The
al-Qaida franchise
David Harris
The Jerusalem Post,
January 22, 2008
When in December 2007 an
American citizen went on television to tear up his United States
passport, one was reminded of the anti-war movement of the 1960s
and '70s. However, in the days of flower power the protesters
were fiercely American, but the man in the modern version belongs
to a movement calling for America's destruction.
Born Adam Pearlman, these
days Adam Yahya Gadahn wears a keffiyeh and a substantial beard.
He is known as al-Qaida's American spokesman, or Azzam the American.
In a 50-minute address he appeals to the anti-war lobby of today
to convert to Islam. That is all it will take for these Americans
to no longer be considered the enemy. Just by saying the conversion
verse (La ilah illa Allah, Muhammad rasoolu Allah. I testify that
there is no true god deity but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger
of God) you will be absolved of all previous sins, he tells his
audience.
Just that, and you will no longer be
the target.
Westerners have that choice, but life-long
Muslims seemingly do not. Most of the deaths at the hands of Sunni
terrorists take place right here in the Middle East. And most
of the victims are Muslims.
But are these the work of al-Qaida?
Did Osama Bin Laden or one of his generals give the specific order
to attack the prime-ministerial compound in Algiers or a group
of tourists visiting the ancient synagogue on Djerba, Tunisia,
or the shootings of French and Belgian nationals in Saudi Arabia
and Yemen?
At the end of 2007 a group claiming
to be a part of al-Qaida said the organization carried out a deadly
attack in the West African country. But did al-Qaida really push
the button?
Welcome to the al-Qaida franchise.
The term has been used for a while
in counter-terror circles and is beginning to enter the Bush administration
lexicon. It is part of a wider recognition that the al-Qaida label
has become much bigger than Bin-Laden and even al-Qaida itself.
It may sound like an odd comparison
but al-Qaida has become the McDonald's of the terror world. The
modus operandi is pretty much the same around the world, but the
management is different from country to country.
What terror experts are trying to ascertain
is whether those individual managers are legitimate franchisees
or simply stealing the al-Qaida brand name.
There does not seem to be a clear cut
answer. Al-Qaida in Iraq and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb appear
to be franchise winners, receiving public approbation from al-Qaida
HQ - somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan (we think).
However, bombings in the Sinai Peninsula,
the operations of Fatah Al-Islam in Lebanon, the entry into Gaza
of various radical Sunni groups, including the firing of the Grad
rocket onto Ashkelon, and dozens of other incidents around the
region are subject to much more debate.
Intelligence agencies have to painstakingly
sort through bomb sites, destroyed buildings and cars, and even
human remains, in order to determine what types of explosives
were used, where they were made and if identical substances were
brought into play elsewhere.
The Internet of course is another tool
used by terrorists and would-be copycats. There are thousands
of Web sites, email rings and chat rooms devoted to passing on
information. Some are simply propaganda tools - where gruesome
videos are distributed - but others not only teach bomb-making
skills, they also enable indirect contact (through at least one
intermediary) with the master terrorists.
International intelligence agencies
follow these same paths - both by monitoring Internet traffic
but also by role-playing infiltrations - with the hope of preventing
attacks and locating perpetrators.
On occasion these hunts do lead to
the lairs of al-Qaida, but not always, by any means.
The work of counter terrorists in detecting
their nemeses is more often than not in vain. The franchisees,
the copycats and al-Qaida HQ have all become adept at covering
their tracks and evading detection. When they suspect the enemy
is close by they shut down existing channels of communication
and open new ones.
And all the while the attacks continue.
Whether the terrorists out there are
members of al-Qaida or not, they have adopted the mantras and
tactics of Bin-Laden. So far they appear to be winning, particularly
in the Muslim world. And while the United States says, sometimes
almost boastfully, it has not been attacked on home soil since
2001, if the threats from Bin-Laden and 'Azzam the American are
to be believed, it is only a matter of time before al-Qaida or
one of its franchisees launches a major attack in America.
