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Al Qaeda officially welcomes al Shabaab

By Katherine Zimmerman

February 9, 2012, 4:12 pm

Al Shabaab is officially an al Qaeda affiliate. This development is not really new, since I and other analysts have assessed that relationship to be real for some time. But for the naysayers, al Qaeda’s media arm just released a video of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri welcoming al Shabaab to al Qaeda. Is it right, then, to continue to assert that al Shabaab remains a local threat?

The Somalia-based terrorist organization has recently come under military pressure from joint Kenyan, Ethiopian, Somali, and African Union-led operations. Most of al Shabaab’s fighters have been caught up in the fight to protect the organization’s territory, which once extended from the Kenyan border up through central Somalia. Yet not all of al Shabaab is entirely focused on this local fight. A hard-line faction within the leadership has cycled through Somalia’s successive radical Islamist organizations—first al Ittihad al Islamiyya, designated a foreign terrorist organization after 9/11, and then Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union. These leaders, profiled by the Critical Threats Project, subscribe to al Qaeda’s ideology and have more global aspirations.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified to this distinction between nationalist and radical factions of al Shabaab. He said, “Members of this group—particularly a foreign fighter cadre that includes US passport holders—may also have aspirations to attack the United States.” He added that there are no insights into concrete plots to attack outside of the Horn of Africa, however. But the nationalist and radical factions are not entirely distinct. Al Shabaab’s hardliners rely on the safe havens secured by local fighters to operate, which opens up access to necessary networks to conduct operations. Current military operations in Somalia have begun to disrupt some of these networks, but al Shabaab still has safe havens in the country. And from there, the hardliners will continue to operate.

The fact that Zawahiri and al Shabaab’s leadership decided to announce their relationship publicly at this time is in itself interesting, and merits further examination. For now, though, it is essential for American policymakers to register the fact that an Islamist organization that controls significant territory and resources—including U.S. passport-holders—has declared openly for al Qaeda.

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Categories:  Africa, Critical Threats, Foreign and Defense, War on Terror   |   Tags: ,

Yemen’s Spring: It’s still a mess

By Katherine Zimmerman

December 23, 2011, 10:25 am

The Arab Spring in Yemen has yet to deliver democracy and may have left the country worse for the wear, especially in the short term. Yes, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally signed a transition deal on November 23. And yes, Yemen’s opposition parties have gained some power in the new government. There is also a recognition that popular grievances voiced for years by southerners, among others, are legitimate and need to be addressed. A new Yemeni constitution—yet to be drafted—could institutionalize the observance of basic rights. Further, a newly established military committee took action to demilitarize the country’s cities and to move military assets out of civilian areas.

A deeper look at the situation, however, should reveal how shallow these successes run. The transition deal, pushed forward by Gulf states (except Qatar) and backed by the international community, rings hollow despite some potential for bringing long-term stability. Saleh has yet to abdicate full presidential authority to his deputy. He must do so today, a full 30 days after the signing ceremony. The Saleh regime, including his family members, remains deeply entrenched in the Yemeni government. The shuffling of political figures in the government—including opposition members—does not truly establish a new democratic government. Diplomats can point to the much-lauded transition deal as progress in Yemen, but on-the-ground conditions in the country contradict that progress.

Yemen’s multitude of problems has only been exacerbated by months of unrest. The UN now predicts that 4 million people in Yemen will require significant humanitarian assistance in 2012 and that humanitarian conditions will continue to deteriorate over the course of the next year. This dire prediction rests atop a rapid depletion of natural resources in the country, especially oil and water, and high levels of unemployment. The Yemeni state itself has been severely weakened and there are areas completely outside of the state’s control. These include parts of north Yemen that had quietly been carved off by al Houthi rebels over the past ten months and territory in south Yemen that was seized by al Qaeda-linked militants. Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, now has a much larger safe haven in the country than it did at the start of 2011.

The next few months are critical and, like much of the rest of the region, in Yemen the outcome is completely up in the air. The potential to affect the United States is high, but the White House has evinced indifference. The Middle East was so 2011.

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And this is supposed to stop Iran?

By Maseh Zarif

November 17, 2011, 2:12 pm

The resolution coming out of the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting today following the release of a new report detailing Iran’s nuclear weapons activities is sure to embolden the Islamic Republic. According to the Associated Press:

Diplomats who spoke ahead of the meeting had said the United States and its allies were ready to push through a tough document, before ceding to Russian and Chinese pressure and accepting a watered-down version that allows Iran to continue ignoring international demands.

Those who view diplomacy as an end rather than a means may hail the resolution as a sign of “success through unity,” but in reality it demonstrates the staggering failure of the years-long diplomatic effort to isolate Iran and to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons capability, a threshold it is rapidly approaching.

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Frederick W. Kagan

AEI Debate Prep: Is this the only path to victory in Afghanistan?

By Frederick W. Kagan

November 8, 2011, 10:40 am

What do we need to achieve in Afghanistan in order to protect the security of the United States and its allies?

That core question should shape any discussion of our strategy in Afghanistan or the resources we devote to executing it. But that question is too often obscured.

Many say that pursuing any kind of “success” in Afghanistan, the supposed “graveyard of empires,” is sheer folly. Others say that is has become irrelevant, and that the death of Osama bin Laden has deprived the war in Afghanistan of continued meaning.

These facile assertions produce more palatable answers, but do not answer the core question. Presidents and candidates for president owe Americans a clear and cogent answer, at least, as well as an explanation for how their proposed strategy will accomplish the requirements for American security.

President Obama identified a number of reasons for the American presence in Afghanistan in his December 2009 speech announcing both the surge of forces there and the strategy that those forces would pursue—the strategy that continues in effect to this day. The clearest articulation of American interest in Afghanistan he offered was this one:

This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.

He added later in that speech: “We’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country.”

President Obama dismissed the notion that Afghanistan is simply another Vietnam.

“And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border,” he said in that 2009 speech.

He rejected the notion that targeted strikes alone could defeat al Qaeda: “To abandon this area now—and to rely only on efforts against al Qaeda from a distance—would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies.”

He thus articulated a series of objectives, the achievement of which, he argued, were vital to America’s national security:

Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future. To meet that goal, we will pursue the following objectives within Afghanistan. We must deny al Qaeda a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.

He did announce an 18-month timeline for the start of the withdrawal of the surge forces in Afghanistan, but added, “we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We’ll continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s security forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul.”

