Terrorism Focus November 30, 2004

* New Zawahiri Video
* Sectarian Divisions after Fallujah
* Philippines' Ceasefire in the Balance...
* ...While Indonesia Makes Progress Against JI
* More Clerics, in Another Firing Line
* Mauritanian Islamists under Pressure
* Forum Warnings of a Spy Website

New Zawahiri Video

The latest videotape, featuring bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, aired
by the al-Jazeera satellite channel on November 29, poses a number of
questions both in terms of the content and the quality of the production.

The content features the standard warning against the United States for its
policies in the Islamic world; stating that the struggle will continue until
those policies change. This is al-Zawahiri's second video appearance in a
year, the last occasion being immediately prior to the third anniversary of
the September 11 attacks of 2001. But between the two appearances there are
some notable differences, notably in the level of confidence in his tone.

In the September 9 footage, al-Zawahiri declared that "the defeat of America
in Afghanistan is just a matter of time" and that the troops were "refusing
to come out of their trenches to fight the mujahideen". In this last
recording, in which al-Zawahiri appears thin and emaciated, the element of
disdain gives place to flickers of defeatism. Where the last tape was
replete with the tone of threat, this one speaks of a "patient struggle to
fight you with God's help until the last hour." Al-Zawahiri also asks the
U.S. to "choose between two methods in dealing with Muslims. Either
cooperate with them on the basis of respect and the exchange of mutual
interests, or consider them as free loot, robbed land and violated sanctity"
- words whose tone suggest more a call to negotiations or a truce than a
declaration of war.

More remarkable still is the tone of al-Zawahiri's delivery: hesitant,
stuttering and with frequent mistakes in delivering the prepared text. As
one liberal Arab commentator observed: "It is odd that the tape was given to
al-Jazeera without first having removed the bits where al-Zawahiri stutters,
given that al-Zawahiri would well know that such passages would have a
negative effect on the public." (http://www.metransparent.com
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.metransparent.com> )

Elements of a more defeatist al-Qaeda tone also appeared in an earlier
released audiotape by al-Zawahiri aired by al-Jazeera on October 1. There he
urged Muslims to increase their efforts against "Crusader America" and not
to wait until Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen and Algeria are invaded.
Al-Qaeda has also since sent out a call for recruits to come to Afghanistan
to reverse the country's slide towards democracy. There was a conspicuous
failure to disrupt the elections in Afghanistan, which observers have put
down to disarray in mujahid ranks. In Mid-November calls came from warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to renew the jihad in southern Afghanistan, and from
Taliban leader Mulla Omar, who pointedly insisted that "there is much more
brotherhood, obedience and steadfastness in the Taliban's Islamic movement
than before."

Another feature of interest was the departure from the general disdain with
respect to Arab governments. By underlining how Arab and Muslim regimes
could face the same fate as Saddam Hussein if they continued to renounce
jihad, al-Zawahiri implies that their nemesis no longer comes from Muslim
Mujahideen, but from the inexorable force of the United States.

There are also some questions on the production quality and the date of the
tape. If the recording was made in the same week as that of bin Laden's
pre-US election address, it is odd that bin Laden's tape appears clean in
technical terms, while al-Zawahiri's - distributed a full month later -
appears to be in need of some editing. The implication is that, despite the
apparent contemporaneity of the tapes (they both discuss the forthcoming
U.S. election candidates), they appear to be made under different
circumstances, or in separate locations, leaving further questions as to how
coherent the al-Qaeda group actually remains.

Sectarian Divisions after Fallujah

Beyond the innumerable expressions of defiance at the loss to the insurgents
of Fallujah, some expressions of pessimism have crept into jihadist forums -
always a useful barometer of mujahideen morale. The fall of the city is of
great significance "since it was considered the citadel of the Sunnis who
were counting on its persistence as a military force to support their
political policy and guarantee them against marginalization," as one
thoughtful contributor to the alsakifah.org forum put it. However, he went
on to note what he felt was the more ominous development, "the beginning of
the empowerment of the Shiites."

