Islam’s Rules of War

How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War

by Raymond Ibrahim
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2010

http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war

Islam must seem a paradoxical religion to non-Muslims. On the one hand, it is constantly being portrayed as the religion of peace; on the other, its adherents are responsible for the majority of terror attacks around the world. Apologists for Islam emphasize that it is a faith built upon high ethical standards; others stress that it is a religion of the law. Islam’s dual notions of truth and falsehood further reveal its paradoxical nature: While the Qur’an is against believers deceiving other believers—for “surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar”[1]—deception directed at non-Muslims, generally known in Arabic as taqiyya, also has Qur’anic support and falls within the legal category of things that are permissible for Muslims.

Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to the glorious end of Islamic hegemony under Shari’a, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims. In this sense, lying in the service of altruism is permissible. In a recent example, Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri publicly recounted a story where a Muslim lied and misled a Jew into converting to Islam, calling it a “beautiful trick.”

Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one’s religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi’i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.

Yet if Muslims are exhorted to be truthful, how can deceit not only be prevalent but have divine sanction? What exactly is taqiyya? How is it justified by scholars and those who make use of it? How does it fit into a broader conception of Islam’s code of ethics, especially in relation to the non-Muslim? More to the point, what ramifications does the doctrine of taqiyya have for all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims?

The Doctrine of Taqiyya

According to Shari’a—the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances—deception is not only permitted in certain situations but may be deemed obligatory in others. Contrary to early Christian tradition, for instance, Muslims who were forced to choose between recanting Islam or suffering persecution were permitted to lie and feign apostasy. Other jurists have decreed that Muslims are obligated to lie in order to preserve themselves,[2] based on Qur’anic verses forbidding Muslims from being instrumental in their own deaths.[3]

This is the classic definition of the doctrine of taqiyya. Based on an Arabic word denoting fear, taqiyya has long been understood, especially by Western academics, as something to resort to in times of religious persecution and, for the most part, used in this sense by minority Shi’i groups living among hostile Sunni majorities.[4] Taqiyya allowed the Shi’a to dissemble their religious affiliation in front of the Sunnis on a regular basis, not merely by keeping clandestine about their own beliefs but by actively praying and behaving as if they were Sunnis.

However, one of the few books devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi’l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam) makes it clear that taqiyya is not limited to Shi’a dissimulating in fear of persecution. Written by Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the book clearly demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya:

Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[5]

Taqiyya is, therefore, not, as is often supposed, an exclusively Shi’i phenomenon. Of course, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni enemies, the Shi’a have historically had more reason to dissemble. Conversely, Sunni Islam rapidly dominated vast empires from Spain to China. As a result, its followers were beholden to no one, had nothing to apologize for, and had no need to hide from the infidel nonbeliever (rare exceptions include Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista when Sunnis did dissimulate over their religious identity[6]). Ironically, however, Sunnis living in the West today find themselves in the place of the Shi’a: Now they are the minority surrounded by their traditional enemies—Christian infidels—even if the latter, as opposed to their Reconquista predecessors, rarely act on, let alone acknowledge, this historic enmity. In short, Sunnis are currently experiencing the general circumstances that made taqiyya integral to Shi’ism although without the physical threat that had so necessitated it.

The Articulation of Taqiyya

Qur’anic verse 3:28 is often seen as the primary verse that sanctions deception towards non-Muslims: “Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”[7]

Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of a standard and authoritative Qur’an commentary, explains verse 3:28 as follows:

If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.[8]

Regarding Qur’an 3:28, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another prime authority on the Qur’an, writes, “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.” As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.” Another companion, simply known as Al-Hasan, said, “Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”[9]

Other prominent scholars, such as Abu ‘Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) and Muhyi ‘d-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses, offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a Muslim: “Taqiyya, even if committed without duress, does not lead to a state of infidelity—even if it leads to sin deserving of hellfire.”[10]

Deceit in Muhammad’s Military Exploits

Muhammad—whose example as the “most perfect human” is to be followed in every detail—took an expedient view on lying. It is well known, for instance, that he permitted lying in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties, to placate one’s wife, and in war.[11] According to one Arabic legal manual devoted to jihad as defined by the four schools of law, “The ulema agree that deception during warfare is legitimate … deception is a form of art in war.”[12] Moreover, according to Mukaram, this deception is classified as taqiyya: “Taqiyya in order to dupe the enemy is permissible.”[13]

Several ulema believe deceit is integral to the waging of war: Ibn al-‘Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.” Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.”[14]

This Muslim notion that war is deceit goes back to the Battle of the Trench (627), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes known as Al-Ahzab. One of the Ahzab, Na’im ibn Mas’ud, went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered that the Ahzab were unaware of their co-tribalist’s conversion, he counseled Mas’ud to return and try to get the pagan forces to abandon the siege. It was then that Muhammad memorably declared, “For war is deceit.” Mas’ud returned to the Ahzab without their knowing that he had switched sides and intentionally began to give his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to instigate quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded, lifted the siege from the Muslims, and saved Islam from destruction in an embryonic period.[15] Most recently, 9/11 accomplices, such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, rationalized their conspiratorial role in their defendant response by evoking their prophet’s assertion that “war is deceit.”

A more compelling expression of the legitimacy of deceiving infidels is the following anecdote. A poet, Ka’b ibn Ashraf, offended Muhammad, prompting the latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt God and his prophet?” A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka’b to assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet. Muhammad agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka’b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so convincing that Ka’b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka’b’s guard was down, killed him.[16]

Muhammad said other things that cast deception in a positive light, such as “God has commanded me to equivocate among the people just as he has commanded me to establish [religious] obligations”; and “I have been sent with obfuscation”; and “whoever lives his life in dissimulation dies a martyr.”[17]

In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya as a form of Islamic warfare. Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being that their intentions (niya) be pure.[18] During wars with Christians, whenever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral. Mukaram states, “Taqiyya was used as a way to fend off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to the raids [crusades] of the Franks and others.”[19]

Taqiyya in Qur’anic Revelation

The Qur’an itself is further testimony to taqiyya. Since God is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he is by default seen as the ultimate perpetrator of deceit—which is not surprising since he is described in the Qur’an as the best makar, that is, the best deceiver or schemer (e.g., 3:54, 8:30, 10:21).

While other scriptures contain contradictions, the Qur’an is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Qur’an, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview—the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Qur’an’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).

But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view is that in the early years of Islam, since Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by their infidel competitors while living next to them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was in order. However, after the Muslims migrated to Medina in 622 and grew in military strength, verses inciting them to go on the offensive were slowly “revealed”—in principle, sent down from God—always commensurate with Islam’s growing capabilities. In juridical texts, these are categorized in stages: passivity vis-á-vis aggression; permission to fight back against aggressors; commands to fight aggressors; commands to fight all non-Muslims, whether the latter begin aggressions or not.[20] Growing Muslim might is the only variable that explains this progressive change in policy.

Other scholars put a gloss on this by arguing that over a twenty-two year period, the Qur’an was revealed piecemeal, from passive and spiritual verses to legal prescriptions and injunctions to spread the faith through jihad and conquest, simply to acclimate early Muslim converts to the duties of Islam, lest they be discouraged at the outset by the dramatic obligations that would appear in later verses.[21] Verses revealed towards the end of Muhammad’s career—such as, “Warfare is prescribed for you though you hate it”[22]—would have been out of place when warfare was actually out of the question.

However interpreted, the standard view on Qur’anic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith, that, if possible, jihad should be performed by the hand (force), if not, then by the tongue (through preaching); and, if that is not possible, then with the heart or one’s intentions.[23]

War Is Eternal

That Islam legitimizes deceit during war is, of course, not all that astonishing; after all, as the Elizabethan writer John Lyly put it, “All’s fair in love and war.”[24] Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists—such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes—justified deceit in warfare. Deception of the enemy during war is only common sense. The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Qur’an, “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[25] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: “The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily.”[26]

Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, Muslim scholars such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) agree that Qur’an 9:5, known as ayat as-sayf or the sword verse, has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses, including “every other verse in the Qur’an, which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the nonbelievers.”[27] In fact, all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence agree that “jihad is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and live in submission, and the infidels refuse.”[28]

Obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam’s dichotomized worldview that pits the realm of Islam against the realm of war. The first, dar al-Islam, is the “realm of submission,” the world where Shari’a governs; the second, dar al-Harb (the realm of war), is the non-Islamic world. A struggle continues until the realm of Islam subsumes the non-Islamic world—a perpetual affair that continues to the present day. The renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) clearly articulates this division:

In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[29]

Finally and all evidence aside, lest it still appear unreasonable for a faith with over one billion adherents to obligate unprovoked warfare in its name, it is worth noting that the expansionist jihad is seen as an altruistic endeavor, not unlike the nineteenth century ideology of “the white man’s burden.” The logic is that the world, whether under democracy, socialism, communism, or any other system of governance, is inevitably living in bondage—a great sin, since the good of all humanity is found in living in accordance to God’s law. In this context, Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to a glorious end—Islamic hegemony under Shari’a rule, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims.

