Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-138-Caliphate-The State of al-Qaida-57-Comeback-8

CdW Intelligence to Rent -2016- In Confidence [email protected]

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-138-Caliphate-The State of al-Qaida-57-Comeback-8

ISIS and al-Qaeda have been at war with each other since September 2015; “We [al-Qaeda] don’t recognize this

caliphate…

A senior US general in Afghanistan recently admitted the US military and intelligence services’ long-held belief that al Qaeda has only 50 to 100 operatives based in the country is incorrect, stating that number must be revised upward. Since 2010, US officials have claimed that al Qaeda has been “decimated” in Afghanistan and has maintained a consistent minimal presence of 50 to 100 operatives.For more than six years, The Long War Journal has warned that official estimate of al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan is erroneous, and the jihadist group remains a significant threat to this day.Major General Jeff Buchanan, Resolute Support’s Deputy Chief of Staff, directly discussed al Qaeda’s footprint in the country publicly today, and warned that previous US estimates on al Qaeda’s strength were wrong.

ISIS and al-Qaeda have been at war with each other since September 2015; Before his death in 2011, former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned his

followers that any attempt to prematurely establish an Islamic state would fail, new documents released March 2016 reveal.

Wary of following the path taken by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) years later in moving to establish a caliphate too soon, as the latter did in 2014.

Bin Laden urged his followers to be patient as Western powers could defeat them due to their greater military power.

“We want Sanaa to establish an Islamic State, but first, we want to make sure that we have the capability to gain control of it,” bin Laden wrote.

“The enemy continues to possess the ability to topple any state we establish,” he continued. “We have to remember that the enemy toppled the Taliban and Saddam’s regime.”

He told subordinates not to publish “pictures of prisoners after they were beheaded,” which has become a trademark of ISIS’s execution videos.

"Had ISIS and al Qaeda realigned by joining forces, it would be terrible." Though they are rivals, there are many similarities between the two groups. In terms of their worldview and ideology, the two enterprises are close. While Al Qaeda and ISIS clearly have a lot in common, there are serious

differences standing in the way of an early merger between the two giants of jihad.Earlier this month, President Barack Obama invoked the need for world leaders to cope with “the danger of a terrorist group obtaining and using a nuclear weapon.” In his speech at the Nuclear Security Summit, he had much success to report: earlier commitments to secure or eliminate nuclear material had been followed by most of the world’s states.

Sep 2015, al-Zawahiri said: “We have endured a lot of harm from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers, and we preferred to respond with as little as possible, out of our concern to extinguish the fire of sedition. “But Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his brothers did not

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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leave us a choice, for they have demanded that all the mujahideen reject their confirmed pledges of allegiance, and to pledge allegiance to them for what they claim of a caliphate."Al-Baghdadi had called on the world’s Muslims to “obey” him as the head of the caliphate in a rare public speech in Mosul, Iraq last year.He said: "I am the wali (leader) who presides over you, though I am not the best of you, so if you see that I am right, assist me. “If you see that I am wrong, advise me and put me on the right track, and obey me as long as I obey God in you.” Zawahiri said "everyone was surprised" by al-Baghdadi's declaration and he had done this "without consulting the Muslims".

Nearly 70,000 Indian Muslim clerics have signed a fatwa against Isis and other terror groups saying they were "not Islamic organisations", Dec 2015.

