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wtc911, I am a “newbie”, and I can spell too. Like your moniker. Illegal immigration has exposed us to many growing, undetected dangers we are constantly reminded of by the media..Al-Qaeda, etc. Your ‘wtc911’ brought this to mind..here is an important report from the South Asia Analysis Group headed up by a former cabinet secy of the Indian Govt. re a change in tactics by Al-Qaeda in the West, including the US...it is well that as many readers as possible be aware of a new term to them..Jundallah...here it is...
Paper no. 2303

18.07.2007

AL QAEDA CHANGES TACTICS: TO RELY ON JUNDULLAHS MORE & MORE - INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 258

By B. Raman

Al Qaeda has changed its tactics——particularly for its operations in the Western world and other non-Islamic countries such as India.

2. Future operations will be carried out not by organisations such as Al Qaeda itself or by the member-organisations of the International Islamic Front (IIF) formed by it in 1998. They will be planned and carried out by Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah), who are individual Muslims, self-motivated, self-trained through the Internet and deciding on their targets and actions autonomously without the need for a centralised command and control.

3. The future role of Al Qaeda outside Iraq and Afghanistan would be to indicate targets through the messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri, its No.2, and through the messages of its propaganda wing (As Sahab), and to disseminate, via the Internet, training instructions on the basis of its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. Let jihadis arise wherever they can and whenever they can. Let them act however they can. There is no need to claim responsibility or credit on behalf of Al Qaeda or any other organisation. That is its message to the potential jihadis across the world.

5. Al Qaeda’s command and control and training infrastructure based in Pakistan’s tribal areas would continue to guide and co-ordinate its operations against Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its leadership wants jihadis in other countries to assist it in its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq by sapping the will of the Western public opinion to stay and fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. It feels time is on its side.

6. The recent video of Al Qaeda’s propaganda wing carrying excerpts from past messages of Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda fighters glorifying the Islamic concept of martyrdom has been disseminated in pursuance of this new tactics. “Arise wherever you are and martyr yourself”——that is the hidden message it has sought to convey.

7. The latest video’s central message is: “‘By Him in Whose Hands my life is! I would love to attack and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred.’”

8. Al Qaeda wants to aggravate the divide between the Muslims and non-Muslims in the non-Islamic world, including the West and India.

9. The more the Jundullahs, the more the suspicion and fear of Muslims in non-Muslim communities. The more the suspicion and fear of Muslims in the non-Muslim communities, the more the Jundullahs. That is Al Qaeda’s calculation.

10. Al Qaeda’s new tactics has to be countered operationally. The only way of doing so is by denying it victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. The time is not for the withdrawal of the Western forces from there. It is for making them more effective than they are today. Al Qaeda has to be made to realise that the time is not on its side, but on the side of the civilised world.

11. There has been too much focus on Al Qaeda’s perceived strengths as one could see from the latest US National Intelligence Estimate released on July 17, 2007. It is important to identify its weaknesses, which can be exploited. It is important to demonstrate that the determination of the international community to co-operate in countering Al Qaeda and other kinds of jihadi terrorism remains as strong as ever and will remain as strong as ever till jihadi terrorism withers away. It is equally important to demonstrate that the national and international consensus on this subject remains as strong as ever.

12. Somehow or the other, Al Qaeda and its jihadi associates are getting an impression that international co-operation, national will and consensus are weakening. This impression has to be removed.

NOTE: This may please be read in continuation of my earlier articles mentioned below:

(a).THE JUNDULLAH PHENOMENON at http://www.saag.org/papers23/paper2211.html

(b).THE JUNDULLAH IN UK? at http://www.saag.org/papers23/paper2285.html

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com)

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