Battlefield Shifts Westward
The war with extremist Islam has just entered a new phase. Times of London: Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Iraq have issued orders for British cells to conduct a “low-tech” campaign of abductions and beheadings.
ISLAMIC terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.
The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say.
… The revelation explains the recent deployment of a permanent SAS unit to London. The unit has been placed on 24-hour standby to respond to a terrorist attack in the capital. It would aim to carry out a hostage rescue mission within minutes of being alerted.
… One well placed source said: “Cells in the UK have been alerted to carry out this type of attack as opposed to the more sophisticated type of bombing in which you place a large number of volunteers at risk. All you need for a beheading is a bit of courage and a sharp knife.”
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, I was puzzled by the lack of follow-on. I asked the terrorism and security experts I was talking to at that time why al-Qaeda didn’t do the logical thing. Activate the domestic cells for a series of synchronized low-intensity suicidal attacks with guns or bombs. A dozen people killed by Islamic gunmen in each of a dozen US cities at the exactly same time on a Tuesday morning rush hour, or in the malls on a Saturday afternoon, would bring the United States to a screeching halt. (And no, I’m not giving them ideas. This kind of thing is (A) obvious and (B) has been discussed quite a bit.) We knew the cells existed. Two al-Qaeda operatives picked up in Jordan had been Boston cabbies just a couple of years earlier.
The experts pointed out that no … quite rightly to date … al-Qaeda was fixated on dramatic large-scale attacks. Planes falling out of the sky. International landmarks exploding. They don’t like the pennyante nature of small-scale attacks of a sort considered part of the normal fabric of life in their own neighborhoods. Because the audience wasn’t us. The audience was the Islamic world.
Now, the audience is Europe’s Muslims, hence the plan to abduct and behead British Muslims. Europe has been teetering on the brink of open ethnic warfare for some time, with brief outbursts in France. The al-Qaeda leadership isolated in their Waziri caves and dodging Hellfire missiles in Anbar apparently have just figured out that they can influence this situation. They’ve also figured out this blowing up planes thing isn’t working out for them.
Reporting on the developments in the UK suggests the focus is on Muslims who collaborate with the hated Crusaders … Muslims who are British soldiers and cops. It is only a matter of time before they turn their attention to the United States and “low-tech” operations here. And it is only a matter of time before they expand their list of beheading candidates to other sectors of the population. The Times article also discusses plans for vehicle-borne fertilizer bombs. If you’ve grown numb to the horrific death toll in Baghdad marketplaces … 130 killed by a pickup truck bomb here, 65 killed by a car bomb there … think about one of those things coming through the glass doors of your local supermarket or mall.
All of which is another reason why it is important to keep al-Qaeda busy and to keep killing terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq … and to step up operations in Waziristan, local sensitivities notwithstanding.
Closer to home, the question is, are you ready for it? Do you think your local cops and the FBI are? The Brits have deployed the SAS. Do you figure we have sufficient counterterrorism forces ready to go?
Protein Wisdom picks up the Euroball and runs with it:
I suspect that we’ll begin to see a vocal howling by the population of such countries for draconian governmental measures once that first throat is slit, or that first school is shot up.
What will be soon evident, I think, is a stunning philosophical inversion come spectacularly to light: as Europeans who once denounced the US for forcefully prosecuting the war against Islamists begin to recognize that their social liberalism and western guilt won’t protect them from encroaching fascism gilded and reinforced with religious pretense.
Yeah, only I think the Euros will blame us for AQ’s head-detachment operations. In his Protein Wisdom, Jeff doesn’t think its coming here, by the way.
LGF on a call for jihad at UC Irvine.
The Warrior Class puts on his Sun Tzu goggles and has a gander.
Dan, not Riehly impressed.
Welcome, Small Dead Animals, et al. Stop in, look around and make yourself at home. We’ve got George Soros in a thong and hot Hungarians with machine guns, a command performance of “The Man Who Would be King,” and other stuff. I could also use some help with a Game Theory issue. Oh yeah, Charlize Theron just came over and is saying stupid stuff, but will make out with you if you stop asking her about it.
Topics: GWOT, al qaeda, Britain
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:43 am on Sunday, February 4, 2007
23 Responses to “Battlefield Shifts Westward”
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February 4th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
[…] this from Jules Crittenden: The war with extremist Islam has just entered a new phase. Times of London: Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Iraq have issued orders for British cells to conduct a “low-tech” campaign of abductions and beheadings. […]
February 4th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Probably not, but do you figure that might have something to do with the fact that Bush ignored the threat of Islamist terrorism and instead went after the anti-Islamist secular dictator Saddam — cheered on by folks like yourself?
Terrorists are gangsters, and like stopping any gangsters, stopping them is a law-enforcement issue. But Bush diverted resources from stopping the Islamists and instead put all our eggs in the basket of a) Endless war in the Middle East and b) Establishing an Islamist state in Iraq.
But I’m glad you’re coming around to admitting that terrorism is a law-enforcement issue and not something that can be handled by sending armies to anti-Islamist states.
February 4th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
…but do you figure that might have something to do with the fact that Bush ignored the threat of Islamist terrorism and instead went after the anti-Islamist secular dictator Saddam — cheered on by folks like yourself?
Terrorists are gangsters, and like stopping any gangsters, stopping them is a law-enforcement issue.
You answer your own question in the next sentence (presuming your assertion is in fact true). Military ops have had no significant impact on local law enforcement here in the US. If it has, its nothing the media whines about.
February 4th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
What about federal law enforcement? The money we spent targeting anti-Islamist dicators could, at the very least, have been spent on something useful.
