Daniel Pearl’s killer: all the perfumes of Arabia
Remember Daniel Pearl? His kidnapping and brutal murder in the winter of 2002 sent shock waves throughout this country, back in a time when we were still relatively shockable.
The still shots released of Pearl during his captivity reinforced the idea that somehow we knew him, even though we didn’t. He looked so intensely and immensely likeable–friendly, intelligent, humorous–and the reports of friends, colleagues, and family painted a picture that only accentuated that impression.
Pearl met his death by beheading. The manner of his death seemed especially cruel, medieval, and barbaric–and it was, and it was meant to be. That shocked us further. It meant that even though many of us thought at the time that we knew this enemy, it turned out that we really didn’t know this enemy. Not yet.
Well, we know more now. Beheadings became relatively commonplace, and videos were often part of the brutal PR game, the marriage of ancient bloodthirstiness with modern media savvy. Who would have thought that beheadings would be used as a recruitment tool? But it’s no longer any sort of surprise.
The manner of death matters. Pearl suffered greatly, and it massively increased the suffering of his family to know how he died, and to know that millions around the globe were watching it with glee and rejoicing.
But in another sense it hardly mattered: Pearl would have been just as dead, just as lost to his family, if he’d been given a relatively humane lethal injection.
And now it turns out that there’s another way in which the manner of Pearl’s death may end up mattering: the video made by the killers, in which only the hands of the murderer were seen, appears to have led to the identification of the man who actually wielded the blade.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, captured in Pakistan in March of 2003, was apparently not content to merely mastermind death in this case; it seems he wanted a direct hands-on experience. Here are some of KSM’s exploits. It’s been known for quite a while that KSM was involved in the Pearl kidnapping, but an analysis of his hands while in captivity and a comparison to those in the beheading video has implicated him as the actual murderer.
KSM, who is a Pakistani-Kuwaiti national, was originally held and interrogated in a prison or prisons of unknown and disputed location, with CIA involvement. His interrogation may or may not have involved physically coercive techniques such as waterboarding. But we can be pretty sure it involved some sort of stress, if only psychological. KSM supposedly confessed to Pearl’s murder, “admitting without remorse that he personally severed Pearl’s head and telling interrogators he had to switch knives after the first one ‘got dull.'”
“Without remorse;” no Lady Macbeth, he. Although KSM’s hands are far more blood-stained, he’s not looking for the perfumes of Arabia to sweeten them.
And now he makes his home in Guantanamo. That much is certain. In fact, last night–before I’d read the piece about KSM’s implication in Pearl’s beheading–I heard on the news that the International Red Cross had visited him recently there.
KSM now gets three square meals a day and a chance to communicate with his relatives. And soon, perhaps, he’ll even get a chance to face charges in a military tribunal, now that Congress has allowed such trials to be held.
I’m looking forward to KSM facing justice, and I agree that a military tribunal is the way to go. KSM is not an ordinary criminal, but a war criminal, and must be treated as such. It was true at Nuremberg, and it’s true now.
Such remedies are flawed, but they’re the best we have here on earth. What would real justice for KSM be? We must leave that to the great beyond. KSM, no doubt, believes it will be heaven and the seventy-two virgins. Others believe otherwise. I frankly state I do not know. But earthly justice can’t come soon enough.
[I’ve written before, at length, here , about the complex question of torture–or even milder forms of coercion–for terrorists.]
What? No trolls to celebrate the murder yet?
One small quote from a fascinating article:
“The second major issue which has caused a certain amount of debate and disagreement is that of how to wage the jihad in Iraq. One of the main reasons for this is the overall brutalization of the methods used by militant Islamists on the Iraqi battlefield. Some groups have adopted unusual and controversial tactics, such as kidnappings and decapitations of civilians. With a few exceptions, these methods had not previously been used by radical Sunni groups before the Iraq War. What is being discussed in global jihadists quarters is not so much the legitimacy, but the efficiency of such tactics. A few radical shaykhs, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, have openly criticized these methods as counterproductive. On radical Internet forums, some participants have expressed concern that the use of such methods might undermine support for the struggle. Some of the criticism seems to have been taken into account, because since the autumn of 2004, the bullet seems to have replaced the knife as the preferred means of execution among jihadist groups in Iraq.”
– Thomas Hegghammer, The Middle East Journal, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 11-32, Winter 2006
intro to the article:
How has the invasion of Iraq influenced global jihadist ideology? Based on primary sources in Arabic, this article highlights important ideological changes; Iraq is considered a crossroads in the global jihad against the “Crusaders.” New strategic dilemmas have caused divisions among militants, and Iraq’s attractiveness has undermined other battlefronts. A new “strategic studies” genre has emerged in jihadist literature. Countries in Europe and the Gulf are increasingly highlighted as enemies and potential targets.
