al-qaida chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2016 part 17-79-the deep battle against the...

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Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 17-79-The Deep Battle against the West-sea-borne terror

The threat of seaborne terrorism needs to be taken as seriously as attacks from the air, with international shipping tracked as closely as airliners, the commander of US forces in the Pacific warned. Cruise liners and container ships could be hit, it is feared, as sophisticated Russian or Chinese weapons continue to be spread in the region. ISIS, also known as Daesh, recently seized the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, which prompted alarm in Europe. The startling revealation comes as sinister ISIS propaganda warned its supporters to prepare for the invasion of Europe and bringing about the Antichrist and Armageddon in a final showdown in Syria – which they are convinced they will win.

October 28, 2014 Al Qaeda is urging jihadists to conduct attacks on U.S. and foreign oil tankers and strategic sea lanes in a new global campaign of economic warfare against the United States, according to the terrorist group’s latest English-language magazine.“Even if a single supertanker (or even an ordinary westbound cargo-vessel) were to be attacked in one of the chokepoints or hijacked and scuttled in one of these narrow sea lanes, the consequences would be phenomenal,” wrote al Qaeda member Hamza Khalid in the recently published, 117-page al Qaeda magazine “Resurgence.” The article on economic warfare includes maps showing strategic shipping lanes around the world and key oil chokepoints, like the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, where up to 35 percent of the world’s ship borne oil passes, and Southeast Asia’s Strait of Malacca, the strategic passage for oil from the Middle East to Asia. C-i

“It represents the Achilles heel not just of the energy market, but also of western economies dependent on oil from the Muslim world,” Khalid stated.“A sustained disruption in this supply system would not only increase insurance costs for

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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international shipping, but also affect the price of oil globally.” Khalid called for attacks on both U.S. military facilities near oil chokepoints and energy

supply lines.Attacks on oil tankers would cause a spike in oil prices, increases in shipping rates and insurance, and a boost in military spending to assure open sea lanes, he stated.“Simultaneous attacks on western shipping or western oil tankers (a sea-based version of the cargo plane bomb plot) in more than one chokepoint would bring international shipping to a halt and create a crisis in the energy market.”Khalid also called for attacks on western oil workers in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, as well as more sophisticated and hard-to-carry-out attacks against U.S. Navy facilities in Diego Garcia, Bahrain, and Djibouti.“A coordinated effort to disrupt enemy shipping in the future in all of these regions would not only hurt the enemy economically, but also stretch their resources further in this global war,” Khalid stated. American al Qaeda member Adam Gadahn stated in a second article headlined “besiege them” that “it is time for us to fight fire with fire, and impose our own blockade and embargo on the Jews and crusaders, by hitting them where it hurts and striking the heart and lifeblood of their economy, represented by international trade and finance.” Gadahn said the global economic system currently is “fragile and vulnerable” as the result of unrest in the Arab and Muslim world and debt and budget crises in Europe and the United States.Al Qaeda plans to use the current “war of attrition” underway against the United States to force the collapse of the global economic system. Targets for the economic warfare campaign include cargo ships and merchant vessels in “Islamic waters,” actions aimed at closing off canals and straits, and disrupting shipping routes “wherever and however possible.”“Any of their ships are legitimate targets, but exports are the key to any economy, including the economies of the West,” Gadahn wrote. “The mujahideen must seek to deprive the enemies of the precious oil and mineral resources they are stealing from us and using to fuel their war machine, by sabotaging crusader-run oil wells and mines in Islamic lands and destroying pipelines before the oil reaches the coast and falls into enemy hands, and by sinking their supertankers and sabotaging their oil rigs in enemy waters, and in the process, ruining their lucrative fishing industries.”Other economic measures include a boycott of U.S. products and retailers including Walmart, McDonald’s, Proctor and Gamble, Microsoft, Nestle, and Unilever. The use of banks also is to be avoided and al Qaeda is advocating reinstating the use of gold and silver as a medium of exchange.Gadahn stated that al Qaeda wants Muslims to break away from the global financial system. “The path to victory over our enemies and the establishment of our caliphate isn’t confined to armed action alone, but includes all legitimate ways and means which support, strengthen, and advance the military effort and lead to our success in this battle for the future of the Muslim [world],” Gadahn said. “So don’t delay, and play your part in the jihad today, whether your part be military, financial, economic, educational, motivational, or otherwise.”Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, a former Special Forces commando and undersecretary of defense for intelligence during the George W. Bush administration, said Islamic terrorists are keenly aware of American reliance on Mideast oil. “They know that our economy is fragile and can be devastated by sudden increases in the global oil prices,” Boykin said in an email. “It is obvious that they will try to attack our weaknesses and oil is clearly one of our major vulnerabilities.”





