For military and counter-terror planners in an age of asymmetrical “fourth generation” struggles learning not to fight the proverbial last war has emerged as a critical if not THE most critical skill set. What’s less seldom discussed is how, in a protracted multi-generational, multi-tactical campaign against a constantly morphing non state enemy, to avoid fighting the last enemy, or more precisely the current enemy as they were rather than as they are. 

Two long and important essays published last week, The Rebellion Within by Lawrence Wright, and The Unraveling, by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, challenge us usefully to update our understanding of Al Qaeda as a shifting ideological target as well as a moving military one. Click here to read The Rebellion Within. Click here to read The Unraveling. 

Wright, author of The Looming Tower, Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, a historical look at Al-Qaeda, examines the theological and political battles currently simmering within the world of radical Islam, catalyzed by the recent publication of a letter by the ideological founder of Al Qaeda, Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (aka Dr. Fadl), essentially renouncing the entire terrorist project of Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda and their concept of violent jihad. 

Fadl, currently imprisoned in Egypt, was one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council and, more importantly, the author of The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge, sort of Al Qaeda’s Das Kapital, a book used by them to indoctrinate recruits and justify killing. He has now emerged as fierce critic of Al Qaeda’s violence, writing to all Muslims “We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that”. 

Fadl, according to Wright, “acknowledges that “terrorizing the enemy is a legitimate duty”; however, he points out, “legitimate terror” has many constraints. Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks in America, London, and Madrid were wrong, because they were based on nationality, a form of indiscriminate slaughter forbidden by Islam. In his Al Hayat interview, Fadl labels 9/11 “a catastrophe for Muslims,” because Al Qaeda’s actions “caused the death of tens of thousands of Muslims—Arabs, Afghans, Pakistanis and others.” 

The most original argument in the book is Fadl’s assertion that the hijackers of 9/11 “betrayed the enemy,” because they had been given U.S. visas, which are a contract of protection. “The followers of bin Laden entered the United States with his knowledge, and on his orders double-crossed its population, killing and destroying,” Fadl continues. “The Prophet—God’s prayer and peace be upon him—said, ‘On the Day of Judgment, every double-crosser will have a banner up his anus proportionate to his treachery.’ ” 

At one point, Fadl observes, “People hate America, and the Islamist movements feel their hatred and their impotence. Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours? . . . That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11.” 

Lest Fadl’s diatribe be dismissed as merely an arcane theological dispute, Wright explains that, “Fadl’s fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. “There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger,” Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position.” 

In a sure sign that Fadl has struck a nerve his renunciations of Al Qaeda leadership have been met with fierce counter-attacks by his former allies, led by none other than Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has over the past few months publically denounced his former teacher. According to Wright, “Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda? 

Wright suggests that might be precisely what is beginning to happen. “Zawahiri,” he writes, “has watched Al Qaeda’s popularity decline in places where it formerly enjoyed great support. In Pakistan, where hundreds have been killed recently by Al Qaeda suicide bombers—including, perhaps, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—public opinion has turned against bin Laden and his companions."

An Algerian terror organization, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, formally affiliated itself with Al Qaeda in September, 2006, and began a series of suicide bombings that have alienated the Algerian people, long weary of the horrors that Islamist radicals have inflicted on their country. Even members of Al Qaeda admit that their cause has been harmed by indiscriminate violence. In February of this year, Abu Turab al-Jazairi, an Al Qaeda commander in northern Iraq, whose nom de guerre suggests that he is Algerian, gave an interview to Al Arab, a Qatari daily.

“The attacks in Algeria sparked animated debate here in Iraq,” al-Jazairi said. “By God, had they told me they were planning to harm the Algerian President and his family, I would say, ‘Blessings be upon them!’ But explosions in the street, blood knee-deep, the killing of soldiers whose wages are not even enough for them to eat at third-rate restaurants . . . and calling this jihad? By God, it’s sheer idiocy!”

Al-Jazairi admitted that he and his colleagues were suffering a similar public-relations problem in Iraq, because “Al Qaeda has been infiltrated by people who have harmed its reputation.” He said that only about a third of the nine thousand fighters who call themselves members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia can be relied upon. “The rest are unreliable, since they keep harming the good name of Al Qaeda.” He concludes, “Our position is very difficult.” 

“It is, of course, unlikely that Al Qaeda will voluntarily follow the example of the Islamist Group and Zawahiri’s own organization, Al Jihad, and revise its violent strategy” Wright added. “But it is clear that radical Islam is confronting a rebellion within its ranks, one that Zawahiri and the leaders of Al Qaeda are poorly equipped to respond to.”