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Pluto Press - Syed Saleem Shahzad

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159 pages

English

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President Obama may have delivered on his campaign promise to kill Osama bin Laden, but as an Al-Qaeda strategist bin Laden has been dead for years. This book introduces and examines the new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders who have been behind the most recent attacks.

Investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad dedicated his life to revealing the strategies and inner workings of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He had access to top-level commanders in both movements, as well as within the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. Shahzad's work was praised by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for 'bringing to light the troubles extremism poses to Pakistan's stability.' Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban explains the wider aims of both organisations and provides an essential analysis of major terrorist incidents, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

In May 2011, Shahzad was abducted and killed in Pakistan, days after writing an article suggesting that insiders in the Pakistani navy had colluded with Al-Qaeda in an attack on a naval air station. This book is a testament to his fearless reporting and analytical rigour. It will provide readers worldwide with an invaluable introduction to a new phase of the ongoing struggle against terrorism which threatens lives in so many countries.
Preface

Prologue

1. A New World: Destruction, Migration, Friends and Foes

2. The Politics of War and Peace

3. First Step: Leadership Building and Transformation of ‘Son of the Soils’ to ‘Blood Brothers’.

4. Takfeer and Khuruj: An Ideological Thesis for the Separation of Islamists and States

5. Antithesis: Debate for the Legitimacy of the Resistance

6. The Synthesis

7. Building the Eagles’ Nest

8. The War Theatre

Epilogue

Notes

Index

Sujets

Political Ideologies

International Relations

Political Science

General officer

General

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Publié par	Pluto Press
Date de parution	23 mai 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783714360
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0498€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

INSIDE AL-QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN

Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11
Syed Saleem Shahzad

First published 2011 by Pluto Press
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www.plutobooks.com
and

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LL C,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Syed Saleem Shahzad 2011
The right of Syed Saleem Shahzad to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Please contact the National Library of Australia for Australian cataloguing in publication data
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CONTENTS
List of maps
Preface
Prologue
1
A new world: destruction, migration, friends, and foes
Playing with fire
Al-Qaeda’s new approach
2
The politics of war and peace
New Al-Qaeda players and actions
The spring offensive 2006: Al-Qaeda’s watershed
The new Taliban strategy
Back to base
The wrath of the United States
Setting up the Af–Pak theater of war
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan: Al-Qaeda’s brood
Iranian Jundullah: Al-Qaeda’s new syndication
Planning NATO’s Waterloo
A Swat whirlpool set to sink the Af–Pak strategy
Old wine in new bottles
3
First step: leadership building and transformation of the “sons of the soil” to “blood brothers”
Captain Khurram, the martyr
The rise and fall of Major Haroon
Arrest
Major Haroon’s ideological journey
The Neo-Taliban in Taliban ranks
The Haqqani network: the Taliban’s real strength
From the shadows to the shadow army
Al-Qaeda’s soul in a new body: Laskhar al-Zil
Al-Qaeda’s blood brothers saga: Somalia and Yemen
4
Takfeer and khuruj : an ideological thesis for the separation of Islamists and states
The takfeer : orchestrating a clash
Literature that changes the mind
Roots of the ideological evolution
Ibn Tamiyyah, an ideologue for the next 1,000 years
5
Antithesis: debate on the legitimacy of the resistance
6
The synthesis
The beginning of revolt
7
Building the eagles’ nest
How the Taliban maneuvered
An insurgent world in the Hindu Kush
Tribal insurgency: a battle before the real battle
Revolution in the mountains
Al-Qaeda takes steps for broadening ties with Iran
An amazing maze
8
The theater of war
Ghazwa-e-Hind
The harvest is ready but …
Al-Qaeda splits the spoils of war
Harkat-ul Jihad-i-Islami: from ISI to Al-Qaeda
Epilogue
Notes
Maps
Index

