INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.748
B.RAMAN
During the years he fled from the jihadi
battle-front in the Af-Pak region and took shelter in his hide-out in
Abbottabad in Pakistan (2005-2011), Osama bin Laden was reduced to a pathetic
Amir in arm-chair who exercised little authority or influence over the global
jihad being waged by Al Qaeda and its associates. His advice was often sought
by his jihadi associates out of respect for his past contribution and “achievements”,
but rarely followed. The new post-9/11 crop of jihadis waged their jihad in
their own way without paying heed to his words of caution and advice. After he
moved to Abbottabad, he was neither the commander-in-chief nor an ideologue par
excellence, but a senior jihadi who counted less and less.
2. That is the conclusion that comes out loud and
clear from a tiring study of 17 of the documents found in his Abbottabad
hide-out by the Navy Seals and since de-classified by the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and handed over to the Combating Terrorism Centre (CTC) of West
Point which has got them translated from Arabic to English and published them
in a compilation titled “Letters from Abbottabad”. This compilation was
released by the CTC to the public on May 2, coinciding with the first anniversary
of the death of OBL. (http://www.ctc.usma.edu/
)
3. On its web site, the CTC describes itself as “an
independent, privately-funded research and educational institution situated at
West Point that informs and shapes counter-terrorism policy and strategy.” It
describes the documents released to the public as electronic or draft
letters---possibly indicating thereby that while some of them were recovered
from the computer hard and soft ware seized from OBL’s hide-out, others were in
a manuscript form.
4. I have studied these documents keeping in view
the possibility that the de-classification and release of these documents might
be part of the CIA’s PSYWAR against Al Qaeda. While I do not rule out the
possibility of some motivated editing before the documents were made available
to the public, I have no reasons to suspect that the documents might have been
fabricated. They seem to me to be largely genuine.
5.My impression of their being genuine is
strengthened by the fact that some of the conclusions emerging from a study
regarding the declining authority and influence of OBL negate the assessments
disseminated by the US during those years projecting OBL as the all-powerful
head of the global jihad. It now turns out that he was not and that the earlier
assessments were wrong.
6.The earliest of the documents is dated September
2006 and is a communication to OBL from one of his supporters in Saudi Arabia (
apparently influential) sounding a wake-up call that the popularity of Al Qaeda
in the Islamic Umma had started declining because of what was projected as its
strategic folly of attacking Saudi Arabia and Yemen and targeting the Saudi oil
riches. According to the originator of this communication, this policy had very
little support from among Arab intellectuals and other elite and even from the
common man.
7. A recurring theme of the communications
exchanged between OBL and his associates is the wrong tactics adopted by the
affiliate of Al Qaeda in Iraq called the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Pakistani Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which came into
existence after the raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad by the Pakistani
security forces in July 2007.
8. The documents clearly show that OBL and some of
his senior associates were disturbed by what they viewed as the pollution of
the jihad by the Islamic State of Iraq and the TTP. They saw signs of this
pollution in the attacks on Christians---particularly Catholics--- in Iraq and
in the indiscriminate suicide attacks carried out by the TTP in mosques during
prayers. The degeneration of the jihad in Iraq and Pakistan from targeted
attacks on identified enemies of Islam to indiscriminate suicide attacks that
killed the identified enemies and many innocent Muslims who had nothing to do
with them was a matter of growing concern to OBL and his senior associates.
9. They even drafted a declaration on the subject
deploring such attacks to be issued by OBL but for some reasons not clear, it
was not issued. What is revealing and clearly indicative of OBL’s declining
authority and influence is the cruel fact that OBL’s displeasure and
admonitions over this pollution had practically no effect on the Islamic State
of Iraq and the TTP. They continued with their acts of pollution unmindful of
OBL’s feelings and concerns
10. In his famous Fatwa of 1998 issued from
Kandahar where he was then based, OBL had projected the global jihad as
directed against the Crusaders and the Jewish people---meaning essentially
against the US and Israel. It subsequently turned into a jihad not only against
the US and Israel, but also against even Islamic rulers seen as collaborating
with the US.
11. The realisation that this was a tactical and
strategic mistake with negative consequences for the global jihad is writ large
in the declassified communications. The need to revert to the primary focus
against the US---in the US Homeland itself as well as in non-Islamic countries
having a US presence--- is repeatedly underlined in the communications. To kill a snake one
must crush its head and not its tail is an expression that finds eloquent
expression in the communications.
12. Those who exchanged these communications felt
that Al Qaeda should focus on Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia where victory was
within its grasp and should not fritter away its energy in other areas. But
neither their ideas nor their assessments nor their caution and advice had much
of an impact on the jihadis who had started increasingly waging the jihad in
their own style, only paying lip-service to their loyalty to OBL.
13. The documents speak very little of the
leadership style and likely strategy of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the present Amir of
Al Qaeda. There are some tantalising tit-bits indicative of his growing
influence at the expense of that of OBL, but the evidence on this score is
sketchy.
14. There are other interesting tit-bits about OBL
wanting to have President Barack Obama and Gen.David Petraeus, the then US
Commander in Afghanistan, assassinated in Afghanistan through Ilyas Kashmiri,
the Pakistani commando turned jihadi terrorist, but those are not of present significance now that OBL is no
more. ( 5-5-12)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For
China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter : @SORBONNE75 )
