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A Noted Irregular Warfare Expert Reveals the Terrorist Organization’S Way of War and the Strategy of Jihad

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A Noted Irregular Warfare Expert Reveals the Terrorist Organization’S Way of War and the Strategy of Jihad SPECIAL FEATURE A NOTED IRREGULAR WARFARE EXPERT REVEALS THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION’S WAY OF WAR AND THE STRATEGY OF JIHAD . BY S EBASTIAN G ORKA SEPTEMBER 2011 marked the 10th anniversary of America’s longest ever war, the war against al- S E G A M Qaeda and its affiliates. Four months earlier, on May 2 , 2011 , the founder and head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin I Y T T E G / E Laden , was killed in Pakistan by members of U.S. Seal Team VI. The war is far from over ; but given these two I R E U G I V E historical markers, we should pause to examine the way of war that brought us September 11 , 2001 (9/11), D E U Q I N O R E and the strategy behind the deadliest terrorist organization in the modern history of irregular warfare . V 44 * ARMCHAIR GENERAL * MAY 2012 December 22, 2009. A new recruit from Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist militant group waits to shoot during a training exercise somewhere in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Members of Lashkar- e-Taiba are among the best trained and most hardened fighters battling against NATO forces in the region. MAY 2012 * ARMCHAIR GENERAL * 45 The CIA initiated its largest ever covert mission, providing TOP ROW, FAR LEFT: Abdullah Azzam, a Pales - tinian ideologue and mentor to Osama bin Laden, heavily recruited young Muslims from around the world to take up arms against the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan. LEFT: Osama bin Laden, re - cruited and mentored by Abdullah Azzam, used his wealth and influence to aid the Mu - jahedeen in their struggle against the Rus - sians during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It was through this activity that he laid the groundwork for his al -Qaeda terrorist organi - zation. BOTTOM ROW, FAR LEFT: Ayman al -Zawahri, along with Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, was an influential figure during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. He later helped transform the MAK into al -Qaeda, and initially served as its deputy. Following the death of bin Laden in 2011 , Zawahri became the head of the terrorist organization. LEFT: Sayyid Qutb was a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s. His book Milestones has become the field manual for jihadists around the world. Cairo’s Al-Azhar, Azzam traveled the world convincing audiences of young Muslims that the war against the Russians was their war too. In fact, he wrote a 70 -page fatwa (a S E V religious opinion concerning Islamic law), I H C R endorsed by several leading clerics, which A L A R clearly stated that holy war in the name of E N E G R Allah was now a fard ayn – an individual I A H C obligation – for all Muslims, rich or poor, M R A , ORIGINS OF AL-QAEDA S Arab or non-Arab , and that the believer needed no one’s permission to E V I H C 979 was a momentous year geopolitically with great consequences self-mobilize and deploy as a warrior of God. To facilitate this inter - R A L A for relations between the democratic nations of the West and the national mobilization of jihadists, Azzam created the Maktab al-Khi - R E N E 1 G Arab and Muslim world. 1979 witnessed the establishment of a damat (MAK), the Afghan Services Bureau , in 1984. MAK would later R I A H theocratic dictatorship in Iran, as the writ of the mullahs replaced the become al-Qaeda. C M R A : sovereign monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In Saudi Ara - The Afghan Services Bureau recruited Muslim fighters from around W R O M bia , a group of armed Muslim extremists set siege to the Grand the world, but especially the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, O T T O B Mosque in Mecca in an attempt to “cleanse” the holiest sites in Islam Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Once recruited , they would receive basic : S E G from the influence of what they saw as the apostate regime of the training in guerrilla warfare tactics and then be deployed into A M I Y T T House of Saud. Lastly, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in order to make Afghanistan against Soviet forces as the “Arab Mujahedeen. ” By the E G / N the Muslim nation a satrapy of the Kremlin. 