The article is another indication that Islamists “are indeed an enemy and they have in fact declared war on America,” Boykin said.

Kevin Freeman, an expert on economic warfare, said al Qaeda as early as 2005 outlined a timeline for its war against the West that included fomenting an Arab uprising and then launching an economic warfare campaign. “It has always been an economic war,” Freeman said. “From the first attacks on the World Trade Center until now, al Qaeda has used an economic warfare playbook modeled on the Chinese doctrine of unrestricted warfare.”Freeman said the al Qaeda magazine articles bolster the findings of a report to the Pentagon in 2009 on economic warfare outlining terrorists’ use of the tactic of attacking oil targets. “Our enemies know that stopping the flow of oil, crashing our stock market, or collapsing the dollar are the paths to America’s destruction,” he said.“The al Qaeda timeline has, since at least 2005, planned a new caliphate and Islamic State aimed against the West and Israel,” he added. “To accomplish this, they knew even back then, required an attack on Western economies.” Freeman said the United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems but has ignored repeated credible evidence of economic attacks and threats against our financial infrastructure and power grid.The al Qaeda threat to oil shipments also underscores the need to end America’s reliance on foreign oil supplies with North American oil production, Freeman said.“We also have to shore up our financial infrastructure, protect the dollar, and guard our power grid,” said Freeman, author of a book on the subject, Game Plan.“Individuals must prepare their investment portfolios for resilience in an economic war.”

LWJ 2014, On Sept. 6, AQIS operatives attempted, and failed, to execute an even more audacious attack. The terrorists boarded a Pakistani ship, the PNS Zulfiqar, which has been docked. They apparently planned, according to AQIS, to launch missiles from the Zulfiqar at US warships. There are widely conflicting accounts in the press of the attack on Sept. 6. The version reported here is based on tweets by the AQIS spokesman and is not an independent account of the raid. Mahmoud posted a purported diagram of the Zulfiqar, which the group says was obtained by insiders who served in the Pakistani Navy. AQIS included a picture of US warships above the diagram posted by Mahmoud. The statement from AQIS says that the jihadists had taken over the PNS Zulfiqar and were set to attack the American warships when Pakistani forces interceded. Some of the attackers were “martyred.”

JIHAD AT SEA – AL QAEDA’S MARITIME FRONT IN YEMENFEBRUARY 25, 2014 NIKLAS ANZINGER 4 COMMENTSYemen’s state weakness due to fragmentation and ongoing conflicts allowed Al Qaeda and affiliates to take and hold territory, possibly enabling them to seize the Port of Aden. If Al





Qaeda establishes safe havens in the southern Abyan province, supported by local Yemeni inhabitants, attacks at sea or in near by ports similar to the

“USS Cole bombing” in 2000 could become a threat, increasing the danger to Red Sea shipping. Yet Al Qaeda is of secondary concern for the Yemeni government, with secessionist insurgencies in the north and the south threatening the state’s unity. Only a stable Yemen can effectively deny Al Qaeda a stable base in the long run. In recent years, international shippers taking the Red Sea route have been primarily concerned with attacks by Somali pirates. Those attacks went down from 237 in 2011 to 15 in 2013 due to the Somali governments’ increased ability to fight and deter piracy, among other causes. However, another threat to international shipping in the Gulf of Aden looms. Yemen’s southern coastline is on the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb which links the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a critical maritime choke point where roughly 8.2% of global oil supply passed through in 2009. Its oil exports, accounting for 70% of Yemeni government revenue, make the country highly dependent on its declining reserves. Yemen is an Al Qaeda stronghold, second only to Pakistan (and possibly Syria more recently). It was a target of the U.S. “drone campaign,” with 94 strikes between 2002 and 2013 (Pakistan: 368). Al Qaeda aims to enforce rigid Islamic legislation in Muslim countries and establish a global Islamic Caliphate. According to its 20-year plan, Al Qaeda aims to subdue “apostate” Muslim regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It hosts a franchise in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), establishing safe havens in the governorates of Al Bayda’, Ma’rib, Shabwah, Lahji and Abyan, where it exerts considerable influence. Al Qaeda’s terrorism at seaAl Qaeda’s terrorism at sea emanating from Yemen has a tradition and method. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, an eminent jihadi strategist, defined several choke points as a target and outlined methods for disruption: blocking the passages using mines or sinking ships in them, threatening movement at sea through piracy, martyrdom operations and weapons.On the Earth, there are five (5) important straits, four of them are in the countries of the Arabs and the Muslims. The fifth one is in America, and it is the Panama Canal. These straits are: 1. The Strait of Hormuz, the oil gate in the Persian Gulf. 2. The Suez Canal in Egypt. 3. The Bab el Mandib between Yemen and the African continent. 4. The Gibraltar Strait in Morocco. Most of the Western world’s economy, in terms of trade and oil, passes through these sea passages. Also passing through them are the military fleets, aircraft carriers and the deadly missiles hitting our women and children … It is necessary to shut these passages until the invader campaigns have left our countries. […]. — Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, “The Global Islamic Resistance Call“.On January 3, 2000, members of Al Qaeda attempted an attack on the USS The Sullivans (DDG-68), an Arleigh Burke -class Aegis guided missile destroyer, while in the Port of Aden. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, called “the Prince of the Sea”, was its mastermind. He learned boat-handling and other skills from seafarers in western Yemen, adopted the tactics of the LTTE Sea Tigers, an Islamist insurgency in Sri Lanka, and developed plans to attack in the choke points of the Straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar. He discussed the idea to attack U.S. vessels with Osama bin Laden who sent him to Aden in southern Yemen where he organized the attack on USS The Sullivans. A small group loaded a boat with explosives near USS The Sullivans, however overloading the boat so that it sank, before it could launch the attack. Nine days later on October 12, Al Qaeda avoided mistakes, successfully bombing the USS Cole . The USS Cole (DDG-67), same model as USS The Sullivans, was being refueled in the harbor at Aden when it was attacked, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39. On October 6, 2002, the same tactic worked again. A small suicide vessel rammed the MV Limburg, a French 157,000-ton crude oil tanker, in the Arabian Sea near the southern Yemeni coastal town of Al-Mukalla. On





