Tag Archives: al-Qaida

The West’s forgotten war

WASHINGTON — As ISIS captures land and headlines and President Barack  Obama pivots toward the Pacific, it can seem understandable that the backwater state of Somalia has received less press than in years past.

As if to remind the United States —and the world— of the serious crisis still unfolding in the Horn of Africa, gunmen linked to the Islamist extremist al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab stormed a university in neighboring Kenya in early April, killing 147, after systematically determining which among the students were Christians.

It is the deadliest attack inside Kenya since the 1998 US embassy bombing carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden, and one that has many analysts worrying about the power of Islamic extremists in this impoverished corner of the world.

Somalia has been considered a failed state since the early 1990s. Armed opposition to the rule of longtime Marxist strongman Mohamed Siad Barre eventually exploded into civil war in 1986; the situation was exacerbated by food and fuel shortages and famine, which killed hundreds of thousands. The presence of UN and African Union peacekeepers has been largely unable to quell the ongoing violence between various warlords and armed factions.

The failed nation has proved to be fertile ground for hardline Islamist groups like the Islamic Courts Union —which briefly controlled southern Somalia before being driven out by Ethiopian troops— and al-Shabaab (“The Youth”), a jihadist group founded by Soviet-Afghan War veteran Aden Hashi Farah in 2006.

Though Farah was killed by a US airstrike in 2008 —a fate shared by many of al-Shabaab’s “emirs”— the movement continues on. While no longer at the height of its power, the group continues to control wide swaths of the countryside in Somalia’s south. Recent operations —including the Westgate shopping center attack in Nairobi in 2013— indicate that even a weakened al-Shabaab is extremely dangerous.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution’s Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, sees in al-Shabaab an increasingly dangerous and insidious threat.

“Compared to 2009, yes, Shabaab is weaker. But when I look at the issues in terms of security, it’s stagnating and at worst deteriorating,” she said.

Even though al-Shabaab no longer controls many major cities, Felbab-Brown said, the group’s influence is still widely felt. They control many small villages and roads and raise money by extorting travelers. Assassinations continue daily as al-Shabaab seeks to undermine confidence in the weak central government.

Asked about any potential links or similarities between a resurgent al-Shabaab and the more visible Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Felbab-Brown is quick to highlight their differences. While al-Shabaab and ISIS may share some superficial similarities, she says, the Somali group has more in common with the Taliban than the Islamic State. Afghanistan, like Somalia, is a deeply tribal society, and tribal affiliations give al-Shabaab the resources it needs to thrive. And like the Taliban, al-Shabaab practices a “politics of exclusion” meant to disempower certain clans and religious minorities, a practice that suggests a preoccupation with local politics, not global jihad.

While both al-Shabaab and ISIS operate like Islamic armies, their aims and ideologies are different. According to Felbab-Brown, al-Shabaab seems to limit its horizons to Somalia specifically. Unlike the Nigerian Boko Haram, the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah and the Filipino Abu Sayyaf, al-Shabaab has not pledged allegiance to ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and shows little enthusiasm for a unified caliphate in their propaganda videos.

“They are struggling with the relationship they have with ISIS and al-Qaeda,” Felbab-Brown said.

Though there is some fear that foreign fighters trained by al-Shabaab may launch attacks in the West, such instances are few and far between, with most international jihadis flocking to ISIS. The real danger of al-Shabaab, Felbab-Brown said, is the possibility that the group will extend its reach. From bases inside Somalia, the jihadi group has ready access to East African countries —many of them US allies— that have so far been spared from the scourge of Islamist violence. Western embassies might also find themselves targeted.

As al-Shabaab regroups, the international community seeking to rebuild Somalia faces new challenges. Beside Islamic extremists, the UN and AU must contend with widespread corruption, an unpopular leadership, militant separatist groups, Ethiopian and Kenyan proxy forces and an unstable economy. For its part, the US has limited its involvement in Somalia as of late. Though the United States occasionally conducts drone strikes against al-Shabaab, fear of upsetting the delicate peace process and killing civilians means that drones are used less liberally there than in Yemen and Pakistan.

Experts like Felbab-Brown are urging the international community to take a new approach: hold Somalia accountable for governmental failures, even if that means confronting allies. Such steps are needed, they say, if ordinary Somalis are to see the government as a legitimate alternative to al-Shabaab.

“They [al-Shabaab] are not good governors. But Somalis often choose between the lesser of two evils,” Felbab-Brown said.

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Al Qaida a bigger threat than ISIS, ex-CIA honcho warns

Michael Morell (on left) says al Qaida is a greater threat than ISIS. (Tanni Deb/MEDILL NSJI)

Michael Morell (on left) says al Qaida is a greater threat than ISIS. (Tanni Deb/MEDILL NSJI)

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State group has attracted foreign recruits for its war in Iraq and Syria because the extremist network has what it sees as a compelling story to share with them, according to the CIA’s former deputy director.

“Their narrative is that the West, the United States, the modern world is a significant threat to their religion [and] that they have an answer to that threat to their religion, which is the establishment of this caliphate,” said Michael Morell, who held the post from 2010 to 2013. They say “they are being attacked by the United States … and because they are being attacked as they try to set up this caliphate to protect their religion, they need support.”