Some in the White House and outside it, nevertheless, oppose continued efforts in Afghanistan, and thus advocate abandoning the current strategy or reducing force levels below what is needed to execute the mission there. The question they must answer is: What part of the objective President Obama enunciated in December 2009 has become unnecessary? Do we not need to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future?” Do we not need to prevent the Taliban from threatening the Afghan government? Do we not need to build the capacity of our partners and allies—including Afghanistan—so that they can take responsibility for Afghanistan’s future, thus preventing the “cancer” that had taken root there from returning? Do we seriously think that the killing of one man, however important, ends the threat to the United States and thus removes the entire region from the list of America’s national security interests?

Above all, if we abandon our current efforts in Afghanistan either by accepting defeat or by declaring success before actually achieving it, what will prevent al Qaeda and its affiliates from re-establishing their bases there and resuming their efforts to attack and kill Americans?

The American people deserve a serious, thoughtful, and detailed answer to those questions from anyone seeking the responsibility to keep them safe.

This item first appeared on CNN’s security clearance blog.

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Categories:  Critical Threats, Foreign and Defense, War on Terror   |   Tags: ,

AEI Debate Prep: How to respond to the growing threat from the Gulf of Aden?

By Katherine Zimmerman

November 7, 2011, 10:23 am

This post is part of an ongoing series preparing for the AEI/CNN/Heritage National Security & Foreign Policy GOP presidential debate on November 22. See the rest of the posts here.

Defeating al Qaeda is one the United States’ primary national security objectives and the strategy to achieve this is clear: deny al Qaeda safe havens, degrade its leadership, and disrupt its networks. American policy makers have failed to implement this strategy outside of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The result has been a growing threat from the Gulf of Aden region, where two of al Qaeda’s franchises—al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and al Shabaab in Somalia—have established safe havens.

AQAP has already attacked America twice from Yemen and now it is benefiting from the spread of the Arab Spring to that country. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a long-unpopular ruler who at one point earned the moniker of “Little Saddam,” has clung to power at all costs. The already weak military is divided over support of Saleh and a defected division has repeatedly engaged loyalist security forces in the capital, Sana’a. In the spring, when international attention turned to Saleh’s unfulfilled promises of signing a transition deal, al Qaeda-linked militants quietly took over towns in south Yemen. These insurgents, calling themselves “Ansar al Sharia” (Supporters of Islamic Law), carved off significant swathes of territory in Abyan, which connects AQAP’s strongholds in Shabwah to Aden, south Yemen’s former capital. Ansar al Sharia is essentially AQAP’s insurgent arm.

Relying on the Yemeni military’s offensive in the south to roll back al Qaeda’s territorial control is problematic. First, this assumes that the military, which has been unsuccessful against armed opposition groups before, will be capable of defeating Ansar al Sharia in Abyan. Second, it also assumes that the regime will prioritize the fight against al Qaeda and deploy additional military assets as needed. And third, there is the underlying assumption that the regime will then pursue al Qaeda in other governorates where it has had established sanctuaries for years.

Resting American counterterrorism policy on the tactic of targeted killings is problematic as well. Targeted killings alone have not led to the defeat of any other al Qaeda organization and it is wrong to believe that they will in Yemen. The recent uptick in drone strikes in Yemen has not effectively degraded AQAP’s leadership. The long-term impact of Anwar al Awlaki’s death is minimal. Moreover, AQAP’s founding leadership, including the bomb maker for two attacks against the United States, remains untouched.

Is it acceptable, then, to cede control of territory in Yemen to an al Qaeda organization with the hope that continued targeting of its leadership will keep the organization’s activities in check? Or must the United States develop a more robust policy toward Yemen that will lead to the actual defeat of a virulent al Qaeda organization in the long term?

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AEI Debate Prep: Wanted: A real U.S. strategy for Pakistan

By Reza Jan

October 28, 2011, 1:50 pm

This post is part of an ongoing series preparing for the AEI/CNN/Heritage National Security & Foreign Policy GOP presidential debate on November 22nd. See the rest of the posts here.

Much as the Republican candidates (and, indeed, their incumbent opponent) might desire to wish away the problem of Pakistan, how to deal with the enigmatic nuclear state is likely to be one of their more enduring foreign policy burdens. At the core of the matter are these questions: What are American interests in Pakistan and what are the best means by which to pursue them?

For ten years, the war in Afghanistan has encouraged American presidents to interact with Pakistan with a purely “Af-Pak” mentality. The truth is that Pakistan is, in and of itself, far more important than the war in Afghanistan, or the Haqqani network, or any other single issue that seems to dominate domestic news cycles. Hackneyed but true, Pakistan is a country with a fast-growing nuclear arsenal, 180 million people on the wrong side of a radicalization trend, a hemorrhaging economy, and a safe haven for some of the world’s most virulent regional and international terrorist organizations. The U.S. has enormous interest in ensuring that Pakistan does not fail as a state.

Helping a successful, responsible Pakistani state emerge will go a long way towards neutering many of the dangers emanating from Pakistan, but the result is heavily predicated on whether the United States acknowledges what is in the interests of Pakistan. This means understanding that the welfare and aspirations of Pakistan’s people are of greater importance than the convenience of primarily interacting with, and therefore empowering, Pakistan’s military establishment, or throwing money at Pakistan’s venal political class. The United States might start by suffering through the difficulty of building relationships with facets of the state that seek to bring benefits to the whole rather than the corporatist interests of the few.

At the risk of showing too much cheek, any serious candidate will recognize that a return to the “Presslerism” of the nineties is entirely counterproductive. As cathartic as it may be to cut all ties with Pakistan each time revelations of its intransigence in Afghanistan come to the fore, doing so solves none of the vexations laid out above. At worst, it would compound those problems by diluting America’s ability to influence them. One novel proposal might be, as others have suggested, to employ targeted sanctions against those individuals, soldiers or otherwise, with irrefutable ties to terrorist groups, rather than to impose conditions that would weaken the entire military or impoverish a population with no control over its foreign policy agenda.

What is unambiguous is that U.S. interests in Pakistan are broader than the narrow basis on which interactions currently take place, and that improving the relationship will take more engagement and nuance rather than less. A too-large chunk of America’s foreign policy woes are contingent on how well its leaders (candidates and incumbent alike) understand, and choose to address, these stark realities. At its simplest, all candidates, President Obama included, must be able to explain how they plan on moving beyond a Pakistan “strategy” that is reliant on drone strikes and trying (and failing) to pay off the Pakistanis to do what they don’t want to.

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Categories:  Critical Threats, Foreign and Defense, South Asia   |   Tags:

Frederick W. Kagan

AEI Debate Prep: After the retreat from Iraq

By Frederick W. Kagan

October 28, 2011, 11:24 am

This post is part of an ongoing series preparing for the AEI/CNN/Heritage National Security & Foreign Policy GOP presidential debate on November 22nd. See the rest of the posts here.

