Decentralized Global Jihad

Mustafa Setmariam Nasar was captured last year in Pakistan and his captured turned into a treasure trove for intel agencies around the world. His writings have been examined, and there are serious issues raised in them:

Intelligence officials said Nasar's doctrine has made waves in radical Islamic chat rooms and on Web sites about jihad — holy war or struggle — over the past two years. His capture, they added, has only added to his mystique.

"He is probably the first to spell out a doctrine for a decentralized global jihad," said Brynjar Lia, a senior counterterrorism researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, who is writing a book on Nasar. "In my humble opinion, he is the best theoretician among the jihadi ideologues and strategists out there. Nobody is as systematic and comprehensive in their analysis as he is. His brutal honesty and self-criticism is unique in jihadi circles."

After the bombings in Madrid and London, investigators fingered Nasar as the possible hands-on organizer of those attacks, because he had lived in both cities in the 1990s. But so far, investigators have unearthed no hard evidence of his direct involvement in those attacks or any others, although they suspect he established sleeper cells in Spain and other European countries.

So, in that context, one should note that the Jordanians got another midlevel terrorist - this time in Jordan:

Jordan identified the arrested Al Qaeda in Iraq official on Tuesday as a top lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was lured to the kingdom to be arrested there.

The Iraqi, Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly, was detained by Jordanian intelligence agents and special anti-terrorism forces, according to a government announcement on Jordanian TV.

It said he worked as a customs clearing agent on Iraq's border with Jordan, where he handled stolen goods under direct orders from Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders.

It would appear that al Qaeda is utilizing its own version of an Army of Davids. Get lots of people thinking that they're going to go to paradise killing the infidel - provide just enough incentives and operational support and let them have at it. It is left up to these individual cells to figure out how to commit acts of terror - though many can obtain the needed information from the Internet where jihadis often interact with each other for info and tips.

Individual cells may be hard to detect, and therein lies their greatest threat. It also increases the ability of utilizing plausible deniability to keep more important assets from being rolled up in the aftermath of terrorist operations.

It's a hands off approach that might mean lots of carnage but one has to wonder whether it actually lays the groundwork for anything resembling a strategic victory over the infidel West. And while terrorists will die, as will some civilians, it isn't clear how any of this translates into a victory for the terrorists.