Things are a little off today, still recovering from the long weekend. My family and I went to the National Cemetery in Wilmington, NC. The children seemed to be genuinely interested in the history and remembrance of our fallen brothers and sisters. It made me proud that they were curious enough to look up the meanings of the religious symbols and the placing coins and rocks on tombstones. As they grow older, they are becoming more aware of ‘place’ and noticed the large number of veterans from Iowa and Ohio buried here in North Carolina (Civil War). We talked some about troop movements and expeditions. I was reminded of the Russel Crowe movie The Water Diviner where a broken father goes in search of his three lost sons after the Battle of Gallipoli one of the bloodiest battles of WWI. Overall, I have been fortunate in my service. I did not lose any close friends in combat, although some have since passed. Yesterday, we honored them and talked about the pain of losing people that are close.
A very busy week for terror updates…we are going to continue providing our review of relevant written articles in our terror update along with the Generation Jihad podcast. First, we will cover some of the terror articles over the last week and then we will work through the podcasts we usually discuss. Hopefully, this will add more context to the discussion and broaden our perspective as we caver all things terror related.
- The interactive Terror Story Map on ESRI, based on data accumulated by ESRI and PeaceTech Lab, utilizing Wikipedia, has been updated and can be found here. It is current through May 21, 2020.
- You can read about the Corpus Christi Naval Base terror attack here, here and here. The now dead terrorist had ties to Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and is thought to have been action alone. But, as we recently saw with the Pensacola shooting, the terror ties may run deeper than the initial reports. It does however appear that:
The actual Sailor from NAS-CC has not yet been named. The picture shared on social media of the hero, who first encountered the shooter, ended up being a fake. It was actually of a Navy K-9 handler and the picture was from 2015.
Commanding Officer Captain Christopher Jason of NAS-CC had this to say about the wounded military policewoman:
“[She] displayed tremendous courage and took immediate action under fire that allowed Navy security forces to respond quickly and effectively.”
Regardless, whoever she is, she is a hero that deserves praise.
- The Long War Journal, has four articles that we will briefly discuss today. First up, Bill Roggio writes: Taliban emir demands ‘Islamic government’ for Afghanistan. Not really much here that we did not already know, but the Taliban shows no signs of trying to integrate with the current Afghan government and even went as far as offering amnesty.
Mullah Haibatullah, the leader of the Afghan Taliban and its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, again called for the establishment of an “Islamic government” and the imposition of the group’s harsh versions of sharia…
“We are offering general amnesty to all those standing in the opposition ranks if they choose to renounce their enmity. We urge everyone to take full advantage of this amnesty by ending their opposition and not becoming an impediment for the establishment of an Islamic government which is the aspiration of millions of martyred, wounded, disabled, orphaned, widowed and suffering Afghans,” Haibatullah said…
- Thomas Joscelyn reports: Taliban ‘reluctant to publicly break with al Qaeda,’ Inspector General reports . Joscelyn provides analysis of
On May 19, the Lead Inspector General (IG) for Operation Freedom’s Sentinel released its quarterly report. The assessment covers recent events in the Afghan War, including the Feb. 29 withdrawal agreement between the U.S. and Taliban.
The report notes that:
The State Department told the IG that “implementation of the U.S.-Taliban agreement will require extensive long-term monitoring to ensure Taliban compliance as the group’s leadership has been reluctant to publicly break with al Qaeda.”
Making this break even more complicated is the fact that Al Qaeda has lauded the peace deal as a victory and the Taliban has continued its offensive. Joscelyn believes the DoD is “suppressing” information on attacks and airstrikes due to their exclusion in the latest report.
The DoD did state “that once the deliberations are complete, the attack data can be released to the public.”
The U.S. military also refused to provide the IG with data on airstrikes for March. The IG’s office reports that there were 417 airstrikes in January and 228 in February, but U.S. Forces – Afghanistan “would not release the March airstrike data due to the sensitivity of ongoing deliberations over the Taliban’s compliance with the February 29 agreement.” Again, it isn’t clear why suppressing data on American airstrikes is necessary, given that the Taliban’s post-deal offensive is obvious.
