The Jihadi Threat to Indonesia Al-Qa`Ida's Soon-To-Be Leader?

OBJECTIVE ·· RELEVANT ·· RIGOROUS || JUNE/JULYFEBRUARY 20212018 · VOLUME 14,11, ISSUE 26 FEATURE ARTICLE A VIEWFEATURE FROM THE ANALYSIS CT FOXHOLE TheAl-Qaìda's Jihadi Threat LTC(R)The Boogaloo Bryan Price Soon-To-Beto Indonesia Leader? Movement A profile of Saif al-Àdl Former Director, KirstenAli Soufan E. Schulze MatthewCombating Kriner Terrorism and Jon Center Lewis FEATURE ARTICLE Editor in Chief 1 Al-Qaìda's Soon-To-Be Third Emir? A Profile of Saif al-Àdl Ali Soufan Paul Cruickshank Managing Editor FEATURE ANALYSIS Kristina Hummel 22 The Evolution of the Boogaloo Movement Matthew Kriner and Jon Lewis EDITORIAL BOARD Colonel Suzanne Nielsen, Ph.D. ANALYSIS Department Head Dept. of Social Sciences (West Point) 33 The Network of the November 2020 Vienna Attacker and the Jihadi Threat to Austria Lieutenant Colonel Sean Morrow Johannes Saal and Felix Lippe Director, CTC 44 Extremism and Terrorism Trends in Pakistan: Changing Dynamics and Brian Dodwell New Challenges Hassan Abbas Executive Director, CTC Don Rassler Director of Strategic Initiatives, CTC In this month’s feature article, Ali Soufan provides a comprehensive profile of Saif al-Àdl, an Egyptian charter al-Qaìda member who could soon become the group’s third emir. Soufan writes that “with the confirmed CONTACT deaths of Hamza bin Ladin and Abu Muhammad al-Masri, as well as the reported (but as yet Combating Terrorism Center unconfirmed) demise of al-Qaìda’s second emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the likely next in line to inherit U.S. Military Academy the leadership is … Saif al-Àdl. Like the late Abu Muhammad, Saif lives in Iran and is apparently restricted from leaving the country. Little is known about his current movements or activities. 607 Cullum Road, Lincoln Hall Nevertheless, Saif’s revered status within the movement, as well as his deep experience as a military, West Point, NY 10996 intelligence, and security leader and a terrorist planner, make him a potentially dangerous emir.” Phone: (845) 938-8495 In this month’s feature analysis, Matthew Kriner and Jon Lewis assess that the Boogaloo movement Email: [email protected] “has quickly evolved into a significant domestic violent extremist threat” with “an accelerationist faction within Boogaloo” seeking to “instigate decentralized insurrectionary violence.” They write Web: www.ctc.usma.edu/sentinel/ that the movement “is best conceptualized as a decentralized, anti-authority movement composed of a diverse range of actors,” including white supremacists, neo-Nazis, militia movement members, SUBMISSIONS accelerationists, and ultra-libertarians, who are mobilized in part by the “belief that they are following in the footsteps of the United States’ founders and participating in a revolution against tyranny.” The CTC Sentinel welcomes submissions. Johannes Saal and Felix Lippe provide a case study of the November 2020 Vienna terrorist Contact us at [email protected]. attack. They write that “the Vienna attacker, Kujtim Fejzulai, grew up in the city he attacked and had longstanding connections within the jihadi extremist milieu in Austria as well as jihadi contacts in other European countries and further afield. His two failed attempts to join the Islamic State The views expressed in this report are overseas and the failure of efforts to deradicalize him after he was convicted for seeking to join the those of the authors and not of the U.S. group underline the threat that can be posed by failed jihadi travelers and terrorist convicts after Military Academy, the Department of the their release, as well as the difficulties in rehabilitating jihadi prisoners.” Army, or any other agency of the U.S. Hassan Abbas writes that “even as Pakistan has made progress in reducing the threat from terrorist Government. sanctuaries in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal areas, an increased crime-terror nexus in urban centers and a new terrorist recruitment drive by Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISK, in Baluchistan has raised alarms. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is trying to stage a comeback, and sectarianism is also Cover: Saif al-Àdl in Afghanistan before rising, creating a congenial environment for terrorist and extremist organizations, including some 9/11. (Source: screen capture from a video Kashmir-focused groups that have evaded counterterrorism scrutiny.” exhibit available on the website of the Paul Cruickshank, Editor in Chief Department of Defense's Office of Military Commissions) FEBRUARY 2021 CTC SENTINEL 1 Al-Qaìda’s Soon-To-Be Third Emir? A Profile of Saif al-Àdl By Ali Soufan organization to which he had given the past 22 years of his life.4 With the confirmed deaths of Hamza bin Ladin and Many in al-Qaìda probably wished his appointment could Abu Muhammad al-Masri, as well as the reported (but be made permanent; for while Saif and al-Zawahiri were both as yet unconfirmed) demise of al-Qaìda’s second emir, Egyptians, al-Qaìda’s membership saw them in very different Ayman al-Zawahiri, the likely next in line to inherit the lights. As this article will show, Saif was a loyal member, a military leadership is an Egyptian who goes by the nom de guerre and intelligence leader who had helped transform al-Qaìda from Saif al-Àdl. Like the late Abu Muhammad, Saif lives in a loose band of former anti-Soviet militiamen into the world’s most deadly terrorist organization. Al-Zawahiri, by contrast, was an Iran and is apparently restricted from leaving the country. interloper, the failed leader of a group that, by the time it merged Little is known about his current movements or activities. with al-Qaìda, had only around 10 members left.5 At the time, Saif Nevertheless, Saif ’s revered status within the movement, himself had opposed the merger. But he knew bin Ladin’s wishes as as well as his deep experience as a military, intelligence, to the succession, and after bin Ladin’s death, he carried them out and security leader and a terrorist planner, make him a with the same efficiency and single-mindedness that characterized potentially dangerous emir. everything he did. Within six weeks, he had secured pledges of bayà from all but one of the members of al-Qaìda’s governing y the time he died in May 2011, Usama bin Ladin had Shura council.6 (Intriguingly, the sole holdout was Saif’s former already identified his successor. Under the terms of private secretary Harun Fazul—then the leader of al-Qaìda in East his organization’s 2001 merger with Egyptian Islamic Africa—who had often derided al-Zawahiri in the past.7 Harun was Jihad (EIJ), the former leader of EIJ Ayman al- killed around the same time al-Zawahiri became emir, and some Zawahiri was to be the next emir of al-Qaìda. But reports suggested that he was lured to his death by al-Qaìda’s before al-Zawahiri could formally take office, he needed pledges of Somali affiliate, al-Shabaab—possibly in retaliation for his failure B 8 allegiance (bayat) from the members of its governing council. Al- to give bayà to the new leader. ) His job done, Saif al-Àdl again Zawahiri did not collect those pledges himself; to finish the job, the faded into the background. Indeed, by the fall of 2011, Saif had organization needed someone whose credentials and loyalty were apparently returned to captivity in Iran.9 unimpeachable. It turned to a man who had been there since the Saif’s relatively brief moment in the spotlight reveals much very beginning, and who had been a leading figure almost as long: about his character. Even after bin Ladin’s death—and on a subject the Egyptian former commando named Saif al-Àdl.1 on which he vehemently disagreed with the al-Qaìda leader Since 2002 or 2003, Saif had been based in Iran. While there, when he was alive—Saif showed unswerving loyalty to bin Ladin. his status shifted periodically. Sometimes he was detained in prison, When he acts, he does so with ruthless efficiency. Above all, he is a sometimes under varying forms of house arrest.2 Toward the end of pragmatist—a man who would have known that despite the hateful 2010, he had been allowed to travel back to Waziristan in northern necessity of living under a Shià government anathema to Sunni Pakistan, where al-Qaìda then had its hub.3 In May 2011, Saif al-Qaìda, his best chance of survival, and therefore of continued enjoyed enough liberty to act as interim leader of al-Qaìda, the effectiveness in the jihad, lay in a return to Iran. With the death in Tehran of the senior al-Qaìda commander Abu Muhammad al-Masri10 and the possible death in Pakistan last Ali Soufan is the chief executive officer of the Soufan Group. As an fall of the group’s overall emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri,11 al-Qaìda’s FBI special agent, he served on the frontline against al-Qaìda bench of leaders whose involvement goes back to its founding is and became known as a top counterterrorism operative and inter- looking somewhat threadbare. But one big name remains. When rogator. His most recent book, Anatomy of Terror: From the Death U.S. forces took Kandahar in late 2001, they captured thousands of of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State, was published in documents detailing the history, structure, and membership of al- 2017. He is the author of several feature articles for CTC Sentinel, Qaìda, including a list of the organization’s 170 charter members. including the authoritative profile of deceased IRGC-Quds Force On that list, Usama bin Ladin is number one.

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