President Obama’s decision to terminate negotiations extending the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq beyond the end of this year is a critical strategic inflection-point not only for Iraq, but for American national security and the global order. Its significance lies both in the important strategic victory it has handed to Iran and in the broad and unqualified statement of American retreatism and isolationism in which the president announced it to the world. This decision ensures that America’s next president will face significantly greater challenges in the tasks of protecting America’s interests in the Middle East and around the world, but will have fewer resources–both material and moral–with which to meet those challenges. Barack Obama appears to have indicated how he intends to respond to them in that statement. A central question for the Republican candidates for president must be: How will you respond, if elected, to the challenges emerging from this decision to retreat?

Many Americans are pleased at the prospect of “ending this war” that the president has promised, for the issue has always been framed in such isolation. Even pollsters generally frame their questions as if Iraq were disconnected from the rest of the world: “Do you think there are too many, too few, or just enough U.S. troops in Iraq? Do you think the U.S. can succeed/is succeeding in Iraq?” e.g. President Obama appears to have made policy decisions about Iraq in a similarly segmented fashion. The administration has never addressed, for instance, how it intends to maintain an intensified sanctions regime against Iran without having any support or assistance from the country that shares the longest land-border with the Islamic Republic.

But only Americans see Iraq as an isolated thing unto itself. Tehran has clearly seen Iraq as a larger part of a regional strategy whose aims include excluding the U.S. from the Middle East entirely and establishing Iran as the hegemon of the entire Persian Gulf and Mesopotamian area. Iran’s success in driving the U.S. out of Iraq opens new opportunities for the Islamic Republic in the region even as it causes America’s beleaguered allies there to lose confidence in the U.S. It undermines not only the sanctions regime, but also regional efforts to rein-in Iranian guerrilla and terrorist proxies such as Lebanese Hezbollah, which operates also in Iraq in conjunction with separate Iraqi-focused Shi’a militias.

Lest we imagine that those militias were of concern only while we were in Iraq, however, let us consider the key figure in the recently revealed plot by the Iranian Qods Force to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Abdul Reza Shahlai. This Qods Force senior officer, known more commonly as Haji Yousef, also directed Iranian support to the most virulent and effective Shi’a militia and terrorist groups in Iraq. His connections to those groups, as well as to Lebanese Hezbollah, which was heavily involved in supporting them, is deep. He has just attempted to make a further connection to Mexican drug cartels in order to export Iranian terrorism directly into the U.S. That plot was foiled, but the Qods Force leadership, including Haji Yousef, remains at large and undeterred. Other plots will surely follow, and they will be able to draw from an increasing pool of militants trained in and based out of Iraq, a country with which the Obama administration claims to seek a friendly and mutually supportive relationship.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have tried gamely to cover with words the enormous hole in any attempt to isolate Iran that this decision has created. The Iranians will not be deterred by their words in the face of our deeds, of course, but Tehran has additional reason to ignore their statements of defiance after the president enunciated a strategy of American withdrawal across the board. Why should Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, or Qods Force Commander Qassim Soleimani, believe statements of commitment by Panetta and Clinton when the president has declared his intention to withdraw our forces from commitments throughout the region as quickly as possible?

Iraq is almost certainly lost now. Already the tempo of purges of Sunnis and even Shi’a not loyal to Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki–or Iran–is accelerating. The prospects for renewed sectarian fighting are growing by the hour. Reports of Iranian efforts to consolidate their control of Iraq are piling up. It is impossible to know exactly what situation will face the president on January 20, 2013, but the questions any candidate must answer today are simply these:

Faced with the likelihood of spreading violence and Iranian influence in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, will you make the hard choices to confront those threats to American national security, or will you seek to remain aloof? Will you continue the process of ceding Iran hegemony in the Middle East or will you pursue a meaningful strategy of resisting or even pressing Iran, defeating or neutralizing its proxies, and re-creating space for America’s Arab partners and allies to join in that resistance? Will you have the stomach to pursue such a strategy even if Iran acquires nuclear weapons? Republican candidates have to answer these questions in debates. The president of the United States in 2013 will have to answer them in real life.

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Frederick W. Kagan

Iran wins

By Frederick W. Kagan

October 27, 2011, 1:27 pm

President Obama’s decision to end negotiations to extend the presence of any U.S. military forces in Iraq after the end of this year has handed Iran a strategically important victory. The minutiae of the negotiations and the reasons for their failure have obscured this larger point. Iran has succeeded in a strategy to oust the United States from Iraq that it has been pursuing through bribery, murder, and military force since 2004, and it now poses an even greater danger to the United States and the world than ever.

Read our piece in today’s LATimes for more.

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Frederick W. Kagan

Obama abandons Iraq

By Frederick W. Kagan

October 21, 2011, 1:29 pm

President Obama announced today that he has decided to abandon America’s interest in Iraq and damage our position in the Middle East by withdrawing all U.S. military forces by the end of this year.

This retreat will have great costs for the United States. It squanders the gains made by both American and Iraqi military forces over the last four years, but, even more important, it squanders the enormous opportunity to forge an alliance with Iraq at a time when such an alliance would be of tremendous value to the United States. It dramatically increases the likelihood that the new and unstable Iraqi democratic experiment—already under attack from an authoritarian prime minister and a hostile Islamic Republic of Iran—will fail. The withdrawal of American forces now serving as peacekeepers along the Arab-Kurd seam greatly increases the likelihood of ethnic civil war. The withdrawal of American military protection from a state helpless to defend itself on its own effectively throws Iraq into the arms of Iran, however the Iraqis feel about the matter.

It makes a mockery, moreover, of the notion that the United States is somehow isolating Iran and increasing pressure on the Islamic Republic mere days after the revelation of an elaborate Iranian plot to conduct attacks on American soil. What sort of sanctions regime can we maintain if Iraq is effectively a free-trade corridor with Iran? How can we argue that Iran is being isolated when its ability to operate terror groups and training areas within Iraq is growing unchecked?

How can we claim to be taking a firm line against Iran while giving Tehran the single most important demand it has pursued for years—the complete withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq?

There is no benefit to the United States from this unnecessary decision, and likely much loss.

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Sic semper tyrannis: The death of Colonel Qaddafi and the future of a free Libya

By Reza Jan

October 20, 2011, 1:10 pm

Thus always to tyrants.

Qadhafi’s death is the capstone of the Libyan revolution. It also marks the fall of Sirte, one of the last strongholds of Qadhafi loyalist fighters. Mahmoud Jibril, the interim prime minister from Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), has stated that once Sirte falls (which it now has) he will officially declare the “liberation of Libya” and then step down. The NTC would then move to Tripoli and an interim government would take over and oversee the transition to national elections slated to be held eight months later.

