Zarqawi and Israel: Is There a New Jihadi Threat Destabilizing the Eastern Front? (JCPA.ORG) Dore Gold and Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF Vol. 5, No. 12 12/15/05)
Source: http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-12.htm
JCPA-Jerusalem Center Public Affairs
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For the first time, Israeli defense experts are noting that
groups identifying with al-Qaeda - or the global jihad - are
determined to acquire operational footholds close to Israel´s
borders. The most dramatic sign was the November 9, 2005, suicide
bombing of three Jordanian hotels in Amman by "al-Qaeda Mesopotamia" -
the organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Militant Islamic
websites immediately announced: "After the attack in the heart of
Jordan, it will soon be possible to reach Jewish targets in Israel."
Al-Qaeda operations around Israel are becoming more prominent. In
August 2005, an al-Qaeda rocket strike at the Jordanian Red Sea port
of Aqaba also reached the Israeli resort town of Eilat. To Israel´s
south, a growing al-Qaeda presence in Sinai led to attacks on Israeli
tourists in Taba and other coastal resorts in October 2004, followed
by a major bombing at a hotel in Sharm al-Sheikh in July 2005. Sinai
has also served as a rear base for the beginning of an al-Qaeda
presence in the Gaza Strip. Zarqawi´s terrorist network formally
joined al-Qaeda in October 2004.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy head of al-Qaeda, has encouraged
Zarqawi to extend his jihad in Iraq to neighboring states (i.e.,
Jordan and Syria), where there are already increasing signs of jihadi
activity. In the next stage, Zawahiri envisions "the clash with
Israel." The head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Aharon
Zeevi (Farkash), concluded recently: "We are not a high priority [for
al-Qaeda], but our prioritization for them is increasing."
Many Western sources are convinced that Zarqawi was training his
recruits in the use of toxins, including poisons and chemical
weapons, at the Herat training camp in Afghanistan. In 2004, a
Zarqawi associate named Azmi al-Jailusi confessed to trying to set
off a chemical explosion in central Amman, near the headquarters of
Jordanian intelligence, which had the potential to kill 80,000
people. In April 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
warned that recurrent U.S. intelligence reports indicated that
Zarqawi was seeking to obtain a "radiological explosive."
It would be a cardinal error for Israel to conclude that after
the U.S. war in Iraq, the region to Israel´s east is moving in the
direction of greater stability and, therefore, Israel can take the
risk of conceding its strategic assets in the West Bank. Zarqawi now
wants to destabilize Jordan, but clearly seeks to target Israel as
well. Dismissing the value of Israel´s security fence, Zarqawi´s
organization has declared: "the separation wall...will feel the might
of the mujahidin," hinting that Israel could face the same waves of
insurgent volunteers that have entered Iraq. Were Israel to withdraw
from the strategic barrier it controls in the Jordan Valley, then
Israeli vulnerability could very well attract more global jihadi
elements to Jordan, who would seek to use the kingdom as a platform
to reach the West Bank and then Israel.
For the first time, Israeli defense experts are noting that groups
identifying with al-Qaeda - or the global jihad - are determined to
acquire operational footholds close to Israel´s borders.1 The most
dramatic sign of this development was the November 9, 2005, suicide
bombing of three Jordanian hotels in Amman by "al-Qaeda Mesopotamia" -
the organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian
insurgency leader fighting the U.S. in Iraq. Militant Islamic
websites immediately announced: "After the attack in the heart of
Jordan, it will soon be possible to reach Jewish targets in Israel."2
Dismissing the value of Israel´s security fence, Zarqawi´s website
declared that the "separation wall...will feel the might of the
mujahidin."3 This implied that his insurgent volunteers that had been
used in Iraq might also be employed against Israel, as well.
Earlier, in August 2005, an al-Qaeda rocket strike in the Jordanian
Red Sea port of Aqaba also reached the Israeli resort town of Eilat.
To Israel´s south, a growing al-Qaeda presence in Sinai led to
attacks on Israeli tourists in Taba and other coastal resorts in
October 2004, followed by a major bombing at a hotel in Sharm al-
Sheikh in July 2005. The al-Qaeda presence is based in central Sinai,
which serves as the rear base for al-Qaeda´s entry into the Gaza
Strip.
