who operate out of North and South Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Our Bombs shows how the attacks are concentrated in the mountainous region on the Afghan border, an area largely beyond the control of the Pakistani government in Islamabad.

The U.S. military had long remained silent about remote-controlled C.I.A. missile strikes.

But a delegation of U.S. senators visiting Islamabad last week expressed their support of the “drone war,” which was started by the Bush administration in 2004 and has escalated dramatically since President Obama took office.

The Pakistani government officially objects to the attacks but is lobbying for the U.S. to share drone technology.

Meanwhile, the attacks have generated increasing popular resentment toward the U.S.

Critics argue that raising the level of anti-Americanism in Pakistan might outweigh the benefits of successful strikes.

The Dec. 30 suicide bombing of the Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, may have been an attempt to avenge the South Waziristan attack that killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Aug. 5.

Seven C.I.A. employees died in the Khost attack, many of whom were integral to the coordination of the drone war from their base, according to ABC News.

- Ben Piven

Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Photo: Al Jazeera

Mohammad Al-Kassim is a producer with Worldfocus.

It took an incident like the Christmas day failed bombing of the Delta/Northwest airliner to bring Yemen to the forefront of the news in the U.S.

It was Yemen where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was allegedly trained by al-Qaeda. Currently Yemen offers al-Qaeda the perfect environment to reorganize and reinvent itself, and that’s precisely why the world’s focus is now shifting to the small Arabian Peninsula nation.

It’s not news to many that Yemen has been a safe haven for al-Qaeda for many years. Yemen has a weak centralized government, tough terrain and rugged mountains — and a severely fragmented tribal population with little loyalty to the government.

Also, let’s not forget that Osama Bin Laden’s family was originally from Yemen, and the al-Qaeda mastermind still enjoys wide support there.

Last week, General David Petraeus visited the Yemeni capital of Sana’a for a meeting with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Petraeus delivered a message of support from President Obama to the Yemeni president and told him the U.S. is pledging military aid to Yemen.

Meanwhile British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a conference on terrorism to be held in Yemen at the end of this month. Officially, the Yemeni government is a close ally of the U.S. And it’s one of the world’s poorest countries despite being a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s largest oil exporters and among the region’s richest.

Internally, the weak central Yemeni government has its hands full. For the last six years, the Yemeni army have been engaged in a de facto civil war in the North with a Shi’a rebel group called the Houthis. Yemen’s government accuses the group of being loyal to Iran and receiving weapons from them. Fighting has escalated since last August.

Saudi Arabia’s army was sucked into the conflict when the Saudi government accused the Houthis of crossing the border and attacking a Saudi patrol. A short war ensued between Saudi Arabia and the rebels. Some experts - including Worldfocus contributing blogger Dwight Bashir - argue that Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war with Iran in Yemen.

The government also faces a strong secessionist movement in the south over perceived northern exploitation of its resources, as I reported last fall. Another problem facing Yemen is the influx of African refugees, mainly Somalis, who cross the Gulf of Aden to escape the failed Somali state. Al-Shabaab militants from Somalia have also threatened to join with al-Qaeda in the impoverished Arabian country.

The failed Christmas day bombing brought Yemen and its myriad problems forcefully to the forefront of the world’s headlines. Unfortunately, the Western media was reacting to events rather anticipating them. Hardly any Western news outlets had a real presence there until the Christmas attack.

It’s disturbing that it took such an event to shine the spotlight on Yemen. The crucial country should have been on the radar long ago.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

On January 4th, the Transportation Security Administration imposed tougher screening rules for passengers originating in 14 mostly Muslim nations:

View TSA Enhanced Security Screening in a larger map

Additional safety precautions following the Christmas Day incident initially included checks at flights gates, restrictions on leaving airplane seats and using electronics/blankets in the hour prior to landing.

