CTC Sentinel Objective

DECEMBER 2007 . VOL 1 . ISSUE 1 COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT WEST POINT CTC SENTINel OBJECTIVE . RELEVANT . RIGOROUS Contents West Point Releases First INTRODUCTION Issue of CTC Sentinel 1 West Point Releases First Issue of CTC Sentinel By LTC(P) Joseph Felter he combating terrorism center documents. We also look forward to at the U.S. Military Academy at West releasing two major reports this spring, REPORTS Point is privileged to present the CTC including a historical study of failed jihadist 1 Abu Musàb al-Suri’s Critique of Hard T Sentinel, a new monthly online journal movements and our Shià Ideology Atlas. Line Salafists in the Jihadist Current devoted to understanding and confronting By Brynjar Lia contemporary threats posed by terrorism, With the recent passing of our Distinguished 4 Countering Terrorist Use of the Web as insurgency and other forms of political violence. Chair, General Wayne A. Downing, we would a Weapon The CTC Sentinel draws from the Center’s like to dedicate this inaugural issue to him. As By Bruce Hoffman network of scholars and practitioners dedicated General Downing used to remind the Center’s 6 Al-Qaìda Losing Ground in Iraq to the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism faculty—only slightly adjusting the motto of By Mohammed M. Hafez to provide the most well-informed forum for the British SAS—“Who thinks wins.” We 8 Al-Qaìda’s Resurgence in Pakistan the analysis of these most pressing security hope you will find the CTC Sentinel to be a By Bruce Riedel challenges facing the United States and its allies. valuable resource that informs your thinking 10 The Saudi Process of Repatriating and and enhances our collective understanding Reintegrating Guantanamo Returnees The CTC Sentinel supports the Combating of the persistent challenges facing the United By Christopher Boucek Terrorism Center’s dual mission of educating States and its allies by terrorist and insurgent 12 Leading Egyptian Jihadist Sayyid Imam a new generation of leaders and conducting groups. Renounces Violence objective, policy-relevant, informative and By Jarret Brachman rigorous research of the highest standards LTC(P) Joseph Felter, Ph.D. 14 Securing Yemen’s Cooperation in the geared both to the specialist and larger Director, Combating Terrorism Center Second Phase of the War on al-Qaìda interested public. Reflecting the CTC’s Department of Social Sciences By Gregory Johnsen commitment both to academic excellence U.S. Military Academy 15 Southern Thailand Insurgency Fails to as well as to the military, law enforcement Achieve Popular Support community and other practitioners in the REPORTS By Peter Chalk field, the CTC Sentinel will include relevant scholarly research as well as articles with a Abu Musàb al-Suri’s 17 Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity more practical orientation. For example, each Critique of Hard Line 18 CTC Sentinel Staff issue will feature an operational after-action Salafists in the Jihadist report from military personnel returning from combat operations as well as a monthly Current chronology of significant terrorist incidents. By Brynjar Lia Leading this project is Erich Marquardt, About the CTC Sentinel the recent scholarly literature on al- who joins the CTC from The Jamestown The Combating Terrorism Center is an Qaìda has focused on studying internal Foundation, where he was the editor of independent educational and research divisions and ideological schisms in the Terrorism Focus and Terrorism Monitor and institution based in the Department of Social global jihadist current.1 This literature has the Program Manager of Global Terrorism Sciences at the United States Military Academy, uncovered important fault lines with regard Analysis. The Sentinel’s editorial board includes West Point. The CTC Sentinel harnesses to al-Qaìda’s priorities on issues such as CTC Director of Research Dr. Jarret Brachman, the Center’s global network of scholars and media and propaganda efforts versus military Senior Research Fellow Dr. Assaf Moghadam practitioners in order to understand and organization. Differences over the primacy of and Senior Associate Brian Fishman. confront contemporary threats posed by religious-theological purity versus military- terrorism and other forms of political violence. strategic effectiveness have also come to light. The CTC Sentinel is one of several new initiatives that we are pleased to announce. 1 Vahid Brown, Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership The views expressed in this report are those of Early next year, the CTC will launch an Schisms in Al-Qa’ida 1989-2006 (West Point, NY: Com- the authors and not of the U.S. Military Academy, entirely redesigned website, which will bating Terrorism Center, 2007), available at www.ctc. the Department of the Army, or any other agency feature an interactive tool for searching usma.edu/aq/aq3.asp; Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: of the U.S. Government. Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge & New York: Cam- our growing collection of Harmony bridge University Press, 2005). 1 DECEMBER 2007 . VOL 1 . ISSUE 1 This article aims at contributing to this little guidance in terms of understanding greatly, they all revolved around the general literature by discussing the clash between doctrinal disputes and conflicts within dilemma of how to strike a balance between ideological purists and military strategists the jihadist current itself.5 Furthermore, it ideological purity vs. political utility. in al-Qaìda as seen through the writings may misleadingly identify contemporary of one of al-Qaìda’s most articulate and jihadists as simply radicalized elements These clashes suggest that the spread of prolific writers, Mustafa bin Àbd al-Qadir within, or as by-products of, a broader purist Salafist doctrines in the jihadist Setmariam Nasar, better known by his pen Salafist phenomenon. Instead, it may be current from the 1980s onwards has not been names Abu Musàb al-Suri and Ùmar Àbd more fruitful to speak of Salafism as one of a source of strength and renewal, but instead al-Hakim.2 Until his arrest presumably in several competing ideological strands within constituted a considerable obstacle to jihadist Quetta, Pakistan in late 2005, al-Suri was the jihadist current. Furthermore, one may mobilization, and has more often than not one of the most outspoken voices in the identify a spectrum, or a continuum, of served to handicap and cripple jihadist jihadist current. His critical analysis of positions within the contemporary Salafi- groups by embroiling them in schisms and previous jihadist experiences, especially jihadism, defined by two extreme positions. internal conflicts. on Algeria, provoked strong responses and debates. Furthermore, his ambitions to On the one extreme are hard line Salafist There are reasons why jihadist ideologues integrate Marxist guerrilla warfare theory purists for whom doctrinal purity is of like al-Suri came to use such vitriolic and into the jihadist war fighting doctrine, to quintessential importance, even if it means harsh words about leading Salafist clerics. introduce self-criticism as an accepted fighting side battles, alienating allies and Al-Qaìda’s struggle against the United genre and method in jihadist thinking shattering any semblance of a common front States and its European and Arab allies— and his attempts to critically analyze the against the “Zionist-Crusader” enemy. At the Saudi Arabia, in particular—has always jihadist current “objectively” inevitably other extreme are hard line jihadists, who led to numerous clashes with orthodox and are primarily military strategists, and whose conservative elements, especially the strong main preoccupation is political outcome, not “He styled himself as Salafist current in al-Qaìda. doctrinal purity. a writer, theorist and Salafism Abu Musàb al-Suri belongs to the latter strategist, not as a Muslim While the term Salafism is historically category. Even though he himself was born cleric.” associated with a late 19th and early 20th into a Syrian Sufi family (the Rifa‘iyyah order century Islamic reformist movement, today’s in Aleppo), he came to adopt and defend Salafists are very different. Their main Salafist doctrines in his writings, but he did characteristic is their strict emulation of the this only because it was the best strategy depended on a minimum of political-religious practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his in the current times. From his writings, it legitimation, which explains why there is far companions at the pristine Islamic age, and becomes apparent that had he been born more literature on jihadist websites dealing hence an abhorrence of any later “innovation” 20 years earlier, al-Suri would have fought with the question “why jihad?” than “how (bidà) in belief and religious practice, an equally hard under Marxist or pan-Arab jihad?”6 obsession with God’s oneness (tawhid), slogans. He styled himself as a writer, a rejection of human rationality and an theorist and strategist, not as a Muslim cleric. Since the mid-1990s, leading Salafist clerics extreme exclusiveness, even hatred, toward Together with many other leading jihadists, from Saudi Arabia and Yemen have refuted other Islamic schools and tendencies.3 Even Abu Musàb al-Suri clashed with “purist Usama bin Ladin’s message and defended their if only a small segment of today’s Salafists Salafist” elements in al-Qaìda on a number regimes against jihadist propaganda. Al-Suri support al-Qaìda, the term “Salafi-jihadism” of occasions. While the specific issues varied took considerable interest

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