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Posted: 30 Jan 2015 11:49 AM PST
When a senior Islamic Caucasus
Emirate (ICE) commander in Dagestan and others swore allegiance to the
Islamic State in mid-December, it caused an uproar among jihadists in the
Caucasus. The emir of ICE, Ali Abu Muhammad al Dagestani, issued a
stinging rebuke, saying the defections were a
"treacherous act" and "caused a split among the
mujahideen."
More than one month after the
defections, the controversy is still an issue for al Qaeda and its allies.
On Jan. 28, a statement from ten
veteran jihadist ideologues was posted on the web site for Vilayat Dagestan,
which is one of ICE's so-called "provinces." The jihadists denounce
the defections and argue that the Islamic State's self-proclaimed
"caliphate" is illegitimate because it was not established
according to sharia law.
Their statement was first obtained
and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Two of the signatories are Harith al
Nadhari and Ibrahim
Rubaish, both of whom are senior ideologues in al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Nadhari, one of AQAP's most senior sharia
officials, has become a fierce critic of the Islamic State. Rubaish, an
ex-Guantanamo detainee, provides the
ideological justifications for AQAP's attacks and plays a key
role in collecting donations for the group.
Two others who signed the release
are Sami al Uraydi, the senior sharia official for the Al Nusrah Front in
Syria, and Abu Mariya al Qahtani, another Al Nusrah sharia official. Qahtani
was once one of the jihadist group's highest ranking sharia officials, but he
was reportedly replaced in that capacity. He has been highly critical of al
Qaeda's response to the Islamic State's rise, but is apparently still in Al
Nusrah.
The participation of sharia
officials from both AQAP and Al Nusrah demonstrates a degree of coordination
across al Qaeda's branches. And this is not the first time officials from two
al Qaeda branches have coordinated their messaging with respect to the
Islamic State. In mid-September, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and
AQAP published a
joint statement encouraging jihadist unity in the face of
American-led airstrikes in Syria. Both AQIM and AQAP have rejected the
Islamic State's "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria but wanted the
jihadists to unite against their common enemies. The gambit failed, as the
Islamic State remains opposed to all other groups in Syria.
Other well-known jihadist
ideologues who signed the statement include Abdallah
Muhammad al Muhaysini, an al Qaeda-linked cleric who works
closely with Al Nusrah, and Hani Sibai, a longtime ally of Ayman al Zawahiri
dating back to the days when they were both in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad
(EIJ). Four others signed it as well.
The ten signatories say that they
"have received the recent news" out of the Caucasus "about the
arrival of the sedition of the [Islamic] State and the splitting" of the
jihadists' ranks, and they "fear that the rifle will be turned away from
the enemy that assails the religion and honor, to be turned against the chests
of your mujahideen brothers," SITE's translation reads.
The "declaration by the
[Islamic] State of a Caliphate is invalid" according to sharia law, they
argue, because Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's organization did not build a proper
consensus within the Ummah (community of worldwide Muslims) before making its
announcement.
They contend that the Islamic
State did not consult with "the honest scholars of the Ummah and their
sincere local leaders and their ilk" before declaring Baghdadi to be
"Caliph Ibrahim." The Islamic State's jihadist critics have consistently
made this same argument against the group.
The authors repeat a common al
Qaeda argument: Declaring the establishment of an Islamic emirate (or state)
is foolish as long as the US remains a global power. They say that Osama bin
Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri ("the mujahid sheikh"), and Attiyah Abd al
Rahman (a deceased al Qaeda leader) all held this view. It is, therefore,
"vanity" to establish emirates "under the shadow of the global
system of disbelief led by America," because this system does not
"stop interfering in the lands of the Muslims."
The ideologues go on to cite an
anti-Islamic State booklet by another al Qaeda ideologue, Abu Qatada, as well
as an AQAP-produced lecture series starring Nadhari to further buttress their
arguments.
The statement's signatories also
discuss the ICE jihadists' pledge of allegiance to the emir of the group, Ali
Abu Muhammad al Dagestani. The Caucasus jihadists who swore allegiance to the
Islamic State broke their oaths to Dagestani, but the authors do not want
this to lead to more jihadist infighting. They argue that "breaking the
pledge" to Dagestani "does not give permission for sacred blood to
be shed," according to SITE. In other words, the authors do not want the
infighting that has hampered the jihadists' efforts in Syria to spread to the
Caucasus.
