Strategy to defeat the terror enemy.
It is too easy to characterize all terrorists as either affiliated with states or unaffiliated. Reality is murkier than that.
In Laurie Mylroie’s stark conception of international terrorism, the 9/11 attacks could not have been executed without the resources of a state. Furthermore, she says, Iraq worked with Islamic militants throughout the 1990s and sponsored the 9/11 attacks. (*)
We know Dr Mylroie was wrong on a few things. Saddam did not rain anthrax upon Israeli cities when Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced despite her conviction that it would. Peter Bergen concludes she is a “crackpot” in a Washington Monthly essay. (†)
A number of analysts have challenged Mylroie’s position that Saddam’s Iraq sponsored the 9/11 attacks. Mylroie contends that the CIA is withholding evidence of the Saddam regime’s complicity with the attacks. (‡) She wants evidence released of the 707 airplane that was at Salman Pak, a terrorist training camp near Baghdad possibly used to train the 9/11 hijackers. (§)
The main question, however, remains: are non-state entities capable of pulling off terrorist attacks like 9/11? Mylroie could be wrong on a lot of issues, but if she is right that they are incapable of such attacks without state help, she has won a critical point.
It is conceivable that a terrorist group could afford to refuse the help and sponsorship of a nation-state, including funding and protection. Yet, given the choice, a terrorist group would not refuse such aid. That would not be economically rational. The level of aid provided by a state would be too high for a terrorist to pass on.
Perhaps the better question is what incentive if any does a terrorist group have to refuse state aid? In a context of competent and adequate law enforcement closing the net on high–profit margin black market operations like drug smuggling, the level of funds needed to sustain terrorist activity can only come from a handful of a few places, and the most obvious is a government.
Plainly a terrorist network enjoys an advantage over a state in that a state can be easily located by a foreign power and possibly destroyed. A terrorist network thrives on mobility. In the event that a host state like the Taliban suddenly squares off with a superior enemy like the US–led coalition, a group like Al Qaeda has the opportunity to flee the fighting to new environs where operations may safely be resumed, thereby escaping the fate of the host government.
On the other hand, the weak point in the armor of a non-state terrorist network is that for maintenance of group cohesion, frequent resort must be had to global communications technologies like telephones and the Internet. A terrorist network without global communication has no global coordination. In a way, electronic coordination of terror is the most dangerous cyberterrorist threat.
The terrorists’ need for constant global communications access is mitigated somewhat by the method of sleeper cells. If a terrorist group uses sleeper cells, orders can be given in such a way that they are only executed at some point in the remote future. Then, until word comes from above, sleeper terrorists embed themselves deep within the free society. Sleeper cells suffer from numerous tactical disadvantages. People move on with their lives, or miss the secret triggering message. Sleeper cells are highly dangerous weapons when deployed against free states, but a terrorist group cannot rely on them.
To fight a non-state terrorist entity, free states must monitor the Internet and the telephone networks for hidden messages and codes, and put that intelligence to use immediately.
A multi-pronged approach to fighting these terrorist groups may be described as:
- Monitor or cut off the terrorist’s access to global communications networks;
- Reduce the terrorist’s funding by improving law enforcement of black market industries with high profit margins like illegal drugs;
- Reduce the terrorist’s funding by tracking down money laundering schemes and enforcing laws against funding terror;
- By any and all necessary means, disrupt or remove state regimes that sponsor, help, or finance terrorists; and
- Monitor communications and funding links between terrorist groups and regimes.
The last one may prove the most challenging. Unfortunately, I believe that the channel most likely used for communication and funds flow between regimes and terrorist groups is the mosque. The problem might be limited to a few radical mosques. If the problem were indeed limited in scope to a few radical mosques, the level of controversy in addressing this problem would not be high. Controversy, great or small, will inevitably follow scrutiny of mosques, however.
If we take Mylroie’s argument seriously, we have to look at the mosque as the essential middle-man between a government and a radical Islamist terrorist group. We must remember that Islam is a very political religion (and a very religious political system). The mosque traditionally plays a key governance role in Islamic countries.
Today, the known terror-supporting states have dwindled in number. Syria, Iran, and perhaps others continue to support terror. The best strategy for free states is to focus effort on the terror-supporting states and their affiliated groups.