November 22, 2002, al-Nashiri was captured, and he has been held in Guantanamo ever since. Nevertheless, Al Qaeda-aligned groups remain able

to attack ships. In July 2010, the “Abdullah Azzam Brigade” launched a suicide attack against the Japanese oil tanker MV M. Star in the Strait of Hormuz, injuring a crew member.

C: Remember March 2005, Philippines — Two of the most dangerous al-Qaida-linked groups in Southeast Asia are working together to train militants in scuba diving for seaborne terror attacks, according to the interrogation of a recently captured guerrilla. Authorities fear scuba divers could target ships with more accuracy than a small explosive-laden boat like the one used in the USS Cole blast that killed 17 sailors in 2000 in Yemen. The Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf has trained in scuba diving to prepare for possible seaborne terror attacks outside the country, the Philippine military said yesterday, citing the interrogation of a captured guerrilla. The al-Qaeda-linked militants also received at least US$18,500 over the past year from suspected members of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah for explosives training, according to a report on the interrogation of Gamal Baharan obtained by reporters. The interrogation report said: "Subject averred that Janjalani has a direct contact to Osama bin Laden and [bin Laden's brother-in-law] Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Janjalani is using a satellite phone in contacting both leaders. Subject further averred that bin Laden would ... talk to no one except Janjalani. They conversed in Arabic."

Jan 2016, Isil 'wants its own navy for attacks on cruise ships in the Mediterranean'A senior Nato naval officer says the rise of the militant group in Libya is casting a shadow over shipping in the Med. Islamic State militants hope to build a maritime arm that could carry out attacks in the Mediterranean, a senior Nato Naval officer has warned.The march of Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (Isil) along the Libyan coast has cast an “uncomfortable shadow” across shipping said Vice-Adml Clive Johnstone.The spread of sophisticated Russian and Chinese weapons to armed groups in the region also means there is now the “horrible opportunity” a cruise liner or container ship could be hit, the commander of Nato’s maritime command warned.Libya’s collapse into chaos and Isil’s seizure of the coastal city of Sirte has prompted alarm in Europe, with countries including Britain and Italy considering sending thousands of troops to train local forces. He said: “We know they have had ambitions to go off shore, we know they would like to have a maritime arm, just as al Qaeda had a maritime arm.” He said: “There is a horrible opportunity in the future that a misdirected, untargeted round of a very high quality weapons system will just happen to target a cruise liner, or an oil platform, or a container ship.”

5 Feb, European security officials are concerned about the dangers posed by cargo ships. Smuggling has long been a problem, but fears are now rising about terrorists taking advantage of these illicit activities. The problem is that Europe simply does not have a comprehensive official tracking system for the estimated 10,000 cargo ships that ply European waters every month. Some nations are much better than otheers at checking vessels when they arrive in their ports.The Financial Times has just published an investigation into the scale and nature of the problem, using data from a maritime intelligence company, Windward, based in Israel. The FT’s reporter, Sam Jones, says about 540 ships entered European waters last month after activities that were, at best, questionable.





