The good kind:
OSAMA BIN LADEN’S messages from the wilderness get little attention nowadays. Al-Qaeda has been unable to land a blow on Western soil since the 2005 London bombings. Its leaders lurk in Pakistan’s tribal belt, hiding from regular lethal attacks by America’s unmanned Predator aircraft. Their Pushtun hosts are tiring of their troublesome guests. Perhaps most damaging, former supporters publicly denounce its ideology…
Yet Palestine is a problem as well as an opportunity for al-Qaeda. It wants to be linked with the cause that is dearest to Muslims’ hearts, but it has little to offer. Others have fought harder against Israel, chiefly Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hizbullah, the Shia militia in Lebanon. But jihadists of al-Qaeda’s sort regard the Muslim Brotherhood as, at best, deviant. By taking part in elections they place man’s law above God’s. And they see Shias as apostates.
Al-Qaeda’s failure to fight for Palestine comes up repeatedly in jihadist internet forums. It also forms part of the latest ideological counter-attack against al-Qaeda by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, one of its founders in 1998 and a leading jihadist ideologue under the pen-name “Dr Fadl”. He has since fallen out with its leaders, particularly Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded him as head of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad group. Al-Qaeda, he now says, “did not offer Palestine anything except words”.
A rift then between al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Let’s hope they fight to the last man!
Indeed! This good news, if it isn’t some kind of decoy. We can certainly hope, but those idiots seem to have the luck of the energizer bunny.
Regrets, this is business as usual. Dr Fadl bothers Zawahiri, with whom it is a grudge match, but it’s broadly accepted that the murderer Fadl is simply cozying up to the Egyptian government so he doesn’t die in prison. AQ-style Sunni extremism has made a few inroads into the turf, but Hamas and Fatah are rival gangs who will tolerate no third gang in the hood. Nor will Hizballah, the de facto government of Lebanon–the Sunnis get away with almost nothing unless it has the tacit approval of Hizballah.
I’d love to see them all in a slugfest cage match, but it’s not going to happen.
The best news in all of this is that the nominally Pakistani tribes are getting fed up with the al Quaeda presence in their areas: those guys are grudge-holders of the first water.
I regret that I can’t find the article to reference, but the NY Times (I believe… it was a few months back) reported a tribal force burning down an al Quaeda safehouse, amongst other incidents, prompted by the lack of civility, overweening arrogance, and abuse of local hospitality by al Quaeda fighters.