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Monday, 22 October 2012

SSS invites Senator over suspected Boko Haram commander



SSS invites Senator over suspected Boko Haram commander
The State Security Service (SSS) has invited Senator, Alhaji Ahmed Khalifa Zanna, in connection with the arrest of a suspected Boko Haram Commander, Shuaib Mohammed Bama.
But the Senator said although the suspect is his nephew, he has no link with the sect in any way.
He said the house where the suspect was arrested belongs to a former Governor of Borno State, Senator Modu Ali Sheriff, whom he defeated to win Borno Central Senatorial seat in the Senate.
He accused the JTF of burning 300 houses in the last one and a half months and killing 500 people.
Zanna, who spoke on his experience in Abuja, said he suspected an attempt to frame him up by the JTF.
He said: “Since my house was searched and the JTF made the announcement, I have not been contacted by security agencies. But it was only this morning (Sunday), I saw a text that the SSS DG will want to see me on Monday. I will honour the invitation .What I am suspecting is that they want to frame me up.”
On his relationship with the Boko Haram suspect, Zanna said: “Yes, he is my sister’s son.
“As for his behaviour, he is a … He beats up my children; he abuses my friends. He came to my house, so I sent him away. That was about a year ago. And for whatever reason I don’t know, he came to my house last week and I said he should leave the house.
“Sometime ago, he even threatened to kill his mother. So, the mother was not even feeling comfortable living with him. And he narrated that to me. That is why I also do not want him to be near me.
“I don’t know him to be a Boko Haram member. Never, never, I do not know him to be a member of Boko Haram.”
The Senator gave an insight into how the JTF raided his house last Thursday.
He said: “On Thursday, they went to my house. I was in Warri at that time; I went for an oversight function. My wife called me; she said the army people were at our gate. Actually, they went with four armoured vehicles and about 40 of them came to my house.
“They searched all the rooms and when they went to the children’s room, they broke all their cabinets and searched everywhere. When they could not found anything, then they assembled all the boys in my building, took them out and put them under the scorching sun. Actually, before doing that, they beat them up. We had to take them to hospital later.
“Under this traumatized condition, they asked them whether they know one Shuaib Bama. They said, of course, they know when they see him.
“One of them was asked to go and show them where he is living. As they were going, when they were about to reach the house, they stopped. In fact, they blindfolded the boy. And one of the officers asked one of the personnel to come down so that they should follow him to the house without the boy telling them where the house is.
“So, as they started going, the other officer sitting down asked him: ‘If you know the house, then why should we pick this boy?’ And after some arguments, they went to the house and arrested the boy.”
He added: “Contrary to the claim of the JTF, the boy was arrested in Rabi Street, off Damboa Road. And the, the house belongs to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. Before, the house belonged to one Abba Mala, a Cameroonian. And later, he sold it to late Tijjani Banki and Sheriff bought from Tijjani Banki.
“I reacted because they said they arrested the boy in the house of a serving Senator along Damboa Road and I am the one living along Damboa Road.
“I really do not understand why they did all these. I am confused. If they want to frame me up, they have failed in that one because they did not get that boy in my house. I have nothing to do with it. Let them go and ask the person where the boy was staying. So, they should not have mentioned my house.”
Zanna explained that the JTF went after him because he demanded withdrawal of soldiers from Maiduguri during an interview with BBC.
He said: “This story emanating from the JTF is actually as a result of an interview which I carried out(granted) in BBC last week – asking for their withdrawal from the state because they are not working according to the rules of engagement.
“I noticed that they are just killing innocent people, killing them unnecessarily, harassing their families, extorting money. All these have been going on and I became so concerned.
Particularly, the killing and burning of houses became the order of the day.
“At least, 300 houses were burnt within the last one and a half months. And it will not be an exaggeration for me to say that up to 500 people have been killed by the bullets of the JTF.
“I called for their withdrawal because even Boko Haram cannot do more than that. If they have come to protect us, they are not supposed to eliminate our young ones. Most of the people affected are young ones.
“According to the information I got yesterday, they have started even killing old men. Somebody who was about 70 years old was killed. He was sitting down, listening to a radio and a JTF man came and he said: ‘Baba come’. They just took him to a certain distance and shot him. This is the type of things happening. So, my people are helpless. This warranted me to react.”

