Al Qaeda Operative Charged With Directing 2009 Subway Bombing Plot
The Post reported today that a Saudi-American al-Qaeda operative (Adnan El Shukrijumah) is being charged with directing Najibullah Zazi’s NYC subway bombing plot last year, re-affirming the attack’s strong connection to al Qaeda’s central leadership.
Two things. First, and perhaps most obviously, this new information brings the degree to which this plot was ordered directly by AQ central, rather than simply guided or inspired, into much sharper focus and underscores the fact that pressured, on the run, wounded, hurting, broken, or whatever adjectives you want to use to describe al Qaeda’s core does not mean that they’ve been deterred or beaten.
Second, the article highlights just how easily you can see whatever you want to see in a successful or failed attack or in involvement or lack of involvement on the part of AQ central and promote policy prescriptions accordingly:
[The charges] present the government’s clearest case to date that the main al-Qaeda organization remains active in trying to attack U.S. targets, alongside similar efforts by al-Qaeda affiliates.
President Obama and senior national security aides have increasingly cited recent domestic terrorism cases as justification for the war in Afghanistan, noting that country’s border with uncontrolled tribal areas in Pakistan where al-Qaeda is based and from which, U.S. officials say, threats continue to emanate.
I find it interesting that claims of significant progress toward destroying al Qaeda and calls for continued relentless pressure to disrupt al Qaeda’s operations seem to come both when there are no attacks from AQ central (i.e. these operations are clearly effective) and when they’re shown to still be directly orchestrating them (i.e. more of these operations are clearly needed ).
I understand that this isn’t necessarily a contradiction. I do think, though, that we should be sure to look critically at statements suggesting that the presence or absence of attacks clearly suggests one thing or the other, or that we should do one thing or the other based on speculative conclusions. Otherwise we risk running headlong into policy solutions without a real grasp of their potential ability to solve the problem.
