The 9/11 Wars (110 page)

  
10
.
Another reason was that al-Suri was also accused of organizing the assassination of two more moderate Algerian Islamists. Pargeter,
The New Frontiers of Jihad
, p. 68. See also Brynjar Lia, ‘Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s Critique of Hard Line Salafists in the Jihadist Current’,
CTC Sentinel
, vol. 1, no. 1, December 2007, p. 3.

  
11
.
Al-Suri was released as he had not actually, under legislation at the time, committed any offence. For quote on the Taliban, see Lia,
The New Frontiers of Jihad
, p. 234.

  
12
.
Adam Shatz, ‘Laptop jihadi’
London Review of Books
, March 20, 2008. Lia,
Architect of Global Jihad
. Interrogation report of Ahmed al-Sayyid al-Najjar, Egyptian militant by Egyptian investigators, quoted in Tawil,
Brothers in Arms
, p. 156.

  
13
.
Quoted in Cruickshank and Hage Ali, ‘Abu Musab al-Suri: Architect of the New al-Qaeda’.

  
14
.
See ‘al-Suri Da’wat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya al-Alamiyya’, 2005, quoted in Devin Springer, James Regens and David Edger,
Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad
, Georgetown University Press, 2008, p. 176.

  
15
.
Bagram airport was referred to as al-Qaeda al-Bagram by Arab fighters in Afghanistan.

  
16
.
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, pp. 1–2.

  
17
.
Andrew Black, ‘Al-Suri’s Adaptation of Fourth Generation Warfare Doctrine’,
Terrorism Monitor
, vol. 4, no. 18, September 21, 2006.

  
18
.
‘Al-Suri, the Call to Global Resistance’, pp. 1,396–7. Quoted Springer et al.,
Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad
, p. 113.

  
19
.
Gilles Kepel,
Le Terreur et le martyre: Relever le défi de civilisation
, Flammarion, 2008, p. 138.

  
20
.
Quoted in Cruickshank and Hage, ‘Abu Musab al-Suri: Architect of the New al-Qaeda’.

  
21
.
Springer et al.,
Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad
, p. 72.

  
22
.
‘Abu Musa’ab ’al-Suri D’awat al-Muqawama’, p. 41, quoted in Tawil,
Brothers in Arms
, p. 186.

  
23
.
Such as Christians.

  
24
.
The military used the Islamists against the Communists too.

  
25
.
See International Crisis Group,
Indonesia Backgrounder: Why Salafism and Terrorism Mostly Don’t Mix
, September 13, 2004, pp. 5–6. Also Howard M. Federspiel,
Islam and Ideology in the Emerging Indonesian State: The Persatuan Islam, 1923 to 1957
, Leiden, 2001, pp. 15, 21–2.

  
26
.
Including a period when the Indonesian army had sponsored Muslim anti-Communist gangs.

  
27
.
See Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, for more on the camp at Pabbi. Atran,
Talking to the Enemy
, p. 140.

  
28
.
Author interviews with Indonesian intelligence officer, Jakarta, October 2002. Memorandum for Commander, US Southern Command, CSRT Input for Guantanamo Detainee, US9ID–010019DP, Riduan Isamuddin, October 30, 2008. Another link was Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, who was allegedly central to a plan to blow up the Australian, Israeli and US embassies in Singapore in 2001. Jabarah, an explosives expert, confessed to playing a role as an intermediary between al-Qaeda and Jemma Islamiya, and as an envoy of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. He pleaded guilty to acts of terrorism in a 2002 agreement that was kept secret at the time and then began working as an informant for the FBI. New York University Center on Law and Security, Terrorist Trial Report Card 2001–2009, published 2010, p. 45.

  
29
.
International Crisis Group,
Terrorism in Indonesia: Noordin’s Networks Crisis Group Asia
, May 5, 2006. p. 5.

  
30
.
Selma Belaala, ‘Slums breed jihad’,
Le Monde Diplomatique
, Morocco, November 2004.

  
31
.
The marginalization was very clear when the author was visiting the slums in 2007. Even reaching them from the centre of the city was extremely difficult with no public transport serving them and no taxi drivers willing to make the journey. Wasteground and rubbish dumps provided further barriers.

  
32
.
Elaine Sciolino, ‘Moroccans say Al Qaeda was behind Casablanca bombings’,
New York Times
, May 23, 2003. Sebastian Rotella, ‘Morocco indicts 6 more suspects in Casablanca blasts’,
Los Angeles Times
, May 30, 2003. Author interviews with senior Moroccan government investigators, analyst Mohammed Darif in Casablanca, January 2006, March 2007.

