Slain al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula deputy emir Said al Shihri, from his martyrdom video. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has confirmed that Said al Shihri, its deputy leader, has been killed in a US drone strike. Although the Yemeni government had reported six months ago that al Shihri, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was killed in a military operation last year, the al Qaeda commander's status has been unconfirmed until now.

AQAP announced the death of al Shihri in a video that was released on July 16, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which obtained the video. "The video's production date is given as Ramadan 1434, meaning that it was made within the past week," SITE stated.

The eulogy for al Shihri was given by Ibrahim al Rubaish, a leading ideologue and theologian for AQAP who also is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee. Al Rubaish confirmed that al Shihri was indeed killed in a US drone strike.

Al Shihri, whose real name is Abu Sufyan al Azdi, was first reported killed in mid-January by a Yemeni journalist and by jihadists closely tied to AQAP [see Threat Matrix report, AQAP deputy emir Said al Shihri likely killed in US drone strike].

Just days after reports of al Shihri's death emerged, the Yemeni government issued an official statement confirming his death [see LWJ report, AQAP deputy emir Said al Shihri is dead: Yemeni government]. The US, however, refused to go on the record and officially confirm the death of al Shihri. In April, AQAP released a statement from al Shihri, and referred to him as if he was alive.

Al Shihri is thought to have been wounded in a drone strike in late 2012, and then later died of his wounds. The date of the operation in which al Shihri was wounded is unclear. The Yemeni government claimed he was wounded in an operation on Nov. 28, but family members said he was wounded in mid-December. No drone strikes were reported in Yemen between Nov. 8, 2012 and Dec. 23, 2012.

The US is known to have conducted a strike in Saada on Oct. 28, 2012, however. In that strike, US drones targeted two compounds, killing four AQAP fighters, including two Saudis [see LWJ report, US drones kill 4 AQAP fighters in rare strike in northern Yemen].

Al Shihri's death highlights the difficulty in confirming reports of the demise of al Qaeda leaders and operatives in drone strikes where no government presence exists. Al Shihri has been falsely reported killed or captured several times in the past. Most recently, on Sept. 10, 2012, the Yemeni military claimed that he was killed in a military operation. Al Shihri released a statement on Oct. 20, 2012 in which he denied the reports of his death. In February 2011, he was rumored to have been killed while working with explosives. In January 2010, Yemeni officials claimed that al Shihri was captured. And in December 2009, al Shihri was said to have been killed by a US cruise missile attack.

Intelligence services often are unable to reach the scene of a strike and recover a body. Without having a body on which forensic tests can be conducted, intelligence services are reliant on tips from family members and jihadists, media reports, and other methods to deduce if an al Qaeda member has been killed or dodged a strike. In the absence of a body, confirmation via a martyrdom statement is one of the best ways to determine if an al Qaeda operative is dead.

Background on Said al Shihri

Shihri is a Saudi citizen who was detained by the US in Afghanistan in 2001 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 for his connections to al Qaeda. He had served as an "al Qaeda travel facilitator" in Mashad, Iran, where he would help al Qaeda operatives enter Afghanistan. He was also connected to the Saudi 'charity' al Wafa, which has been designated under Executive Order 13224 as a terrorist organization and is briefly mentioned in the 9/11 Commission's report as an al Qaeda front.

In November 2007, Shihri was released from Guantanamo and placed into Saudi custody, where he then entered a government-run rehabilitation program for former jihadists. Less than a year later, in September 2008, Shihri played a direct role in al Qaeda's attack on the American embassy in Sana'a, Yemen's capital. That attack killed 10 civilians, along with six terrorists.

In February 2009, when al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda in Yemen merged to form al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Shihri was named as deputy to AQAP emir Nasir al Wuhayshi.

For more information on Said al Shihri, see LWJ report, Return to Jihad.

Ramzi Mowafi. Image from Al Arabiya.

Egyptian security forces have reportedly arrested a number of jihadists operating in the Sinai Peninsula who are linked to Ramzi Mowafi, a former physician for Osama bin Laden.

Sources have told Egyptian media outlets that Mowafi's group has been responsible for numerous attacks in the Sinai over the past two years. Among those recently arrested are a Yemeni and a Palestinian who were found in the possession of maps and laptops.

In August 2011, Egyptian security officials told CNN that Mowafi, who is also thought to be an explosives expert, was spotted in the Sinai. At the time, Mowafi, born in Egypt in 1952, was said to be providing military training to a number of people in the Sinai.

Mowafi, who is believed to have done chemical weapons work for al Qaeda, was involved in the January 2011 prison break in which former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi escaped along with a number of other senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

Little public information regarding Mowafi appears to be available. One Egyptian press report notes, however, that in 1990 Mowafi reportedly traveled to Mecca, where he met a number of Egyptians who told him that they were in need of doctors to work in Afghanistan. According to Mowafi, he met bin Laden in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia not long thereafter and eventually ended up in Peshawar.

At some point, Mowafi reportedly reached Afghanistan, as an Egyptian official in 2011 charged that he had "set up his own [explosives] laboratory in Tora Bora with bin Laden."

The identification of Mowafi in the Sinai in August 2011 is noteworthy, as around that same time reports emerged that flyers with the name "al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula" were seen at mosques in the area. According to a recent BBC Arabic report, Mowafi "is thought to be the Emir of Al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula."

In December 2011, Ansar al Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula, the supposed military wing of al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, announced its formation in a statement released to jihadist forums. [See LWJ report, Ansar al Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula announces formation.]

"With this message we send you the good tidings of the birth of the group 'Ansar al-Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula,' and we pledge unto Allah the Great and Almighty to do our best to fight the corrupt regime and its henchmen among the Jews, the Americans, and those around them," the statement declared. In the same statement, the group said that it pledged "to fulfill the oath of the martyr of the Ummah, our Sheikh Osama bin Laden."

A month after announcing its founding, Ansar al Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula pledged allegiance to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. In that statement, the group called on Zawahiri to "throw us wherever you wish .... We will never quit or surrender until the last drop of our blood [is spilled] in the Cause of Allah and until Islam rules by the help of Allah the Almighty." [See LWJ report, Ansar al Jihad swears allegiance to al Qaeda's emir.]

US intelligence officials have previously told The Long War Journal that the group has attempted to coordinate operations with Salafi jihadist groups in the Gaza Strip. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was Ansar al Jihad in the Sinai Peninsula's declaration of allegiance to al Qaeda that increased US interest in the activities of Salafi jihadist groups in the Sinai.

Editor's note: Below is Thomas Joscelyn's testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, on al Qaeda, the nature of the group's central command and its relationship with its affiliates, and the future challenges the West faces in battling the terror organization.

Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Sherman and members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the threat posed by al Qaeda. We have been asked to "examine the nature of global al Qaeda today." In particular, you asked us to answer the following questions: "What is [al Qaeda's] makeup? Is there a useful delineation between al Qaeda's core and its affiliates? If so, what is the relationship? Most importantly, what is the threat of al Qaeda to the United States today?"

I provide my answers to each of these questions in the following sections. But first, I will summarize my conclusions:

More than a decade after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks there is no commonly accepted definition of al Qaeda. There is, in fact, widespread disagreement over what exactly al Qaeda is.

In my view, al Qaeda is best defined as a global international terrorist network, with a general command in Afghanistan and Pakistan and affiliates in several countries. Together, they form a robust network that, despite setbacks, contests for territory abroad and still poses a threat to U.S. interests both overseas and at home.

It does not make sense to draw a firm line between al Qaeda's "core," which is imprecisely defined, and the affiliates. The affiliates are not populated with automatons, but they are serving al Qaeda's broader goals. And al Qaeda has dispatched "core" members around the globe. As the 9/11 Commission found, Al Qaeda's senior leaders have always pursued a policy of geographic expansion. The emergence of formal affiliates, or branches, has been a core al Qaeda objective since the early 1990s. While the affiliates have varying degrees of capabilities, and devote most of their resources to fighting "over there," history demonstrates that the threat they pose "over here" can manifest itself at any time.

In addition to its affiliates, al Qaeda operates as part of a "syndicate" in Central and South Asia. As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in 2010, "A victory for one [member of the syndicate] is a victory for all." Al Qaeda and its allies control territory inside Afghanistan today. If additional parts of Afghanistan fall to the syndicate in the coming years, it will strengthen both al Qaeda's ideological messaging and operational capability.

What is al Qaeda?

This should be a straightforward question to answer. But in reality there is no commonly accepted understanding of al Qaeda. Writing in 2003, Bruce Hoffman wrote that there was "[d]isagreement over precisely what al Qaeda is."1 It is "remarkable," Hoffman noted, that "al Qaeda remains such a poorly understood phenomenon" even after the 9/11 attacks. Incredibly, any attempt to answer basic questions about al Qaeda's structure (similar to the ones proposed by this committee), "provokes more disagreement than agreement in government, intelligence, and academic circles."

Ten years later, Hoffman's words still ring true. In early 2013, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) commissioned a workshop of experts to assess the future of al Qaeda. CSIS was interested in how al Qaeda will adapt to the "death of Osama bin Laden, the popular uprisings spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, and the global recessionary pressures that are causing governments to re-evaluate their [counterterrorism] strategies." The final report issued at the conclusion of the workshop reads: "Workshop participants recognized that part of the challenge in imagining AQ's future lies in the very definition of AQ." Unsurprisingly, there was a "lack of consensus" among the experts. Echoing Hoffman's assessment a decade earlier, CSIS found: "How AQ adopts to the challenges and opportunities that will shape its next decade is a source of spirited debate amongst government officials, academic experts, think-tank analysts and private consultants."2

"At its broadest," the CSIS report's authors found, "the phenomenon includes a central group of senior leaders commonly referred to as AQ Core, regional affiliates which together with that core make up the AQ network, like-minded groups in the network's key operating areas (eg, fellow travelers), homegrown Islamist extremists in Western countries, sympathisers across the globe and the AQ ideology itself." Despite this complex mix, the workshop's participants concluded that the "AQ Core and its network affiliates" will have "the most profound" impact "on the broader phenomenon's future prospects." For the most part, I concur with the CSIS definition of al Qaeda.

The Al Qaeda Network

The backbone of today's al Qaeda consists of its "general command" in Afghanistan and Pakistan (others refer to this as the "AQ Core") and its formal affiliates. The established al Qaeda affiliates include: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and Shabaab in Somalia. All of the affiliates have publicly sworn bayat (an oath of fealty) to al Qaeda's senior leadership. Jabhat al Nusra in Syria should also be included in this list as well, because the group has openly proclaimed its allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri. Collectively, al Qaeda's general command and the affiliates form an international terrorist network that is focused on both acquiring territory and executing terrorist attacks against the West. There is evidence showing that al Qaeda's general command guides the overall strategy pursued by the affiliates and even sometimes gets involved in specific tactical matters. However, the affiliates enjoy a large degree of latitude in deciding how to run their day-to-day operations. Relentless pressure from the U.S. and its allies has repeatedly disrupted the network, making the general command's job more difficult.

