Archive for the 'Jihadists' Category

Earth moving equipment constructing sand berms around Haditha in order to prevent the influx of foreign fighters into the city.

On January 13th I wrote a short article entitled Sand Berms Around Haditha, linking to a story published by AFP.  Except for one particularly clever reader, this story got almost no attention.  Perhaps it should have.  With all of the noise and fury of the Baghdad security plan, the small things can get buried, but sometimes it is the small things that can teach us the big lessons if we’re not to hurried to pay attention.

This little story fascinated me from the beginning.  Consider what is occurring here.  Heavy equipment – enough of it to construct an earthen berm around a city – has been moved half way around the world into a desert in Western Iraq.  This equipment needs trained operators, and each piece has hundreds of grease fittings that require attention every day.  The engine and hydraulics need continual maintenance, and this maintenance itself requires a trained staff to pull it off.  The fuel and repacement parts must be available, and the security must be provided for those trained staff to effect equipment repair and maintenance.  Why would the United States Marines even consider something like this?

In Concerning the Failure of Counterinsurgency in Iraq, I pointed out that:

The battlefield, both for military actions and so-called “nonkinetic

The Small Wars Journal has a fascinating discussion thread that begins with a Washington Post article by reporter Thomas Ricks, entitled “Officers with PhDs Advising War Effort.”  Says Ricks:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals — including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders — in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.

Army officers tend to refer to the group as “Petraeus guys.” They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.

Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way.

“Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war,” said a Special Forces colonel who knows some of the officers.

But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the battle of Baghdad.

“Petraeus’s ‘brain trust’ is an impressive bunch, but I think it’s too late to salvage success in Iraq,” said a professor at a military war college, who said he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to implement a genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States really has no solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.

The related conversation in the discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal ranges from doctrinal observations on counterinsurgency strategy to personal reflections on the public’s view of the military concerning whether there is sufficient brain power in the conventional military to develop a strategy to pull off a victory in Iraq.

I do not find it at all odd that ‘warrior-philosophers’ or ‘warrior-scholars’ would be involved in the development of strategy, while at the same time I see no compelling argument to suggest that they are situated any better than their predecessors or the balance of the military to develop the going-forward doctrine for OIF.

While a wildly unpopular view, I have been critical of the recently released counterinsurgency manual on which General Petraeus spent much of the previous couple of years developing.  In War, Counterinsurgency and Prolonged Operations, I contrasted FM 3-24 with both Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and the Small Wars Manual, regarding the understanding of both of the later of the effect of prolonged operations on the morale of the warrior, and the reticence of the former on the same subject.  In Snipers Having Tragic Success Against U.S. Troops (still a well-visited post), I made the observation that while snipers were one of two main prongs of insurgent success in Iraq (IEDs being the other), FM 3-24 did not contain one instance of the use of the word sniper.  The retort is granted that FM 3-24 addresses counterinsurgency on a doctrinal level rather than a tactical level, but the objection loses its punch considering that (a) the Small Wars Manual addresses tactical level concerns, and (b) the fighting men from the ‘strategic corporal‘ to the field grade officer work with tactical level concerns on a daily basis.  If FM 3-24 does not address tactical level issues, one must question its usefulness.

I have also questioned the Petraeus model for Mosul, stating that at all times and in all circumstances, security trumps nonkinetic operations, politics and reconstruction.  The question “what have you done to win Iraqi hearts and minds today,

It has been reported that American and Iraqi forces posted north of Baghdad are preparing checkpoints to net any insurgents who flee Iraq’s capital city to avoid an expected anti-terrorist dragnet there.  But this action might be late, since much insurgent relocation activity has already been reported.  AQI was previously reported to have been leaving Baghdad on orders directly from Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who wanted the fighters to avoid a direct house-to-house battle with U.S. forces.

The Sadrists have been ordered to “lay low” and avoid direct confrontation with the U.S., and reportedly there have been a “large” number of militants who have fled to Syria to avoid being trapped and to await the outcome of the upcoming U.S. operations.  Relying on the people who are affected most deeply to know the situation on the ground, since Diyala politicians, tribal and religious figures have demanded that their province be included in Baghdad security plan, it appears conclusive that there has been a comprehensive enemy reaction to the security plan, this reaction primarily being relocation.