This view has an ancient pedigree: Soon after the death of Muhammad (634), as the jihad fighters burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They memorably replied as follows:

God has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of God, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of God.[30]

Fourteen hundred years later— in March 2009—Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view:

As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari’a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.[31]

And it should go without saying that taqiyya in the service of altruism is permissible. For example, only recently, after publicly recounting a story where a Muslim tricked a Jew into converting to Islam—warning him that if he tried to abandon Islam, Muslims would kill him as an apostate—Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri called it a “beautiful trick.”[32] After all, from an Islamic point of view, it was the Jew who, in the end, benefitted from the deception, which brought him to Islam.

Treaties and Truces

The perpetual nature of jihad is highlighted by the fact that, based on the 10-year treaty of Hudaybiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraysh opponents in Mecca, most jurists are agreed that ten years is the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels; once the treaty has expired, the situation needs to be reappraised. Based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the treaty after two years (by claiming a Quraysh infraction), the sole function of the truce is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before renewing the offensive:[33] “By their very nature, treaties must be of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory, the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but warlike.”[34] Hence “the fuqaha [jurists] are agreed that open-ended truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the strength to renew the war against them [non-Muslims].”[35]

Even though Shari’a mandates Muslims to abide by treaties, they have a way out, one open to abuse: If Muslims believe—even without solid evidence—that their opponents are about to break the treaty, they can preempt by breaking it first. Moreover, some Islamic schools of law, such as the Hanafi, assert that Muslim leaders may abrogate treaties merely if it seems advantageous for Islam.[36] This is reminiscent of the following canonical hadith: “If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better.”[37] And what is better, what is more altruistic, than to make God’s word supreme by launching the jihad anew whenever possible? Traditionally, Muslim rulers held to a commitment to launch a jihad at least once every year. This ritual is most noted with the Ottoman sultans, who spent half their lives in the field.[38] So important was the duty of jihad that the sultans were not permitted to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, an individual duty for each Muslim. Their leadership of the jihad allowed this communal duty to continue; without them, it would have fallen into desuetude.[39]

In short, the prerequisite for peace or reconciliation is Muslim advantage. This is made clear in an authoritative Sunni legal text, Umdat as-Salik, written by a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar, Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri: “There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo: ‘So do not be fainthearted and call for peace when it is you who are uppermost [Qur’an 47:35].'”[40]

More recently, and of great significance for Western leaders advocating cooperation with Islamists, Yasser Arafat, soon after negotiating a peace treaty criticized as conceding too much to Israel, addressed an assembly of Muslims in a mosque in Johannesburg where he justified his actions: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”[41] In other words, like Muhammad, Arafat gave his word only to annul it once “something better” came along—that is, once the Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive and continue on the road to Jerusalem. Elsewhere, Hudaybiya has appeared as a keyword for radical Islamists. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front had three training camps within the Camp Abu Bakar complex in the Philippines, one of which was named Camp Hudaybiya.[42]

Hostility Disguised As Grievance

In their statements directed at European or American audiences, Islamists maintain that the terrorism they direct against the West is merely reciprocal treatment for decades of Western and Israeli oppression. Yet in writings directed to their fellow Muslims, this animus is presented, not as a reaction to military or political provocation but as a product of religious obligation.

For instance, when addressing Western audiences, Osama bin Laden lists any number of grievances as motivating his war on the West—from the oppression of the Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women, and even U.S. failure to sign the environmental Kyoto protocol—all things intelligible from a Western perspective. Never once, however, does he justify Al-Qaeda’s attacks on Western targets simply because non-Muslim countries are infidel entities that must be subjugated. Indeed, he often initiates his messages to the West by saying, “Reciprocal treatment is part of justice” or “Peace to whoever follows guidance“[43]—though he means something entirely different than what his Western listeners understand by words such as “peace,” “justice,” or “guidance.”

It is when bin Laden speaks to fellow Muslims that the truth comes out. When a group of prominent Muslims wrote an open letter to the American people soon after the strikes of 9/11, saying that Islam seeks to peacefully coexist,[44] bin Laden wrote to castigate them:

As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High’s Word: “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in God alone” [Qur’an 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi, or protected minority], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! … Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.[45]

Mainstream Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence lend their support to this hostile Weltanschauung by speaking of the infidel in similar terms. Bin Laden’s addresses to the West with his talk of justice and peace are clear instances of taqiyya. He is not only waging a physical jihad but a propaganda war, that is, a war of deceit. If he can convince the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault, he garners greater sympathy for his cause. At the same time, he knows that if Americans were to realize that nothing short of their submission can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be quickly compromised. Hence the constant need to dissemble and to cite grievances, for, as bin Laden’s prophet asserted, “War is deceit.”

Implications

Taqiyya presents a range of ethical dilemmas. Anyone who truly believes that God justifies and, through his prophet’s example, even encourages deception will not experience any ethical qualms over lying. Consider the case of ‘Ali Mohammad, bin Laden’s first “trainer” and long-time Al-Qaeda operative. An Egyptian, he was initially a member of Islamic Jihad and had served in the Egyptian army’s military intelligence unit. After 1984, he worked for a time with the CIA in Germany. Though considered untrustworthy, he managed to get to California where he enlisted in the U.S. Army. It seems likely that he continued to work in some capacity for the CIA. He later trained jihadists in the United States and Afghanistan and was behind several terror attacks in Africa. People who knew him regarded him with “fear and awe for his incredible self-confidence, his inability to be intimidated, absolute ruthless determination to destroy the enemies of Islam, and his zealous belief in the tenets of militant Islamic fundamentalism.”[46] Indeed, this sentence sums it all up: For a zealous belief in Islam’s tenets, which legitimize deception in order to make God’s word supreme, will certainly go a long way in creating “incredible self-confidence” when lying.[47]

Yet most Westerners continue to think that Muslim mores, laws, and ethical constraints are near identical to those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Naively or arrogantly, today’s multiculturalist leaders project their own worldview onto Islamists, thinking a handshake and smiles across a cup of coffee, as well as numerous concessions, are enough to dismantle the power of God’s word and centuries of unchanging tradition. The fact remains: Right and wrong in Islam have little to do with universal standards but only with what Islam itself teaches—much of which is antithetical to Western norms.

It must, therefore, be accepted that, contrary to long-held academic assumptions, the doctrine of taqiyya goes far beyond Muslims engaging in religious dissimulation in the interest of self-preservation and encompasses deception of the infidel enemy in general. This phenomenon should provide a context for Shi’i Iran’s zeal—taqiyya being especially second nature to Shi’ism—to acquire nuclear power while insisting that its motives are entirely peaceful.

Nor is taqiyya confined to overseas affairs. Walid Phares of the National Defense University has lamented that homegrown Islamists are operating unfettered on American soil due to their use of taqiyya: “Does our government know what this doctrine is all about and, more importantly, are authorities educating the body of our defense apparatus regarding this stealthy threat dormant among us?”[48] After the Fort Hood massacre, when Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-Muslim who exhibited numerous Islamist signs which were ignored, killed thirteen fellow servicemen and women, one is compelled to respond in the negative.

This, then, is the dilemma: Islamic law unambiguously splits the world into two perpetually warring halves—the Islamic world versus the non-Islamic—and holds it to be God’s will for the former to subsume the latter. Yet if war with the infidel is a perpetual affair, if war is deceit, and if deeds are justified by intentions—any number of Muslims will naturally conclude that they have a divinely sanctioned right to deceive, so long as they believe their deception serves to aid Islam “until all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[49] Such deception will further be seen as a means to an altruistic end. Muslim overtures for peace, dialogue, or even temporary truces must be seen in this light, evoking the practical observations of philosopher James Lorimer, uttered over a century ago: “So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem.”[50]

In closing, whereas it may be more appropriate to talk of “war and peace” as natural corollaries in a Western context, when discussing Islam, it is more accurate to talk of “war and deceit.” For, from an Islamic point of view, times of peace—that is, whenever Islam is significantly weaker than its infidel rivals—are times of feigned peace and pretense, in a word, taqiyya.

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum.

Security at Your Airport

Security Theater Now Playing at Your Airport

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
January 6, 2010

http://www.danielpipes.org/7866/airport-security-theater

As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London’s Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind.

Nizar al-Hindawi and Ann-Marie Murphy.

It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing one Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to “get rid of the thing,” he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in “the Holy Land.” He also insisted on their traveling separately.

Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a “simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic,” accepted unquestioningly Hindawi’s arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17. She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with, unbeknown to her, a false bottom containing nearly 2 kilograms of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security.

Murphy successfully passed through the standard Heathrow security inspection and reached the gate with her bag, where an El Al agent questioned her. As reconstructed by Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy in Washingtonian magazine, he started by asking whether she had packed her bags herself. She replied in the negative. Then:

“What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?” Recalling Hindawi’s instructions, Murphy answered, “For a vacation.”

“Are you married, Miss Murphy?” “No.”

“Traveling alone?” “Yes.”

“Is this your first trip abroad?” “Yes.”

“Do you have relatives in Israel?” “No.”

“Are you going to meet someone in Israel?” “No.

“Has your vacation been planned for a long time?” “No.”

“Where will you stay while you’re in Israel?” “The Tel Aviv Hilton.”

“How much money do you have with you?” “Fifty pounds.” The Hilton at that time costing at least £70 a night, he asked:

“Do you have a credit card?” “Oh, yes,” she replied, showing him an ID for cashing checks.

That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered.

Security at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel.

Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. The agent focused on the passenger, not the weaponry. Israeli counterterrorism takes passengers’ identities into account; accordingly, Arabs endure an especially tough inspection. “In Israel, security comes first,” David Harris of the American Jewish Committee explains.

Obvious as this sounds, overconfidence, political correctness, and legal liability render such an approach impossible anywhere else in the West. In the United States, for example, one month after 9/11, the Department of Transportation issued guidelines forbidding its personnel from generalizing “about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity.” (Wear a hijab, I semi-jokingly advise women wanting to avoid secondary screening at airport security.)

Worse yet, consider the panicky Mickey-Mouse, and embarrassing steps the U.S. Transportation Security Administration implemented hours after the Detroit bombing attempt: no crew announcements “concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks,” and disabling all passenger communications services. During a flight’s final hour, passengers may not stand up, access carry-on baggage, nor “have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap.”

Some crews went yet further, keeping cabin lights on throughout the night while turning off the in-flight entertainment, prohibiting all electronic devices, and, during the final hour, requiring passengers to keep hands visible and neither eat nor drink. Things got so bad, the Associated Press reports, “A demand by one attendant that no one could read anything … elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter.”

Widely criticized for these Clouseau-like measures, TSA eventually decided to add “enhanced screening” for travelers passing through or originating from fourteen “countries of interest” – as though one’s choice of departure airport indicates a propensity for suicide bombing.

The TSA engages in “security theater” – bumbling pretend-steps that treat all passengers equally rather than risk offending anyone by focusing, say, on religion. The alternative approach is Israelification, defined by Toronto’s Star newspaper as “a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.”

Which do we want – theatrics or safety?

Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution, has super-elite status at two airlines.

Jan. 6, 2010 update: I lacked space in the column to play out this ultimate scenario: What if a very large group of hijackers gets on a plane, enough of them so that with muscle alone – no knives, guns, or bombs – they overpower the passengers and crew? What if they threaten the pilots to strangle one person after another until the plane comes under their control? No amount of technology can prevent such a scenario; only scrutiny of who is getting aboard can do so.

And while there has been no such large group, “Those Fourteen Syrians on Northwest Airlines Flight #327” represented a possible step in that direction.

Islam and the West

Islam and the West: ‘Overlapping Consensus’ or Capitulation?

by Janet Doerflinger
American Thinker
January 12, 2010

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/islam_and_the_west_overlapping.html

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8958

In his recent book, Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus, Yale political scientist Andrew F. March argues that fears of an inherent conflict between Western and Islamic political norms are overblown. If true, this would be very good news. Such “overlapping consensus” could ease the adjustments caused by mass migration of Muslims into Western European countries. The ideology of suicide terrorists might be revealed as a misunderstanding of Islam. And those of us who are concerned about the creeping shariah promoted by Islamists via legal, nonviolent methods could relax and shift our attention to global warming or mark-to-market accounting.

But is March right? To understand the import of Mr. March’s theory of “overlapping consensus,” let’s look at some of his other writings, as well as his own political activism since joining the Yale faculty. Professor March has discussed whether Western countries should legalize polygamy. If there is a robust overlapping consensus, it should be easy to reach an accommodation without either Muslim immigrants or their new home countries having to make major changes in their way of life. However, March proposes that governments “get out of the ‘marriage’ business” altogether, and instead, that any number of people, of any gender(s) or sexual orientation(s) should be able to form a legally-recognized civil union. March’s sole concession to Western sensibilities is that the members of a civil union would be required to sign a contract designed to assure consent.

In other words, what March foresees in his thought experiment, in order to make room for the Muslim custom of polygamy, is a dystopian future in which traditional marriage between one man and one woman receives no particular favor from the government and is only one of an infinite number of lifestyle choices, including gay unions, polyandry, polygyny, and incest. Rather than the easy adjustment implied in the notion of “overlapping consensus,” what he actually envisions is a cataclysmic upheaval of our social system, starting with the family, in order to accommodate the Muslim custom of permitting one man to have several wives.

Moving from his scholarship to his political activism, Mr. March has spoken at two Yale panel discussions convened to limit free speech. In October 2008, he participated in a panel that falsely associated the documentary film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West with an Islamophobic hate crime. And one year later, he condemned the Danish Mohammed cartoons rather than the Danish imams who incited worldwide riots, those who killed people in response to the cartoons, or Yale University Press for censoring them. (Apparently March has never seen Arab political cartoons, which reduce to absurdity the outrage at the mild Danish cartoons and well-intentioned documentary film.) We can conclude that when the Western values of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and free discussion of the ideology of Muslim extremists conflict with the Muslim values of imposing the radical Islamic ban on images of Mohammed on non-Muslims, preventing dhimmis from criticizing the Muslims’ religion, and blocking free discussion of Islam and terrorism, Mr. March has chosen to sacrifice Western values in deference to the conflicting Muslim ones.

Mr. March’s book has won him an impressive-sounding prize and an appointment at Yale. Unfortunately, success in academia in general, and in particular in Middle East Studies, tilts towards those who toe the party line. The book appears to be something important that shows that the conflict between Islam and the West is overblown, but both March’s scholarship and his own political activism demonstrate that the “overlapping consensus” is much narrower than it purports to be. There are very real conflicts between Islamic and Western political cultures, and when the two collide, one side or the other will have to make concessions.

Andrew March’s position is that the West should submit. His nihilistic call for the abolition of civil marriage and his heedless disregard for the foundational values of the university allow us to view through a magnifying glass, as it were, the curious contortions by which the far left allies itself with uber-conservative Islam. Ironically, his approach is not helpful to European Muslims. U.K. journalist Melanie Phillips has noted how abandoning traditional British religious and cultural values, as March advocates, has contributed to the difficulties of assimilating the Muslim minority in her country. After all, you can’t trump something with nothing.

Janet Doerflinger is a writer whose interests include public affairs and foreign policy. This essay was written for Campus Watch, a program of the Middle East Forum.

Steven Emerson: Combating Radical Islam

Steven Emerson: Combating Radical Islam
Defeating Jihadist Terrorism

by George Michael
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2010, pp. 15-25

http://www.meforum.org/2578/steven-emerson-combating-radical-islam

On Christmas afternoon in 1992, Steven Emerson, then a staff reporter for CNN, noticed a large group of men in traditional Arab clothes congregating outside the Oklahoma City Convention Center. At first, he thought they were extras for a movie—until he remembered the date. So, he explored a bit; inside, he discovered a conference sponsored by the Muslim Arab Youth Association. The vitriol of the speakers, replete with hateful rhetoric against Jews, Israel, and America mixed with exhortations of violence toward these enemies, alarmed him. Spontaneous shouts of “Kill the Jews” and “Destroy the West” came from the audience throughout the event.[1]

Steven Emerson has emerged as a powerful independent force, working with U.S. security services while also carrying out investigations on his own in areas beyond their reach.

Worried by what he had witnessed, Emerson notified a contact in the FBI, only to be told that the agency knew nothing about the conference and also lacked a mandate to investigate it because no criminal activity had occurred or was imminent.[2] This experience indelibly impressed him, leaving a sense of government weakness and suggesting the need for a private agency to explore the threat of radical Islam within the United States.

On graduation from Brown University, Emerson (b. 1954) went to work as an analyst on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served as an international investigator and helped shape the aid package to Israel and Egypt following the Camp David accords in 1978. He honed his skills while working for the committee until 1982, during which time he developed an abiding interest in Middle Eastern affairs.