Five questions about Libya’s future stand out:

FIGHTING: Does Qadhafi’s death mean the end of fighting? The desert town of Beni Walid still holds out and it remains to be seen whether news of the Colonel’s demise will convince his partisans there to put down their guns.

GOVERNANCE: Will the rebels and the NTC be able to manage post-conflict security issues—particularly protecting civilians and infrastructure, preventing looting and revenge killings? Amnesty International has already reported prisoner abuse in rebel-run detention facilities.

LEGITIMACY: Will the Libyan rebel leadership be able to build its legitimacy in a post-war Libya? While the Benghazi-based NTC is the internationally recognized authority in Libya, it is not accepted as the main authority by all the rebel movements in Libya. Misrata’s rebel leadership in particular has tried to maintain its independence from decision-making in Benghazi.

TRIBES: Will the rebel leadership be able to bring on board those tribes and parts of the population that supported Colonel Qadhafi, such as his own Qadadfa tribe? If Qadhafi’s tribesmen or those who supported him see a bleak future for themselves under the new regime, it may encourage them to keep fighting or to turn their resistance into an insurgency.

DISARMAMENT: Will the rebel leadership be able to demobilize, disarm, and reintegrate all the men who took up arms against Qadhafi and who, for the past several months, have operated as part of loosely coordinated militia forces? And will the new Libyan government (and NATO) be able to clamp down on all of Libya’s loose weapon systems? Ever since the war started there have been reports of arms markets being flooded with looted Libyan goods; some have reportedly been destined for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Securing Libya’s weapon stockpiles and the surfeit of small arms and heavy weaponry currently in the hands of rebel fighters will likely have a big impact on the future security of the country and, indeed, the whole region.

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Categories:  Africa, Critical Threats   |   Tags: ,

Qods Force plot foreshadowed by official rhetoric

By Will Fulton

October 12, 2011, 2:16 pm

The foiled attempt by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to stage a brazen terrorist attack against a Saudi target on U.S. soil should come as little surprise if one considers the recent rhetoric of Iran’s military leadership. As AEI Resident Fellow Ali Alfoneh notes in his piece published yesterday on CNN, IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani—sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his involvement in the assassination plot, his third such designation—has alluded to his organization’s desire to expand its operations as recently as May 22, 2011: “Today, Iran’s victory or defeat is no longer decided in Mehran or Khorramshahr. Our boundaries have expanded and we must witness victory in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.” On April 19, 2011, the official organ of the IRGC, Sobh-e Sadeq, warned Saudi Arabia that “they must certainly pay a very high price” for their deployment of troops in Bahrain. One day later, former commander of the IRGC and current military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Yahya Rahim Safavi further warned Saudi Arabia of potential retaliation for its military action in Bahrain. These bellicose remarks were each made during the period in which Manssor Arbabsiar and IRGC-QF deputy Abdul Reza Shahlai began planning their terrorist attack. While the fantastical details of an operation that FBI Director Robert Mueller said “reads like the pages of a Hollywood script” may raise questions about the feasibility of the plot’s success, the aggressive rhetoric emanating from the upper echelons of the IRGC signals the organization’s desire and intent to implement such an attack.

Will Fulton is a Critical Threats Project analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Categories:  Critical Threats, Foreign and Defense, Latin America, Middle East, War on Terror   |   Tags: , ,

A Strategy of Tactics Won’t Defeat Terrorism

By Katherine Faley

October 4, 2011, 9:23 am

The media has been abuzz over the Obama administration’s triumphant killing of al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki, targeted in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen on Friday. While his death is certainly a boon to the war on terror, it also raises questions about U.S. strategy in Yemen, especially given the ongoing political crisis in Sana’a and the expansion of al Qaeda’s safe haven in south Yemen.

As Critical Threats Project director Frederick Kagan pointed out in an AEI briefing yesterday, using drones for targeted killings is dangerously mistaken for a strategy in and of itself. This “strategy of tactics” approach to war as currently espoused by the Obama administration—precise, targeted strikes; use of indigenous forces; limited U.S. involvement—is a replica of the Bush administration’s “light footprint” policies in the war on terror. It didn’t work then, and it is unlikely to succeed now in defeating al Qaeda in Yemen.

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Pakistan Is Wrong to Think It Can Replace the United States With China

By Reza Jan

October 3, 2011, 10:38 am

The row between the United States and Pakistan continues in the aftermath of declarations by U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen that Pakistan’s main spy agency is a key backer of the Haqqani Network, and Pakistan is starting to look mighty short of friends. The Wall Street Journal reported that on Thursday one of China’s largest mining companies was pulling out of an agreement to build coal, power, and chemical plants in southern Pakistan due to security concerns and instability in the country.

The move is significant not just because, at $19 billion, the project promised to be Pakistan’s largest foreign-investment deal ever, but because it is further evidence that the purportedly unshakable foundation on which Sino-Pakistani ties are based may not be so solid after all. Pakistanis are in the habit of waxing poetic about the superlative qualities of China-Pakistan bonhomie; Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has publicly described the friendship as being “higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, stronger than steel, and sweeter than honey.”

Unfortunately for Islamabad, all evidence points to the relationship being far shallower than it would like to admit. Pakistan hopes to have China replace the United States as its long-term strategic partner in the region. The belief that they are being underwritten by Beijing is one reason why many in Pakistan’s leadership feel they can get away with murder vis-à-vis the United States. What the Pakistanis have not grasped so far, however, is that the Chinese are unenthusiastic about playing anything close to the role the United States does in Pakistan.

China’s response to Pakistani wooing after the bin Laden raid has so far been tepid. In May, Pakistan’s defense minister publicly stated that China had agreed to take over operations at the southern Pakistani port of Gawadar. Embarrassingly, the Chinese replied that they were unaware of any such agreement. Beijing has continued to parry Pakistani urgings for a formalized defense pact, believing that Pakistan is too volatile for such a weighty agreement. The Chinese have, on multiple occasions, publicly blamed militants based inside Pakistan for violence in China’s western Xinjiang region and Chinese workers have been killed or abducted in numerous attacks inside Pakistan. Furthermore, China does not want to undertake moves that would damage its nascent rapprochement with neighboring India or sour its relations with the United States.

The bottom line is, the Chinese are in the business of doing business. They have never been generous donors of aid to Pakistan, and they likely do not want to fill the role the United States currently plays towards Pakistan with billions of dollars of multi-year assistance agreements. China has been looking to expand road and rail links through Pakistan in addition to numerous other investment projects, but it has not been willing to overlook Pakistan’s risky political and security situation.

