Al Qaeda Operatives Research Articles

More Similar Than Different: Of Checks, Balances, and German and American Government Responses to International Terrorism

This paper examines German and American responses to international terrorism from the end of the cold war to today. While terrorism was not a priority for much the 1990s, the 9/11 attacks generated a long list of domestic counterterrorism measures in both countries. In the international realm, the German government ended up participating in many US initiatives designed to hunt down al-Qaeda operatives and prevent them from launching another attack inside the United States. However, German support was often secret and cooperation in the context of the ‘war on terrorism’ was considered controversial at home. When comparing German and US counterterrorism approaches, the paper takes a unique approach by analysing how parliamentary and presidential government structures affected responses in terms of content and scope. The comparative analysis illustrates various similarities between German and US decision-making processes and argues that checks and balances continue to balance executive power gains in both countries.

Gender, Vulnerability, and the Optics of Violence: The Case of Afiya Siddiqui

Gender, Vulnerability, and the Optics of ViolenceThe Case of Afiya Siddiqui Khanum Shaikh (bio) To call the frame into question is to show that the frame never quite contained the scene it was meant to limn, that something was already outside, which made the very sense of the inside possible, recognizable. The frame never quite determined precisely what it is that we see, think, recognize, and apprehend. Something exceeds the frame that troubles our sense of reality; in other words, something occurs that does not conform to our established understanding of things. Judith Butler, Frames of War, 9 introduction In March 2003 the FBI issued an alert requesting information about Afiya Siddiqui, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who had been living in the United States since 1990. The FBI alert claimed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad—one of the masterminds of the 911 attacks on the US—had implicated Siddiqui as someone who had provided administrative support for Al-Qaeda operations in the US. This was the first time the FBI had issued a notice linking a woman with Al-Qaeda’s operations. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft named Siddiqui as one of the seven most wanted Al-Qaeda fugitives and described her as “armed and dangerous” and as a “terrorist facilitator.”1 The US media also began circulating Siddiqui’s name, referring to her often as “Lady Al-Qaeda” or “Al-Qaeda Mom” or “Mata Hari of Al-Qaeda,” and casting her as a dangerous female terrorist.2 Seven years later, in 2010, a US criminal court convicted Siddiqui for attempted assault against US Army personnel in Afghanistan. What is especially noteworthy about this case is that Siddiqui was never charged with or convicted of terrorist activity, even as she has continued to [End Page 29] serve an eighty-six-year prison sentence for her criminal conviction since 2010 at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Fort Worth, Texas. Siddiqui’s controversial case animated two contrasting discourses about Muslim women in the war on terror in the US and in Pakistan. In the US criminal case Siddiqui emerged as a threat to US national security and as a potentially dangerous agent of violence with links to global terrorist networks. Conversely, in Pakistan, her trial ignited a movement of protest among religio-political groups who deemed the criminal trial to be a cover-up for her enforced abduction and secret detention in joint US-Pakistan counterterrorism operations. In these mobilizations, Siddiqui is deployed as an injured and pious daughter of Pakistan who has suffered violations at the hand of US imperial power and its collaborations with a corrupt and weak Pakistani state rather than as an agent of violence herself. In this essay I juxtapose the mobilizations of Afiya Siddiqui as a deeply violated victim-subject of the war on terror among her supporters in Pakistan, on the one hand, with her emergence in the US criminal trial as an agent of violence and a threat to US national security, on the other. My review draws on feminist analyses of nationalism and nationalist movements and the centrality of the gendered body to the articulation of religio-political and nationalist projects.3 In Pakistan I examine the political and emotional force of her deployment within an “Islam vs. West” binary that posits Siddiqui’s imprisonment in the US as Western domination over an emasculated Pakistani state, and her recovery as a religious and moral obligation. I also build on Ramzi Kassem’s analysis of the gendered erasures in the war on terror, in which he examines how the US government’s strategy of regulating the optics of the violence in the extraterritorial front of the war on terror (i.e., its policies of rendition, detentions in secret prisons, interrogation practices, civilian deaths by drone strikes, etc.) is central to it self-production as a beacon of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy. To consider how various moments in her US trial produce her as a “possibly terrorist” subject who does not elicit sympathy, I draw on Judith Butler’s analysis of the mechanisms through which certain populations are “cast as threats to human life as we know it rather...