This report also notes the continued support within Pakistan and the threat posed by ISIS there. It all very interesting and if Afghanistan is your thing, you should read it.
- Next up, Joe Truzman reports: Axis of Resistance honors ‘International Quds Day’.
On May 20, leaders of the Axis of Resistance and pro-Axis clerics published videos commemorating International Quds Day with the central theme being the liberation of Palestine.
International Quds Day, which was introduced by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, is held every year on the last Friday of Ramadan. The day is marked by protests against Israel across the region. Protesters burn flags of Israel and the United States as a way to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Generally speaking, I don’t track the Iran-Israel-Palestine conflict. It just seems almost futile. I do not see either group accepting a peace deal that would end the violence. It’s too important for all sides as a revenue generator and distraction from political failures. This report concludes that:
The coordinated publication by the Axis of Resistance is an attempt to establish itself as a unified front with clearly stated goals. The publications were translated in multiple languages including Hebrew which directly targeted Israeli viewers. Although, it’s intended effect did not likely last due to the grammar errors in the Hebrew translation. Despite the inaccuracy in the translation, the message is clear: The Axis of Resistance with Iranian-backing is willing to go to great lengths to fulfill its stated goal of removing Israel and the U.S. from the region.
- And last but not least, Caleb Weiss & Joe Truzman provide: Analysis: Iran’s propaganda game inside Iraq . Weiss and Truzman provide detailed analysis of propaganda and the possible motivation for latest releases.
Several new Shia militias have emerged in Iraq since March that claim to have targeted American forces and American-contracted companies. Most of these groups, however, have produced claims with scare, inconsistent, or incorrect details – and little to no visual evidence to corroborate them.
This influx in supposed militias inside Iraq is likely a propaganda game being played by Iran and its allies to create political cover for anti-American activities in the country for more established groups. It also may serve to create a narrative of a far-reaching movement that is opposed to the presence of American troops.
This is a very good report and I highly recommend giving it a read. They carefully scrutinize the videos looking for inconsistencies and then compare the claims to other publicly available information. I each of the videos they analyze they find inconsistencies that indicate that these are probably pure propaganda.
These newly founded groups are likely part of an extensive propaganda campaign orchestrated by Iran and its allies against the United States in Iraq.
Almost all of these new outfits utilize logos similar to that of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, showing a degree of transparency that these units are part of Iran’s network.
Most of the new groups also brand themselves as part of the “Islamic Resistance,” a popular moniker used by Iran-backed groups across the Middle East…
By creating this image, Iran can help further sow distrust and confusion against US troops in Iraq as well as portray to outsiders that their presence is largely opposed. In both cases, this furthers Iran’s goal of ejecting the US from Iraq.
This all reminds me of our discussion of Kilcullen’s book on Liminal Warfare which can be found here. It appears that the Iranians are attempting to exploit the ambiguity of war and make themselves seem stronger than they actually are.
No John Batchelor Show podcast to discuss this week. He must have taken the night off. If one drops later in the week, I will post it separately.
Today, we will discuss the Long War Journal’s, Thomas Joscelyn & Bill Roggio’s, latest Podcast, Generation Jihad Ep. 11: An Al Qaeda Sleeper Agent in Pensacola .The podcast posts every Tuesday morning, it’s about an fifty minutes and is well worth the listen. Today they discuss:
Hosts Bill Roggio and Tom Joscelyn discuss the FBI’s breakthrough in the investigation into the Dec. 6, 2019 shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola. It took more than four months for the FBI to crack the terrorist’s phones, but the hosts argue that Americans shouldn’t give up their privacy in the name of security. They also discuss the Taliban’s reluctance to publicly break with Al Qaeda and the Defense Department’s reluctance to release data concerning the war in Afghanistan.