Those savages don’t deserve three squares and a shrinkwrapped Koran at Gitmo. They deserve to be abused and humiliated, daily, in public. All the resources of modern medicine and psychology should be turned to making their lives as agonizing and wretched as possible. Their unending abuse should be broadcast through the Muslim world: “Fight us and this is what you’ll get.” Their deaths — when we decide to allow them to die — should be painful, humiliating, and prolonged, and their bodies should be defiled in every way.
They have left the human race. They have voluntarily abandoned humanity and deserve none from their enemies. It’s time we stopped trying to make these human-shaped beasts like us and started working on ways to make them so terrified of us that if one of them even whispers something which might possibly be interpreted as anti-American, he’ll be beaten to death by his fellow barbarians out of fear that we might hear of it.
Remember the demo’rats have been protecting people like this since 9-11 and before. They go beserk about some college prank at a prison in Iraq and ruin the lives of several young people for nothing more than political purposes. They say (and are willing to do) nothing about the ‘beheading’ of an american by the dirty Islamic terrorists. Do you have to ask which side the democ’rats are on? Not me, and some of them will never be forgotten. Hanoi John, Peloshi, and Turbin Durbin lead the pack of trairors that should be tried and executed by public hanging.
Some groups have adopted unusual and controversial tactics, such as kidnappings and decapitations of civilians. With a few exceptions, these methods had not previously been used by radical Sunni groups before the Iraq War.
This article must be a joke. These tactics have been used by “radical Sunni groups” for more than a hundred years.
Maybe it’s talking about radical Sunni groups *in Iraq*.
Previously it was the government in Iraq doing that stuff.
“What is being discussed in global jihadists quarters is not so much the legitimacy, but the efficiency of such tactics. A few radical shaykhs, such as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, have openly criticized these methods as counterproductive.”
I guess its back to merely blowing up civilians with suicide bombers.
“I’m looking forward to KSM facing justice, and I agree that a military tribunal is the way to go. KSM is not an ordinary criminal, but a war criminal, and must be treated as such. It was true at Nuremberg, and it’s true now.”
Well then, you are really going to love BushCo’s trial before the ICC.
It’s a long research paper, just published. Anybody who routinely posts here will want to read the whole thing, believe me. Your local university library may have a copy of the magazine. From his intro:
The research literature contains relatively few in-depth studies of post-September 11, 2001 ideological developments in radical Islamism. This study is therefore almost entirely based on primary sources, mainly Arabic texts from radical Islamist Internet sites.
This is about all I can paste without crossing the line into illegal …
“This author argues that there are five principal categories of actors that shape contemporary global jihadist ideology. The first category is represented by the leadership of the “old al-Qa’ida,” i.e. Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They have an almost mythical status in Islamist circles and still exert tremendous ideological influence. The two leaders communicate primarily through sound and video recordings diffused on Arabic television stations such as al-Jazeera and on the Internet. The statements by Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri are often quite general in content, and their main purpose seems to be to convince and motivate believers to take up arms against the enemy. Their approximately 40 statements since the autumn of 2001 have focused on the political reasons to fight the Crusaders. They rarely provide specific strategic or tactical advice, and hence their declarations are always subject to interpretation by other writers.
“The second category consists of the religious scholars. They are most often, though not always, older people with a formal religious education. The role of these “jihad shaykhs” is to issue fatwas clarifying what is religiously legitimate or necessary to do in the struggle against the infidels. They are seldom directly connected to militant groups. Most of them have been based in Saudi Arabia, Britain, or in unknown locations. Since September 11, the vast majority of these scholars have been imprisoned, put in house arrest or otherwise silenced, but some are still active. Their fatwas and books are published and distributed on the Internet by young and computer-savvy assistants drawn from the entourage of students that often surround these scholars.
“The third category comprises the strategic thinkers. They tend to be in their twenties or thirties and are members of militant groups, but they are generally not involved in the front line of the military operations. They write articles and books about the best way – from a functional point of view – to fight the enemy. They are thus somewhat less concerned with theological aspects of the struggle. Their publications are also distributed on the Internet. Such strategic thinkers include Yusuf al’Ayiri, Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, and Abu ‘Umar al-Sayf. Some writers are completely anonymous and are known only by their nom de plume on the Internet, such as Luis ‘Atiyat Allah.