The search for scapegoats has received a boost, and it is taking the form of
exacerbated sectarian tension. The leader of the Salafi Movement in Iraq,
Sheikh Mahdi As-Sumaida'i, in a November 11 interview to the pan-Arab daily
Al-Hayat, (http://www.alhayat.com
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alhayat.com> ), openly accused Shiite forces of "seeking and inciting
the option of war against Fallujah and other Sunni areas", and called upon
the Shiite 'ulema (scholars) and hawza (Central authority) to issue a fatwa
banning the participation of Shiite soldiers in the fighting.

The fact that there were Shiite Iraqis at all in the ranks of the National
Guard fighting in collaboration with the coalition forces has been a point
of considerable tension. On November 19 Mufakkirat al-Islam (http://
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.islammemo.cc/news> www.islammemo.cc/news) reported with outrage the
sight of the black flags of the Shi'a Hawza in Fallujah, and the presence of
National Guard bearing "an image of what the Shiites call 'Imam Ali' and
'Imam al-Husayn' (the two major religious figures in Shi'i Islam). Some of
the pictures bear the inscription, "With the blessings of our Master Ali we
are entering Fallujah!" There followed reports of "massacres of unarmed
civilians . the mutilation of corpses" and the conclusion that the Shiite
soldiers were "motivated by sectarian hatred fed by declarations and fatwas
from the religious figures of the Shi'a Hawza at Najaf." The reported
'silence' of the supreme Shiite authority, Ayatollah Ali as-Sistani, on
events in Fallujah have fed Sunni convictions of a conspiracy against the
community, a sentiment shared by nationalist authors outside the country. On
November 22 Osama Saraya commented in the Cairo daily al-Ahram
(http://www.ahram.org.eg
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.ahram.org.eg> ): "The suspicious silence and double standards of the
[Iraqi Shiite] religious marja'iyyahs . have raised many doubts" which led
him to deduce that "the U.S. occupation is now trying to plant the seeds of
sedition between the Arabs and the Iranians who have immigrated to Iraq
under Shiite pretenses."

Adding fuel to this are the planned elections. The influential Sunni Muslim
Clerics Association ordered a boycott of the vote but the most menacing
opposition was voiced by the extremist Jaysh Ansar al-Sunnah. On November 18
the group posted on the jihadist Al-Ma'sada forum (http://www.alm2sda.net
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alm2sda.net> ) its objections to the concept of democracy and warned
against "attending election centers, since they constitute places of
Infidelity against Almighty God. And we warn everyone that allows himself to
be seduced into putting himself up as a candidate for these elections, that
by so doing he wishes to be an apostate infidel . We declare to all that the
mujahideen will be attacking the election centers forcefully."

Conversely, the overwhelming support from the Shi'a communities for the
elections highlights the developing gulf between the communities. The major
Shi'a parties (including the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
Da'awa, and even representatives of the renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr)
denounced efforts to delay the vote from its January 30 date. Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani actually issued a fatwa saying that it was the
religious duty of the Shia community to participate. For weeks al-Sistani
has been the subject of unflattering comment on the jihadi forums, but this
position pushed Sunni sentiment over the edge, exemplified by the posting on
a Saudi-based extremist website, Muntadiat al-Qimma, quoted in detail by the
Shiite web news magazine Shabkat Karbala lil-Anba (http://
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.karbalanews.net> www.karbalanews.net). It apparently called for the
assassination of al-Sistani and accompanied the call with a portrait of the
Shiite leader on which were superimposed the crosshairs of a sniper rifle.
The extremist author then openly declared the Shiites "more worthy of death
than the Crusaders" and quoted, as justification, a Hadith by which the
Prophet Muhammad is to have said: "There shall come a people called
'al-Rafida' [deserters; often used as a derogatory term for Shiites]; if you
meet them, kill them for they are polytheists".

