Al Qaeda has Decided to Claim the Arab Spring

AQIM , AQAP , Hamas and al Qaeda leadership seem to have fallen into a decision about what to do about the Arab Spring. They are using the Hezbollah Spin.

in 2000, Israel unilaterally left the occupation of Southern Lebanon in accordance with a UN negotiated agreement. Though they neither defeated Israel nor caused them to withdraw, Hezbollah followed Israeli troops out of Lebanon shouting victory slogans. Anti-Israel (or anti-zionist) factions around the world, desperate for some sort of victory, began to repeat Hezbollah's spin that they themselves had driven Israel out of Lebanon. Hezbollah status and prestige gained from the myth continues to this day.

Today, Al Qaeda affiliates around the world are beginning to take credit for the Arab Spring in their recruiting propganda, claiming that they have "planted the seeds" of the rebellion."

While it's true the al Qaeda created an overall strategy that included dealing with "apostate secular states" like Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, (See 7 Steps) they had been unable to gain any traction in secular states with an Islamic majority population. The Arab Spring was a surprise to the West and Islamist activists alike.

Watch now for other anti-zionists to feed into the newest myth, that The Arab Spring was the fruit of an Islamist idea.

-Shimron Issachar

***************************************

Al-Qaida in North Africa seeks Arab Spring jihad

By ELAINE GANLEY

PARIS (AP) - Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb wants to put its footprint on the Arab Spring now that violence is fueling the uprisings, and in a two-part video is trying to lure new followers for revolt by jihad.

The push comes as the group has sought to expand its operations beyond its Algerian base and desert outposts to countries around Africa, from Nigeria to Libya, after the death of Osama bin Laden and after being sidelined when the Arab revolts erupted earlier this year.

During the mostly peaceful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, the al-Qaida offshoot kept up sporadic attacks on Algerian security forces in its bid to overthrow the government and install an Islamist state. But the world was looking elsewhere.

Now, with Arab uprisings meeting increasingly violent resistance from autocratic regimes in countries such as Libya and Syria, AQIM wants to be seen as an alternative force.

Seeking a peaceful change of leaders is "like giving aspirin to a cancer patient," a member of AQIM's military board, Commander Abu Saeed al-Auresi, says in the lengthy video, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE has made the video available and said it was posted Aug. 3 on jihadist forums.

AQIM has entered a new phase and is no longer on the defensive, says Mathieu Guidere, an expert in strategic monitoring and al-Qaida specialist.

Despite repeated threats, the group has provided no evidence it is capable of striking across the Mediterranean into Europe. But with bin Laden's death, Guidere said, AQIM promised to lead a military and media offensive in the north, south, east and west of the African continent.

And, he argues, that is happening, with stepped up attacks on soldiers in Algeria - the north - in Mauritania - the west - as well as in Libya - the east - where the movement allegedly sent a "minimal" number of fighters.

To the south, AQIM offered training, men and weapons in January 2010 to a feared Islamist sect in Nigeria called Boko Haram, the local Hausa language for "Western education is sacrilege," according to an AQIM statement provided by SITE. It was signed by AQIM's leader, Abelmalek Droukdel, using his nom de guerre Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, who evoked "the duty to support Muslims everywhere."

Boko Haram has significantly raised its profile since the offer with numerous deadly attacks.

There is no sign of a formal AQIM partnership with Boko Haram. British authorities said this month they were investigating a video claiming an unspecified al-Qaida group was holding a Briton and Italian man kidnapped in Nigeria in May.

AQIM stepped up deadly attacks in Algeria in spring and registered more attacks in July than any time this year, according to Guidere. He counts attacks throughout AQIM territory, including in the desert Sahel region south of Algeria - which crosses Mauritania, Niger and Mali, where hostage-taking is a main source of revenue. Four French hostages, captured in September 2010 in Niger, are still being held, possibly in Mali.

For Guidere, AQIM has found a new legitimacy that it had lost at the start of the then-peaceful Arab Spring. Its message is that people can demonstrate in vain against dictators or choose jihad.

"For me, this video is a turning point in the (AQIM) propaganda," Guidere said, because it is looking for a new way to reach the people.

"AQIM is an elitist organization that believes it is chosen by God," he said, adding that it always presented its heroes as "exceptional." Now, "they want to mix the images of popular revolution and AQIM to show that they are the same."

Part I of the nearly two-hour propaganda film shows protest rallies throughout the Arab world. It includes contrasting footage of various Arab leaders in clubby poses, from Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika kissing Egypt's now-deposed leader Hosni Mubarak to former French President Jacques Chirac shaking hands with the ousted Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Part II addresses efforts by the United States, France and Algeria to counter AQIM in the lawless Sahel region, but contrasts that with a deadly July 4, 2009 raid by AQIM's southern arm in Mali that killed 29 soldiers.

For senior SITE analyst Adam Raisman, it is less the message than the medium - a video - that is a departure from previous AQIM propaganda. Audio messages supported the Tunisians as January protests forced their strong-armed leader to flee into exile.

