The objectives of the AQAP were to create a fear psychosis in the US, make it over-react and spend an enormous amount on physical security thereby damaging the US economy. This was, in fact, not a new strategy of the AQ. Osama bin Laden had outlined this strategy in an audio message disseminated through Al Jazeera on November 2, 2004.
The strategy of a thousand cuts adopted by the AQAP against the US was reminiscent of a similar strategy used by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against India.
Awlaki thus gravitated to the Al Qaeda post-9/11 and motivated a new breed of English-speaking radicals. It had three Muslim radicals of American upbringing who played a major role in keeping anger focussed on the US and the rest of West. The first was Adam Gadahn, a white convert to Islam who sill operates from the Af-Pak region and handles Al Qaeda’s psywar set-up.The other two were Awlaki and Samir Khan.
The massive US retaliation in Afghanistan post-9/11 had triggered a debate in Al Qaeda about the wisdom of taking the jihad to the US homeland. Awlaki supported the need to take the jihad to the US homeland for final victory against the US.
Awlaki was an ideological and not an operational man–but after he arrived in Yemen and started guiding the AQAP, one noticed many changes. The AQAP tried to expand its area of operations from the Saudi-Yemeni-Somali region to the West, particularly the US. It started recruiting from among Muslims in the West—Arabs & non-Arabs– who would have no difficulty in traveling in the West.
The new breed of Al Qaeda and its affiliates came largely from the US, the UK and Germany. It consisted of a small number of white converts to Islam and many from different Muslim diasporas. The identities of Al Qaeda’s pre-9/11 recruits were largely known to Western intelligence agencies. Their ability to travel and operate in the West was weakened. Al Qaeda’s breed of new recruits inspired by Awlaki tried to replace them and take over the responsibility for operations in the West.
The new breed of Al Qaeda and its affiliates came largely from the US, the UK and Germany.
The new breed was more comfortable in Western languages than the older recruits. It had not come to the adverse notice of the intelligence agencies. Many of them had valid passports with valid visas for travel in the West. They had mastered the Net and the social media networks, but their thinking was not as grand as that of the older recruits who conceived the idea of the 9/11 strikes and had them planned and executed.
The new recruits were more adept in the tactical than in the strategic. The new breed devised new tactics such as better ways of avoiding detection of IEDs, but the innovative sweep of the new breed was not as spectacular as that of the older one. Its operational thinking was more classic. It went back to older tactical ideas such blowing-up planes, letter-bombs etc. It repeatedly failed because the intelligence agencies are more adept now in detecting and thwarting conventional methods of terrorism. As a result, the new breed inspired and motivated by Awlaki has not succeeded in carrying out any major strike in the West. One has to see what impact Awlaki’s death has on the continuing flow of new volunteers/recruits to the AQAP.
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