Senior Israeli Official: ISIS' Downfall in Syria Only a Matter of Time. Israeli officials doubt Russia's claims of troops withdrawal, but voice careful optimism about Islamic State's demise; meanwhile, it's been a long time since Assad was so far from the Israeli border.A senior Israeli defense source told Haaretz that "the defeat of ISIS in Syria is a matter of time.""It will mainly bring about an improvement in coordination between world powers and rebel groups fighting against it (ISIS), both the Sunni moderates and the Kurds," the source said. Israel's impression is that the organization cannot cope with so many fronts and that it's expected to retreat under pressure from further territory in eastern Syria. The military campaign against it in Iraq, expected to focus in the coming months on an attempt to seize Mosul, will probably be involve more difficulties. Nobody in Israel's intelligence community, and the same goes for Western intelligence communities, has any doubt that ISIS intends to operate more terrorist cells in Europe and perhaps beyond, continuing with the attacks it has initiated in recent months.read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712974The fact that the cease-fire does not include the most radical rebel groups of all, the Nusra Front and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), allows the Assad regime and the Russian air force to not only attack them, but to draw in other rebel factions that have sometimes formed local alliances with the Nusra Front. Many organizations have yet to join the cease-fire agreement; the Israeli assessment is that only slightly more than 40 of the rebel groups (out of more than 100) are committed to it. By the convening of the next diplomatic talks in Geneva scheduled for Saturday, it isn’t clear how much of the cease-fire will be left.Israel is skeptical of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that he is withdrawing his forces from Syria. In fact, the Russians have withdrawn only one of two squadrons it was maintaining in the Latakia and Tartus region on Syria’s northwestern coast. There are still some 20 Sukhoi attack aircraft and four interceptors. The Russians are also operating advanced combat helicopters. Their air strikes have not stopped, even though the average daily number of sorties has dropped from 200-300 to about 100.Putin’s announcement of the end of the military campaign was apparently aimed at boosting the diplomatic process he initiated in Geneva. Although chances of its success are low, Russia has clearly positioned itself as the one leading the way in Syria, both on the military and the diplomatic fronts. Moscow dictated the stabilization of the regime’s defense lines and then its advance toward conquering small bits of territory throughout the





country, thanks to Russia’s air strikes between October and February.read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712974

ISIS & al-Qaeda Merger? Terrorist Groups May Join ForcesApril 8, 2016 London-based newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat is reporting that the Libyan branches of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood are in talks to form a shared governing council after a leak of terrorist documents. Foreign Affairs further writes that the reunification of ISIS and al-Qaeda can be expected by 2021.Is it possible? al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has suggested coalescence in the past. ISIS and al-Qaeda have been at war with each other since September 2015, when al-Zawahiri, the man who replaced Osama bin Laden as the head of al-Qaeda, declared war on ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an audio message. al-Zawahiri said:

“We [al-Qaeda] don’t recognize this caliphate… Despite the big mistakes [of ISIS], if I were in Iraq or Syria I would cooperate with them in killing the crusaders and secularists and Shia even though I don’t recognize the legitimacy of their state, because the matter is bigger than that.” Along with the al-Zawahiri’s statement, al-Qaeda also perpetuated a blitz propaganda campaign in November 2015 calling ISIS “un-jihadi.”

Watch those videos here.ISIS arose out of al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI. According to Yahoo! News: [ISIS] split from al-Qaeda during the early phases of the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011, after refusing to confine its operations to Syria. [ISIS] has since seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq, eclipsing al-Qaeda as the world’s chief jihadist threat, with [ISIS] chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

declaring himself Caliph or leader of all Muslims in 2014.The newest rumor of reunification between the two terrorist groups, with the addition of the Muslim Brotherhood, comes out of North Africa where all three Sunni extremist groups are currently warring with each other and the struggling Libyan government. The Muslim Brotherhood is an Egyptian Islamist group.Breitbart reports on the documents leaked by Al Sharq al Awsat:The paper said the Muslim Brotherhood is considering a united Islamic front even though the movement is officially in favor of forming a unity government… Negotiations between the three Islamic groups began because of reports of a rapprochement between the internationally recognized government based in Tobruk and the unrecognized government in the capital Tripoli… The groups wish to send a message to the forces coalescing around a unity government that they are not opposed by [ISIS] alone, but “all the Islamist opposition elements speak in one voice and should be treated as such,” a source said.Foreign Affairs writes that scenario is probable outside of North Africa for a multitude of reasons, number one because “the ideological similarities between ISIS and al-Qaeda are more significant than the differences” and that both “view that the Western state system is inimical to the imposition of sharia (Islamic law).” But the biggest reason the two remain separate is arguably the clashing egos of al-Zawahiri and al-Baghdadi. Even in al-Zawahiri’s September statement against ISIS, he did suggest “cooperation.”

