WASHINGTON — In its ideological struggle against al-Qaida, American anti-terrorist strategy too often overlooks the basic tenets of the infamous Chinese warlord Sun Tzu, namely: know your enemy.
That is the fixed view of leading analysts, who conclude that through ignorance of the enemy it faces, ignorance of its nature, its goals, its strengths and its weaknesses, the United States is condemned to failure.
"The attention of the U.S. military and intelligence community is directed almost uniformly toward hunting down militant leaders or protecting U.S. forces, and not toward understanding the enemy we now face," said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC.
"This is a monumental failing not only because decapitation strategies have rarely worked in countering mass-mobilization terrorist or insurgent campaigns, but also because al-Qaida's ability to continue this struggle is based absolutely on its capacity to attract new recruits and replenish its resources.
"Without knowing our enemy, we cannot fulfill the most basic requirements of an effective counter-terrorist strategy: pre-empting and preventing terrorist operations and deterring their attacks," Hoffman added.
Officials said Friday that Abu Laith al-Libi — believed to have been killed when a missile fired by an unmanned U.S. aircraft hit his Pakistani hideout — was a top al-Qaida commander who led Osama bin Laden's terror network in Afghanistan.
He was in fifth position on a classified Central Intelligence Agency wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.
But in using the "al-Qaida" label when talking about suspects arrested or armed fighters killed — indiscriminately and sometimes wrongly, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere — American or Western forces create and feed a confusion which ultimately makes victims of themselves, experts say.
"Using body counts as a criterion to measure effectiveness is a bit like Guantanamo: you produce a tally, you mix up al-Qaida members or just hired hands with people who have only the vaguest of connections, people who have none at all and finally even pure civilians," added French academic Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of "Les Frontieres du Jihad" (The Limits of Jihad).
"When you reach that point, air strikes and the elimination of 'wanted' individuals not only prove fruitless, but actually become counter-productive.
"These actions only intensify al-Qaida recruitment, instead of weakening the organisation.
"The problem is this innate tendency within all administrations or bodies to stack up figures, pull out statistics, use them to show how they are winning, how they are liquidating their enemies, etc," Filiu added.
The "body count" syndrome is actually a "trap" laid by al-Qaida into which the Americans have "fallen" blindly, added Lebanese-American researcher Fawaz Gerges, an international relations specialist at Sarah Lawrence College, New York.
"You cannot win this war on the battlefield, because there is none," said Gerges. "You're facing an unconventional war. The more you rely on military might, the more you lose the war of ideas against al-Qaida and the militants.
"In Iraq, we fell into their trap. We gave them more ideological ammunition. So many Muslims all over the world are now convinced, and this feeling is so entrenched, that the war in Iraq is not against al-Qaida, but against Islam."
Gerges detects a growing appreciation of this phenomenon "even at the heart of the American administration," expressing his belief that a "new understanding" exists which casts George W Bush's war against al-Qaida as "counter-productive."
The Times of India (Feb 4, 2008, Slain Al-Qaida commander openly met Pak officials in Peshawar):
ISLAMABAD: Top Al-Qaida commander Abu Laith al-Libi, killed last week in northwestern Pakistan, openly met Pakistani officials and a Libyan diplomat in Peshawar despite a USD 200,000 reward on his head, a media report said on Monday.
Libi's death in Pakistan was reported by Al Qaida-linked websites and it is believed he was among 12 militants who died in a missile strike carried out by an unmanned aerial vehicle on a house at Khushali Torikhel village in Pakistan's troubled North Waziristan tribal area on January 29.
The terrorist leader from Libya had lived in northwestern Pakistan for years and "felt secure enough to meet officials and visit hospitals" in Peshawar, the Washington Post quoted officials and residents of the city as saying.
As he organised suicide bombings and other attacks in Afghanistan, Libi "found a comfortable refuge in Pakistan's border region", the paper quoted sources as saying.
He "met openly with a Pakistani politician and a Libyan diplomat and called on foreign fighters recovering from their wounds".
The way in which Libi moved unchallenged around the heart of Peshawar, a city of 1.2 million people, underscored "how freely he and other Al-Qaida leaders have been able to operate in Pakistan", the report said.
On one occasion in 2006, Libi "strode into the central prison in Peshawar and another Libyan fighter sat behind bars in the custody of Pakistani authorities... the Al-Qaida leader, the Pakistani politician and the Libyan diplomat argued over whether the militant should be deported against his wishes to Libya or released to fight another day, said Javed Ibrahim Paracha, the PML-N leader who helped arrange the meeting.
(1) We are pursuing a policy that has rarely been successful in defeating insurgencies.
(2) Al-Qaida leaders have complete freedom of movement within Pakistan.
(3) Pakistan is not looking for bin Laden.
(4) Pakistan manages to lose terrorists held in custody.
(5) Jundallah - based in Pakistan - members claim to have been trained by US & British intelligence officers; there is "member movement" between Jundallah & Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ), which "was involved, along with the Jaish e-Mohammad, in the abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in January 2002".
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