Al-Qaeda´s Changing Priorities
Until recently, Israel was not a high-priority target for al-Qaeda
and its affiliate organizations that have embraced its goals of
worldwide jihad. Al-Qaeda was formed in Afghanistan after the Soviet
defeat in 1989 by the various mujahidin groups who were emboldened by
their victory over a superpower and hence sought to carry their war
to other arenas. Given its geographic location, however, the early al-
Qaeda was more involved in militant Islamic struggles in Chechnya,
Kashmir, and against the Taliban´s Afghan rivals in the Northern
Alliance - but not in the war against Israel. As Arab rulers in the
heartland of the Middle East succeeded in suppressing Islamic
militant movements, al-Qaeda began to plan to strike at the "Far
Enemy" (i.e., the U.S.), since the "Near Enemy" (the Arab regimes)
was still too strong.4 With Osama bin Laden obsessed in the 1990s
with the idea of evicting the U.S. from Saudi Arabia, America very
quickly became his primary target. Israel, according to Bernard
Lewis, was at best a third priority.5
A New Al-Qaeda Focus on Israel
This began to change as al-Qaeda perpetrated a hotel bombing and a
missile attack on an Israeli Arkia airliner in Mombassa, Kenya, in
November 2002. But the greatest factor behind the new focus of the
global jihad on Israel has been the war in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi, which has created a new center for radical Islamic militancy
in the Middle East itself. Thus, Zarqawi wrote in 2004: "Among the
greatest positive elements of this arena [Iraq] is that it is jihad
in the Arab heartland." For Zarqawi, the main battle of Islamic
militancy was to be fought here and not in the Hindu-Kush mountains
bordering Pakistan, India, China, and Afghanistan: "the true,
decisive battle between infidelity and Islam is in this land, i.e.,
in [Greater] Syria and its surroundings." A U.S. counterterrorism
official has concluded that Zarqawi´s real goal is to establish a
single Islamic state throughout the Levant, from Turkey down to
Egypt.6 Like other radical Islamist groups, he is part of the
movement to destabilize and then replace present Arab regimes with a
new caliphate. Zarqawi´s goals merged with those of al-Qaeda when he
pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden in October 2004 and
formally made his Jama´at al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad part of the global al-
Qaeda network.
Zarqawi´s shift of focus to the heartland of the Middle East has
received the full blessing of the al-Qaeda leadership. On October 11,
2005, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador John D.
Negroponte, released an intercepted letter dated July 9, 2005, from
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy head of al-Qaeda, to Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi in Iraq. Praising this relocation of the global jihad to the
Arab heartland, Zawahiri lays out for Zarqawi the next desirable
stages of the jihad in Iraq, from the standpoint of al-Qaeda. After
defeating the U.S., Zawahiri wants to see Zarqawi "extend the jihad
to the secular countries neighboring Iraq (i.e., Jordan and Syria).
Indeed, Jordanian authorities were told a few months later in October
2005 that documents found on a dead Zarqawi operative in Iraq
indicated that orders had been given to begin to move into
neighboring countries.7
But Zawahiri´s recommended strategy did not stop there. In the next
stage, he envisions "the clash with Israel."8 From Zarqawi´s own past
behavior, this newly emerging focus on Israel was already being
implemented in mid-2001 when, according to the U.S. Treasury, Zarqawi
received funds apparently from Hizballah "for work in Palestine,"
including "finding a mechanism that would enable more suicide martyrs
to enter Israel."9 It should have come as no surprise when on
February 15, 2002, Turkish police intercepted two Palestinians and a
Jordanian who had been dispatched by Zarqawi to conduct bombing
attacks in Israel.10 Additionally, at the global level, al-Qaeda has
intensified its interest in attacking Israel. As the head of Israeli
military intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Aharon Zeevi (Farkash), concluded
recently: "We are not a high priority [for al-Qaeda], but our
prioritization for them is increasing."11
Zarqawi the Jordanian
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as his name implies, was born in 1966 in the
Jordanian town of al-Zarqa, some fifteen miles northeast of Amman.
His real name was Ahmad Fadhil; he took on the name al-Zarqawi during
his second stay in Afghanistan. His family belonged to the al-
Khalailah tribe, a branch of the Banu Hassan, a large Transjordanian
Bedouin tribe known for its loyalty to the Hashemite Royal Family.12
He was not a Palestinian, as some initial reports suggested. The
radicalization of the pro-Hashemite East Bank Bedouin in Zarqa and
nearby Salt with militant Islam has been attributed by Arab observers
to the control of the Jordanian Education Ministry that King Hussein
granted to the Muslim Brotherhood, as an expression of his
appreciation for their support of the Hashemite monarchy during the
Black September clashes with the PLO in 1970.13
This helped set the stage a decade later for the spread of Salafi
groups in northern Jordan, with their rigid rejection of any
innovations in what they thought was the purist Islam of the seventh
century and their deep anti-Westernism, and spawned the adoption of
violence by many of their offshoots. Salafism is the more generic
term for all such movements including the Wahhabis, the Muslim
Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and similar North African organizations.