In 1986, he joined U.S. News & World Report where he worked as a national security correspondent. During this time, he authored two books: Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era[3] and The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation.[4] In Secret Warriors, Emerson argued that technical breakdowns, bureaucratic disarray, presidential interference, and professional jealousy contributed to the inertia of America’s elite forces.[5] This perception may have played a large role in convincing him that government alone is inadequate to the challenges of modern terrorism. In The Fall of Pan Am 103, he promoted the theory—then held by the U.S. government—that Iran was responsible for the bombing of the flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

Since that early experience in Oklahoma, Emerson has emerged as a powerful independent force who works with U.S. security services but carries out investigations on his own in areas beyond their reach. He does not take any funds from the government. In 1995, he established his own think tank, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), which has since conducted investigations into many Islamist and terrorist groups and individuals. The IPT has stirred up more hornets’ nests than many government agencies. Its acute focus has allowed it to hone in on targets that broader agencies missed. Emerson’s initiative has paid off handsomely.

New Nongovernmental Agencies Emerge

The Islamist campaign to implement Shari’a law presents a grave challenge to the United States and all Western countries. And while a security apparatus has arisen to defend against these threats, several nongovernmental bodies have emerged as critical adjuncts in the effort to identify those who work within the law to change the Western way of life.

Compared to Western Europe, the United States has an unusual approach to domestic political extremism. Since 1976, the FBI has officially conducted surveillance of extremist and potentially violent groups under the attorney general’s guidelines, established after revelations of misconduct and abuses arising from the COINTELPRO initiative, a secret program through which the FBI disrupted both far-left and far-right groups.[6] However, the extremely well-coordinated attacks of 9/11 exposed gaping holes in the area of human intelligence and impelled the government to reexamine and recalibrate this policy.[7]

In response, the FBI relaxed its guidelines for investigations of religious extremists, and the federal government now allows information to be shared between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Moreover, to augment their investigatory functions, the authorities increasingly rely on recently created, private monitoring groups, including JihadWatch.com and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).[8] Their efforts are complemented by think tanks such as the Middle East Forum and publications such as the Middle East Review of International Affairs.

Operating in a decentralized fashion, private entities can be more flexible and effective than government agencies in providing time-sensitive and actionable intelligence resources. For example, MEMRI releases high-quality, up-to-date information and translations about radical organizations, frequently before such intelligence is processed by government.[9]

Emerson’s IPT has established itself as the most effective nongovernmental organization (NGO) monitoring Islamic radicalism. It is the only private entity in the United States that conducts undercover research into the activities of Islamist groups. To preserve its independence, IPT accepts no funds from the U.S. government or donors outside the United States.

Emerson’s IPT focuses primarily on U.S.-based Islamist groups, some working in legal ways to undermine American society, others with links to terrorist organizations overseas. Along the way, he has created an unparalleled undercover investigative apparatus. According to Rep. Sue Myrick (Republican of North Carolina), cofounder of the bipartisan Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, “The Investigative Project is the only one out there who is really doing substantial research into what is going on in the world and here in America. They are actually researching … they are verifying how these [jihadist] movements are taking place. … I don’t know of anyone else who is doing the same thing.”[10]

Emerson has returned the compliment: “Congressmen like Frank Wolf, Pete Hoekstra, and Sue Myrick have shown a backbone that is unparalleled in Congress in courageously tackling the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR [Council on American Islamic Relations], and other Islamist groups, and radical Islamic groups. So it shows there are brave Congressmen as well.”[11] Like Emerson, Myrick focuses less on outright terrorism than the infiltration of American institutions by Islamists.[12] Alliances like this lend strength to Emerson’s own efforts. The task of exposing and combating Islamist organizations and individuals takes place in a highly political context and requires high-level lobbying and juristic skills.

Exposing Islamists in America

Emerson undertook effective investigations on his own before he started the IPT. Most notable was his 1994 documentary Jihad in America, which raised awareness of the threat of radical Islam in the United States. The film focused on a Palestinian, Abdullah Azzam, who founded the Arab Fighters Service Bureau in Afghanistan to recruit and train thousands of mostly Arab jihadists. Osama bin Laden, a protégé of Azzam’s, cofounded the bureau and later transformed it into Al-Qaeda. The bureau’s North American office, the Al-Khifa Refugee Center in the Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, soon became the hub of a network that included outposts in Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, and New Jersey.[13] Interestingly, while in Pakistan and Afghanistan for several months in 1993, shooting the documentary, Emerson befriended Azzam’s son Hodeyfa.

After Azzam’s assassination in Pakistan in 1989,[14] the blind Egyptian sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, emerged as the spiritual leader of the international jihadist wing of the bureau. In 1990, Abdel Rahman, who had been expelled from Egypt, was allowed to emigrate from Afghanistan to the United States despite having been named on the State Department’s terrorist watch list; he settled in the New York city area. Soon, a circle of Islamists congregated at his Al-Salaam Mosque in Jersey City. In 1990, one of his followers, Egyptian-born El Sayyid Nosair, assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, the Israeli politician and founder of the Jewish Defense League.[15] A few years later, other Abdel Rahman followers linked up with Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six persons and wounded 1,042 others.[16] Emerson’s work in uncovering and exposing this network complemented the efforts of official agencies operating under greater constraints.

The Charity Networks

Since August 1994, Emerson has testified before or informally briefed the United States Congress hundreds of times.[17] His efforts appear to have had an influence on lawmakers. The videotape of his first documentary, Jihad in America, was distributed to all 535 members of Congress and, according to Rep. Chris Smith (Republican of New Jersey), it played a significant role in persuading them to pass the USA Patriot Act in the fall of 2001.[18] In 2002, he published a book entitled American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us,[19] in which he traced the development of radical Islam in the United States. He also testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission) in July 2003.[20]

In later testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on November 8, 2005, he charged that Saudi Arabia had funded a vast network of charities and religious organizations that had ties to terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda and Hamas.[21] This testimony prompted Treasury and National Security Council investigations into the labyrinth of radical Islamic charities operating in the United States. According to federal officials, these investigations led to an effort within the agencies to shut down some of the charities but nothing was done; the Clinton administration lacked the political will to close down the charities. Only after the 9-11 attacks did that will emerge and efforts to shut down the charitable fronts succeed.[22]

Emerson has focused primarily on the fundraising activities of mainstream Muslim groups and their links to the more radical organizations for which they serve as fronts. As he has observed, one of the most important activities carried out by Islamist groups in the United States has been the establishment of nonprofit, tax-deductible organizations to establish zones of legitimacy within which fundraising, recruitment, and even terrorist planning can occur.[23] Using a technique first developed in the Middle East, these groups often provide American Muslims with much-needed social services such as education, nutrition, and health care so as to win over and manipulate them.[24] This activity is usually justified by reference to the religious duty of paying zakat (the Islamic alms tax).[25] This practice creates substantial good will and much social capital for those Islamist groups who choose to employ it as a cover for collecting monies destined for jihadist groups.

According to one CIA study, one-fifth of all Islamic NGOs worldwide have been unwittingly infiltrated by Islamist terrorist groups.[26] As Emerson has pointed out, some of the religious and charitable organizations have mixed legitimate activities with illegitimate, thus betraying the true aims of the donations.[27] Investigators who seek to reveal this duplicity run a serious risk of being condemned as bigots who find wrongdoing in a meritorious religious activity that has close parallels to Jewish and Christian charities.

Hamas and Hezbollah Networks

Overall, the IPT, with its access to information and intelligence to which the government is not privy, has been instrumental in shutting down more than a dozen Islamic charitable terrorist and nonviolent front-groups since 2001.[28]

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, offers one notable example of an organization involved in both terrorism and social services. According to Emerson, Hamas developed the most sophisticated infrastructure of all the Islamist groups operating in the United States.[29] During the early 1990s, the group worked out of an office in Springfield, Virginia, opened by Musa Abu Marzouk. In 1981, Abu Marzouk helped create the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which served as the primary voice for Hamas in the United States. IAP participants were later among the founding members of CAIR.[30] IAP’s primary activity consisted of annual conferences, which hosted various Islamist luminaries who often gave incendiary speeches.[31]

In 1980, Abu Marzouk became founding president of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), which some sources indicate acted as the Hamas political command in the United States.[32] He went on to found additional groups in the United States, all of them closely associated with Hamas. For example, UASR and IAP were joined by the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which Abu Marzouk himself designated as the primary source of donations for charitable work in the Palestinian territories.[33] In 2001, Abu Marzouk voluntarily shut down his office after its director, Ahmed Yousef, was forced to flee the United States where he had resided illegally for twenty years. Yousef now serves as a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza.[34] Abu Marzouk also returned to Gaza where he is now the deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, but in 2004 he was indicted in his absence for coordinating and financing the work of Hamas.[35]