Just yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq issued a press release, one purpose of which was to communicate the desire to “consolidate … the Mujahideen under one banner.”  This might be more than a little wishful thinking.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that four wars are taking place in Iraq: [1] a Shi’a-Shi’a war in the south, [2] a sectarian war in Baghdad, [3] an insurgency against U.S. troops, and [4] a war with AQI.

This is a gratuitous estimation of the complexity of the situation.  There are no less that eight significant wars occurring within the borders of Iraq at the present.  First, there is the sectarian violence in and around Baghdad (locations where there is mixed religious tradition living together), and the Sunnis are losing that battle to the Shi’a.  Second, there is the war that AQI is waging against the U.S. and Iraqi security forces.  Third, there is the war that AAS is waging against the same, but there is the added complexity that AQI and AAS are warring with each other – especially in the Anbar province – with each group fighting for supremacy.  Fourth, there is the war of terrorism being waged by foreign fighters.  This war knows almost no boundaries, and most of the foreign fighters are purchased by the aforementioned groups to wage war on not only the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, but each other.  According to one well-placed source, most of these fighters are jihadists who will end their lives as suicide bombers (as opposed to snipers or IED-makers), and they are purchased from and through Syrian elements just across the border, elements that operate primarily as a money-making operation.  Fifth, there is the Sunni insurgency in Anbar, coupled with the tribal fight to deny them safe haven.

In Hope and Brutality in Anbar, I discussed the factious nature of the tribal elements and the fact that there is a criminal element to their policing of the region.  The Sunni insurgency is still dominated by Sunni diehards, Sadaam Fedayeen, and other Baathists who cannot accept that they are no longer in power in Iraq.  Some of these fighters are loyal to AQI or AAS, and some are not.  There is internecine warfare among the tribes, Sunni insurgents and other elements of the population in Anbar.  Sixth, there is the war between the Shi’a and Kurds for control of Kirkuk and its copious oil supply.  Seventh, there are ongoing operations between the Turkish forces and the Kurds, and finally, there is the larger, more macroscopic support system for all of the above in Syria and Iran.  In other words, Iran and Syria are at war with the U.S. through proxy fighters.

One of the detriments of living in an open society such as America is that because political support is necessary for war-making, even strategic decisions such as the Baghdad security plan become splattered across the front page of newspapers the world over.  This gives the enemy time to react and flee the coming crackdown.  On the other hand, it might be a better option to take the enemy on in Syria than in central Baghdad.  Accidentally (i.e., through no planning by the U.S.), there is a unparalleled opportunity that presents itself for incorporation into U.S. strategy for the coming security campaign.

I have gone on record suggesting that without border control with Syria and Iran, the counterinsurgency in Iraq cannot be won.  I have also gone on record saying that there aren’t enough U.S. troops to effect this border security (while I have also questioned the size of the so-called “surge”).  The answer (if there is one), I have suggested, is incursions across the border to destroy both the insurgents and their safe haven.  This is true now in the superlative degree with them congregating in collected locations.  Assuming that the U.S. has reliable human intelligence, the use of sensor fuzed weapons and other cluster munitions can be used to destroy entire encampments of terrorists.  This action would rely on air power, thus freeing ground forces to perform interdiction operations (and other border incursions that are necessary).  For these other, non-air asset border incursions, significant use can be made of the U.S. Marines, a significant portion of which is located in the Anbar Province, within hours of the Syrian border.

The terrorist and jihadist elements are also said to be coming across the border from Saudi Arabia and Jordan into Iraq.  However, these means of ingress are small compared to Syria.  Moreover, both of these regimes have a fundamentalist Islamic element within their borders that could easily be set off against their respective regimes.  Border incursions into Saudi Arabia and Jordan could undermine the current regimes which, while duplicitous at times towards the U.S., are friendlier than potential replacement regimes.

The situation we face with these two countries is not unlike the situation with Moqtada al Sadr.  My intelligence source indicates to me that the U.S. should have taken on al Sadr before the anti-Iranian forces inside Iraq had taken him on as their “poster child.”  Taking out al Sadr at the present would mean, paradoxically, removing one of the last Shi’a anti-Iranian influences in Iraq (and probably the most powerful).