March 26th, 2004 at 06:19
Mylorie’s concept that terrorism is probably funded by governments isn’t too far fetched. It seems reasonable to believe that some governments - current or in the past - would find an inherent interest in funding terrorist networks for their own gain. This would appear far closer to reality if we remember that the US funded Saddam to keep Iran in check, funded Al Qaeda to disrupt Russian control of neighbouring countries and continues to fund Pakistan to maintain power in Afghanistan. History has shown that nations and governments will direct their money towards enemies of their enemies, which is a well documented political tactic. This does not make it acceptable, it just makes it possible and understandable. What the West needs to do is to find out what the motivations of those governments are (i.e. why do wish to do harm to Western interests, and Islamic cursading is not one of the reasons).
On another note, it is important to know that Islam is theologically mutli-branched. There are three basic pillars in Islam as a religion:
1. The Quran which is supposedly a Holy book of divine origin, transcribed by Mohammed through revelations handed down by Gabriel.
2. The Sharia, which is the interpretation of scholars and clergy on the meanings of the Quran. Sharia is over 700 years old, and was written under the auspices of politically-motivated rulers during the Islamic crusades. Many of its contents are suspect or outright incorrect because of their hidden slant towards political tactics.
3. Sunna, which is a recitation of Mohammed’s life, sayings and actions. Again, most of this is suspect as it is based on heresay most of the time. Amongst secular and modern Muslims, they are called ‘chinese whispers’ because of their suspect content.
The Quran - which to most Muslims is the basis of religion - is not politicised at all. By default, Islam has no clergy or hierarchy in its teachings. There is no divinity in shiekhs, and everyone - including Mohammed - is fallible, i.e. the word of the Quran is irrefutable, but everything else is open to debate. Unfortunately, some people - namely scholars and shiekhs - benefit the most from a maintenance of the status quo, because Sharia and Sunna place far more importance on religious scholars than the Quran does, and elevates their originally humble places in the practice of Islam.
Sharia is the problem - Sharia is highly politicised, and it wishes to convert rulers into preachers (and vice versa). As a result of this, it is important to distinguish between Islam as a religion, which in essence has no political teachings what so ever, and the Sharia/Sunna duo, which do. Again, the reasons why both Sharia and Sunna are politically motivated can be owed to the period of Arab history in which they evolved - highly volatile, based on crusades and wars, and with a strict requirement to maintain control over a diverse, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic population.
Your point on the political importance of mosques is very interesting. However, it is also important to understand that the mosque is a place of religion, of practice, and not of anything else. The Quran claims that a mosque is merely a place of worship - i.e. there is no physical attribute associated with a mosque. Mosque in Arabic is ‘masjid’ which comes from the word ’sajd’ which means ‘to kneel’ - which relates to the Islamic ritual of prayer. Therefore, a mosque can be a room in a house or office, a church, a synagogue, or a temple. It is anywhere that is clean - spirtually. A piece of land in the middle of the desert is a mosque if no one has released any form of bodily excrement there (yes, seriously - as long as no one has pissed or shat). As a result, a mosque poses no threat to anyone. Also, closing down any mosque will inflame innocent Muslims who go there to pray. It is very difficult to judge what a radical mosque looks like, because it can only be distringuished by the people inside it, most of whom will be innocent Muslims praying.
The real problem is with extremist shiekhs, who use mosques as a speaking platform, and through it instigate hate. A Friday prayer in itself is harmless - it is the speech that occurs before it that could be a problem. Extremist sheikhs use these sermons to spur anger and hatred, and that is what needs to be watched. If Western intelligence agencies can track down and prosecute extremist shiekhs who use their purely religious position to satisfy political aims through hate sermons, it will be doing everyone a favor. As for the mosque itself, it is of no significance whatsoever; it plays no role in Islam other than a place of worship, and has no value in governance. The use of some shiekhs of mosques as platforms for free speech stems from a lack of free speech outside the mosque - simply because in most Arab and Islamic countries, riots are illegal and gatherings of anything more than 5 people can be arrested for ‘revolt.’
It is also practically impossible for terrorist networks to use mosques for anything other than prayer and preaching - simply because they are too public. It seems unintelligent for a terrorist leader to use a mosque preversly, where people from society, and whose affinity cannot be decided, sit and pray or read the Quran. Hate instigation, maybe, but movement of funds and discussion of plans - never. It’s just way too ‘open.’