This is not to say that the two countries will cease to have warm relations or continue to strengthen their military and trade ties, but Pakistan continues to delude itself if it thinks it will ever be able to replicate with China the opportunities the United States has so far been willing to provide. Nationalistic fervor and a sense of wounded pride are swelling in Pakistan in response to the latest fracas with the United States, and calls to break ties with America altogether are growing stronger. But Pakistan’s military and political elite had better be realistic about its impending isolation before they tell the United States “it’s time to see other strategic partners.”

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Frederick W. Kagan

Targeted Killings Can’t Be Total Strategy to Defeat al Qaeda

By Frederick W. Kagan

September 30, 2011, 10:15 am

The killing of al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen was a good and important step forward in the war against terrorists.  Combined with the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and the subsequent killings of other al Qaeda leaders there, it deals a blow to the movement. The death of Awlaki is particularly important because it weakens al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is emerging as the most effective and dangerous al Qaeda franchise with global aims.

We must not, however, see in these killings a strategy for dismantling and defeating al Qaeda and preventing it from re-establishing itself—the president’s apt exposition of our overall aims in this conflict.

Senior-most leadership is important in this terrorist franchise network, make no mistake. The succession from Bin Laden to Ayman al Zawahiri caused turmoil within al Qaeda and will probably have long-term effects on the shape and development of that movement. Awlaki’s death will likely have somewhat less of an impact on AQAP, since he was neither its founder nor its principal leader, although his spiritual and recruiting functions will be difficult for the group to replace.

But replace it they will if attacks against them are confined to strikes against the most high-profile and senior-most leadership. A number of al Qaeda franchises and fellow-traveller movements have gone through successful leadership transitions. U.S. forces killed al Qaeda in Iraq founder and leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in June 2006. He was rapidly replaced by a deputy, Abu Ayyub al Masri, who led the organization into an even more lethal and effective strategy aimed at fomenting sectarian civil war in Iraq in 2006, at which he nearly succeeded. The Haqqani insurgent network has seen the leadership torch passed from its founder and patriarch, Jalaluddin Haqqani, to his son Sirajuddin, and the lethality and effectiveness of that group increased as well. The killing of Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan founder and leader Beitullah Mehsud—who was responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto—has had a more significant effect on that group, which has splintered under the pressure of his death, limited Pakistani operations, and resumed the tribal infighting that Beitullah Mehsud had worked hard to overcome.

The splinters, however, continue to fight both the U.S. and Pakistan, and that group is far from defeated.

The effect of Zawahiri’s succession to the leadership mantle of the core al Qaeda group remains to be seen, but that is the exception that proves the rule. The U.S. and Pakistan have been aggressively and effectively targeting senior- and mid-level leadership of the core al Qaeda group for a decade.

We have removed not only the founder and leader, but numerous operational commanders, facilitators, trainers, and others. In the case of operational commanders, we have killed successors to the successors many times.

Zawahiri thus takes control over a group that has been severely degraded by constant pressure against leadership at all levels, not just the top. His group, moreover, does not control territory within Pakistan any more, leading either a comfortable but hidden existence as bin Laden did, or a more flitting and migratory existence as most of the facilitators do. All of that pressure has been essential to reducing the effectiveness of the core al Qaeda group to its current level, and the killing of bin Laden, important though it was, was just another piece of a robust strategy that denied al Qaeda Central concentrated safe-havens and continually disrupted the network’s leadership at all levels. It is also worth noting that Pakistan has generally been very supportive of U.S. efforts directly focused against al Qaeda, debates over ISI knowledge or ignorance of bin Laden’s hideaway in Abbottabad notwithstanding.

The U.S. is pursuing no such strategy against AQAP.  The group currently has safe-haven within Yemen, and the chaos surrounding the spread of the Arab Spring to Sana’a has allowed it to expand that safe haven. Neither American nor Yemeni forces are seriously challenging the major support areas that AQAP has already established—the fighting in Southern Yemen against AQAP is aimed at limiting its expansion rather than reducing its base. We have not been able to muster the same kind of top-to-bottom pressure on AQAP through targeted strikes, moreover, as we have conducted against al Qaeda central.

We don’t have the bases or intelligence needed to do so in a theater with virtually no U.S. presence and very limited cooperation from local security forces. The prospects for developing that kind of infrastructure in Yemen are very poor.

The notion that the targeted killings of a handful of key leaders of al Qaeda franchises around the world will end the terror threat to the U.S. cheaply, quickly, and efficiently is seductive but wrong. We have far too much evidence to show that committed terrorist organizations can and do replace leaders faster than we can kill them, and that the replacements can lead the movements as well or sometimes better than their deceased predecessors. It takes the kind of sustained, high-tempo, focused operations we have directed against the core al Qaeda group to reduce the threat of such an enemy significantly, but we do not have the capabilities ourselves or the capable partners in Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere to repeat that exercise.

Killings of high-profile terrorist leaders are important both symbolically and practically. President Obama and his team are to be congratulated on their recent successes, and may they continue. But we must not confuse those successes with a strategy, or allow these news-grabbing positive events to conceal the reality that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains a virulent organization that will continue to threaten the U.S. directly and indirectly until and unless we can develop, articulate, and implement a more comprehensive strategy to attack and defeat that network than we have yet done.

More on Anwar al-Awlaki at AEI’s Critical Threats Project

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New Commissar, New Problems: Khamenei’s New Representative to the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards

By Ali Alfoneh and Will Fulton

September 16, 2011, 10:44 am

On September 14, 2011, Iran’s state-controlled media outlets announced that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had replaced Hojjat al-Eslam Esmail Sa’adatnezhad with Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi as his representative to the Quds Force–the elite unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) charged with conducting clandestine terrorist operations outside of Iran. Because of the Quds Force’s involvement in terrorist activities across the Middle East and its support for proxies actively targeting U.S. forces in the region, the implications of this personnel change and the individuals involved are worth considering.

On paper, Khamenei’s representatives and the ideological/political commissariat over which they preside wield significant power over the IRGC. The representatives act as the eyes and ears of the Supreme Leader and ensure the IRGC’s subordination to the civilian leadership’s control. Shirazi, however, will most likely find his powers severely limited by the strong-willed commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Major General Qassem Suleimani. So long as Shirazi restricts himself to preaching loyalty to the Supreme Leader among Quds Force members, a tolerable cohabitation between Shirazi and Suleimani is quite possible, but should Shirazi dare to challenge Suleimani’s authority over operational issues, clashes between the two men are unavoidable.