“The fourth category of ideological actors include the active militant organizations. Groups such as “al-Qa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula” and “al-Qa’ida in the Land of the Two Rivers” often publish their own magazines and declarations with information about their operations and texts justifying their struggle. The purpose of these publications is presumably to generate a maximum of publicity about the group’s activities in order to facilitate recruitment and fundraising. These texts, which are distributed on the Internet, provide important insights into how the struggle is perceived at the battlefront.
“The fifth category is represented by what one might call the “grassroot radicals,” i.e., the thousands of anonymous participants on radical Islamist discussion forums on the Internet, such as al-Ansar, al-Qal’a and al-Islah [the Supporters; the Citadel; Reform]. Every single day, hundreds of messages and commentaries are posted on these forums, which are primarily in Arabic. Subscribers can log on using fake identities and discuss politics, comment on news, and exchange rumours related to jihad fronts around the world. They can also download all the latest recordings and declarations by militant groups and leading ideologues. It is very difficult to know where these individuals come from or what they do in real life. It may seem, however, that the majority are “Internet radicals” who are not directly involved in terrorist activity.”
10/13/06 DoD Identifies Marine Casualty
Sgt. Justin T. Walsh, 24
10/13/06 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Capt. Shane T. Adcock, 27
10/13/06 wric: Mechanicsville Soldier Dies in Iraq
10/13/06 BBC: UK troops begin end game in Basra
10/13/06 AFP: 36 coprses found in Baghdad on Thursday
10/13/06 Reuters: Balad morgue receives corpses of seven men
10/13/06 Reuters: Two bodies found near Garma
10/13/06 AP: Gunmen kill 4 in Baquba
10/13/06 MNF: Task Force Lightning Soldier dies
10/13/06 Reuters: 6 peasants and 2 children killed in a rural area south of Baghdad
10/13/06 Reuters: Local head of a Shi’ite Muslim religious association gunned down
10/13/06 KUNA: Two British contractors killed in bombing south of Baghdad
10/13/06 AP: Coroner – U.S. unlawfully killed British war journalist
10/13/06 Reuters: Police find 14 bodies in orchard near Baghdad
10/13/06 RFE: Bomb Inside Iraqi Police Station Kills Six
10/12/06 AFP: Iraq loses 25 police to violence each day – US trainer
Violence in Iraq forces the interior ministry to budget a loss of 25 police officers each day to death or permanent injury, a US security advisor said.
The guy didn’t hunt very hard for information then. I can point him to someone who’s family (him and his wife made it here, the mother, father, and siblings didn’t) was beheaded for not being Muslim back in the 80’s.
Really, however great a journal this is in or however respected he is several of his conclusions are simple to contradict.
I’m sure there are quite a few Jews from Israel who would tell him he is wrong too. In fact, as far as brutality goes we still have not seen some of the *really* bad stuff that people in that region have regularly done to each other. They aren’t stupid and know there is a line to cross.
I suppose he could have narrowed it WAY down “Say, this didn’t happen to Americans in Iraq in the last ten years”) but then it becomes a worthless statistic – of course it didn’t happen. There weren’t any.
“The third category comprises the strategic thinkers. They tend to be in their twenties or thirties and are members of militant groups, but they are generally not involved in the front line of the military operations. They write articles and books about the best way to fight the enemy. They are thus somewhat less concerned with theological aspects of the struggle.”
Yeah, Noam Chomsky is the same way. Preaching young radicals and academic colleges about the evils of the American capitalist- military-industrial-racist-police state while freely making money off books and $1,200 lectures and lucrative Pentagon contracts, living in an upscale nearly all white community.
Talk about your armchair generals.
What caught my eye in this passage:
“What is being discussed in global jihadists quarters is not so much the legitimacy, but the efficiency of such tactics.”
Was that they weren’t even thinking about it being WRONG, just INNEFFECTIVE.
Think about that.
Oh, and Pete, with your headline pasting, were you trying to point out that terrorists are killing lots of people in Iraq right now? No kidding. Don’t you think someone ought to try and stop them? Perhaps Iraqi’s with the help of the US military? Or what are you suggesting? More than likely, you aren’t suggesting anything, are you?
“Iraq loses 25 police to violence each day”
Hmmm, France loses 14 police officers to injury every day now in their little intifadeh in the suburbs of Paris…
The Iraqi numbers, given the situation, seem rather low to me.
The guy didn’t hunt very hard for information then. I can point him to someone who’s family (him and his wife made it here, the mother, father, and siblings didn’t) was beheaded for not being Muslim back in the 80’s.
Maybe you should. Perhaps they weren’t beheaded by Sunnis.