The most graphic manifestation of this position is what Iraqis term the
'Muthallath al-Mawt' the 'Triangle of Death', an area lying between Baghdad
and the Shi'a centers to the south, and bounded by the cities of Yusufiyyah
to the northwest, Iskandariyya to the south and Mahmudiyya to the east.
Here, alongside Americans and members of the Iraqi security services,
Shiites as such, especially since the end of Ramadan, are finding themselves
targeted for killing. The
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.karbalanews.net/> karbalanews.net site ran a feature outlining the
dangers of the zone, noting the inscription on walls at the entrance to the
most perilous town in the Triangle, Latifiyyah: "Be a Sunni and then you
won't have to fear the Opels" (referring to the make of cars used in the
bombings). Across the city, the report continues, notices have appeared
saying that the rebels are offering bounties of between one to two thousand
dollars for the killing of police and members of the National Guard. Other
accounts speak of one thousand dollars for the death of Shiites, pure and
simple. The hatred appears to have become visceral. Ad hoc checkpoints weed
out Shiite travellers, "some forced to utter blasphemies against [Shi'a
patriarch] Imam Ali, on pain of death", under threat from those obeying an
extremist doctrine that, "If you kill a Shiite you will go to heaven".
According to the UN-funded ReliefWeb organization, about 500 Shiite families
have fled the Latifiyyah area.

A Shiite response is also taking shape. Originally intended as a protection
force for visitors to the holy city of Najaf, a unit called Kata'ib al-Ghadb
('Brigades of Anger') now vows to defend Shiites from any group they
consider to constitute a threat. The spokesman for the Brigades, Dheya
al-Mahdi, has openly demanded that prominent Sunni clerics, both in Iraq and
in Saudi Arabia, issue an edict calling off the Sunni extremists. Otherwise,
he warned, the Brigades are to start hunting down Sunni insurgent fighters.

Although the motivation and authorship of the targeting has not been fully
established, the killings on November 22-23 of two leading Sunni clerics -
both members of the Sunni Arab Association of Muslim Scholars which has
taken the lead in inciting resistance to the elections - appear to
encapsulate the next stage of the struggle for Iraq.

Philippines' Ceasefire in the Balance...

Renewed action by Philippine armed forces indicates that the path to
rehabilitation of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is not running
smoothly. On November 19 an air attack targeted what was a meeting of about
50 Abu Sayyaf terrorists, including leaders Khadaffy Janjalani and Isnilon
Hapilon, together with Indonesian members of Jemaah Islamiah (JI) led by
Mike Usman, in the marshlands of the southern province of Maguindanao.

Although MILF denies links with either group, it lodged a protest with the
government at Manila, on the grounds that one of its camps was hit by
mistake, thus constituting a violation of a two-year old ceasefire
agreement. The agreement does not cover JI or the Abu Sayyaf group.

Some sensitivities are being revealed by this exchange. Abu Sayyaf has not
been known to work with JI in the past, but MILF has been facing accusations
of historical relations with the Indonesian group. If the presence of the JI
at the target zone is established, and at a site where the MILF claims its
camp was targeted, the patiently forged relations between Manila and MILF
could be seriously jeopardized. Persistent reports of such a connection have
dogged the peace process and, despite MILF denials, evidence is mounting
that operational and training links, earlier forged through ties established
in Afghanistan in the 1980s, continue. JI established a foothold in the
southern Philippines in 1994, and former MILF chairman, Salamat Hashim,
promoted the establishment of JI training camps on the Afghanistan model
under MILF protection.

The ceasefire negotiations have been buffeted and both the government and
MILF are blaming each other for the deterioration. The Maguindanao attack
comes a week after an outbreak of fighting between government troops and
MILF forces, blamed by MILF on a family feud, but which forced 1,000-3,000
people to flee their homes. Monitoring teams are being dispatched to prevent
further flare-ups. MILF also has to fend off claims that some of its
fighters are receiving training in suicide bombing from the JI at its base
at Mt. Cararao in Lanao del Sur.

An alternative explanation to the Maguindanao event would complicate the
situation even further. Should the MILF leadership have been unaware of the
meeting and members of JI and other like-minded jihadist groups have
established their own personal ties to individual MILF commanders without
the knowledge of the MILF leadership, the implication is that the MILF may
not be able to deliver on its obligations to the peace agreement. The
organization has already conceded to the existence of 'lost commands'
dispersed since the Philippine army overran major MILF camps in 2000.

What remains to be established is whether the lack of centralized control
over the 'lost commands' is an accident of war, or a strategy. If the former
is true, MILF would appear to lack the ability to meet the obligations; if
the latter, the good faith to do so.