In addition to the established affiliates, there are numerous associated jihadist organizations that the Al Qaeda Network either influences or outright directs without officially recognizing the group as an affiliate. Consider two brief examples. In Mali, AQIM has fought alongside Ansar al-Dine (AAD), which was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in March.3 At the time, the State Department noted that AAD "cooperates closely with" and "has received support from AQIM since its inception in late 2011." AAD "continues to maintain close ties" to AQIM and "has received backing from AQIM in its fight against Malian and French forces." Similarly, Boko Haram in Nigeria is not a formal al Qaeda affiliate, but according to the U.S. government the group has maintained ties to three affiliates. "There are reported communications, training, and weapons links between Boko Haram, al Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Shabaab, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which may strengthen Boko Haram's capacity to conduct terrorist attacks."4

Still other pro-al Qaeda organizations have emerged since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring under the name Ansar al Sharia (Partisans of Sharia Law). The very first Ansar al Sharia was simply a rebranding of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- that is, it was a new name chosen by an established al Qaeda affiliate.5 It is hardly surprising, therefore, to learn that other Ansar al Sharia chapters are run by jihadists with known ties to al Qaeda.

Ansar al Sharia Tunisia is headed by Seifallah ben Hassine (also known as Abu Iyad al Tunisi), who has been designated by United Nations as a terrorist.6 Ben Hassine previously established the Tunisian Combatant Group (TCG), "in coordination with" al Qaeda, according to the UN. Ben Hassine has known ties to a constellation of al Qaeda terrorists, including the group's senior leaders, and the TCG played a key role in the September 2001 assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud. Other UN-designated al Qaeda terrorists hold leadership positions within Ansar al Sharia Tunisia, too.7 Ansar al Sharia Egypt is led by Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leaders who have remained loyal to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri.8 Ayman's younger brother, Mohammed al Zawahiri, has played a starring role at Ansar al Sharia Egypt's events. Other Ansar al Sharia chapters, including inside Libya, have known al Qaeda ties as well. The groups calling themselves Ansar al Sharia are all open about their support for al Qaeda's agenda. We cannot rule out that the possibility that these organizations are simply al Qaeda's attempt at rebranding. It is easy to connect the dots.

The point is that outside of the formal affiliates, the Al Qaeda Network holds sway over dozens of organizations that are, at a minimum, ideological kinsmen. We often cannot see the operational ties between these groups because al Qaeda still maintains a substantial clandestine apparatus that is tasked with hiding such relationships. For some of these organizations, there may very well be no concrete ties and their relationship to al Qaeda's jihad is purely rhetorical.

The al Qaeda-led 'syndicate' in Afghanistan and Pakistan

In Central and South Asia, al Qaeda has forged what former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has called a "syndicate" of terrorist groups.9 "What we see is that the success of any one of these groups leads to new capabilities and a new reputation for all," Gates said during a press conference in 2010. "A victory for one is a victory for all."

Gates continued: "It's dangerous to single out any one of these groups and say if we could beat that group that will solve the problem. Because they are, in effect, a syndicate of terrorist operators." Gates blamed al Qaeda for orchestrating the syndicate's attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The "syndicate" description remains apt today, as there is no evidence that this coalition has frayed in the wake of al Qaeda's senior leadership losses.10

Consider this brief sketch of the main groups that belong to the syndicate.

In Afghanistan, al Qaeda has fought alongside the Taliban since the mid-1990s. Before the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden established the 55th Arab Brigade to serve as al Qaeda's contribution to the Taliban's side in Afghanistan's bloody civil war. The 55th was crushed during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, but was later reconstituted as part of the Lashkar al Zil, or "Shadow Army."11 This paramilitary fighting force is still very much alive. The U.S. has targeted members of the "Shadow Army" in recent weeks.12 And, in early June, the U.S. Treasury Department added an al Qaeda explosives expert to its list of designated terrorists. This expert, a Libyan, is "in charge of IED component construction at the AQ electronics workshop" and has "provided AQ paramilitary brigades in Afghanistan with timers, circuits, mines, and remote control devices for use in IEDs."13 Senior Taliban commanders continue to facilitate al Qaeda operations inside Afghanistan as well.14

Other groups fighting in Afghanistan, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), have long been part of al Qaeda's plan.15 The IMU operates throughout the country, as well as in Pakistan, and also maintains a facilitation network in neighboring Iran. The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a splinter of the IMU, continues to fight alongside other al Qaeda-affiliate parties and take part in anti-Western plotting. Allies such as the Eastern Turkish Islamic Party (ETIP) provide fighters and leaders for the syndicate, too.

In Pakistan, al Qaeda helped establish the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, which has unleashed a prolific terror campaign inside Pakistan, fought in Afghanistan, and even exported its operations elsewhere around the globe. Recent reports indicate that the TTP has sent a contingent to Syria, but some within the TTP have denied that claim. As recognized by the State Department, the TTP is clearly a part of al Qaeda's camp as the two maintain a "symbiotic relationship."16

The Haqqani Network, straddling the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains one of al Qaeda's most important allies. The Haqqanis provide not only key logistical support for the syndicate's Afghan-focused operations, but also a safe haven from which al Qaeda can direct attacks against the West. As the authors of a recent, in-depth profile of the Haqqani Network concluded, "the Haqqani Network has long served as a local enabler of al Qaeda and its global jihad."17 A string of plots against Europe and the U.S. have been traced to Haqqani-controlled territory.18

Other Pakistan-based, al Qaeda-allied groups include: Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). All of these groups have decades-old ties to al Qaeda, and have cooperated with al Qaeda in operations. These organizations have provided al Qaeda with a deep roster of skilled operatives who have replaced fallen terrorist commanders.

What is the relationship between al Qaeda's "core" and the affiliates?

All of the established al Qaeda affiliates - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Shabaab and, I would add, Jabhat al Nusra in Syria - have sworn an oath of bayat (loyalty) to al Qaeda's general command and Ayman Zawahiri. As Osama bin Laden's chief co-conspirator, Zawahiri was involved in all facets of al Qaeda's operations, from strategic questions to attack planning. Prior to the slaying of bin Laden: Zawahiri negotiated mergers with al Qaeda affiliates (such as AQIM), reprimanded problematic commanders (such as deceased AQI head Abu Musab al Zarqawi), and oversaw at least parts of al Qaeda's international operations (from calling off a planned 2003 attack on New York City's subways to orchestrating other attacks).

It is impossible to assess how frequently the affiliates are in contact with the general command, as much of that data is not available to the outside world. But Zawahiri is in charge of the Al Qaeda Network. The affiliates recognize Zawahiri as their leader, even when they disagree with his decisions. And Zawahiri is still communicating with his subordinates, even if his missives are delayed due to security concerns. For instance, Zawahiri communicated with one of his Egyptian followers, Muhammad Jamal al Kashef, in 2011 and 2012.19

In April and May of this year, Zawahiri sent messages to, and received replies from, the heads of al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria.20 Those communications revealed a serious dispute between the emirs of al Qaeda in Iraq and Jabhat al Nusra over who commands al Qaeda's growing army in Syria. Zawahiri ruled in Jabhat al Nusra's favor, but the head of al Qaeda in Iraq subsequently defied Zawahiri's order.21 It remains to be seen how this dispute is worked out, but it should be noted that the squabble is over al Qaeda's successful growth inside Syria. In other words, they are not arguing over who owns an unsuccessful franchise. And even with AQI's open defiance, Jabhat al Nusra has proven to be extremely deferential to Zawahiri. Despite AQI's rancor, Al Qaeda's general command has gained a new affiliate inside Syria since late 2011. To put it another way, suppose Zawahiri were to entirely lose AQI's loyalty (so far, there is no reason to believe this is the case), he has still gained Jabhat al Nusra.

Another serious dispute has erupted in Somalia, where Shabaab's leadership has reportedly executed al Qaeda operatives with well-established pedigrees, including Ibrahim al Afghani. This cannot please al Qaeda's general command, as al Afghani was loyal to al Qaeda during the Battle of Tora Bora and the years that followed.

The Al Qaeda Network is not comprised of automatons. Like all manmade organizations, the terror network houses personalities who may clash and sometimes have competing interests. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the network has "fragmented" or "splintered," as some analysts contend. Keep in mind this striking example: Prior to 9/11 there was a significant amount of internal dissent over whether al Qaeda should launch its most devastating attack in history. The 9/11 attacks became al Qaeda's signature strike, and yet several high-level al Qaeda members disagreed with bin Laden's decision to move forward with the operation. This did not force these senior jihadists outside of al Qaeda's ranks. In fact, some of them went on to praise the 9/11 attacks after the fact while maintaining their leadership positions.

Since its inception in the late 1980s, al Qaeda has faced substantial hurdles. Yet, the organization has proven to be remarkably adaptive, in part, because its leaders devised a strong plan for broadening their base of support within the jihadist world and beyond. The plan relies upon loyal followers throughout the world, not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The al Qaeda "core" is imprecisely defined.

There is no standardized definition of al Qaeda's "core." In general, when U.S. officials and independent analysts use this term, it appears that they are referring to al Qaeda's senior leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is headed by al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. The al Qaeda honcho is, in turn, served by several committees and an unknown number of advisers. As far as I can tell, this is what is meant by the "core" of al Qaeda. As I've made clear in my testimony, I prefer the term "general command" to "core" (which I have used elsewhere) as this is what is used in al Qaeda's own correspondence.

It does not make any sense to assume that "core" al Qaeda members, as they are commonly referred to, are confined to Pakistan and Afghanistan. We know, for example, that al Qaeda's senior leaders have dispatched or otherwise rely upon numerous terrorists around the world to do their bidding, both as part of the group's operational cells, as well as within the Al Qaeda Network's affiliates. Consider the following examples.

Headquartered in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is led by Nasir al Wuhayshi, a terrorist who served as Osama bin Laden's aide-de-camp for several years prior to 9/11. Wuhayshi was bin Laden's protégé and remained loyal to the al Qaeda master even through the darkest times, including the Battle of Tora Bora in late 2001, when all could have been lost. Bin Laden later returned the favor, rejecting a plea by some AQAP members to replace Wuhayshi as their leader with Anwar al Awlaki, the charismatic al Qaeda ideologue who has since been killed in a drone strike. Some of Wuhayshi's most trusted lieutenants, including several former Guantanamo detainees, also served al Qaeda in Afghanistan well before the 9/11 attacks. Together, they are advancing al Qaeda's global jihadist agenda, simultaneously fighting for territory inside Yemen while overseeing plots against the United States.

According to the Obama administration, the terrorist who leads al Qaeda's network inside Iran today is a Kuwaiti named Muhsin al Fadhli. Few al Qaeda terrorists were trusted with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks; al Fadhli was one of them. The network that al Fadhli oversees is the result of an agreement with the Iranian regime that was brokered by Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, who traveled to and from Iran. This Iran-based network serves as a "core" pipeline for al Qaeda's senior leadership. At least several important al Qaeda operatives have served this Iran-based network while living in other Gulf countries. After 9/11, numerous al Qaeda leaders, including members of the group's management and military councils, fled to Iran where some were held under house arrest. One of these senior al Qaeda members is Saif al Adel, who has since been allowed to leave Iran, although it is unclear where he is currently stationed. Al Adel and his ilk did not cease being "core" al Qaeda members simply because they fled to Iran after the fall of the Taliban's Afghanistan.

A Defense Department report ("Al Qaeda in Libya: A Profile") published by the Library of Congress in August 2012 identified at least two senior operatives who were dispatched to Libya to oversee al Qaeda's efforts there. The first is known as Abu Anas al Libi, who was long ago convicted of terrorism charges for his role in al Qaeda's 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Abu Anas is coordinating his efforts with al Qaeda's senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The second terrorist identified in the report, Abd al Baset Azzouz, was sent to Libya by Ayman al Zawahiri. Another al Qaeda terrorist who was not identified in the Defense Department's report, but is known to operate inside Libya, is Faraj al Chalabi (or al Shibli), who was detained earlier this year after returning to Libya from Pakistan.22 Al Chalabi may have been involved in the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi.