“Thomas Hegghammer is a Research Associate at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and a PhD candidate at the Institut d’é‰tudes Politiques in Paris. His recent publications include Gilles Kepel et al., Al-Qaida dans le texte [Al-Qa’ida Through Texts], (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005); Stéphane Lacroix and Thomas Hegghammer, Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who Are the Islamists? (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2004); Brynjar Lia and Thomas Hegghammer, “Jihadi Strategic Studies,” in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 27, No. 5 (2004).”
With a few exceptions, these methods had not previously been used by radical Sunni groups before the Iraq War.
This is such a silly argument.
From Iraq: a short history of violence:
Iraq’ is a misnomer in the state sense. The term al-‘Iraq actually means the shore of the great river. It has been used by Arab geographers since the eighth century, but only came to mean a particular country situated in the alluvial plain formed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers since the 1920s. One must understand the brevity of Iraq as a single political entity before one can ever hope to grasp its problems as they stand now. Furthermore, to gain any real understanding of Iraq one must recognize, through historical analysis, that Iraq has always been a country of disharmonious parts welded together only through the liberal application of force.
Of al Qaeda/Wahhabi Sunni history of violence:
1924 AD Wahhabi’s entered Hijaz for a second time and carried out another merciless plunder and massacre. People in streets were killed. Houses were razed to the ground. Women and children too were not spared.
Awn bin Hashim (Shairf of Makkah) writes: “Before me, a valley appeared to have been paved with corpses, dried blood staining everywhere all around. There was hardly a tree which didn’t have one or two dead bodies near its roots.”
1925 Madina surrendered to the Wahhabi onslaught. All Islamic heritages were destroyed. The only shrine that remained intact was that of the Holy Prophet (saw).
..and current Sunni violence, which is being spread worldwide.
On radical Internet forums, some participants have expressed concern that the use of such methods might undermine support for the struggle
Videos of decapitations are used as a recruitment tool. Violence doesn’t undermine support in that culture, it encourages it.
By the way, he last two articles were written by Muslims. I don’t think you could find a Muslim ‘expert’ who could say, with a straight face, that kidnapping, decapitation and general uncouth violence is not an essential part of the history of the Middle East. Even the most humorless Islamist zealot would have to laugh at that one.
No point in worrying. The Democrats are already claiming victory in the midterm elections and making plans for dismantling Gitmo, giving KSM a public trial before Judge Diggs-Taylor, holding impeachment hearings on George Bush, rolling back his tax cuts, and repealing the authorization for force against Saddam. Everything will be just like before, except that the WTC will still be gone along with 3000 of our citizens, but let’s not forget, out of a nation of 300 million, that’s insignificant.
What’s important is to have Democrats back in control in Congress. Just ignore Al Qaeda and it will disappear on its own.
Tehran Arms Hamas for a Double-Barreled War Option and Gaza as Second Lebanon
DEBKAfile Special Military Report
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1219
AST:
“What’s important is to have Democrats back in control in Congress. Just ignore Al Qaeda and it will disappear on its own.”
I agree. Sounds a lot like what Mark Steyn recently said on National Review Online”:
“. A vote for the Democratic party is basically a vote to return to Bill Clinton’s holiday-from-history. It would be nice if the Dems were full of Joe Lieberman types who are serious about national security or even Joe Biden types who at least talk in a portentous voice and pretend to be serious about national security. But you know that Peter Beinart book? “Why Liberals — And Only Liberals — Can Win The War On Terror”? If that’s true, we’re all doomed. It’s like publishing a book in 1942 called “Why Swedes — And Only Swedes — Can Win The Second World War.” The truth is 99.99 percent of them have got zero interest in getting in the game. They want to return to the Nineties when politics was about new Federal regulations for mandatory bicycling helmets, or whatever the hell Bill Clinton’s “legacy” is. I understand why, if you’re the proverbial soccer mom or John Edwards’ Dickensian shivering coatless girl, a bunch of nuclear mullahs doesn’t seem terribly relevant to your life. But what I try to do in America Alone is connect up the war and the big macro-trends with the home front. The fact is the assumption at the heart of Democratic-party thinking is that the natural destination of every advanced democracy is Scandinavia and that America’s just taking a little longer to get there than the Europeans. That kind of thinking is what’s done for Europe: it’s resulted in unaffordable welfare structures on declining human capital. In the end, Big Government is a national security threat. A vote for Nancy Pelosi — and don’t get me wrong; unlike many of my NR chums, I find her an oddly attractive woman — but a vote for Nancy Pelosi is a vote for the same complacency that’s killing the rest of the West.”
But the judges and the Left won’t allow military tribunals to occur, will they?