Letter From Yemen: Failed State or Just Failing?

Letter From Yemen:Failed State or Just Failing? Christopher Thornton (bio) On the morning of September 17, 2008, a Hilux pickup truck and a Toyota Prado pulled up in front of the American embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, and exploded. Seventeen people were killed, including six embassy guards, but, as is the case with nearly every event of consequence in the Middle East, reports were conflicting. Some said there were six attackers, some said four. Some said the lone non-Yemeni victim was an Indian woman, others said it was a Yemeni American. In a macabre coincidence, the attack on the USS Cole in 2003, while it was docked in the port city of Aden, also killed seventeen. AFEW weeks after the bombing I was sitting about a mile from the embassy in the lounge of the Movenpick Hotel, perched on a hilltop with a sweeping panorama of the city below. Few guests were on hand to take in the view. The bar was empty, and the staff at the reception desk fiddled with paperwork and tapped monotonously on computer keyboards, surrounded by the silent, cavernous entrance hall. Business was only slightly better at the less ostentatious Sheraton, a few hundred yards down the road. The presence of either hotel showed appalling naiveté, or bravado, depending on one’s point of view: who would think of dropping an opulent hotel in the poorest, most conflict-ridden part of the Arab world? But somehow the board members of the international chains must have believed that the rebels who had been running wild for decades would be defeated and a victory in the “war on terror” would send the Al Qaeda operatives fleeing to Somalia or neighboring Saudi Arabia. Then the five-star rooms would fill with tourists and international businessmen chasing the investment that would flow in. It hasn’t quite worked out that [End Page 579] way. Many of the provinces are still ruled by tribal warlords; the country’s president of thirty-two years, Ali Abdullah Al-Saleh, has been driven from power; the Shiite Al-Houthi rebels have taken over the capital; and the primary question now is whether Yemen is a failed state or just a failing one. Since there were few customers for the café waitress to look after she was killing time reading a Thomas Pynchon novel. She had the olive brown skin and delicate features of the Yemeni women I had seen in the markets covered in black abayas, their eyes peeking out from between the slits of their niqabs. But there the similarity stopped. Her skirt ended a few inches above the knee and her hair tumbled to her shoulders in swirling black curls. I didn’t know which was more surprising, the fact that she could pore over Thomas Pynchon in a country where most of the women couldn’t read in any language, or the name on her name tag—Mary. By the standard of Yemen’s cultural norms Mary was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a freak. I asked her, with a touch of sarcasm, if business had been slow. She put down her book and rolled her eyes, and I soon learned why her life had followed a path so different from the women picking through vegetables in the market. Her father was a successful businessman who had lived abroad for most of her childhood, and so she had been educated at a boarding school run by Irish nuns. Since then Mary had become a living embodiment of a society that had splintered in many ways. There are so many fault lines in Yemeni society—tribal and political, but primarily tribal—that it could hardly be called a society at all. It was rather an agglomeration of overlapping alliances, and these were by nature tenuous, far more fragile than the rugged mountain ridges circling the city, and always leaning in the direction of the political winds. I asked her how long business had slumped. “Ever since … well … you know … ” I knew what she meant in the broadest sense, but not exactly, because there had been a lot of “you knows” in Yemen recently. Yemen was a country plagued...

Explaining a Turning Point in Australian Jihadism

After 2003, Australia's domestic jihadist plots shifted from being externally guided to being entirely self-starting, which was out of sync with international trends. To identify the causes behind this turning point, this article first provides a brief overview of jihadist activity in Australia, showing how the post-2003 shift differentiates it from comparable countries. The article then examines several potential explanations for the shift that prove insufficient. Following that, the article demonstrates that the shift occurred because key facilitators between Australia and South Asia were removed or deterred. This factor, combined with the limited strategic importance of Australia, low levels of jihadist radicalization, and limited diaspora involvement from the countries most central to Al Qaeda operations, explains Australia's specific pattern of jihadist activity.