But the new strategy is based mostly on enhanced screening techniques. It requires that passengers with suspicious behavior — as well as passengers who are traveling from or citizens of one of the 14 nations — undergo full-body and explosive-detection scanning, pat-downs, and extensive searches of carry-on baggage. Only four of the 14 countries are currently deemed state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. government: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

This citizenship-based profiling has been met with controversy. Opponents argue that it unfairly targets some passengers and violates travelers’ privacy. The ACLU disapproves of whole-body imaging technology.

Michael German, National Security Policy Counsel with the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent said:

We should be focusing on evidence-based, targeted and narrowly tailored investigations based on individualized suspicion, which would be both more consistent with our values and more effective than diverting resources to a system of mass suspicion,

Over-broad policies such as racial profiling and invasive body scanning for all travelers not only violate our rights and values, they also waste valuable resources and divert attention from real threats.

Singling out travelers from a few specified countries for enhanced screening is essentially a pretext for racial profiling, which is ineffective, unconstitutional and violates American values. Empirical studies of terrorists show there is no terrorist profile, and using a profile that doesn’t reflect this reality will only divert resources by having government agents target innocent people.

Profiling can also be counterproductive by undermining community support for government counterterrorism efforts and creating an injustice that terrorists can exploit to justify further acts of terrorism.

Many bloggers see the new efforts as superficial. Bruce Maiman writes:

How many of these procedures at the airport and on the airplane really work? They seem more like theatre designed to make you feel safer when in fact that do little to make you safer.

Tunku Varadarajan, Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and professor at NYU’s stern Business School writes about the aftermath of the failed attempt by the “jock-strap jihadist“:

The Transportation Security Administration went predictably into Pavlovian overdrive, announcing a series of new security measures that would take immediate effect. This is the other, less reassuring, side of the episodic nature of the terrorist threats against us. We seem always to react, never to anticipate—and in this form of hasty reaction, with its flavor of humiliation, and of having been outwitted by a wearer of dangerous underwear (or shoes), there lurk always the seeds of over-reaction…

The broader point is that we need, constantly, to recalibrate our bandwidth of stoicism. We are at war with al-Qaeda; that organization is doing its best to kill us. Our need is, of course, to make it as near to impossible for it to do that. But our reaction to each new threat must not be to grant al-Qaeda small, but important, victories, in the form of an imposition by the TSA of inconveniences on travelers that have not been thought through, inconveniences that are, themselves, a form of theater—the extempore theater of homeland security.

- Michael Ramirez

The funeral for the Jordanian “handler” killed in the bomb attack. Photo: Al Jazeera

Jordanian blogger Naseem Tarawnah writes about the Jordanian double agent who killed seven C.I.A. members in Afghanistan this week — and the event’s impact on Jordanians.

It took less than 48 hours later for more information to emerge that the suicide bomber was Jordanian. In Amman, everyone seemed to have seen this piece of information scrawl across the screen of an Al Jazeera news ticker. Al Jazeera’s information was coming from a Taliban spokesperson, and this news was, naturally, quickly denied by the Jordanian government, which, naturally, spoke too soon…

Apparently, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa…

Interestingly enough, Balawi was “turned” after being arrested in 2007 for his activities on an extremist website that was being monitored by authorities. Balawi became an administrator of the site where he operated under the screen name of Abu Dujana al-Khorasani. Moreover, he was also a Jordanian blogger who according to sources, had a Maktoob-hosted blog that seems to still be accessible but seems to have had its archives flushed.

According to sources, Balawi was a trusted informant despite his extremist tendencies, which were probably the same tendencies the CIA and Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID) were using to their advantage when they used him as an informant with Al Qaeda’s circles. It is however astonishing that both the CIA and GID, despite the notoriety of both intelligence entities in their field, were duped by this one man they had working for them, who turns out was a triple agent.

It is very likely that Jordan will be given its share of the blame for its responsibility in arresting, turning and bringing Balawi to the attention of the CIA in the first place. But, even more embarrassing for Jordan is its CIA connection, which while relatively well-known before, has now been put out in the public sphere for all to see - especially the Arab street.