In what could be another part of AQIM's bid to appeal to new recruits, the video shows AQIM leader Droukdel taking part in what is claimed to be an April 15 attack on an Algerian army outpost - carried out as the Algerian president gave a speech announcing constitutional and electoral reforms to calm daily demonstrations around the country. The attack near the town of Azazga, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Algiers in the mountainous Kabyle region - an AQIM stronghold - left 13 soldiers dead.

It is rare to see an al-Qaida branch leader fighting alongside his men, Raisman said.

Members of jihadist forums "were exhilarated to see him participating in battle, leading the charge," Raisman said. "He's firing his gun, he's hiding behind a rock, he's talking on a walkie-talkie, issuing orders. He's defiant."

Often graying, aging fighters shown in the Arabic-language videos are filmed on their sorties through the craggy forested hills of Algeria's Kabyle region or in the Mali desert, accompanied in the videos by taped songs. As in other AQIM propaganda videos, the viewer is not spared the bloody bodies of attack victims and booty taken from the corpses, displayed and recorded almost tenderly by the camera.

The video by AQIM's media arm is titled "Assault Them Through the Gate, For When You Are In, Victory Will be Yours." Using a Quranic reference, AQIM pleads for frontal action, not peaceful uprisings, to bring change. A photo of bin Laden, and scenes of him walking in rugged terrain, punctuate the videos.

The North African al-Qaida affiliate was born in late 2006 out of the last remaining Algerian insurgency movement still organized enough to do harm, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. Pledging its allegiance to bin Laden's operation provided new dynamism for an increasingly battered insurgency movement.

Today, AQIM, like other al-Qaida arms, claims it set the spark for the uprisings around the Arab world.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Rest @ AP ABC12

Last Post for a While

I have been writing this blog since 2006. It began when I was doing business intelligence work, gathering information about one of the technical industries in some East Africa Countries. What I came across was information leading to a conclusion that I still hold, and that that al Qaeda has a clear and specific strategy targeting Africa.

It was not new. Bill Moyers sums it up as well as anyone:

"When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in early 1989, bin Laden and Azzam decided that their new organization should not dissolve. They established what they called a base (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad. However, bin Laden, now the clear emir of al Qaeda, and Azzam differed on where the organization's future objectives should lie. Azzam favored continued fighting in Afghanistan until there was a true Islamist government, while bin Laden wanted to prepare al Qaeda to fight anywhere in the world. When Azzam was killed in 1989, bin Laden assumed full charge of al Qaeda. " - Moyers Journal

What I am saying is that their was, and is, a specific Islamist plan for Africa, with the al Qaeda as the tip of the spear.

In 2006 no one was really looking at Africa and the Islamist Agenda, so I began to track the movement of key people and groups working this agenda. Frankly I was surprised at the transparency and sophistication of the plan, how open they were about their agenda, and how ignored by the Western World they were. Their moneymaking activities, their large business and in some cases Royal funding supporters were very obvious.

It is clear now that their are many, many western eyes on Africa and the Islamist agenda, both in Africa and around the world, and so I am no longer needed. I want to give one, mostly final, summary for the analysts out there.

First, I think the Long War is almost half over. The West currently has the upper hand as can be seen in Pakistan, but it will eventually move to Africa in less than a year.

Somalia is still in a stalemate. Somaliland will soon be recognized, and the corrupt TFG group will be abandoned, since they seem to be inherently incapable of caring for their own people in a peaceful without tribal lenses. This does not mean that war will stop in Somalia. The Middle East will continue to fund psalmist groups, who will tray and export the Islamist war into Ethiopia and Kenya. The West will continue to find ways to fight them.

The next place for the war to spring up will be in South Sudan, which will vote to secede in less than a year, and is preparing for the inevitable attack from the North when this happens. Both sides are even now arming for this war. This event will be the fulcrum that shifts the focus of the war from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq into Africa.


West Africa's local wars (Morroco, Algeria, Mauritania, etc) will continue to fight, and they will continue to take money from the al qaeda or whoever else will fund them. . AQIM's network of recruiters can be hunted down and stopped. However, the purchase (some call it recruitment) of suicide bomber children from poor west african families, will be attempted again.

The Islamist Agenda will ultimately fail in Africa, but not because of any Western power, but because African's will never fully accept the Salafiyya Dawa. The Sufi's will never submit, the Christians will continue to grow, since it's aims are clearly peacfull, but the Sunni missionary work, which sends islamist agents in to establish relationships with local Muslim leaders, are even now carefully watched by every African country's intelligence service.

US ( AFRICOM) UK, French and Russian agendas are already in play, but China will try their hand at mediation, since the buy the Majority of Sudan's oil exports.

China: the Great Asian Father

China 's investment in Africa has grown exponentially in the last four years. They are spending lots of money, but they are very new and still significantly imperialistic in their approach. They are simply buying as many raw materials as they can from Africa. They are soon to discover that Africans expect more than money for their resources, they see them as the new "White Father"

Human and Weapon's trafficking will continue until Africa, Unless Africa herself comes to believe she can stop it. Local wars, currently the Congo will continue to spring up. The UN now has more troops in Africa than they ever had, and I see no end in site.