...While Indonesia Makes Progress Against JI

On November 25 the Indonesian military made public the arrest - which had
taken place three weeks earlier - of four men at the Javan town of Bogor.
They were identified as major figures in the Indonesian radical group Jemaah
Islamiah (JI), and implicated in the bombing of the Australian embassy last
year, which killed 9 people along with the suicide bomber. Of the four, the
most distinguished was Rois (also known as Iwan Darmawan) who acted as the
field coordinator for the bombing and recruited the suicide bomber. Rois is
also suspected of involvement in the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings,
which killed over 200, and the car bomb attack on the J.W. Marriott Hotel
that killed 12 people. All of the suspects wore explosive belts designed to
kill anyone attempting to arrest them, but were unable to detonate the
devices.

The caution in disclosing the arrests paid off, since the police
subsequently announced the identification of six terrorist nests on a
mountain side on the border between west and central Java. Suicide bombers
were believed to be recruited and trained in the area.

The announcement of the arrests came in the context of a spate of attacks on
Christians in Central Sulawesi Island, the most recent on November 13 with
the bombing of a bus in the market town of Poso which killed six. The
location of the bombing is significant since it was here that three years
ago religious fighting between Christian and Muslim groups claimed almost
1,000 lives. In early 2002, a government-sponsored peace accord was signed
by rival party leaders aimed at ending the conflict, but tensions remain.
Over the last year the area has seen a steady increase in attacks and
bombings, indicating that JI is attempting to re-ignite a sectarian
conflict. Unusually for the world's most populous Muslim nation, Central
Sulawesi has a roughly equal Muslim and Christian demography.

The arrests give some room for optimism in the crackdown on JI, given the
failure to date to apprehend two Malaysian militants, Azahari Husin and
Noordin Mohamed Top, who are suspected of masterminded both the Australian
embassy and Bali bombings. With a one billion Rupiah (US$100,000) bounty on
Azahari's head, the failure to track him down points to a large, and
sophisticated, support base in the country. A further indication of this
came from an unlikely source, a survey by the US-funded Freedom Institute.
Published in mid November, it threw up some unexpected results, including a
16 percent tally of Indonesians not prepared to condemn terror attacks by JI
if they were committed in the cause of 'fighting the oppression of Muslims'
and with over 50 percent opposing the existence of churches in
Muslim-majority areas.

The survey, covering 1,200 Indonesians across the country, cast light on the
advance of Islamic fundamentalist sentiments in an overwhelmingly Muslim
nation that also counts eight percent of its inhabitants as Christian, two
per cent as Hindus and one percent as Buddhists. The majority that oppose
sectarian violence will be put to the test by the forthcoming April
elections and the results of the trial of JI's spiritual leader, Abu Bakar
Basyir, on charges of terrorism, since the JI will be increasing its efforts
at violent disruption.

More Clerics, in Another Firing Line

In the last edition of Terrorism Focus we featured how clerics were in the
firing line from Muslims liberals. Now they have come in for some stick from
the jihadist leaders.

On November 17 a letter of 'advice and pity for my brothers who are holding
back from jihad', penned by Shaikh Sultan bin Bajad al-Utaybi 'Abu Abd
al-Rahman al-Athari' (one of the 26 names remaining on the 'most wanted'
list in Saudi Arabia), was posted on al-Qaeda's Sawt al-Jihad website, (the
tape was subsequently relayed on the jihadist forums, including Al-Ma'sada,
which provided seven URL links to the audio). In it, he condemned those
Muslims, both youth and among the Arab leaders, who have done nothing to
support the Jihad.

A few days later Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, believed to have escaped from his
headquarters in Fallujah before the U.S. assault, took up the theme. On a
audiotape posted on the al-Ma'sada forum (
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alm2sda.net/vb/showthread.phpxyqyxtxyeyx4763>
www.alm2sda.net/vb/showthread.php?t=4763) on November 24, he laments how the
Sunni mosque outside Iraq has "let us down in the darkest circumstances and
handed us over to the enemy ... You have quit supporting the mujahideen.
Hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered at the
hands of the infidels because of your silence." By preventing the youth
"from heading to the battlefields in order to defend the religion,"
al-Zarqawi continues, "you made peace with the tyranny and handed over the
countries and the people to the Jews and Crusaders!"

