The Death of A Top al-Qaeda Commander

 

The Death of A Top al-Qaeda Commander

https://medium.com/state-of-play/2a75db8ee5e0

 

 

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula confirmed yesterday the death of one of

its top commanders, Said al-Shihri, the Saudi national whose release from

Guantanamo, failed rehabilitation in Saudi Arabia, and ascension to the top

of Qaeda's most dangerous and active franchise made his symbolic importance

nearly as great as his strategic one. He was killed, they announced, due to

"lax security measures during his telephone contacts."

 

(It is worth noting that this is not the first time Shihri has been

pronounced dead, but the first time it has been announced by AQAP. Having

your death mourned by friends is generally a better sign of being dead than

the boasts of enemies.)

 

Al-Shihri was an experienced jihadist at the time of the September 11th

attacks, and he made his way to Afghanistan by October. He fought there

until his capture in December and subsequent rendition to Guantanamo. He was

released from Guantanamo in 2007 and sent back to Saudi Arabia, where they

entered him into a rehabilitation program. He was released from that a year

later, as Saudi officials decided he no longer posed a threat. He was

rehabilitated. It didn't take.

 

Al-Shihri crossed the border in Yemen, where he met up with al-Qaeda leaders

there, who had been patiently growing their organization with daring attacks

and increasingly-sophisticated propaganda. The biggest piece of propaganda

was to come from al-Shihri himself. In January of 2009, when the world was

watching the inauguration of a bright young President who pledged to clean

up the mistakes of his predecessors, Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Qasim al-Raymi

recorded a video announcing that their Yemeni franchise had grown. As

President Obama signed an executive order to shut down the prison at

Guantanamo, a man freed from it joined the world's most dangerous terrorist

organization.

 

This was a huge symbolic wallop to the head, and helped to stifle Obama's

plans to close the prison (though one could argue he would have been met

with resistance regardless). Al-Shihri ,though, was not just a face for a

poster. He was a vetern jihadist, and helped plan the almost-successful and

still-shocking attack on Saudi prince Muhammed bin Nayef.

 

So his death is really the first major blow against AQAP's leadership,

unless you count Anwar al-Awlaki, which I do not. Where will the

organization go from here?

 

The first question is whether or not this will prove a fatal blow. It seems

unlikely. AQAP still has a strong core leadership in al-Wuhayshi and

al-Raymi, as well as others. And, more importantly, it has diffused itself

throughout the country, taking advantage of the political turmoil. The

leadership learned the lessons of failed terror cells- concentration is a

disaster.

 

Where it could hurt is in fund-raising. Al-Shihri was a veteran, and has

links outside of Yemen, having fought in both Afghanistan and Chechnya,

those crucibles of jihad. He was a Saud, and not a provincial Yemeni. His

links and his reputation made him invaluable. His memory is still there, but

this will be a growing problem for AQAP. They don't want the "Arabian

Peninsula" part of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be a lie. That

linkage was crucial in tying them into the global jihad movement.

 

However, I don't want to overstate that. Their successes, even "moral"

victories like the near bombings in Dec of 2009 and Oct of 2010, earned AQAP

credibility. They are a "lessons-learned" organization, and have grown in

strength so that a single blow isn't enough to bring them down. The question

going forward will be if "lax security measures" that led to his death will

lead to tightening of AQAP's internal security, or to paranoia. The US

shouldn't take this as just a triumph of drones, and use them solely. The

loss of a leader, even one that can be replaced, is the right time for human

intelligence to exploit any cracks.

 

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