The elderly Sa’adatnezhad, Khamenei’s previous representative to the IRGC Quds Force, is a reticent cleric, who made public statements only on very rare occasions. Sa’adatnezhad would, for example, warn against “expressing opinions contrary to the words of the guardian and divine leader [Khamenei],” equating such transgressions to “polytheism,” and asserting that the “identity of Hezbollah is adherence to the guardianship of the jurist [Khamenei’s authority].” Sa’adatnezhad’s low profile and carefully crafted non-military statements made clear that he did not intend to challenge Suleimani’s authority. Accordingly, there are no reports of clashes between Sa’adatnezhad and Suleimani in the open source.

Shirazi, on the other hand, is an altogether different breed of cleric. Shirazi has hitherto served as the Supreme Leader’s representative to the IRGC Navy, and is perhaps best known for asserting in 2010 that Iran was prepared to use IRGC Navy forces to escort humanitarian aid ships bound for Gaza. Shirazi also made news in 2008 when he warned, “The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe … If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and U.S. shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran’s first targets and they will be burned.” Shirazi later reaffirmed this sentiment when he wrote in the Persian-language daily Partow-e Sokhan that “if the Iranian nation becomes angry, they will not let anything be left of America and Israel.”

The substance of Shirazi’s statements may not necessarily clash with Suleimani’s ideology or strategic thinking, but the very fact that Shirazi keeps such a high profile in the Iranian press and frequently involves himself in directing the IRGC’s military activities will undoubtedly provoke a conflict with the commissarial leadership of the Quds Force and Suleimani. The outcome of those conflicts could serve as a measure of Suleimani’s authority in the IRGC Quds Force and the Islamic Republic in general. Should Shirazi’s leadership stimulate any inert division within Iran’s “primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad,” we may soon witness significant changes within the Quds Force command hierarchy, and potential changes to its regional strategy.

Ali Alfoneh is a resident fellow and Will Fulton is a Critical Threats Project analyst at AEI.

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Fearing a 2009 Repeat: Iran’s Instability

By Ali Alfoneh and Will Fulton

September 13, 2011, 11:20 am

As Iran’s March 2012 parliamentary elections grow nearer, the Islamic Republic’s authorities are increasingly concerned that the country will experience public protests similar to those seen after the fraudulent 2009 presidential election. The regime is desperately trying to prevent intensified factional infighting—specifically between supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hardliner challengers—fearing it would reveal the depth of factionalism among Iran’s ruling elite.

In his August 31, 2011 sermon, Iran’s head of state Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that elections should not become “a challenge to the security of the state.” In line with this rhetoric, the Islamic Republic’s authorities have established the Principalists’ Unity Committee in an attempt to minimize factional infighting among the Iranian hardliners. These attempts at unifying the hardliners, however, have been challenged by the formation of yet another political faction, known as the “Islamic Revolution Resistance Front” (IRRF).

The IRRF criticizes Ahmadinejad’s policies, but within its ranks there is a heavy presence of erstwhile Ahmadinejad supporters. Its leader, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, is former spiritual advisor to the president. The financial backer of the IRRF, Sadeq Mahsouli, served in two ministerial posts under Ahmadinejad. Three more of Ahmadinejad’s former ministers count themselves among IRRF’s members, as do current and former advisors to the president. Their presence has made some of the president’s adversaries speculate that the IRRF’s criticism of Ahmadinejad is a deceptive tactic and a means for the president to extend his power beyond his second term.

Yet the diversity of the IRRF’s membership indicates otherwise, as it also includes some of Khamenei’s most ardent defenders among its ranks, such as: Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaght, a member of the Assembly of Experts and father-in-law to Khamenei’s son Mostafa; Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, former parliament speaker and father-in-law to Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, and; Hojjat al-Eslam Ali-Reza Panahian, one-time representative of Khamenei to Iran’s universities and deputy head of the think tank devoted to disseminating the leader’s revolutionary ideology.

What is the glue that binds members of the IRRF? Aside from its hardline base, the only thread linking this disparate faction is its desire to survive looming political turmoil. Beyond the 2012 parliamentary elections lies the 2013 presidential vote; both of these events are sure to bring simmering hostilities to a boil with uncertain consequences. Once again, Iran’s elites are responding to unpredictable political conditions with rapid fluidity, abandoning long-term alliances in favor of short-term survival pacts.

The true depth of division among Iran’s hardliners has been made evident by the Machiavellian maneuverings over the course of the past two years by Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader, yet the factional conflict unfolding in the run-up to the parliamentary elections is perhaps more revealing. Despite Khamenei’s ceaseless declamations about unity in the Islamic Republic, Iran’s political system is plagued by a disintegrative instability that is an impediment to internal progress and external relations.

With the future of Iran’s leadership difficult to discern from within, it is near impossible to engage from without. Come 2012, Washington-based proponents of negotiations with the Islamic Republic may find their argument an even harder sell than before.

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Conflict Potential: Iran’s Shared Oil and Gas Fields

By Ali Alfoneh and Will Fulton

September 12, 2011, 11:24 am

When Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi delivered his first major interview in July 2011, more than six months after his appointment by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he did little else but parrot the Islamic Republic’s ideological platitudes of the past three decades: Iran is willing to establish ties with any country (sans Israel), including the United States, unless the United States “behaves in its own way,” at which point, “dialogue or political negotiation … is out of the question.” Salehi’s performance will keep him in office, for a time, but he does not address Iran’s most pressing problem: due to diplomatic isolation and the international sanctions regime, Iran’s oil industry is in decline and losing money.

Though it has not dissuaded the Islamic Republic from accelerating the development of its nuclear program, sanctions have created severe problems for Iran’s oil industry. An August 2011 report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed that, since their last report, “foreign firms [had] significantly decreased commercial activity in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors.”

Lacking offshore oil extraction technology and foreign investments, most responsible decision-makers would have recalculated the costs and benefits of a nuclear program—the root of Iran’s diplomatic isolation and the international sanctions regime—but the Islamic Republic has done otherwise. On July 26, Ahmadinejad appointed Rostam Qasemi, former chief of the Revolutionary Guards’s Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base—whose name also appears on U.S. and EU sanctions lists—as oil minister. When asked about declining domestic oil production capacity in a recent meeting with Iran’s energy commission, Qasemi “did not provide a definite answer.”