Friday, 19 October 2012

Man arraigned in court for stealing Bible in Lagos




A 25-year-old unemployed man on Thursday appeared before Ojo Magistrates’ Court, Lagos, charged with the theft of a King James Version of the Bible valued at N1,000.

The accused, Ade Akindele, initially entered a “guilty” plea when the charge was read to him, but later changed to “not guilty.”

The prosecutor, ASP Friday Eze, said that the accused had no fixed residence but was staying at the mechanic garage on Aka Road, off Salami Street, Afromedia, Lagos.

He alleged that the accused committed the offence on October 9, at about 9.30 a.m., at Shop B, No. 22, Adebisi Close, Sabo Ajangbadi, Lagos.

Eze said that the accused had entered the shop of one Miss Blessing Awodita, the complainant, while she was asleep and removed a black purse and a Bible from her table.

He alleged that the accused stood in the shop for a while with the Bible in his hand, staring at the sleeping woman.

According to the prosecutor, the complainant suddenly woke up to discover the stranger staring at her, with her Bible and purse in his hands.

He told the court that the frightened woman shouted for help and two of her male neighbours accosted the accused.

Eze said that the accused resisted but was subdued by the men who collected the items from him and took him to the police station.

He said that the offence contravened Section 285 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State.

Following his “not guilty” plea, the magistrate, Mr. T.O Shomade, granted the accused bail in the sum of N10,000 with one surety. He adjourned the case till November 12 for mention.






Pilgrims - Nigerian Death toll increase in Saudi Arabia



At least 15 Nigerians on pilgrimate in Saudi Arabia have died in the holy land.
While the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON announced the death of 14 pilgrims, another pilgrim from Lagos State died yesterday, bringing the total to 15 pilgims that have died in Saudi Arabia.
The Lagos pilgrim, Taoreed Oshodi, 62, from Epe Local Government Area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, was said to have died on Thursday afternoon.
He took ill and was rushed to the hospital after being attended to by the medical team of the state’s pilgrim board.
Oshodi was said to have died of heart attact. He had since been buried according to Islamic rite in Mecca.
Speaking, Dr. Saleh Okenwa, Commissioner in Charge of Information and Research, NAHCON disclosed that 14 pilgrims from Nigeria had died in the course of this year’s hajj.
He said at the commission’s headquarters in Mecca that nine of the deceased died in Medinah while the remaining five lost their lives in Mecca.
He gave the names of five that died earlier  in Mecca as Umar Ruangamyi Dahir and Shuaib Awwal Sarki Malami from Kastina State; and Ganiyu Oke Ayinde from Ogun State.
Others, according to him, are Abdullahi Mudi and Nana Garba from Sokoto State.
Okenwa also disclosed that 82,724 pilgrims from Nigeria have arrived the holy city for the hajj rites.
He absolved the commission of complicity in the diplomatic feud that ensued between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia over the deportation of some female pilgrims.
Meanwhile, the entire 3,899 pilgrims and officials from Lagos State have arrived Mecca and commenced spiritual supplication as expected.
The last batch of 50 pilgrims from Medina arrived Mecca on Wednesday to join others in performing other necessary hajj rites pending the movement to Munna and Arafat next week.
Commissioner for Home Affairs and Culture, Oyinlomo Danmole, who led Lagos pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, however, denied that Lagos pilgrims went on the rampage.
He promised to keep Lagosians updated on the welfare of pilgrims during the entire hajj operation.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga

Evolution and Trends in Terrorism Tradecraft



The terrorist tradecraft discussed in last week's Security Weekly does not happen in isolation. The practitioners of terrorist tradecraft conduct their activities in the midst of other people -- the authorities attempting to identify them and thwart their plans as well as civilians. Terrorist tradecraft also does not remain static. It is constantly evolving. These changes are prompted not only by countermeasures put in place to prevent terrorist attacks but also by advances in technology -- a powerful force that can serve to either nullify old tradecraft practices or to provide new tools to the purveyors of terror.

