CHANGE IN AL QAEDA STRATEGY & TACTICS

Exclusive Confirmation From al-Qaida-Linked Group on Attempted Use of Nuclear Weapon, Ties With Iran, and Failed Assassination Bid Against US President and Jordanian King Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis: By Gregory R. Copley and GIS Staff. US intelligence sources have indicated that US counter-terror analysts were looking at what they felt were “changes” in targeting and methodological doctrine by al-Qaida-linked jihadist terrorist groups. In particular, the translations of the information on the website which provided the basis for the assessment were believed to highlight a new “low-tech terrorism” against targets in the West. GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs analysts, who have viewed the entire context of the comments on the website, however, believe that the remarks presage not only a widening of doctrine (not a replacement of existing targeting doctrine), but also give new information confirming other major, and hitherto unconfirmed, data about al-Qaida strategies and linkages. New revelations on a website connected with the al-Iqlas Islamist movement have provided confirmation of: (a) Al-Qaida’s acquisition of at least one nuclear weapon (believed to be a Soviet-built “suitcase” nuclear weapon), and its consideration of use in a “spectacular” operations (believed to have been the US Republican National Convention in 2004 in New York); and (b) Confirmation that so-called al-Qaida operations were intimately known to the clerical Government of Iran, which essentially controlled an “al-Qaida” mission in November 2006 to assassinate US Pres. George W. Bush and Jordanian Pres. Abdullah Bin Al-Hussein. Al-Iqlas (purity of faith, footnote), a significant entity/trend within the al-Qaida family, has also made key recommendations on changes — or expansion — in operational doctrine for terrorist attacks against Western targets, and, at the same time, has tacitly admitted that al-Qaida had been responsible for two major operations which had not previously been formally acknowledged: (a) an aborted attack with a nuclear weapon, and (b) a failed double assassination attempt against US Pres. George W. Bush and Jordanian King Abdullah II. Significantly, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs had prior knowledge of the two failed attacks, but these had not been acknowledged publicly by any jihadist group. As well, it is known that the Iranian Government was intimately involved in the attempted assassination of Pres. Bush and King Abdullah, in November 2006. US intelligence services are known to have begun reviewing the recent postings on the al-Iqlas website, which made the revelations, and which also discussed the recommended broadening of jihadist doctrine so that it would pursue tactical terrorist operations against Western targets — more along the lines of Baghdad-style vehicle bombs, as attempted in London and Glasgow in June 2007 — while continuing with the pursuit of longer-range strategic “spectaculars”. The al-Iqlas report author, clearly a senior and experienced jihadist, indicated that the spectaculars took longer to organize and also had a high failure rate, and suggested that more frequent tactical terrorist actions would achieve important objectives, including reinforcing police clampdowns on civil societies, thus exacerbating government-society tensions. Moreover, the jihadists note that spectacular operations are undertaken by small élite groups in great secrecy, while the conduct of simple terrorist strikes can be undertaken by the entire community, thus serving as a major instrument for the radicalization and mobilization of Muslim communities in the West. But the admissions of knowledge of two major failed attacks highlighted a level of knowledge of high-level operations by the author, and indicated a possible involvement by al-Iqlas itself, an organization which has assets among the expatriate Muslim communities in Western Europe and the US, and controls a number of mosques and reading groups. GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs was aware, in advance, of both the plan to use a Soviet-built “suitcase nuclear weapon” by jihadists in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention, and the planned attack on Pres. Bush and King Abdullah, and discussed the reports with US officials. Moreover, intelligence on the planned attacks on Pres. Bush and King Abdullah derived from Iranian sources, and was passed on to US officials, in advance, by the leader of the Iranian umbrella opposition movement, Azadegan. US intelligence and security officials, working with the Jordanians, thwarted the planned attack and arrested (and later tried) several would-be assassins. Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis noted on December 4th: “Evidence that there is a schism within the Iranian leadership emerged when highly-reliable Jordanian sources indicated that intelligence operatives had been dispatched from Tehran to Amman, Jordan, to attempt the assassination of Pres. Bush when he arrived to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in late November 2006, literally at about the same time that the ‘Message to the American Nation’ was about to be released by Tehran. US and Jordanian intelligence understood the threat of the attempted assassination, and ensured that it did not occur, (assuming, that is, Tehran was going to go through with that act). Had such an attack occurred — even if Tehran attempted to ‘false flag’ the attack as coming from, say, a Palestinian — it would have been likely that the entire US political equation and attitude toward the Middle East questions would have changed, and the clerics’ attempts at a non-military eradication of US presence in the region would have been destroyed.” Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, on March 9th, 2007, carried a report entitled Exclusive GIS Reports on Iranian Plan to Assassinate US Pres. George Bush During Amman Visit . Confirmed, which was able to confirm the planned attack, and noted: “On March 8, 2007, Jordanian authorities released details of the assassination plot against Pres. Bush which they claimed they uncovered. During the trial of three militants apprehended on the day before Bush's visit to Jordan, the prosecutor recounted that the defendants planned to kill Bush and bomb the Danish and US embassies. The prosecutor said that police found homemade explosives and plastic bottles filed with gasoline when the suspects were arrested in their home. According to media reporting in the region, no other details of the conspiracy were known yet. But if the suspects were to be found guilty, they faced the death penalty. The reality was that warning of the plot was provided by Iranian sources to both US authorities and GIS, and that the planning of the event was done in Tehran, as noted by the GIS December 4, 2006, report.” With regard to the revelation on the website that al-Qaida had failed in its attempts to undertake attacks using nuclear weapons, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs has also in the past noted that the jihadist movement had possessed one or more “suitcase nuclear weapons”. On August 25, 2006, for example, in a report entitled No Stand-Down in Iranian Military Confrontation of Israel, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis noted: “Several factors of ongoing concern to Israeli policy planners have been identified, including the prospect that the incident which was expected to be used by Iran as the casus belli for strategic conflict — a major bombing in Jerusalem — was likely to be a pre-placed nuclear weapon, possibly a ‘suitcase’ mini-nuclear weapon obtained by Iran from the former Soviet Union. The original deadline for the ‘incident’ — August 22, 2006 — was tied to an iconic date in the Muslim calendar, the anniversary of the supposed dream of the ascension of the Prophet Mohammed to heaven from the Rock of Jerusalem.” The al-Iqlas website in June 2007 noted: “Individuals throwing hand grenades in the streets of New York is better than a nuclear bomb that can destroy New York City but does not explode. This is a truth that there is no escape from and we are stopped because it is difficult to achieve. After the Battle of New York and Washington on September 11, the jihad cells are not convinced the explosion of a car bomb or the killing of a police officer or assassination of a minister is as effective.” “The jihad supporters will not accept less than the explosions of September 11 and we find that they concentrate on previous successes such as great explosions like the one with the hijacking of planes in Great Britain or the explosion of a plane in Pakistan. The assassination of the Pakistani President, the King of Jordan or Bush’s assassination during his visit to Jordan and other type of very big operations similar to September 11. This is a necessary lesson for the jihad supporters that we can teach him that a bomb or explosive exploded in a market that kills or causes injuries to a soldier or policeman anywhere in the world or affects the enemies’ economy is better than trying to repeat the operations of September 11 because we may succeed once with such an operation but we will fail 20 or 30 times before we succeed.” In essence, the attempted mini-nuclear attack in New York during the Republican National Convention from August 30 to September 2, 2004, at Madison Square Garden, was acknowledged by the website’s author. In a report on August 5, 2004, in Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, entitled Indicators Continue to Suggest Major Terrorist Attempt on NY Republican Convention, GIS staff noted: “GIS has received significant reporting from Islamist and other sources in the Balkans indicating that a major a major al-Qaida-related terrorist attack was being planned in New York City to coincide with the Republican Party’s convention between August 30 and September 2, 2004. Once again, the key coordination for the operation was being undertaken in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Islamist terrorist groups have essentially been free to operate under the protection of the internationally-imposed administration of the Office of High Representative (OHR).” The report, which highlighted links within the New York area Islamist community to terrorism (later borne out in the planned 2007 terrorist attack on a New Jersey Army base) continued: “US sources indicated to GIS that it was now entirely possible that the Republican Convention plans by the Islamists included the attempted destruction of the entire convention site at Madison Square Gardens through the use of a “briefcase bomb”, a miniaturized nuclear weapon. It was believed that al-Qaida had at least one such weapon which could be transported beneath the Madison Square Gardens site, which sits atop the New York subway rail system and the Penn Station main-line railway terminus. Significantly, it has been confirmed that the rail links under Madison Square Gardens — which carry some half-a-million commuters a day — would not be closed during the Republican convention. [US Secret Service and other security/police bodies, as well as Amtrak, the main-line rail service, have, however, instituted a wide range of security measures for the duration of the Convention.]” “GIS sources said that the analysis about the possible attack on the Republican National Convention entailed more than speculation, but were based on direct statements from Islamist sources who had, in the past, proven credible and accurate.” Ultimately, the jihadists’ plan was aborted on instructions from Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri because of theological rather than operational reasons (such as fear of discovery by US security authorities). By Summer 2004, the jihadist élite was still immersed in a hot and profound debate about the permissibility of using WMD – particularly nuclear weapons – against civilian targets in the United States. At stake was reconciling Islam’s forbidding of the international killing of innocent civilians at war and the “shield fatwa” permitting foreknown collateral damage if it is a prerequisite for spectacular strikes. The jihadist leadership refused to approve the nuclear strike until the theological debate was resolved. It would be resolved – with an explicit permission to use nuclear weapons – only in Winter 2004/5. See, particularly, Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, December 19, 2006: For Washington, Facing Reality, and Iranian Ambitions, in Iraq is Now Urgent, by Yossef Bodansky. This report, among other things, noted: “In mid-February 2006, the Higher Court in Qom granted Ahmadi-Nejad a fatwa permitting the use of nuclear weapons against civilian population, and another fatwa encouraging the recruitment of Iranian volunteers for martyrdom operations against the US and Israel.” The al-Iqlas report also noted the [attempted] assassination of the Pakistani President, which also directly tacitly recognizes the al-Qaida involvement in the jihadist attacks in Pakistan. What is significant is that although vague support has been given to a variety of terrorist attacks, it is rare that al-Qaida organizations actually take even implicit credit for these out-of-theater operations. Footnotes: 1. Sometimes transliterated as al-Ikhlaas or al-Eklaas. The name also derives from the Qu’ranic chapter, Soorah Al-Ikhlaas, which literally means: The Chapter of Purity, Sincerity, and Unity of Allah. It is equal to one third of the Qu’ran