Early detection of the lone wolf: advancement of counter-terrorism investigations with an absence or abundance of information and intelligence

The consequences of large-scale, al-Qaeda style operations have seen billions of dollars spent on military interventions; a raft of new law enforcement and intelligence agency (LEIA) powers and laws; and an exponential growth in public and private security interventions. Large-scale terrorist operations aside, lone-wolf terrorists have now become one of society's greatest threats. This is because lone wolves are fundamentally and ideologically driven to undertake terrorist activities autonomously; they generally adhere to no hierarchal structure; and they meticulously plan and prepare such acts while maintaining virtual invisibility within the community. As a result of their independence, astute preparation, and adept anonymity, the threat of lone-wolf terrorism presents a range of issues that are problematic for LEIA in their attempt at identifying those with a manifest hatred that leads to extreme violence. LEIA are further disadvantaged by a number of operational obstacles, which include the navigation of complex investigations offering limited, or conversely, an abundance of information. It is essential to recognise, however, that the lone-wolf terrorist never truly operates without the influence and/or assistance of like-minded individuals or groups; and that this may be the key to their undoing. It is the position of this paper that religion is not the sole motivating factor behind individual acts of terror, and that gathering and deciphering of information in juxtaposition with detecting, identifying, and tracking radical individuals pertains to a singular and/or combination of differing motives—political, ideological, and/or religious.

Taking Liberties: The Personal Jurisdiction of Military Commissions

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives attacked civilian and military targets on US territory, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of economic loss. The next day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1368 characterizing the attack by Al Qaeda as a threat to international peace and security and recognizing the right of states to use armed force in self defense.

Necessary secrets: national security, the media, and the rule of law

Leaking-the unauthorized disclosure to the press of secret information-is a well-established part of the U.S. government's normal functioning. Gabriel Schoenfeld examines history and legal precedent to argue that leaks of highly classified national-security secrets have reached hitherto unthinkable extremes, with dangerous potential for post-9/11 America. He starts with the New York Times' recent decision to reveal the existence of top-secret counterterrorism programs, tipping off al Qaeda operatives to the intelligence methods designed to apprehend them. He then steps back to the Founding Fathers' intense preoccupation with secrecy in the conduct of foreign policy. Shifting to the 20th century, he scrutinizes some of the more extraordinary leaks and their consequences, from the public disclosure of the vulnerability of Japanese diplomatic codes in the years before Pearl Harbor to the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the Nixon era to the systematic exposure of undercover CIA agents by the renegade CIA agent Philip Agee. Returning to our present dilemmas, Schoenfeld discovers a growing rift between a press that sees itself as the heroic force promoting the public's right to know and a government that needs to safeguard information vital to the effective conduct of national defense. Schoenfeld places the tension between openness and security in the context of a broader debate about freedom of the press and its limits. With the United States still at war, Necessary Secrets is of burning contemporary interest. But it is much more than a book of the moment. Grappling with one of the most perplexing conundrums of our democratic order, it offers a masterful contribution to the enduring challenge of interpreting the First Amendment.

War as an Institution of International Hierarchy: Carl Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan and Contemporary US Practice

The purpose of this article is to consider what war might look like as an institution of international hierarchy. This might not seem all that challenging because we have a long history of pre-Westphalian warfare to draw on. The first section of the article examines that history to demonstrate how war was gradually transformed from an institution of hierarchy to an institution of international society. The second and third sections of the article are perhaps more challenging because they unsettle English School perspectives on war. This is not simply a reference to the use in the third section of Carl Schmitt to help us understand the evolution of irregular warfare and what that means for normative relationships between combatants. It is also a reference to the argument of the fourth section, which is that the legal regime advanced by the United States in the war on terror in effect globalises the legal hierarchy of civil war. This argument is made with reference to the Military Commissions Act and the case of Omar Khadr and Mohamed Jawad. The article concludes by noting that it is, under Obama, more likely that al Qaeda operatives will be tried in a civilian court and less likely that the detainee will be subjected to aggressive interrogation techniques. Yet to the extent that the 2009 Military Commissions Act holds open the possibility of prosecuting enemy combatants simply for engaging in hostilities, contemporary US practice continues to challenge our understanding of war as an institution of anarchical society.

