Jihad Joe (25 page)

Awlaki mocked America's inability to defeat the “mujahideen” of al Qaeda and celebrated Nidal Hasan and Omar Abdulmutallab, characterizing the latter's failure to accomplish his mission as a success because he almost succeeded. Awlaki laid out a “defensive” rationale for the actions of al Qaeda as a response to U.S. “aggression,” citing Guantanamo Bay and the abuse of captives by U.S. soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. He stated that al Qaeda's goal was to establish Islam “over all other” religions. Finally, he pointed the way forward.

I for one, was born in the US, I lived in the US for twenty-one years. America was my home. I was a preacher for Islam, involved in non-violent Islamic activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq, and continued US aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the
US and being a Muslim, and I eventually came to the conclusion that Jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim. [ … ]

The Muslim community in America has been witnessing a gradual erosion and decline in core Islamic principles, so today many of your scholars and Islamic organizations are openly approving of Muslims serving in the US Army, to kill Muslims, joining the FBI, to spy against Muslims, and are standing between you and your duty of Jihad.

Soon afterward, Awlaki was interviewed in a video published online by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the first time he ever publicly associated with a terrorist organization.
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In July AQAP began publishing an English-language magazine for aspiring jihadists, which Awlaki was said to oversee (see
chapter 11
).

In November 2010 Awlaki went further still, releasing a video in Arabic that unequivocally called for killing Americans. “Do not consult anyone in killing the Americans,” he said. “Fighting Satan does not require a [religious ruling]. It does not require consulting. It does not need a prayer for the cause. They are the party of Satan.”
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Anwar Awlaki was no longer struggling to balance his inner darkness against the light. He had formally and finally embraced the role of terrorist.

Awlaki's status is nothing if not a moving target. When the Western media discovered him in late 2009, he was far more successful and influential among Muslims who are fluent in English or for whom English is a first language than he has with the Arabic-speaking Muslims who dominate the leadership of terrorist networks. His lectures and writings, beloved in the English zone, were rarely posted to the leading jihadist websites. Among hardcore jihadist ideologues and networked terrorists, he barely registered a blip.

Even as the U.S. media was throwing Awlaki a coronation, his terrorist protégés had mostly turned out to be embarrassing failures. (That is likely to change sooner or later, perhaps even during the space between this sentence being written and this book being published.)

His status began to change in April 2010, when U.S. officials revealed that Awlaki had been approved for targeted killing by the CIA. No American citizen had ever been added to the CIA's target list, even though several other Americans held very important positions with al Qaeda's central operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. No rationale for Awlaki's unique status was offered to the public.
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AQAP soon fired back with a statement in Arabic vowing to protect Awlaki from any U.S. attempt to capture or kill him.
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The interview followed quickly, and Awlaki began issuing statements in Arabic, which were enthusiastically received by the Arabic-speaking jihadist community. New fans began seeking out his older material, which was widely available from download sites and on both the Arabic- and English-language versions of YouTube.

At the end of October, AQAP planted two bombs in parcels and shipped them to the United States. The bombs were intercepted and defused before they reached their targets. Twenty days later AQAP published another issue of its English-language magazine detailing the attack and its goals. One article, printed under the byline “Head of Foreign Operations,” was believed by some analysts to have been penned by Awlaki, suggesting he had settled into a formal role within the organization as a fully operational terrorist.
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But is Awlaki the next Osama bin Laden?

It's extremely important to understand Anwar Awlaki in context. There is no question that he is an important and dangerous figure who presents the United States with a serious and significant challenge. He has been directly involved in planning and executing terrorist attacks, and he has inspired a large number of would-be terrorists in the Western world.

Comparing him to bin Laden is dangerous, however, because it elevates Awlaki's status based on a fundamental misunderstanding of each man's role and capacity.

It's certainly possible Awlaki was working for the core al Qaeda organization before September 11, and it's virtually certain he was working with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before the relationship was officially announced. Yet there's very little evidence that he held a position of significant authority in either group before 2010.

No evidence has emerged as of this writing to suggest that Awlaki has ever pointed a gun at a human being and pulled the trigger. His terrorist operations have been underwhelming at best, embarrassing at worst. They can still cause
chaos, of course, especially when the West is willing to mobilize thousands of people and millions of dollars in response to every new terrorist strategy it sees. But overall, Awlaki's successes have owed more to Western failures than operational brilliance.

Now consider Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden is far more influential than Awlaki simply as far as his preaching and ability to inspire. All of Awlaki's jihadist adherents are also adherents of bin Laden, but the reverse does not necessarily apply, even with Awlaki's recent gains.

Bin Laden doesn't stop at getting people fired up. The Saudi kingpin of terror cut his teeth in combat against the Soviets during the Afghan jihad. His supporters may have wildly exaggerated his accomplishments during that conflict, but no one disputes that he is experienced in matters of war.

He's even more experienced and proficient at managing terrorist operations. Osama bin Laden studies his enemy, looks for vulnerabilities, and uses that information to select a target. He spends years on surveillance and planning, and when that is done, he sends multiple teams of highly trained terrorists to carry out his plans. Bin Laden is detail oriented. During the East African embassy bombings, he pointed out where the truck bomb should be placed in Nairobi for maximum casualties.

In contrast, Awlaki attracts lunatics, points them at America, and pushes.