Iran’s declining oil production and money problems have great conflict potential. Iran’s neighbors who are not inhibited by sanctions or financial troubles extract oil and gas from fields shared with Iran, while their Persian counterparts watch on in despair. South Pars oil illustrates the problem: Qatar—which is geographically smaller than the oil and gas field—extracts 360 million cubic meters from the field, while Iran extracts 210 cubic meters. Qatar extracts 450,000 barrels per day from oil fields shared with Iran, while Iran extracts none! The same goes for the oil and gas fields Iran shares with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

At his inauguration ceremony, Qasemi called the development of these shared fields his “top priority.” Such rhetoric will not suffice so long as the sanctions regime denies Iran access to external financing and technology. As the still poorer Iran watches its neighbors reap profits from shared oil and gas fields, disputes over resources and territorial boundaries can quickly escalate, as was the case in 1999 when Iranian troops entered Iraqi territory following a disagreement over the shared al-Fakkah oil field. The Islamic Republic has yet to learn that avoiding international sanctions and diplomatic isolation provides a more suitable pathway to becoming a responsible regional power than does recklessly flexing military muscle.

Ali Alfoneh is a resident fellow and Will Fulton is a Critical Threats Project analyst at AEI.

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Al Shabaab Exacerbates Somalia’s Famine Crisis

By Katherine Faley

September 8, 2011, 2:04 pm

On Monday, the United Nations added a sixth area in Somalia to the country’s list of famine-stricken regions. The food crisis devastating East Africa has hit Somalia the hardest, affecting nearly 4 million people there alone. The spread of famine further south to the Bay region means that an additional 750,000 Somalis are at risk of starving to death in the next fourth months. The UN expects these conditions to reach two neighboring regions on the border with Kenya, endangering even more lives. This bleak outlook begs the question: what can be done to stop the humanitarian crisis?

Unfortunately, the case of Somalia is further complicated by its volatile security environment and the presence of the radical Islamist group al Shabaab, which controls large parts of the country—including those in the south most affected by the famine. Katherine Zimmerman, Gulf of Aden team lead at AEI’s Critical Threats Project, will testify at 2 p.m. before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights on the challenges of providing humanitarian assistance in al Shabaab-controlled Somalia. Some key points from her testimony:

•    The greatest obstacle to the provision of humanitarian assistance in Somalia is denial of access by al Shabaab, which not only creates a prohibitive security environment, but also restricts humanitarian operations in southern Somalia.

•    Al Shabaab has banned many international aid agencies from operating within territories under its control. The group has enforced this ban with violence: militants raid local offices, destroy foodstuffs and medical supplies, and kidnap aid workers. The group’s actions against aid organizations have created the humanitarian emergency that many Somalis now face.

•    The international community should not cling to the false belief that a humanitarian operation in southern Somalia could be successfully accomplished without ground forces supporting the mission. There is a high likelihood that any such operation, which would entail establishing security in the heartland of al Shabaab’s territory, would be met with significant armed resistance.

Watch the hearing, “Addressing the Humanitarian Emergency in East Africa,” live or read the full text of Katherine’s testimony.

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Mullen Fingers the ISI in Pakistani Journalist’s Murder

By Reza Jan

July 7, 2011, 4:37 pm

Earlier today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen publicly accused the Pakistani government of sanctioning the murder of Syed Saleem Shahzad, a prominent Pakistani journalist. “I have not seen anything to disabuse that the government knew about it,” Mullen said. Shahzad was found dead in a canal on the outskirts of Islamabad, beaten and tortured to death days after disappearing on May 29.

That Shahzad might have been killed by the Pakistan’s shadowy directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is not news. The ISI was found guilty in the court of public opinion upon the discovery of Shahzad’s body. The organization has a history of controlling journalists through intimidation and violence. Prior to his disappearance, Shahzad had warned multiple people that he had been receiving death threats from the ISI on account of his reporting. The fact that Shahzad died days after writing a story exposing embarrassing infiltrations of the Pakistani military by al Qaeda militants only strengthens the case. To crown it all, senior Obama administration officials, speaking anonymously, confirmed on Monday that intelligence existed to indicate that Shahzad’s murder had been ordered by senior ISI officials.

What makes this story significant is that an official as prominent as Mullen would go out of his way to confirm the ISI’s complicity in the murder just as the Obama administration is looking to repair ties with Pakistan. Relations between the two countries have been severely strained by the fallout of the May 2 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Pakistani military has been under unprecedented pressure at home and abroad since the raid, and the announcement may be an attempt by the United States to keep that pressure on. It remains to be seen whether such tactics will have the desired effect. What is certain, however, is that killing off journalists who are writing about uncomfortable truths such as the presence of militant sympathizers in the army will neither restore the army’s reputation, nor extirpate the militant rot in the inside.

Reza Nasim Jan is the Pakistan team leader for AEI’s Critical Threats Project. He is a co-author of the report “The Haqqanis in Kurram: The Regional Implications of a Growing Insurgency.”

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Once Again, Beirut Falls into Syrian and Iranian Orbit

By Katherine Faley

June 17, 2011, 8:38 am

On Wednesday Lebanese President Michel Suleiman denied accusations that the country’s new government—formed five months after Hezbollah and its allies forced the collapse of the previous government—is a client of Syria and Iran. “This government is 100 percent Lebanese, with a 100 percent Lebanese agenda,” Suleiman stated at the cabinet’s first meeting. Yet the 30-member cabinet is dominated by the pro-Syrian March 8 bloc led by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, which gained an unprecedented majority of 18 seats. Prime Minister Najib Miqati claimed that this outcome “does not mean that the country will join the radical camp in terms of its relations with the international community.” This battle, however, was already lost.

Hezbollah’s dominance of the new government is hardly unexpected. In the months preceding its withdrawal from the Lebanese government in January, the organization launched a fierce rhetorical campaign to de-legitimize the UN-backed tribunal charged with investigating the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The tribunal’s indictments would likely implicate Hezbollah operatives, damage the group’s reputation, and lead to the arrest and public trial of those involved. Consequently, Hezbollah staged the takedown of the former pro-Western government led by Saad Hariri with the help of its opportunistic March 8 allies. Now that Hezbollah benefits from a majority stake in the government, the tribunal stands even less of a chance of effectively carrying out its mission; in the event the tribunal issues indictments at all—an unlikely scenario by all accounts—Hezbollah would readily use its power to block the arrest of its members and, in doing so, violate Lebanon’s international obligation. Removing this threat has allowed the organization to focus its efforts on further consolidating its power base in Lebanon and lending support to Tehran and Damascus.

Hezbollah and Iran have publicly supported Syrian President Bashar al Assad in the face of mounting international and internal pressure regarding his brutal repression of pro-reform protests. In May, for instance, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad separately expressed their commitment to Assad’s stability and shared the opinion that neither of their respective countries should interfere in Syrian internal affairs. As Ahmadinejad put it, “the [Syrian] government and the people of Syria have reached a level of maturity to solve their own problem by themselves.” On Monday, Assad congratulated his Lebanese counterpart with suspicious alacrity following the cabinet’s formation. Hezbollah’s political rise is a huge boon not only for Assad but also for the organization’s main financial supporter, Iran.

