New Al Qaeda Cell A Growing Threat To U.S.

CBS NEWS

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2008

(CBS) The new faces of terror are militants inside an emerging al Qaeda cell, which U.S. officials warn presents a clear and growing threat to America.

Based in North Africa, the group calling itself "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" specializes in kidnappings and suicide attacks, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

A car bombing last September of an Algerian military barracks killed 28 people. But, follow-up bombings of a United Nations building and a diplomatic office signaled that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has bigger plans.

"They have devoted an enormous amount of their energy and their resources to try to build this up as a base to try to carry out attacks, not just in North Africa, but ultimately into West Europe and someday against North America," says Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institute.

Riedel, a former CIA official, says a propaganda video - just posted on a jihad website - shows a sophisticated attack capability.

But, the most lethal aspect of AQIM - and its real value for Osama bin Laden's terror network - goes beyond firepower.

Says Ambassador Dell Dailey, a U.S. Department of State Counterterrorism official: "Leaders of al Qaeda and its affiliates are extremely interested in recruiting terrorists from and deploying terrorists to Europe, people familiar with our Western cultures that can travel freely." And that's exactly who's being drawn to the AQIM training camps - people who can easily blend in without raising suspicions in Europe or the U.S.

"Some of those people are second, third generation and they now have French, Belgian or Spanish passports and a French, Belgian or Spanish passport is exactly what al Qaeda is looking for because that's their mechanism to get into the United States," Riedel says. U.S. officials have long worried about British radicals using U.K. passports to bring terror to America. But, now the North African branch of al Qaeda presents a second pipeline - a doubled threat to the homeland.
(Story Link)

Snop's Commentary:

For more news and commentary about this increasingly important region to the struggle against militant Islam, check out the Magharebia website by following this link or the one posted on the upper right hand side of the page under Global Media.

"The Magharebia web site is a central source of news and information about the Maghreb in three languages: Arabic, French and English. The goal of Magharebia is to offer accurate, balanced and forward-looking coverage of developments in the Maghreb." --United States Africa Command

Speak No Evil: Un-Naming the Enemy

U.S. aims to unlink Islamic, terrorism

Washington Times
Article published May 7, 2008

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL - U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism.

"There' s a growing consensus [in the Bush administration] that we need to move away from that language," said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue.

Instead, in two documents circulated last month by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terror, officials are urged to use terms such as violent extremists, totalitarian and death cult to characterize al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. "

Avoid labeling everything 'Muslim.' It reinforces the 'U.S. vs. Islam' framework that al Qaeda promotes," according to "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication," produced last month by the center.

(Full Article)

Snop's Commentary:

I've been thinking about this issue for a couple weeks and wondering who really benefits and who doesn't. The simple answer is that the West is put at a disadvantage while Al Qaeda et al benefit.

More specifically, the West loses out because we desperately need a way to conceptualize the enemy. Doing that requires descriptive language. Neutralizing the language neutralizes our ability to think about the enemy. If we can't think about the enemy, we cannot devise plans to defeat the enemy, nor can we communicate how to carryout out such plans if we could think them up in the first place.

Similarly, former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich warned that: " If we cannot have an honest discussion about the nature of the threats against us , we cannot develop strategies to meet those threats"[...] "It is simply suicidal to treat the Al Qaeda network as simply 'an illegitimate political organization, both terrorist and criminal' while ignoring the radical religious foundation underpinning this and other groups that constitute an Irreconcilable Wing of Islam."

If the intended effect of adopting this language is to mollify segments of the Islamic world -what is the cost/benefit of doing so with regard to the ideological war? And who is responsible for making this call anyway?

Many questions need to be answered before we throw away what little gains we have made in confronting this already ambiguous threat.

As the monkeys above suggest...if we can't name the threat...we can't speak of the threat...if we can't speak of the threat...no one else will hear and learn of the threat...if no one else can hear and learn of the threat we won't be better off than a bunch of blind monkeys.