Radicalization and Subversion: Al Qaeda and the 7 July 2005 Bombings and the 2006 Airline Bombing Plot

This article analyzes the suicide bomb attacks on four London transportation targets on 7 July 2005 and the plot to bomb simultaneously at least seven American and Canadian passenger airliners as they departed from London's Heathrow Airport. American, British, and Pakistani authorities thwarted this planned attack in August 2006. Both incidents are among the most important Al Qaeda operations in recent years. Initially, they were dismissed by the authorities, pundits, and the media alike as the work of amateur terrorists—untrained “bunches of guys” acting entirely on their own with no links to Al Qaeda. Subsequent evidence, however, has come to light, which reveals clear links to senior Al Qaeda commanders operating in Pakistan's lawless frontier border area with Afghanistan.

A Counterterrorism Strategy for the Obama Administration

This article assesses the scope and nature of the current terrorist threat to the United States and suggests a strategy to counter it. Al-Qaeda continues to pose the most serious terrorist threat to the U.S. today. If the September 11, 2001 attacks have taught us anything, it is that al-Qaeda is most dangerous when it has a sanctuary or safe haven from which to plan and plot attacks. Al-Qaeda has acquired such a sanctuary in Pakistan's Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and its North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and surrounding environs. Accordingly, the highest priority for the new American presidential administration must be to refocus our—and our allies'—attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaeda began to collapse after 2001, but has now re-grouped. This will entail understanding that al-Qaeda and its local militant jihadi allies cannot be defeated by military means alone. Success will require a dual strategy of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities—that is, continuing to kill and capture al-Qaeda commanders and operatives—along with breaking the cycle of terrorist recruitment among radicalized “bunches of guys” as well as more effectively countering al-Qaeda's effective information operations. The U.S. thus requires a strategy that harnesses the overwhelming kinetic force of the American military as part of a comprehensive vision to transform other, non-kinetic instruments of national power in order to deal more effectively with irregular and unconventional threats. This article first discusses the scope and details of the terrorist threat today and then proposes a counterterrorism strategy for the new presidential administration. It focuses first on creating a micro approach to address the deteriorating situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It then considers the requirements of a broader macro strategy to counter terrorism and insurgency.

Reframing Religious Violence after 9/11: Analysis of the ACM Campaign to Exploit the Threat of Terrorism

This study examines the concerted efforts of anticult movement (ACM) actors to weave narratives of cult brainwashing and mind control into the tragic events of 9/11. Key ACM leaders launched a national media campaign capitalizing on widespread fears and apprehensions surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks in an effort to control the framing of the incident as just another form of cult violence and al-Qaeda operatives as brainwashed cultists. By analyzing ACM websites, press releases, media interviews with ACM actors and news stories citing anticult figures as experts, it can be shown how specific framing tasks were employed, targets identified, motives imputed and strategic policy solutions proposed. Indeed, movement activists lobbied to promote the ACM interpretive framework as a master frame and universal strategy to combat radical Islamic terrorism. However, the ACM media campaign was severely hampered by critical social and political obstacles and in the end fell short of movement expectations. The factors impeding movement success are examined and overlapping conceptual issues involving religious movements and terrorism are discussed.

Fighting Cosmic Warriors: Lessons from the First Seven Years of the Global War on Terror

This article argues that a successful strategy for fighting the Global War on Terror (GWOT) requires actions aimed not only at defeating the Al Qaeda network and denying its operatives sanctuary, but also efforts to delegitimize Al Qaeda's ideology; the United States has focused on the former at the expense of the latter. The GWOT requires a new strategy, one that continues to target Al Qaeda operatives and their assets, while undermining Al Qaeda's message. This requires a better understanding of Al Qaeda's ideology, how U.S. foreign policy may fuel that ideology, and a strategy for undermining militant Islam's worldview.

