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May 2013 EDITORIAL STAFF From the Editor MICHAEL FREEMAN Executive Editor Welcome to the May issue of the Combating Terrorism Exchange. This issue ANNA SIMONS Executive Editor ELIZABETH SKINNER Managing Editor is unusual not for its length—although it is by far the longest issue we’ve yet RYAN STUART Design & Layout produced—but because in it we offer you two main articles that describe in exceptional detail the “Anbar Awakening” in Iraq (2004–6), from very EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD different points of view. The backstory for both accounts begins when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s violent jihadi group al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had infested VICTOR ASAL the Al Qaim district of Anbar after fleeing Fallujah. Having presented them- University at Albany SUNY selves as freedom fighters, the militants were now beginning to show their true ALEJANDRA BOLANOS intent, using killings and coercion to keep the locals in line with their radical National Defense University al Qaeda agenda. Although most of the Anbar tribes opposed the U.S.-led LAWRENCE CLINE occupation, once the sheikhs realized that AQI was working to undermine their Naval Postgraduate School authority, they had a change of heart, and the Sahawa (Awakening) was born. STEPHEN DI RIENZO National Intelligence University Dr. William Knarr and his team of researchers at the U.S. Institute for Defense SAJJAN GOHEL Analysis concentrate on the U.S. Marine battalions deployed to the Al Qaim Asia Pacific Foundation district to fight AQI. Through extensive archival research and first-person inter- SEBASTIAN GORKA views with a significant number of Iraqi and American participants, Knarr National Defense University and his team describe how the Marines, initially wary and suspicious after a year of hard fighting, came to embrace the Awakening and, working with the JAKUB GRYGIEL sheikhs and their people, pushed back against AQI to free the Al Qaim district School of Advanced Int’l. Studies from the jihadis’ grip. We are urged to see the events in Al Qaim as the earliest THOMAS MARKS manifestation of a wave of counterterrorist revolt that culminated in the battle National Defense University for Ramadi and the decimation of AQI in western Iraq. THOMAS MOCKAITIS DePaul University MAJ Brent Lindeman, U.S. Army Special Forces, then takes us through these MONDE MUYANGWA events from the quite different perspective of two Special Forces team ser- Africa Center for Strategic Studies geants, whom he calls William and Robert. Lindeman’s is a firsthand account ALFRED OEHLERS of the slow, painstaking work these men put into understanding the complex, Asia-Pacific Center for Security sensitive, and perpetually shifting relationships among local power Studies brokers, and what they did to leverage their understanding into achieving PAUL SHEMELLA cooperation and then success. Through Lindeman’s eyes we get an unusually Naval Postgraduate School clear picture of the many personalities involved on all sides of the table. He KENNETH POOLE describes with sharp insight and occasional ironic humor the negotiations and Joint Special Operations University machinations that brought the tribes and the teams together to beat back their deadly mutual enemy. NICK PRATT George C. Marshall Center The Indian government, by contrast, has made less conclusive progress against NADIA SCHADLOW an indigenous insurgency that has festered for decades. How do you solve Smith Richardson Foundation a problem like the Maoists? Group Captain Srinivas Ganapathiraju of the JENNIFER MORRISON TAW Indian Air Force offers us some CT solutions that, perhaps unsurprisingly, are Claremont McKenna College not too different from those described by Knarr and Lindeman. Foremost is DAVID UCKO the need for the central government to actually follow through on its promises National Defense University 1 CTX | Vol. 3, No. 2 to improve the lives of its long-neglected rural population. Then, the author advises, New Delhi must develop a broad- based strategy to both exploit the Maoists’ structural vulnerabilities at the political level, and target their hardcore leadership via dedicated Special Operations Forces. From the present situation on the Indian subcontinent, we move to Yemen in 2001, when MAJ Mohammed Garallah, a newly minted young army officer, was among the first cadre of Yemeni soldiers to be trained by American SOF in counterterrorism. Unfortunately, mutual cross-cultural misunderstandings doomed that initial effort to, if not failure, then a very qualified success. The best intentions of the American trainers and the willingness of their Yemeni pupils, Garallah explains with keen irony, could not make up for each side’s misguided expectations of the other. We are pleased to introduce a new feature in this issue. Global ECCO’s Combating Terrorism Archive Project (CTAP) is devoted to collecting interviews with CTFP alumni from