Osama bin Laden - Tag Search

(Updated below) Osama bin Laden released a new videotape this morning (عربي) in which he claims responsibility for the failed Christmas Day bombing attack and threatened more attacks on the United States unless "our brothers in Gaza... have security."

Bruce Hoffman takes to the Washington Post op-ed page this morning to warn of al-Qaeda's "new grand strategy." Hoffman, if you're unfamiliar, is a Georgetown University professor and one of the chief proponents of the "command-and-control" theory of al-Qaeda, which argues that the central outfit in Afghanistan and Pakistan exercises tight control over its offshoots.

Hoffman makes a few good points in his op-ed, particularly his first one, that al-Qaeda is focused on "overwhelming, distracting and exhausting us." Other writers -- Patrick Porter, for example, and Jarret Brachman -- have made similar points in recent days.

Al-Jazeera's Listening Post program did a good segment on the underwhelming media coverage of Yemen. Video's after the jump.

I'm in it -- part of the reason I'm posting it! -- but I also think it's a pretty thorough treatment of where Western reporters have gone wrong on the Yemen story: the relentless focus on terrorism, the ignorance of Yemen's socioeconomic problems, and -- above all -- the endless references to "Osama bin Laden's ancestral home," a meaningless fact which Brian O'Neill rightly described as the cardinal sin of Yemen writing.

Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND Corporation and an adviser to U.S. special operations, has an op-ed in today's New York Times calling for an expanded drone war in Pakistan. Jones thinks the U.S. should target Baluchistan province, where the Taliban's senior leadership is reportedly based.

The NYT fails to mention that Jones' boss, Brig. Gen. Edward Reeder, might be involved in carrying out those aforementioned drone attacks in Baluchistan. (Noah Schachtman at Danger Room catches that detail.)

In any event, even if drone strikes might be successful at decapitating the Taliban leadership, this is the kind of reductive thinking that leads to tactical successes and strategic failures. A drone campaign in Baluchistan would be another huge infringement upon Pakistani sovereignty; it would inevitably kill civilians and stoke anti-American anger in Pakistan. It also risks linking Baluchistan's nationalist movement, a purely local grievance, with the U.S. war on terror. That's not an outcome U.S. policymakers want.

Barack Obama will announce his new Afghanistan strategy at West Point at 8:00 p.m. It will be an anticlimactic announcement, because the important stuff has already leaked out. Obama will announce a roughly 34,000-troop escalation, which we already knew about; he'll reaffirm that the war is necessary to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda," which he's been saying for months; and he'll talk vaguely about "exit strategy" and "off-ramps" without offering any specifics.

The speech, in other words, will be mostly an exercise in political theater.

I actually have some serious things to write later about Lebanon and Iraq, but apparently I'm in a snarky mood this morning.

Former president George W. Bush was in India last week, talking about his legacy and such, and he gave an interview to the Times of India. Here's my favorite part:

Asked whether al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden could be alive, Bush said "I guess he is not dead."

He, however, noted that Laden is hiding and "not leading victory parades" or "espousing his cause" on TV.

A great point. I can't remember the last time I heard Osama bin Laden deliver a message on television. Another win for the War on Terror!

The cease fire lasted for almost a day. The next evening's sprints up the hill in full body armor -- which pass for entertainment at an outpost in the Badel Valley -- were interrupted by the whoosh of RPGs and shots ringing down. I ran for cover; the soldiers, for their firing positions. Soon the dusk was lit with red tracers and the roar of crew served weapons. At the same time, a rival militia was attacking Haji Jan Dad's compound in the lower valley, supposedly to discredit him for being unable to provide the security he had promised. Jan Dad vowed it was personal and promised to send his own men out to hunt the attackers down that night.

It's little wonder that the U.S. military is sometimes unsure which warlord to trust. Dealing with power brokers, and the forces that back them, is an extremely tricky business; agendas can change over night.

