European Operatives being Recruited by AQIM

BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 10 (UPI) -- European security authorities are concerned about reports that al-Qaida and its North African affiliate, determined to strike the United States and its allies, are recruiting European operatives able to blend into Western societies and evade capture.

France's Le Figaro newspaper recently cited French intelligence sources as saying that 100 such recruits are undergoing training in camps along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

• The newspaper said French authorities were on alert for attacks and noted that 14 French citizens were among Europeans undergoing training by al-Qaida in late 2010.
  
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared war on the jihadist group in North Africa, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, in July 2010 after it beheaded a 78-year-old French captive, Michel Germaneau.
• He was killed after an abortive attempt by French Special Forces to rescue him in the Sahara Desert in Mali. Six AQIM fighters were shot dead in the attack.
• AQIM has stepped up its attacks on French nationals in northwest African, kidnapping at least eight and killing three

In January, Osama bin Laden threatened attacks on France, "on different fronts, inside and outside of France."

The last major successful terrorist attack in France was in 1995, when Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, from which AQIM emerged two years ago, carried out a bombing campaign against the transportation system and tourist sites.

The jihadists' most innovative, and potentially most lethal, operation in France was on Dec. 24, 1994, during the Algerian civil war. Four GIA members in Algerian police uniforms hijacked a Paris-bound Air France Airbus 300 at Houari Boumedienne Airport in Algiers, killed three passengers and forced the pilot to fly the jetliner to Marseille.There they ordered the aircraft loaded with fuel and planned to crash it into the Eiffel Tower in Paris -- a forerunner of al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.The plot failed when French counter-terrorism police stormed the aircraft and killed all four hijackers.

In December 2010, police forces across Western Europe arrested dozens of suspects amid warnings of continent-wide terrorist attacks hatched in Pakistan. No major attack took place and there was speculation that authorities had been spooked by faulty intelligence.

But Western intelligence sources insist that al-Qaida is planning attacks in the West that go beyond the amateurish lone-wolf type of attacks that have occurred in recent months in the United States.

The report also supported the belief among Western intelligence services that the focal point of this threat is Pakistan, now the major battleground in the war against al-Qaida.

The increase in such activity observed in recent months has occurred at a time when al-Qaida has been re-energized by the gathering of a new field leadership comprising veteran commanders drawn from other regions, many with their eyes on hitting the West hard.

These include such notorious figures as

• Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, a 45-year-old Pakistani who fought India in Kashmir for years and now heads bin Laden's Lashkar-e Zil, or Shadow Army. Kashmiri, who joined al-Qaida in 2005, is also closely connected to bin Laden's notorious Brigade 313, one of the key components of the Lashkar-e Zil. According to the CIA, "the footprints of Brigade 313 are now in Europe."
• Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, and other seasoned jihadists from Iran, where they were reportedly held under varying degrees of restriction since late 2001. Adel, a former Egyptian Special Forces colonel and considered one of bin Laden's most able lieutenants, is reported to be currently operating in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan and planning major strikes against the West.

Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times Online, who has access to jihadist circles in Pakistan and Afghanistan, reported in January that al-Qaida was planning to infiltrate white Westerners, all converts to Islam, into their home countries "to spread the flames of the South Asian war theater to the West."

• The Westerners include a group of 12 Canadians said to be undergoing terrorist training in jihadist camps in North Waziristan. Others reportedly include Americans, Britons and Germans.
• Taliban sources said the Canadian group is led by a 30-year-old known by his nom de guerre of Abu Shahid. He converted to Islam in 2007.Read more:

The Rest @ UPI

Drug Traffiicking and Ilyas Kashmiri Intel Trip to UK

Morocco dismantled a drug-trafficking network with branches in Latin America, Europe and Africa, the interior ministry said on Tuesday (October 12th).

Police arrested 7 suspects and seized large quantities of money, cocaine, cannabis and tear gas. The investigation revealed that the drugs entered Morocco from Mali.

The group is also suspected of links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Thanks to Zawya for notice of the article in Magharebia

-Shimron Issachar


Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda commander, arranged the trip to meet ‘contacts’ as part of plans for an attack on a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of Mohammed.

The meeting between Kashmiri’s associate, a U.S. citizen called David Coleman Headley, and two British men allegedly happened in August 2009 in Derby.

According to U.S. court documents, Kashmiri said the men would provide Headley with ‘money, weapons and manpower’.


The details have emerged as part of the case against Headley, 50, who was arrested last year in Chicago on his way to Pakistan to hand over surveillance videos to terrorists.


It is believed that one-eyed Kashmiri is behind the recent terror alerts in Europe, sparked by intelligence that he had boasted about sending terrorists to Britain and Germany.


The revelations come as French Interior Minister

@ World Analysis

Saleh al Somali Killed in Pakistan

US killed al Qaeda’s Lashkar al Zil commander in airstrike
By Bill RoggioJanuary 7, 2010 8:45 AM

Al Qaeda has confirmed that the US killed the leader of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army, the terror group's military organization along the Afghan and Pakistani border.

Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, said that Abdullah Said al Libi was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan. Yazid confirmed that Al Libi was killed in a tape praising the suicide attack on the CIA base in Khost. Yazid also confirmed that Saleh al Somali, al Qaeda's former external operations chief, was also killed in a US attack.

Yazid said the suicide attack against the CIA at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost province on Dec. 30, 2009, was carried out by an al Qaeda operative named Dr. Abu Dujanah al Khurasani, enticed the CIA with promises of being able to produce Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command.

The suicide attack, which killed seven CIA operatives and a Jordanian intelligence official, was designed to "avenge" the death of al Libi, Somali, and former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, Yazid said, according to a translation of his statement received by The Long War Journal.

"[This attack was carried out] to avenge our righteous martyrs, as he [Khurasani/Balawi] (may God have mercy on him) wrote in his will: 'To avenge the leader, Amir Baitullah Mehsud, the leaders Abu Saleh al Somali and Abdullah Said al Libi, and their brothers (may God have mercy on them)."

Saleh al Somali, the former external operations chief who was tasked with conducting attack on the West, was reported killed in a US strike in North Waziristan on Dec. 8, 2009. Baitullah was killed in a strike in South Waziristan on Aug. 5, 2009.

But Abdullah Said al Libi was not listed by US intelligence as being killed during recent strikes. “[Mustafa Abu Yazid’s statement] is our first true indication that Abdullah Said al-Libi is dead, which is the subtext for why Ilyas Kashmiri has been listed as the Lashkar al Zil commander in recent media reports,” a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. It is not clear exactly when al Libi was killed.

On Jan. 4, the Asia Times described Ilyas Kashmiri as the leader of the Lashkar al Zil during a report that stated al Qaeda’s military organization was behind the suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman.

Kashmiri is one of the most dangerous al Qaeda leaders. He served as the operations chief of Brigade 313, a conglomeration of Pakistani jihadi groups and one of six brigades in the Shadow Army. Kashmiri is suspected of planning and leading some of the terror group's most sophisticated assaults in the Afghan-Pakistan theater.

Abdullah Said al Libi is a Libyan national who is thought to have served in his country's military before joining al Qaeda. In April 2009, al Libi laid out al Qaeda and the Taliban's strategy to retake control of the Khorasan, a region that encompasses large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran. In the statement, al Libi is identified as the leader of the Qaidat al-Jihad fi Khorasan, or the base of the jihad in the Khorasan.

"Al Libi's death is significant, but there is little doubt he has been replaced by perhaps the most capable military commander in al Qaeda's stable," a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal. The US thought Kashmiri was killed in a strike in North Waziristan last September, but he later resurfaced in an interview with the Asia Times.

Background on the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army

The Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, is the successor to al Qaeda’s notorious Brigade 055, the military formation that fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1996-2002. During the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion in 2001, the 055 Brigade served as "the shock troops of the Taliban and functioned as an integral part of the latter's military apparatus," al Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in Inside al Qaeda.

At its peak in 2001, the 055 Brigade had an estimated 2,000 soldiers and officers in the ranks. The brigade was comprised of Arabs, Central Asians, and South Asians, as well as Chechens, Bosnians, and Uighurs from Western China. The 055 Brigade was decimated during the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 and during Operation Anaconda in March 2002.

The Shadow Army formed from the ashes of 055 Brigade in Pakistan's tribal areas from 2002-2006. The Shadow Army has been expanded to six brigades, and has an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 fighters. In addition to dispatching small teams of embedded trainers to Taliban units, the Shadow Army fights in military formations along the Afghan and Pakistani border region.
The Shadow Army occasional fights alongside the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and the Haqqani Network, in formations ranging from squad to company level. Evidence of this was seen recently in Swat and Bajaur in Pakistan, where the Pakistani Army met stiff resistance in some battles, as well as during battles in North and South Waziristan in 2007 and 2008.

The Shadow Army also played a role in the assaults on joint US and Afghan outposts in Nuristan province last fall, as well as in a series of attacks last year on outposts in the Afghan provinces of Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Kunar, and Nuristan. The most publicized attack took place in July 2008 in Wanat in Nuristan, when nine US soldiers were killed and the base was nearly overrun.
The US has targeted the leaders of the Shadow Army during its air campaign in Pakistan’s northwest. The US killed Khalid Habib, the former leader of the Shadow Army, during an airstrike in South Waziristan in Pakistan last November. Habib was replaced by Abdullah Said al Libi. The US also killed Zuhaib al Zahib, a senior commander in the Shadow Army during a strike at the end of December.Read more:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/01/us_killed_al_qaedas.php#ixzz0bxu1Q5It

The Rest @ Long War Journal

Lashkar al-Zil Takes Credit for Pakistan Bombing

The following Asia Times article is Interesting, but possibly disinformaitonn to discredit attempts to gather intelligence from ANA Sources....

