What is the logical consequence of noting the fact that the terrorist groups that make a difference on planet Earth—such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the PLO, Colombia's FARC—are extensions of, respectively, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Venezuela? It is the negation of the U.S. government's favorite axiom. It means that when George W. Bush spoke, and when Barack Obama speaks, of America being "at war" against "extremism" or "extremists" they are either being stupid or acting stupid to avoid dealing with the nasty fact that many governments wage indirect warfare.

International relations professor Angelo M. Codevilla argues that Osama bin Laden is not quite influential, not quite relevant, and probably dead. (multipage version)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 27, 2009 - 33 comments

Why No More 9/11s? An interactive inquiry about why America hasn't been attacked again.
posted by homunculus on Mar 5, 2009 - 60 comments

Pakistan in Peril. "The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jan 21, 2009 - 30 comments

Right at the Edge. "The Taliban and Al Qaeda have established a haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border. This is where the war on terror wil be fought – and possibly lost."
posted by homunculus on Sep 5, 2008 - 62 comments

For the last five years, the whereabouts and sudden disappearance in 2003 of former MIT graduate, Pakistani national, and alleged terrorist Aafia Siddiqui (wiki) have remained mysterious. Accused by the U.S. of terrorist ties, earlier today she appeared (having been recently wounded) in a NY courtroom to face trial for attempted murder of American officers and FBI agents while being held in Afghanistan. But the facts behind the case are conflicted. For years she was rumored to have been held in the U.S. prison at Bagram base in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, her disappearance has proved to be a lightning-rod on the issue of the hundreds of others who have been rounded up as terrorist suspects--only to disappear without any trace, let alone any due process or criminal trial. A preliminary hearing for Siddiqui is set for Aug. 19.
posted by ornate insect on Aug 6, 2008 - 25 comments

Pakistan’s Phantom Border. "Pakistan is often called the most dangerous country on earth. Increasingly, its people would agree. Despite nearly $6 billion in U.S. military aid for the border region since 9/11, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and homegrown terrorist groups have eroded the border with Afghanistan, inflicting a steady toll of suicide bombings. Going where few Westerners dare—from Taliban strongholds to undercover-police headquarters—the author sees what’s tearing the country apart."
posted by homunculus on Jun 22, 2008 - 24 comments

The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism.
posted by homunculus on May 27, 2008 - 55 comments

"The United States Lacks a Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas" (PDF). A recent GAO report claims that the Bush administration has failed to prevent Al Qaeda's reemergence in Pakistan, and that we're basically right back where we started in 2001.
posted by homunculus on Apr 30, 2008 - 38 comments

On Wednesday Sept. 5^th, German police stopped a major terrorist attack. The planned bomb consisted of 730 kilogramms of hydrogen peroxide to be mixed with other chemicals. The explosive power would have been equivalent to 550 kilogramms of TNT. The IHT reports the possible targets were the Ramstein US Air Force Air Base and Frankfurt International Airport. The suspects had been under observation for 10 months, the chemicals had been clandestinely rendered harmless by German authorities. What caused the final arrest? Two things: 1) they had just recieved a call from north Pakistan urgently ordering them to follow through within 14 days. 2) a local village policeman blew the surveillance cover by literally telling them at a routine road stop that they were on a watch-list. German intelligence immediately knew the policeman had blown their cover. How? They had bugged the car [Spiegel, rough translation]. [more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn on Sep 8, 2007 - 45 comments

Transcript of the most recent Osama bin Laden tape. [pdf] [more inside]
posted by ND¢ on Sep 7, 2007 - 175 comments

"Al Qaeda" A lecture by Lawrence wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. An interesting look at the "root causes" of terrorism
posted by delmoi on Aug 17, 2007 - 17 comments

al Qaeda's "Legitimate Demands". Azzam al Amreki (aka Adam Gadahn) appears in a newly released al Qaeda video to recite his group's demands and promise more bombings and destruction if we don't comply. (previously)
posted by scalefree on May 30, 2007 - 104 comments

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted. A newly declassified report (PDF) by the Pentagon's inspector general claims that Iraq was not working with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion and that the intelligence was manipulated by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. On the same day as the report came out, Dick Cheney claimed that they did have a relationship via Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Zarqawi may be dead, but he's still useful. [Via TalkLeft.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 6, 2007 - 65 comments

The Redirection. "Is the Administration’s new policy aiding our enemies in the war on terrorism?" New article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker.
posted by homunculus on Feb 25, 2007 - 40 comments