Like Al-Utaybi, one commentator on the same jihadi forum laments the
"spectator mujahidin" watching "the tiny sparrow fight the enormous eagle,
like cheerleaders on the sidelines of a football match, losing heart at the
apparent defeat" (
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alm2sda.net/vb/showthread.phpxyqyxtxyeyx4091>
www.alm2sda.net/vb/showthread.php?t=4091). But the deafening silence from
the official Sunni mosque outside Iraq does appear to be taking its toll on
ideological morale, and points to a fear that the momentum is fading from
the resistance in Iraq. 'Victory may be being delayed", says another
contributor on the Al-Saqifa forum (
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alsakifah.org/vb/showthread.phpxyqyxtxyeyx42057>
www.alsakifah.org/vb/showthread.php?t=42057), "due to God's wisdom, since
the structure of the Believing Nation is not yet mature nor complete, its
energies not harnessed, its cells not readied or collected together to form
the greatest accumulation of force and preparedness."

While Iraq is still seen as the best arena for jihad, the negative
developments for the mujahideen in Fallujah have started to refocus minds.
This has already happened in Afghanistan where al-Qaeda is reported to have
sent out a call for recruits to come to Afghanistan in order to reverse that
country's momentum toward democracy, given that the Taliban campaign to
prevent elections failed. Fears that the elections in Iraq will go ahead as
planned, and make the case of the mujahideen to represent the legitimate
will of Iraqis more difficult to sustain, may be causing a similar rethink.

(The full translated text of Al-Utaybi's declaration can be found at
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.jihadunspun/> www.jihadunspun.com
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.jihadunspun.com> )

Mauritanian Islamists under Pressure

An Islamist website, Majallat al-Asr [www.alasr.ws
<http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=6415703_2735db79_41458&url=http:/
/www.alasr.ws> ] has focused on news from Mauritania that authorities in the
West African state are clamping down on mosque preachers on grounds of
political activity relating to insurgents. The official ministry for
literacy and Islamic education has warned them not to issue statements on
present political conditions in Mauritania, nor to give sermons of support
the for prominent Islamist leaders Shaikh Muhammad al-Hasan Ould Eldedou,
and Professors Al-Mukhtar Ould Muhammad Musa and Muhammad Jamil Ould
Mansour. The three are accused of supporting dissidents and effecting their
escape from the country, and of maintaining relations with opposition
organizations abroad. Earlier in November, the government at Nouakchott
temporarily imprisoned the three Islamist leaders after they published
photographs, on the internet and on satellite TV channels, illustrating the
torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners. Their arrest provoked
spontaneous demonstrations, which were put down violently.

This is not the first time the government has increased the pressure on the
Islamist trend in Mauritania, and the present tension comes in the context
of growing opposition to Nouakchott's authoritarian rule. On November 15
opposition groups meeting in Paris issued a statement announcing the
formation of a new joint opposition party called the Mauritanian Opposition
Union in Exile. At home observers note a significant increase in tension as
mosque authorities show every sign of defying the government's warnings.

Forum Warnings of a Spy Website

The jihadist forum Al-Ma'sada has warned its readers concerning a possible
CIA-sponsored Qoqaz website. "The Legislative Council of the Sawt al-Qoqaz
(Voice of Caucasus)", the warning runs, "announces the existence of a forum
owned by the CIA, in co-operation and arrangement with British Security, for
the purpose of spying on the Ansar al-Jihad (supporters of Jihad). [It does
this] by means of penetrating the participants' computers via the forum,
which encourages participation through writing anti-US government materials
on events in Iraq. The Legislative Council affirms that this forum is
bogus."

The text goes on to describe how the British-based site seeks to download
from the participants "all files, images and correspondence exchanged
between the site's visitors, particularly those relating to the jihad in
Iraq." The warning states that the website is attempting to penetrate the
majority of Islamic sites and forums "as a security measure designed to
obfuscate news of the jihad and the mujahideen in Iraq." Readers are warned,
therefore, not to fall prey to espionage on behalf of the Enemy, and to be
wary of "agents of the Crusaders, atheists and Jews on the internet."

_____

http://www.jamestown.org

Terrorism Focus is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. It is
researched and edited by Stephen Ulph, a specialist in economic and
political developments of the Middle East and North Africa. He is the
founder and editor of the Terrorism Security Monitor and editor and analyst
of Islamic Affairs for Jane's Information Group.
The opinions expressed in it are those of the individual authors and do not
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