The Jordanian government will likely go on as if nothing ever happened, believing that Jordanians have no access to information, but being that we live in the information age where practically every Jordanian household has Al Jazeera and a million other channels, this is one piece of information that isn’t going to be kept quiet.

This is, of course, a subject that the state considers to be the very definition of a “red line.” I assume most journalists will be avoiding the issue like the plague, lest they be charged with the notoriously overused “attempting to harm the state’s relations” charge. However, the problem with such a charge, at least this time around, is that it seems the GID has done a pretty good job of doing the “harming” all by itself. It is the very definition of shooting oneself in the foot.

The repercussions are akin to opening Pandora’s Box. Jordan has lost tremendous face and what little political capital it had in a region where pretty much every country has a CIA connection they keep quiet. Moreover, they have given both Al Qaeda as well as Jordanians with extremist tendencies, a hero - a martyr to admire.

- Naseem Tarawnah

This latest warning came as Yemeni officials said security forces killed two al-Qaeda fighters in a gun battle.

And ten days after the attempted bombing of a U.S. jetliner by a suspect who received his training and explosives in Yemen, passengers from Yemen and 13 other countries now face additional aiport security screening.

For more, Daljit Dhaliwal interviews Juan Carlos Zarate, senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

And Omar Al Saleh reports for Al Jazeera English on the Arabic-language school where the alleged plane bomber studied during his time in Yemen.

The flag of Pashtunistan. Courtesy: Wiki user Jolle

Worldfocus multimedia producer Ben Piven writes about the U.S. war in Pashtunistan, an often misunderstood place not found on any world map.

The knee-jerk American reaction after September 11th was to strike at the Taliban-ruled nation that was harboring a sizable, international al-Qaeda contingent: Afghanistan.

But these days, it is becoming ever more clear that the U.S. has widened its campaign to the region that some people call Pashtunistan — the area historically inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns.

The vast majority both of al-Qaeda operatives and of Taliban militants who oppose the U.S. are located in Pashtunistan, with little regard for the arbitrary Durand Line drawn by the British that technically separates Pakistan from Afghanistan. The Guardian described the region last year as a “Grand Central Station for Islamic terrorists.”

A number of recent articles highlight that the U.S. is no longer merely involved in counter-insurgency against Afghan terrorists. As drone attacks against targets in Pakistan escalate, allegations arise that the U.S. is actually much more involved in Pakistan than previously known.

A New York Times article from earlier this month suggests that the Obama plan for a troop increase ignores the reality of Pashtunistan:

In his address [December 1], the president mentioned Pakistan and the Pakistanis some 25 times, and called Pakistan and Afghanistan collectively “the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda.”

But he might have had an easier time explaining what he was really proposing had he set the national boundaries aside and told Americans that the additional soldiers and marines were being sent to another land altogether: Pashtunistan.

That land is not on any map, but it’s where leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban both hide. It straddles 1,000 miles of the 1,600-mile Afghan-Pakistani border. It is inhabited by the ethnic Pashtuns, a fiercely independent people that number 12 million on the Afghan side and 27 million on the Pakistani side. They have a language (Pashto), an elaborate traditional code of legal and moral conduct (Pashtunwali), a habit of crossing the largely unmarked border at will, and a centuries-long history of foreign interventions that ended badly for the foreigners.

Whether Mr. Obama will have better luck there than President George W. Bush, the Soviet Politburo and British prime ministers back to the early 19th century remains to be seen. But it is there that the war will be fought, because it is there that the Taliban were spawned and where they now regroup, attack and find shelter, for themselves and their Qaeda guests.

Today, the enemies of the United States are nearly all in Pashtunistan, an aspirational name coined long ago by advocates of an independent Pashtun homeland. From bases in the Pakistani part of it — the Federally Administered Tribal Areas toward the north and Baluchistan province in the south — Afghan Taliban leaders, who are Pashtuns, have plotted attacks against Afghanistan. It is also from the Pakistani side of Pashtunistan that Qaeda militants have plotted terrorism against the West.