The soldiers of Dog Company live inside the walls of an old Soviet base named Fortress. To the east is the Kunar River and the Black Mountains, whose rugged passes are regularly traversed by the Black Mountain Fighters, otherwise known as the Taliban. The Pakistani border is approximately six miles away. It is eerily beautiful for such a dangerous place. Several weeks before the shura, four U.S. Marines were killed in an ambush on a joint Afghan Army patrol one district east of Fortress.

The concrete bunkers at Fortress are not for show. Mortars from overlooking mountains slammed the base on consecutive days this summer. Shrapnel fragments sprayed Lt. Waage's door. The same month, a Russian PKM machine gun round pierced the plywood wall of the recreation room, ricocheted off a monitor and embedded in the back of a soldier's head. He lived, thanks to some medics who ran to the scene.

I just read the lengthy Bill Roggio article on al-Qaeda/Taliban connections that Evan linked to last night. I try to read Roggio's stuff with a critical eye: His site is a wealth of information, but he's wedded to a very Manichaean worldview. (The name of the site is Long War Journal, remember.)

Anyway, I actually agree with Roggio's argument that the 100 or so senior al-Qaeda members camped out in the mountains of Pakistan are not a "self-contained problem." I wrote about this last month, after Osama bin Laden released his 9/11 audio message. The "core" of al-Qaeda is really just an ideological figurehead for an array of affiliated groups.

Roggio makes a compelling case for the links between al-Qaeda and the Quetta Shura Taliban, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the ISI.

But as I read his article, I kept thinking to myself, "so what?" He never explains why the U.S. has a compelling national interest in destroying that alliance.

Ayman al-Zawahiri has a new audio recording out, the latest in a flurry of al-Qaeda propaganda released over the last few months.

The tape eulogizes Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban commander killed last month in a drone strike.

Zawahiri appeared in a 106-minute video just last week, and Osama bin Laden has released two tapes this month, one aimed at Europe, the other at the United States.

Apparently bin Laden released a new audiotape today urging European countries to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. Bad timing on his part: The Iranian nuclear story ensures that nobody is paying attention! I can't find a word about the tape on any of the major U.S. or European newspaper Web sites. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat has a quick write-up.

"We are not demanding anything unjust. It is just for you to end injustice and withdraw your soldiers from (Afghanistan)," he said in the tape, which has German subtitles. Germany holds elections over the weekend.

Bin Laden's last tape was released just 11 days ago and attracted considerably more attention.

I disagree with at least 90 percent of what Jeffrey Goldberg writes (except for this!), but I usually enjoy how he writes it. He's a good writer...

... except when the subject is Walt and Mearsheimer. Goldberg is apparently incapable of making a coherent argument about their work; instead, he resorts to ad hominem attacks, name-calling, straw men, and other sophisticated lines of argument. His anti-anti-Israel Lobby screeds read like the pompous missives of a high school newspaper columnist.

Here's today's installment, in which he discusses bin Laden's endorsement of Walt and Mearsheimer's book and argues... hell, I'm not exactly sure what he's arguing.

Also, I am instituting a new Majlis editorial policy. Whenever we post about Jeffrey Goldberg, we are going to link to this article.

I finally had a chance to listen to Osama bin Laden's new recording, which we've posted in full (عربي). If you prefer English, the NEFA Foundation has a transcript (pdf).

The takeaway is that bin Laden went "back to basics" and discussed, in broad terms, the issues that fuel Muslim anger towards the West: Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush administration's humiliation and torture of Muslims. As Marc Lynch writes, bin Laden didn't get too far into the weeds. He didn't offer any thoughts on whether Hamas is a legitimate Islamic movement; instead, he talked about the Gaza blockade.

This is bin Laden adjusting his strategic communications. He obviously knows that the strident salafi Al-Qaeda that emerged over the last few years didn't play well in the wider Muslim world. A variety of polls (and Al-Qaeda's reported recruiting problems) testify to that. But bin Laden also can't come out and say, My bad! We shouldn't have been killing Iraqi civilians, after all. Instead he's hoping to sweep that under the rug and get back to more popular jihadi themes.

