Tag Archives: Ayman al-Zawahiri

Mixed Emotions On A Recent Headline

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The Biden administration has announced the killing of top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri over the weekend. That’s a good thing. I have little doubt that al-Zawahiri is dead, I have a lot of doubt as to exactly what the truth is surrounding his death.

The Conservative Review points out a few problems with the announcement:

According to expert terrorism analyst Bill Roggio, the narrative that al-Zawahiri’s death was a counterterrorism success “masks the undeniable truth that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is a safe haven for al-Qaeda.”

That is because, as Roggio explained, al-Zawahiri was “hiding” in plain-sight, i.e., he was not hiding at all.

“Zawahiri was killed in the Sherpur neighborhood, in a home run by a deputy of Sirajuddin Haqqani. Sirajuddin is of course one of two deputy Taliban emirs as well as the interior minister,” Roggio explained. “Zawahiri could not operate in Afghanistan — particularly in Kabul — without the consent of the Taliban. He wasn’t in the remote mountains of Kunar, Nuristan, or Nangarhar, or distant provinces of Ghazni, Helmand, or Kandahar. He was in the Taliban’s capital.”

The Conservative Treehouse is also somewhat skeptical of the narrative:

Everything about the supposed killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri is suspect, weird and fishy.

♦First, Al Zawahiri has been reported as killed or dead at least a half dozen times in the last 10 years; including by natural causes.  ♦Second, Ayman Zawahiri was very old. Western citations put his age at 71 (born 1951), however, that is suspect (sounds like his younger brother’s age).  ♦Third, the location of his reported killing in Kabul is odd.  Zawahiri was known to avoid large populations, and even with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan the tribal conflicts with factions of the Taliban would have been an issue.

♦Fourth, somehow the Taliban waited until after the U.S. intelligence community leaked the strike to the media before they issued a statement condemning the drone attack.  Since when does al-Qaeda wait 48+ hours to denounce hostile action in their territory?   Coordinating and timed joint press releases between the White House and ‘Taliban‘ to western media outlets is seriously sketchy.

♦Fifth, absolutely no official outline from the Pentagon or White House on this “successful counterterrorism strike“?  Despite a primetime presidential address, the White House has no announcement, no official statement, nothing, on their website.  Additionally, Biden leads off saying the attack was on Saturday, the Taliban waited 48-hours to denounce a U.S. drone strike?  Think about it.  Doesn’t add up.  More sketchy.

♦Sixth, and seemingly just an oddball addendum, Fox News breaks the story using Jennifer Griffin as lead reporter.  As I noted several days ago, Griffin had been missing from Fox News since she went bonzo in March attacking Tucker Carlson over his cynicism of the official State Dept and Pentagon narrative in Ukraine.

I am willing to rejoice that a terrorist has departed the earth, but I do wonder if the information we have been given is accurate. It is also disturbing to learn that Afghanistan is once again a safe haven for al-Qaeda.

While We Were Distracted By The Torture Report and the Gruber Hearings

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On Sunday, the Department of Defense issued an announcement that they were releasing six Guantanamo inmates to Uruguay. The terrorists were Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan, Omar Mahmoud Faraj, Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy, Mohammed Tahanmatan, and Jihad Diyab.

Yesterday, The Long War Journal posted some information on who these prisoners were.

The article reports:

The four Syrians transferred — Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Husein Shaaban, Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj, and Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab — were all allegedly members of the so-called “Syrian Group.” The JTF-GTMO files describe the “Syrian Group” as “comprised of dismantled terrorist cells that escaped Syrian authorities and fled to Afghanistan (AF) in 2000.”

Part of the reporting in the JTF-GTMO files on the so-called “Syrian Group” came from the Syrian government, which was opposed to this particular group of jihadists but also eventually allied with al Qaeda in the fight against American forces in Iraq. Ultimately, in a form of blowback, that one-time alliance would fracture.

Syrian intelligence authorities under the Assad regime reported that Abu Musab al Suri, a senior al Qaeda ideologue, was the head of the “Syrian Group,” whose members traveled to Afghanistan for training in al Suri’s and al Qaeda’s camps. One camp established by al Suri, known as the al Ghuraba camp, provided training in electronics, including the building of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

See the article at the Long War Journal for further information.

As for the other two detainees, the article reports:

Mohammed Abdullah Tahamuttan (ISN 684), who is originally from the West Bank, is the only one of the six transferred detainees who was deemed a “medium” risk by JTF-GTMO. Tahamuttan was captured during the same raids that netted Abu Zubaydah in late March 2002. The safe houses where Tahamuttan, Zubaydah and others were captured were operated by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Pakistan. JTF-GTMO concluded that Tahamuttan was a member of Zubaydah’s “Martyrs Brigade,” which was created for the “purpose of returning to Afghanistan to conduct improvised explosive devices (IED) attacks against US and Coalition forces.”

…Abdul Bin Mohammed Bin Abess Ourgy (ISN 502), a citizen of Tunisia, is the sixth and final detainee transferred to Uruguay. “Detainee is assessed to be a member of al Qaeda and a finance operative for the Tunisian Combatant Group (TCG),” the JTF-GTMO threat assessment reads. The TCG is a forerunner of Ansar al Sharia Tunisia, the group responsible for the Sept. 14, 2012 assault on the US Embassy in Tunis. And the intelligence collected on Ourgy showed that he worked with some of the senior TCG officials who would go on to form Ansar al Sharia Tunisia, including the group’s founder, Abu Iyad al Tunisi, and Sami Ben Khemais Essid, a longtime al Qaeda operative.

The article has full biographies–this is just a snapshot. Traditionally prisoners of war are not released until the war is over. I am concerned about what sort of mischief these men will create in Uruguay and how long it will take them to rejoin the battle in the Middle East.

Sometimes You Just Can’t Tell The Players Without A Scorecard

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CBS News is reporting today that Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over as head of Al Qaeda after Osama Bin Laden was killed, has released a videotaped statement asking Muslims in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to join the uprising against Assad’s “pernicious, cancerous regime.”

The article reports that a senior Iraqi security official told the Associated Press that Al Qaeda fighters have been flowing from Iraq into Syria.

It is interesting to me that Al Qaeda is supporting the overthrow of the regime. Assad has been a brutal dictator, but I do not think Al Qaeda would be supporting him unless they felt they could install the Muslim Brotherhood in his place (as they have done in Egypt). The danger here is to the non-Muslims who live in the country. For whatever reason, Assad was content to let Christians practice their faith in Syria. I seriously doubt that will continue if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda have the same goal–a worldwide caliphate. They just have different ideas on how to get there. In American the Muslim Brotherhood is working within the government and the legal system to win control (see Dallas News). The Muslim Brotherhood believes that violence is not useful until the government of the country it is taking over is ready to fall. Al Qaeda sees violence as the means to bring down a government. The end game is the same, but the method is different.

If the government of Syria falls, which I believe it will, the only safe place for Christians in the Middle East will be Israel. Isn’t that ironic?

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