Mohamed al-Zawahiri, younger brother of Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman, made
a particularly intriguing statement in Cairo last month. Talking to that
wonderful French institution Le Journal du Dimanche about Mali, he asked the
paper to warn France "and to call on reasonable French people and wise men not
to fall into the same trap as the Americans. France is held responsible for
having occupied a Muslim country. She has declared war on Islam." No clearer
warning could France have received. And sure enough, one day later, suicide
bombers attacked occupied Gao, while, exactly 10 days later, France lost its
second soldier in Mali, shot dead by rebels in a battle in the Ifoghas mountain
range. That's where, according to the tired old rhetoric of President Hollande,
there had been a battle with "terrorists" who were "holed up" in the area during
an operation which was "in its last phase". The phraseology is as wearying – you
could listen to the same old wording in almost every US pronouncement during the
Iraqi war – as is the West's incomprehension of the new al-Qa'ida.
Only
Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel could match this. "They seek him here, they
seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere …" But who, exactly? The
leader of which particular groupuscule of al-Qa'ida-inspired gunmen in Mali?
Indeed, our lords and masters seem to have not the slightest idea who they are
talking about. A few weeks ago, when many of us didn't even known the name of
the Malian capital – admit it, O readers – we were all under the impression that
al-Qa'ida's resurgence was in Iraq, where it's back to almost daily suicide
bombing against Shias.
Then out came "al-Qa'ida scholar" (as his
publishers call him) Gregory Johnsen with a book entitled The Last Refuge:
Yemen, Al-Qaeda and the Battle for Arabia. Yes, folks, it was the Queen of
Sheba's ancient kingdom that had lured the hard guys; the book had not a single
reference to Mali. And then – blow us all down – it turned out that the dodgy
lads of al-Qa'ida were in northern Syria (see La Clinton and our own plucky
little Foreign Secretary). Needless to say, we were back in Mali again on 12
February, when al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (headquarters supposedly
Yemen, remember) were calling for jihad in Mali against the "crusaders". Well,
at least al-Qaida had narrowed down one of the European nations which really did
participate in the original Crusades. The Western press, as usual, generally
went along with this nonsensical narrative, quoting the usual mountebank
"terrorist" specialists in London, Paris and all places West.
Thank
heavens, then, that we have Arab writers such as Abdel Bari Atwan – who knew the
real Bin Laden better than any other journalist – with his volume After Bin
Laden: Al-Qa'ida, the Next Generation. Atwan – admission: an old friend of mine
–has structured exactly how al-Qa'ida metamorphosed after Bin Laden's execution
and recalled how in 2005 he received by email a document entitled "Al-Qa'ida's
strategy to 2020", which contained seven "stages" towards a world Islamic
caliphate.
Stage one was to "provoke the ponderous American elephant into
invading Muslim lands where it would be easier for the mujahideen to fight it".
Stage two: The Muslim nation wakes from its long sleep and is furious at the
sight of a new generation of crusaders intent on occupying large parts of the
Middle East and stealing its valuable resources. "The seeds of the hatred
towards America that al-Qa'ida was banking on," Atwan says, "were planted when
the first bombs dropped on Baghdad in 2003." In fact, as I outlined after the
invasion, an oblique message from Bin Laden just before the Bush adventure –
typically ignored by the CIA – actually urged al-Qa'ida members to co-operate
with the hated Baathists against US forces. This was the first call from
al-Qa'ida to collaborate with other groups – hence the plague of al-Qa'ida units
which are fighting alongside other rebel organizations in Iraq, Yemen, Libya,
Algeria, Mali and now Syria.
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