And an article by Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times looks at the region’s hopes for self-determination:

Tribal Pashtuns (from eastern Afghanistan to western Pakistan) have never given up on being united again. Everyone familiar with AfPak knows the region is still paying the price for the fateful and - what else - divide-and-rule British imperial decision in 1897 to split tribal Pashtuns through the artificial Durand Line. The line remains the artificial border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anyone who ever crossed it at, for instance, Torkham, at the foot of the Khyber pass, knows it is meaningless; people swarming on both sides are all cousins who never stopped dreaming of a pre-colonial, Afghan Durrani empire that straddled a great deal of contemporary Pakistan.

Few have noticed that Pashtuns were recently insisting on a very basic demand - that North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan have its name changed to Pakhtunkhwa (”Land of the Pashtuns”). The demand was shot down this past September by the dominant Punjabis in Pakistan. Pashtun nationalists protested en masse in fabled Peshawar, the NWFP capital. Pashtun national liberation is at fever pitch. Pashtun Guevaras are already issuing a call to arms.

But as much as Washington, now with a little help from its friend/client government of President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad, has been conducting essentially a war on Pashtuns since 2001, this is no monolithic movement. It all goes back to the early 21st-century maxim that virtually every Taliban is a Pashtun, but not every Pashtun is a Taliban. There are significant strands of secular Pashtuns that shun the TTP [Pakistani Taliban] and its brand of Islamic fundamentalist dystopian dogma, even while the Pashtun masses may see in the TTP the ideal vehicle for the advent of Pashtunistan.

If we follow the money, we see that the TTP in Pakistan is now being financed mostly by wealthy, pious Gulf businessmen and not anymore by Islamabad. The financiers are more interested in jihad than in Pashtun nationalism, and that undermines the legitimacy of the Taliban as vehicles for Pashtun nationalism.

An opinion piece titled “Welcome to Pashtunistan” in The National last week described a covert CIA-funded operation in Pakistan by Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater. The author, retired Pakistani military officer Shaukat Qadir, alleges that the U.S. has plans to destabilize Pakistan’s government in order to stabilize the broader region in the long-term.

Qadir also suggests that even though U.S.-funded operatives are in Karachi and Peshawar, they have failed to hunt down most of the top al-Qaeda figures.

Security analysts often argue that the current Afghan insurgency is at heart a Pashtun movement — organized and directed by Pashtuns in Pakistan.

If true, Qadir’s assertions would prove that the U.S. has long been devoting significant resources to combating terror in the Pakistani half of Pashtunistan:

[Blackwater's] presence in Pakistan has been an open secret for some years. The investigative journalist and writer Jeremy Scahill, an authority on Blackwater and author of the bestselling Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, revealed last month that it has been there since 2006. He says Blackwater is being employed for covert ops, essentially intended to target high-value al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, but it has also assisted in providing information for drone attacks and has kidnapped suspects and transported them covertly to the U.S. for interrogation…

Mr. Scahill does not engage in speculation, and is not to be taken lightly. So when he states that Xe is sitting in Karachi, he is not likely to be wrong. He has added that the operation is so secret that many senior people in the Obama administration were unaware of it.

However, he seems to have erred in one respect: Xe is not only in Karachi. It also has a massive presence in Islamabad and Peshawar, where I understand the organization has rented up to seven adjacent houses. Neighbors who heard muffled explosions soon after the houses were occupied suspect that they are linked by underground tunnels.

Along with massively expanded counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. appears to be quickly but quietly escalating its war in Pakistan.

Over the next few years, we can expect more intensive drone strikes, heightened Pakistani military efforts and a increasingly blurry line that separates the two halves of Pashtunistan.

- Ben Piven

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day bombing, and Yemeni security forces raided an al-Qaeda hideout today.

And last week, U.S.-supported missile strikes may have killed American-born imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who purportedly has links to Abdulmutallab, as well as to accused Ft. Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan.