Zarqa, for example, became a base for radical preachers like Sheikh
Nasr al-Din al-Albani, who was educated in Syria but became a
prominent scholar at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi
Arabia, where he maintained close ties with the Wahhabi
establishment, despite some disagreements over ritual questions.14
When Zarqawi first went off to Afghanistan in 1989 in order to join
the struggle of the mujahidin against the Soviet Union, the war had
already come to an end by the time he arrived. He nonetheless
remained until 1993. What was significant for his religious
transformation was his meeting in Pakistan with Sheikh Abu Muhammad
al-Maqdisi, who would become his most important spiritual mentor.
Maqdisi was a Palestinian who emigrated from the West Bank to Kuwait,
and as a young follower of Salafism he eventually made his way to
Saudi Arabia. He was employed in Mecca by the Muslim World League,
the great global Wahhabi charity.15 From Afghanistan, Maqdisi would
not be able to return to Kuwait, whose Palestinian population of
250,000 had been expelled after the 1991 Gulf War. Over 150,000 of
the Palestinian Kuwaitis moved to Zarqa, bringing to Jordan
conservative religious traditions from the Gulf region and
transforming the population.16
Zarqawi joined forces with Maqdisi in Jordan and sought to recruit
Jordanian Afghan veterans: both were imprisoned in 1994 for
possessing illegal weapons. After a royal amnesty was given by the
newly crowned King Abdullah in 1999, both were released from prison
after having erected a jihadi network in Jordan while they were
incarcerated. But while they were in prison, Zarqawi was able to
command greater support than Maqdisi from young Jordanian jihadis;
Zarqawi would argue that he was a pure Transjordanian - and not a
Palestinian like Maqdisi - and hence had more legitimacy in Jordan to
challenge the Hashemites. Maqdisi would criticize Zarqawi for turning
away from the Palestinian cause and preferring other jihadi
priorities.17
Zarqawi did not stay in Jordan, but rather moved back to Pakistan and
ultimately to Afghanistan in 1999. In 2001, he took an oath of
allegiance to Osama bin Laden, but subsequently he seemed to have a
major falling out with al-Qaeda on doctrinal issues.18 Al-Qaeda
wanted to launch the global jihad against the "Far Enemy" - i.e., the
U.S. In contrast, Zarqawi preferred to focus efforts against
the "Near Enemy" in the Middle East, especially the Jordanian
government. The Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, asked Zarqawi to set up
his own training camp near the Afghan city of Herat, which was close
to the Iranian border, and a good distance from al-Qaeda´s training
camps that were closer to Pakistan.
At the Herat training camp Zarqawi established his own group called
Jund al-Sham (the Army of the Levant), whose name gave away the
territorial focus of his interests.19 Unlike al-Qaeda´s training
camps, which were mostly made up of Saudis, Yemenis, and Egyptians,
Zarqawi´s recruits came from the countries of the Levant, namely
Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian areas.20 Many of his
Jordanian followers came from Zarqa or Salt. This became the core of
the Zarqawi network. Its initial aims, besides overthrowing the
Hashemite monarchy, were to attack Israel as well as Jewish targets
in Europe.21
Non-Conventional Terrorism
Two other features of Zarqawi´s second period in Afghanistan are
worth noting. First, many Western sources were convinced that already
at the Herat training camp, Zarqawi was interested in training his
recruits in the use of toxins, including poisons and chemical
weapons.22 This point was reiterated by former U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003, before the UN Security
Council. According to Powell, with the U.S. defeat of the Taliban,
Zarqawi transplanted his training camp - with its specialization in
poisons - from Herat to Iraqi Kurdistan, where he joined forces with
the radical Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.
Powell specifically reported that the training camp was working with
ricin, a poisonous biological agent. Powell added that another
Zarqawi operative, caught at the Iraqi-Saudi border, admitted that he
was trained in the Herat camp in the use of cyanide. Powell further
argued that parts of the Zarqawi network fled from Afghanistan to the
Pankisi Gorge and Chechnya; he explained that "their goal was to kill
Russians with toxins."23 While the U.S. Senate´s Select Committee on
Intelligence would subsequently find fault with aspects of Powell´s
presentation of U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq, it did not attack
the terrorism portions of his speech.