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The
power of 'soft' versus violent Islamism
Daniel Pipes
The Jerusalem Post,
February 27, 2008
This month, Denmark's police
foiled a terrorist plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the artist
who drew the strongest of the 12 Muhammad images, prompting most
of the country's newspapers to reprint his cartoon as an act of
solidarity and a signal to Islamists that their threats and violence
will not succeed.
This incident points to
the Islamists' mixed success in curbing Western freedom of speech
about Muhammad - think of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses or the
Deutsche Oper's production of Mozart's Idomeneo. If threats of
violence sometimes do work, they as often provoke, anger, and
inspire resistance. A polite demarche can achieve more. Illustrating
this, note two parallel efforts, dating from 1955 and 1997, to
remove nearly-identical American courthouse sculptures of Muhammad.
In 1997, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations demanded that part of a 1930s frieze in the main chamber
of the US Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. be sandblasted
into oblivion, on the grounds that Islam prohibits representations
of its prophet. The seven-foot high marble relief by Adolph Weinman
depicts Muhammad as one of 18 historic lawgivers. His left hand
holds the Koran in book form (a jarring historical inaccuracy
from the Muslim point of view) and his right holds a sword.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, however,
rejected CAIR's pressure campaign, finding that the depiction
"was intended only to recognize [Muhammad] … as an
important figure in the history of law; it is not intended as
a form of idol worship." Rehnquist only conceded that court
literature should mention that the representation offends Muslim
sensibilities. His decision met with riots and injuries in India.
In contrast, back in 1955, a campaign
to censor a representation of Muhammad in another American court
building did succeed. That would be the New York City-based courthouse
of the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State
Supreme Court. Built in 1902, it featured on its roof balustrade
an eight-foot marble statue of "Mohammed" by Charles
Albert Lopez as one of 10 historic lawgivers. This Muhammad statue
also held a Koran in his left hand and a scimitar in the right.
Though visible from the street, the
identities of the lawgivers high atop the building were difficult
to discern. Only with a general overhaul of the building in February
1953, including its statues, did the public become aware of their
identities. The Egyptian, Indonesian, and Pakistani ambassadors
to the United Nations responded by asking the US Department of
State to use its influence to have the Muhammad statue not renovated
but removed.
Characteristically, the State Department
dispatched two employees to convince New York City's public works
commissioner, Frederick H. Zurmuhlen, to accommodate the ambassadors.
The court, Chief Clerk George T. Campbell, reported, "also
got a number of letters from Mohammedans about that time, all
asking the court to get rid of the statue." All seven appellate
justices recommended to Zurmuhlen that he take down the statue.
Even though, as Time magazine put it,
"the danger that any large number of New Yorkers would take
to worshiping the statue was, admittedly, minimal," the ambassadors
got their way. Zurmuhlen had the offending statue carted off to
a storehouse in Newark, New Jersey. As Zurmuhlen figured out what
to do with it, the Times reported in 1955, the statue "has
lain on its back in a crate for several months." Its ultimate
disposition is unknown.
Then, rather than replace the empty
pedestal on the court building roof, Zurmuhlen had the nine remaining
statues shifted around to disguise the empty space, with Zoroaster
replacing Muhammad at the westerly corner spot. Over a half-century
later, that is where matters remain.
Recalling these events of 1955 suggests
several points. First, pressure by Muslims on the West to conform
to Islamic customs predates the current Islamist era. Second,
even when minimal numbers of Muslims lived in the West, such pressures
could succeed. Finally, contrasting the parallel 1955 and 1997
episodes suggests that the earlier approach of ambassadors making
polite representations - not high-handed demands backed up by
angry mobs, much less terrorist plots - can be the more effective
route.
This conclusion confirms my general
argument - and the premise of the Islamist Watch project - that
Islamists working quietly within the system achieve more than
those relying on ferocity and bellicosity. Ultimately, soft Islamism
presents dangers at least as great as does violent Islamism.
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