Who are the jihadists? Marc Sageman on the global Salafi jihad: its goals, its history, who the jihadists are, how they're drawn to the jihad, how the movement is organized. [more inside]
posted by russilwvong on Jun 30, 2006 - 38 comments

Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF)
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. - Sun Tzu

In 2005 Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies & West Point's Combating Terrorism Center worked together to translate what appears to be one of the most important works defining al Qaeda's strategic goals & methods, Management of Savagery (PDF) by al Qaeda strategist Abu Bakr Naji. Then they analyzed it along with three other al Qaeda works: Knights Under The Banner of The Prophet by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Between Two Methods by Abu Qatada and Observations Concerning the Jihadi Experience in Syria by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. The result is Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF) (also Google cached HTML). If you want to understand more of al Qaeda than the simplistic cant that "they're evil", these two books are the place to start.
posted by scalefree on Jun 27, 2006 - 26 comments

[NewsFilter] "Beginning of the End." The death of al Zarqawi, in itself, may have been a bit of a pyrrhic victory, but the latest news is a "treasure trove" of intelligence from al Qa'ida in Iraq. Of course, al Qa'ida in Iraq is largely an open source movement, so they never kept this exactly secret--but now, it's being widely reported that al Qa'ida "sought war between US and Iran." With speculation that al Zaraqwi's death may lead to a drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq, might his death now also defuse tensions with Iran, as well? Did we end two wars in one blow?
posted by jefgodesky on Jun 15, 2006 - 106 comments

Why terror financing is so tough to track down. "Five years ago, we had large movement of funds which went through the international financial system. ... Now we are just talking about four friends who raise £1,000 to stage an attack. The unit cost of terrorist financing has crashed to the floor." WINEP dissents. Reports of the UN team responsible for monitoring al-Qaeda. Background articles on UN sanctions against al-Qaeda.
posted by russilwvong on Mar 9, 2006 - 7 comments

Max Rodenbeck reviews a new collection of Osama bin Laden's speeches and a biography by Peter Bergen. David Cole discusses the US side of the conflict, reviewing the latest book by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon: "--when it comes to fighting the decentralized threat of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, Benjamin and Simon maintain, the best defense is not a good offense, but a good defense." More on al-Qaeda: Rodenbeck, MetaFilter.
posted by russilwvong on Feb 24, 2006 - 1 comment

...With the end of the cold war and the emergence of global networks in which goods, ideas and people circulate outside the language of citizenship, the fundamentalist fight for ideological states has lost influence... Muslim radicalism, by contrast, has moved beyond the language of citizenship to assume a global countenance, joining movements as different as environmentalism and pacifism in its pursuit of justice on a worldwide scale. Such movements are ethical rather than political in nature: they can neither predict nor control the global consequences of their actions...

Spectral brothers: al-Qaida’s world wide web  
Snapshots of Faisal Devji's Landscapes of the Jihad are to be seen within
posted by y2karl on Dec 8, 2005 - 17 comments

HOWTO: Kidnap someone. Originally published in the al Qaeda web magazine Mu'askar al-Battar, and written by Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the author of The Targets Inside Cities [pdf].
posted by brundlefly on Dec 3, 2005 - 6 comments

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
posted by y2karl on Nov 22, 2005 - 134 comments

What al-Qaida Really Wants: An Islamic Caliphate in Seven Easy Steps. German newspaper Der Spiegel offers a look at an Islamist plan for success by 2020, courtesy of journalist Fouad Hussein, who claims close connection with al-Qaida's inner circle. But does that inner circle really call the shots anymore? And how reliable are long-term global plans, anyway? [first link via The Agonist]
posted by mediareport on Aug 15, 2005 - 29 comments

Coming Apocalypse? In a forthcoming book by Paul L. Williams, Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse, Williams alleges that al Qaeda has managed to obtain nuclear weapons from Russia and has already smuggled the WMDs across the Mexican border and into the U.S.
posted by j-urb on Jul 16, 2005 - 85 comments

Al Qaeda Posts Online Magazine
Al Qaeda has, reportedly, published the first issue of an online magazine aimed at recruitment of Muslims to get rid of the infidels and apostates (Americans and Iraqi aides) in Iraq.
Washington-based counterterrorism specialist Evan Kohlmann said the magazine aims at 'conveying the sense that the organization is professional, capable, and really understands what they're doing."
It was designed as 'an attempt to refute the idea that Zarqawi and these people are desperate. . . . It shows that these people have time on their hands and don't have to worry about mobility," he said.
posted by fenriq on Mar 4, 2005 - 47 comments