A loss for Republicans in the midterms might be just the ass kicking they need to get in gear — what a price to pay :
Hegghammer’s just reporting on what your counterparts are saying in their online forums: debates and disagreements, factions, trends. It’s not left or right wing, whatever maryatexitzero may believe from astride his straw man.
Once again …
Thomas Hegghammer, The Middle East Journal, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 11-32, Winter 2006
Anon (please, just pick some moniker for conveniece sake), if they weren’t kidnapping before (“such as kidnappings and decapitations of civilians. With a few exceptions, these methods had not previously been used by radical Sunni groups before the Iraq War.”), why then would the Koran need admonitions against it under certain circumstances? And of course, if it is restricted under certain circumstances, it’s permitted under other cicrcumstances, as any honest muslim would tell you. What’s your angle in promoting this ridiculous argument put forth by Hegghammer?
Oh, and if you think I’m riding a strawman, take this Muslims word for it (but read VERY carefully between the lines, remembering that if it’s not forbidden, it’s permitted, and what someone is or isn’t can be explained many ways to suit your situation).
Hegghammer’s just reporting on what your counterparts are saying in their online forums
Our counterparts? Counterparts defined as “one remarkably similar to another b : one having the same function or characteristics as another”
Islamist extremists aren’t our counterparts – their “culture” is based on a system of apartheid and violence that is brutal when compared to every other political/social system on the planet. A pack of hyenas would be insulted to be labelled as their “counterparts”.
Hegghammer obviously knows nothing about the history of the Middle East, which is pretty amazing considering the amount of information that’s been published on the subject.
You seem to have even fewer reading skills than Hegghammer. Why would you assume that someone named mary-at-exit-zero is a man. Is English your first language?
What’s your angle in promoting this ridiculous argument put forth by Hegghammer?
Well, it wasn’t to start a fight, that’s for sure.
This was just a case of finding something unique, interesting, politically neutral, and posting a relevant bit. Is Hegghammer right about the decapitations? Probably not, considering that there’s fresh news this morning of 17 Shiite laborers being kidnapped and beheaded.
His footnote to the beheading thing:
The Shi’ite Islamist group Hizbullah carried out many high-profile kidnappings of Western citizens in Lebanon in the 1980s. Some of the hostages were killed, though not by decapitation. The Algerian group GIA kidnapped and decapitated seven French monks in Algeria in the spring of 1996. In January 2002, the American journalist Daniel Pearl was abducted and beheaded by Sunni militants in Pakistan.
I’m not interested in defending it.
What’s valuable about Hegghammer’s article is his granular approach to the radicals. He breaks the “Islamic Jihadist movement” down into factions and five dominant roles, and he charts trends in their online forums. He quantified trends by sampling all the messages left on one radical site, al-Qal’a, on the 15th of every month from October 2003 to January 2005 and then he charted the results. For instance, there used to be debate about the need to wage the jihad on several fronts, but a consensus was reached in 2004 to focus on Iraq.
please, just pick some moniker for convenience sake
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hegghammer obviously knows nothing about the history of the Middle East
Maybe you should contact him and tell him to brush up on it. You can reach him through the info I posted in an earlier comment.
Islamist extremists aren’t our counterparts
You’re picking a fight, right? In some dimensions you are (preoccupied with the topic, informed, discuss it online, see one another as the enemy, etc. etc.). That’s all I meant. Move on.
So long as Anon is Anon, he has no counter-parts. Great tactic.
In reviewing what Anon posted, I’m probably with him on this subject, at least.
Not everything in the study is correct, but the methodology is interesting. And how it breaks down the enemy, would be of interest to people who are interested in analyzing enemy action patterns.,
I don’t take counterparts as anything negative or hostile. It’s just ironic that only the nameless have no counter parts, because there is no way to correlate the data in any fashion whatsoever.
So long as Anon is Anon, he has no counter-parts. Great tactic.
So long as Anon is Anon, there’s a better chance of the idea being discussed rather than the person.
The article also cites many of the URLs of the website forums he visited. Most of the ones I tried are shut down (not surprisingly), but I found one “ask the guru” website that’s still up:
http://www.h-alali.net
It’s not so much a forum as a religious leader taking questions. Hegghammer describes him like so:
Hamid al-‘Ali is a Kuwaiti scholar and former leader of one of the two main moderate Islamist parties in Kuwait. His discourse turned noticeably more radical in 2002. Al-‘Ali has emerged as the most important mufti for jihadist groups operating in Iraq. He was put under house arrest in the summer of 2004, and imprisoned in May 2005.
You can use Google’s translator to actually navigate the site in English, at least enough to get the gist of the questions and answers.