<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">John J. Le Beau</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Death of bin Laden, and the Future of Al-Qaeda</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Dangerous Landscape</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2013</style></year></dates><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">221-222</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">On May 2nd, 2011, an elite team of U.S. Navy SEALs operating under CIA command, attacked a residential compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan and in an operation lasting a matter of minutes killed Osama bin Laden, the creator, initial financier, and active chief of al Qaeda. The man who had masterminded the first instance of “four-digit” terrorism in history was unceremoniously buried at sea; no monument would mark his grave.
The targeted killing of bin Laden did not end the life of al Qaeda, as the above chapters concede. But the events of 2011 may have signaled that al Qaeda, measured as a terrorist organization, was, if nothing else, degraded to the extent that it could only exist in a half-life; an example of violent extremism on terminal care. Arguably, perhaps, this sort of systemic degradation should have been anticipated.
The United States, enjoying unprecedented global military power, struck back at its al Qaeda adversaries in a display of patient efficiency and political will. The drone strikes that had decimated the al Qaeda leadership ranks had started years before the Abbotabad raid, and continued thereafter. By the time of the Abbotabad incursion, al Qaeda, by most accounts, was in disarray. As of the time of this publication, al Qaeda has simply not recovered. There has, as some measure, been no successful attack upon the United States since 9/11, and there have been only a handful of significant terrorist strikes elsewhere in the Western world, such as London and Madrid. More importantly, both bin Laden and al Qaeda failed to serve as a match which would set aflame the Muslim world to do battle with the forces of modernity, which was translated as the infidel West and its allies (the so-called “Near Enemy”) in the Middle East. While seething resentment and conspiracy-theory-fueled suspicion of the West is commonplace, the vast majority of Muslims did not take the bait. The Arab Spring has had a real impact on some of the rulers in the Middle East, and is importantly and perhaps disturbingly Islamist, but it is not al Qaeda.</style></abstract><section><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">15</style></section></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">John J. Le Beau</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Foreword</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Dangerous Landscape</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2013</style></year></dates><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">John J. Le Beau</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">New Blood: The Recruitment of Terrorists</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Dangerous Landscape</style></secondary-title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2013</style></year></dates><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1-18</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Any viable organization, regardless of its goals, requires recruits as a funda-mental prerequisite of survival. To remain competitive, commercial entities like General Electric, Siemens, Apple or Toyota need to attract new personnel to make good routine losses from retirement, career change, etc. Locating, at-tracting and bringing on board the appropriate recruits provide, in a real sense, life blood for these organizations. The same fact of organizational life holds true for al Qaeda (following the demise of Osama bin Laden), Jamiyah Islami¬yah, Hamas, the Taliban and other terrorist groups. Indeed, in the case of ter¬rorist organizations, which by their nature are engaged in a high-risk and deadly earnest pursuit, recruitment is especially essential because the mem¬bership suffers real losses in votaries who are killed, wounded or captured by government security services. The violent deaths of bin Laden, Imam al-Awlaki and other high-profile jihadists underline this point. Without continual re-cruitment to replenish the ranks, a terrorist organization degrades, atrophies, and eventually dies.
No organization with either set or vague goals, no matter what its mission, can long survive without replenishing losses of personnel and experience and identifying and attracting new members to matriculate over time into positions of increasing responsibility. No organization that seeks to expand its appeal and power—be it a political party or a business enterprise—can hope to do so without increasing and refreshing its ranks. Today and historically, most or-ganizations have employed both some form of advertisement and some type of active recruitment to ensure a sufficient pool of people appropriate to the goals of the organization – whether that be increasing the amount of sales, extending the electoral base of a political association in a democratic state or expanding the appeal of a religious system. To the extent that terrorist groups resemble other, more benign organizations with discernable goals, they will also have to advertise aims and values while recruiting the right people to staff the ranks and replace inevitable losses. In short, a terrorist group planning to engage in acts of physical terror and destruction needs people. A terrorist group with global aspirations or universalist conceits will want to attract and retain a cadre of devotees internationally. This calculus applies, undoubtedly, to Al-Qaeda and many similar-minded Islamist-Jihadist groups with an ideological agenda bases on expansion.</style></abstract><section><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1</style></section></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">John J. Le Beau</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Renaissance of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency:Examining Twenty-First Century Insurgencies and Government Responses</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Connections: The Quarterly Journal</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Al-Qaeda</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Ayman al-Zawahiri</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">counterinsurgency</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">insurgency</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Islam</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Islamist</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Jihadist</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Osama bin Laden</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Saudi Arabia.</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Terrorism</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">unconventional warfare</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2008</style></year><pub-dates><date><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Spring 2008</style></date></pub-dates></dates><volume><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">7</style></volume><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">154-166</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Insurgency and counterinsurgency as types of warfare are currently subject to considerable attention due to the nature of the high-profile struggles underway in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is prudent to note that neither insurgency nor the strategy and tactics required to combat it represent new phenomena. A large body of experience and literature from the twentieth century and earlier exists that addresses both sides of the insurgent struggle. Some characteristics of insurgencies are largely immutable, since insurgency is ultimately a form of warfare that is adopted when a combatant has limited resources and limited choices for how to fight against a more powerful adversary. Today as in the past, these characteristics include employment of small-unit attacks, ambushes, assassinations, propaganda activity, and the development of covert infrastructure. Nevertheless, the primary insurgencies active in the twenty-first century are marked by important differences from earlier struggles, particularly in the areas of motivation and inspiration. Rather than being quintessentially political and interested in local or national grievances, many contemporary insurgencies are at their core linked to a particular interpretation of Islam. Thus, these insurgencies represent a war of religion, not of politics, economics, or ethnicity. Islamist insurgencies are likely to be uncompromising and averse to negotiation, absolutist and pan-national in their goals, and willing to justify the mass slaughter of non-combatants who do not share their religious vision.
Counterinsurgent strategies that take into account the religious world-view of their opponents are better equipped for success than counterinsurgent efforts that ignore or minimize the radical Islamist dimensions of the struggle. Saudi Arabia offers an example of a counterinsurgency campaign that has been tailored to deal with an Islamist challenge. Modern communications and technology may link disparate Islamist insurgencies to some degree, and might eventually provide a means of coordination and information sharing. In fact, this may already be occurring. Contests with Islamist insurgencies around the globe are likely to continue for a protracted period.</style></abstract><issue><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1</style></issue></record></records></xml>