>From: "MEMRI" <memri at memri.org>
>Subject: Bin Laden Lieutenant Admits to September 11
>Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 21:06:26 -0500
>
>Special Dispatch - Jihad and Terrorism Studies
>February 10, 2002
>No. 344
>
>Bin Laden Lieutenant Admits to September 11
>and Explains Al-Qa'ida's Combat Doctrine
>
>Recently, Al-Qa'ida began a biweekly Internet magazine
>named Al-Ansar: For The Struggle Against the Crusader
>War.(1) The second issue featured an article titled,
>"Fourth-Generation Wars" by Abu 'Ubeid Al-Qurashi,
>identified by the London Arabic-language daily Al-Quds
>Al-Arabi as "one of Osama bin Laden's closest aides."(2) In
>the article, Al-Qurashi acknowledges that Al-Qa'ida carried
>out the September 11 attacks. Following are excerpts from
>the article:
>
>"These days, one is amazed at the extent of the defeatism
>in morale that has penetrated to the core of the [Islamic]
>nation. [It even] increases in light of the fact that the
>first to be afflicted by this ill were some clerics... One
>of these men spoke on a satellite TV channel about the
>current American offensive, explaining the shrinking [Arab
>and Muslim support of] the Mujahideen with a series of
>false claims. My attention was drawn by his claim that
>there is an imbalance between the strength of the
>Mujahideen and that of America and its allies, and that
>because of this imbalance there is no [point] in Jihad and
>no need to support [Jihad] because the matter has already
>been decided in America's favor. These words attest to
>their speakers' ignorance - first of all, in Islamic
>religious law, and second, in history and contemporary
>Western military analyses. This will become clear later [in
>the article]..."
>
>Al-Qa'ida's Combat Doctrine(3)
>"In 1989, some American military experts(4) predicted a
>fundamental change in the future form of warfare... They
>predicted that the wars of the 21st century would be
>dominated by a kind of warfare they called 'the fourth
>generation of wars.' Others called it 'asymmetric
>warfare...'"
>
>"Among military historians it is accepted that wars after
>the Industrial Revolution underwent three main [stages] of
>development. In the first..., warfare was based on a
>multitude of soldiers in ranks fighting with primitive
>rifles. In the second..., between the American Civil War
>and World War I, warfare was based on exhausting the
>enemy's economy and damaging as many enemy forces as
>possible, using intensive gunfire and then, later,
>[intensive] automatic weapons fire. The third generation of
>wars saw a comprehensive tactical change, at which the
>German army excelled during World War II(5); surrounding
>the enemy with a formation of tanks and airplanes... from
>the rear instead of the front lines, [contrary to what]
>happened in the battles in the trenches of World War I."
>
>"Fourth-generation warfare, the experts said, is a new type
>of war in which fighting will be mostly scattered. The
>battle will not be limited to destroying military targets
>and regular forces, but will include societies, and will
>[seek to] destroy popular support for the fighters within
>the enemy's society. In these wars, the experts stated in
>their article,(6) 'television news may become a more
>powerful operational weapon than armored divisions.' They
>also noted that [in forth-generation wars] 'the distinction
>between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing
>point...'"
>
>"Other Western strategists(7) disagreed with these
>analyses, claiming that the new warfare would be
>strategically based on psychological influence and on the
>minds of the enemy's planners - not only on military means
>as in the past, but also on the use of all the media and
>information networks... in order to influence public
>opinion and, through it, the ruling elite. They claimed
>that the fourth-generation wars would, tactically, be
>small-scale, emerging in various regions across the planet
>against an enemy that, like a ghost, appears and
>disappears. The focus would be political, social, economic,
>and military. [It will be] international, national, tribal,
>and even organizations would participate (even though
>tactics and technology from previous generations would be
>used)."