For more, Martin Savidge speaks with Anthony Cordesman, military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Should the U.S. take additional steps to expand the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please be respectful and on-point. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned.

Recently, the U.S. is said to have provided support for an airstrike against al-Qaeda members inside Yemen that reportedly killed civilians. Admiral Mike Mullen applauded the effort, saying he has concerns about Yemen becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

Juan Carlos Zarate, a senior adviser on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins Edie Magnus to discuss the Obama administration’s strategy in Yemen and beyond.

Pakistan’s president speaks at the U.N. in September. Photo: Flickr user UNPhoto

President Obama wrote a letter last month to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari calling for a quick expansion of military operations against insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal region.

The Washington Post reports that Zardari responded by saying that his government is determined to take action against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other groups — but will do so according to Pakistani priorities.

Meanwhile, widespread anti-American sentiment appears to be growing in Pakistan, as the U.S. military expands its operations against the Taliban.

Will Pakistan actually crack down on militants operating along the border with Afghanistan?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

A U.S. soldier in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Photo: Flickr user USArmy

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

After an unusually lengthy and public deliberative process, President Obama has decided to induct a further 30,000 troops in war torn Afghanistan. He further stated that the U.S. would start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in July 2011. But he left open the timeline for total withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Domestic politics dictate that U.S. presidents cannot appear to be weak. His Republican opponents had started accusing him of dithering on Afghanistan. This consideration was probably an important factor in tilting Obama toward the military surge.

In reinforcing the U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan, Obama is aware that its repercussions are likely to define his presidency. His political future could depend on the outcome of this gamble.

Could Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam? Despite his statements suggesting what happened in Vietnam is not analogous to how the U.S. is pursuing its objectives in Afghanistan, observers keep drawing parallels between the two situations. The ensuing months will provide an answer.

Just like the corrupt and inefficient South Vietnamese government that could not withstand the North Vietnamese military onslaught, Hamid Karzai’s government has proved equally inept in countering the Taliban. Even after 8 years of huge military and financial support by the West, Karzai’s writ does not extend much beyond Kabul.

His situation seems further compromised by the recent presidential election which was seen by Afghans — as well as outsiders — as deeply flawed. Karzai today wields neither much legitimacy nor authority in the eyes of an increasing number of his disillusioned countrymen. The stock of the Taliban has naturally risen as that of the Afghan government has dwindled.

To expect Karzai and his government to change enough in the next 18 months to defeat a rejuvenated Taliban is virtually asking for the impossible. Most of Karzai’s army consists of the majority ethnic group, the Pashtuns. Afghanistan’s tribal dynamic suggests that it is unrealistic to expect a Pashtun to fight a fellow Pashtun at the behest of an Afghan government which is considered illegitimate, corrupt and inefficient by many Afghans.

Ordinary Afghans are angry at the riches accumulated by Karzai’s cronies through the burgeoning drug trade, bribery and endemic corruption. A large number of Afghans have suffered under this Western-supported dispensation.

Since a military victory by the Afghan army supported by the U.S. and NATO troops seems improbable, it may be useful for the U.S. to encourage Karzai to initiate a political process with the Taliban. The additional U.S. troops will remind the “moderate” Taliban that a Taliban victory is not around the corner. They could be weaned away from the hardcore Taliban.

Political reconciliation will allow the U.S. and NATO troops to withdraw from Afghanistan with some semblance of honor. The government of national reconciliation that hopefully emerges in Afghanistan will have to guarantee that al-Qaeda will not be permitted to operate from Afghan soil. We should realize that al-Qaeda is a much diminished force in Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda leaders are not Afghans. They are Arabs.

The Afghan government, of which the Taliban will be a constituent, may thus not see any advantage in allowing this foreign group the latitude to operate in Afghanistan, which they did 8 years ago. This development will be in consonance with American national security interests.