“Failed” States and Global Security: Empirical Questions and Policy Dilemmas1

Weak and impoverished states and ungoverned areas are not only a threat to their people and a burden on regional economies, but are also susceptible to exploitation by terrorists, tyrants, and international criminals. We will work to bolster threatened states, provide relief in times of crisis, and build capacity in developing states to increase their progress (2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America). One of the dominant influences shaping contemporary North‐South relations is the perception that the main threats to international security emanate disproportionately from poorly governed states in the developing world. Beyond representing the hard core of today’s development challenge, such countries are said to enable a host of transnational dangers from terrorism to weapons proliferation, organized crime, pandemic disease, environmental degradation, regional conflict, humanitarian catastrophes, and energy insecurity (Crocker 2003; Fearon and Laitin 2004:13; Fukuyama 2004:92; Rice 2006). This perception is particularly prominent within advanced market democracies, and notably the United States, where it has gained the status of conventional wisdom. In response, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) governments have begun to adapt their defense, diplomatic, and development policies and instruments to help prevent state failure and respond to its aftermath as well as to try to quarantine themselves from the presumed ‘‘spillover’’ effects of state weakness. Such moves have been mirrored by those of international institutions, including the United Nations and the World Bank. What is striking is how little empirical analysis has been undertaken to document and explore the connection between state failure and transnational security threats (Patrick 2006a). Scholars and policymakers have advanced blanket associations between these two sets of phenomena, often on the basis of anecdotes or single examples (e.g., al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan) rather than through sober analysis of global patterns or in-depth case studies that reveal causal linkages. These sweeping generalizations provide little analytical insight or guidance for policymakers, since they fail to distinguish among categories of weak and failing states or to ask whether (and how) particular developing countries are associated with particular threats. Three things have been missing from the discussion. One is appreciation that states in the developing world vary along a continuum in terms of institutional strength, both overall and in particular spheres; equally important, their level of dysfunction can represent a variable mixture of inadequate capacity and insufficient will (Patrick 2006b). A second is a nuanced appreciation of the complex linkages between state weakness, on the one hand, and a country’s propensity to

“CNN with Secrets:” 9/11, the CIA, and the Organizational Roots of Failure

On 8 January 2000, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lost track of three suspected al-Qaeda operatives traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Bangkok, Thailand. Several days earlier, intellig...

Al Qaeda's Operations: Project Management Analysis

In recent years, Al Qaeda succeeded in perpetrating several terrorist attacks that were successfully calculated and executed. Each operation may be considered to be analyzed as a project. This article analyzes the events taken by Al Qaeda prior to their operations, focusing on planning, controlling, and decision-making processes, using common tools from the project management area. This unique approach enables an understanding of the operational aspects of Al Qaeda and the managerial processes that its leaders were focused on. It was found that Al Qaeda's greatest managerial strength lies in human resource management, which includes team members recruiting, developing a clear organizational structure, team developing and team members motivating. Al Qaeda's greatest weakness lies in time management, resulting with many operations’ schedule delays.

Understanding political Islam in Somalia

By the time this article is published, much will have transpired in recent months within Somalia. Between December 2006 and January 2007, the Ethiopian and United States governments invaded Somalia by land and air, respectively, ousting the ruling Union of Islamic Courts based in Mogadishu. Now, aided by neighboring African peacekeeping forces, Ethiopia and the US are attempting to reinstate Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government, once based in Baidoa, within Mogadishu city proper. The Transitional Federal Government, in its first major declaration of power over Mogadishu, instituted martial law over the city, cracking down on the same public services that the Union of Islamic Courts were criticized for targeting. Egypt’s forces, reported to be 15,000 strong, remain stationed throughout Somalia but are due to withdraw in the coming weeks, once peacekeeping forces commissioned by the African Union arrive. US air, ground and naval forces, however, are stationed indefinitely within the region in an attempt to track down three suspected al-Qaeda operatives assumed to be in collusion with the Union of Islamic Courts, though the Courts have denied any affiliation. Not long after US military strikes on Somalia, on January 17, 2007, in public remarks at a Somalia conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC (Frazer 2007), US State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer stated that the US will pursue three objectives in Somalia: (1) mobilize international support for the Transitional Federal Cont Islam (2007) 1:89–103 DOI 10.1007/s11562-007-0001-3