There were good reasons why some of Powell´s key terrorism charges
had to be taken seriously. In 2004, a Zarqawi associate named Azmi al-
Jailusi testified in a Jordanian court: "At Herat I started training
for Abu Musab. The training included handling high-level explosives
and learning about poisons. I then took an oath of allegiance to Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and agreed to work with him without asking any
questions."24
What made this statement particularly important was that al-Jailusi
had just confessed to trying to set off a chemical explosion in
central Amman on April 24, 2004, near the headquarters of Jordanian
intelligence (GID). The blast was estimated to have had the potential
to kill 80,000 people. In other words, Zarqawi´s interest in
biological and chemical weapons, which began in Herat, would become a
hallmark of his network years later.
Additionally, there was repeated evidence that Zarqawi´s network was
seeking nuclear or radiological devices for terrorism. On April 20,
2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security published a "National
Terror Alert" warning: "Recurrent intelligence reports say al-Qaeda
terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear device or is
preparing a radiological explosive - or dirty bombs - for an attack,
according to U.S. officials, who say analysts are unable to gauge the
reliability of the information´s sources."25
Indeed, in January 2005, German security agents arrested two al-Qaeda
operatives for allegedly planning a suicide attack with a "dirty
bomb." According to a German federal prosecutor, one of the
terrorists was attempting to obtain uranium from a group in
Luxembourg.26 Whether the operatives were associated with the global
al-Qaeda organization or with Zarqawi´s network alone, however, was
not specified.
In seeking to employ weapons of mass destruction, Zarqawi was
operating in a manner consistent with the parent organization with
which his network was affiliated - al-Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission
Report, which was otherwise critical of some of the Bush
administration´s assumptions in the war on terrorism, nevertheless
warned: "al-Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program and was
making progress in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September
11." Similarly, the report on Britain´s pre-war intelligence by Lord
Butler specifically echoed the concern of the British defense
establishment that Zarqawi´s sleeper cells in Baghdad, established
prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, would seek chemical and
biological weapons.27 Zarqawi was clearly moving in the direction of
employing non-conventional terrorism.
Zarqawi and Iran
There is a second feature of Zarqawi´s stay in Afghanistan until 2001
that is worth noting. Because he was situated specifically in Herat
when U.S. and Northern Alliance forces defeated the Taliban regime,
unlike many al-Qaeda operatives who fled eastward to Pakistan,
Zarqawi made his way westward to the closest bordering country, Iran,
presumably because he was determined to set up a new center of
operations in the remote, mountainous regions of eastern Iraqi
Kurdistan. This was not the first time that someone associated with
the al-Qaeda network would receive safe passage through Iran; the
9/11 Commission Report disclosed that eight to ten of the nineteen
hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks traveled through Iran between
October 2000 and February 2001.28 Some also met with senior Hizballah
members in Beirut.29 Thus, despite the wide ideological gulf that
existed between Salafi terrorists and the revolutionary Shiite regime
in Iran, some kind of coordination between them was possible.
While information about these links is often fragmentary, some
revelations about Zarqawi´s period in Iran have been reported in the
Arab press. Thus, it has been suggested that during his stay in Iran,
Zarqawi visited training camps run by Iran´s clerical army, the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and received logistical
support from its Qods Force paramilitary unit. The revelations, which
are said to have come from Omar Bizani, a key Zarqawi lieutenant
apprehended by Iraqi security forces, also paint the Zarqawi network
as a terrorist competitor to al-Qaeda, with its regional role,
according to this analysis, actively being encouraged and nurtured by
Iran.30 The German political magazine Cicero, using documents from
the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) and other
information from other intelligence services, backed this assertion
when it determined that Iran "provided al-Zarqawi with logistical
support on the part of the state."31 Other investigations conducted
in Spain, Italy, and Germany into the operations of the Zarqawi
network in Europe several years ago have traced it back to Tehran,
according to various court documents.32
After leaving Iran, Zarqawi joined forces for a time in late 2002
with Ansar al-Islam, the militant Islamist organization that was
situated in a cluster of villages in the mountainous regions of
Kurdistan, along the Iran-Iraq border. After U.S. special forces
destroyed the Ansar al-Islam camps in March 2003, its members fled to
Iran where they trained and planned operations over the Iraqi border.