This doesn’t mean that al Sadr, the supporter of Hezballah during the recent Isreal-Lebanon war, should not be taken on directly.  In fact, General Casey has indicated that U.S. forces will be stationed in Sadr City (although providing security is far different than taking out the leadership of the Sadrists, an action which I have advocated).  But to accomplish the above, i.e., border security with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, suppression of the Sadrists, will require more troops than are currently deployed to Iraq.  And hence the focus comes back to the force size.

Without the troops to effect the mission, the only option left to win OIF is extremely aggressive offensive operations against the insurgency, beginning with border incursions into Syria.  The next steps (e.g., the politically costly moves of border incursions into Jordan and Saudi Arabia, border incursions into Iran) will have to be decided based on exigencies on the ground.  Operations against the insurgents inside Syria might have such a strategical (in terms of numbers) and demoralizing affect that operations in Jordan become unnecessary.  With AQI and AAS denied access to jihadists and suicide bombers, continued operations by them becomes more dangerous.  They must then fight rather than hire someone to do it for them.

But without the first step of “closing with and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver” in Anbar and inside the Syrian borders, we aren’t taking the required steps in winning OIF, and therefore all other exigencies and potentialities become moot.  Without aggressive offensive operations, the enemy will wait out “the surge,” rendering it inconsequential.

Ultimately, the problem of Iran must be dealt with, and the notions discussed above are considered to be only a temporary amelioration of the problem.

It has been reported that American and Iraqi forces posted north of Baghdad are preparing checkpoints to net any insurgents who flee Iraq’s capital city to avoid an expected anti-terrorist dragnet there.  But this action might be late, since much insurgent relocation activity has already been reported.  AQI was previously reported to have been leaving Baghdad on orders directly from Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who wanted the fighters to avoid a direct house-to-house battle with U.S. forces.

The Sadrists have been ordered to “lay low” and avoid direct confrontation with the U.S., and reportedly there have been a “large” number of militants who have fled to Syria to avoid being trapped and to await the outcome of the upcoming U.S. operations.  Relying on the people who are affected most deeply to know the situation on the ground, since Diyala politicians, tribal and religious figures have demanded that their province be included in Baghdad security plan, it appears conclusive that there has been a comprehensive enemy reaction to the security plan, this reaction primarily being relocation.

Just yesterday, the Islamic State of Iraq issued a press release, one purpose of which was to communicate the desire to “consolidate … the Mujahideen under one banner.”  This might be more than a little wishful thinking.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted that four wars are taking place in Iraq: [1] a Shi’a-Shi’a war in the south, [2] a sectarian war in Baghdad, [3] an insurgency against U.S. troops, and [4] a war with AQI.

This is a gratuitous estimation of the complexity of the situation.  There are no less that eight significant wars occurring within the borders of Iraq at the present.  First, there is the sectarian violence in and around Baghdad (locations where there is mixed religious tradition living together), and the Sunnis are losing that battle to the Shi’a.  Second, there is the war that AQI is waging against the U.S. and Iraqi security forces.  Third, there is the war that AAS is waging against the same, but there is the added complexity that AQI and AAS are warring with each other – especially in the Anbar province – with each group fighting for supremacy.  Fourth, there is the war of terrorism being waged by foreign fighters.  This war knows almost no boundaries, and most of the foreign fighters are purchased by the aforementioned groups to wage war on not only the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, but each other.  According to one well-placed source, most of these fighters are jihadists who will end their lives as suicide bombers (as opposed to snipers or IED-makers), and they are purchased from and through Syrian elements just across the border, elements that operate primarily as a money-making operation.  Fifth, there is the Sunni insurgency in Anbar, coupled with the tribal fight to deny them safe haven.

In Hope and Brutality in Anbar, I discussed the factious nature of the tribal elements and the fact that there is a criminal element to their policing of the region.  The Sunni insurgency is still dominated by Sunni diehards, Sadaam Fedayeen, and other Baathists who cannot accept that they are no longer in power in Iraq.  Some of these fighters are loyal to AQI or AAS, and some are not.  There is internecine warfare among the tribes, Sunni insurgents and other elements of the population in Anbar.  Sixth, there is the war between the Shi’a and Kurds for control of Kirkuk and its copious oil supply.  Seventh, there are ongoing operations between the Turkish forces and the Kurds, and finally, there is the larger, more macroscopic support system for all of the above in Syria and Iran.  In other words, Iran and Syria are at war with the U.S. through proxy fighters.