Al Qaeda in Europe: the new battleground of international jihad

The July 2005 London bombings are yet another example of how has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the global War on Terror. The region has become a critical 'ground zero' for Islamist terrorists, not only as a target but as a base of operations. The implications for the United States are tremendous: under existing law, for example, terrorists carrying European passports could easily enter the country. It is not a coincidence, in fact, that every attack planned or executed against the United States, including 9/11, has had strong European ties. This is the first book in English that dissects Islamic terrorism in Europe. The book fills a critical gap in the understanding of the new threats posed by Islamist terrorism. Vidino analyses the causes of this dangerous situation while providing an extensive historical overview of Islamic terrorist activities in Europe. The book shows how terrorists - most of them native to the Continent - raise money, communicate, and hide in plain sight in the suburbs of London, Paris, and Amsterdam. It presents with painful clarity the difficulties that law enforcement agencies world-wide have had in shutting terror cells down. Finally, the book describes three of the most important networks operating in Europe. Vidino analyses events such as the Madrid train bombings, the thwarted plot to attack various European capitals with chemical weapons, and the movements of hundreds of European Muslims who are joining terrorist groups in Iraq to fight U.S. forces. Vidino includes fascinating information taken from a dozen countries' original documentation (intelligence reports, indictments, court transcripts), plus transcripts of conversations among al Qaeda operatives that have been intercepted by intelligence agencies. Al Qaeda in Europe is authoritative, informative and written in a lively narrative that will captivate general readers, and become a valuable new resource for scholars and government officials.

“When All Muslims Unite …”: Islamism, Identification, and Western Fears of Terrorism in Africa

The rapidly successful expulsion from Somalia in early January 2007 of Islamist faction the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) provides a tempting tactical model for countering terrorism in far-flung locations. Yet, in some respects, the success of the model was surprising. The Union of Islamic Courts took Mogadishu in early June 2006, and steadily expanded its control across the southern portion of Somalia, meeting little resistance. The UIC seemed so secure in its control of southern Somalia that, until the eve of its defeat, it boasted openly of ambitions of creating a united Islamic “Greater Somalia,” including all of breakaway Somaliland, Djibouti, and parts of Ethiopia. The operation was carried out by Ethiopian ground and air forces on behalf of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which was constituted through regional negotiations in Kenya more than two years ago but had never gained more than a tenuous hold in the provincial town of Baidoa, far from the capital of Mogadishu. The Ethiopians acted with the tacit approval of Washington, and received minimal participation from U.S. Special Forces advisers. Faced with overwhelming firepower from the Ethiopians, the Islamist faction fell like a house of cards, its leaders and militias melting away under cover of darkness rather than waging a fight. Their displacement and the subsequent installment of the TFG in Mogadishu was followed by U.S. air strikes in Mogadishu and along the Kenyan border against alleged Al Qaeda operatives allied to the deposed Islamists. Even before the Pentagon indicated whether or not those air strikes had hit their intended targets—Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese national suspected by the U.S. of being a long-time associate of Osama bin Laden based in East Africa, and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, two other alleged Al Qaeda operatives suspected in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa—U.S. military strategists were already indicating that the combined use of selective strikes and “surrogate forces” like the Ethiopians provided a “blueprint ... they hoped to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe.” Targeting suspected terrorists using military methods, however, is at best a dubious enterprise. Certainly, the killing and/or arrest of key known associates of Osama bin Laden has undermined and isolated the group’s core leadership. The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the supposed leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, however, did little to defuse the violent insurgency there. While the impact of the U.S. air strikes on possible terror-related activity in Somalia may always be uncertain, the effects of those attacks