Dough Farah, Creeping Sharia, the Long War Journal, Global Security,keep up the good work, I will keep reading your stuff. Also thanks to the brave journalists in Somalia who keep writing , and keep paying the price.





Shimron Issachar
On Twitter

Somalia Islamist Update

Well-informed analysts estimate that al-Shabaab has somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 fighters in and around Mogadishu, at least one-third of whom have had advanced training from its foreign jihadist allies, who apparently exercise a great deal of control over them. In addition, al-Shabaab has up to 6,000 fighters scattered around the country.

The group also has anywhere between 500 and 1,500 foreign jihadists who have flocked to its banner from as far away as Nigeria and Pakistan as well as several hundred Somalis from the diaspora.

Hisbul Islam’s organization is more clan-based, with perhaps as up to 5,000 fighters around the capital, the majority of whom hail from the Hawiye clan of Habar Gidir, and perhaps as many as 3,000 elsewhere in the southern and central Somalia. Although only about 10 percent of Hisbul Islam’s forces have had advanced training, most of those more skilled fighters are deployed in or close to Mogadishu, thus increasing their impact.

The Ahlu Sunna wal-Jama’a (roughly, “[Followers of] the Traditions and Consensus [of the Prophet Muhammad]”) militias opposing al-Shabaab in the central regions have maybe several thousand members, but most of these are clansmen mustered on an ad hoc basis, rather than a standing force, notwithstanding Ethiopian efforts to train and assist them. In contrast, the TFG claims to have 5,000 troops, although that figure is inflated with clan militiamen it manages to hire from time to time and over whom it has no effective control.

The Rest from Dr. Peter Pham @ FamilySecurity Matters









Shimron Issachar

Details on Attempted Airline Bombing

12/28/2009

WASHINGTON - A 23-year-old Nigerian man was charged in a federal criminal complaint today with attempting to destroy a Northwest Airlines aircraft on its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Christmas Day, and with placing a destructive device on the aircraft.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, a Nigerian national, boarded Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam, Netherlands on December 24, 2009 and had a device attached to his body. As the flight was approaching Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Abdulmutallab set off the device, which resulted in a fire and what appears to have been an explosion. Abdulmutallab was then subdued and restrained by the passengers and flight crew. The airplane landed shortly thereafter, and he was taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol officers.

A preliminary FBI analysis found that the device contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high explosive. Further analysis is ongoing. In addition, FBI agents recovered what appear to be the remnants of the syringe from the vicinity of Abdulmutallab’s seat, believed to have been part of the device.

"This alleged attack on a U.S. airplane on Christmas Day shows that we must remain vigilant in the fight against terrorism at all times," Attorney General Eric Holder said. "Had this alleged plot to destroy an airplane been successful, scores of innocent people would have been killed or injured. We will continue to investigate this matter vigorously, and we will use all measures available to our government to ensure that anyone responsible for this attempted attack is brought to justice."

Abdulmutallab required medical treatment, and was transported to the University of Michigan Medical Center after the plane landed. He will make his initial court appearance later today.

Interviews of all of the passengers and crew of Flight 253 revealed that prior to the incident, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for approximately twenty minutes, according to the affidavit. Upon returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab stated that his stomach was upset, and he pulled a blanket over himself. Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odor, and some observed Abdulmutallab’s pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and crew then subdued Abdulmutallab and used blankets and fire extinguishers to put out the flames. Passengers reported that Abdulmutallab was calm and lucid throughout. One flight attendant asked him what he had had in his pocket, and he replied "explosive device."

These prosecutions are being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, with assistance from the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The investigation is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Customs and Border Protection, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The public is reminded that criminal complaints contain mere allegations and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Source: The Justice Department by way of Apoistille

Radical Islamist - a definition

For the purposes of correcting some hasty generalization occurring about Ismalists, I want to propose a further subset of Islamist, I call

"Radical Islamists"

A Radical Islamist Is:

1. A Muslim or Muslim group who believes now is time for to support physical jihad - war - on all fronts, against any secular (apostate) Muslim governments in all countries
2. A Muslim or Muslim group who believes now is time for to support physical jihad - war - on all fronts, against any non Muslim controlled country.
3. A Muslim or Muslim group who collaborates with a Radical Muslim Group or person by means of facilitating travel for, training of, providing paying jobs for, providing refugee food to, or any other support to any Mujahadeen fighter, intelligence, operational or logistical support activity who is engaged in activities 1 or 2 listed above.
4. Can be Sunni or Shia, usually note Sufi or other sect.

A Radical Islamist is not:

1. An Islamic Aid organization or activity working in a war torn area. When this group or Muslim is informed that they are unknowingly participating in paragraph 3 above, they stop the activity, denounce it, and purge the participants from their ranks. Failure to act in this way suggests that the group is, in fact, a Radical Islamist Group.
2. A Muslim who believes that their own country should be under Sharia law, but has no interest in exporting this agenda to create a larger caliphate.
3. A Muslim who believes their own secular government should be more religious.
4. A promoter of secular Arab Culture across several countries, who has no teaching or activity supporting a pan-Arab caliphate agenda demanding that all country members must submit to Sharia.