around the world, who share their experiences, knowledge, and insights for the benefit of their peers and successors in theCT community. This issue’s excerpt is from an interview with Canadian Army Engineer MAJ Nils N. French. In it he describes how his two years as an instructor at the U.S. Army Engineering School, Fort Leonard Wood, prepared him to work effectively with his AmericanEOD counterparts in Afghanistan in 2009. English may have been a common language, French explains, but, he found he had to trans- late “a whole bunch of U.S. terms … into Canadian.” Even between close neighbors, cross-cultural misunderstandings can raise problems. Prof. Rebecca Johnson of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College writes our Ethics and Insights column. Asked by the field grade officers who are her students what they can do to maintain an ethical command climate when deployments take their units far from base, Dr. Johnson emphasizes the importance of setting and maintaining high expectations. A good leader embodies commitment to the mission, demonstrates the ability and willingness to control his or her actions, and accepts adversity as a challenge, not an impediment, to personal and group development. In his State of the Art column, LT Edval Zoto, Albanian Army, casts a discerning eye on the gap between what author Max Boot told an NPS audience during a presentation about his ambitious new book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present (New York: Liveright, 2013), and what the painting that is on the cover of his book actually represents. Boot thinks one thing, Soto another. What the disparity boils down to, Soto concludes, is the need to articulate a clear definition of guerrilla warfare, something Boot, in Soto’s opinion, doesn’t do. Finally, we welcome back the sharp pen of Dr. Kalev Sepp, who takes on the Hollywood blockbuster Zero Dark Thirty in this issue’s movie review. The film purports to tell the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, but Sepp warns, don’t imagine what you see bears any resemblance to the truth. In the end, Zero Dark Thirty, with its profanity-laden dialogue and absurd depictions of CIA tradecraft, insults just about every real-life person who had a hand in the destruction of bin Laden. Now I’m calling on you, the CTX community, to write to me at [email protected] and tell me what you think about this and past issues of CTX. Did you serve in Anbar during the Awakening? Do you have yet a different point of view to offer? Or maybe you liked Zero Dark Thirty…. We are going to start publishing some of your feed- back in a Letters to the Editor section, so write to me and get the discussion going! ELIZABETH SKINNER Managing Editor This issue was in production on 15 April, when terrorist bombs struck the Boston Marathon, killing three. On that same day, dozens of people died from car and roadside bombs across Iraq. Our thoughts are with all of terrorism’s vic- tims, their families and friends, and with responders, including you. Thanks for the work you do to combat terrorism. 2 Inside This Issue Letter from the Editor ELIZABETH SKINNER 5 Al-Sahawa: An Awakening in Al Qaim WILLIAM KNARR, ET AL., INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSIS 31 Inside Anbar MAJ BRENT LINDEMAN, UNITED STATES ARMY 75 Maoist Insurgency in India: Emerging Vulnerabilities GP CAPT SRINIVAS GANAPATHIRAJU, INDIAN AIR FORCE 80 The U.S.–Yemeni Joint Counterterrorism Exercises: The Other Side of the COIN MAJ MOHAMMED GARALLAH, YEMENI ARMY 87 CTAP INTERVIEW MAJ Nils French, Canadian Army 96 ETHICS AND INSIGHTS How Can Leaders Maintain Ethical Command Climates? REBECCA JOHNSON 99 THE MOVING IMAGE Zero F*&%#!@G Thirty KALEV SEPP 102 STATE OF THE ART Painting Guerrillas or Guerrilla Painting? LT EDVAL ZOTO CTX | Vol. 3, No. 2 About the Contributors MAJ Nils French, Canadian Army, is completing a MS also has contributed to B.J. Strawser and Jeff McMahon, degree in Defense Analysis (DA) at the U.S. Naval Post- eds., Killing By Remote Control (Oxford University Press, graduate School (NPS). He has a MA in Military Studies forthcoming 2013). from the American Military University, and a certificate from the Institute of Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Dr. William (Bill) Knarr is a resident Senior Fellow at Israel. He has completed one tour to Afghanistan and has the Joint Special Operations University. He was working commanded at the platoon and company level. as a project leader at the Institute for Defense Analyses when this article for CTX was written. Co-author Ms. Gp Capt Srinivas Ganapathiraju is an Indian Air Force Mary Hawkins is an analyst at IDA. The rest of the IDA fighter pilot. He is a qualified flight instructor and has Project Team are: Col Dale Alford, USMC, LtCol David earned a MS in Defense and Strategic studies at the Graves, USMC, MajGen Tom Jones, USMC (Ret.), Jennifer Defense Services Staff College in India.

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