Morell is the author of “The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, From al Qa’ida to ISIS,” published this month. Indeed, ISIS presents a clear threat, he said Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. But it’s al Qaida, which perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and continues to have widespread influence abroad, that remains a greater danger, he added.

“The most significant threat to the homeland today,” Morell said, “still comes from al Qaida.”

ISIS seeks support in two ways, he said. It wants fighters to carry out its war in the Middle East, and it urges people to attack Americans and other coalition nations in their homelands.

The U.S., on the other hand, doesn’t really have a strong counter narrative, he said.

“Not because we’re not doing our job, but because it’s really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility,” he said.

Morell was an intelligence analyst who delivered daily briefings to then-President George W. Bush in 2001. He also assisted with planning the 2011 raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. His new book includes his assessment of the CIA’s counterterrorism successes and failures of the past two decades, and highlights growing threats from terrorist groups that could impact the U.S.

Three al Qaida groups in particular pose the greatest threat to the U.S., he said.

Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, remains the most dangerous, Morell said. The international terrorist organization was responsible for the last three attempted attacks against the U.S.: the would-be Christmas Day underwear bomber in 2009, the printer cartridge plot in 2010 and the nonmetallic bomb plot on an airliner in 2012.

“They have the capability to bring down an airline in the United States of America tomorrow,” Morell said.

The second most dangerous, he said, is the Khorasan Group, which has operatives from Pakistan. It was formed to assist the jihadist organization Jabhat al-Nusra in its fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the goal of using Syria as a base of operations to attack the West.

Finally, the third group is al Qaida’s senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said.

But Morell did not downplay the ISIS threat — either on the battlefield or in its attempts to radicalize young men and young women around the world.

“The first and probably the most important right now is the stability of the entire Middle East. ISIS threatens the territorial integrity of Syria, the territorial integrity of Iraq and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region,” Morell said.

ISIS killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and security forces and caused thousands to flee their homes as it captured the city of Ramadi in central Iraq on Sunday, according to multiple news reports.

Morell said that Islamic educators are needed to inform people who may consider joining terrorist groups.

“We really need the leaders of Muslim countries, we need leading Muslim clerics [and] we need Muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries themselves.”

Published in conjunction with Military Times Logo

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Supporters of imprisoned ‘Lady al Qaida’ want proof she’s alive

A national civil right group is requesting an independent medical investigation for a political prisoner Aafia Siddiqui. (Andersen Xia/Medill)

A national civil right group is requesting an independent medical investigation for a political prisoner Aafia Siddiqui. (Andersen Xia/Medill)

WASHINGTON — The lawyer for a Pakistani woman who was the first female terrorist suspect after the 9/11 attacks is demanding evidence that she is still alive at a federal prison in Texas, despite prison officials’ assertion that she is.

Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained scientist known as “Lady al Qaida,” is serving 86 years in a Fort Worth, Texas, federal prison for shooting at U.S. Army officers and FBI agents who were interrogating her in 2010 in Pakistan for her alleged involvement in terrorist efforts against the U.S. A New York jury in 2010 found her guilty of attempted murder and assault.

“We believe only by having an independent medical evaluation can the world be assured that she is alive and well,” Siddiqui lawyer Stephen Downs said this week at a news conference in Washington.

Downs, executive director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, said Siddiqui has not been seen or heard from by her family or friends in more than a year. Pakistani consulate staff who tried to visit her at the Federal Medical Center Carswell were only shown the back of a woman, which made it impossible to identify whether it was Siddiqui, the lawyer said.

The organization demanded that Siddiqui be examined by a medical team that would include her sister, a Harvard-trained neurologist living in Pakistan.

Federal Medical Center Carswell spokeswoman Patricia Comstock said Wednesday that Siddiqui is alive, and she has seen her recently. However, Comstock declined to reveal Siddiqui’s medical condition.

The FBI in 2003 declared Siddiqui the world’s most wanted woman until she was captured five years later in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Upon her arrest, she was found to be in possession of numerous documents describing the making of chemical weapons, dirty bombs and instructions to attack landmarks in the U.S.

During her American interrogation in Pakistan, Siddiqui allegedly picked up an unsecured M-4 rifleand fired twice, missing both. She was subdued after the officers returned fire with a pistol and hit her in the torso.

The U.S. government said Siddiqui was a jihadist who married a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, even though Siddiqui’s family denied the marriage. Both the Islamic State, known by various acronyms – including ISIS – and the Taliban had reportedly tried to swap American captives for her.

“ISIS is trying to get in on the popularity of Aafia,” Downs said. “She has nothing to do with ISIS. She was locked up before ISIS even got going.”

A petition was filed in July on whitehouse.gov with more than 100,000 signatures demanding Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan. Supporters held a protest three weeks ago in front of the Federal Bureau of Prisons calling for her release.