Terrorism is an enduring reality. While geopolitical changes may cause a shift in the actors who employ terrorism as a tactic, terrorism will continue to be used no matter what the next geopolitical cycle brings. It is, and will continue to be, a tactic used by militant actors who want to confront a militarily superior enemy. Focusing on the tradecraft used in attacks and charting its changes and trends not only permits observers to understand what is happening and why but also provides an opportunity to forecast what is coming next.

Documents

In the early terrorist plots of the late 1800s, many of the foundational tradecraft requirements were aided by the general simplicity of the times. Among the foundational tradecraft requirements discussed last week was procuring identification documents. Public records were very sparse, did not usually contain people's photographs and tended to be decentralized and not easily searched. (This is still true in some parts of the world today, such as in Afghanistan and Somalia.) There were no universal identification cards such as driver licenses, because automobiles had not yet become common. Passports and visas were not widely required for travel until after World War I, and even then the records of passport and visa issuance as well as traveler entries and exits were localized, hand-written entries into ledgers and were hard to search.

During this time, it was not difficult for Irish Fenian, nihilist or anarchist terrorist actors to travel, rent safe-houses or raise and transfer funds. Communication was certainly more difficult for everyone at that time -- authorities as well as terrorists. The mail system was slow, and while telegrams could be sent quickly, they were seen by many people. Law enforcement agencies did not communicate or coordinate very well across jurisdictional lines within one country, much less on an international scale.

During World War I, concerns over spies and saboteurs caused important changes to international travel, including stricter passport and visa requirements. This also had an impact on terrorist actors, such as Irish Republican Army members traveling to and from the United States or England, but early passports, visas and other identification documents were often hand-written and easily forged or altered. During this era, it was also still quite easy to assume the identity of an infant or young child who had died, because birth and death records were not often cross-referenced -- especially if they happened in different locations. This practice is referred to as an infant death identity in document-fraud investigations. Nazi and Soviet espionage agents used infant death identity quite frequently, which resulted in changes to the way records were kept, but domestic and international terrorist operatives continued to use infant death identities into the 1960s and 1970s.

Advances in technology in the 20th century allowed countries to make their identification documents more resistant, but not immune, to counterfeiting and alteration. The real difficulty in using counterfeit or altered documents started when the documents were linked to a central computerized database. This meant that counterfeit passports and visas did not show up in the databases and allowed a quick photo comparison to ensure that passports with altered photos could not be as easily used. In 1988, Japanese Red Army bombmaker Yu Kikumura was able to enter the United States using an altered Japanese passport.

In 1992, al Qaeda bombmaker Ahmed Ajaj was arrested trying to come through immigration at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport using a Swedish passport in another name altered to bear his photo. His partner, Abdul Basit, ditched the altered passport he used to board the flight in Karachi, Pakistan, and used an authentic Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef to claim political asylum. In the 9/11 plot, and in all the follow-on al Qaeda plots directed against the United Sates, al Qaeda operatives have used authentic travel documents to enter, or attempt to enter, the United States. Some of the 9/11 operatives did commit document fraud in relation to driver licenses and state identification cards, but as outlined in the 9/11 Commission Report, that fraud almost resulted in the unraveling of the plot.

Changes in technology and enforcement in the United States and Europe have caused changes in identity and travel tradecraft for transnational jihadists, who are now searching for "clean skin" operatives who are unknown to law enforcement and who have the ability to travel internationally using legitimate travel documents.

Explosives

Bombing has been a staple of terrorism since Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators' failed attempt to destroy the British Parliament in 1605 in the so-called Gunpowder Plot. The invention of dynamite in 1867 was a very big boon for early terrorists, who no longer had to use black powder, a low explosive, as the main charge in their devices. Dynamite was not only more stable and less sensitive to moisture than black powder but was also more powerful. Dynamite was widely used by Irish Fenians in their attacks, but perhaps the image of the anarchist bombthrower is the most iconic of that period.