>
>"This new type of war presents significant difficulties for
>the Western war machine, and it can be expected that
>[Western] armies will change fundamentally. This forecast
>did not arise in a vacuum - if only the cowards [among the
>Muslim clerics] knew that fourth-generation wars have
>already occurred and that the superiority of the
>theoretically weaker party has already been proven; in many
>instances, nation-states have been defeated by stateless
>nations."
>
>Victories by the Islamic Nation
>"...[T]he Islamic nation has chalked up the most victories
>in a short time, in a way it has not known since the rise
>of the Ottoman Empire. These victories were achieved during
>the past twenty years, against the best armed, best
>trained, and most experienced armies in the world (the
>U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan, the U.S. in Somalia, Russia in
>Chechnya, and the Zionist entity in southern Lebanon) and
>in various arenas (mountains, deserts, hills, cities). In
>Afghanistan, the Mujahideen triumphed over the world's
>second most qualitative power at that time... Similarly, a
>single Somali tribe humiliated America and compelled it to
>remove its forces from Somalia. A short time later, the
>Chechen Mujahideen humiliated and defeated the Russian
>bear. After that, the Lebanese resistance [Hizbullah]
>expelled the Zionist army from southern Lebanon."
>
>"It is true that all the victories of the past did not lead
>to the establishment of the winners' regime. But this is
>not the topic of our study. This article is aimed at
>investigating the purely military confrontation, due to
>claims regarding the imbalance between America and the
>Mujahideen - which makes, according to the defeatists,
>Jihad and victory impossible."
>
>"Technology did not help these great armies, even though
>[this technology] is sufficient to destroy the planet
>hundreds of times over using the arsenal of nuclear,
>chemical, and biological weapons. The Mujahideen proved
>their superiority in fourth-generation warfare using only
>light weaponry. They are part of the people, and hide
>amongst the multitudes... Thus, Michael Pickers said,(8)
>'Many of our means are unsuited to this type of warfare.'"
>
>"Also with regard to the order of battle, there is much to
>say... [Al-Qurashi expands upon the numerical inferiority
>of Islamic forces in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Somalia].
>Thus, it appears that there are precedents for world powers
>and large countries being defeated by [small] units of
>Mujahideen over the past two decades, despite the great
>difference between the two sides. Therefore, the doubts
>cast by this coward [cleric] are shattered."
>
>Taking Credit for September 11
>"Some may object [to this analysis], claiming that all
>those wars involved encounters between homogenous nations
>and invading armies - and therefore they cannot serve as
>examples for Al-Qa'ida, which fights outside its land,
>sometimes in a hostile environment."
>
>"I will respond to this counter-claim: First of all,
>Al-Qa'ida fights alongside the Taliban, who are locals.
>Second, Al-Qa'ida's Mujahideen have proven from the outset
>that they rise above the traditional [internal]
>conflicts..."
>
>"Al-Qa'ida takes pride in that, on September 11, it
>destroyed the elements of America's strategic defense,
>which the former U.S.S.R. and every other hostile state
>could not harm. These elements are: early warning,
>preventive strike, and the principle of deterrence.(9)"
>
>"Early warning: With the September 11 attacks, Al-Qa'ida
>entered the annals of successful surprise attacks, which
>are few in history - for example, the Japanese attack on
>Pearl Harbor in 1941, the surprise Nazi attack on the
>U.S.S.R. in 1941, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in
>1968, and the crossing of the Zionist Bar-Lev Line in 1973.
>Moreover: In the pain it caused, [Al-Qa'ida] surpassed
>these surprise attacks, because it put every individual in
>American society on [constant] alert for every possibility,
>whether emotionally or practically. This has an extremely
>high economic and psychological price, particularly in a
>society that has not been affected by war since the
>American Civil War. If the USS Cole incident could happen
>to the American army, which is assumed to be in perfect
>preparedness, then preparing an entire society for
>'terrorist' attacks appears hard to achieve."
>
>"Preventive strike: This element was also shaken on
>September 11. This element is subordinate to the first...