In March, the State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of an American known as Jehad Mostafa, who is believed to be Ayman al Zawahiri's emissary to Shabaab, al Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia. Shabaab is currently engaged in serious infighting and it is not publicly known how Mostafa's role has been affected.

There are credible reports that senior al Qaeda operatives, including a member of the group's Shura council, have gone to Syria. And Ayman al Zawahiri has appointed a longtime al Qaeda operative known as Abu Khalid al Suri to resolve the dispute between Jabhat al Nusra and al Qaeda in Iraq.

Other core al Qaeda members have returned to their home countries in the wake of the Arab Spring. One declassified Abbottabad document shows that Osama bin Laden recommended that a terrorist named Mohammed Islambouli leave northern Pakistan for Kunar, Afghanistan. Mohammed's brother, Khaled Islambouli, was the assassin who killed Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. While bin Laden was willing to lose some al Qaeda leaders, he was not willing to lose Mohammed Islambouli, who is the equivalent of royalty in jihadist circles and is today a free man inside Egypt, where is joined by other Zawahiri loyalists who have either been freed from prison or returned from abroad.

Nasir al Wuhayshi, Muhsin al Fadhli, Abu Anas al Libi, Abd al Baset Azzouz, Jehad Mostafa, Abu Khalid al Suri, Mohammed Islambouli: These are just some of the men who can be counted on to advance al Qaeda's agenda outside Afghanistan and Pakistan. It does not make sense to consider them anything but "core" al Qaeda members. 

Al Qaeda's affiliate strategy

The emergence of al Qaeda's affiliates is no accident. Al Qaeda has always sought to push forward its agenda by working with, co-opting, or otherwise directing like-minded jihadist groups. The principal Al Qaeda organization - its general command - is itself a joint venture, which bin Laden's organization and Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) forged through a merger.

Al Qaeda began laying the groundwork for the emergence of its affiliates in the early 1990s.23 Bin Laden was headquartered in Sudan at the time and, according to the 9/11 Commission, "had a vision of himself as head of an international jihad confederation." Bin Laden established an "Islamic Army Shura," which "was to serve as the coordinating body for the consortium of terrorist groups with he which he was forging alliances." The Shura "was composed of his own al Qaeda Shura together with leaders or representatives of terrorist organizations that were still independent." 24

As part of this Islamic army, bin Laden "enlisted groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea." The burgeoning al Qaeda network "also established cooperative but less formal relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from the African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the Southeast Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia." Al Qaeda also supported efforts in the Balkans, Central Asia, Chechnya, and the Philippines. Bin Laden and al Qaeda pursued a "pattern of expansion through building alliances" and had laid the "groundwork for a true global terrorist network"25

In 1996, bin Laden was forced to leave the Sudan for Pakistan and then Afghanistan. But al Qaeda's strategy of alliance building continued. The 9/11 Commission wrote: "The alliance with the Taliban provided al Qaeda a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate fighters and terrorists, import weapons, forge ties with other jihad groups and leaders, and plot and staff terrorist schemes."26 In addition to maintaining his own facilities, bin Laden "also provided support to and benefited from the broad infrastructure of such facilities in Afghanistan made available to the global network of Islamist estimates."27 During this period in Afghanistan, al Qaeda continued "to collaborate closely with the many Middle Eastern groups - in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Somalia, and elsewhere - with which it had been linked when Bin Ladin was in Sudan."28 And al Qaeda "reinforced" and "bolstered" its ties to still other groups.

It is estimated that from 1996 to September 11, 2001, between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters "underwent instruction in Bin Laden-supported camps in Afghanistan," with only some becoming full-fledged al Qaeda members. The remaining newly-trained jihadists were a "potential resource for al Qaeda." 29

The connection between bin Laden's original plan, which evolved through the years, and the emergence of al Qaeda's affiliates has not been lost on outside observers. In 2011, a Congressional Research Service report noted: "In many ways, the dispersion of Al Qaeda affiliates fits into the larger strategy of Bin Laden and his associates. They have sought to serve as the vanguard of a religious movement that inspires Muslims and other individuals aspiring to join a jihadi movement to help defend and purify Islam through violent means."30 After all, the name "Qaeda" means "base," from "which its members hope to build a robust, geographically diverse network." 31

What is the threat of al Qaeda to the United States today?

Today, the Al Qaeda Network is more geographically diverse than ever. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are fighting in more countries than at any other time before or after 9/11. It has several established affiliates, which it lacked on September 11, 2001. The ebb and flow of fighting changes the scope of al Qaeda's footprint on a regular basis, but the network has shown the capacity to challenge for territory across Africa, through the Middle East and into Central and South Asia. Meanwhile, al Qaeda's general command maintains safe havens in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan today.

It is true that al Qaeda's affiliates allocate most of their resources to waging guerilla warfare against their "local" enemies. But if we have learned anything since 9/11 it is that the gains made by al Qaeda "over there" can easily lead to a threat against Americans "over here."32 Indeed, al Qaeda's expansion in recent years has led to more threats against the U.S. Homeland, not less.

Here are four examples.

First, AQAP has emerged as a threat to the U.S. Homeland. AQAP was decimated after 2003 by a relentless counterterrorism campaign. But in early 2009 the group was reborn after al Qaeda's Saudi and Yemeni wings united. By December 25, 2009, AQAP had placed a suicide bomber on board a Detroit-bound plane. Luck and the vigilance of the passengers on board Flight 253 saved the day. Prior to the Christmas Day bombing attempt, many counterterrorism analysts assumed that AQAP was only interested in attacking targets inside Yemen. Several attempted attacks by AQAP have followed that initial failure.

Second, months later, in May 2010, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) dispatched a terrorist to Times Square. The SUV bomb did not go off, saving numerous lives. The Pakistani Taliban is the same group, discussed above, that shares a "symbiotic relationship" with al Qaeda. The Pakistani Taliban's resources are devoted, by and large, to operations inside Pakistan and Afghanistan. And yet the group almost detonated a truck bomb in the heart of New York.

Third, on April 22 of this year, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced that they had disrupted an al Qaeda plot to derail a passenger train traveling from New York to Toronto. This was the first known al Qaeda plot against Canada since 9/11. RCMP officials said the plotters received "direction and guidance" from al Qaeda members in Iran.

Fourth, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has had a hand in plots against the West. In 2004, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Osama bin Laden instructed then AQI emir Abu Musab al Zarqawi to assemble a cell capable of striking the U.S. In 2007, failed attacks in London and Glasgow were tied back to AQI.33 And in June of this year Iraqi officials claimed to have disrupted a sarin and mustard gas plot that was intended to target Iraq, Europe and the U.S.34

Luckily, these plots have either been foiled or failed for other reasons. It has always been difficult to mount a large-casualty attack against the U.S. Homeland. But the diversity of attempted attacks against the U.S. Homeland demonstrates that while the Al Qaeda Network is fighting for territory "over there," it remains a threat to Americans "over here."

Israeli authorities today filed an indictment against Palestinian Wael Abu Reda. According to the indictment, Abu Reda has committed a plethora of security offenses during his time in a number of Palestinian terror groups, including Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas' al Aqsa Defenders.

Israeli authorities said Abu Reda started fighting with Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades around 2003. By 2008, however, Abu Reda had joined Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and during Operation Cast Lead he supposedly commanded four of the group's cells. In 2011, according to authorities, Abu Reda was approached by a member of the al Aqsa Defenders (AAD), a Hamas proxy group, who asked him to join. Abu Reda agreed and was reportedly given a squad under his command.

During his time with the various terror groups, Israeli authorities say Abu Reda fired on IDF tanks, attempted to fire rockets from Gaza into Israel, laid explosives along the Gaza-Israel border, and provided military training to Palestinians, among a number of other offenses.

Abu Reda's case first made headlines when the Associated Press reported on June 25 that his family believed he had been kidnapped by Israel, possibly while in Egypt. Two days later, Al Monitor published an interview with a senior Hamas official who appeared to make a reference to Abu Reda. The Mossad "managed to kidnap a young Palestinian man in the Sinai a few days ago and transfer him to Israeli prison -- without the knowledge of Egyptian security authorities," the official said.

On June 30, Reuters reported that Abu Reda was "under arrest in Israel for alleged security offences." Eleven days later, Israeli authorities partially lifted the gag order on the case.

It is still unclear how and where Abu Reda was arrested by Israeli authorities.

While many will focus on how and where Abu Reda was captured, it will also be interesting to see whether the trial reveals new details regarding the AAD.

The AAD is a Gaza-based terror group linked to Hamas and supported by Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hammad. According to a March 2012 report in Ynet News, AAD allows "Hamas to assert a pragmatic façade in the international arena, while covertly keeping up its military activity." The report further noted that AAD "is considered a militant faction that wished to split off Hamas due to its seemingly political moderateness."

The use of aliases to disguise activities of jihadist groups is quite common. For instance, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba has used multiple aliases to allow the group to dodge international sanctions and continue operations.

A June 2012 report on Hamas by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said the AAD was involved in a sniper attack on a convoy that included Avi Dichter, then Israel's Internal Security Minister, in April 2008. The Shin Bet report also noted that the AAD was responsible for a number of attacks against Israeli troops near the Gaza border.

Wael Abu Reda is not the first member of the AAD to be indicted by Israeli authorities. In June 2011, authorities filed an indictment against Ayub Azam Abu Karim. During interrogation, Abu Karim revealed, according to the Shin Bet, that AAD, in addition to receiving support from Fathi Hammad, is led by Muhammad Subhi Abd al Rahim Tamraz. Abu Karim further said that the primary goal of the AAD is to carry out attacks against Israel while providing Hamas with cover and operational flexibility by allowing a "rogue" actor to be held responsible rather than Hamas itself.

In the past the Israeli Air Force has also carried out air strikes against members of the AAD. For example, in September 2012, the IAF targeted and killed Anis Abu Mahmoud el Anin and Ashraf Mahmoud Salah. El Anin, according to the IDF, "was in the final stages of preparing to carry out a terror attack against Israeli civilians," prior to being targeted. The IDF further charged that el Anin, a member of the al Aqsa Defenders, had been "involved in a number of attempted terror attacks that included smuggling explosive devices into Israel via the Israel-Egypt border, in addition to directing certain terror activity in Judea and Samaria."

Over the past year and half, Hamas terror activities, in particular abduction attempts, in the West Bank have been on the rise. In March, the Shin Bet charged that the aforementioned Fathi Hammad, who supports AAD, has been at the forefront of the terror group's efforts to carry out terror attacks in the West Bank, including kidnappings, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks. Hammad has been using Hamas operatives as well as members of the al Aqsa Defenders, the Shin Bet said.

Al Qaeda commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Image from Sahara Media.

The US Department of Justice charged a dangerous al Qaeda leader in Africa who is responsible for attacking a natural gas facility at In Amenas, Algeria, and kidnapping and murdering scores of people.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is also known as Khalid Abu al Abbas and Khalid al Daas, was charged in absentia today with eight terrorism-related counts, including conspiracy to kidnapping and providing material support to al Qaeda. If convicted, the kidnapping charge carries a maximum sentence of death.

