The al Qaeda numbers game in Yemen

Last month I wrote about the counterterrorism community's penchant for over-counting the number of al Qaeda militants in the world, by taking too seriously the supposed "links" and "mergers" between al Qaeda and local insurgencies, particularly in Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, and Mali. (This game was perfected during the Iraq War.) 


This game is bound up with a pressing issue in the War on Terror: Is the U.S. creating more terrorists through heavy-handed counterterrorist measures? Answering this question brings us to a problem of counting.


Micha Zenka examines this issue in relation to drone attacks in Yemen.He notes that prior to the escalation of the drone campaign, the Administration's counterterrorism tzar John Brennan argued that there were "several hundred" al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Since then, this number has apparently grown to "more than a thousand," according to Mr. Brennan. Judging by these statements, Zenka (somewhat ironically) argues that the drone strategy has clearly backfired.


There's always a problem with government attempts to count al Qaeda. Simply put, no one outside of the "organization" (to whatever extent it even exists as an organization) knows how many members are out there, especially in Yemen. According to The Nation's Jeremy Scahill, this extends to those actually fighting militants in Yemen:

Moreover, just who exactly these militants were who overtook Zinjibar is a matter of some dispute. According to the Yemeni government, they were operatives of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group Washington has identified as the single most dangerous terrorist threat facing the United States. But the militants who took the city did not claim to be from AQAP. Instead, they announced themselves as a new group, Ansar al Sharia, or Supporters of Sharia. Senior Yemeni officials told me that Ansar al Sharia is simply a front for Al Qaeda. They point out that the first known public reference to the group was made a month before the attack on Zinjibar by AQAP’s top cleric, Adil al-Abab. “The name Ansar al Sharia is what we use to introduce ourselves in areas where we work to tell people about our work and goals, and that we are on the path of Allah,” he said, adding that the new name was intended to put the focus on the message of the group so as to avoid being bogged down with the baggage of the Al Qaeda brand. Whether Ansar al Sharia had more independent origins or it’s merely a product of AQAP’s crude rebranding campaign, as Abab claims, the group’s significance would soon extend well beyond Al Qaeda’s historically limited spheres of influence in Yemen while simultaneously popularizing some of AQAP’s core tenets... 

[Yemeni Army General Mohammad al] Sumali tells me he cannot “confirm or deny” that Ansar al Sharia is actually AQAP. “What is important for me, as a soldier, is that they have taken up arms against us. Anyone who is attacking our institutions and military camps and killing our soldiers, we will fight them regardless of if they are Al Qaeda affiliates or Ansar al Sharia,” he says. “We don’t care what they call themselves. And I can’t confirm whether Ansar al Sharia is affiliated with Al Qaeda or if they are an independent group.”

American counterterrorist officials often try to have it both ways in the fight against al Qaeda. On the one hand, they play up the numbers of al Qaeda operatives they're killing in order to sell us "progress" in the War on Terror. On the other hand, they need to continually expand this number of "terrorists" out there in order to justify the continued war on terror. 


Thus the "philosopher's stone" that is counterterrorist logic: local militants can magical be transformed into al Qaeda by the incantation of "experts."


In a peculiar bit of backfiring, the selective release of the "bin Ladin letters" appears to belie the al Qaeda myth. Rather than being a jihadi C.O.B.R.A. Command, the letters indicate not only that the organization was pretty much bankrupt since 2002, but that even bin Ladin saw the "mergers" of local insurgencies into the al Qaeda fold as bullshit. (Documents leaked from Guantanamo also undermine the myth.) 


Don't expect this myth to go away any time soon. Not while there's still money to be made from it.

Look at all them al Qaedas.

ETA makes a statement...and no one hears it

Since it called its ceasefire, ETA has been able to do only two things: refrain from using violence and issue communiqués.

Today the group issued yet another statement and, as expected, no one seems to care. The communiqué contained only one new piece of information: “ETA would like to inform that it has designated a delegation to initiate a direct dialogue with the Governments of Spain and France.” (I don’t envy whoever has been named to this delegation. In 1999 and 2007 the interlocutors between ETA and the Spanish Government ended up getting arrested soon after the talks broke down.)

