Just Who Is Winning?

There has been some good news from (some of) the front in the war between the civilized nations of the world and Islamist jihad. The Marja area has been cleared of the majority of Taliban trigger pullers so the civilian government might try to establish itself and gain credibility with and support from the locals. In Pakistan the government, military, and ISI have continued in their program of selective apprehension of Afghan Taliban senior figures.

So much for the good news. It isn't much but it does show a considerable improvement in the AfPak region compared to a few months ago.

Then, there is the rest of the world.

While there is the appearance--and even some reality--of a truce in Yemen, the failing state continues to attract Islamists and jihadi faster than a honey tree draws bees. The pirates of Somalia continue to operate even though the world's press yawns. More importantly the Koran waving, AK toting thugs of al-Shabaab continue to operate with success despite losses in recent combat in the capital Mogadishu.

The al-Shabaab jihadist leadership is feeling symptoms of the "victory disease" in that it has declared war against Kenya, Uganda, and Djibouti. The "war" which has been declared has already been defined by al-Shabaab to be one of suicide and similar terror attacks against which none of the listed countries is well prepared to counter the threat.

The Islamist faction in Nigeria has increased in both size and appeal. The greatest manifestation of this is the up-tick in attacks on Christian communities and churches. The government is going through a period of internal instability with the result it has not been able to suppress the jhadists effectively. Rather they have been repressed just enough to consolidate their structures and enhance their appeal to those who are inclined to feel persecuted or neglected.

Then there is North Africa....

Important in and of itself the countries of North Africa--Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mali--are important. They contain vast quantities of natural resources including hydrocarbons. The region is even more critical as a potential launching pad for jihadist attacks on European targets.

These countries--in particular Mali with its vast expanses of nothing but nothingness--are the stomping ground of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM.) Currently AQIM is small, not more than a thousand adherents but one has to be bullish on its future.

AQIM is descended from the Algerian Islamist Fighting Front for Salvation and Combat which waged a very bloody war with that country's security forces in the Nineties following the Algerian army's cancellation of elections which would have brought the Islamists to power. The war was, not unlike the long war of national independence, both dirty and deadly. At the end of active hostilities the surviving jihadists withdrew to the desert wastes of Mali, an area about the size of France.

The group spent the years in the wilderness profitably, developing organizational coherence, ideological consistency, and increasingly close relations with al-Qaeda. Capitalizing on a number of grievances within the more marginal members of regional societies as well as the frustrated ambitions of the often over-educated, under-employed urban youth of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and even Libya, AQIM gained supporters, if not active combatants.

In more recent months and years AQIM has concentrated on kidnapping foreigners including oil workers and attacking security forces. This sort of humdrum has been dramatically punctuated by spectaculars, the most eye popping of which was the December 2007 attack on a UN facility in Algeria which killed seventeen staffers as well as twenty locals.

The impoverished, ramshackle governments of Mali and Mauritania have proven themselves to be utterly incompetent in dealing with AQIM even when the group subjects the governments to intense embarrassment both domestically and internationally. The efforts underway in both countries have been complemented (but not made any less ineffective) by both the US and the EU declaring AQIM to be a terrorist entity.

Recent economic aid and preliminary military assistance have not had any measurable or even noticeable impact upon the fortunes of Mali or Mauritania. AQIM continues to operate with impunity in both. Both governments--and some Western analysts--have downplayed the spike in AQIM recruiting and operations by overstating the importance of the working relationship between the Islamist jihadists of AQIM and local criminal gangs including smugglers and kidnappers.

While these relations exist having been carefully cultivated by AQIM during the Wilderness Years, they facilitate rather than replace the abilities inherent in the group. The criminals are a sort of force multiplier and not the force itself. The AQIM force itself has been growing not only by local recruiting but as a result of individuals from Sudan, Chad, and Nigeria having come to join the "good fight." It is only a matter of time (and not much of it) before gunslingers from Iraq and places east start appearing on the overhead imagery of the desert camps.

The initiative continues to reside with the Islamist jihadists for one set of very simple and compelling reasons. The first is the existence of a very credible (to True Believers or wannabe True Believers) ideology promising eschatological rewards as well as anodynes for "this world" inequities and injustices. The second is the self-organizing nature of all the myriad Islamist jihadist groups. The non-existence of a Jihadist Central Command is the second greatest strength of the enemy in the current war(s).

The greatest strength is, of course, the unmentionable reality that the Sacred Writings of Islam contain all the justifications needed for the waging of the dirtiest of wars. Islam provides a credible basis, if interpreted by the "right" cleric for any and all wars including the possession and implied use of nuclear weapons.

The combination of religious predicates and self-organization means the Islamist jihadist enemy can move fast, change locations, agendas, and threaten different targets. It has and will retain the initiative into the foreseeable future. The nations comprising the League of Civilized States may win individual battles, claim victory in assorted little wars, but will not be able to kill the hydra of innumerable heads unless and until the nature and character of the enemy is openly acknowledged.

Don't hold your breath.