The Justice Department cited Belmokhtar's involvement in the January 2013 siege at the In Amenas facility in Algeria as well as the kidnapping of two United Nations diplomats in Niger in 2008.

In the In Amenas attack, Belmokhtar's al Mua'qi'oon Biddam, or the Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade, "took numerous workers inside the facility hostage by force, including Algerian nationals and citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Norway, the Philippines, Colombia, Romania, and other nations, while other workers fled or hid inside the facility," the Justice Department stated in a press release announcing the charges.

"The terrorists attached explosives to some of the hostages, wound detonation cord around their necks, and threatened to kill them," Justice continued. "During the siege of the facility, numerous hostages, including three US citizens, were killed."

More than 40 fighters from Belmokhtar's unit carried out the attack on the natural gas facility. Belmokhtar claimed the operation in the name of al Qaeda.

The In Amenas siege ended after Algerian special forces assaulted the facility. Nearly 60 people, many of them foreigners, were killed during the fighting. Belmokhtar's jihadists executed some of the hostages.

The In Amenas operation was launched immediately after French forces invaded Mali to eject al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, and Ansar Dine from the north of the country. The three al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups controlled northern Mali for 10 months and were threatening to take over the Malian capital when France intervened.

Belmokhtar's jihadist activities spans decades

Belmokhtar has served with al Qaeda and its predecessors in north and Saharan Africa for decades. He fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, then joined with jihadists in Algeria fighting against the government with the al Qaeda-linked Armed Islamic Group and later the GSPC, or Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. The GSPC officially merged with al Qaeda and formed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2006.

Last December, he split with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb due to leadership issues with the group. AQIM accused him of failing to follow administrative guidelines, bypassing AQIM bureaucracy, and reporting directly to al Qaeda's central command in the Afghan-Pakistan region.

Although Belmokhtar split with AQIM in December 2012, he still conducts joint operations with the group as well as with MUJAO. Belmokhtar reports directly to al Qaeda's central leadership, according to his spokesman. Documents found by The Associated Press after French forces drove the al Qaeda alliance from their strongholds in northern Mali confirmed that Belmokhtar had a direct line to al Qaeda's central leadership.

In addition to the In Amenas assault, Belmokhtar's Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade is responsible for two other major terrorist attacks in Niger this year.

In late May, Belmokhtar's force launched two suicide assaults, the first of their kind in Niger, targeting a military barracks in Agadez and a uranium mine in Arlit that supplies French reactors. The attacks were executed along with fighters from MUJAO, and Belmokhtar claimed that their purpose was to avenge the death of Abou Zeid, a senior al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb commander who was killed by French and Chadian forces while fighting in Mali earlier this year.

The US added Belmokhtar to its list of Specially Designated Global terrorists in 2003, and in June 2013 also added him to the Rewards for Justice list of most-wanted terrorists. A $5 million reward, which puts him in the top echelons of most-wanted terrorists, was offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction. In 2004, an Algerian court sentenced Belmokhtar to life in prison; in 2007 he was sentenced to death for terrorist activities.

Abu Abdullah al Tunisi, kneeling, right. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group.

In a newly released jihadist video, a Tunisian fighter from the Muhajireen Army, a terrorist group composed primarily of foreign fighters and Syrians who are closely tied to al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, urged clerics and Muslim men to travel to the country to wage jihad against the government of President Bashir al Assad. The video highlights the close relationship between the Muhajireen Army and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaeda affiliate.

The video, which was released on July 18 on Twitter and Facebook accounts run by the Muhajireen Army, was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

"The video's title gives the name of the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), suggesting a relationship between the groups," SITE noted in a statement accompanying the translation of the video.

The Muhajireen, or Emigrants' Army, fights alongside both the newly formed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant. Both groups are official al Qaeda affiliates. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the emir of the ISIL, is vying for control of al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria. Ayman al Zawahiri rejected Baghdadi's announcement of the formation of the ISIL and said that the Al Nusrah Front is its official affiliate. But Baghdadi rejected Zawahiri's ruling [see LWJ report, Islamic State of Iraq leader defies Zawahiri in alleged audio message].

A large majority of foreign fighters associated with al Qaeda are said to have joined the ISIL. The Muhajireen Army appears to have sided with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as well.

The video featured Abu Abdullah al Tunisi, who implored both Muslim scholars and men to fight in Syria as part of their obligation to wage jihad.

Al Tunisi's call for clerics to preach on the battlefield echoes that of slain al Qaeda ideologue Abu Yahya al Libi, who, before his death in a US drone strike, would routinely castigate preachers who refused to fight in the theaters of jihad.

"You are also a role model for people, so when you talk about jihad, the scholars here must proceed to the land of jihad first for people to follow them," al Tunisi said. "We shouldn't lecture to people about jihad, jihad, jihad, and then we find the scholars and reciters staying at their homes or accepting to be among those who stay behind. Don't say we are in a front and we bear the burden of preaching, for here is the place for preaching, and here is the place for the Caliphate."

"You lecture about jihad and explain about jihad, so take the path of jihad," he later said.

Al Tunisi also advised "the Muslim youth in general and the youth of Tunisia in particular" to join the fight, and called on Muslim "mothers and sisters" to "incite the youth for jihad and deployment."

Background on the Muhajireen Army

The Muhajireen Army is commanded by Abu Omar al Chechen, a jihadist from Russia's Caucasus region. Hundreds of fighters from the Islamic Caucasus Emirate are thought to be in the ranks of the Muhajireen Army.

In the past, the group has been known to fight alongside the Al Nusrah Front and has participated in overrunning several Syrian military bases with the al Qaeda affiliate.

In June, the Muhajireen Army, which does not have its own official propaganda media outlet, claimed credit for two suicide assaults on an airbase in Aleppo and for shooting down a Syrian Army helicopter using a surface-to-air missile.

At the end of March, Abu Omar al Chechen announced that the Muhajireen Brigade, which at the time consisted primarily of foreign fighters, had merged with several Syrian jihadist groups and formed the Muhajireen Army. The group has "more than 1,000 Mujahideen, Muslim volunteers from different countries, including the Caucasus Emirate," stated Kavkaz Center, a propaganda arm of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Caucasus Emirate.

The Muhajireen Army, the Al Nusrah Front, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are considered to be the fighting units of choice for the more than 700 European jihadists estimated to be fighting in Syria.

The al Qaeda-linked Turkistan Islamic Party is actively training female recruits to wage jihad in South and Central Asia.

A short, one-minute-long video by the Turkish Islamic Party shows five burka-clad women training with pistols, assault and sniper rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers. A male trainer is seen directing the women. The Turkish Islamic Party's distinctive light blue flag is seen flying in the background.

The video was first obtained by The Sunday Times and was shared with The Long War Journal. It was produced by Islam Awazi, the Turkish Islamic Party's official media outlet.

Although the location of the training camp was not disclosed, the video was likely filmed in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. The Turkish Islamic Party is known to host training camps in the tribal agency, particularly in the Mir Ali area.

In the past, the Turkistan Islamic Party has also released videos of children training to wage jihad.

The video of the female recruits highlights an increasing trend by jihadists in the Afghan-Pakistan region to use females to conduct attacks. The Long War Journal has recorded six female suicide attacks in Pakistan and three more in Afghanistan since 2010. The last such attack took place on April 21 at the entrance to a hospital in Khar in Pakistan's tribal agency of Bajaur.

These female suicide attacks have been executed by the Afghan Taliban, the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin. Prior to 2010, no female suicide attacks were reported in the region.

Qari Zia Rahman, a Taliban commander who also is a member of al Qaeda, is known to run suicide training camps for females in the Afghan-Pakistan region. The US military has been hunting Qari Zia in northeastern Afghanistan since at least 2010, but he has dodged the raids.

European Union foreign ministers today reached a unanimous decision to designate the military wing of Iranian-backed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The move, which will likely lead to travel bans and asset freezes, comes after months of deliberation and compromises between the proponents and opponents of the decision.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign policy, said the designation "does not prevent the continuation of dialogue with all political parties in Lebanon." In addition, she said that "the delivery of legitimate financial transfers to Lebanon and delivery of assistance from the European Union and its Member States will not be affected."

Hezbollah's role in the July 2012 Burgas terror attack as well as the recent conviction of Hezbollah operative Hossam Taleb Yaacoub in Cyprus are viewed as two of the key pieces of evidence that pushed forward the long-awaited designation. Hezbollah's continued involvement in the Syrian civil war in support of the Assad regime is also seen as a reason for the move.

The US, Israel, and Canada, have long called on the EU to designate Hezbollah. After Bulgaria announced in early February that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack in Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian national, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird called on the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terror organization.

"We urge the European Union and all partners who have not already done so to list Hezbollah as a terrorist entity and prosecute terrorist acts committed by this inhumane organization to the fullest possible extent," Baird said.

Approximately two weeks later, former Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon wrote in the New York Times that "Europe must now act collectively and respond resolutely to this attack within its borders by adding Hezbollah to the European Union's terrorist list."

Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni welcomed the EU's decision. "Finally, after years of deliberations, the claim that Hezbollah is a legitimate political party has rightfully failed. Now it is clear to the entire world that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization," she said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly welcomed the decision and said he hoped it "will lead to tangible steps against the organization."

The United States also applauded the designation. "With today's action, the EU is sending a strong message to Hezbollah that it cannot operate with impunity, and that there are consequences for its actions, including last year's deadly attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, and for plotting a similar attack in Cyprus," Secretary of State John Kerry said.

The EU's decision to designate only the military wing of Hezbollah has left some disappointed, however. Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman, for example, said the EU went only half way.

"Any attempt to portray this organization as one that has an extremist side and a more moderate side is like asking whether a cannibal could be a vegetarian," Lieberman said. Similarly, Emile Hokayem, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, tweeted that making a distinction between military and political wings within Hezbollah "is an expedient construct, analytically useless and w[ith] no grounding in reality."

In October 2012, Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, repudiated the idea that the group had separate political and military wings.

"We don't have a military wing and a political one; we don't have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other," he said.

Three years before, Qassem told the Los Angeles Times that "Hezbollah has a single leadership.... All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership.... The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel."

Al Qaeda's affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, launched coordinated suicide assaults last night against two Iraqi jails, killing 26 policemen and freeing more than 500 prisoners.

The al Qaeda affiliate attacked prisons in Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, and Taji, north of the capital, on Sunday in an effort to break out leaders and fighters being held by the government.

The attacks began as suicide bombers struck at the main gate to open a hole for assault teams, Reuters reported. The attacks were accompanied by mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades from supporting units, while blocking forces deployed on the roads to the prisons to fend off Iraqi forces attempting to relieve the besieged prison guards.

Iraqi policemen in Taji fended off the assault, but al Qaeda was far more successful at Abu Ghraib, where hundreds of terrorists escaped. Iraqi forces fought the al Qaeda assault team until Monday morning before regaining control of the prison.

"The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al Qaeda and had received death sentences," a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament told Reuters. Some of the inmates were recaptured after Iraqi reinforcements reached the prison, but most have escaped.

Ten Iraqi policemen and four al Qaeda fighters were killed during the Abu Ghraib jailbreak. In Taji, 16 policemen were killed while fending off the assault; six al Qaeda fighters were also killed.

Al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has targeted Iraqi prisons several times in the past in efforts to free its operatives and leaders. In one such attack, in September 2012 at the Tasfirat prison in Tikrit, more than 100 prisoners escaped.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, or Abu Du'a, the emir of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, announced the "Destroying the Walls" campaign in July 2012, and said that the group would place emphasis on efforts "to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere."