MAPS
1
Pakistan and Afghanistan, administrative areas
2
The Mohmand and Bajaur agencies of Pakistan and adjoining areas
3
The Khyber and Kurram agencies of Pakistan and adjoining areas
4
North and South Waziristan, Pakistan, and adjoining areas
5
The Afghan/Pakistani border around Kandahar and Balochistan
6
Border regions between Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
7
NATO Regional Command areas in Afghanistan
8
Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
9
Established and frequently used routes across the Afghan/Pakistani border
10
Established and frequently used routes across the Afghan/Pakistani border around Kandahar and Balochistan

PREFACE
I have never worked for any well-funded international news organizations. Nor have I worked for the mainstream national media. My affiliations have always remained with alternative media outlets. This has left me with narrow options and very little space to move around in. Those who loom large on the political horizon by and large target mainstream information outlets and well-financed news organizations for the launch of their media campaigns, interviews and/or disclosures. Alternative media persons need to work twice as hard as others to draw their attention. However, independent reporting for the alternative media best suits my temperament as it encourages me to seek the truth beyond “conventional wisdom.” As a result, I study people and situations from a relatively uncompromised position, in isolation and seclusion. For instance, I have avoided repetitive reflection on well-known figures in the Al-Qaeda ambit and instead chosen to focus on those close to the bottom of the ladder, looking to share their understanding of the world, their lives, and their behind-the-scenes contributions, which are what actually what determine the fate of movements. (Some little known figures I explored and interviewed included Commander Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, 1 Sirajuddin Haqqani, 2 and Qari Ziaur Rahman. 3 They all later emerged as the real leaders of the movement.)
The world of today primarily pictures Osama bin Laden, who launched a resistance movement against Western imperialism, as the embodiment of Al-Qaeda, but there is more to Al-Qaeda than just bin Laden. There are as many characters, personalities, and twists in the tale of Al-Qaeda as were narrated by Queen Scheherazade to her husband King Shaharyar of the legendary Alf Laila Wa Laila (or A Thousand and One Nights ). In these fables, there surface thousands of lesser-known characters who shaped the world of their time through the type of love and loyalty that even today constitutes the essence of humanity.
Alf Laila Wa Laila is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. They are of uncertain date and authorship. The framing device of the collection, however, hinges on the vengeful King Shaharyar, having been cuckolded by his promiscuous first wife, determining to marry and execute a new wife each day as a lesson to womanhood. The resourceful Scheherazade, understood to be of Indian extraction, brought an end to this. She captivated King Shaharyar with stories spread over a period of a thousand and one nights both to avert an early execution and to restore the king’s faith in the virtues of womanhood.
Scheherazade’s odyssey encompassed stories from India, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and possibly Greece. It is believed that the collection is a composite work originally transmitted orally and developed over a period of several centuries. The collection has a long and convoluted history which mirrors complex narrative structures and draws the reader into a whirlpool of celebrated sagas from which there is no easy escape.
I have tried to unravel some of Al-Qaeda’s Alf Laila legendary figures to present them in parallel fashion. These are the stories of characters who performed behind the scenes, but at the same time, played a decisive part in creating an environment through which Al-Qaeda, an organization believed to be buried under the rubble of the Tora Bora mountains 4 as a result of US bombing in 2001, was able to spread its wings from North Africa to Central Asia and emerge as a real global resistance movement against Western hegemony.
I visited Iraq, Lebanon, North Waziristan, and Afghanistan to meet with Al-Qaeda personalities, but to my surprise found the source of my real inspiration in a little-known person, retired Captain Khurram Askhiq (since killed fighting UK troops in the Helmand province of Afghanistan), who had once been a member of the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG), Pakistan’s elite commandos. When I met him, Captain Khurram had resigned from the army and joined forces with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Kurram’s imprint on Al-Qaeda was unmistakable. On his death, his friend, retired Major Abdul Rahman and Khurram’s brother, retired Major Haroon, who later became the two main strategists of the attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008 (often referred to as 26/11) and turned around Al-Qaeda’s war against the Western coalition, met me and broadened my views and perception on Al-Qaeda’s strategy.
After meeting them I began to see the world of Al-Qaeda from an entirely new perspective – that of unmeasured energy emerging purely on the strength of conviction and human ingenuity ag