9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings Rice claimed we were totally surprised by 9/11...not so! "In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission....
posted by Postroad on Feb 10, 2005 - 57 comments

what the news in america isn't telling us. Here is the Full transcript of Bin Ladin's speech
posted by Ladymerv on Nov 1, 2004 - 75 comments

What's up with Christopher Hitchens nowadays? Here is an interview with him by Johann Hari.
posted by semmi on Oct 2, 2004 - 58 comments

200 dead. In a time when terrorism is a major political platform and given that this event has had a bigger death toll than any other major terror activity since September 11, why is this not bigger news?
posted by dig_duggler on Sep 3, 2004 - 72 comments

"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz." In its haste to get a scary headline the weekend after the Democratic Convention, did the Bush Administration deliberately blow the cover of one of its best informants within al-Qaeda?
posted by lagado on Aug 8, 2004 - 35 comments

Tracking the Threat.
posted by hama7 on May 26, 2004 - 15 comments

This is a message to our neighbours north of the Mediterranean, containing a reconciliation initiative as a response to their positive reactions. Osama bin Laden's latest message to the world. (more inside)
posted by brettski on Apr 15, 2004 - 99 comments

Bush Was Warned of Possible Attack in U.S., Official Says "President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday. The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford." Then again, he had more important things to deal with that Summer.
posted by owillis on Apr 10, 2004 - 62 comments

Al-Qaeda behind Madrid massacre? One piece of evidence I've only seen mentioned in Norway is a document a terrorist research group at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment found on an Islamist website. The document surveys strategies for forcing the coalition out of Iraq. It mentions Spain as a convenient target, and the election this week as a convenient time to carry it out
posted by Postroad on Mar 14, 2004 - 12 comments

"You love life and we love death" Al Qaeda video found in Spain claims responsibility for Madrid bombings. (NY Times on first link.) How can we tell if a group claiming a terror act actually were the bastards who did it?
posted by zaelic on Mar 14, 2004 - 17 comments

Update: Maher "Mike" Hawash, former Intel software engineer, who was previously discused here & here, was sentenced in Federal court yesterday.

Of the five men sentanced, Maher recieved the lightest term of eight years.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Feb 10, 2004 - 26 comments

Interesting Debka post re: Al-Queda and a scheduled nuking on 2/2/04 of NYC. Supposedly the original web site was removed from the Internet by the FBI.
posted by Beansidhe on Jan 3, 2004 - 58 comments

The Protean Enemy by Jessica Stern, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
What accounts for al Qaeda's ongoing effectiveness in the face of an unprecedented onslaught? The answer lies in the organization's remarkably protean nature. Over its life span, al Qaeda has constantly evolved and shown a surprising willingness to adapt its mission. This capacity for change has consistently made the group more appealing to recruits, attracted surprising new allies, and -- most worrisome from a Western perspective -- made it harder to detect and destroy. Unless Washington and its allies show a similar adaptability, the war on terrorism won't be won anytime soon, and the death toll is likely to mount. Other texts by Jessica Stern: How America Created a Terrorist Haven, Pakistan's Jihad Culture, Talking With Terrorists. Classical Reference: Proteus.
posted by y2karl on Nov 23, 2003 - 31 comments

The TRILLIAN dollar question. Will the Saudi Royal family recieve diplomatic immunity for helping finance Osama and Al Qaeda all these years? A lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims last year which demands reparations from the Saudis will come to a close next week. Background story here: Evidently there's precedent for pay-out.
posted by skallas on Oct 19, 2003 - 12 comments

Chaos in Iraq is breeding support for terrorists. This is a refreshingly lucid piece by Jessica Stern on the situation in Iraq. Stern has also written recently on al Qaeda's protean nature. She is the author of Terror in the Name of God, and apparently she was the inspiration for Nicole Kidman's character in The Peacemaker.
posted by homunculus on Aug 21, 2003 - 15 comments

Amidst new warnings of Al Qaeda hijacking plots, Bush Administration pulls air marshals from duty The argument for this? - hotel rooms for the marshals are too expensive. OK, then.
posted by troutfishing on Jul 30, 2003 - 35 comments