Al Qaeda maintains the capacity to organize and execute large-scale, complex attacks such as the assaults on the prisons in Abu Ghraib and Taji. Another such attack, in Haditha in March 2012, killed 27 Iraqi policemen. Al Qaeda in Iraq was able to organize and train more than 100 fighters disguised as police commandos, block the roads into the town, and round up and execute the policemen.

The terror group has also demonstrated the ability to launch coordinated attacks and suicide bombings against security forces, the government, and civilians in multiple cities throughout the country.

The past 24 hours have been especially deadly for Iraqi security forces. In Mosul, 23 Iraqi soldiers and two civilians were killed in a suicide attack that targeted an Army convoy at a market. Also, four more policemen were killed in a separate attack in the northern city.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has stepped up the use of suicide bombers to conduct attacks inside Iraq. In the past 37 days, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has executed 22 suicide attacks and assaults inside Iraq, according to a count by The Long War Journal.

Al Qaeda has not only increased its operational tempo in Iraq after the US withdrew its forces at the end of 2011, but expanded its operations in Syria. The terror group's Iraqi branch formed the Al Nusrah Front in Syria in early 2012, and has since been at the vanguard of some of the heaviest fighting against President Assad's forces. Jihadists are in control of several cities and vast areas of the countryside, and, along with other rebel groups, have imposed sharia, or Islamic law.

Flush with success in Syria, al Baghdadi created the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in April in an attempt to consolidate his control over the Al Nusrah Front. The emir of the Al Nusrah Front rejected the merger, and Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, weighed in against al Baghdadi. But al Baghdadi has rejected Zawahiri's rebuke and has continued to operate the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

A passport said to belong to an American citizen was found among a number of identification documents belonging to foreign fighters who have been waging jihad with al Qaeda inside Syria. The documents were discovered at a base abandoned by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaeda affiliate that operates in Syria.

The American passport belongs to Amiir Farouk Ibrahim, who was born in Pennsylvania on Oct. 30, 1980. Ibrahim's passport was issued on March 6, 2012.

Ibrahim also possesses an Egyptian passport, which was issued on Sept. 23, 2012 under the name Amir Farouk Zaki Ibrahim. His Egyptian passport also states that he was born on Oct. 30, 1980 in the United States.

Ibrahim's passport was among 15 other pieces of identification recovered by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that reports on the Syrian civil war, at "one of the bases of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [Syria or the Levant] in the city of Ras al-Ein." SOHR reported on its Facebook page that the documents "belong to several non-Syrian men from Western and Arab countries."

The nationalities of the individuals identified by the documents are as follows: one dual citizen, of the US and Egypt (Ibrahim); one individual from each of Qatar, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates; two each from Iraq, Turkey, and Tunisia; and two from Saudi Arabia (of the three passports from Saudi Arabia, two appear to identify the same person). Another document appears to identify a man born in Egypt.

SOHR stated that "[t]he documents were found after the ISIS retreated from the town after intense clashes last week with the YPG," a Kurdish militia tied to the PKK, a Marxist Kurdish terror group based in Syria. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is referred to by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL, has been battling the YPG for control of a border crossing point and several towns in northern Syria.

"We do not know the fate of the owners of these documents, whether they are dead or alive and still active in Syria," the SOHR concluded.

Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups often collect travel documents and identification cards of recruits after they join the fight in new countries.

If Ibrahim's identity as an American citizen is confirmed, he would be the second American known to wage jihad in Syria in the ranks of al Qaeda. Eric Harroun, a former US soldier, is in US custody and is charged with fighting alongside the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria.

Maulana Asim Umar, from a video by As Sahab. His face is intentionally blotted. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group.

As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, has released a video featuring Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Maulana Asim Umar, who calls on Indian Muslims to participate in the "global jihad to give a final push to the collapsing edifice of America."

The video, titled "Why is There No Storm in Your Ocean?," was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. It was produced in May, but posted on jihadist forums on July 23.

Asim Umar tells the Muslims of India that the "jihad does not limit itself to any specific region." Instead, "lives are being sacrificed in this jihad to defeat America and its allies everywhere."

Syria, in particular, is featured prominently in Asim Umar's call to arms. The Pakistani Taliban propagandist claims that the Caliphate "is about to be established once more in this world" and the "biggest obstacle in the establishment of this system -- i.e. America -- is licking its wounds in Afghanistan."

"After Iraq," Asim Umar continues, "the black flags of Khorasan are heading for Syria," which is "the land of Prophets" and the "land of blessings and victory." The Mujahideen "with black flags have established their bases for the establishment of the Caliphate" in Syria after Allah "endowed this jihad with such blessings that in a short span of time the Mujahideen have reached a stage where they are on the verge of liberating the Sunnis from the oppression of the Nusairis [Alawites]."

"Al Qaeda and other Mujahideen have taken the leadership of this movement in their own hands," Asim Umar says. "Several groups have gone to Syria from Afghanistan and are leading the Jihad there."

Pakistani Taliban in Syria

This is not the first time Asim Umar has highlighted the deployment of groups from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Syria. "And now the black flags of East Persia are moving to Syria after Iraq," Umar said in a statement in May, according to a translation that was obtained by The Long War Journal.

"The Mujahideen have established their centers in Syria ... in order to help establish the caliphate," Umar said. "At present, al Qaeda and other Mujahideen of Islam have fully controlled this movement." he continued. "Several lashkars from Afghanistan are also leading in Syria." [See LWJ report, Pakistani Taliban establish base 'inside' Syria.]

Other jihadist sources have confirmed and elaborated upon Asim Umar's description of the Pakistani Taliban's role inside Syria.

The BBC reported earlier this month that the Pakistani Taliban had set up a base for operations inside Syria. The BBC interviewed Mohammad Amin, who was described as the "co-ordinator of the Syrian base." Amin said that the Pakistani Taliban sent a cell to Syria six months ago and it sends "information and feedback" on the Syrian war back to Pakistan.

The cell was "facilitated by our friends in Syria who have previously been fighting in Afghanistan," Amin explained, and was tasked with assessing "the needs of the Jihad in Syria, and to work out joint operations with our Syrian friends." While there "are dozens of Pakistani hopefuls in line to join the fighting against the Syrian army," the cell advised that "there's already enough manpower in Syria."

Dawn added that an unnamed "close associate" of Pakistani Taliban emir Hakeemullah Mehsud has also confirmed the deployment to Syria. This Pakistani jihadist said the forces were requested by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "to be part of a global jihad against the tyrant Syrian regime" and the group "agreed to send the fighters." [See Threat Matrix report, Pakistani Taliban 'has a global agenda,' commander says.]

Both Reuters and the Associated Press followed up with their own reporting on this issue. [See Threat Matrix report, Hundreds of Pakistani jihadists reported in Syria.] In addition to the Pakistani Taliban, other Central Asian and Pakistani jihadist groups have reportedly joined the fight and swelled al Qaeda's ranks.

Shortly after the BBC initially reported on the Pakistani Taliban's involvement in Syria, some TTP commanders claimed that the deployment was not officially sanctioned by the group's shura council. According to Agence France Presse, the TTP leaders did not deny the movement of fighters, including "Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens," from South Asia to Syria, but claimed that they had traveled to the Levant "independently."

A "symbiotic relationship"

Maulana Asim Umar's career is a good example of what the US State Department has described as the "symbiotic relationship" between the TTP and al Qaeda. In its Sept. 1, 2010 designation of the group, State explained that the "TTP draws ideological guidance from al Qaeda, while al Qaeda relies on TTP for safe haven in the Pashtun areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border."

"This mutual cooperation gives TTP access to both al Qaeda's global terrorist network and the operational experience of its members," the State Department continued. "Given the proximity of the two groups and the nature of their relationship, TTP is a force multiplier for al Qaeda."

Reports of the Pakistani Taliban's involvement in Syria can be read in this light.

Asim Umar himself can be described as an al Qaeda ideologue, TTP propagandist, or both. His video appearances are frequently accompanied by clips of al Qaeda's senior propagandist in Pakistan, Ahmad Farooq.

BBC Monitoring reported on Sept. 12, 2012 that Farooq and Umar were jointly featured in an al Qaeda-produced "feature-length documentary-format propaganda film" that was intended to mark the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Another video, produced by al Qaeda in November 2012, reviews the history of sharia rule on the Indian subcontinent. The first part featured Umar, while the second showcased Farooq. Umar blamed the British for introducing democracy and destroying sharia law during the days of colonial rule. Umar expressed disbelief at the "stupidity" of Muslims for following "man-made" laws decades after the British withdrawal from the subcontinent.

A video that was posted in early 2013 on the Jamia Hafsa Urdu Forum, which openly supports al Qaeda as well as the Afghan and Pakistani wings of the Taliban, featured clips of Umar and Farooq. The video, which was produced in October 2012, documents the life of a Pakistani militant who was killed in a US drone strike. Umar says in the video that Allah sent humanity both the Koran and Iron, meaning that only by combining Islamic scripture and the sword can Muslims advance their cause.

Umar's propaganda duties have taken him into other areas as well. He is reportedly the author of book titled, "The Army of Anti-Christ: Blackwater, Documentation of the Dreadful Terrorist Activities of America's Blackwater in Islamic Countries."

Asim Umar's anti-American messaging and focus on the "global jihad" illustrate the degree to which groups such as the Pakistani Taliban are inculcated with al Qaeda's ideology.

Hezbollah operatives Meliad Farah, left, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, right.

Bulgaria's Ministry of Interior today released the names and photos of two Hezbollah operatives tied to the Burgas terror attack in July 2012 that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian national. The Ministry of Interior said it was appealing to society for cooperation in locating the suspects.

The first Hezbollah operative identified by Bulgarian authorities is Meliad Farah (a.k.a. Hussein Hussein), an Australian national. Farah, who has been previously described as a "bombmaker of Lebanese descent," was born on Nov. 5, 1980.

The second operative identified by Bulgarian authorities is Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Canadian national. Hassan was born on March 22, 1988. Hassan is reportedly related to the unnamed terrorist who died in the attack. Hassan was born in Lebanon, but moved to Canada at the age of eight. According to Canadian authorities, the suspect has not been a "habitual resident" of Canada since he was 12.

Between their arrival in Bulgaria on June 28 and the day of the attack in Burgas on July 18, both men were "spotted in the regions of Ruse, Varna, Nesebar, the "Sunny beach" resort and the village of Ravda," the Ministry of Interior said in a statement. The ministry further said that the men "registered themselves at hotels and accommodations, using fake identities under the name of Brian Jeremiah Jameson, Jacque Felipe Martin and Ralph William Rico. They are also believed to have rented cars using the mentioned fake identities."

Press reports had previously revealed that all of the driver's licenses were forged by the same printer in Beirut, which is tied to a Hezbollah operative. The printer is reportedly also known to have produced forged documents for other Hezbollah members.

While Bulgarian authorities did not say where they believe Hassan and Farah currently reside, reports have previously said that authorities are fairly certain the two suspects returned to southern Lebanon after the attack and remain there. For example, on July 23 the Israeli daily Haaretz reported, based on comments from a senior member of Israel's Foreign Ministry, "the men are hiding in southern Lebanon, and that Israel is searching for them."