There are both similarities and differences between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of WarCdW Intelligence to Rent Page 3 of 9 02/05/2023



Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Both are bloodthirsty terrorist organizations bent on jihad, sworn enemies of the infidel West and the United States in particular. Could they one day unite in an international jihadist merger to create an even more potent regional and global threat? It is possible.For the moment, at least, the two groups are rivals for the mantle of jihadi supremacy and neither side's leadership has shown much interest in a union. The situation is extremely fluid, though, so it is not inconceivable that at some point in the future, beyond the current leadership perhaps, the two organizations could become one.Al Qaeda has morphed several times since its emergence in the 1990s and its recognition as the global leader in terror with the 9/11 attacks in 2001.ISIL or ISIS did not emerge as an international rival to Al Qaeda until 2013. Since then, ISIS challenged Al Qaeda's central leadership, engaged in hostilities with Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, expanded its areas of control and influence in Syria and Iraq, declared the existence of an Islamic State, and received pledges of loyalty from various jihadist fronts, including factions within Al Qaeda's affiliates in Africa and the Middle East.

Though they are rivals, there are many similarities between the two groups. Both enterprises comprise a central leadership and an array of affiliates who, while pledging their loyalty to one or the other, have their own interests, capabilities, and modus operandi. Individual fighters may also have their own agendas, and loyalties may continue to shift according to which group is perceived as dominant. In addition, both organizations appeal to self-radicalized individuals, who help the groups build their respective brands through terrorist acts carried out in other regions, including in the United States.

In terms of their worldview and ideology, the two enterprises are close. Both see Islam under threat by hostile forces primarily in the West. They share a fundamentalist or Salafist interpretation of the faith. They share the same notion that jihad means primarily an armed struggle, not merely a spiritual quest, and that it is the collective and individual duty of all Muslims to participate in or directly contribute to the armed struggle. Both Al Qaeda and ISIS see themselves as global movements with global ambitions. Both reject the tenets of the current international order and see the conflict between Muslims and “crusaders” as one that began centuries ago and that will continue to Judgment Day.

Still, there are some doctrinal differences. Al Qaeda's leaders (and most Muslim scholars) reject ISIS's declaration of the caliphate. ISIS takes a harder line on Shia, focusing a large share of its attacks on Shia mosques and other targets. Al Qaeda has taken a more ecumenical line, arguing that Muslim attacks on Muslims, even those following what it regarded as deviant paths, would alienate followers and distract from the campaign against the infidels.While Al Qaeda's leaders have expressed territorial ambitions, like driving Westerners out of Saudi Arabia and ridding Palestine of crusaders and Zionists, the group has largely operated out of sanctuaries, rather than seeking to seize and hold territory.ISIS's leaders, on the other hand, see themselves as presiding over an Islamic State, which, as its name implies, is a physical, territorial expression. ISIS conquers, controls, governs, and even runs an economy, something Al Qaeda did not try to do.The duel for supremacy is really a competition for support, alliances with like-minded groups and the loyalty of fighters, both in the region and afar. ISIS appears to be attracting a larger and younger audience, which reflects its superior use of online resources. Part of ISIS's recruiting appeal also lies in its advertisement of atrocities, but there are weaknesses in this, including a faddish quality, which fickle youth might quickly abandon.Al Qaeda, meanwhile, has been less able to receive new fighters in great numbers since its