>Even assuming that there had been early warning, it is very
>difficult to launch a successful preventive strike at an
>organization that maneuvers and moves quickly, and has no
>permanent bases."
>
>"Deterrence: This principle is based on the assumption that
>there are two sides [fighting] that seek to survive and
>defend their interests - but it is completely eliminated
>when dealing with people who don't care about living but
>thirst for martyrdom. While the principle of deterrence
>works well [in warfare] between countries, it does not work
>at all for an organization with no permanent bases and with
>no capital in Western banks, that does not rely on aid from
>particular countries. As a result, it is completely
>independent in its decisions, and it seeks conflict from
>the outset. How can such people, who strive for death more
>than anything else, be deterred?"
>
>"In addition to the destruction of these three elements,
>Al-Qa'ida has dealt Americans the most severe blow ever to
>their morale: One of the Western strategies(10) determined
>that the best means of bringing about a psychological
>defeat is to attack a place where the enemy feels safe and
>secure. This is exactly what the Mujahideen did in New
>York."
>
>"It appears, therefore, that the imbalance between America
>and the Mujahideen, of which the cowards [clerics] speak,
>is exactly what is needed to confront the Western military
>machine, particularly the American [machine]. [America] is
>baffled by fourth-generation warfare that suits Jihad
>avant-garde - especially at a time when the Islamic peoples
>have re-espoused Jihad, after they had nothing left to lose
>because of the humiliation that is their daily lot."
>
>"The Americans and the West comprehend the nature of the
>new challenge, and acknowledge the difficulty of the task
>ahead of them..."
>
>"The time has come for the Islamic movements facing a
>general crusader offensive to internalize the rules of
>fourth-generation warfare. They must consolidate
>appropriate strategic thought, and make appropriate
>military preparations. They must increase interest in Da'wa
>[proselytizing], and recruit the peoples' public and
>political support. In addition to the religious obligation,
>this has become an integral part of the means to triumph in
>fourth-generation warfare. Old strategists, such as [von]
>Clausewitz and Mao Zedong, have already indicated this.
>Perhaps the best example is the phenomenon of the intifada,
>that wiped out the Zionist military's mighty superiority
>over the Muslim Palestinian people."
>
>"...America wants to use military action to shatter the
>Mujahideen's great psychological achievements, and the
>resonance and positive ramifications of [their] acts of
>heroism that draw support and sympathy in the Islamic
>world."
>
>"We pray to Allah to silence the cowards' crow-like calls,
>and to bring forth for this [Islamic] nation a new
>generation of preachers and clerics, who can meet the
>challenges posed by fourth-generation warfare."
>
>Endnotes:
>
>(1) www.geocities.com/al_anssar/index.html.
>(2) Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), February 9, 2002.
>(3) All subheadings added by the translator.
>(4) William S. Lind, Col. Keith Nightenagle (USA), Captain
>John F. Schmitt (USMC), Col. Joseph W. Sutton (USA), and
>Lt.-Col. Gary I Wilson (USMCR), "The Changing Face of War:
>Into the Fourth Generation," Marine Corps Gazette October
>1989 (source from original article in Arabic).
>(5) Blitzkrieg.
>(6) Lind, Nightenagle, et al.
>(7) Lt.-Col. Thomas X. Hammes, "The Evolution of War: The
>Fourth Generation," Marine Corps Gazette, September 1994
>(source from original article in Arabic).
>(8) Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
>Washington, D.C. This quote is translated from the Arabic,
>and is not the original English.
>(9) Steven Simpson and Daniel Benjamin, "The Terror,"
>Survival, Vol. 43 No. 4, January 2002 (source from original
>article in Arabic) Note that this article was published
>recently.
>(10) Vincent J. Goulding Jr., "Back to the Future with
>Asymmetric Warfare," Parameters, Winter 2000-2001 (source
>from original article in Arabic).
>
>*********************
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