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Author Topic: Inside an army of terror
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 21 March 2002 05:23 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Like a lot of things, I found this fascinating:
quote:
If the jihadi army operated like other organizations, it also displayed much of the usual internal bickering.

Recruits complained about their instructors. "Thank God for the opportunity to take this course," a recruit named Rami wrote in what appeared to be an evaluation of one of his classes. But then he pointed out that "I'm not sure about the requirements of this course, since the trainer pressures the trainees and stresses their nerves."

Commanders griped about their bosses. In an Aug. 27, 2001, letter, a commander named Abd al-Hadi al-Ansari commiserated with a colleague, Abd al-Wakil, about how their superior did not support them. He said he had noticed a recent loss of morale in Mr. Wakil and counseled him on how to navigate the frustrations of the bureaucracy.

"Don't let anyone put pressure on you. Don't accept an assignment you cannot implement," he wrote. "Whenever you are given a new assignment, try to create your own team and never choose brothers that are older than you."

Even the big bosses carped.

"I think that there are no more people who truly trust in good any more," said a memo dated June 15, 1998, from a Qaeda house. "Everyone has trained his followers so that they are only concerned about their own status, name and rank, that they have forgotten everything about following orders and respecting their main leader."

It was signed "the servant of Islam Mullah Muhammad Omar."



Al Qaeda's Grocery Lists and Manuals of Killing

From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 21 March 2002 11:25 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's hard to know what to make of this, isn't it. I keep wondering just how effective most of the graduates of bin Laden's camps might be -- there's Mohammed Atta at one (most effective) end of the spectrum, of course, but then there's also Richard Reid.

And yet all the world's military might is focused on smashing elusive cells of these guys, most of whom might be more Reid than Atta. What to think ...

In terms of the military face-offs still going on in Afghanistan, this is interesting:

quote:
An estimated 20,000 recruits passed through roughly a dozen training camps since 1996, when Mr. bin Laden established his base of operations in Afghanistan, American officials say. Most received basic infantry training that covered the use of various small arms, as well as antiarmor and antiaircraft weapons and, in some cases, basic demolition, the documents show.

"The vast majority of them were cannon fodder," a United States government official said.


Obviously. The dreaded al Qaeda/Taliban fighters up in the hills, already reforming a few valleys away, the eternal threat -- and most of them bewildered kids. And the U.S. admin know this. This is a war on Terror?


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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