training camps were dispersed after 9/11. Geographic convenience and ease of access enabled ISIS to attract an estimated 30,000 foreign fighters to its ranks, including 5,000 from Western countries. Still, Al Qaeda has hardly given up its global terrorist campaign, continuing to provide encouragement, training and assistance to foreign volunteers planning to carry out terrorist attacks.To maintain the allegiance of their followers, both Al Qaeda and ISIS must remain violent and active. Terrorists attacking in their home countries have pledged allegiance to both groups.The November terrorist attack on a Paris night club appears to be the work of a group of French fighters serving with ISIS. The attack on the offices of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January, 2015, was carried out by brothers who had declared their loyalty to Al Qaeda, while their comrade who simultaneously attacked a Kosher supermarket in Paris, claimed his operation to be on behalf of ISIS.Syed Farouk, who attacked the San Bernardino Regional Center in December, began plotting terrorist attacks in 2011, well before the emergence of ISIS. However, his wife Tashfeen Malik, who participated in the attack, declared her loyalty to ISIS.While Al Qaeda and ISIS clearly have a lot in common, there are serious differences standing in the way of an early merger between the two giants of jihad. It could take a change in leadership of both groups and perhaps some compromises on mission and strategy, but there are enough points of confluence to make a united jihadist front a realistic and frightening possibility. Brian Michael Jenkins is senior adviser to the president of the nonprofit RAND Corporation and the author of How the Current Conflicts Are Shaping the Future of Syria and Iraq.

Regards Cees***

The news can get more depressing. We might get blown up.Earlier this month, President Barack Obama invoked the need for world leaders to cope with “the danger of a terrorist group obtaining and using a nuclear weapon.” In his speech at the Nuclear Security Summit, he had much success to report: earlier commitments to secure or eliminate nuclear material had been followed by most of the world’s states.A “but” was coming, and it was large: both al Qaeda and Islamic State actively seek nuclear weaponry, Obama said, and “there is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material they most certainly would use it to kill as many innocent people as possible.” That seems likely to be true: both groups have said so, and a member of Islamic State — which has already used chemical weapons — obtained surveillance footage of a manager at a nuclear facility in Belgium, with a view, officials say, of possibly developing a “dirty” bomb (a conventional explosive device packed with radioactive material).The head of U.S. National Intelligence, James Clapper, told a Senate committee last month that “the threat of WMD is real. Biological and chemical materials and technologies, almost always dual use, move easily in the globalized economy, as do personnel with the scientific expertise to design and use them.” The veteran commentator on terrorism, Bruce Hoffman, wrote in March that Islamic State is moving towards the “final Definitive Victory State… when the caliphate ultimately triumphs over the rest of the world.” For that, it will need nuclear weapons.Hoffman also believes that the two groups most hungry for global domination — Islamic State and al Qaeda — may merge, in spite of their leaders’ mutual hostility. This possibility, he said, quoting an unnamed senior U.S. official, “would be an absolute and





unprecedented disaster for (the United States) and our allies.

US military admits al Qaeda is stronger in Afghanistan than previously estimatedBY BILL ROGGIO AND THOMAS JOSCELYN | April 13, 2016 | [email protected] |

A banner from an As Sahab propaganda tape, titled “Winds of Paradise – Part 5, Eulogizing 5 ‘Martyrs,’” that details five al Qaeda fighters killed in Afghanistan.

A senior US general in Afghanistan recently admitted the US military and intelligence services’ long-held belief that al Qaeda has only 50 to 100 operatives based in the country is incorrect, stating that number must be revised upward. Since 2010, US officials have claimed that al Qaeda has been “decimated” in Afghanistan and has maintained a consistent minimal presence of 50 to 100 operatives.For more than six years, The Long War Journal has warned that official estimate of al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan is erroneous, and the jihadist group remains a significant

threat to this day.The US military began walking back its low estimate of al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan at the start of April. Last week, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, the top spokesman for Resolute Support, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, told The Washington Post that al Qaeda has forged close ties to the Taliban and is resurgent in the country.Major General Jeff

Buchanan, Resolute Support’s Deputy Chief of Staff, directly discussed al Qaeda’s footprint in the country publicly today, and warned that previous US estimates on al Qaeda’s strength were wrong.“If you go back to last year, there were a lot of intel estimates that said within Afghanistan al Qaeda probably has 50 to 100 members, but in this one camp we found more than 150,” Buchanan told CNN.The camp that Buchanan was referring to was located in the Shorabak district in Kandahar. In October 2015, a large US military strike force took four days to clear two al Qaeda camps in Shorabak. One camp covered over 30 square miles, and included large caches of weapons, ammunition, and other supplies. An al Qaeda media cell was also based there. [See LWJ reports, US military strikes large al Qaeda training camps in southern Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda’s Kandahar training camp ‘probably the largest’ in Afghan War.]After the Shorabak raid, General John Campbell, then the commander of Resolute Support, noted that US military and intelligence officials were surprised that the camp even existed.