It's fair to conclude, as Spencer Ackerman does, that this change reflects a weakened Al-Qaeda.

But I think it's wrong to conclude (as Ackerman does on Twitter) that this means the end of Al-Qaeda.

Mystery solved, maybe. A group called the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for Friday's rocket attack on Israel. The group said the attack was a response to "flagrant hostility" by Israel towards Muslims and Palestinians. The group singled out the Gaza blockade as one example.

A group with the same name claimed responsibility for the 2005 bombings in Sharm al-Sheikh.

Update: If your browser supports Flash, you should see an embedded copy of the bin Laden message below. You can also download a copy in MPG format. (We left the RealPlayer version up, too, if that's what you prefer.)

I don't have time to listen to his diatribe 'til later, so more thoughts this afternoon.

I have to run off to the dentist and a few interviews on Capitol Hill, so I don't have time to look for the full statement. If anyone has a link to the audio, or a transcript, please let us know (comments or e-mail).

Apparently the message is about a "war of attrition" with the U.S., and Obama's continuing escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden harangued Obama for keeping appointees of Republican President George W. Bush such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General Robert Petraeus as head of US Central Command running the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised, but rather, will continue it to the highest point possible," said the Al-Qaeda chief.

Bin Laden's last tape was released in June, shortly before Obama's address to the Muslim world.

Evan mentioned an NPR story last week speculating that Saad bin Laden, Osama's son, had been killed in a drone attack in northwestern Pakistan. Unnamed U.S. intelligence officials said they were "80 to 85 percent" sure.

Today Al-Arabiya interviews Rashad Saied, a longtime friend of the bin Ladens, who says he doesn't believe the reports.

"If Saad had been killed, al-Qaeda would have announced that," Saied told Al Arabiya. "They announced the death of many key figures in the organization before. It is considered a source of pride for them."

Impossible to know who's right: The U.S. can't produce any evidence that bin Laden was killed, and Al-Qaeda doesn't seem likely to trot him before a camera to disprove the story.

Not that it really matters, anyway. Saad was a bit player, by all accounts, and anyway it does the U.S. no good to obsess over specific individuals. The Bush administration did this with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the Iraqi insurgency outlived him.

Saad bin Laden, the 27-year-old and third-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, was likely killed in Pakistan sometime earlier this year by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone, National Public Radio reports.

Saad is believed to be the first of bin Laden's sons to die as result of American counterterror action against Al-Qaeda since 2001, according to the New York Times.

Israel wants Turkey to resume its role as a mediator between Israel and Syria, according to a Qatari newspaper report. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Syria yesterday and reportedly told Syrian president Bashar al-Assad about the request.

Turkey has indicated that it is willing to mediate, though it's unclear if the two sides will actually resume talks; the Golan Heights remains a seemingly impassable issue.

Following the Friday bombing in Jakarta, Steve Coll ponders Al-Qaeda over at his New Yorker blog, "Think Tank".

The question: Why do Osama bin Laden and his cohorts continually act in a way that seems to ignore potential political paths to power? And even though Al-Qaeda is weakened year by year, what is the proper U.S. strategy to address their ongoing ability to mount sporadic, chaotic strikes?

Osama bin Laden is out with a new video, following in the footsteps of his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who released a tape yesterday.

We're not going to dwell on this because, frankly, it's not worth much coverage. Bin Laden doesn't want the world to forget about him, so he's taking advantage of the publicity surrounding Obama's speech -- much like every other group in the Arab world.

One substantive point, though. Bin Laden accuses Obama of continuing his predecessor's policies, and he's largely right in one area: Pakistan. Obama has continued the unpopular practice of "targeted" drone strikes on terror suspects, and a massive humanitarian crisis is unfolding because of violence in places like the Swat valley.

Bin Laden said Obama is planting "seeds of revenge" in Pakistan. That point should not be dismissed.