This announcement will not have any real effect, at least in the short term. In fact, the conservative Spanish Government of Mariano Rajoy quickly rejected the invitation to talks.

There is a very slim possibility that the newly-elected French president Francois Hollande could begin talks with ETA. After all, the group’s base of operations is in France and a number of its members are currently in French prisons. But such talks too seem unlikely. First, ETA has little to offer France but its weapons, which would put the group at a serious disadvantage if it were to eventually enter into talks with the Spanish Government. Second, the French Government has no real incentive to unilaterally talk with ETA. Though Hollande could present himself as a peacemaker, he’d be royally pissing off a neighbor and ally. And, of course, France doesn't really care about the Basques, especially its own.

So what can be done?

ETA could try to push talks through violence, as the IRA did successfilly in 1996 with their bombing campaign in England. But the likelihood of this working is extremely low. ETA tried to gain leverage through violence when talks with the government stalled in 2006. The bombing of a parking garage at the Madrid Barajas airport – which killed two despite a warning call and evacuations – killed the moribund peace process.

The main reason, however, that the group will not likely engage in some kind of violent action is that its “supporters” – the nonviolent Basque left and its sympathizers – would not excuse or forgive a return to violence. This has been a sentiment that I have heard time and again from such activists. Indeed, when two ETA members engaged in a shoot-out with French police in 2011, the Basque left, for the first time, publicly criticized what they saw as a breach of the armed group’s ceasefire commitments.

And if I know that the Basque left will reject a return to armed struggle, then so too does Spanish intelligence.

Which is probably why the government won’t budge. Spain could easily move on one of ETA’s principle demands – transferring Basque prisoners to the Basque prisons in accordance with Spanish penal law. But why do that? ETA won’t return to violence and their allies have committed themselves unconditionally to nonviolent politics. Therefore, the Spanish Government is faced with a win-win situation: they don’t have to deal seriously with Basque nationalist demands and they get to reap the benefits of “not talking to terrorists,” which plays well with their conservative base.

ETA could give into the state’s demands and “disarm and disband.” But, from the armed group’s perspective, this isn’t a great option. If they were to do so, there’s no guarantee that the Spanish Government would enter into talks. Rajoy’s Administration would likely play the “insuficientismo” card, claiming that this step is insufficient and that ETA members must now turn themselves into the police and then, maybe, talks with Basque political actors could proceed. But, probably not.

And this is the trouble with “terrorism”: once you’ve been identified as such, you don’t really ever get to quit being one.

Incidentally, the Spanish Government is selling “social reinsertion” – whereby imprisoned ETA members can get reductions of their prison sentences if they publicly disavow the organization and beg forgiveness for their crimes – which was first introduced back in the 1980s as a “new step” in the peace process. Since the policy was established thirty years ago, only a handful of over a thousand ETA prisoners have taken advantage of it. My guess is that the Government knows this, which is why they’re bringing it up again: they get to look like their being proactive but, since it won’t work, they’ll not have to face the criticism of their constituents for going easy on "terrorists." Win-win-win.

Romney's Bi-Polar Foreign Policy Platform

The New York Times published a piece on Romney's purportedly erratic foreign policy positioning. The article's basic premise is that Mittens' foreign policy team is internally divided, between a segment that differs little from the current Administration and the hardline John Bolton faction who live in a fantasy land where it's always 2002 and freedom is just a massive bombing campaign away. In typical journalistic fashion, the author avoids the obvious: Romney's supposedly schizophrenic stance is mere politicking.

The befuddled candidate is in a tricky situation since the President has turned out to be just as militaristic as his predecessor. In order to distinguish himself, Romney needs to up the warmongering, to go even bigger than the President. And if you want to out-crazy someone on foreign policy, you can do no worse than listen to Bolton's idiotic ideas. But, if Romney were to actually win, his foreign policy would look a lot like post-2006 Bush. Which is to say his foreign policy will be no different than that of the Obama Administration.

That his policy team seems to not understand this very simple strategy probably attests more to their own lack of political acumen than that of the candidate.