In today’s podcast the cover four main topics. The shooting in Pensacola, Corpus Christi, The IG report and The Statement on governance in Afghanistan. This is a relatively quick podcast that provides some extra context to several of the article that we discussed earlier in this article and last week. The following are my annotated notes from the podcast but I recommend giving it a listen for yourself and using my notes as a guide.
- FBI released the Pensacola shooter’s ties to AQAP. We briefly discussed this last week here.
- Government asked Apple to break the code on the security of the shooter’s phone. FBI cracked the phone without Apple’s help. When AQAP claimed responsibility, this heightened the profile of the attack and forced them to try to crack the phone again.
- AQAP was successful in getting a sleeper agent on a secure base to conduct an attack.
- Al Qaeda rarely puts out false claims of responsibility and have proven very resilient. We are probably not killing them fast enough.
- Qassim al Raimi only got him 11 years after joining AQAP with a very long history with Al Qaeda going back to the 1990’s. If he was in the U.S. Military he was around long enough to make ‘general’ and operated in generally the same area. This is an endless jihad.
- Abdullah al Malaki, the Yemeni handler communicating with the shooter – a ghost – they don’t know this guy who took over AQAP and no one knew who he was until after Pensacola.
- We simply do not have a good grasp on the leadership structure of Al Qaeda…at least publicly anyway.
- They then talk about protecting civil liberties and snooping around in our phones…Apple issued a statement that we are not going to put in a backdoor to search phones. Cannot control who would have access then.
- They talk about the Tsarnaev brother’s social media posts that they missed when applying for citizenship.
- To the FBI and DoD’s credit, they knew there were Al Qaeda links and still had problems getting the phone ‘cracked.’
- Moving on to the Corpus Christi shooting which we previously discussed…he is an American Citizen and so far to group has taken credit for the attack. Pledged allegiance to AQAP.
- Two attacks on Naval Air Stations…both with connections to AQAP.
- Disconnect the dots on Al Qaeda … paradigms could be wrong for years but it takes overwhelming evidence to break them…bad models
- They believe that we want to end the ‘endless wars’ but the enemy has a vote. Don’t want to oversell the terror threat but also don’t want it under played.
- Talk the Charlie Hebdo attack for the political and religious message. The attacks seem to be very targeted and symbolic…the Pensacola shooter was training as a pilot why a relatively small attack? Could have been far, far worse.
- Do they not want a ‘big attack’ because they are focusing on the local game?
- Talk the Inspector General Report they we discussed earlier in this article about the Taliban’s reluctance to publicly break form Al Qaeda.
- Bottom line after three months following the ‘peace deal’ there is no evidence that the Taliban is breaking with Al Qaeda.
- The part that they believe is egregious is that we are not being honest about what we are leaving behind. It should be a ‘withdrawal agreement’ and are critical of the not putting out their own metrics on attacks.
- The Taliban is on the offensive and this still complies with the ‘peace deal.’
- They talk about the Long War Journal’s tracking of Taliban control of districts in Afghanistan.
- Believe that this is a lost war.
- The Afghan Government should know that they cannot rely on support from the U.S. They need to stand on their own.
- Moved on the discuss the ‘Emir of the Faithful’s’ statement about an Islamic Government in Afghanistan that we discussed above.
- Tried to ensure an amnesty and rights under divine sharia law…
- Remind us that Haibatullah Akhundzada sent his own son out as a suicide bomber.
- They are very critical of senior leadership.
It is nice to see them back on track after last week’s relative disappointment. They are extremely critical of withdrawing from Afghanistan but their main criticism is how the argument is being framed. They say they would support a withdrawal if that is what it was called. Personally, I am skeptical that that is actually true. I suspect they would be critical regardless. I do not believe that they want an endless war but they are the Foundation for the Defense for Democracy and I believe anything short of that would draw their criticism. I could be wrong and democracy is a good thing but the people have to be willing to fight for it and I am not sure the collective will exists in Afghanistan for it.
If you agree or disagree with any of my analysis please drop a comment below and we will discuss!