Today's announcement from Bulgarian authorities comes just a couple of days after the European Union announced that it had reached a unanimous decision to designate the so-called military wing of Hezbollah as a terror organization. Hezbollah's role in the July 2012 Burgas terror attack and the recent conviction of Hezbollah operative Hossam Taleb Yaacoub in Cyprus are viewed as two of the key pieces of evidence that pushed forward the long-awaited designation. Hezbollah's continued involvement in the Syrian civil war in support of the Assad regime is also seen as a reason for the move.

On July 23, the Israeli media revealed that during the investigation into the Burgas attack, Israeli authorities figured out that the bomb used in the Burgas attack was linked to bombs in Hezbollah terror plots in Nazareth and Thailand.

Bulgarian officials first charged that Hezbollah was behind the attack on Feb. 5, 2013. "We have followed their [the suspects] entire activities in Australia and Canada so we have information about financing and their membership in Hezbollah. A reasonable assumption can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah," Tsvetan Tsvetanov, then Interior Minister, said at the time.

The Burgas attack

On July 18, 2012, the 18th anniversary of the Buenos Aires AMIA bombing, a bomb (it is unclear if it was a suicide bomber) exploded as Israeli tourists boarded buses at the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria. Five Israelis and one Bulgarian national were killed in the attack, which wounded dozens.

While Bulgaria's Interior Minister said that the bombing was "a deliberate attack," Israeli officials quickly pointed the finger at Iran and Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's soon declared: "I know based on absolutely rock-solid intelligence that this is Hezbollah and this is something that Iran knows about very, very well."

Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaee countered by saying Israel had carried out the attack. "Such [a] terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains," he claimed.

Despite Iranian allegations, American and Israeli officials were soon fairly certain that the attack had been carried out by Hezbollah with direction from Iran. "Israeli intelligence has evidence of many telephone calls between Lebanon and Burgas in the two months before the bombing ... with the volume intensifying in the three days leading up to it," the New York Times reported in early August. The numbers in Lebanon were tied to known Hezbollah operatives.

Jundallah, a terrorist group closely tied to al Qaeda and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, claimed credit for yesterday's suicide assault on a local headquarters for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) in Sukkur.

The attack included two suicide bombers; one detonated outside a police station, and another outside of the ISID headquarters. A three-man suicide assault team then stormed the ISID compound, and briefly took control of the building before being killed. All five members of the suicide assault team were killed during the attack, along with four ISID personnel, including the office's deputy director.

Jundallah said it executed the assault to avenge the death of Waliur Rehman Mehsud, the deputy leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan who was killed in a US drone strike in late May, Dawn reported.

Ahmed Marwat, a spokesman for Jundallah, told Dawn that the group "sent four suicide bombers to target the ISI office because the Pakistani Army and ISI are working in connivance with the US."

Marwat has previously claimed credit for an attack that killed 18 Shia who were traveling on the Karakoram Highway in the Kohistan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [see LWJ report, Jundallah kills 18 Shia travelers in northern Pakistan].

Pakistani jihadist groups have targeted local ISID and military headquarters multiple times in the past throughout Pakistan. ISID offices in Lahore, Peshawar, and Multan have been hit in suicide bombings and assaults since 2009.

Jundallah ("Soldiers of Allah") is based in Karachi and maintains close ties with both al Qaeda and the Taliban. The group is best known for trying to assassinate General Ahsan Saleem Hyat, commander of the Pakistani Army's Karachi Corps, in June 2004. Shortly after the assassination attempt, Pakistani security officials arrested Jundallah's emir, Ata-ur-Rehman, and his deputy, Shahzad Bajwa.

Jundallah also has a history of targeting Shia. The group's two most high-profile attacks against Shia took place in May 2004, when Jundallah killed 38 Shia worshipers in separate attacks at the Hyderi Mosque and the Jinnah Road Mosque in Karachi.

Jundallah has also established a presence in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan. The terror group is known to have set up a camp in the Shakai area, which is administered by Haji Omar Khan, a senior Taliban leader in South Waziristan who has strong ties to Mullah Omar.

In March 2008, the US killed a dual-hatted Jundallah and al Qaeda operative known as Dr. Arshad Waheed in a drone airstrike in South Waziristan. Both Waheed, who had close links to Ata-ur-Rehman, and Waheed's brother Akmal, who is also a doctor, had been detained by Pakistani security forces in 2004 for treating Jundallah fighters involved in the assassination attempt on General Hyat. It is unclear why Pakistani security forces freed the brothers. Waheed returned to South Waziristan to serve as a military trainer for al Qaeda's Shadow Army. After Waheed's death, Mustafa Abu Yazid, who was al Qaeda's overall leader in the region before he himself was killed, gave a eulogy for him.

And in June 2010, the US killed Hawza al Jawfi, an Egyptian who is said to have led Jundallah, during a drone strike in the village of Karikot near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. Jawfi was sheltering in a safe house that was known to have been used by al Qaeda operatives. At the time, the Wana area was administered by Mullah Nazir, a senior Taliban leader who openly professed his allegiance to al Qaeda, and was killed this January in a US drone strike in the Birmal area of South Waziristan.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a martyrdom statement for a Tunisian fighter who executed a suicide attack on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The Tunisian suicide bomber said that for practical purposes, the ISIL and the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, another al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, are "without differences."

The ISIL released the martyrdom statement for Hamza al 'Awni, who is also known as Abu Hajer al Tunisi, on July 24 through the Al Masada Media Foundation, "a jihadist media group affiliated with the Shumukh al Islam Network," according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which obtained and translated the video. Shumukh al Islam is associated with al Qaeda.

Al 'Awni was born in the Tunisian coastal city of Sousse, "studied in the High Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, and he graduated as an engineer first class in 2011, and then he worked in a company making a monthly salary of up to 1000 Tunisian dinars," the statement said, according to SITE.

"He thought about jihad since his childhood," the statement continued. Al 'Awni sought to wage jihad in Chechnya in 2003, "when he was 16-years old," but he failed.

Al 'Awni entered Syria in September 2012, and wanted to conduct a suicide attack after he "saw that martyrdom-seeking operations harm the enemy." He executed his suicide attack on July 10, which the ISIL claimed was his 27th birthday as well as the first day of Ramadan.

The ISIL did not detail where the suicide attack took place, what the target was, or the number of casualties incurred in the bombing. No suicide attack was reported in the media on July 10.

According to the ISIL, al 'Awni disapproved of the feud between the emir of the ISIL, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, and the leader of the Al Nusrah Front, Abu Muhammad al Julani. The two leaders have been at odds since al Baghdadi attempted to subsume the Al Nusrah Front into the ranks of the ISIL. Al Julani rejected Baghdadi's attempt, and one month later, Ayman al Zawahiri ruled in al Julani's favor and appointed a longtime Syrian jihadist to mediate the disppute. Al Baghdadi dismissed Zawahiri's ruling, and the two groups have operated as separate entities since [see LWJ report, Islamic State of Iraq leader defies Zawahiri in alleged audio message].

"In my opinion, I don't see that the two sheikhs al Julani and al Baghdadi are right ... I work with both of them, and the State and the Front are one to me without differences," the ISIL claimed that al 'Awni said to one of his fellow jihadists.

While al 'Awni's claim cannot be verified, there appears to be little fallout from the dispute between al Julani and al Baghdadi. A large percentage of the Al Nusrah Front's fighters are said to have joined the ISIL, but no fighting between the two groups has been reported.

Additionally, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Al Nusrah Front have been reported to be fighting alongside each other in several theaters of the Syrian civil war. In northern Syria near the Turkish border, the two al Qaeda affiliates battled against a Marxist Kurdish rebel group and operate a joint base near Qahtaniya.

Also, the ISIL recently released a video of the two al Qaeda affiliates celebrating Ramadan in the city of Aleppo. Three members of each jihadist group have a friendly tug of war as a crowd watches. The event is held by an ISIL member from Tunisia who is known as Abu Waqas

Al 'Awni is the second foreign fighter from Tunisia to be featured in jihadist propaganda within a week. On July 18, the Muhajireen Army, an al Qaeda-linked group led by a Chechen commander, released a video of Abu Abdullah al Tunisi. In the video, he advocated for Tunisian clerics and youth to join the jihad in Syria, and urged women to support them [see LWJ report, Tunisian jihadist calls for clerics, youth to fight in Syria].

While the exact number of Tunisians in Syria is unknown, the Tunisian government has estimated that between 500 and 800 fighters are there. The government's estimate is probably low, however, as "human rights organizations and local civil associations believe that the number is more than 3,000 young people, with about 100 of them killed in recent months," Magharebia reported in June.

Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou said on Friday that the same semi-automatic 9 mm caliber firearm was used in the assassinations of two prominent opposition politicians. According to Tunis Afrique Presse, Ben Jeddou said "ballistic analyses" showed that Mohamed Brahmi, who was shot dead on July 25, and Chokri Belaid, assassinated on February 6, were killed with the same gun.

Ben Jeddou also fingered a well-known jihadist, Boubaker el Hakim, as a key suspect in the slayings. "The first elements of the investigation show the implication of Boubaker el Hakim, a Salafist extremist," ben Jeddou claimed. El Hakim is "among the most dangerous terrorists, who is being hunted internationally."

The interior minister was asked about the possibility of a political party being responsible for the assassinations, according to Agence France Presse. The question likely arose in response to allegations that the ruling Ennahda party was responsible. Both Brahmi and Belaid were critics of Ennahda.

"The investigation has not shown this -- We have no elements at our disposal proving the implication of a political party," Ben Jeddou replied.

"The suspects are radical extremists, and some of them belong to Ansar al Sharia," Ben Jeddou added.

Ansar al Sharia Tunisia is headed by Seifallah ben Hassine, who has been designated an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist by the United Nations and US government. The group was responsible for the Sept. 14, 2012 ransacking of the US Embassy in Tunis.

Tunisian government links main suspect, Ansar al Sharia to terror group

During a press conference on May 30, Tunisian officials alleged that both Boubaker el Hakim and Seifallah ben Hassine had ties to terrorists operating in Mount Chaambi, near the border with Algeria.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said that an investigating judge had "ordered the publication of the names and photos of the identified terrorists holed up in Mount Chaambi."

According to Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP), Aroui also presented photos of the "persons suspected of having helped the terrorists," including ben Hassine and el Hakim, who is "a very dangerous element involved in arms trafficking."

Aroui elaborated, according to TAP, saying intercepted phone conversations showed that "elements" of Ansar al Sharia had "directly or indirectly" assisted the Mount Chaambi terrorists.

"Some active elements of what is called Ansar Al Sharia belong to the terrorist group in Mount Chaambi," AFP quoted Aroui as saying.

On Dec. 21, 2012, then Interior Minister Ali Laarayedh, who is now Prime Minister, announced that authorities had arrested 16 members of a terrorist cell affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). According to the TPA, Laarayedh "stressed that all the apprehended or pursued elements were active within" Ansar al Sharia Tunisia. Tunisia Live reported that members of the cell "were known for their active participation in events organized by Ansar al Sharia," including protests.

Laarayedh said at the time he could not prove that there was an "organizational relationship" between the cell and Ansar al Sharia, however.

The jihad in Iraq

In 2003, Boubaker el Hakim was interviewed by a French radio station as he prepared to fight American forces in Iraq. "I'm ready to set off dynamite and boom! Boom! We kill all the Americans!" el Hakim shouted. "All my brothers over there, come defend Islam!"