According to Kurdish intelligence sources, Iran continued to supply
Ansar al-Islam and its ally, Aba Musab al-Zarqawi, smuggling supplies
for the insurgency against the U.S. and its coalition partners.33 In
this way, the Zarqawi-Iran connection was maintained from his retreat
from Afghanistan to his arrival in Iraq.
The critical point is that there is considerable evidence that
Zarqawi may have developed an Iranian connection for financial and
logistical support. It was not the first time Shiite Iran reached out
to radical Sunni terrorist organizations. For years, Iran has
sponsored Palestinian Islamist groups, particularly Islamic Jihad but
also Hamas, as well. Iran had a constant interest to reach out beyond
the Shiite Islamic communities of the Middle East to the much wider
Sunni Muslim world, and Zarqawi had objective needs that could be met
by Iran. Unlike Osama bin Laden, who could fall back on his own
family´s wealth and the backing of both Saudi charities and
individuals, Zarqawi came from a poor background in Jordan. To wage
his terrorist campaign, he needed state backing from somewhere.
Indeed, Al-Sharq al-Awsat wrote in May 2004 that the Iranians had
offered Zarqawi about $900,000 and explosives.34 The same Arabic
source reported in August that Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani of the
Revolutionary Guards was asked why Iran backs Zarqawi, given his
attacks on Shiites. Suleimani reportedly answered that Zarqawi´s
actions serve the interests of Iran by undermining the emergence of a
pro-U.S. government in Iraq.35
Journalists were not the only ones asserting an Iranian tie to
Zarqawi and the Sunni insurgency. In late December 2004, Hazim al-
Shaalan, Iraq´s interim defense minister, also charged that Iran and
Syria were aiding Zarqawi´s insurgent forces in Iraq.36 Al-Shaalan
explained to Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the interrogation of one of the
head operatives of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who had been captured, revealed
that al-Qaeda recruits were undergoing military training in Iran by
the Revolutionary Guards; the captured al-Qaeda operative claimed
that he served as an intermediary between al-Qaeda in Iran and
Zarqawi in Iraq, to whom he delivered messages.37 There was another
underlying logic to the Zarqawi-Iranian link. The resupply line for
the insurgency in Iraq´s Sunni triangle clearly came through Syria.
Volunteers would arrive in Damascus and then be transported to the
Syria-Iraqi border. How could one of the heads of the Iraq
insurgency, Zarqawi, enjoy close operational relations with Damascus,
but not have a similar working relationship with Syria´s major
strategic ally - Iran?
It is difficult to ascertain the veracity of all the reports about
the Zarqawi-Iranian connection. A November 15, 2005, Congressional
Research Service report entitled "Iran´s Influence in Iraq" by
Kenneth Katzman did not reach a decisive conclusion on the matter. On
the one hand, the report read: "Iranian support to Sunni Muslim
insurgents in Iraq, such as foreign volunteers commanded by Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, would not appear to fit Iran´s political strategy in
Iraq." But then the report suggests, "On the other hand, some believe
that Iran might want to support Sunni insurgents for no other purpose
than to cause harm to the U.S. military in Iraq."
What is clear is that Zarqawi and the Iranians have had many
opportunities to communicate directly in the past, and could have
established a strategic partnership if they found it in their
interests. It is important to remember that historically, terrorist
organizations and their state supporters are rarely true allies;
their relationships are usually tactical and contain enormous mutual
suspicion. Up until now, Iran has used the Shiite Hizballah and Sunni
Palestinian groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas in order to wage a
proxy war against Israel. It would be a mistake to rule out the
possibility that Iran may seek to open another front with Israel from
the east, using the Zarqawi networks. Should such a situation
develop, Israel would be facing a completely different strategic
situation on its eastern border.
The Radicalization of Jordan and Its Implications
There are serious implications for Israel in the future from the
growth of al-Qaeda-related terrorism, as exemplified by the attacks
of the Zarqawi network in Jordan. After the November 2005 suicide
attacks on three hotels in Amman, King Abdullah stressed that this
was the work of Iraqis and not Jordanians. The Western press went out
of its way to emphasize how Jordanian opinion had turned against
terrorist groups that would kill innocent Jordanian civilians. This
analysis, however, tended to paper over the radicalization that
segments of Jordanian society had undergone as a result of the Iraq
War.