Shimron Issachar


ISLAMABAD - The suicide attack on the United States Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) forward operating base of Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost last week was planned in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.

The attacker - a handpicked plant in the Afghan National Army (ANA) - detonated his explosive vest in a gym at the base, killing seven agents, including the station chief, and wounding six. The base was officially for civilians involved in reconstruction.

The plan was executed following several weeks of preparation by al-Qaeda's Lashkar al-Zil (Shadow Army), Asia Times Online has learned. This was after Lashkar al-Zil's intelligence outfit informed its chief commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, that the CIA planned to broaden the monitoring of the possible movement of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Well-connected sources in militant camps say that Lashkar al-Zil had become aware of the CIA's escalation of intelligence activities to gather information on high-value targets for US drone attacks. It emerged that tribesmen from Shawal and Datta Khel, in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, had been invited by US operatives, through middlemen, to Khost, where the operatives tried to acquire information on al-Qaeda leaders. Such activities have been undertaken in the past, but this time they were somewhat different.

"This time there was clearly an obsession to hunt down something big in North Waziristan. But in this obsession, they [operatives] blundered and exposed the undercover CIA facility," a senior leader in al-Qaeda's 313 Brigade said. The brigade, led by Ilyas Kashmiri, comprises jihadis with extensive experience in Pakistan's Kashmir struggle with India.

Once it became clear that efforts to track down al-Qaeda were being stepped up and that the base in Khost was being extensively used by the CIA, the Lashkar al-Zil (Brigade 055) moved into top gear.

• It is the soul of al-Qaeda, having being involved in several events since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
• Under the command of Ilyas Kashmiri, its intelligence network's coordination with its special guerrilla action force has changed the dynamics of the Afghan war theater.
• Instead of traditional guerrilla warfare in which the Taliban have taken most of the casualties, the brigade has resorted to special operations, the one on the CIA base being the latest and one of the most successful.

Lashkar al-Zil comprises the

• Pakistani Taliban,
• 313 Brigade,
• the Afghan Taliban,
• Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan
• former Iraqi Republican Guards.

It has taken on special significance since the US announcement of a 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan, due to kick into action this week.

Leaders of the Lashkar al-Zil now knew that CIA operatives were trying to recruit reliable tribal people from Afghanistan so that the latter could develop an effective intelligence network along the border with North Waziristan's Shawal and Datta Khel regions, where high-profile al-Qaeda leaders often move around.

Laskhar al-Zil then laid its trap.

Over the past months, using connections in tribal structures and ties with former commanders of the Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, the militants have planted a large number of men in the ANA.

One of these plants, an officer, was now called into action. He contacted US personnel in Khost and told them he was linked to a network in the tribal areas and that he had information on where al-Qaeda would hold its shura (council) in North Waziristan and on the movement of al-Qaeda leaders.

The ANA officer was immediately invited to the CIA base in Khost to finalize a joint operation of Predator drones and ground personnel against these targets.

Once inside, he set off his bomb, with deadly results.

"It's a devastating blow," Times Online quoted Michael Scheuer as saying. "[Among others] we lost an agent with 14 years' experience in Afghanistan." Scheuer is a former head of Alec Station, the unit created to monitor bin Laden five years before the attacks of September 11.

Unlike the Taliban's mostly rag-tag army, Laskhar al-Zil is a sophisticated unit, with modern equipment such as night-vision technology, the latest light weapons and finely honed guerrilla tactics. It has a well-funded intelligence department, much like the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan had during the resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s when it had access to advance information on the movement of the Red Army.

However, Laskhar al-Zil is one step ahead of the Hezb's former intelligence outfit in that it has been able to plant men in the ANA, and these "soldiers" are now at the forefront of al-Qaeda-led sabotage activities in Afghanistan.

In addition, a large number of senior government officials both in the capital, Kabul, and in the provinces are sympathetic to the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, and, by extension, to the Taliban. Similarly, several former top Taliban commanders have been given responsibilities by the central government in district areas, and as the insurgency has grown, these former militants have been increasingly useful to the Taliban-led insurgency.

In sum, the US troop surge, coupled with increased US efforts to track down al-Qaeda, has resulted in a shift in southeastern Afghanistan. There has been hardly any uprising against foreign troops in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could hit the Taliban hard. The insurgents now select specific targets for the most effective outcome, such as the spy base in Khost - it took just one insurgent's life for the "devastating" result.

Consequently, for the first time in the many years that Afghanistan has been at war, the winter season is hot. Last October, the US withdrew its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan, on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban, under the command of Qari Ziaur Rahman. Kurangal Valley in Kunar province is heavily under siege and Taliban attacks on US bases there could see US forces pulling back from Kunar as well.
And in the meantime, Lashkar al-Zil can be expected to be planning more strikes of its own.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

The Rest @ The Asia Times