The Associated Press reported in 2005 that el Hakim's interview was "conducted in Iraq as US troops were preparing to invade" from inside "an Iraqi training camp."

The AP also reported that, during his interview, el Hakim "specifically mentioned" a French jihadist named Farid Benyettou, who led the "19th arrondissement network." El Hakim referred to Benyettou by his kunya, Abu Abdallah. Benyettou had no religious credentials, but was instead a "former janitor and self-taught preacher" who justified "suicide bombings in private sermons given in his family apartment," according to the New York Times.

French authorities shut down Benyettou's operation, but not before a dozen or so youth were sent off to fight in Iraq. Prosecutors charged Benyettou with recruiting the jihadists to fight for Abu Musab al Zarqawi. And indeed some of them, including el Hakim's younger brother, Redouane, fought in Fallujah. Redouane el Hakim died during the fighting in summer of 2004, after entering Iraqi through Syria.

Benyettou was ultimately convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. Boubaker el Hakim, according to the Times, "had fought in Iraq and was accused of running a way station in Syria for French youths headed for Iraq." El Hakim, who was detained in Syria and then deported to France, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2008.

At some point, el Hakim was deported to Tunisia and freed. If the latest allegations are borne out, then el Hakim remained committed to the cause long after the network that originally recruited him was disbanded.

The assassination of Brahmi and Belaid rocked Tunisian society, sparking mass protests.

The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, and an allied jihadist group known as the Ansar al Khilafah have both claimed credit for taking control of a town near the city of Aleppo and killing more than 100 soldiers. Both groups have conducted joint operations in the past.

The Ansar al Khilafah, or Supporters of the Caliphate, released a video [above] showing the aftermath of the execution of more than 50 Syrian soldiers and officers following the takeover of the town.

The mass execution took place after fighters from the Ansar al Khilafah seized the town of Khan al Asal, according to the the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on Syria's civil war.

"Activists from the town of Khan al Asal have confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that more than 150 regime forces were killed by the rebels who took over the town of Khan al Asal on the 22nd and 23rd of July," the Syrian watchdog reported on its Facebook page. "About 51 of the casualties were summarily executed by the rebels, they include about 30 officers and line officers."

Footage of the aftermath of the massacre was published on YouTube. The bodies of dozens of men in and out of uniform are seen in various locations in the town. Some appear to have been executed. Heavily armed men chant "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is greatest") at the end of the video.

Meanwhile, the Al Nusrah Front has also claimed to have "liberated" the town of Khan al Asal, in a detailed statement that was released on jihadist forums on July 23. The statement was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. Several images of the aftermath of the assault were released with the statement; one was nearly identical to a scene in the video published by Ansar al Khilafah.

The Al Nusrah Front said it launched a multi-pronged attack on the town, with mortars and rockets supporting an infantry assault. The town was taken after two days of heavy fighting.

The al Qaeda affiliate claimed that more than 100 Syrian soldiers and officers were killed, including two brigadier generals and a colonel, and that 21 more, including a colonel, were captured. The Al Nusrah Front said that "elements of the so-called Hezbollah" were fighting alongside the Syrian military.

Khan al Asal is a controversial town that has long been contested by the Syrian government and rebel forces. In March, both the Syrian government and rebels accused each other of using chemical weapons in the town.

Although neither jihadist group said that it fought alongside the other to seize the town, both have fought together against the Syrian military in the past. Additionally, elements of the Ansar al Khilafah may indeed be part of the Al Nusrah Front.

Background on Ansar al Khilafah

The Ansar al Khilafah in Aleppo was formed in December 2012 [see LWJ report, Syrian jihadists form 'Supporters of the Khilafah' Brigade]. A video on the formation of the group was released on YouTube, showing a commander surrounded by scores of heavily armed fighters, and children with several black banners of jihad flying among the crowd. The group's commander pledged to impose sharia and establish a caliphate.

"We will work with the sincere people of our Ummah (Muslim community) to establish the Islamic Khilafah State," the commander vowed. He said the group pledged to bring down the "wicked plan: the plan of a Democratic state."

The Supporters of the Khilafah also indicated that they will seek to take the fight outside Syria.

"And that we will work with the sincere people of our Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community] to establish the Islamic Khilafah state, and to use it to end decades of colonization and enslavement," the statement said. "And to return to the way we were -- as the nobles of the East and the West."

The Ansar al Khilafah also cautioned "our brothers" against taking Western aid and weapons.

The Aleppo group is made up of five brigades: Ansar al Shariah, Abdullah Ibn Al Zubeir, the Men of Allah, the Martyr Mustafa Abdul Razzaq, and the Swords of the Most Compassionate. A US intelligence official told The Long War Journal in December 2012 that the groups are local units that are part of the Al Nusrah Front.

One month later, in January 2013, a branch of Ansar al Khilafah was formed in Homs. In a video released on YouTube, a commander reads a short statement from a laptop that announces the formation of the group. Heavily armed fighters surround the commander as the black flag of jihad waves in the background.

"We have an absolute belief in the obligation of implementing the sharia [Islamic law] in all aspects of life, and the institutions of the State and resumption of the Islamic way of life," the Homs commander states.

The Ansar al Khilafah has fought alongside the Al Nusrah Front for the People in the Levant, an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The Al Nusrah Front released a statement on July 12 that said it, along with the Ansar al Khilafah and another rebel faction known as the Amjad Al Islam Brigade ("Greater Glory of Islam Brigade"), killed 22 Syrian soldiers near Khan al Asal. The statement was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.

In the statement, the Al Nusrah Front said that it served as "a planner and executor of the operation," while the Ansar al Khilafah and Amjad al Islam "cut off the roads and supplies" so Syrian forces could not react to the attack.

A stream of reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) beginning in mid-July say that al Qaeda's Iraqi and Syrian wings are jointly fighting Kurdish forces in northern Syria. The reports suggest that a bitter disagreement between the emirs of the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has not stopped the two groups from fighting side by side.

Backstory on disagreement

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), the emir of al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), tried to subsume control of the Al Nusrah Front in early April. Al Baghdadi announced that the ISI would now be referred to as the ISIL, given its expansion into neighboring Syria.

However, a few days later, Al Nusrah Front emir Abu Mohammed al Julani rejected al Baghdadi's decision to consolidate forces under a common banner even though al Baghdadi and the ISI had helped spawn the Al Nusrah Front in the first place. Al Julani reaffirmed his allegiance directly to al Qaeda's emir, Ayman al Zawahiri.

The public spat prompted Zawahiri to intervene. Zawahiri criticized both leaders, but decided in al Julani's favor, ruling that the Al Nusrah Front should retain its own separate command. While the Al Nusrah Front celebrated Zawahiri's decision, al Baghdadi did not. The ISI/ISIL leader openly defied Zawahiri's ruling.

How, or even if, the dispute has been resolved behind closed doors is not publicly known. But the SOHR's reporting on the fighting inside Syria suggests that this leadership disagreement has not prevented the two al Qaeda wings from jointly confronting their enemies inside Syria.

SOHR reporting: Al Qaeda v. Kurdish forces

The fog of war makes verifying any battlefield reports a difficult endeavor. And The Long War Journal cannot independently verify the SOHR's reporting. But the SOHR has proven to be a reliable outlet in the past, despite the many difficulties in reporting on the Syrian war. And the SOHR's reporting on the conflict between Kurdish forces and al Qaeda's affiliates is generally consistent with other reporting.

On the one side stands the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG), which is a branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The YPG's forces are allied with the Liwa' Jabhat al Akrad (Kurdish Front Battalion). On the other side stands the Al Nusrah Front and the ISIL, which the SOHR refers to as the "ISIS." (The final "S" in this acronym stands for "Sham" instead of "Levant.")

For months, the Kurds and jihadists had divided Ras al Ayn, a key border city in the northeastern province of Hasakah. But on July 16, the fighting took on a new urgency.

According to the SOHR, the "Al Nusrah Front and the ISIS attacked a YPG patrol and kidnapped 1 YPG fighter." The "patrol" was a Kurdish women's defense unit convoy. Even before the attack, the YPG had brought in reinforcements, as had Al Nusrah with "more than 200 fighters."

The YPG quickly freed its detained fighter, but not without heavy fighting.

On July 17, "9 combatants" from the Al Nusrah Front and the ISIS were reportedly killed during the fighting with the YPG. "The Kurdish Defense units took hold of large parts of the Ras al Ayn city after violent clashes...with Al Nusrah Front, ISIS and rebel battalions," the SOHR reported. "Most of the combatants of Al Nusrah, the ISIS and rebel battalions" withdrew to the surrounding areas. Additional reporting has since identified these "rebel battalions" as the Ahrar al Sham, a Syrian Islamist group that is sympathetic to al Qaeda; the Ahfad al Rasoul Brigade, a Free Syrian Army unit that is reportedly supported by Qatar; and the Islamic Kurdish Front.

The Kurdish forces purportedly wanted a truce, but al Qaeda's men refused.

The following day, July 18, the SOHR reported that the "[v]iolent clashes" were "ongoing" between the YPG and the Al Nusrah Front in several villages with the YPG gaining control of additional territory, including an oil area. Meanwhile, the Al Nusrah Front and the ISIS "bombarded" Ras al Ayn from their "centralized" locations in neighboring areas.

On July 19, the SOHR reported that the fighting was "ongoing for the 4th consecutive day between the Kurdish Defence Units (YPG) and fighters from the Al Nusrah Front, the ISIS and rebel battalions." That same day, an Al Nusrah Front fighter "was killed after detonating himself near a YPG headquarters," but no one else was killed in the blast.

By July 20, "19 YPG fighters" and roughly three dozen "fighters from the Al Nusrah Front, the ISIS and some rebel factions have been killed" in the fighting.

More of the same was reported in Hasakah province from July 21 onward. After the ISIS lost control of Ras al Ayn, the SOHR reported that foreign passports, including one belonging to an American citizen, had been left behind.

Meanwhile, the battles between the YPG and Kurdish forces on the one side, and al Qaeda's representatives on the other, intensified in neighboring Raqqah province.

The Al Nusrah Front reportedly detained a Kurdish journalist and several others on July 20. And the Liwa' Jabhat al Akrad (Kurdish Front Battalion), which fights alongside the YPG, detained a local ISIS emir that same day. The Liwa' Jabhat al Akrad had apparently refused to swear bayat (an oath of loyalty) to the ISIS man.

Liwa' Jabhat al Akrad quickly exchanged the ISIS emir for "hundreds of Syrian Kurdish civilians." The ISIS had kidnapped the civilians, "who are relatives of the fighters in the Kurdish brigade," and turned them into bargaining chips.

On July 25, the ISIS allegedly blew up homes belonging to Liwa' Jabhat al Akrad and YPG families in Raqqah province, drawing the SOHR's condemnation. The SOHR stated: "These actions of forced displacement, and systematic burning of houses of opposition or fighters' families reminds us only of the Baathist regime and its crimes. We at the Syrian Observatory strongly condemn the Islamic state of Iraq and its actions that are categorized as war crimes."

In its updates on July 26 and 27, the SOHR noted that the fighting between the Kurds and joint Al Nusrah Front-ISIS forces was ongoing in both Hasakah and Raqqah provinces.

Despite the disagreement between al Baghdadi and al Julani, their forces continue to battle their common enemies. They have not turned their guns on one another, but instead on the Kurds.

*Note: The Long War Journal has standardized the spelling of some words, including the Al Nusrah Front, throughout the citations to SOHR's reporting.