It's absolutely appropriate to treat Awlaki as a serious threat. One 2010 intelligence report estimated that as many as three hundred Americans had trained with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
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If the estimate is accurate, it would represent an unprecedented migration of Americans into the ranks of jihadists, and Awlaki was almost certainly driving that recruitment.

But the rush to anoint him as the next bin Laden may also be fueling his recent success. Awlaki's writings and lectures were not heavily promoted on the most important terrorist forums until after AQAP publicly accepted him, and that didn't happen until months after the media push began and then only after the United States announced he had been targeted for death.

There is no question that Awlaki's status among terrorists was greatly enhanced by the media's estimation of his importance. Even with that helpful push, however, it's hard to imagine that Awlaki could ever fill the shoes of Osama bin Laden. But the end of Awlaki's story has yet to be written, and the American imam has proved himself to be full of surprises.

In the wake of September 11, more than one thousand Muslim Americans and Muslim immigrants were detained in the United States, often without charge. There were indisputable abuses.

In some cases people were arrested simply because their names came up during the investigation of the attack.
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In other cases, innocent employees of terrorist-linked charities were detained merely because of where they worked. In 2009 a court of appeals described the detention of Muslims after 9/11 as “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
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Yet some of the detentions were legitimate. Few Americans realized the extent of al Qaeda's presence in the United States or the history of American involvement in jihadist activity, some of which was closely linked to terrorism. Neither the CIA nor the FBI had the slightest idea how many Americans had trained in al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan.
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It soon appeared that the most dangerous American members of al Qaeda proper had already been taken off the streets by the embassy bombings investigation. In the weeks and months that followed, the FBI's reach would become more precise and less sweeping.

Much of al Qaeda's infrastructure in the United States remained intact on September 12, 2001. The most significant operation was the Benevolence International Foundation in Chicago, which had financed al Qaeda, as well as jihadists in Chechnya and Bosnia. The deceptive charity was shut down and its director,
Enaam Arnaout, arrested. He eventually pleaded guilty to defrauding donors by spending Benevolence funds to support mujahideen fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.
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The directors of CARE International—the former Al Kifah office in Boston— were arrested, tried, and convicted of tax fraud for redirecting charitable contributions to jihad.
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The Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas financier in Texas, was also shuttered and its directors convicted.
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A few small cells with direct links to al Qaeda were uncovered. In Lackawanna, New York, six American citizens of Yemeni descent were arrested for having trained at an al Qaeda camp prior to September 11. A seventh American member of the cell was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen. Although all were Americans, they lived in a highly insular, ethnic Yemeni community.
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Abdurrahman Alamoudi, the head of the mainstream American Muslim Council, was arrested in 2003 for helping Libya try to assassinate Saudi crown prince Abdullah.
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In Portland a group of seven Americans who had been training for jihad prior to September 11 made a series of attempts to reach Afghanistan and fight in the service of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Four were arrested in Portland, another in Dearborn, Michigan. A sixth was captured in Malaysia, and the last succeeded in reaching al Qaeda and was killed in battle.
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American-born Muslim convert James Ujaama, a Seattle resident, tried to set up a terrorist training camp in rural Bly, Oregon, under the guidance of radical London-based cleric Abu Hamza Al Masri. Ujaama was arrested as a material witness and later charged with offering material support to the Taliban. He cut a plea, skipped out on his parole, and eventually ended up back in prison.
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There were more—many more. Between September 11, 2001, and August 2010, scores of U.S. citizens were indicted for terrorism-related offenses. A relative few were arrested for assisting Hezbollah and Hamas. Most of these were financing and weapons cases; the vast majority of violent offenders—or would-be violent offenders—were connected to al Qaeda and an increasingly diffuse group of related Sunni terrorist organizations outside of Israel.

In the post–September 11 area, Adam Gadahn emerged as one of al Qaeda's most important American recruits. He started life on a goat farm in rural Winchester,
California, a little more than an hour's drive north of San Diego. His father, a Christian convert of Jewish descent, sold
halal
meat (the Islamic equivalent of kosher) to the local Arab community.

Although Gadahn was raised in an informally Christian environment, he found the concept of the Christian trinity illogical (a rift cited by many Muslim converts) and turned away from the religion. He went through a typically difficult teenage phase, listening to heavy metal music and fighting with his parents. One night he was listening to a fiery, radical Christian radio preacher rant about the “Islamic threat.” The rebellious teen figured that if this guy hated Islam, there must be something to it, and he began to investigate the religion through discussions with Muslims in online chatrooms.
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I discovered that the beliefs and practices of this religion fit my personal theology and intellect as well as basic human logic. Islam presents God not as an anthropomorphic being but as an entity beyond human comprehension, transcendent of man, independant [sic] and undivided. Islam has a holy book that is comprehensible to a layman, and there is no papacy or priesthood that is considered infallible in matters of interpretation: all Muslims are free to reflect and interpret the book given a sufficient education.

This idea that understanding Islam is an individual prerogative that does not require context or schooling creates a wide-open door for radicalization. Combined with Islam's lack of a central religious authority to decide doctrinal issues, new converts are particularly susceptible to the first person who comes along to explain the religion to them.
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For Gadahn, those people were worshippers at the Islamic Society of Orange County, where he formally converted to Islam. The imam at the mosque was Muzammil Siddiqui, a former employee of the Muslim World League. In 1992 Omar Abdel Rahman had visited to give a sermon promoting jihad. In the years since, the Islamic Society had moved more toward the mainstream, but there remained a group of vocal, highly visible militants who were constantly agitating to move the congregation to a stricter posture.
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