In the age of modern terrorism, bombmakers have had the luxury of access to high-powered military explosives such as TNT, C-4 and Semtex. Technologies such as shaped charges, platter charges and explosively formed penetrators have also increased the impact of these powerful explosive compounds. Another development that has greatly altered the art of bombmaking has been the advent of microelectronics. Bombmakers can use sophisticated timers to activate a device days or even weeks after it is placed. They can also use sensors that detect motion, light, the presence of metal objects or changes in altitude in order to detonate the explosive device. Command-detonated devices using radio signals or cell phones have also been widely employed.

Perhaps one of the most influential bombmakers in the modern terrorist era is Abu Ibrahim, a former member of Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the 15 May Organization. Ibrahim is often referred to as the "grandfather of all bombmakers" for his innovative improvised explosive device design and his willingness to train other bombmakers in his dark arts. Ibrahim was an early adopter of electronics in his designs.

During the 1970s and 1980s, state sponsorship did a lot to help advance bombmaking tradecraft, as sabotage experts from the Soviet KGB and the East German Stasi passed on training and technology. (The Eastern bloc was also a very important source of funding and identification documents during this period.) In addition, state sponsorship meant that sponsors, such as Libya, could use the diplomatic pouch to transport weapons and explosive components to terrorist operatives in places like London and Paris.

Controls on the purchase of explosives, and even on items like ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be readily used to make homemade explosive mixtures, have made it more difficult in recent years to make improvised explosive mixtures. This has caused bombmakers to change to mixtures made from more readily available precursors, such as acetone and peroxide. But these mixtures tend to be not only more dangerous to brew -- the Palestinians refer to triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, as "the mother of Satan" -- they also have a limited shelf life, are less stable and more difficult to transport and correctly synthesize. In 2009, would-be New York City subway bomber Najibullah Zazi was frustrated in his attempts to manufacture viable TATP.

In the realm of targets and tactics, we've talked elsewhere of the arms race in aviation security and how it has caused the threat to aircraft to evolve, with the next likely step being non-metallic explosive devices hidden inside the bodies of suicide attackers. There has also been an evolution in the targeting of Western interests abroad. Embassies have become harder targets and Western hotels have been increasingly more desirable targets, although the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi may shift terrorists' focus back to vulnerable diplomatic missions in volatile locations.

Databases

Perhaps one of the most powerful inhibitors of terrorist tradecraft has been the use of computerized databases, allowing authorities to crunch a lot of data. One of the first well-documented uses of computers to locate terrorist suspects was the massive effort undertaken by the German Federal Criminal Police in the 1970s to combat the Red Army Faction. The German police created a database and then cross-referenced its information on a wide variety of indices. They then created a profile of the Red Army Faction safe-house with features such as young people living together, paying their rent and utility bills in cash and not registering with the local government or registering their motor vehicles. When a computer search identified addresses that matched the profile, they then dispatched detectives to investigate these possible safe-houses in person. This campaign was very successful in helping round up the first generation of Red Army Faction operatives.

Lists of terrorist suspects and their aliases have also proved quite useful in inhibiting terrorist travel, but it has not been without its failures or criticism. The U.S. State Department first adopted a database called TIPOFF in the 1980s designed to prevent terrorists from getting visas. The system was later turned it into the Visas Viper system after the 9/11 attacks. The United States has created the Terrorist Screening Center, which is charged with consolidating all the various U.S. government watch lists as well as administering the controversial terrorist watch list and the no-fly list.

Computers are also being used to monitor terrorist communication, whether by telephone, satellite phone or the Internet. But like the watch lists, these efforts have proved to be quite controversial.

Seizing or freezing bank accounts associated with known terrorists and efforts to crack down on charities that were funding terrorist groups have been somewhat successful in limiting the money moving to terrorist entities. But the presence of significant informal money transfer networks has made it impossible to totally stop the flow. The ability of terrorist groups to use narcotics sales and other criminal activity to fund themselves has also been hard to stop.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States and its allies have spent billions of dollars on security improvements and have made great efforts to increase security and to counter the tradecraft used by terrorist groups. It is now more difficult for terrorist operatives to travel to the United States and Europe -- as evidenced by the lack of serious attacks and by the calls of groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the al Qaeda core group for grassroots terrorist operatives to conduct simple attacks where they are rather than travel overseas for training or to wage jihad. It has also led them to recruit individuals who have travel documents like Richard Reid, Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad for attacks rather than send well-trained operatives to conduct them.