US drones launched the first strike in Yemen in 49 days, killing six "militants" in an attack today on a convoy in a southern town controlled by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers launched missiles at a vehicle carrying AQAP fighters in the Al Mahfad area in the southern province of Abyan, The Associated Press reported.

The exact target of today's strike was not disclosed. Six members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were killed in the airstrike; three of them were identified but their names have not been disclosed, according to AP. No senior AQAP operatives or leaders are reported to have been killed.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters and leaders have regrouped in the Al Mahfad area after being driven from cities such as Zinjibar, Jaar, Lawdar, and Shaqra during a Yemeni military offensive that began in the spring of 2012 [see Threat Matrix report, AQAP regroups in Abyan province]. AQAP controlled the cities in Abyan, as well as other cities and towns in neighboring Shabwa province, after launching its own offensive in the spring of 2011.

The US has launched two other drone strikes in Al Mahfad. The last attack took place on June 1. Eight militants were reported to have been killed in the strike. The previous attack took place on May 18. Four AQAP fighters were killed when the drones launched missiles against a vehicle carrying grenades and suicide belts.

US expands the location of drone strikes in Yemen

Since losing control of large areas of Abyan and Shabwa, AQAP has spread out into the provinces of Aden, Baydah, Al Jawf, Damar, Hadramout, Hodeida, Ibb, Marib, Saada, and Sana'a. Of the 33 drones strikes recorded by The Long War Journal over the past 12 months, 27 have taken place in the provinces of Aden, Baydah, Al Jawf, Damar, Hadramout, Hodeida, Ibb, Marib, Saada, and Sana'a.

The US has launched 13 drone strikes in Yemen so far this year. The last strike took place on June 9, killing an AQAP commander known as Saleh Hassan Jredan and his brother and four other fighters.

In 2012, the US launched 42 drone strikes in Yemen against AQAP and its political front, Ansar al Sharia. The previous year, the US launched 10 drone and air strikes against the al Qaeda affiliate. The strikes are being reduced as the US government is facing increasing international criticism for conducting the attacks in both Yemen and Pakistan.

Although six senior AQAP operatives, including the group's deputy emir, Said al Shihri, were killed in strikes in Yemen in 2012, the group's top leadership cadre remains intact. Just 12 days ago, AQAP confirmed that al Shihri, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, was killed; he is thought to have died or to have been seriously wounded following a strike in October 2012.

The US has targeted both senior AQAP operatives who pose a direct threat to the US, and low-level fighters and local commanders who are battling the Yemeni government. This trend was first identified by The Long War Journal in the spring of 2012 [see LWJ report, US drone strike kills 8 AQAP fighters, from May 10, 2012]. Obama administration officials have claimed, however, that the drones are targeting only those AQAP leaders and operatives who pose a direct threat to the US homeland, and not those fighting AQAP's local insurgency against the Yemeni government.

For more information on the US airstrikes in Yemen, see LWJ report, Charting the data for US air strikes in Yemen, 2002 - 2013.

The US killed eight "militants" in an area of Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan that is known to serve as a gateway for terrorist groups entering Afghanistan. The drone strike is the first in Pakistan in two weeks.

The CIA-operated, remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired a pair of missiles at a compound last night in the village of Shinkai Narai in the Shawal area of North Waziristan. The strike took place as the fighters were preparing to break their fast and eat their Iftar dinner, Geo News reported.

Tribesmen said that four "Arab fighters" were among those killed in the strike, while Dawn reported that "there is a possibility that a high profile figure was killed." The identities of the Arabs and the "high profile figure" were not disclosed, however.

The Pakistani government, in a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, immediately protested the attack, which it described as "counter-productive."

"The Government of Pakistan strongly condemns the US drone strike that took place in Shawal Area in North Waziristan on the night of 28 July 2013," the Foreign Ministry said. "These unilateral strikes are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Pakistan has repeatedly emphasized the importance of bringing an immediate end to drone strikes."

The Shawal Valley, where last night's strike took place, is a known haven for al Qaeda and other terror groups operating in the region. A host of Taliban, Pakistani, and foreign terrorist groups gather in the Shawal Valley and then enter Afghanistan to fight US, NATO and Afghan government forces.

The last US drone strike to hit the Shawal Valley took place on on June 7. That strike killed a "key Pakistani Taliban commander" who was known as Mutaqi and Bahadar Khan. The compound where Muqati and his followers were staying was struck "when a pick-up truck arrived from the bordering area of Afghanistan, according to Dawn. Mutaqi and his fighters "were planning to cross over into Afghanistan."

In the past, the US has focused its operations on the Shawal Valley. Last year, 10 of the 46 drone strikes in Pakistan, or 22%, hit targets in the Shawal Valley. Targeting in the area was heavy during the summer of 2012; at one point in time, seven of 10 strikes took place there.

Al Qaeda, the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, and Taliban fighters under the command of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the leader of the Taliban in North Waziristan, are all known to operate in the Shawal Valley, which is near the Afghan border. The area is used to launch attacks across the border in Afghanistan. Additionally, Central Asian terror groups are known to operate in the area. On July 1, 2012, a US drone strike killed several members of the Turkistan Islamic Party, an al Qaeda-affiliated group that operates in Pakistan, China, and Central Asia.

Bahadar administers the Shawal Valley. In 2009, after the Pakistani military launched an offensive in the Mehsud areas of South Waziristan, Bahadar sheltered the families of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, and Waliur Rehman [see LWJ report, Taliban escape South Waziristan operation]. The US killed Waliur Rehman along with his deputy Fakhar-ul-Islam, two Uzbeks, and three Taliban fighters in a drone strike in North Waziristan on May 29.

Despite the known presence of al Qaeda and other foreign groups in North Waziristan, and requests by the US that action be taken against these groups, the Pakistani military has indicated that it has no plans to take on Hafiz Gul Bahadar or the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network. Bahadar and the Haqqanis are considered "good Taliban" by the Pakistani military establishment as they do not carry out attacks inside Pakistan. In June 2012, Bahadar banned polio vaccinations in North Waziristan, in protest against US drone strikes.

Today's strike is the first since July 13, and just the fourth since President Barack Obama's speech at the end of May outlining a reduced US counterterrorism role in the world. Obama said that the drones, which are currently operated by the CIA, will eventually be turned over to the military, and that the pace of the strikes will be reduced. Even though al Qaeda has expanded its operations in Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt, and in North and West Africa, Obama claimed that the terrorist organization has been sufficiently weakened.

The US has launched 18 drone strikes in Pakistan so far this year, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. The number of strikes in Pakistan has decreased since a peak in 2010, when 117 such attacks were recorded. In 2011, 64 strikes were launched in Pakistan, and in 2012 there were 46 strikes.

The US has targeted al Qaeda's top leaders and its external operations network, as well as the assortment of Taliban and Pakistani jihadist groups operating in the region. The strikes have been confined mostly to North and South Waziristan. Of the 343 strikes recorded since 2004, 326, or 95%, have taken place in the two tribal agencies.

Rogue Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers Lambar Khan and Lieutenant Ihasanullah were featured in a Taliban produced video, "Afghan Ghazyian," on July 23, 2013.

Lambar Khan, a rogue Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier responsible for killing a Slovakian International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) member and injuring six others in early July, has appeared in a recently produced Taliban propaganda video. The video honors Khan along with a second renegade ANA soldier who helped him escape from custody less than a week after the attack. The 37-minute video, titled "Afghan Ghazyian" ("Afghan Champions"), was released through the Taliban's propaganda outlet, and published on the El Emara website and other jihadi internet venues on July 23.

For the most part, the lengthy video depicts Lambar Khan and Lieutenant Ihasanullah, the ANA officer who helped Khan escape custody, narrating their version of events concerning the deadly July 9 attack and subsequent jailbreak on July 14. Both men are hailed as "ghazi" by the Taliban, a term that refers to an individual who has had success in his or her struggle against non-believers or 'infidels.'

Khan, who claims he hails from Murgai village in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, states in the video that he had planned to attack Coalition forces who were involved in "carrying out night raids and detaining people." Khan notes that although he joined the ANA eight months ago he had planned to kill Coalition forces prior to joining the army.

The video also shows a mostly covered up or face-blurred Lieutenant Ihasanullah, who remains at the left side of Khan throughout the video. Ihasanullah, who claims to be the son of Safiullah Khadem from the Sarobi district in Kabul province, says that he has been in the Afghan army for almost nine years. Ihasanullah states that he helped Khan because he believed Khan was "ghazi," adding that every Afghan soldier at Kandahar Airfield also believed Khan was "ghazi."

On July 9, Khan opened fire on Slovak troops at Kandahar Airfield, ultimately killing one Slovak soldier and injuring six others. Khan was quickly detained following the shootout and sent to solitary confinement at the base. Lieutenant Ihasanullah helped him escape from custody five days later by taking him to a medical clinic on the base, where he unshackled Khan and both men made their escape.

In the video, Khan admits that during his limited time in custody he was questioned by General Abdur Raziq Sherzai, a commander of the Afghan National Army's 20th Atal Corps. Raziq Sherzai is the brother of Gul Agha Sherzai, who was formerly governor of Kandahar province and is currently the governor of Nangarhar province. Khan offers few details about the exchange he had with Raziq Sherzai.

Both Khan and Ihasanullah are seen pledging their allegiance to the Taliban, and toward the end of the video, Ihasanullah plucks a desk-sized Taliban flag off the nearby podium and declares he will continue to serve the Taliban and help the Taliban movement hoist its flag above Kabul once again.

Insider attacks a key part of Taliban strategy

The Taliban claim to have stepped up their efforts to infiltrate Afghan security forces as well as "lure" and encourage Afghan security personnel to attack ISAF troops and advisers.

In October 2012, Taliban emir Mullah Omar released an Eid al-Adha message that urged followers to "[i]increase Increase your efforts to expand the area of infiltration in the ranks of the enemy and to bring about better order and array in the work." The statement continued: "We call on the Afghans who still stand with the stooge regime to turn to full-fledged cooperation with their Mujahid people like courageous persons in order to protect national interests and to complete independence of the country. Jihadic activities inside the circle of the State militias are the most effective stratagem. Its dimension will see further expansion, organization and efficiency if God willing."

Omar had previously addressed the issue of green-on-blue attacks at length in a statement released on Aug. 16, 2012. Omar claimed that the Taliban "cleverly infiltrated in the ranks of the enemy according to the plan given to them last year," and urged government officials and security personnel to defect and join the Taliban as a matter of religious duty. He also noted that the Taliban have created the "Call and Guidance, Luring and Integration" department, "with branches ... now operational all over the country," to encourage defections. [See Threat Matrix report, Mullah Omar addresses green-on-blue attacks.]

At the end of April, the Taliban announced that green-on-blue attacks would be a key part of this year's strategy.

"This year's spring operation, in accordance with its combat nature, will consist of special military tactics quantity and quality wise while successful insider attacks, to eliminate foreign invaders, will be carried out by infiltrating Mujahideen inside enemy bases in a systematic and coordinated manner," the Taliban announced on April 27.

There have been eight such attacks reported in Afghanistan so far this year, which is well off the pace from the 44 green-on-blue attacks recorded in 2012. The reduction in attacks may be attributed to the less-frequent partnering between ISAF personnel and Afghan troops as the Coalition draws down forces, as well as greater security measures implemented by ISAF. [See LWJ special report, Green-on-blue attacks in Afghanistan: the data.]