Published in conjunction with McClatchy DC Logo

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Targeted killing of U.S. citizens lawful, says Holder, but critics pounce


Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that U.S. citizens are not exempt from being targeted by the government. (Office of the Attorney General)

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government has the right to kill terrorists overseas if they pose an imminent threat and can’t be captured – even if they are American citizens, Attorney General Eric Holder said last week in a major address in Chicago.

Leading civil liberties groups say the administration should involve courts in setting standards for when it is legal to kill terrorists before decisions are made to use lethal force, but other legal scholars assert that providing due process, especially to U.S. citizens, does not necessarily mean providing a judicial process.

Holder’s assertion was the Obama administration’s most weighty justification for armed drone strikes against a terrorist target, specifically a “senior operational leader of al-Qaida or associated forces.” Though Holder didn’t mention anyone by name, the statement comes just months after the government targeted Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior al-Qaida operative in Yemen and an American citizen. Al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, was killed in an unmanned drone strike in September.

“It’s clear that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted,” Holder said in a speech at the Northwestern University School of Law. “But it does mean that the government must take into account all relevant constitutional considerations with respect to United States citizens – even those who are leading efforts to kill innocent Americans.”

Holder’s speech is a welcome step toward transparency, said Nathan Wessler, the national security fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. But, he added, it’s nowhere near sufficient in opening up the targeted killing program to public scrutiny.

“When we’re talking about killing U.S. citizens, there’s no chance to make it better after they’re dead,” Wessler said. “So it’s very important that courts are involved to help set the standards under which the government can use lethal force, and to evaluate whether they’ve observed the constitution after they carry out a strike.”

Targeted killings are constitutional, Holder said, because they afford targets the due process mandated in the Fifth Amendment, which says that the government may not deprive a citizen of his or her life without due process of law.

Holder argued that the “thorough and careful review” that the government engages in to determine whether a U.S. citizen is a lawful target amounts to due process. He made a distinction between due process and “judicial process,” maintaining that “where national security operations are at stake, due process takes into account the realities of combat.”

Examples of due process without judicial involvement can be found throughout U.S. law, said Charles Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. If the military wants to discharge a soldier, for instance, judge advocate generals, the military justice system’s judiciary, have to review the facts in the case. Though the soldier isn’t tried through the court system, Stimson said the offender has been afforded due process that is “fully consistent with” the constitution.

The Geneva Conventions stipulate that targeted killings are only legal in the context of “armed conflict.” Because the U.S. is engaged in armed conflict with terrorists, Holder said, the government’s targeted killing program complies with international law.

Holder acknowledged that the war the U.S. is waging on terrorists isn’t a conventional one with a set battlefield. Al-Qaida operates out of Afghanistan, he said, but the U.S. can’t afford to limit its self-defense to that battlefield. Holder alluded to al-Alwaki’s Yemeni group, noting that “al-Qaida and its associates have directed several attacks – fortunately, unsuccessful – against us from countries other than Afghanistan.”

“We are at war with a stateless enemy, prone to shifting operations from country to country,” he said. “Our government has both a responsibility and a right to protect this nation and its people from such threats.”

As a lawyer in the Israel Defense Forces, Amos Guiora sat at the table during counterterrorism discussions, helping make decisions in targeted killing cases. Now a law professor at the University of Utah, Guiora said Holder should have done a better job of defining exactly what constitutes a legitimate target. Without a “criteria-based approach” to targeted killing, he said, the government could apply the policy far too broadly.

“We need to have narrow, as in precise, articulations of these definitions in order to ensure that we’re not engaging in, for lack of a better term, overkill,” Guiora said. “And if you have loosey-goosey standards devoid of strictness, then what you ultimately have is a policy of obtuseness which lends itself to abuse.”

Wessler also worries that, devoid of public debate and judicial scrutiny, targeting American citizens will give the government too much power.

“The administration is asking the public just to trust it when it comes to protecting the rights of U.S. citizens who are targeted with lethal force,” Wessler said. “But that can’t be enough.”

Because terrorists who can be lawfully targeted pose an “imminent threat” to national security, Holder said capture can be a “time-sensitive” issue.

“It is preferable to capture suspected terrorists where feasible — among other reasons, so that we can gather valuable intelligence from them — but we must also recognize that there are instances where our government has the clear authority — and, I would argue, the responsibility — to defend the United States through the appropriate and lawful use of lethal force,” Holder said.

The legal authority to capture and detain is the same legal authority to target and kill, Stimson said. Once the government determines a terrorist is a lawful target, it’s up to the president to make a policy decision: capture or kill.

“This administration, because detention has proven, at least in their minds, to be difficult, has chosen to kill rather than capture,” Stimson said. “They prefer justice from 30,000 feet instead of capturing them, lawfully detaining them, lawfully taking them to Guantanamo, giving them an attorney and giving them access to our federal courts through habeas. And that’s a policy decision.”

It’s a decision, Stimson said, that the next administration can easily reverse – or enhance. With an ever-evolving terrorist threat, Holder is adamant that the power to target U.S. citizens is indispensable.

“This is an indicator of our times – not a departure from our laws and our values,” Holder said. “For this administration – and for this nation – our values are clear.”

 

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