The FBI suspects that Hamas may also have established for-profit corporations in the United States. On September 5, 2001, it executed a search warrant against the InfoCom Corporation, an Internet service provider based in Richardson, Texas, suspected of ties to Hamas.[36] The authorities indicted its officials and subsequently convicted them of channeling funds to the Palestinian group.[37] Law enforcement officials commented on background that Emerson’s organization, with vast archives on the activities of Hamas front groups in the United States, had an instrumental role in prosecuting and convicting the Holy Land Foundation, a trial that resulted in sweeping convictions for all defendants in 2008.[38]

And the beat goes on: In 2007, the IPT broadcast video tapes on its website showing Esam Omeish railing against Israel and advocating jihad. As a result, Omeish was forced to resign from his appointment by Virginian governor Tim Kaine to the state’s Commission on Immigration.[39] In 2009, the IPT exposed the links between Viva Palestina USA and Hamas. Its report on the group laid bare its membership, activities, and motives and was provided to federal authorities for further investigation.[40]

Sami al-Arian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Emerson was the first investigator to link a former professor at the University of South Florida, Sami al-Arian, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an organization designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.[41] He exposed Arian’s ties to the Islamic Jihad in his 1994 documentary Jihad in America and continued to write and testify about Arian’s links to the group throughout the rest of the decade. Arian has helped create several Islamist associations. One of these, the Islamic Concern Project (later called the Islamic Committee for Palestine), allegedly raised money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and brought Islamist leaders to the United States.[42] In Jihad in America, Emerson called the Islamic Committee for Palestine the “primary support group in the United States for Islamic Jihad.”

Emerson revealed that Arian was running an organization that was in effect the American branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[43] In February 2003, federal law enforcement agents arrested Arian for alleged fundraising and material support activities on behalf of terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.[44] In December 2005, Arian was acquitted of many serious charges against him, but the jury deadlocked on nine counts. He pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and agreed to be deported after serving the balance of a 57-month sentence.

According to Bill West, the supervisory special agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Miami Special Investigations Section (and now a consultant to the IPT), Emerson’s “outstanding and continued original investigative journalism” of Arian and his PIJ connections “was the catalyst that resulted in the launching of the federal criminal investigation against Al-Arian and his cohorts.”[45]

CAIR, MPAC, and AMC

Emerson’s detailed investigations into CAIR have generated consequences for this Islamist group in Congress. For example, in December 2006, following an appeal by “CAIR Watch” founder Joe Kaufman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (Democrat of California) rescinded an award to CAIR official Basim Elkarra, stating that she was uncomfortable with many of CAIR’s positions.[46] Not long after, Emerson disclosed Rep. Bill Pascrell’s (Democrat of New Jersey) role in sponsoring a CAIR forum to be held in a Capitol facility. The Republican Party House Conference objected to this use by CAIR, whose members the Republican Party had labeled as “terror apologists.”[47] It was also Emerson who discerned that CAIR had effectively been founded by Hamas.[48]

He has long sought to expose CAIR’s leading officials who have previously expressed extremist views and been linked to militant activities. One of these is Ghassan Elashi, founder of the Texas branch of CAIR, who has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for numerous offences, including money-laundering for Hamas.[49] In 2007, CAIR was designated an un-indicted co-conspirator in the trial of the officials operating the Holy Land Foundation, who were accused and later convicted of laundering money for Hamas.[50] In the trial, FBI agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR serves as a front for Hamas. In January 2009, Emerson revealed that the FBI was severing its contacts with CAIR due to its ties with Hamas.[51]

Emerson has released documents and tapes showing that leaders of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) have defended Hezbollah, excused Hamas terror attacks, compared the United States to Al-Qaeda, urged Muslims not to cooperate if FBI agents approach them, and issued demonstrably anti-Semitic and anti-American statements.[52] In return, MPAC tried to demonize Emerson. At a conference held in late 2004, it displayed a poster called “The Faces that Are Always Talking about Terrorism,” which included pictures of Osama bin Laden, Daniel Pipes, Pat Robertson, Donald Rumsfeld, and Steven Emerson.[53] The implication was that Emerson, et al., were as nefarious as bin Laden.

In December 2004, MPAC again focused on Emerson in a report entitled Counterproductive Counterterrorism: How Anti-Islamic Rhetoric Is Impeding America’s Homeland Security. It pointed out that several key public officials, including former national security advisor, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, had praised the efforts of MPAC in working with government officials to combat terrorism in America.[54] Emerson countered, saying MPAC has deceived public officials into believing the group is “moderate” while at the same time defending Hezbollah and Hamas and rationalizing radical Islam.

The American Muslim Council (AMC) may have been Emerson’s most dramatic exposé so far. He took issue with an invitation that President Bill Clinton extended in 1996 to Abdurahman Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim-American leader and the executive director of the AMC. The meeting between the president and Alamoudi was to take place in the White House. Clinton administration officials, including Clinton himself, Vice President Al Gore and National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, met with Alamoudi along with twenty-three Muslim and Arab leaders.[55] According to Emerson, AMC had significant ties to Hamas and was a defender of Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk.[56] Because of the notoriety Alamoudi received from the exposure by Emerson, the Clintons and President Bush returned Alamoudi’s campaign contributions.[57] This is an excellent example of how someone coming from outside the compliant structures of government can make an impact in political circles.

But the matter went even further. Emerson recorded a speech in which Alamoudi voiced support for both Hezbollah and Hamas.[58] Emerson also obtained a recording of Alamoudi calling for bombings in the United States, a tape that was introduced at Alamoudi’s detention hearing and credited with the decision to keep him in jail rather than let him out on bail.[59] In October 2003, Alamoudi was then indicted on charges that he had illegally accepted $340,000 from the Libyan government for his efforts to persuade the U.S. government to lift sanctions against the Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi regime.[60] Then, in 2004, Alamoudi was arrested and convicted of conspiring with two Al-Qaeda members to assassinate King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.[61] In October, 2004, he pled guilty and was sentenced to twenty-three years in prison. Treasury documents list him as a longtime courier for Al-Qaeda and Hamas.[62]

The Investigative Project on Terrorism

Emerson founded the Investigative Project on Terrorism in 1995 and currently serves as its executive director; this think tank and archive maintains the world’s largest collection of nongovernmental data on radical Islamic groups, including more than four million documents, thousands of hours of clandestine video and audio recordings made at radical Islamic conferences, training sessions, fundraising activities, and assorted gatherings; and tens of thousands of original terrorist manuals and periodicals.[63] The IPT has also compiled a database of thousands of known or suspected terrorists as well as dossiers on radical groups.[64]

The IPT website offers a comprehensive counter-Islamist source of information, with government documents, proprietary information, and breaking stories.[65] The IPT also employs analysts to collect and interpret data and sends associates to listen to speeches by Islamist leaders. To inform interested parties of its work, it mails out daily updates. Emerson also contributes to the Counterterrorism Blog website, which posts articles and information relating to radical Islam, terrorism, and nonviolent Islamist threats.

The IPT receives information from a variety of sources, including many not available to government agencies. The archive holds the trial exhibits from the first World Trade Center bombing case, which include numerous records on Muslim terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere. Emerson and his staff meticulously copied the documents, which were all publicly available and obtained from the court and prosecutors. After reviewing the records, Emerson concluded that these various Islamist groups were coordinating their activities in a worldwide network.[66]

The IPT, acting as a nongovernmental agency, assists, without fee, numerous government offices and agencies, in part because constitutional limitations tie the hands of federal and state security services. Due to a strong civil liberties tradition rooted in the First Amendment, the U.S. government lacks the authority to disband extremist groups or proscribe extremist speech. While the IPT does not possess any governmental powers or authority, it has the ability, like the media, to shine a light on the activities of Islamist groups, gatherings, and officials. Emerson often quotes Justice Louis Brandeis’s dictum that “sunshine is the law’s best disinfectant.”

The constraints imposed on government agencies investigating terrorist threats created space for Emerson’s Investigative Project. Since the mid-1970s, federal authorities have been hampered in their efforts to monitor political extremism, largely due to the legacy of the secret FBI project designated COINTELPRO.[67] Negative publicity surrounding that program led the Justice Department to change FBI law enforcement and investigative methods to de-politicize the FBI. The Levi guidelines, adopted in April 1976, require evidence of a criminal predicate or a reasonable suspicion before commencing investigation of a dissident group.[68] These changes had dramatic consequences, not least that the number of domestic intelligence cases dropped from 1,454 in 1975 to only 95 in 1977.[69] Nothing in the guidelines, however, precludes the FBI from opening an investigation based on information received from a private group. NGOs such as the IPT and individuals such as Shannen Rossmiller[70] have done much to fill the void. For its part, the IPT monitors not only radical Islamic groups in America advocating violent jihad but also those employing nonviolent or “stealth” jihad.