Still, Dagestani is lauded in the
statement, which describes his appointment as the emir of ICE as a
"blessing." The authors say that Dagestani "is following the
steps of the previous trustworthy ones," including Ibn Khattab, Shamil
Basayev, Abu al Walid, and Doku Umarov. All of those named as Dagestani's
predecessors are deceased al Qaeda-linked jihadi leaders who served in the
Caucasus. Umarov was Dagestani's immediate predecessor as the head of ICE.
Given that Dagestani is an
appropriate leader for ICE, the ideologues argue, the Caucasus jihadists'
"loyalty" to him is "required by sharia" and "it is
forbidden to break it."
It is unclear what, if any, effect
the joint statement will have on tensions in the Caucasus.
The Vilayat Dagestan web site is
currently trumpeting additional statements from the same al Qaeda ideologues
who jointly authored the message.
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Posted: 30 Jan 2015 07:16 AM PST
The Taliban claimed last evening's
attack at Kabul International Airport that killed three American contractors.
The insider or green-on-blue attack, where a member of the Afghan security
forces kills Coalition personnel, is the first of its kind recorded this
year.
The attacker, who was dressed in
an Afghan military uniform, killed the three contractors and wounded one,
Major General Haq Nawaz Haqyar, the commander of Afghan police at the
airport, told Pajhwok Afghan News.
An Afghan was also killed in the shooting, Haqyar said. It is unclear if the
Afghan who was killed was the shooter.
The US Department of Defense
confirmed that three Americans and an Afghan were killed in the shooting.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah
Muhajid claimed the attack in two statements on his Twitter account, and said
it was executed by Ihsanullah, an "infiltrator ... from Laghman province
working inside Kabul airport."
"The attack killed 3 American
terrorists and wounded 4 others before the infiltrator was martyred by return
fire," Muhajid claimed. The tweet included the hashtag
"Khaibar," a reference to
the Taliban's offensive that was announced in May 2014. The
Taliban said it will continue to launch insider attacks, as well as encourage
Afghan soldiers to execute such operations.
The Taliban have devoted
significant effort into attempts to kill NATO troops and foreigners by
infiltrating the ranks of Afghan security forces. Mullah Omar affirmed this
in a statement released on Aug. 16, 2012, when he claimed that the group had
"cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy according to the plan
given to them last year [2011]," and he urged government officials and
security personnel to defect to the Taliban as a matter of religious duty.
Omar also noted that the Taliban had created the "Call and Guidance,
Luring and Integration" department, "with branches ... now
operational all over the country," to encourage defections. [See Threat Matrix report, Mullah Omar
addresses green-on-blue attacks.]
Overall number of insider
attacks still unknown
The last known
insider attack took place on Sept. 16, 2014 in the western
province of Farah. In that attack, an Afghan soldier gunned down a Coalition
trainer inside a military base.
The previous attack occurred on
Aug. 5 at a training center in Kabul. An Afghan soldier killed a US
major general and wounded 16 more military personnel,
including a US brigadier general, a German general, five British troops, and
at least one Afghan officer. The Taliban did not claim credit for the attack,
but praised the
Afghan soldier who executed it.
There were four insider attacks
recorded in Afghanistan in 2014, according to The Long War Journal's statistics. The number
of reported green-on-blue attacks on Coalition personnel in Afghanistan has
dropped steeply since a peak of 44 in 2012. In 2013, there were 13 such
attacks. [For in-depth information, see
LWJ special report, Green-on-blue
attacks in Afghanistan: the data.]
The decline in attacks may be due
to several factors, including the continuing drawdown of Coalition personnel,
reduced partnering with Afghan forces, and the adoption of heightened
security measures in interactions between Coalition and Afghan forces.
However, many insider attacks
remain unreported. If an attack by Afghan personnel does not result in a
death or injury, and it is not reported in the press, the Coalition will not
release a statement on the incident.
The International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF), which was disbanded at the end of 2014, told The Long War Journal in
March 2012 that "these
statistics," the number of attacks that did not result in a casualty,
are "classified."
"[A]ttacks by ANSF on
Coalition Forces ... either resulting in non-injury, injury or death ...
these stats as a whole (the total # attacks) are what is classified and not
releasable," Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, ISAF's former Press
Desk Chief, told The Long War
Journal. Cummings said that ISAF is "looking to declassify
this number." The number was never declassified.
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