This inability to conduct attacks in the West and the frustration it causes, along with the downfall of the transnational al Qaeda core organization, may be causing the remaining jihadist groups to focus more on operations in their local areas -- places where they have the skilled operatives and materiel to conduct successful attacks.

This means that Western diplomatic missions, hotels and businesses located in these areas will remain vulnerable to attack. With these militant groups in possession of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles like the SA-7, there is also a lingering concern over the possibility of an attack against a Western aircraft in such areas.

Defining al Qaeda


The Obama administration's efforts to counter the threat posed by al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement have been a contentious topic in the U.S. presidential race. Political rhetoric abounds on both sides; administration officials claim that al Qaeda has been seriously crippled, while some critics of the administration allege that the group is stronger than ever. As with most political rhetoric, both claims bear elements of truth, but the truth depends largely on how al Qaeda and jihadism are defined. Unfortunately, politicians and the media tend to define al Qaeda loosely and incorrectly.

The jihadist threat will persist regardless of who is elected president, so understanding the actors involved is critical. But a true understanding of those actors requires taxonomical acuity. It seems worthwhile, then, to revisit wingrass's definitions of al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement.

A Network of Networks

Al Qaeda, the group established by Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, was never very large -- there were never more than a few hundred actual members. We often refer to this group, now led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, as the al Qaeda core or al Qaeda prime. While the group's founders trained tens of thousands of men at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, they initially viewed themselves as a vanguard organization working with kindred groups to facilitate the jihad they believed was necessary to establish a global Islamic caliphate. Most of the men trained at al Qaeda camps were members of other organizations or were grassroots jihadists. The majority of them received basic paramilitary training, and only a select few were invited to receive additional training in terrorist tradecraft skills such as surveillance, document forgery and bombmaking. Of this select group, only a few men were invited to join the al Qaeda core organization.

Bin Laden envisioned another purpose for al Qaeda: leading the charge against corrupt rulers in the Muslim world and against the United States, which he believed supported corrupt Muslim rulers. Al Qaeda sought to excise the United States from the Muslim world in much the same way that Hezbollah drove U.S. forces out of Lebanon and Somalia forced the U.S. withdrawal from Mogadishu.

Al Qaeda became a network of networks -- a trait demonstrated not only by its training methods but also in bin Laden's rhetoric. For example, bin Laden's 1998 "World Islamic Front" statement, which declared jihad against Jews and Crusaders, was signed by al-Zawahiri (who at the time was leading the Egyptian Islamic Jihad) and leaders of other groups, including the Egyptian Islamic Group, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan and the Jihad Movement of Bangladesh.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States applied against the al Qaeda core the full pressure of its five counterterrorism levers: intelligence, military, law enforcement, diplomacy and financial sanctions. As a result, many al Qaeda members, eventually including bin Laden, were captured or killed and their assets were frozen. Such measures have ensured that the group remains small for operational security concerns. The remaining members of the group mostly are lying low in Pakistan near the Afghan border, and their isolation there has severely degraded their ability to conduct attacks. The al Qaeda core is now relegated to producing propaganda for guidance and inspiration for other jihadist elements. Despite the disproportionate amount of media attention given to statements from al-Zawahiri and Adam Gadahn, the al Qaeda core constitutes only a very small part of the larger jihadist movement. In fact, it has not conducted a successful terrorist attack in years.

However, the core group has not been destroyed. It could regenerate if the United States eased its pressure, but we believe that will be difficult given the loss of the charismatic bin Laden and his replacement by the irascible al-Zawahiri.

In any case, the jihadist movement transcends the al Qaeda core. In fact, wingrass for years published an annual forecast of al Qaeda, but beginning in 2009, we intentionally changed the title of the forecast to reflect the isolation and marginalization of the al Qaeda core and the ascendance of other jihadist actors. We believed our analysis needed to focus less on the al Qaeda core and more on the truly active and significant elements of the jihadist movement, including regional groups that have adopted the al Qaeda name and the array of grassroots jihadists.