The Changing Face of Al Qaeda and the Global War on Terrorism

This article assesses current trends and developments in terrorism within the context of the overall progress being achieved in the global war on terrorism (GWOT). It examines first the transformation that Al Qaeda has achieved in the time since the 11 September 2001 attacks and the variety of affiliated or associated groups (e.g., what are often referred to as Al Qaeda "clones" or "franchises") that have emerged to prosecute the jihadist struggle. It then focuses on recent developments in Saudi Arabia and especially Iraq in order to shed further light on Al Qaeda's current strategy and operations. In conclusion, this article offers some broad recommendations regarding the future conduct of the GWOT.­

Cumulative Deterrence and the War on Terrorism

In early 2003 an Israeli agent in the Gaza Strip telephoned Mustafa, a wealthy Palestinian merchant in Gaza, to inform him that over the previous three months his son Ahmad had been preparing for a suicide bombing mission in Israel. Mustafa was told that if his son followed through with his plans, he and his family would suffer severe consequences: their home would be demolished, and Israel would cut off all commercial ties with Mustafa's company. Neither he nor the members of his family would ever be permitted to enter Israel again. (1) Faced with this ultimatum, Mustafa confronted his son and convinced him that the cost to his family would far outweigh any possible benefits his sacrifice might have for the Palestinian people. Since the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, Israeli authorities have prevented more than 340 suicide bombings from advancing beyond the planning stages. In addition, they have intercepted 142 would-be bombers, most of whom were en route to destinations deep within Israel. (2) The war against Palestinian terrorism, like the war on terrorism more broadly, aims to prevent terrorists, including suicide bombers, from achieving their objectives. Suicide bombers are the most sophisticated smart bombs ever devised. They are well integrated into their communities, they are mobile, and they often can choose the best moment in which to wreak the greatest havoc and produce the highest number of casualties. Yet as the case of Mustafa and his son illustrates, the right mix of threats in at least some instances challenges the conventional wisdom that suicide bombers are undeterrable. In the war on terrorism, in which suicide bombers have repeatedly demonstrated their deadly efficiency, the United States and its friends and allies confront challenges similar to those Israel has dealt with for years. To meet these challenges, the United States and other opponents of terrorism will need a strategy that can more effectively address this threat. Classical deterrence theory, which emerged after World War II with the buildup of the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union and the subsequent concern over the possibility of total annihilation, is inapplicable to the war on terrorism. The Cold War divided the world into two opposing camps. The United States and the Soviet Union, with more than enough destructive power to wipe out humanity several times over, relied on their burgeoning arsenals to maintain the peace between them. The literature on classical deterrence inspired by the Cold War typically characterizes the deterrent threat posed by the United States and the Soviet Union as a dichotomy: nuclear deterrence would be successful so long as the price for launching a nuclear war was mutual assured destruction. Although classical deterrence, as articulated and practiced during the Cold War, did not prevent conventional conflicts such as the Korean War and the war in Vietnam, in neither case did the United States or the Soviet Union resort to the use of nuclear weapons to bring them to an end. In some situations, however, the logic of classical deterrence theory has proved hugely irrelevant. One particularly notable case is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Following defeat in three full-scale wars in 1948, 1956, and 1967, Israel's committed enemies responded by gradually shifting their main objective from the total destruction of Israel to a strategy of limited war to achieve limited objectives. Another effect of these defeats (including the war in 1973) was a noticeable increase in moderation among Arab leaders, including Egypt's Anwar al-Sadat, Syria's Hafiz al-Assad, Jordan's King Hussein, and even the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat vis-a-vis their Israeli neighbor. A second significant exception to the usefulness of classical deterrence theory is the current war on global terrorism. Classical deterrence had no relevance for the 19 al Qaeda operatives who took control of four commercial jetliners on 11 September 2001, slamming two into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. …