Only a political process can end Afghanistan’s unending misery. It is well known that it is not possible for nation building to occur while a war is going on — in any country. Reconstruction and development occur when the guns become silent.

- S. Azmat Hassan

Martin Savidge hosts Filipino peace negotiator and Catholic priest Eliseo Mercado and security analyst Zachary Abuza when Worldfocus Radio explores the forgotten terrorist front in the Philippines.

For more on Worldfocus’ coverage of the Philippines, including original videos, click here.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has stationed 500 to 600 troops in the Philippines to strengthen military forces there. The U.S. counter-insurgency effort in the Philippines has been applauded as a success story for its mix of military action and soft power — including one of the largest USAID packages in the world.

But how lasting is this counter-insurgency success? Does it solve the root problems of poverty and lack of schools and infrastructure? And, if the U.S. pulls out, is the Philippines prepared to stop the tide of terrorism?

The U.S. strategy has been to root out terrorists from the lawless jungles of the south, which is home to the country’s Muslim minority and vulnerable to external terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.

The show:

• explains the current insurgency in the poor, predominantly Muslim south of the Philippines
• evaluates how Filipino counter-insurgency tactics measure up to other Southeast Asian counter-insurgency efforts
• examines the mix of U.S. military might, diplomacy and humanitarian aid to combat local and regional instability
• discusses the importance of peace and reconciliation between the numerous Filipino ethnic groups

Martin Savidge hosts the following guests:

Zachary Abuza is a professor at Simmons College, Boston, specializing in Southeast Asian politics and security issues. He visits the region four to five times a year. Zachary is the author of Conspiracy of Silence: The Insurgency in Southern Thailand and its Implications for Southeast Asian Security, Muslims, Politics and Violence in Indonesia and Militant Islam in Southeast Asia, among other publications. He contributes frequently to the Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Counterterrorism Blog and the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Father Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, Jr. is a Catholic priest and peace advocate who has been extensively involved in the peace process in Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines. He is an expert on the role of Islam in the Philippines and led the independent cease-fire between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front separatist group. Father Mercado has also been extensively involved in peace process in Mindanao. In October 2007, he was selected to be one of the 20 delegates representing all NGO and CSO accredited at the UN to the High Level UN Session on inter-religious dialogue.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

But in the meantime, the Saudi government is cracking down on terror suspects and even has a program to rehabilitate al-Qaeda militants.

Daljit Dhaliwal talks to historian Robert Lacey about the latest developments in Saudi Arabia.

Do you think the Saudi government is doing enough to crack down on Al-Qaeda?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

South Yemenis in favor of secession from the North protested around the world this week on the anniversary of an uprising against former colonial power Britain.  In New York, a few hundred vocal Americans of South Yemeni descent demonstrated outside the United Nations building.

South Yemen was an independent nation after the British left in 1967. North and South Yemen unified in 1990 and a new country- the new Republic of Yemen  - was born with Ali Abdullah Saleh as its leader and San’a as its capital.  But the union has been uneasy and southerners have complained of being marginalized.

“We are a nation living under occupation,” said Hamza Saleh Meqbel, Vice President of TAJ (Southern Democratic Assembly), a South Yemeni political organization based in the United States.
Mr. Meqbel says the central government in the capital Sanaa has reneged on all commitments it promised and signed with the south upon unification.

“The unification treaty is invalid because the regime in Sanaa has lost its credibility. It was supposed to be a partnership, but the north has turned to occupiers and we no longer want a part of this unity.”

Ahmad al Muthana, the President of TAJ, claims that his group represents the majority of people in the south. “We are constantly in communication with our brothers in the south, we fully support them in their struggle,” he says.

So far the separatist South Yemenis have resorted to peaceful means in their quest for independence, including marches and protests. But al Muthana says, “if the regime keeps oppressing and killing our people, we will turn to arms.  We have no choice.”
That sentiment was echoed by many of the protesters. On Friday, Yemen’s interior ministry banned demonstrations in the south.