Conclusion

Emerson believes that the Islamist movement in the West continues to strengthen, in large part due to what he refers to as the “cultural jihad,” which provides a congenial environment in which Islamists can flourish. He cites survey data indicating that many Muslim communities in the West sympathize with aspects of the Islamist worldview. These cultural jihadists in turn give moral support to the terrorists.[71] In Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, the French scholar Olivier Roy argues that Muslims in the West often experience a trauma of “deterritorialization” because they feel estranged from their native lands. To overcome anomie and alienation, young Muslims find solace in a new, purified Islam and attach themselves to a “virtual ummah [Islamic nation]” built by them on the Internet.[72] This pool of mostly young, alienated, Muslim men provides a reservoir from which Islamists can recruit in the West.

In Emerson’s opinion, the November 2, 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh by Mohammed Bouyeri[73] was a watershed event that inspired Europeans to reevaluate the viability of the multicultural model, seeing that it results not in peaceful coexistence but rather in separatism and cultural jihadism, threatening the social fabric of Western Europe. He warns that moderates have little influence in Muslim communities in the West.[74] Although the Muslim underclass in the United States is smaller than in Europe, Emerson finds substantial alienation in the Muslim-American community. He sees groups such as CAIR, MPAC, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim American Society as agents that exacerbate this tendency. What is more, he notes, Islamist schools in the United States are often funded by Wahhabi sources promoting an extremist variant of Islam.[75]

Emerson has not gone unnoticed by Al-Qaeda. In September 2006, a leading public representative of the organization—American-born Adam Gadahn, who has adopted the Muslim name of Azzam al-Amriki—mentioned Emerson and several other Americans in a public videotape.[76] The video begins with an introduction by bin Laden’s lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who refers to Gadahn as a “brother” and “a perceptive person who wants to lead his people out of darkness into the light.”[77] Then Gadahn invites Emerson and the others to Islam:

If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer, Steven Emerson, and yes, even the crusader-in-chief, George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers of Islam.[78]

Emerson and his colleagues remain unimpressed and continue their work.

George Michael is associate professor of political science and administration of justice at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. He is the author most recently of Willis Carto and the American Far Right (University Press of Florida, 2008), and Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator (University Press of Florida, 2009).

Syria’s Financial Support for Jihad Syrian Terrorism

by Matthew Levitt
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2010, pp. 39-48

http://www.meforum.org/2579/syria-financial-support-jihad

It costs a lot of money to run an insurgency. There are arms to buy, attacks to launch, bribes to pay. The local population has to be won over, and extensive networks have to be actively maintained, often involving members of various groups, criminal syndicates, corrupt officials, and independent operators such as local smugglers. Explosive devices have to be made, guns have to be brought in from abroad, volunteers have to be indoctrinated and trained.

U.S. soldiers patrol in an armored vehicle outside the small town of Sinjar, Iraq, near the Syrian border. In October 2007, U.S. troops found records with details of 700 foreign nationals who entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. The Sinjar documents identified four members of a key terrorist facilitation and finance network operating out of Syria in support of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Photo credit: Staff Sgt. Mike Alberts

In 2008, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body focused on preventing money laundering and terror financing, reported that while financing individual attacks may be relatively inexpensive when set against the damage inflicted, “maintaining a terrorist network, or a specific cell, to provide for recruitment, planning, and procurement between attacks represents a significant drain on resources. A significant infrastructure is required to sustain international terrorist networks and promote their goals over time.”[1] Creating and maintaining such support and facilitation networks, FATF concluded, requires significant funds.

FATF’s findings have a particular relevance to Syria where terrorist and insurgent groups have established sophisticated networks in order to facilitate the movement of foreign fighters from around the world into Iraq. While the number of foreign fighters infiltrated through Syria fluctuates, these networks are especially important since foreign fighters operating in and moving through Syria have been responsible for numerous attacks on Iraqi civilians and coalition forces. Given the primary role that Iraq and Syria both play in the Obama administration’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East, it is of great importance to understand the role of Syria and Syrian-based foreign fighters in the Iraqi insurgency. There is now a wealth of information available on these fighters, on their networks, and on their economic impact.

The Syrian Connection

The Syrian government is the longest-standing member of the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, having been so designated in 1979.[2] In February 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department underscored the findings in a collection of documents generally known as the Sinjar records.[3] These records provide details of 700 foreign nationals who entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. The records were found in October 2007 by U.S. troops at Sinjar, a small town on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The Sinjar documents identified four members of a key terrorist facilitation and finance network operating out of Syria in support of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The Treasury Department reported that the “Abu Ghadiyah” network, named for its leader, Badran Turki Hisham al-Mazidih, known as Abu Ghadiyah, controlled the flow of much of the money, weaponry, personnel, and other materiel that passed through Syria into Iraq for the use of AQI. According to the Treasury Department, the network “obtained false passports for foreign terrorists, provided passports, weapons, guides, safe houses, and allowances to foreign terrorists in Syria and those preparing to cross the border into Iraq.”[4] Indeed, Mazidih reportedly received several hundred thousand dollars from his cousin, another member of his network, with which he facilitated travel by AQI foreign fighters and supported insurgent activity targeting the U.S. military.[5]

The Abu Ghadiyah network and others like it pump money into the local economy through the purchase of food and housing for fighters moving through safe houses. The networks additionally provide business opportunities for the local, smuggling-based economy and for bribes to local officials. The Abu Ghadiyah network reportedly maintained safe houses in Syria in Damascus and Latakia as well, investing in local economies in other parts of the country far from the Iraqi border.[6]

This has both operational and economic consequences. Foreign fighter networks in Syria, for example, have direct and indirect, and positive and negative economic consequences on the country, the government, and on various elements of the Syrian populace, from the political, social, and religious elites to locals living in towns along the Syrian-Iraqi border. There is also an impact on Iraq, as the destination for foreign fighters, and on other countries in the region as well. Developing realistic strategies to contend with these networks depends first on obtaining a broad picture of what is happening. Such a picture has to include a proper understanding of the economic impact.

Countries that host networks that expedite the movement of foreign fighters risk incurring both political and economic consequences because of such activities. Ultimately, violent extremists tolerated and supported by the host country may turn against it and come to pose a threat within the country or to the regime itself.

Following the October 26, 2008 U.S. cross-border raid which resulted in the killing of Abu Ghadiyah, Western journalists reported that the Syrian government cooperated with the United States in this raid. According to The Sunday Times, the Syrian regime was “complicit” in the raid because “Abu Ghadiyah was feared by the Syrians as an agent of Islamic fundamentalism who was hostile to the secular regime in Damascus.”[7] Such cooperation demonstrates the regime’s willingness to crack down on foreign fighters when they threaten Syria’s internal security. Doing so on an ongoing basis, however, is another matter.

Benefits to Syria

As an extension of foreign policy, Syria’s tolerance of foreign fighter networks—and certainly its more active support for Iraqi insurgents—was intended to further Syrian interests in Iraq and deliver other non-economic benefits. According to a Department of Defense report to Congress in March 2007 entitled “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” Syria has supported insurgents in Iraq for political purposes: “Damascus also recognizes that Islamist extremists and elements of the former Iraqi regime share Syria’s desire to undermine coalition efforts in Iraq.”[8]

As military analyst Anthony Cordesman notes, Damascus has undermined Iraq’s political advancement “by providing both active and passive support to anti-government and anti-coalition forces.”[9] In one case, then-U.S. ambassador to Syria Theodore Khattouf complained to Syrian authorities that for several months a foreign fighter sign-up station was located across the street from the U.S. embassy in Damascus. In response, Syrian officials “moved the sign-up to Damascus Fair grounds—a government owned property—where it continued its work for months more.”[10] In a 2003 case, U.S. soldiers captured foreign fighters’ Syrian passports. Syrian passports were provided in several instances to non-Syrians and included entry permits marked “volunteer for jihad” or “to join the Arab volunteers.”[11]

That said, the huge boost to local businesses along the border with Iraq—mostly illicit, such as the smuggling of goods and persons—also benefited the Syrian regime by generating jobs and income and freeing the central government from having to invest in remote areas during difficult economic times. In the immediate term, following the fall of the Saddam regime, supporting such networks may have brought significant dividends. According to Iraqi bank records, for example, Saddam himself withdrew over a billion U.S. dollars from different accounts, and these funds were then smuggled out of the country in cash. “In Syria the money was managed by Saddam’s half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, the former head of the feared Mukhabarat [intelligence services],” who was considered at the time by the United States “to be the chief financial facilitator of the insurgency in Syria.”[12]

Syrian authorities have periodically cracked down on smugglers and tightened control of the borders—but to little effect. On the one hand, the Syrian government, showing a clear intention of preventing illegal cross-border movement, constructed a four foot sand berm along the border and laid out fallen electricity poles in order to flip smugglers’ vehicles.[13] On the other hand, U.S. intelligence officer Adam Boyd has described that for

every example of cooperation from Syria, there are an equal number of incidents that are not helpful … We just captured someone who was trying to escape into Syria and found out that he’d been arrested last November on the Syrian side after they caught him with a bunch of fake passports. But he bribed his way out and managed to get back in. … I don’t know I necessarily attribute that to the government as to an individual Syrian border patrol unit.[14]

Clearly, drawing a line between a governmental blind eye and individual enterprise is not an easy task. But one must assume that the existence of such a volume of smuggling and human infiltration owes much to Syrian government collusion or even outright involvement.