1989 end of the war , unclassified U.S. Central Intelligence Agency N C , S E Moscow’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan had consequences that rip - (CIA ) and Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, Germany’s CIA ) reports G A M I Y pled well beyond the bipolar standoff between the Warsaw Pact and placed the number of MAK fighters at 50,000. T T E G / NATO. Since the USSR was a godless, Western nation using force One of Azzam’s main achievements was to place his call to arms S W E N against a Muslim country, the effect was to trigger an international call into a context that went beyond the religious war argument that at - Y R O T for jihad, or holy war, whereby Muslims from other nations would tracted his primary audience. Coming as the Soviet invasion did so S E R U T fight to protect their co-religionists in Afghanistan. close to the inauguration of a new , more hawkish American president, A E F / M Among the most successful responses to the invasion was the work Ronald Reagan, and at the height of the Cold War, Azzam understood A A I A of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian ideologue who became the mentor to the need to also portray his holy war as a war of freedom-loving guer - R L A : W a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden. Holding a PhD in Islamic ju - rillas against the forces of a despotic Kremlin , which also just happened O R P O risprudence from the most influential university in the Muslim world, to threaten the West. Additionally, he was canny enough to build a T 46 * ARMCHAIR GENERAL * MAY 2012 arms and assistance to the Mujahedeen . February 10, 1988. A Mujahedeen fighter leads a supply-laden mule to a remote rebel base in the Safed Koh Mountains in Afghanistan. coalition with Saudi actors who wanted to spread their version of Islam States to provide Stinger surface-to-air missile to the guerrillas. Most beyond the Arabian Peninsula. To do so, Azzam recruited Osama bin importantly, Islamabad managed to convince Washington that given its Laden, son of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest building magnate, Mohammad comparative expertise in the region and the ISI’s sources in bin Laden, a close friend of the Saudi king. Afghanistan, Pakistan should be the middleman providing American Also essential to the eventual success of the coalition of anti-Soviet and Saudi assets to the Mujahedeen. This handing over of operational forces was the involvement of Pakistan’s military, especially its Inter - responsibilities would have its own geopolitical consequences after services Intelligence Agency (ISI). Having a very great interest in the re - 9/11. What is important to note is that Azzam and bin Laden were part gion, especially in making sure that India’s influence should not expand of the much smaller Arab Mujahedeen force and were never in direct into Central Asia, ISI would place itself in the middle of the evolving contact with U.S. government assets or part of the much larger covert geostrategic situation just as the United States saw an opportunity to operation. weaken the USSR and also became involved. The resulting confluence and its misunderstanding – often its willful distortion – have led to in - JIHAD: numerable conspiracy theories and products of disinformation. THE OFFICIAL STRATEGY S E G The fact is that the United States decided it was important to assist ow, in the 11 th year of what was formerly known as the Global A M I Y T the Afghans in their resistance to the Kremlin’s military aggression. War on Terror (GWOT), there is increasing misunderstanding T E G / N Saudi Arabia, for its own reasons, agreed, and a deal was cut whereby of the nature of the enemy we face and his way of war. This is a N O S I A I the CIA initiated its largest ever covert mission, providing arms and serious problem, for as Sun Tzu reminds us, in war one must not only L / G R E assistance to the Mujahedeen as the Saudis would match , dollar for know the enemy , but also know and attack his strategy . On our side of B S L E K dollar , all U.S. funding. Weapons were initially procured primarily from this conflict, the GWOT term was eventually replaced by the Long War, C I N T R China until the Soviet forces’ Hind Mi-24 helicopter fleet became the and under the current administration, by Overseas Contingency Op - E B O R center of gravity of USSR combat operations, prompting the United erations (OCO). For the enemy, there has also been a shift in empha - MAY 2012 * ARMCHAIR GENERAL * 47 The only remaining superpower is the United States – which, 48 * ARMCHAIR GENERAL * MAY 2012 too, must be destroyed. sis, but in a far more subtle and dangerous fashion. It has evolved from a mostly kinetic approach to irregular warfare – as typified by the 9/11 attacks – to a more indirect and nonkinetic approach, as evinced dur - ing the 2011 Middle East upheavals collectively termed the “Arab Spring.” Nevertheless, the overarching context remains that of Global Jihad, and as such we need to understand this alien concept.
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