[Mb-civic] Window Into Al Qaeda - David Ignatius - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Window Into Al Qaeda

By David Ignatius
Sunday, October 16, 2005; Page B07

Rarely in wartime is it possible to read over the shoulder of the enemy 
and discover his most intimate thoughts about the battle. But the United 
States is claiming just such an intelligence coup with the capture of a 
letter from Ayman Zawahiri, the cerebral chief strategist of al Qaeda, 
to his hotheaded field commander in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi.

The July 9 Zawahiri letter was released Tuesday by the office of John 
Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. If authentic, the 
letter takes us inside the tent of al Qaeda's battered but clear-eyed 
leadership as it plans the next stage of its global jihad.

Al Qaeda in Iraq claims that the letter is a fake, but I would say that, 
too, if someone had intercepted my battle plans. More troubling is a 
critique by Juan Cole, one of the leading American experts on Shiite 
Islam. After carefully reviewing the Arabic text, he argued on his Web 
site Friday that some of the usage sounds like that of a Shiite or 
perhaps a Pakistani but not an Egyptian Sunni like Zawahiri. Not so, 
insist the CIA's Arabic-speaking analysts. "We have the highest 
confidence in the letter's authenticity," a senior intelligence official 
reiterated Friday.

At the heart of the letter is an argument that al Qaeda must build a 
broad political movement in the Muslim world, even as it continues its 
military campaign to drive America and Israel from the region. Students 
of 20th-century history will recall a similar shift by the Communist 
Party in the 1930s, when it moved from a tight, exclusionary strategy to 
a broader one known as the "Popular Front." Zawahiri's call for mass 
Muslim politics, which would include those outside his own tight 
Salafist circle, is plausible because it tracks other recent statements.

"We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our umma 
," Zawahiri advises, referring to Muslim peoples. He chastises his field 
commander for using brutal tactics that are alienating the masses. "The 
common folk are wondering," he says, about Zarqawi's slaughter of poor 
Shiite civilians, his bombings at mosques and his gruesome beheading of 
hostages, all of which the masses "will never find palatable." In the 
elaborate politeness of Arabic discourse, Zawahiri is telling his 
firebrand commander: You are blowing it. We cannot achieve political 
power by terrifying our fellow Muslims. Here again, the letter, along 
with other recent indications, reveals that al Qaeda's leadership is 
unhappy with Zarqawi's cutthroat tactics.

The Zawahiri of the letter is a clever commander. Even on the run, cut 
off from normal communications, he has a remarkable ability to see the 
battle space. He takes it for granted that the Americans are pulling out 
of Iraq and expects some sort of United Nations-sponsored transition. He 
advises Zarqawi to "fill the void" quickly by establishing a Sunni 
"emirate" ministate as the Americans leave areas where the insurgents 
are strong.

The letter also draws a fascinating self-portrait of Zawahiri himself. 
We sense the vanity of this man who bears an ostentatious prayer mark on 
his forehead from bowing in prayer so passionately each day. He asks if 
Zarqawi has seen his appearances on al-Jazeera, read his recent book, 
listened to his 15 audio statements.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/14/AR2005101401788.html
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