Do you think AQ is expanding their global footprint?

COL Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 11:52:33 -0500

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/12/representative_of_ay.php

Representative of Ayman al Zawahiri reportedly captured in Turkey | The Long War Journal

An operative who was dispatched to Libya by al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri was reportedly captured in Turkey and is now being held in Jordan. A Turkish daily, the Milliyet, first reported Azzouz's capture earlier this month. The Milliyet's reporting was subsequently picked up by other Turkish press outlets. Azzouz was handpicked by Zawahiri to oversee al Qaeda's efforts in post-revolution Libya. According to the Turkish reports, Azzouz was...

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 7 at 2014 1:32 PM

CW5 Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 13:32:04 -0500

It certainly looks that way, COL Private RallyPoint Member. They seem to be on the move, attempting to re-build and enlarge. That said, this report notes at the end that ...

"It is not clear what Azzouz was specifically doing in Turkey at the time of his capture. Turkey is a known crossroads for al Qaeda operatives, including those dispatched by al Qaeda's senior leadership and fighters seeking to join the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria."

Still, though, they do seem to be expanding their footprint.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2014 7:57 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 19:57:28 -0500

COL Private RallyPoint Member,

I believe they are sir. There's been a more explosive growth of Islamist aligned terrorist organizations in the last five years or six years than most people have come to realize. With the rise of organizations like Boko Harem, Al Shabab, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), etc and the gradual loss of influence for Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah, Al Qaeda has seen both opportunities to expand it's power base, as well as facing threats to it's power base (Islamic State).

When these wars started, most people hadn't heard of the Taliban, let alone some of the other organizations previously listed. The Long War Journal is so aptly named because this "Global War on Terror" isn't going to end any time soon. Especially with this administrations dramatic increase in reliance on overseas intervention and drone strikes (Libya, Yemen, Iraq again, Syria now, build up in Afghanistan, more drone strikes in Pakistan than Bush, etc), the seeds of growth of AQ as well as other organizations will only continue.

On the other side of the coin, the largest funders of these organizations (especially Sunni aligned militants) remains with many countries that only maintain their financial power due their massive role in the energy industry. While the United States could curb that substantially (drill baby drill, nuclear energy, coal, etc), the second and third order of effects would be massively damaging to our efforts.

1) Russia would be gravely weakened, allowing further instability IVO the Caucasus region. This would allow Islamist organizations (such as the ones that the Boston Marathon bombers had ties with) to grow in power and influence.

2) The governments in said Middle Eastern countries would have to deal with a sharp decline in their power, devastating their ability to combat Islamists within their own borders. It would also give them the added recruitment "benefit" of saying how America is trying to destroy their economy and suddenly their pool of new members will skyrocket.

3) These instabilities will result in potential financial shock in Europe if the region destabilizes, imparting damage to critical efforts to train, mentor and support African forces to contain the several prominent organizations operating in North Africa, Sub-Sahara and the Horn of Africa. We're talking about a critical loss in capability that these countries need, especially Nigeria which would face substantial fallout from the mass deflation of energy prices.

4) These organizations then get bigger. They encourage more lone wolf attacks. Their support base grows, which will enable them to maintain substantial financial soft power and increased combat experience will further enhance their hard power. They will continue to squabble amongst themselves, but will also see continued improvement in cooperation towards their greater goals of defeating the West.

5) China starts to feel the economic shock. Their economy is already working to prevent a major bubble burst (which I assess will be like crashing a car into a pool instead of a telephone pole) and major economic instability as a result of this will only make the damage more painful on the Chinese economy. If Islamists seize this opportunity, we could see open insurrection in Xinjiang, forcing their military into high alert, or even major combat operations, further agitating Japan, Korea (thus agitating North Korea) and making the current climate reach a level of instability we haven't seen in decades. Of note, China now has the largest economy in the globe. Just as the Great Recession hit the globe hard, this will too.

I could go on, but there exist very serious problems that remain to be fixed and are only getting substantially worse. While there will continue to be organizations that engage in the "silent war" against our enemies regardless of the major ground commitments we participate in across the globe, this is a complex issue we're having trouble understanding as an institution, because on many levels we can't even understand ourselves.

Too often I've seen, "It is what it is," used to excuse poor leadership and failed objectives, creating a cycle of operational intelligence failure as well as gouging out creative thinking if it incurs any sort of risk. While I wouldn't go so far as to declare our leadership or intelligence infrastructure a failure, I'd say we need to have a serious gut check and re-engage where we're going with our handling of The Long War, or GWOT is going to go on for decades, causing horrific realities we haven't endured since 1945 and US service members found the Nazi extermination camps...

V/R
SGT Mullet

PS - I wonder what COL Private RallyPoint Member and CW2 Private RallyPoint Member think.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 16 at 2014 10:46 AM

COL Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 10:46:37 -0500

A very large global war is on the horizon. A little bit of redundancy there, but it's worth it. ISIS is growing. It is appealing to those it empowers, especially since they are not empowered now. Imagine being an unemployed young man with no prospects for employment or a family and someone comes up and tells you they will give you a job and a woman...as a matter of fact you can have three...all you have to do is conform. It's not a large step to see how this appeals to the uneducated masses. Power. Right there for the taking. That mentaility has been around since we first started to wage war on one another. It's only VERY recently that we have become "civilized" in our ideas of warfare. ISIS and those organizations can't help but grow and spread. It's an idea and ideas can't be contained. We have fought this war for going on 14-15 years now and we were fighting it before then. Ghengis Khan knew how to deal with this kind of problem. Unfortunately, civilization does not. The Romans didn't falter because their enemies grew strong, they faltered because they grew weak and fat as a nation. A grand fight is looming. I pray we are ready.