Terror's myriad faces
Al-Qaeda, conceived of as a tight-knit terrorist group with cadres and a capability everywhere, does not exist in that form. It barely existed before the war in Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed Osama bin Laden's carefully constructed infrastructure there. It certainly does not exist now. Instead, we are facing a different kind of threat. Al-Qaeda can only be understood as an ideology, an agenda and a way of seeing the world that is shared by an increasing number of predominantly young, predominantly male Muslims. Eliminating bin Laden and a few hundred senior activists will do nothing to counter this al-Qaeda. Hundreds more will come forward to fill their ranks. Al-Qaeda, however understood, will continue to operate. The threat will remain and it will grow.
See also Sowing The Dragon's Teeth.
Or, alternately, Hercules and the Hydra.
posted by y2karl on May 20, 2003 - 25 comments

The New York Times Magazine (yes, I know the link disappears in a week or two, sorry) published a fascinating article about , "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." An Egyptian born in 1906, he veered toward radical Islamic fundamentalism by the 1950's, but had much company in Egypt in this endeavor. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood, a precursor to Al Qaeda, and became the editor of their journal. Nasser imprisoned him and eventually executed him. In prison he wrote powerful works which described in his view a diversion in society between human nature and human reason, with human reason having so overwhelmed human nature as to lead to mankind's potential downfall. The answer was a return to human nature through a ritualistic adherence to the teachings of God, as described by Muhammad. Rather than separate science and reason from religion, he sought to combine them as taught in the Koran, thus providing real freedom for mankind. For a liberal Episcopalian (me) these are difficult ideas, but they are nevertheless compelling not only to the poor and uneducated Muslims but more importantly to the intelligentsia. They explain the pain of modern existence, especially to those raised on the Koran. The author describes Qutb as the Islamist's Marx. Scary - religion and philosophy carry much greater power than Marx's mere economics and philosophy. Western media portray Islam as mostly a fringe group drawing power from economic poverty and the power imbalance between the West and most Muslim countries. This article shows that, at least at its heart, the movement draws upon a powerful philosophy which for many answers their agony of modern existence, regardless of their economic status.
posted by caddis on Mar 23, 2003 - 10 comments

Standing With Osama? "Some of the more bilious right-wing pundits... have taken to describing those who oppose the invasion as 'siding with Saddam.' But if such sleazy rhetoric is allowable, then maybe we should say that those like our President, who seem to have ignored Osama’s decrees, or like Powell, who are hawking a Saddam/Al Qaeda connection based on overblown evidence, are standing with Osama." Is this accusation fair? If so, is it productive? I doubt it, but I'm not certain. Rohan Gunaratna, the author of "Inside Al Qaeda," warns that an invasion of Iraq would undermine the international campaign against Al Qaeda and give terrorist groups a new lease on life. Oh well, at least it's funny. [Via Cursor.] [More inside.]
posted by homunculus on Feb 19, 2003 - 21 comments

sick of rat beach? join al queda it does'nt get a lot better than this - is this guy the next john walker lindh ?
posted by specialk420 on Jan 2, 2003 - 18 comments

Israelis targeted in Kenya attacks
On the day of important primary elections in Israel as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faces a party leadership challenge from Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ahead of January's general election, suicide car bombers have killed at least eight people at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, just as two missiles were fired (but did not hit) at an Israeli jet that had taken off from the city's airport. The Kenyan ambassador to Israel suspects these attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, and this theory is being checked on as I write.
posted by tomcosgrave on Nov 28, 2002 - 14 comments

Direct links to Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. And yet we aim for War with Iraq.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Nov 27, 2002 - 37 comments

Misinterpreting Osama's Message: Erring on the Side of Danger (via AlterNet) Bin Laden's messages are mistaken for unconditional threats and vows to attack. They are really conditional warnings that whatever we do, they will respond in kind. Some new insights from reading between the lines of OBL's communiques without lapsing into left wing apologia (More inside)
posted by BentPenguin on Nov 22, 2002 - 17 comments

al queda and pakistan an excellent interview supporting an excellent frontline presentation on al queda - is the US winning or losing the war on terrorism?
posted by specialk420 on Nov 21, 2002 - 20 comments

America Still Unprepared - America Still in Danger, a new report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, claims that "a year after September 11, 2001, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy. The need for immediate action is made more urgent by the prospect of the United States going to war with Iraq and the possibility that Saddam Hussein might threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in America." While of al Qaeda, George Tenet says that "the threat environment we face is as bad as it was before Sept. 11. It is serious—they have reconstituted, they are coming after us." This is not comforting (more inside.)
posted by homunculus on Oct 28, 2002 - 4 comments