One of the detriments of living in an open society such as America is that because political support is necessary for war-making, even strategic decisions such as the Baghdad security plan become splattered across the front page of newspapers the world over.  This gives the enemy time to react and flee the coming crackdown.  On the other hand, it might be a better option to take the enemy on in Syria than in central Baghdad.  Accidentally (i.e., through no planning by the U.S.), there is a unparalleled opportunity that presents itself for incorporation into U.S. strategy for the coming security campaign.

I have gone on record suggesting that without border control with Syria and Iran, the counterinsurgency in Iraq cannot be won.  I have also gone on record saying that there aren’t enough U.S. troops to effect this border security (while I have also questioned the size of the so-called “surge”).  The answer (if there is one), I have suggested, is incursions across the border to destroy both the insurgents and their safe haven.  This is true now in the superlative degree with them congregating in collected locations.  Assuming that the U.S. has reliable human intelligence, the use of sensor fuzed weapons and other cluster munitions can be used to destroy entire encampments of terrorists.  This action would rely on air power, thus freeing ground forces to perform interdiction operations (and other border incursions that are necessary).  For these other, non-air asset border incursions, significant use can be made of the U.S. Marines, a significant portion of which is located in the Anbar Province, within hours of the Syrian border.

The terrorist and jihadist elements are also said to be coming across the border from Saudi Arabia and Jordan into Iraq.  However, these means of ingress are small compared to Syria.  Moreover, both of these regimes have a fundamentalist Islamic element within their borders that could easily be set off against their respective regimes.  Border incursions into Saudi Arabia and Jordan could undermine the current regimes which, while duplicitous at times towards the U.S., are friendlier than potential replacement regimes.

The situation we face with these two countries is not unlike the situation with Moqtada al Sadr.  My intelligence source indicates to me that the U.S. should have taken on al Sadr before the anti-Iranian forces inside Iraq had taken him on as their “poster child.”  Taking out al Sadr at the present would mean, paradoxically, removing one of the last Shi’a anti-Iranian influences in Iraq (and probably the most powerful).

This doesn’t mean that al Sadr, the supporter of Hezballah during the recent Isreal-Lebanon war, should not be taken on directly.  In fact, General Casey has indicated that U.S. forces will be stationed in Sadr City (although providing security is far different than taking out the leadership of the Sadrists, an action which I have advocated).  But to accomplish the above, i.e., border security with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, suppression of the Sadrists, will require more troops than are currently deployed to Iraq.  And hence the focus comes back to the force size.

Without the troops to effect the mission, the only option left to win OIF is extremely aggressive offensive operations against the insurgency, beginning with border incursions into Syria.  The next steps (e.g., the politically costly moves of border incursions into Jordan and Saudi Arabia, border incursions into Iran) will have to be decided based on exigencies on the ground.  Operations against the insurgents inside Syria might have such a strategical (in terms of numbers) and demoralizing affect that operations in Jordan become unnecessary.  With AQI and AAS denied access to jihadists and suicide bombers, continued operations by them becomes more dangerous.  They must then fight rather than hire someone to do it for them.

But without the first step of “closing with and destroying the enemy by fire and maneuver” in Anbar and inside the Syrian borders, we aren’t taking the required steps in winning OIF, and therefore all other exigencies and potentialities become moot.  Without aggressive offensive operations, the enemy will wait out “the surge,” rendering it inconsequential.

Ultimately, the problem of Iran must be dealt with, and the notions discussed above are considered to be only a temporary amelioration of the problem.

It had to happen sooner or later.  Son and faithful reader Joshua sends me this link.  Jihadists have read, and are ridiculing the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, FM 3-24.

Jihadists and their supporters are reading and mocking the Pentagon’s new counterinsurgency field manual, which was released publicly and posted on several Department of Defense Web sites Friday even though it addresses such sensitive topics as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting.

