Page | 1 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – May 2016 www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 2 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – May 2016 Why Al Qaeda thinks ISIS has no future Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-al-qaeda-thinks-isis-no-future-120004041.html?nhp=1 Al Qaeda’s fundamentally different defeats and preparing to retake the mantle of approach to winning the hearts and minds leadership of the global jihadist movement. of the world’s Muslims – recently thrown “Al Qaeda is growing stronger both as a result into shadow by the bold moves of the of circumstances that have the US and others Islamic State – is now showing signs of leaving it alone as they focus on defeating longer-term success. ISIS, but also because it is an adaptive and Al Qaeda has long espoused “strategic networked organization that has learned from patience” to establish a global caliphate only its own mistakes and those committed by ISIS,” after gradual persuasion of Muslims through a says Katherine Zimmerman, an Al Qaeda long war with the West. That approach expert at the American Enterprise Institute in contrasts starkly with that of the Islamic State, Washington. “Al Qaeda is evolving and using also known as ISIS, which declared a caliphate this time to build up its grass-roots support in a in Syria and Iraq months after breaking with Al way that is going to make it more difficult to Qaeda in 2014. defeat in the long term.” Now, as ISIS faces mounting pressure from the outside with apparently scant support from the Learning from ISIS populations it dominates, Al Qaeda’s “patience” ISIS captured the attention – and loyalties – of appears to be paying off. many of the world’s jihadists, attracting foreign In Syria, Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra fighters and individual Islamists from a wide is solidifying both its place within the Syrian range of Western, Arab, and other countries opposition and its hold on some pro- through its slick and mesmerizing use of social opposition communities. media. In recent years a number of Islamist In Somalia, fighters with the Al-Qaeda- extremist organizations – groups in Libya and linked Al-Shabab are making a comeback Somalia are two examples – switched their and taking back some of the territory they allegiances from Al Qaeda to ISIS, seeing the lost over recent years, as the country's latter as the rising expression of global army fails to repel the group's advances. jihadism. And in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Over the years of ISIS’s rise, Al Qaeda has Peninsula has backed off its failed held fast to its strategic approach, even as it declaration of a caliphate in southern has evolved to embrace some of the Yemen several years ago and is working innovations that ISIS pioneered. “Those two through local leaders and tapping into local are not mutually exclusive, I think we’ve seen customs and systems to establish support. Al Qaeda stick with its core ideology even as it “Al Qaeda is essentially doing the opposite has adapted to utilize some of the methods that of ISIS by doubling down and developing have worked so well for ISIS,” says Ms. deep roots in the local societies where it Zimmerman. has established a presence,” says Jennifer Al Qaeda’s evolution has included a savvier Cafarella, a Syria expert at the Institute for the use of social media and more public use of the Study of War in Washington. “It’s positioning Internet. itself as an inextricable presence able to “Al Qaeda always used the Internet, but largely pursue its long-term vision of a global caliphate to communicate with close followers and often with local support and legitimacy – something using encryption,” Zimmerman says. “ISIS ISIS hasn’t been able to do.” turned that on its head and made it quite public With the rise of ISIS, Al Qaeda has faded from and a conduit for inculcation and a message of global attention. The Islamist terrorist group immediate action.” that carried out the 9/11 attacks may even Recognizing the importance of digital have struck many as a bygone threat. communication to spreading a But experts say Al Qaeda is purposely lying global message, Al Qaeda created low, learning from the Islamic State’s mounting an online English-language magazine, Inspire, in July 2010. It www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 3 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – May 2016 has not followed ISIS’s lead in posting Al Qaeda may be benefiting from the US-led gruesome videos of shocking beheadings and coalition’s focus on defeating ISIS, but both mass executions – including many involving Cafarella and Zimmerman say Jabhat al-Nusra Muslims. has also been strengthened by the Obama administration’s hands-off approach to the Persuation vs. Violent oppression Syrian civil war and in particular by the US What Al Qaeda has never veered away from, reluctance to jump in forcefully on the side of on the other hand, is its preference for the Syrian moderate opposition. persuasion over violent imposition to One reason the administration never advance its vision of Islamist governance. wholeheartedly embraced – and armed – the In Syria, the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, opposition was unanswered concerns that US also referred to as Nusra Front, has not met aid would fall into the hands of extremist with universal acceptance. Recent anti-Nusra groups like Nusra. protests in some of the northwestern Syrian Degrading and ultimately destroying ISIS may cities where it is present suggest continuing have appeared as the more urgent objective to resistance to its ideology. pursue, but leaving Al Qaeda to flourish will But at the same time, signs are proliferating lead to new challenges for the West down the across opposition-held Syria that the group is road, experts say. winning followers, Ms. Cafarella says. She “It’s not as though defeating ISIS defeats the notes, for example, that growing numbers of message,” says Zimmerman, who adds that women wear the full burqa in opposition- deeply implanted communities of support for controlled Idlib – not because the practice has extremist Islamist ideology – whether in been imposed, as ISIS has done in areas it Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa, or Western controls, but apparently voluntarily. Europe – aren’t going to fade away just “Nusra is following the established Al Qaeda because the organization that caught their approach of keeping a low profile and imagination breaks up. establishing legitimacy by building local support,” Cafarella says. “That includes slowly “Whenever ISIS is defeated, the radicalized introducing its religious agenda and inculcating individuals and groups will be looking for the local youth – and we’re seeing that phase leadership,” she says, predicting “that now.” leader will be Al Qaeda.” Obama administration to release secret 28 pages of 9/11 Commission report Source: http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20160425-obama-administration-to-release- secret-28-pages-of-9-11-commission-report Apr 25 – The Obama administration will September 11 hijackers while they were in the release at least part of a 28-page classified United States.” chapter from the 9/11 Commission report which Graham said an administration official told him implicates high-level Saudis, both inside and that the U.S. intelligence community will make outside government, in the 9/11 a decision within weeks on whether the entire terrorist attacks. 28-page classified chapter, or only a few pages Former Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), a co- from it. chair of the commission, said he believed the “I hope that decision is to honor the American Obama administration would make a decision people and make it available,” Graham told on the issue by June. NBC on Sunday. “The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, The Daily Mail reports that the unreleased did these 19 people conduct this portion of the report, contains information from very sophisticated plot alone, or the joint congressional inquiry into “specific were they supported?” sources of foreign support for some of the www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com Page | 4 CBRNE-TERRORISM NEWSLETTER – May 2016 Former Representative Tim Roemer (D- The Senate bill would stipulate that the Indiana), a member of both the 9/11 immunity enjoyed by foreign nations under the Commission and the joint congressional law would not apply when nations are found inquiry, has read the classified chapter three guilty of terrorist attacks which kill Americans times. He said the twenty-eight pages are a on U.S. soil. “preliminary police report.” Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told journalists in Riyadh last week that President Barack Obama had asked National Intelligence Director James Clapper to review the classified chapter for possible declassification. “When that’s done we’d expect that there will be some degree of declassification that provides more information,” Rhodes said. The AP quotes Roemer to say that many questions still remain with regard to the Bob Graham (pictured) who was co-chairman precise role of Fahad al Thumairy, an official of that bipartisan panel, and others say the with Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, who documents point suspicion at the Saudis helped two of the hijackers find housing and transportation after they arrived in “There were clues. There were allegations. Southern California. There were witness reports. There was In May 2003 the United States denied al evidence about the hijackers, about people Thumairy entry into the United States after the they met with — all kinds of different things that Department of State said he might be involved the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with in terrorist activity. Roemer said there were reviewing and investigating,” he told the AP.