Category: Terrorism

Two excellent essays in the latest edition of Policy Review. Shmuel Bar writes one on the religious sources of Islamic terrorism, while Michael J. Mazarr writes a piece on the psychological soures. Both are worth a look.

Bruce Berkowitz reviews John Keegan’s latest book, “Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to al-Qaeda.”

Berkowitz’s conclusion:

Keegan can draw upon a lifetime of studying armed conflict, and the facts of battles from ancient times to recent times fall readily to his mind. Alas, Keegan’s strength is also his curse. His approach — deconstructing a big event into many small events — inevitably leads to a conclusion that is almost a tautology.

Because intelligence was always just one of many factors, it is hard ever to make a case that it was the most important one. No serious military analyst believes that for want of a nail a kingdom was lost, and using this method, no one is going to believe that for want of intelligence, a battle was lost (or won).

Some pretty big security measures in Europe’s airports – strange that at one point, for one flight, 22 different US agencies were requesting to vet passenger lists.

This report from AP:

Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al-Qaida has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq (news – web sites) is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday.
Continue reading “Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide”

Readers Niall and John have expressed dissatisfaction with my linking to the pictures and videos of the murder of Nick Berg.

As always I appreciate input from anyone, especially regular contributors like Niall and John.

Niall notes:

I don’t think there’s any reason why anyone outside of intelligence or the media should see this tape, the contents add nothing to the statement “An American was beheaded”. No further details can be garnered through watching this.

I urge you not to click on the link, or pass on this link, and I urge Gavin to remove it.

Like your blog, mate, but this is beyond the pale.

John agrees:

Niall, 100% agree. No need for pictures from Abu Ghraid either other than “abuses took place”.

Something like this happened last year, when I published al’Jazeera stills of Iraqi casulties during the invasion. As ever I have to listen to views expressed, otherwise I would not be a very good blogger.

I am tempted to remove the link as Niall suggests, but for some reason I hesitate. I can’t say exactly why, but I shall think about very seriously over the next day or so.

There is no doubting that there is demand for the video however – some 5000 people have visited this weblog alone in two days to see the video.

Is removing the link serving any purpose? Is keeping it serving a purpose?

I’m not sure I agree with John when he says the pictures from Baghdad serve no purpose.

As I say, I will seriously consider this.

Andrew Sullivan has been getting a bit livid lately. Here he is yesterday:

Here they are – absolutely horrifying beyond belief. My heart goes out to his family. We will now see what the mainstream media is made of. You think we will see “slideshows” of this?

I can see why he is indignant, it seems strange that the media won’t show the pictures or video, due to audience ‘sensitivity’. And yet the crimes against Iraqi prisoners, while not as horrific, are show more or less unedited.

The full video is making the rounds on Kazaa, Sullivan links to an edited version. I am linking to the full version of the video, and warning people of the obvious graphic nature of it.

This is not about sensationalising, merely about allowing people to decide for themselves. If you do want to see it, click the links, if you do not, don’t.

For my part I watched it once and will not do so again.

The full video (WMV) of Nick Berg

The pictures

More torrid pictures/videos, this time showing a US citizen being beheaded by Arab militants. And we have to wait for more photos and videos from Iraq – this is getting very bad.

This is shocking stuff, carried out apparently in revenge for the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Some curious remarks by the White House:

“It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

“They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children. We will pursue those who are responsible and bring them to justice.”

“The lives of innocent men”. Hm. That does not have quite the same ring to it following the death of dozens of Iraqi prisoners, who were never tried or found guilty of anything. Who are the enemies of freedom?

My sincere sympathies go to the family of Nick Berg in Philly, a city I visited once.

The June edition of the Atlantic dropped through my letterbox today, as usual there are a huge amount of articles worth reading. But the World in Numbers section this month stands out.

It is a graphical representation of Al-Qaeda attacks since 1996 – when Osama declared a Jihad against US troops in Saudi Arabia. Fascinating stuff. It confirms my long held suspicion and even belief, that the war on terror, far from being won, is in fact having little effect.

In a graph titled “An escalating tempo of attacks” a timeline of 1996 – 2004 is shown, with magnitudes of attacks and ratio of fatalities per attack to operative combatants.

Since the USS Cole attack, the tempo has increasing dramatically – with 18 attacks since then.

It all makes for ominous reading, even the byline – “The ever resilient terrorist group continues to adapt – and is rapidly breeding a fully fledged movement”

Nick paints a grim picture…

A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb (a pipsqueak in weapons terms) is smuggled into Manhattan and explodes at Grand Central. Some 500,000 people are killed, and the United States suffers $1 trillion in direct economic damage.

That scenario, cited in a report last year from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, could be a glimpse of our future. We urgently need to control nuclear materials to forestall that threat, but in this war on proliferation, we’re now slipping backward. President George W. Bush (after ignoring the issue before the Sept. 11 attacks) now forcefully says the right things – but still doesn’t do enough.

France has received a terror threat from a previously unheard of Islamic group. Will Paris be next?