One Arabic-language jihadist Web site linking to the Pentagon’s 282-page counterinsurgency manual is Tajdeed.net, which routinely calls for the killing of U.S. and British forces in Iraq; praises bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the 9/11 attacks; and whose sponsor, Mohamed al Massari, has called for the assassination of George Bush and Tony Blair.

Al Massari, an expatriate Saudi dissident, and his jihadist Web site are based in Britain, where he lives despite calls by some British leaders for Al Massari’s deportation or arrest.

On the same Tajdeed Web page providing a link to the Pentagon’s new counterinsurgency manual (linked from a related Reuters story posted on the site), there is a gruesome photo of the body of a U.S. Air Force pilot whose parachute is still strapped to his back (apparently Major Troy Gilbert, whose plane went down north of Baghdad in late November).

Next to that photo is a computer-generated smiley face with these words in Arabic: “This one won’t be reading the manual.”

The Arabic-language Tajdeed message board posting is headed: “The American occupation publishes a booklet containing directives to its soldiers on facing the mujahadeen.”

Notable Arabic-language comments from readers of the Tajdeed posting include “Bless you, you who have broken the U.S. and its military and made it resort to booklets.” Also: “The Pentagon is distributing the booklet to save whatever is left of it!,” referring to the U.S. military.

As of 0015et (0815 Iraq time) Monday, 363 people had read the Arabic-language message board containing the link to the manual and the photo of the dead U.S. airman.

The Tajdeed Web site also showcases gory videos of attacks against western targets in Iraq, provides de facto insurgent training manuals, and provides tips for jihadis on how to sneak into Iraq.

Initial reaction to the Pentagon’s global, unrestricted distribution of the counterinsurgency field manual was one of disbelief.

One British private security contractor with employees in Iraq said: “Only in the land of the free could (such) a handbook be produced and issued to the enemy.” The contractor spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company works with the U.S. military.

I have been critical of the COIN manual.  In War, Counterinsurgency and Prolonged Operations, I contrasted FM 3-24 with both Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and the Small Wars Manual, regarding the understanding of both of the later of the effect of prolonged operations on the morale of the warrior, and the reticence of the former on the same subject.  In Snipers Having Tragic Success Against U.S. Troops (still a well-visited post), I made the observation that while snipers were one of two main prongs of insurgent success in Iraq (IEDs being the other), FM 3-24 did not contain one instance of the use of the word sniper (at the time I assessed the draft manual, but the longer, final version suffers the same flaw).

The manual is written more on a doctrinal than tactical level.  It contains broad, sweeping prose on strategical approach, devolving into platitudinous ramblings in places.  Frankly, it is difficult for me to see the advantage that the insurgent might gain by knowing its content.  Body armor improvements and, on the tactical level, things such as satellite patrols, are much more important to the soldier or marine in the field than what FM 3-24 says or doesn’t say.

It would be more detrimental for the Small Wars Manual to fall into the hands of the enemy, if we had followed its counsel (e.g., increasing force size to match the threat, disarming the public, etc.), but of course, it is too late to recall it from the public domain.

In the end, it is true that the openness of the American culture has hindered the war effort.  But the lesson of this story is not that FM 3-24 should have been OPSEC.  It was released into the public domain for a reason.  However, the fact that the British will not deport the individual responsible for this web site points to the robust existence of a pre-9/11 fantasy in which, to the Brits, the blogger is apparently just some boyish amateur rather than a part of jihadism and therefore a mortal danger to the survival of the west.

I am more concerned about the blogger than FM 3-24 or what happens to it.

Thanks to Politics Central (Pajamas Media), we learn that Iraqi insurgents have successfully launched a 24-hour propaganda television station, located in Syria, and with the help of Egypt.

Broadcasting from a secret location in Syria, Al-Qaeda and its allies now have their own 24-hour television station, Pajamas Media has learned. Known as Al-Zawraa, Arabic for “first channel,

There is enough bad news coming from Iraq, and I have done my fair share of reporting and commenting on it.  But from time to time there are outstanding and remarkable stories of victory and success, and these instances are made all the more remarkable by the fact that the main stream media completely ignores them.