Franchises and Grassroots

An element of the jihadist movement that is often loosely referred to as al Qaeda is the worldwide network of local or regional militant groups that have assumed al Qaeda's name or ideology. In many cases, the relationships between the leadership of these groups and the al Qaeda core began in the 1980s and 1990s.

Some groups have publicly claimed allegiance to the al Qaeda core, becoming what we refer to as franchise groups. These groups include al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Even though these franchises bear the al Qaeda name, they are locally owned and operated. This means that the local commanders have significant latitude in how closely they follow the guidance and philosophy of the al Qaeda core.

Some franchise group leaders, such as AQAP's Nasir al-Wahayshi, maintain strong relationships with the al Qaeda core and are very closely aligned with the core's philosophy. Other leaders, such as Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud of AQIM, are more distanced. In fact, AQIM has seen severe internal fighting over these doctrinal issues, and several former leaders of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat left the group because of this conflict. Further, it is widely believed that the death of Somali al Qaeda leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was arranged by leaders of Somali jihadist group al Shabaab, which he had criticized sharply.

The last and broadest element of the global jihadist movement often referred to as al Qaeda is what wingrass refers to as grassroots jihadists. These are individuals or small cells of individuals that are inspired by the al Qaeda core -- or increasingly, by its franchise groups -- but that may have little or no actual connection to these groups. Some grassroots jihadists travel to places such as Pakistan or Yemen to receive training from the franchise groups. Other grassroots militants have no direct contact with other jihadist elements.

The core, the franchises and the grassroots jihadists are often interchangeably referred to as al Qaeda, but there are important differences among these actors that need to be recognized.

Important Distinctions

There are some other important distinctions that inform our terminology and our analysis. Not all jihadists are linked to al Qaeda, and not all militant Islamists are jihadists. Islamists are those who believe society is best governed by Islamic law, or Sharia. Militant Islamists are those who advocate the use of force to establish Sharia. Militant Islamists are found in both Islamic sects. Al Qaeda is a Sunni militant Islamist group, but Hezbollah is a Shiite militant Islamist group. Moreover, not all militant Muslims are Islamists. Some take up arms for tribal, territorial, ethnic or nationalistic reasons, or for a combination of reasons.

In places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and northern Mali, several militant groups are fighting foreign forces, their government or each other -- and sometimes all of the above. Some of these groups are jihadists, some are tribal militias, some are brigands and smugglers, and others are nationalists. Identifying, sorting and classifying these groups can be very difficult, and sometimes alliances shift or overlap. For example, Yemen's southern separatists will sometimes work with tribal militias or AQAP to fight against the government; other times, they fight against these would-be allies. We have seen similar dynamics in northern Mali among groups such as AQIM, Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, various Tuareg groups and other tribal militias in the region.

Taxonomy becomes even more difficult when a group uses multiple names, or when multiple groups share a name. Groups adopt different names for discretion, confusion or public relations purposes. AQAP called itself Ansar al-Shariah during its fight to take over cities in southern Yemen and to govern the territory. But radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was arrested in the United Kingdom in 2004 and extradited to the United States in 2012, has long led a movement likewise called Ansar al-Shariah. Even the Libyan jihadist militia that attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi uses the same name. But just because these groups share a name, and just because members or leaders of the groups know each other, does not necessarily mean that they are chapters of the same group or network of groups, or that they even subscribe to the same ideology.

As we mentioned long before Moammar Gadhafi was ousted in Libya, jihadists and other militants thrive in power vacuums. This assertion has proved true in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and more recently in Libya, northern Mali and now Syria. Weapons flooding into such regions only compound the problem.

Militant Islamists have seized the opportunity to grow in influence in such places, as have the subset of militant Islamists we call jihadists. So in this context, while the al Qaeda core has been crippled, other portions of the jihadist movement are thriving. This is especially so among those that aspire to mount local insurgencies rather than those more concerned with planning transnational attacks. The nuances are important because as the composition and objectives of jihadist groups change, so do their methods of attack.