For example, a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in mid-2005
revealed that 60 percent of Jordanians expressed a lot or some
confidence in Osama bin Laden.38 In comparison, in Morocco, only 26
percent responded the same way, and in Lebanon just two percent were
willing to express support for bin Laden. More worrying was that
Jordanian sympathy for bin Laden was increasing in comparison with
Pew´s findings in 2003, while such sympathy was decreasing at the
same time in Morocco, Lebanon, and Turkey.39
The radicalization of Jordanian opinion has many sources. Some
attribute it to the Iraq War; if that is the case, then as the Sunni
insurgency in Iraq persists, the process of radicalization is likely
to continue, even if there was a discernable downturn after the
November bombings in Amman. But even prior to the U.S. invasion of
Iraq, Zarqawi was not a unique phenomenon in northern Jordan. In the
late 1990s, it had been reported that 500 men from Zarqa and the
adjacent Palestinian refugee camp were in Afghanistan fighting with
the Taliban.40 Neighboring Salt has contributed even more mujahidin
that have been killed in Iraq than Zarqa, including the suicide
bomber who murdered 125 Shiites in one attack on February 28, 2005.41
What is striking is that many of these volunteers came from the same
Transjordanian Bedouin background as Zarqawi.
In the past, radical challenges to the Hashemite regime emanated from
the Palestinian population in Jordan. With the spread of Islamic
militancy in Jordan, the Hashemites are now facing an added internal
threat from the direction of those who had been its most important
pillars of support. Of course, Transjordanians had been involved in
the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, but they were primarily active in
its pragmatic wing that worked with the Jordanian government.42 What
changed was their entry into the world of Salafi jihadists. This
began to be noticeable in 1993, when Jordanian security forces
uncovered a plot by Hizb ut-Tahrir to assassinate King Hussein.
Radical Islamists set off bombs in cinemas in Amman and Zarqa in
1994.43
But now there was a danger of this activity becoming more widespread.
Jordanian security officials have estimated that recently 500
Jordanians have been arrested for links with al-Qaeda.44 Indeed,
according to a report in the London Sunday Times, Jordanian security
sources believed that the Iraqi suicide bombers who attacked in Amman
received help from Jordanian soldiers.45 If the report is true, it
means that Zarqawi´s network had penetrated the Jordanian defense
establishment in a manner reminiscent of al-Qaeda´s recruitment of
members of the Saudi National Guard.
Jihadi Networks in Saudi Arabia and Syria: Destabilizing the Eastern
Front
In short, Jordan faces multiple challenges to its security. It hosts
nearly half a million Iraqi refugees, some of whom could be recruited
for jihadi activities. Its border with the Sunni portions of Iraq is
relatively porous.46 In addition, Jordan will undoubtedly be affected
by developments within two other neighbors - Syria to the north and
Saudi Arabia to the south. Saudi clashes with local al-Qaeda cells
have become a regular occurrence since May 2003. Syria, which serves
as the main conduit for the mujahidin fighting for the insurgency in
Iraq, is paying a price for this role. Reports of clashes between
Syrian security forces and Islamist groups like Jund al-Sham are
becoming more frequent.47 Jund al-Sham was recently singled out by
the head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Aharon Zeevi
(Farkash), who described it as "al-Qaeda-Syria."48 It may not be a
coincidence that this was the exact name of Zarqawi´s organization at
his Afghan training camp in 2000.
Indeed, Zarqawi had spent several months in Syria between May and
September 2002, setting up jihadi networks and using it as his rear
base for regional operations.49 The 2002 murder of U.S. diplomat
Laurence Foley appears to have been organized by the Zarqawi network
from Syria, which was also the source of repeated infiltration
efforts into the Jordanian kingdom by extremists transporting
explosives and weapons; Syrians from Zarqawi´s network were involved
in the attempted chemical attack in Amman in April 2004. By August,
Jordan´s prime minister was openly charging the Syrians with creating
an "unacceptable" situation.50 As the regime of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad becomes further isolated and embattled by the
pressures of the international community due to its involvement in
the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri,
it cannot be ruled out that militant Islamic elements, that have
grown with the Syrian involvement in Iraq, will become emboldened.
All this will have implications for Jordan.
Jordan has one of the best intelligence services in the Arab world,
particularly in response to domestic challenges. But as the threat to
its domestic stability comes from outside its porous borders with
Iraq or Syria or even Saudi Arabia, Jordan will have a far more
difficult time contending with the threat of terrorism. In the past,
Israel could be certain that if there was a violent organization
determined to attack it from Jordanian territory, the Hashemites
would not permit their kingdom to be exploited for such purposes.