In Ansar al Sunna Leadership: U.S. Forces Net Big Insurgent Catch, I reported on the capture of eleven senior level leadership of terrorist group Ansar al Sunna.  Specifically, among those captured were the emirs of Iraq, Ramadi, Baqubah, Tikrit, al Qa’im, Bayji and Baghdad.  They also captured two terrorist facilitators, a courier, an explosives expert and a financier.  The detention of these terrorists delivers a serious blow to the AAS network that is responsible for improvised explosive device attacks and suicide attacks and on Iraqi government, Coalition Forces and Iraqi civilians.  The AAS network is also responsible for multiple kidnappings, small arms attacks and other crimes in the central and northern part of Iraq.  AAS is considered by some to be a leading terror organization in Iraq … Although some AAS senior leadership allegedly hide in Iran, they continually plan attacks to disrupt Iraqi reconstruction efforts.  This allows the AAS leadership to attempt to disrupt Iraqi reconstruction progress using their followers, while keeping the leadership out of harms way.

I went on to point out that an emir is a chieftan, or a military governor of his assigned territory.  This was no small catch of trouble-makers.  Ansar al-Sunna is considered by some experts to be the most important insurgent group in Iraq, and U.S. forces captured more than half a dozen high level leaders of the group.

There is a case to be made that while the killing of Zarqawi had a Hollywood aspect to it, the capture of these insurgents was more significant and will have greater ramifications than the demise of Zarqawi.  Major news organizations should have been clamoring for information in order to weave a story together for the American public.  Americans should have information to share with each other over nightly dinner, and this specific victory should be in the public consciousness for several weeks to come.

Writing the article was relatively easy.  A few minutes worth of study of the press releases, a few more studying the relevant articles about it, and finally a few more studying the research and scholarly works on Ansar al-Sunna, and presto, there was the article.  Granted, Michael Ledeen had to write me and correct (what I hope to be a somewhat inconsequential) point of history on the group, but still, the reader now knows more than s/he did prior to reading my article.  Ignoring my foible on history, the main thrust of the story is encouraging, and would have taken a seasoned reporter only a few minutes to a couple of hours to construct.

But again, on what might be the most significant counterinsurgency victory in months, the main stream media is noticeably absent.  I posted my article on December 2, and decided to give the main stream media Monday, the start of the normal weekly news cycle, to pick up on the story.  But a quick check of the major outlets shows that there is nothing out there.  Is this a symptom of their incompetence or their bias?

Even after the appointment of al Masri to head of al Qaeda in Iraq, fractures were obvious.  In demonstrations by the insurgents after the announcement of the Islamic state of Iraq, the Sunni fighters (probably Baathists and Saddam Fedayeen), chanted slogans that underscored the fractures: “We are from Mujahidin Shura Council and our amir is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. God willing we will set the law of Sharia here and we will fight the Americans.”

Al Masri apparently had no more capital with the residents of Sunni areas than did Zarqawi, and the population is slowly turning on al Qaeda.  In a move analogous to modern Western corporate reorganizations, if the organization is not performing up to standards, after some period of punishment of the workers, the next move is to sack the management.

Al-Qaeda leader in Mesopotamia Abu Hamza Al-Muhajer or Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub Al-Masri pledged support to Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and put his 12,000 men at his disposal.

Sheikh Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi is believed to be Abdullah Rashid Al-Baghdadi, leader of Shura Al-Mujahideen in Iraq. He now acts as the Emir of the Islamic State in Iraq proclaimed on 15/10/06. This State includes the Sunni areas of Baghdad and the provinces of Anbar, Diyala, Kirkuk, Salahuddeen, Nineveh and parts of Babel and Waset.

Iraqi Salafi sources agree that Al-Qaeda leader number 2 Ayman Al-Zahawiri chaired a meeting in Pakistan two weeks ago to discuss the Al-Qaeda leadership issue in Iraq. The delegates who represented Bin Laden at the meeting insisted that an Iraqi Emir takes over the leadership in Iraq to avoid more cracks in Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Note that two days before proclaiming the Islamic State in Iraq, an Al-Qaeda figure named Abu Osama Al-Iraqi called Bin Laden to disown Al-Masri and delegate an Iraqi to lead Al-Qaeda in Iraq as he delegated an Afghani to lead Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the media affairs representatives for the “Islamic State of Iraq” released its first video of a raid of a police station in al-Muqdadiyah.  It is of course questionable whether there are really 12,000 troops at the al Qaeda’s disposal (more particularly, subservient to al Masri), given that there are fractures in the group.