Targeting peacemakers in Afghanistan

The New York Times reported today on the killing of Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister and member of the Afghan High Peace Council. Though the Taliban denied involvement, they have allegedly threatened to assassinate members of the Peace Council and have done so in the past.

If the Taliban are behind this killing, their motive may have nothing to do with preventing peace, but rather positioning themselves for it – or at least for the inevitable departure of NATO.

It's all about internal solidarity. A fractious guerrilla movement isn’t likely to do well in a peace settlement. Their opponents would rather buy them off piece by piece, offering individual militants and commanders a little something – a job, some cash, a position in the army, etc. But, if the guerrillas can negotiate as a solid bloc, then they can demand and are likely to receive more: territorial control, positions in the executive and military, government resources.

When the government is offering benefits for individual defectors, guerrilla leaders may find themselves disadvantaged. Instead of cash and a comfy job, all they can offer is more fighting, hardship, and possibly death.

They can, however, use violence, their specialty, to prevent their foot soldiers from defecting. Rahmani may have thus been a choice target: he was high-profile former militant, living openly in Kabul and working for the Karzai government. Killing him would send a powerful message to mid-level commanders and the rank-and-file. Defect and die. Furthermore, they can have it both ways. If the group denies it publicly, the risks of defection do not get cancelled out. A dead defector is still dead because of his defection.

This is speculation, of course. But, the Taliban have given some indications that they’re concerned about internal solidarity. Late last month the guerrillas rejected an offer to provide safe passage for “reconcilable Taliban” wanting to participate in peace talks, claiming that this was an effort to “create schisms in our ranks.” Additionally, American intelligence agencies have long attempted to create and exploit divisions within the Taliban, so their wariness is not unwarranted. 

Then again, there’s the question of which Taliban was behind this. The Haqqani Network, which last year killed Peace Council member Burhanuddin Rabbani, is a likely suspect. And since Haqqani’s crew appears to be the closest to the Pakistani ISI, this latest killing may simply be aimed at ensuring that peace in Afghanistan is made on Pakistan’s terms.

Classic spycraft working in Yemen

Counterterrorist warriors and militarists facing, those ever-emerging threats, invariably want more. The president needs more and expanded powers to fight terrorism, as do the CIA, FBI, NYPD, and mall security. The military needs more pilotless drones, precision missiles, and even “bunker-busting” nukes to confront the al-Qaeda-of-the-month. More, more, more…well, not always more. Sometimes less is necessary: less judicial and congressional oversight and fewer safeguards for civil liberties and human rights. 

In the War on Terror, more is more; and the state's power has expanded as a result. New threats require new and more powerful weapons. The old ways are useless.

Recent events in Yemen would seem to undermine this view. It turns out that good old double dealing is still rather effective:

Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, working closely with the CIA, used an informant to pose as a would-be suicide bomber. His job was to convince the Al Qaeda franchise in Yemen to give him a new kind of non-metallic bomb that the militants were designing to easily pass through airport security. 

But the double agent instead arranged to deliver the explosive device to U.S. and other intelligence authorities waiting in another country, officials said Tuesday. The agent is now safely outside Yemen and is being debriefed... 

The operation had an added benefit…It produced intelligence that helped U.S. authorities finally locate Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, a top Al Qaeda operative in Yemen. Quso had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for his alleged involvement in the bombing of the guided missile destroyer USS Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000. The FBI had offered a $5-million bounty for information leading to his capture.

No expanded presidential power, no circumvention of civil liberties, no illegal wiretaps, no new defense appropriations, and no drone strike necessary. Just hard work, cooperation, and classic subterfuge, worthy of a John Le Carré novel. 

But, let’s not be so naïve as to believe that this event will lead to a reconsideration of budget priorities in Congress. As expected, guns have once again beat out butter.

UPDATE: Turns out that the sniper is also being reconsidered as an effective weapon:

Snipers have quietly emerged as one of the most effective but least understood weapons in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Advancements in technology and training have made them deadlier than in any previous generation. Their ability to deliver accurate shots minimizes collateral damage—a key factor in counterinsurgency—and they are often more effective than much ballyhooed drones at secretly collecting intelligence.

 Human beings: cheap and effective.