Regardless of how matters play out in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's presumably as-good-as-on-the-ropes al-Qaeda has brought a new/old and very dangerous player to the global board. Bin Laden personally named the new operations director, the man in direct operational charge of violent efforts against the West generally and the US in particular.
The man's name may be Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi or Ibrahim Madani. He has been called Omar al-Somali. His self-chosen sobriquet is Saif al-Adel. Translated this comes out as, sword of justice. Modest, eh what?
Muhammad or Ibrahim or Omar or Saif was born in 1960. Or, perhaps, 1963. If you get the idea that there is little extant in the open literature regarding this one time colonel in the Egyptian army, that is correct. Most of the little that is known comes from the Sword's autobiography written five years ago, and is difficult or impossible to confirm without the resources of CIA (and perhaps not even then.)
The details are less important than the main theme of the man's thinking, his concept of how to wage effective war against the US and the other "infidel, Crusader states." He has a clear concept that is well rooted in a sound understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of his enemy.
In 1987 Saif al-Adel was a rather impatient person with great ideas of how to reform the apostate government of Egypt. His notions featured both a truck bomb and the use of a civilian aircraft as a cruise missile. Both instruments of death and mayhem were to be employed against Egypt's parliament building. The plans were aborted when security forces rolled up Saif and his fellow plotters of the rather directly albeit unimaginatively named group al-Jihad. In the slammer Mr Adel became underwhelmed with the views of his fellow advocates of violent political Islam.
No, bucko, it is not as if the future Sword of Justice became disillusioned with the precepts and goals of violent political Islam. That would have made future life too simple, too peaceful. Rather the man viewed his fellow travelers as too impatient, too filled with zeal, and too able to underestimate the capacities of the assorted components of the House of War and its apostate tools.
For reasons known only to the heavyweights of Egyptian internal security, the man who would become the Sword of Justice was released. He decamped to--where else?--Peshawar. In those hospitable environs he made contact with the new kids of jihad, al-Qaeda. He spent '91 and '92 in Khost training al-Qaeda trigger pullers and bomb throwers in the basics of military art and science.
Not surprisingly Saif trailed along when Osama bin Laden relocated to Sudan. As has been attested to by the convicted terrorist, Mohammed Odeh, Saif was engaged at the bin Laden owned Damazine Farm where he whiled away the days teaching. No, he was not instructing in the area of agricultural science but rather giving tuition in the manufacture and use of explosives.
When not giving helpful hints on how to blow things up and kill people, Saif waxed philosophical. He was all in favor of moving the jihad to other areas of the world as Taliban was winning in Afghanistan and conditions in Sudan were not suitable to martyrdom operations. Apparently Saif could forgo the inviting conflict in Bosnia as there is no record of his having accompanied any of the Mideast origin jihadis to that nasty little war. Instead it appears that the peripatetic Egyptian spent several years traveling around the constellation of training camps in Africa and Asia set up by al-Qaeda and others of the violent political Islam sort. Reputedly he was involved directly in forming working relations with jihadist groups in Iraq.
Saif was involved in the planning of 9/11. In the late summer debate over the final execute decision, Adel took sides with Omar in opposing the idea. The dissent registered by Mullah Omar and seconded by Adel was documented to the satisfaction of the 9/11 Commission.
As the US troops entered Afghanistan, Saif al-Adel left. He went to Iran where he amused himself by planning and organizing several attacks on US and other foreign troops. During its transient spasm of fear following the American invasion, the Iranian government authorized the arrest of Adel and other al-Qaeda leadership figures. He was released a few months later.
The Saif al-Adel of 2005 was a man far different from his younger incarnation, the wannabe bomber of the Egyptian parliament. The differences are what make the Sword a dangerous, a very dangerous opponent now.
Adel has become a prophet of protracted conflict. His observations and ruminations had combined to convince him that the US along with the rest of the West could not survive a lengthy siege of terror politically. Operationally this means he supports relatively small, one-off, single actor attacks as opposed to the 9/11 sort. In his estimate the best method of operation is one which envisions attacks no larger than the 7/7 London bombing or the similar strike on the Madrid subway. In his mind a slow motion sequence of such attacks carried out over a long enough time primarily by homegrown "martyrdom seekers" would exhaust Western political will such that maximal Islamist demands would be met.
Adel is also convinced that it is essential that the global movement in violent political Islam have no geographic base. The identification of Afghanistan with al-Qaeda was, he has concluded, a ghastly mistake, bad for both Afghanistan and al-Qaeda.
The Sword seeks a network of facilitators and recruiters even more diffuse than that which has existed in recent years. He intends to make the "leaderless war" a reality. The absence of an identifiable and thus targetable geographic center will inhibit, even prohibit, a Western retaliation or will render any retaliation far more provocative than punishing.
In both of these theses Adel is far more right than wrong. American political will is strengthened mightily by a direct attack on our citizens and our soil. Even if the butchers' bill is far smaller than that of 9/11, the demand of We the People for retaliation would be loud and long. Provided there is a place upon which to retaliate, the probability of an American president not doing so is very, very slim at best.
A series of attacks, large or small in effect, but carried out by homegrown operatives gives no target against which to retaliate. The absence of an identifiable outside figure, foreign group, alien sanctuary would prevent any meaningful American response beyond the judicial (provided the actors survive the act.) The same dynamic would apply to Western European states. The combination of Western values, norms, political relations render each and every government a pitiful helpless giant when confronted by domestic actors who have no direct, actionable ties with a foreign puppetmaster.
Adel intends to make an operational doctrine compatible with the political statement of Mullah Omar, who in 2009 explicitly (and belatedly) separated the Taliban in Afghanistan from the violent acts of groups such as al-Qaeda. Adel like Omar understands that this sort of explicit rhetorical and operational separation serves best the coinciding interests of both states and non-state actors which share a commitment to political Islam.
Bright lad, eh, bucko?
Operational successes under a (distant and discrete) al-Qaeda umbrella when coupled with the current political trajectories in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, North Africa, and portions of sub-Saharan Africa will bode best for the fortunes of resurgent political Islam. The combination will allow for peace in the "House of Islam" and a better form of war in the "House of War."
In his current thinking Saif al-Adel is putting into practice the idea first broached by the great-grandfather of contemporary violent political Islam, Abul Ali Mawdudi. More than seventy years ago Mawdudi wrote, "war in the name of Islam is a revolutionary ideology which seeks to change the social and political order of the entire war."
And, so it is. Now Saif al-Adel gives the ideology a new and far sharper edge.
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