“It’s a place where you would probably think you wouldn’t have AQ [al Qaeda]. I would agree with that,” Campbell said, according to the Post. “This was really AQIS [al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent], and probably the largest training camp-type facility that we have seen in 14 years of war.”Buchanan echoed Campbell’s surprise that al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent was operating in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the group said at its founding that Afghanistan was a primary theater of operations, and the group has sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s emir, which was accepted. From the CNN report:The now-destroyed training camp — attacked in a lengthy operation by US special forces and Afghan commandos in October — showed a high degree of sophistication “with ties back to al Qaeda and a subset called al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent,” Buchanan said.“To find them in Afghanistan was quite troubling.”After Shorabak, US officials are now estimating that al Qaeda may have upwards of 300 operatives in the country, “but that number does include other facilitators and sympathizers in their network,” CNN reported.The enduring Taliban-al Qaeda relationshipGenerals Campbell and Buchanan have characterized the al Qaeda and Taliban relationship as a recent development, not one that has endured for years. According to CNN, Campbell described the Taliban-al Qaeda relationship as a “renewed partnership,” while Buchanan said it “has since ‘grown stronger.'”But like the estimate that al Qaeda maintained a small cadre of 50 to 100 operatives in Afghanistan between 2010 and today, the idea that the Taliban and al Qaeda have a recently “renewed partnership” is incorrect. Al Qaeda would not have been able to maintain a large cadre of fighters and leaders inside Afghanistan, and conduct operations in 25 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces without the long term support of the Taliban.Al Qaeda has remained loyal to the Taliban’s leader, which it describes as the Amir al Mumineen, or the commander of the faithful, since the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Osama bin Laden maintained his oath of allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder and first emir. When bin Laden died, Ayman al Zawahiri renewed that oath. And when Mullah Omar’s death was announced last year, Zawahiri swore bayat to Mullah Mansour, the Taliban’s new leader. Mansour publicly accepted Zawahiri’s oath.The close relationship between the two jihadist groups is also evident with the assent of the Taliban’s new deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the powerful Taliban subgroup known as the Haqqani Network. Siraj and the Haqqani Network have maintained close ties to al Qaeda; this is evident in the US government’s designations of multiple Haqqani Network leaders. Two document seized from Osama bin Laden’s compound shows that Siraj played a key role in the jihadist network in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [See LWJ reports, Osama bin Laden’s Files: The Pakistani government wanted to negotiate, and The Taliban’s new leadership is allied with al Qaeda.]The Long War Journal has refuted the low estimate of al Qaeda in Afghanistan since 2010The Obama administration and US intelligence official have vastly underestimated al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan. Dating back to 2010, top US officials have stated that al Qaeda is weak in Afghanistan. In July 2010, Director Leon Panetta, who was the CIA director at the time, claimed that al Qaeda has “50 to 100” operatives based in the country.“I think at most, we’re looking at maybe 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity. There’s no question that the main location of al-Qaeda is in tribal areas of Pakistan,” Panetta said on ABC News This Week.The 50 to 100 estimate was repeated by numerous US military and intelligence officials