The flurry of activity might be similar to a wounded animal fighting for its life.  However, wounded animals are dangerous.

In a stunning word picture of Ramadi today, Martin Fletcher of the Times Online tells us what he saw as he recently entered Ramadi (h/t SWJ).

Ramadi has been laid waste by two years of warfare. Houses stand shattered and abandoned. Shops are shuttered up. The streets are littered with rubble, wrecked cars, fallen trees, broken lampposts and piles of rubbish.

Fetid water stands in craters. The pavements are overgrown. Walls are pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Side roads have been shut off with concrete barriers to thwart car bombs. Everything is coated in grey dust even the palm trees. The city has no functioning government, no telephones, and practically no basic services except sporadic electricity and water supplies. It has been reduced to a subsistence economy.

There are stray cats and wild dogs, but few cars or humans. Ramadi’s inhabitants have either fled, or learnt to stay indoors.

The letter from al Qaeda high command to Zarqawi indicates just how little true respect they have for their fellow Sunnis in the Anbar Province and just how far they are willing to go to effect their grand plan for a radical Islamic state.

“… be humble to the believers, and smile in people’s faces, even if you are cursing them in your heart, even if it has been said that they are “a bad tribal brother,

One common element we see in our war against radical, Islamic facism is schools and academics being caught in the cross hairs of the enemy.  The targeting of education by the enemy is not restricted to elementary schools, but extends itself to higher education.  In fact, it is fair to say that targeting education is a tactic being used by Islamic facism throughout the Middle East.

The Taliban have exacted a huge toll on schools and teachers for daring to operate in Afghanistan:

Now there is a concerted – armed – campaign to keep such children away from school. Education – particularly that of girls – is associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western forces. Their opponents – including the Taliban – burn schools and attack teachers. The Ministry of Education said 267 schools had been forced to stop classes – a third of them in the south where five years after 9/11, fighting is intensifying as the Nato-led troops confront a resurgent opposition.

One reason proferred for this war on education is pragmatic, and has to do with potential future jihadist fighters.  According to Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan’s education minister, “Once they destroy a child’s chance for education, there is nothing else for the young generation to do and it becomes very easy to encourage them to join their forces.”

There is another pragmatic reason for the attacks on schools.  According to Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), “the extremists want to show the people that the government and the international community cannot keep their promises.”

Directly east in Iran, February of this year saw the first consequences of the nationwide plan to purge university professors and other academics:

Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat) reported that a professor of Communications Sciences of Tehran’s Allaameh Tabatabaie University is the first to be terminated in the new nationwide plan to purge all professors and academics, specifically teaching Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in universities across Iran. It is also rumored that several other of the professors in other fields of study such as Political Science and Law, will also be terminated soon. It is important to mention that a while ago Dr. Mohammad Gorgani who was a faculty member of the School of Law at this very university was sentenced to 10 months in prison and before serving his prison term was flogged.

Further east in Iraq, true to form, the radical Islamic facists have targeted both elementary schools and higher education.  Regarding the ongoing battle for Saba’ al-Bour, the Iraqi government noted that teachers and their families had been expelled from the city, and promised to increase teacher salaries for returning.  And similar to the approach in Iran to higher education, at least 156 university professors have been killed since the war began, and possibly thousands more are believed to have fled to neighboring countries.

Surveying this redacted and abbreviated list of recent attacks on education, it seems that perhaps there is another reason for this tactic.  Without the presupposition that your world view cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, promulgating your world view by using force to attack education makes little sense.

Whether it is the ease of recruitment of jihadists, the embarrassment of a fragile regime, or the belief in the inherent theoretical weakness of Islamic facism, as we move forward into the future and consider strategy and the consequent tactics of our enemy, one thing is clear.  If history is any indication, we should expect war on education to be a point of doctrine with the jihadists.  This war on education will not be an internal jihad or a “striving” for anything.  History shows us that the jihad on education will be violent.