With the spread of al-Qaeda-related terrorism throughout the
countries neighboring Jordan, the kingdom´s capacity to block such
attacks may be reduced.
Israel´s national security doctrine for decades viewed the Jordan
Valley as critical for Israel´s security from threats along its
Eastern Front. Were Israel to make a territorial withdrawal from the
strategic barrier it controls in the Jordan Valley (which it once
considered at Camp David in 2000), then Israeli vulnerability could
very well attract more global jihadi elements to Jordan, who would
seek to use the kingdom as a platform to reach the West Bank and then
target Israel´s civilian infrastructure. Those advocating such a
withdrawal take for granted that Jordan will remain a stable buffer
that can thwart threats to its own security and to the security of
Israel, as well. Jordanian stability is a global interest of the
entire Western alliance. It can only be hoped that this beleaguered
state will be provided the resources it needs by the U.S. and its
allies to contend with the new threat environment it faces.
The Zarqawi story indicates that the stakes involved in failing to
block terrorist attacks are increasing. Terrorism in the past
involved roadside bombs and occasional explosive devices in crowded
markets. Israel has endured repeated attacks of suicide bombers on
coffee shops, discos, and hotel dining rooms. Zarqawi´s strategy is
based on a significant escalation of the destructive power of
terrorist attacks: from bringing down UN headquarters in Baghdad to
trying to destroy whole hotels elsewhere. Of greatest concern has
been his readiness to employ even the crudest weapons of mass
destruction. The sophistication of his network is bound to increase.
It becomes a paramount interest for Israel to recognize the changing
threat of terrorism as Zarqawi´s network threatens to become active
in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.
Al-Qaeda´s global strategy has been to seek the weakest link in any
region it hopes to penetrate. Al-Qaeda thrives in weak or failed
states like Sudan, Afghanistan, remote Iraqi Kurdistan prior to the
2003 U.S. invasion, or Chechnya. If the state structures are in a
process of being built up, al-Qaeda is seeking to destabilize them by
increasing insurgent activities. That has been the primary goal of
Zarqawi´s network in Iraq and is likely to become his chief political
strategy in Syria and Jordan. All of this indicates that the region
to Israel´s east is likely to enter a period of greater instability.
Notes
1. Reuven Paz, "Al-Qaeda´s Search for New Fronts: Instructions for
Jihadi Activity in Egypt and Sinai," Project for Research of Islamist
Movements (PRISM) Occasional Papers, Vol. 3, No. 7 (October 2005);
http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/eng_n/new_front.htm. See also
Margot Dudkevitch, "Al-Qaida Strike on Israel Coming," Jerusalem
Post, November 10, 2005.
2. Jacky Hogi , "Al-Qaeda Threatens: We Will Attack Israel, We
Established a Base in Jordan," Maariv (Hebrew), November 13, 2005.
3. "A Statement from Al-Qaeda in Iraq Providing Additional Details of
the Attacks in Amman," Site Institute, November 11, 2005;
http://siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?
ID=publications118805&Category=publications&Subcategory=0.
4. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 65.
5. Bernard Lewis, "License to Kill: Usama bin Ladin´s Declaration of
Jihad," Foreign Affairs (November/December 1998).
6. Douglas Jehl, "Bombing in Jordan: Intelligence: Iraq-Based Jihad
Appears to Seek Broader Horizons," New York Times, November 11,
2005.
7. "One Thousand Foreign Fighters in Iraq," United Press
International, October 2, 2005; http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20051002-
110701-9762r.htm.
8. See http://www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html.
9. Matthew Levitt, Testimony before the Joint Hearing of the House
Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Europe and
Emerging Threats, April 27, 2005 , Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?
CID=234.
10. Matthew Levitt, "Networks of Relationships Case Study: Abu Musab
al Zarqawi," SAIS Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter-Spring 2004):38-40.
11. "IDF Intelligence: Al-Qaeda Already Operating in Gaza," Maariv
(Hebrew), October 17, 2005.
12. Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New
Generation (London: Constable and Robinson, 2005), p. 30.
13. Nimrod Raphaeli, "´The Sheikh of the Slaughterers´: Abu Mus´ab al-
Zarqawi and the al-Qa´ida Connection," MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis
Series - No. 231, July 1, 2005; http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?
Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=IA23105.
14. International Crisis Group, "Jordan´s 9/11: Dealing With Jihadi
Islamism," Middle East Report, No. 47, November 23, 2005;
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3801&l=1.
15. Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda (New
York: Other Press, 2005), p. 18.
16. Raphaeli, "Sheikh of the Slaughterers."
17. International Crisis Group, "Jordan´s 9/11."
18. It remains a matter of debate among experts whether the Zarqawi
network is part of al-Qaeda or is a separate entity. Funding for the
Herat camp, according to some analysts, came from al-Qaeda. Others
contend that the Taliban initially funded Zarqawi. The debate has
largely political connotations with respect to the question of an al-
Qaeda/Saddam link existing when Zarqawi fled to Iraq after the fall
of Afghanistan to the U.S.
19. Raphaeli, "Sheikh of the Slaughterers."
20. International Crisis Group, "Jordan´s 9/11."
21. Ibid.
22. Matthew Levitt, "The Zarqawi Node in the Terror Matrix," National
Review, February 6, 2003;
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-levitt020603.asp.
23. "U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security
Council," February 5, 2003;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/print/20030205-
1.html.
24. Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 77.
25. "Reports Reveal Zarqawi Nuclear Threat," Terror Alerts
Newsletter, National Terror Alert Resource and Information Center,
April 20, 2005.
26. Ben Aris, "Germans Hold Two Suspected of Dirty Bomb Plot,"
Guardian, January 24, 2005.
27. According to the Butler Report, Britain´s Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC) "made it clear that Al-Qaida-linked facilities in the
Kurdish Ansar al-Islam area were involved in the production of
chemical and biological agents, but that they were beyond the control
of the Iraqi regime." The Butler report uncritically adds JIC´s
analysis from March 12, 2003, that "senior Al Qaida associate Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi has established sleeper cells in Baghdad, to be
activated during a U.S. occupation of the city. These cells
apparently intend to attack U.S. targets using car bombs and other
weapons. (It is also possible that they have received CB materials
from terrorists in the KAZ [Kurdish Administered Zone].)" The Rt.
Hon. Lord Butler of Brockwell KG GCB CVO, Chairman, Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of
Privy Counsellors (London: The Stationary Office, July 14, 2005), p.
120; http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/report.
28. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York:
W.W. Norton, 2004), p. 240.
29. Ibid.
30. Al-Mustaqbal (Beirut), October 5, 2004, cited in Eurasia Security
Watch, No. 53, American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.,
October 7, 2004.
31. Dan Darling, "The Cicero Article," Weekly Standard, November 10,
2005.
32. Michael Ledeen, "The Terror Masters Revisited," National Review,
August 16, 2004;
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200408160834.asp.
33. Thanassis Cambanis, "Along Border, Kurds Say, Iran Gives Boost to
Uprising," Boston Globe, November 7, 2004.
34. Dan Darling, "Meet Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, the
Commander of Iran´s Anti-American Qods Force," Weekly Standard,
October 5, 2005.
35. Ibid.
36. Alastair Macdonald, "Iraq Minister Blasts Iran, Syria, Says Aid
Zarqawi," Reuters, December 15, 2004;
http://www.siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?
ID=news53204&Category=news&Subcategory=0.
37. Mohammed al-Shafey, "Former Defense Minister: Politicians Fully
Aware of Iranian Interference," Al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 7,
2005.
38. "Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western
Publics - Support for Terror Wanes Among Muslim Publics," Pew Global
Attitudes Project, July 14, 2005;
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248.
39. Ibid.
40. International Crisis Group, "Jordan´s 9/11."
41. Ibid.
42. Sabah al-Said, Between Pragmatism and Ideology: The Muslim
Brotherhood in Jordan, 1989-1994 (Washington: Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 1995), pp. 12-13.
43. Asher Susser, "Jordan," in Ami Ayalon and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
(eds.), Middle East Contemporary Survey (Boulder: Westview Press,
1996), p. 437.
44. Bill Powell, "A War Without Borders," Time, November 21, 2005.
45. Marie Colvin and Uzi Mahanaimi, "Jordanian Soldiers ´Aided´
Suicide Attacks," Sunday Times, November 13, 2005.
46. Powell, "War Without Borders."
47. "Syrian Security Forces Kill Five Militants in Clash," Al-Sharq
al-Awsat, September 4, 2005.
48. "Israel and the Middle East 2005, A Strategic Overview,"
Strategic Assessment, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Vol. 8,
No. 3 (November 2005);
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v8n3p1Far.html.
49. Brisard, Zarqawi, p. 87.
50. Ibid., p. 189.
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