  
33
.
Pew Global Attitudes 2004: A Year after Iraq
, March 16, 2004, p. 1. In Morocco the figure was 66 per cent.

  
34
.
The national assembly voted ‘no’ by 266 to 264. A consequence of this would be that many of the areas in Iraq which were to have been the responsibility of the powerful and highly mechanized 4th Infantry Division in the immediate post-war period were taken on by tired and overstretched troops who had fought their way up from Kuwait.

  
35
.
Dilip Hiro,
Inside Central Asia
, Overlook Duckworth, 2009, p. 117. The invasion was one of the very few issues which could unite all Turks, from Islamists to secularist nationalists.

  
36
.
Karl Vick, ‘Al-Qaeda’s hand In Istanbul Plot’,
Washington Post
, February 13, 2007. Excerpts of intercepts and interrogation reports, author collection. Details from Turkish government indictment, February 2004. Author collection.

  
37
.
Edmund F. McGarrell, Joshua D. Freilich and Steven Chermak, ‘Intelligence Led Policing as a Framework for Responding to Terrorism’,
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
, vol. 23, no. 2, 2007, pp. 142–58.

  
38
.
Atran,
Talking to the Enemy
, p. 199.

  
39
.
The Shahada is the profession of faith by a Muslim: ‘I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.’

  
40
.
José Maria Aznar, Spain’s conservative prime minister, personally called the editor of Spain’s most important newspaper, the left-leaning
El Pais
, to make sure the headlines reflected this interpretation.

  
41
.
Atran,
Talking to the Enemy
, p. 181.

  
42
.
Scott Atran and Marc Sageman, ‘The Great Train Bombing’, draft from October 10, 2007, p. 7.

  
43
.
‘Madrid bombing probe finds no al-Qaida link’, Associated Press, March 9, 2006. Javier Jordan and Robert Wesley, ‘The Madrid Attacks: Results of Investigations Two Years Later’,
Terrorism Monitor
, vol. 4, no. 5, March 9, 2006. Author interviews with senior Spanish police officers, Madrid, October 2006.

  
44
.
NYPD,
Intelligence Report: Radicalization in the West
, 2007, p. 39. Author collection.

  
45
.
Atran,
Talking to the Enemy
, p. 179.

  
46
.
Ibid., p. 183.

  
47
.
Lawrence Wright, ‘The terror web: were the Madrid bombings part of a new, far-reaching jihad being plotted on the internet?’,
New Yorker
, August 2, 2004. Author interviews, Spanish Centro Nacional de Inteligencia officials, Saudi Arabia, March 2008.

  
48
.
Atran,
Talking to the Enemy
, pp. 201–2.

  
49
.
Wright, ‘The terror web’.

  
50
.
See White House press release, January 10, 2006. In a key speech Bush laid out ‘the political, security, and economic elements of the strategy for victory in the central front of the War on Terror, what has been achieved, the challenges faced at the start of 2006’.

  
51
.
Napoleoni,
Insurgent Iraq
, p. 218.

  
52
.
Abu Anas al-Shami diary, author collection.

  
53
.
Some sources say he was indeed involved in fighting around Khost in 1990. See Romesh Ratnesar, ‘Face of terror: how Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi transformed the Iraq insurgency into a holy war and became America’s newest nightmare’,
Time
, December 19, 2004 .

  
54
.
Author interviews with American intelligence officials, Tikrit and Baghdad, May 2004. Author interviews with former associates, Amman, June 2003. There are many useful accounts of al-Zarqawi’s life and works. Cross-referencing between works such as Napoleoni,
Insurgent Iraq
and very different publications such as Gilles Kepel, ed.,
Al-Qaida dans le texte
, PUF, 2008, pp. 370–416, allows a coherent and relatively accurate picture to emerge. On the amnesty in Jordan, see Bergen,
The Osama Bin Laden I Know
, p. 353.

  
55
.
The timing of al-Zarqawi’s arrival in northern Iraq is unclear, but he was not mentioned by anyone in a comprehensive range of interviews the author conducted with militants and Kurdish intelligence officials in the summer of that year.

  
56
.
German police intelligence report on al-Tauhid, compiled spring 2003. Author telephone interviews with Afghan and Libyan former activists, in London and in Pakistan, February 2003.

  
57
.
Full text of Colin Powell’s speech,
Guardian
, February 5, 2003. Powell said: ‘What I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.’

  
58
.
He certainly had both legs firmly attached to his body when finally killed in 2006. Nor was there any real evidence of the chemical and biological weapons factory Ansar-ul-Islam were supposed to have established in the enclave north of Halabjah.