The Obama administration has reacted cautiously to this most recent blow to American influence in the region. Department of State Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner explained that the current assessment is “to wait and see what the final government looks like.” Arguably, this “wait and see” approach to critical developments in the Middle East has not worked extraordinarily well for the United States thus far.

Katherine Faley is a research analyst for AEI’s Critical Threats Project.

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Suicide Attacks a Reminder of Terrorists’ Strength in Somalia

By Katherine Zimmerman

June 10, 2011, 5:27 pm

The spate of suicide attacks in Mogadishu – three in two weeks – could be an indicator that the gains after recent offensives were only temporary. Just Monday, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) reported that additional districts in the Somali capital had been cleared of al Shabaab militants. Al Shabaab, a radical Islamist group with ties to al Qaeda, already controls much of southern and central Somalia.

Today, an al Shabaab female suicide bomber killed the Somali Interior Minister. Reportedly, she had been staying with him in his home near the KM4 intersection in Mogadishu. The AMISOM headquarters are nearby, and KM4 serves as a key transit point for AMISOM and Somali government troops and supplies.

Yesterday, two al Shabaab suicide bombers attacked the main seaport. The attack killed one civilian and injured three AMISOM peacekeepers.

And on May 30, al Shabaab attacked AMISOM’s Shakala base along Makka al Mukarama Road, the main supply route. The attempted suicide attack killed two AMISOM peacekeepers and injured four others.

The AMISOM peacekeeping force, now an estimated 9,100 troops, is still shy of its mandated 12,000 troops. The force supports the weak UN-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Recent offensives increased the areas under the Somali government’s control, but there was not a comparative increase in government or AMISOM troops to hold the gains.

As changes sweep through the Arab world and demand attention, Somalia cannot be forgotten.

Katherine Zimmerman is a Critical Threats Project Analyst and Gulf of Aden Team Lead at AEI.

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Yemen on Verge of Civil War: This Could Get Ugly

By Katherine Zimmerman

June 3, 2011, 3:51 pm

Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh was reportedly injured in an attack on the presidential palace today in Sana’a, the capital. The attack also killed four guards and injured the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and parliament speaker.

The fighting in Sana’a broke out May 23, the day after Saleh refused for the third time to sign a transition agreement. It has quickly escalated: footage from the capital show images of urban warfare, tribesmen and military forces from other areas are reinforcing military positions in Sana’a, and there have been sustained clashes outside of the capital. Today’s attack on the president himself may move the conflict toward outright war in the capital.

Why should the U.S. care? Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has conducted multiple attacks on American soil, finds sanctuary in the country. AQAP only stands to gain as the situation in Yemen deteriorates. As I write for the Weekly Standard:

Yemen’s escalating violence, an economy on the brink of collapse, and the prospect of widespread civil war or a fragmented state may present the White House with a very dark reality—the emergence of a terrorist sanctuary on the Arabian peninsula hosting an outfit that has targeted the U.S. homeland.

AEI’s Critical Threats Project is providing daily updates and analysis of the situation in Yemen that are also sent out by email.

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Wishful Thinking Doesn’t Make Post-Bin Laden World Any Less Dangerous

By Katherine Faley

June 3, 2011, 9:52 am

According to a May 2 USA Today/Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans felt that Osama bin Laden’s death would make the United States safer from terrorism. As the House Homeland Security subcommittee hears testimony on terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, recent developments in those three countries are a reminder that the terrorist threat is far from eliminated.

News emerged Monday that the Pakistani military is planning to launch a long-awaited campaign against militants in North Waziristan, the stomping ground for a dangerous mix of terrorist groups that target U.S. forces in Afghanistan as well as the American homeland. In Yemen, escalating fighting between the government and powerful tribes has created conditions ripe for an outbreak of protracted civil war. Such an outcome would allow al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—a key contender for leadership of the al Qaeda network post-Osama bin Laden—to further expand its safe havens and freely plan attacks against the United States. And the FBI announced yesterday that it is looking into the case of a reported Somali-American al Shabaab suicide bomber who was involved in a plot killing two African Union soldiers Monday in Mogadishu, Somalia. With its sight set on joining the global jihad, al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab also poses a threat to U.S. national security.

The post-bin Laden world is still a dangerous one, and the war on terror is not over. The United States needs to remain vigilant in its efforts to keep Americans and its allies safe in the homeland and abroad.

Katherine Faley is a research analyst at AEI’s Critical Threats Project.

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Cutting U.S. Troops: Bad for America, Bad for Pakistan

By Reza Jan

May 27, 2011, 5:11 pm

According to a statement from the Pentagon, the United States is in the process of pulling out some of its troops inside Pakistan, many of whom are deployed as trainers to the Pakistani military, following an in-writing request from the Pakistan Army. Islamabad has asked for a scaling back of more than 200 American troops currently deployed inside Pakistan.

The request was initially made in the aftermath of the so-called “Raymond Davis affair,” when a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore in late January. The Pakistani military, in a display of its indignation, asked the United States to pare down its Special Forces training program assisting the paramilitary Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC). The army, still reeling from the fallout and embarrassment of the bin Laden raid, is probably pursuing the request to show its displeasure at the unilateral U.S. action deep inside Pakistan.

The move is a bad one for all involved. The most direct beneficiary of the training program is the Pakistani military itself. U.S. Special Forces trainers are there at the invitation of Pakistan and have done much over the past several years to help train and equip the FC.

Considered for years to be a backwater deployment, the FC lacked funding, attention, training, equipment, and professionalism and, as a result, was frequently bested in battles with the Taliban. Today, the FC is a strikingly more competent organization, and American training, funding, and equipping has had a positive role to play in that transformation. Shrinking the training program will deprive the FC of the mentorship it needs, and Pakistani officers of the relationships they could be developing with their American counterparts. The U.S., too, will suffer from the decreased soldier-to-soldier contact and trust building opportunities that the program encourages.

At the strategic level, the move does not augur well for the U.S.-Pakistan relationship and is evidence that the strategic partners have not yet made it through the rough patches. The recent trip by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen were meant to help put the relationship back on track and to begin, slowly but surely, re-establishing trust between the two countries. There is much work yet to be done, and the Pakistani call to shrink a program that it ultimately benefits most from is not going to make the task any easier.

Reza Nasim Jan is the Pakistan team leader for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a co-author of the new report “The Haqqanis in Kurram: The Regional Implications of a Growing Insurgency.”

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