The foreign fighter pipeline in Syria is believed to have benefitted the local populations on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border in the form of jobs, increased cash flow into the local economy, purchase of supplies, staples, and rents. One assessment of the Sinjar documents concludes that individual Syrians would earn more than $3,000 over the course of one year as a result of these activities.[15] This assumes that all thirty-nine Syrian smuggling contacts in the Sinjar records received an equal share of the cut from foreign fighters. Fifty-three of the ninety-three Syrian coordinators identified by name in the Sinjar records were paid by the fighters they transported into Iraq. Of these, Saudi fighters alone made forty-six payments, each averaging $2,535.[16]

Negatives for Syria

As a result of being listed by the United States as a state that sponsors terrorism, the Syrian regime has long been subject to a series of sanctions, including several trade-related restrictions such as bans on arms sales and control over the export of dual-use items that have both commercial and military uses, as well as prohibitions on financial aid.[17] According to the 2008 State Department Country Report, “despite acknowledged reductions in foreign fighter flows [from Syria], the scope and impact of the problem remained significant.”[18]

In addition to the punitive measures associated with the Syrian status as a state sponsor of terrorism, Washington has taken other steps to try and ratchet up the economic pressure against Syria, taking into account not only Syrian support for terrorism but also a broader array of illicit activities. In terms of terrorism, one of the most important U.S. government actions was the 2006 Treasury blacklisting of the Commercial Bank of Syria—the major player in the Syrian financial sector—for its support for terrorism and other illegal ventures.[19] One reason the U.S. government listed the bank as a “primary money laundering concern” is that “Treasury investigators found that the Syrian government had paid out approximately $580 million in claims to Syrian businesses [from Iraqi government funds in Syria] without the authorization of SOMO [the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization], and that $262 million remained frozen in an account at the Commercial Bank of Syria.”[20]

In 2003, Congress passed the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act which, among other issues, cites as reasons for sanctioning the regime the fact that Syria allows terrorist groups to operate within its territory and permits the flow of goods and fighters into Iraq. Included among the findings in the legislation are the March 2003 statement by Syrian foreign minister Farouq al-Shara that “Syria’s interest is to see the invaders defeated in Iraq”[21] and the April 2003 statement by then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld that “busloads” of Syrian fighters entered Iraq with “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and with leaflets offering rewards for dead American soldiers.[22]

President George W. Bush also issued several executive orders directed at Syria, which have targeted the Syrian elite for its involvement in corruption,[23] citizens for interfering in the internal affairs of Lebanon,[24] and former Iraqi regime elements for supporting the insurgency—some of whom were in Syria.[25] A number of top Syrian officials were designated by the Bush administration using executive orders or other legal authority, which enabled designation and asset freezing. In addition, in response to the Syria accountability act of 2003, Bush issued an order implementing this legislation, which restricted further trade between the two countries and prohibited Syrian aircraft from landing in the United States.[26]

There is evidence that the Syrian accountability act and subsequent financial sanctions have dissuaded U.S. and some other businesses from investing in Syria. According to one report, General Electric, Mitsubishi, and the French power company Alstom all declined to bid on a Syrian government contract for the construction of power plants.[27] Mobile telephone provider Turkcell withdrew its bid to purchase Syriatel in August 2008 after the United States sanctioned Syriatel’s primary stakeholder, Rami Makhluf.[28] Sanctions have also crippled Syria Air, the state airline, by preventing the company from purchasing parts or planes for its Boeing fleet.[29] Meanwhile, U.S. sanctions under the Patriot Act against the Commercial Bank of Syria have deterred private Western banks from opening branches in Syria.[30] As Syria’s energy production levels decline, sanctions have also prevented major Western energy companies from making new investments there although other foreign companies have supplanted U.S. firms. One company, Gulfsands Petroleum, reportedly moved its principal office to London in order to circumvent U.S. sanctions against its local partner, Makhluf.[31]

Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Zarqawi Network

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has long benefited from a network of associates in Syria, which it uses to facilitate travel to Iraq. In a 2003 investigation of foreign fighter recruiters operating out of Italy, prosecutors noted that “Syria has functioned as a hub for an al-Qaida network.”[32] Transcripts of operatives’ conversations “paint a detailed picture of overseers in Syria coordinating the movement of recruits and money” between cells in Europe and training camps in northern Iraq run by Al-Qaeda affiliated, Kurdish Ansar al-Islam.[33] Syrian cell leaders facilitated travel for recruits and provided them with funding while European members gave false travel documents to recruits and fugitives and monitored their travel. Some of the recruits traveling to the Ansar camps stayed at the Ragdan Hotel in Aleppo for some time and later stopped in Damascus. Indeed, the Italian investigation revealed that operatives in Europe who worked for Al-Qaeda leader Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi acted on the instructions of his lieutenants in and around Damascus and Aleppo. These men included Muhammad Majid (also known as Mullah Fuad), described as the “gatekeeper in Syria for volunteers intent on reaching Iraq.”[34]

In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Sulayman Khalid Darwish, who was operating out of Syria, a specially designated global terrorist for fundraising and recruiting on behalf of Zarqawi’s network (the Jama’at at-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad) and Al-Qaeda. Described as a member of the Zarqawi organization’s advisory (shura) council and “one of the most prominent members of the Zarqawi network in Syria,” Darwish forged documents, recruited and dispatched terrorists, and raised funds for the Zarqawi network.[35]

Evidence of this network’s continued presence in Syria came two years later in 2007. On December 6, the U.S. Treasury Department designated seven individuals, all based in Syria, for providing financial and operational support to the Iraqi insurgency. One individual was a member of AQI and the remaining six were former regime officials representing the Iraqi wing of the Syrian Baath party. Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey insisted, “Syria must take action to deny safe haven to those supporting violence from within its borders.”[36]

While in Syria, Zarqawi reportedly planned and facilitated the October 2002 assassination of Lawrence Foley, a U.S. Agency for International Development official based in Amman, Jordan.[37] Jordanian prime minister Abu Ragheb Ali announced that the Libyan and Jordanian suspects, arrested in December in connection with the attack, received funding and instructions from Zarqawi and had intended to conduct further attacks against “foreign embassies, Jordanian officials, and some diplomatic personnel, especially Americans and Israelis.” According to the Jordanian indictment, Zarqawi’s group had been planning to target “American and Jewish interests as well as Jordanian security forces since 1997.”[38] The captured assassin, Salem Said bin Sewid, confessed that Zarqawi provided funding and weapons for the planned assassination.[39] After the attack, “an associate of the assassin left Jordan to go to Iraq to obtain weapons and explosives for further operations” at a time when a Zarqawi-run network was operating in Baghdad.[40] The operatives were trained in Syria, supplied with weapons, and instructed to return to Jordan in order to identify a target for the attack.[41]

Benefits to Al-Qaeda in Iraq

The benefits of facilitation networks for terrorist and insurgent groups are clear: Without their support, terrorist organizations cannot function. The networks are essential elements of group efforts to finance and resource their expensive activities. As Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, noted when commenting about payments for insurgents, “When we first got here, we believed it was about $100 to conduct an attack against coalition forces, and $500 if you’re successful. We now believe it’s somewhere between $1,000 and $2,000 if you conduct an attack, and $3,000 to $5,000 if you’re successful.”[42] Still, it is not the cost of any individual attack but rather the larger infrastructure costs that drive insurgent expenses. A senior intelligence officer from the Defense Intelligence Agency explained in 2005,

We believe terrorist and insurgent expenses are moderate and pose little significant restraints to armed groups in Iraq. In particular, arms and munitions costs are minimal—leaving us to judge that the bulk of the money likely goes toward international and local travel, food and lodging of fighters and families of dead fighters, bribery and pay-offs of governmental officials, families and clans; and possibly into the personal coffers of critical middle-men and prominent terrorist or insurgent leaders.[43]

While some facilitators are ideologically driven members of the group or like-minded followers, others are traditional criminal smugglers who do not differentiate between smuggling foodstuffs or foreign fighters across the Syrian-Iraqi border. A West Point review of the Sinjar documents concluded, “Large groups of people—such as foreign fighters—cross the border in remote locations, often using the same tracks and trails as the livestock smugglers. In fact, the same ring of smuggling guides will often move both livestock and human beings.”[44] This untidy mix of insurgents, terrorists, professional smugglers, and corrupt government officials provides multiple opportunities for financial gain for all parties involved.