The problem in the south is not the only challenge for the Yemeni government.  Its forces have also been engaged in a military confrontation with Shiite rebels in the north.  The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of being loyal to Iran.

An unstable Yemen may spell disaster for the rest of the world.

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility on several attacks in Yemen against tourists and U.S. interests, most notoriously the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in the Red Sea port of Aden.

Yemen’s intelligence and military apparatus are busy with rebels in the north, as well as the separatists in the South, which makes it easier for Al Qaeda members to operate inside the country.

- Mohammad al-Kassim

An Afghan villager in late 2008. Photo: Flickr user RugNug

S. Azmat Hassan is a career diplomat and former ambassador of Pakistan, where his postings have included Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco, and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University.

On how to proceed in Afghanistan: Obama should make haste slowly. He is being pulled in different directions, which is not unusual in American politics. Kennedy was pressured by his senior military commanders to preemptively attack Russian missile sites in Cuba, which he rejected. Instead, he wisely chose diplomacy. He averted a possible nuclear holocaust in the aftermath of which the living if any would have envied the dead. Truman dismissed MacArthur, a general with a big ego, who advised him to nuke China to stop their advance in the Korean War.

Obama should strictly order the US commander in Afghanistan General McChrystal, to observe military protocol by not courting the media to publicize his recommendation for 40,000 additional troops. He should go through the military chain of command instead of trying to become a military prima donna. The buck stops with Obama- the Commander-in-Chief.

Since time immemorial, no foreign army has won in Afghanistan. Alexander, arguably the greatest military commander of all time, and more recently the mighty British and the Soviet armies, all experienced humiliating reverses in Afghanistan. The US Army supported by some NATO forces, has been trying for 8 years to defeat a ragtag militia calling itself the Taliban. They have failed. One does not have to be a military genius to figure out that when the combination of the forces opposing you is in the ascendant; it is time to give up the military option. The Taliban have the advantages of geography, history and resolve to attenuate and outlast the US forces-whom they consider foreign invaders.

Throwing in more troops is not likely to alter the current military equation. In today’s world where asymmetric warfare has demonstrated that a $20 improvised explosive device can destroy humvees and armored personnel carriers costing millions, the military calculus is weighted in favor of the local resistance. It is a resistance, moreover, which is hugely reinforced by an apparently inexhaustible supply of suicide bombers who can wreak havoc among both the military and civilians.

Those who recommend military escalation are still hoping for a military victory. Their rationale for pursuing the military option is the wrongheaded conflation of the Taliban with al-Qaeda. No such partnership is discernible today in Afghanistan. The Taliban regime was overthrown by the US in 2001 for being in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. They are unlikely to make the same mistake twice. American analysts themselves admit that al-Qaeda is down to around 100 adherents in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda is thus highly unlikely to be in a position to launch another 9/11 or any operation approaching it. Mullah Omar has publicly proclaimed that his fight is not against the West. It is against foreign military forces and the ineffectual and corrupt Karzai regime which stands further delegitimized in the eyes of many Afghans as well as many in the international community, for blatantly rigging the recent general election. Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires. It would be prudent for Obama who is considered an astute politician, not to fall further in this bottomless pit like the others before him.

So what can be done? The US must initiate a dialogue with the Taliban beginning with their leader Mullah Omar. A senior British diplomat whom I had invited recently to lecture to my class told them that at the height of the British conflict with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the British kept up contacts with them. When the IRA was ready to talk with the British authorities, they utilized an already established channel of communication.

Today the centuries old Anglo-Irish problem is largely resolved. Regrettably, the US has not evolved politically to set up such mechanisms with its antagonists such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Hizbullah and Hamas. They have forgotten British Foreign Secretary’s Lord Palmerston’s sage advice tendered 150 years ago: in international relations there are no permanent friends or enemies- only interests. Today it is patently in America’s interest to explore the diplomatic option in Afghanistan as the military option has failed. It is the road to a dead end.

- S. Azmat Hassan