February 4th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Arthurplang, are you proposing that we reduce the size of our military by a couple of hundred billion per year, and create huge new federal police force? Expanding the size of the FBI by 10,000%? Turning the US into a police state?
It could work, I don’t think I like the idea, though.
February 4th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Off with Their Heads!!!!
I DO understand the Muslim accusing the government, after all it worked SO well here in America when the Democrats made those same statements about Bush when Zarqawi beheaded Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley…..it was all Bush’s fault.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
What about federal law enforcement?
What about it? The left already whines about listening to terrorist phone calls, I can’t imagine how they’d react to a major domestic increase in Bushitler’s “Secret police”.
February 4th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Beheading Britain
There have been some interesting blog posts and news items about the Islamofascist plot uncovered in Britain to capture, torture, and behead a UK Muslim soldier. Here area few links for you: Jules Crittenden comments on the battlefield moving westward,
February 4th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
[…] This post by Jules Crittenden (who if fast becoming one of my favorite commentators) about the change in tactics by Al Qaeda touches upon an often over-looked aspect of modern strategy: The experts pointed out that no … quite rightly to date … al-Qaeda was fixated on dramatic large-scale attacks. Planes falling out of the sky. International landmarks exploding. They don’t like the pennyante nature of small-scale attacks of a sort considered part of the normal fabric of life in their own neighborhoods. Because the audience wasn’t us. The audience was the Islamic world. […]
February 4th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Jules –
It’s not so much that I don’t think it’s coming here — rather, I think that if it does, it will be either a strategic major miscalculation or a sign that they are reaching desperation status. Right now, al Qaeda can rely on the anti-war crowd, war fatigue, the majority of the media and the academic class, and many politicians to weaken the country for them. Why risk waking us up again?
No, should those kind of attacks begin — video footage of school children lying dead in the gore of a shot-up elementary school — I think it will bring about the end of fantasies of a new Caliphate in short order.
February 4th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Jeff-they think we’re all like the above mentioned. They figure, one last push and we’ll fall apart (just look at the Spanish). Heck, they might even be right-if there is another big attack a good many people will just scream “BUUUUSH!!!” and demand that congress move ahead with impeachment rather than respond forcefully.
I think they’re wrong, but you wouldn’t know it by the trolls here and on other boards.
February 4th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
PM: I fervently hope you are right. However, the enemy has suffered few consequences for their actions. Rather, they have been consistently encouraged and emboldened by the reactions of those in the west. They are never blamed for what they do; to the contrary, they are excused, and the victim is blamed. The post by arthurplang is only a small taste of the way their propaganda has become the reigning meme throughout the media, the universities, and in every other public venue–including the government and within this administration. They have effectively hog-tied Bush.
Who, or what is left to stop them?
February 4th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Why risk waking us up again?
Indeed. Its not like we’re hard to hit. We’re very easy to hit. Play the edges, split the west. Classic divide and conquer strategy.
February 4th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
AQ, if they know us, will peel off the Europeans first, just as they did with Spain. It’s apparently the UK’s turn right now. AQ won’t come for us within our own borders until they’re ready. They will attack us outside our own borders in an effort to encourage an isolationist mood, and they will attack our allies and potential allies to chase them away — leaving our hand wringers to call for our own retreat from the field. If they know us, we will be among the last to experience frequent terrorist attacks within our own land. They got what they thought they needed with the 9/11 attacks — we came to them. Now, we have to hope they come to regret ever wanting us to come to them.
February 4th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I agree that if beheadings suicide bombings do happen here in the US (or in the UK and elsewhere in Europe), Bushitler’s Amerikkka will be blamed for stirring up the hornets’ nest. After all, none so blind as those who will not see, no?
February 4th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
More good news from Britainistan (Updated)
Al-Qaeda tells British cells to carry out wave of beheadings ISLAMIC terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham
February 4th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
[…] Courtesy of Jules Crittenden: […]
February 4th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Even if this article were real instead of some fringe right hairball coughed up by one of Rupert Murdochs tabloid hacks…
… wouldn’t it be a breach of security to report this info?
February 4th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Always an enabling response Alphie, were you as concerned re Berger’s pants? Or the NY Time’s many breaches of security?
February 4th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Alphie, if you would read the article you would see that the matter was kept secret since last autumn. The British investigated, identified suspects, conducted surveillance, provided protection to probable victims of the conspiracy, and arrested the suspects they had identified once it became apparent they were about to carry out their murder conspiracy. Once the arrests were made, anyone with a modicum of intelligence would realize that any other terrorist cells would know that the authorities were aware of their intentions. So, the answer to your question is apparently, “no, it wouldn’t be a breach of security to explain why several suspects were arrested for conspiracy to murder.”
February 5th, 2007 at 8:12 am
[…] Keep in mind that the terrorists are doing this because they think they are winning. They’re in it for the long haul and their audience this time, as Jules points out is the Western Muslims who think they don’t have to choose sides. The terrorists want them to know that if they aren’t actively helping Al Qaeda, they are enemies of Islam. […]
February 5th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Web Reconnaissance for 02/05/2007
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention.
February 6th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Protein Wisdom sensibly writes: “Right now, al Qaeda can rely on the anti-war crowd, war fatigue, the majority of the media and the academic class, and many politicians to weaken the country for them. Why risk waking us up again?”
They can’t help themselves. Murder is what they do. If they are not murdering, they aren’t preparing to go to heaven. We’re not dealing with rational people, who are thinking strategically on how to win a war. They know that at some time, they are going to attack us, so why wait around? Kill, kill, kill! Allahu Akbar!