Consider the case of Fawzi al-Rawi. In late 2007, the Treasury Department designated Rawi—a leader of the Iraqi wing of the Syrian Baath party—for providing financial and material support to Zarqawi’s AQI. The extent of the Syrian role in Rawi’s activities is noteworthy. Rawi was appointed to his position in the Syrian Baath party by President Bashar al-Assad in 2003. According to U.S. Treasury, the Iraqi wing of the Syrian Baath party “has since provided significant funding to Iraqi insurgents at al-Rawi’s direction.” Indeed, Treasury noted that Rawi “is supported financially by the Syrian government and has close ties to Syrian intelligence.”[45] With the authorization of the Syrian regime, Rawi twice met with a former commander of Saddam Hussein’s Army of Muhammad (Jaysh Muhammad) in 2004 and told the commander his group would receive material aid from Syria. In 2005, Rawi “facilitated the provision of $300,000 to members of AQI” as well as providing AQI vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (IEDs), rifles, and suicide bombers. In meetings in Iraq with senior AQI representatives in September 2005, Rawi and AQI leaders discussed operational issues, including attacks against the U.S. embassy and assaults in the international zone.[46]

Ultimately, a truly successful insurgency can become such a successful fundraising enterprise that it controls sufficient funds to finance activities beyond the immediate area of operations. Thus, in a July 2005 letter to Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s second in command, humbly asked the leader of AQI if he could spare “a payment of approximately one hundred thousand” because “many of the lines have been cut off.”[47] Additionally, the robust network can be used to transport fighters, money, and goods to other potential jihad locales such as Lebanon, Yemen, and Somalia. The implication, of course, is that AQI was by then very well funded, the result—at least in part—of large subventions arriving via Syria.

The Way Forward

One reason AQI and other insurgents in Iraq have been so successful is because their facilitation networks have successfully raised and transferred funds, recruited and transported fighters, and procured and moved weapons and goods—mostly through Syria. Shutting down these networks and starving the insurgency of its supply of materiel, funds, and manpower is a critical component of any successful counterinsurgency campaign. But convincing and enabling Syria to take the necessary steps to shut down the smuggling pipelines will require something more than just economic sanctions. As the Obama administration pursues its engagement strategy with Syria, closing the pipelines perhaps more than anything else will provide the clearest yardstick by which to measure Syrian reciprocity to the administration’s outstretched hand.

To be sure, convincing the Assad regime to forgo sponsorship of insurgent and terrorist groups as part of a policy of engagement will be difficult. Given the relatively strong return on minimal financial investment, Syrian support for insurgents and terrorists will remain an attractive option for Damascus so long as it continues to be a viable and productive means of furthering the regime’s domestic and foreign policy goals. Given the financial interests of local and national officials, cracking down on established smuggling networks (which would threaten the regular payments that supplement officials’ income) is no easy task. As part of its engagement strategy, Washington must develop a multifaceted approach to the problem posed by the foreign fighter networks. The following suggestions, which illustrate how this might be done, could also be used to measure the seriousness of the Syrian regime on the issue of engaging cooperatively today to create a more stable region tomorrow:

1. The United States and its allies should help provide local economies with jobs and services. Full employment and access to a better quality of services in towns and villages will act as a buffer against the losses that are sure to follow closure of the smuggling economy. This relates, in some ways, to the dilemmas posed by heroin production and smuggling in Afghanistan where the illegal revenue greatly exceeds remunerations in the local employment markets. This means that employment must be well paid, stable, and buffered against regional economic fluctuation. It also means that labor should not be ephemeral or makeshift but directed towards the development of a constantly improving local infrastructure. Employment for women may prove crucial to giving females a greater say in local issues.
2. There is a real need for an anti-corruption drive focused on cleaning up the areas of corruption (police, border officials, the public sector in general), on building on the presidential anti-corruption campaigns of 2000 and 2003, and on leading to the creation of a permanent body dedicated to an anti-corruption drive, possibly in conjunction with Transparency International.
3. The above campaign should be pursued along with a civil society campaign aimed at breaking the deeply ingrained culture in which members of the public offer bribes to people in authority, considering this as the cost of doing business.
4. Diplomatic efforts must be pursued to address the underlying policy issues that have led Syria to support insurgents and terrorists as a means of furthering its domestic and foreign policy. These efforts must include educational and comparative instruction showing how Western countries achieve greater prosperity by eliminating similar forces from public and political life.
5. Concurrent and parallel efforts should be initiated on the Syrian side of the border to match those on the Iraqi side in areas including human rights, political reconciliation, and debt relief. This will have to proceed by means of a carrot and stick approach and will depend much or entirely on cooperation from the regime.

At the end of the day, however, political and diplomatic efforts may fall short, in which case targeted financial sanctions present an attractive option. Such efforts should be focused on illicit activities, on authority figures engaged in criminal or other activities threatening regional security, and on corruption. This does not close the door on engagement, focused as it is not on the regime but on illicit conduct. Indeed, such sanctions should be combined with regional diplomacy employing several countries’ efforts to cajole the Damascus regime when possible and to sanction it when necessary. Sanctions can at least increase the costs to the regime of its continued, belligerent behavior. On their own, sanctions will never solve national security problems, but when used in tandem with other elements of national power in an integrated, strategic approach, they can be very effective.

Were the shadow economy of smuggling enterprises to contract, the most critical and time-sensitive issue would be to jump-start successful, legitimate economic growth in its place. In the words of retired British army general Sir Frank Kitson, “The first thing that must be apparent when contemplating the sort of action which a government facing insurgency should take, is that there can be no such thing as a purely military solution because insurgency is not primarily a military activity.”[48] If not, then what is it? In the case of Syria and Iraq, it is domestic and regional power politics in almost equal measure. But it is closely linked to economics and to the financial status of individuals and communities. By blocking foreign donations on the one hand and by providing job stability on the other, it should be possible to make real inroads into a seemingly intractable problem.

Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near Policy and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. This article is derived from a paper delivered at The Foreign Fighter Problem conference of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 14, 2009

Criticizing Islamists Can Be Hazardous

Criticizing Islamists Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

by David J. Rusin

http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2010/01/criticizing-islamists-can-be-hazardous-to-your

The first goal of Islamists is to silence all who counter their ideology. But while most radical Muslims in the West are content to intimidate anti-Islamists through smears or lawsuits, some do resort to violence, as in the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Death threats and attacks against public opponents of Islamism have escalated in recent months. Exhibit A: the New Year’s assault by an ax-wielding Somali on the home of Kurt Westergaard, known for drawing the most recognizable of the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Shot by police, the young jihadist faces charges of attempted murder and terrorism — because, in the words of the prosecutor, “trying to kill Kurt Westergaard had a bigger purpose than just killing him.”

Other noteworthy examples:

• Days after promoting a lecture by Muslim-turned-atheist Sabri Husibi in September, the Tulsa World reported that he had received dozens of calls from people cursing and threatening him, one of whom promised that “if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shari’a (Islamic law), he would be killed.” Adding more fuel to the fire, CAIR-Oklahoma’s Razi Hashmi proclaimed that while Husibi has a right to talk, it “doesn’t give him the justification to make false assumptions” about the nature of the Koran and sympathy for al-Qaeda within the Muslim community.

• Following a demonstration on January 8 in Detroit by Muslims denouncing the attempted Christmas Day terror attack, rally organizer Majed Moughni received a death threat over the phone, which he partially recorded. Stated the Arabic-accented caller: “I want to congratulate you for your place in hellfire, inshallah [God willing]. … If you’re in front of me, I will shoot you. I will put a bullet in your head. This is the consequence of a hypocrite.”

• On January 12, feminist playwright and actress Rayhana, who appears in a show that examines the oppression of Algerian women and features “unflattering views of Muslim men,” was insulted by two Arabic-speaking males on a Paris street, doused with gasoline, and saved only by their failure to set her aflame using a cigarette. The Independent reports that she was approached in the same area two weeks earlier by men who said, “We know who you are, you miscreant whore. This is a warning.”

Why such violence? As Ryan Mauro explains, it boils down to the underlying frailty of the Islamist creed: “The fact that this ideology relies upon force … shows it lacks merit and will not survive the intellectual combat that comes with a free media, freedom of speech, freedom of religion,” etc.

So rather than succumbing to intimidation, let us follow the lead of Rayhana, who not only managed to stumble back to the theater, but performed her sold-out play that very night.