over the years. As recently as June 2015, the US military claimed in its biannual Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan report that al Qaeda “has a sustained presence in Afghanistan of probably fewer than 100 operatives concentrated largely in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces, where they remain year-round.” The December 2015 report claimed that al Qaeda is “primarily concentrated in the east and northeast,” despite the Shorabak raid. The US military and intelligence community has also wrongly claimed for years that al Qaeda is confined to northeastern Afghanistan. [See LWJ report, US military insists al Qaeda is “concentrated” in Afghan east and northeast]In addition, Obama administration officials have repeatedly described al Qaeda in Afghanistan as being defeated and “decimated.”No effort was made in the US government to publicly revise the 50 to 100 estimate or address al Qaeda’s persistent presence in the country. For instance, when the US military claimed that 40 al Qaeda fighters were killed between January and September of 2011, the 50 to 100 estimate remained constant.From the beginning, The Long War Journal refuted US estimates of al Qaeda’s footprint in Afghanistan. A sampling of these reports can be seen below.Numerous data points that are in the public sphere raise questions about the official US estimate of al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan.For instance, the International Security Assistance Force, the predecessor of Resolute Support, occasionally issued detailed press releases on raids against al Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan. The Long War Journal compiled these reports and mapped the locations of the raids over time. The data shows that between early 2007 and June 2013, al Qaeda and its network of allies were targeted 338 different times, in 25 of 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces. This indicates that al Qaeda has an extensive presence across Afghanistan, one that cannot be maintained with a mere 50 to 100 operatives.Al Qaeda’s own martyrdom statements that detail its fighters killed in Afghanistan, as well as its propaganda on operations in the country, matches ISAF’s raid data. Al Qaeda has said it operates in the same provinces where ISAF has targeted the group.Additionally, documents seized from Osama bin Laden’s compound reveal that al Qaeda was increasing its presence in Afghanistan even as US officials were quick to announce the group’s demise. In one document, dated June 19, 2010, Atiyah Abd al Rahman, bin Laden’s general manager named eight provinces where al Qaeda is active.“We have very strong military activity in Afghanistan, many special operations, and the Americans and NATO are being hit hard,” Rahman wrote.In another letter from bin Laden to Atiyah, dated Oct. 21, 2010, the al Qaeda leader tells his general manager that he should relocate as many “brothers” as possible to the eastern Afghan provinces of Nuristan, Kunar, Ghazni and Zabul to avoid the US drone campaign in North and South Waziristan. It is unclear to what extent bin Laden’s directive was followed, however ISAF targeted multiple al Qaeda operatives and leaders in those provinces and others since it was issued.The Long War Journal has warned the US government that al Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan remains a threat to the US, and that it was being vastly underestimated. Senior Editor Thomas Joscelyn testified on this subject to the US Congress in July 2013 and May 2014.Additionally, Joscelyn and Senior Editor Bill Roggio published an opinion article in The New York Times warning of the danger of underestimating al Qaeda in Afghanistan.A sampling of reports from LWJ‘s editors refuting the US government’s estimate of al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan

US military insists al Qaeda is “concentrated” in Afghan east and “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of WarCdW Intelligence to Rent Page 8 of 9 02/05/2023



northeast (Dec. 16, 2015)Al Qaeda hasn’t been neutralized (The Weekly Standard,

Nov. 20, 2015)Are we losing Afghanistan again (New York Times op-ed, Oct. 21,

2015)Osama Bin Laden’s Files: ‘Very strong military activity in

Afghanistan’ (Feb. 27, 2015)Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan: An enduring threat (Congressional testimony, May 20, 2014)Global al Qaeda: Affiliates, objectives, and future challenges (Congressional testimony, July 18, 2013)ISAF raids against al Qaeda and allies in Afghanistan 2007-2013 (May 30, 2013)Al Qaeda-linked insurgent targeted in Ghazni raid (Aug. 12, 2012)The Taliban on US estimates of al Qaeda strength in Afghanistan (May 20, 2012)How many al Qaeda fighters are in Afghanistan again? (Sept. 4, 2011)How many al Qaeda operatives are now left in Afghanistan? (April 26, 2011)Al Qaeda never left Kunar, and other problems with US intel (April 7, 2011)Analysis: Al Qaeda martyrdom tape shows nature and extent of terror group’s reach in Afghanistan (Oct. 28, 2010)Analysis: Al Qaeda maintains an extensive network in Afghanistan (July 29, 2010)Counting al Qaeda (July 10, 2010)

The ‘only 50 to 100’ al Qaeda in Afghanistan fallacy (July 1, 2010)Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of The Long War Journal. Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for The Long War Journal.




Documents

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 19-138-Caliphate-The State of al-Qaida-57-Comeback-8