“That could be a number of things,” says Jones. Some turned off their tracking devices. “All ships are supposed to carry a GPS tracking device that

allows authorities to locate where they are. But a lot of ships turn that off. We don’t know why. A lot of ships spoof their tracking device. They say they’re somewhere they’re not. Other ships simply lie about who they are. They say they’re this ship, but it turns out they’re not that ship at all.” Other ships do things that make no economic sense. “So you might have a ship that’s making a declared voyage from one port in Europe to another, or from a port in the Middle East to another — but along the way, along that journey, it’s not taking the nice direct route; it’s doing something like going really close to the North African shore for a long way, turning off its transponder so no-one can see it’s there. And who knows what it’s doing. And then it’s going on to Europe.” “There’s a significant and rising number of ships doing this kind of thing,” says Jones. Jones says organized crime gangs have long-established routes for smuggling arms and narcotics. The chaos along much of the Mediterranean coast in places like Syria and Libya raises fears that some of these ships may be providing material assistance to armed groups.The worst case scenarios among European security officials that Jones spoke with, include fears of a possible seaborne terrorist assault, or of a giant bomb being smuggled in via a container.

Previous reported: India’s Growing Naval MightIndia’s latest International Fleet Review highlights the growing importance of the maritime sphere for New Delhi.By Harsh V. Pant February 09, 2016 Flagging the threat of sea-borne terror and piracy as two key challenges to maritime security and underlining the need to respect freedom of navigation against the backdrop of South China Sea dispute, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared during the IFR that India will be hosting the first-ever Global Maritime Summit in April. He made it clear that the Indian Ocean region remains his government’s priority given India’s 1,200 island territories, and its huge exclusive economic zone of 2.4 million sq km. He further underlined the Indian Ocean region’s role “as a strategic bridge with the nations in our immediate and extended maritime neighborhood.” Underlining the need for a “modern and multi-dimensional Navy,” Modi stressed that India would continue to actively pursue and promote its geopolitical, strategic, and economic interests on the seas, in particular the Indian Ocean.Also Is India Prepared to Prevent Sea-Borne Terrorist Infiltration?David Headley’s testimony should remind Indian policymakers of the urgency of preventing sea-borne infiltrators. By Ankit Panda February 09, 2016. Headley’s testimony included references to the involvement of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) in helping the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists infiltrate India to perpetrate the worst terror attack on Indian soil since the 2006 Mumbai train bombings.In the investigation into the terror attacks, one of the major revelations was that the 10 terrorists had entered India not by land, but using inflatable speed boats by sea. Over the past year, attacks at Gurdaspur and Pathankot, in Punjab, have refocused attention on terrorists crossing the land border with Pakistan, but Headley’s testimony should be a reminder of the sea-based threat from Pakistan-based terror groups. Speaking to the court, Headley emphasized that the November 26, 2008 coastal arrival wasn’t the first attempt by the 10 attackers. In September 2008, Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives had made a failed attempt.What’s worrisome is that even after the trauma of 2008, the Indian Coast Guard remains under-prepared to stave off a similar attempt at coastal infiltration. Headley’s





testimony before the Indian court happened to come shortly after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke at India’s International Fleet Review,

emphasizing the “threat of sea borne terror.” India thus recognizes the importance of securing the maritime vector for possible terrorist infiltration, but should bolster its Coast Guard to adequately perform the task. Headley’s testimony is an all-too-timely reminder of the sea-based terror threat.




i Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 19-138-Caliphate- The State of al-Qaeda-30- Bab-el-Mandab (Bab-el-Mandeb strait)Remember what Abu-Mus‘ab al-Suri, ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Hakim had to say regarding the importance of “There are (5) important naval straits in the globe … .in his Dec 2004 published manifesto…..The Call for Global Islamic Resistance. Al-Suri started writing "The Call for Global Islamic Resistance" in 1997 in Kabul, and finalized its current version in 2004. Abu Musab al-Suri's 1,600 page manifesto, "The Call for Global Islamic Resistance," constitutes an important window into contemporary jihadist thought and the historical evolution of jihadi movements. The book was published in December 2004 online and is still available on a few Jihadist Websites for download.Page 1384] Third: naval straits and main water crossings:There are (5) important naval straits in the globe, four of which are located in Arab and Muslim land and the fifth in America which is the Panama Canal. These straits are:1. The strait of Hormuz, the oil gate of Arabian Gulf – Persian2. The Suez Canal in Egypt3. Bab al-Mandeb between Yemen and the horn of Africa4. Gibraltar Straits in al-Maghrib al-Aqsa [TC: Morocco]The majority of the Western World economy, its commerce and oil pass through these water crossings. The Military Fleets, air carriers, the missiles of death, they all pass through these crossing and they are targeting our children and women. We have to shut down these crossings so that these campaigns would leave. This could be achieved by targeting American ships and ships of their allied countries. They could be closed through mining and sinking ships, or by threatening naval passage through martyrdom operations, hijacking and by force if possible.[Page 1018] One of the things the Ottomans were proud of is that they used to prevent Christian ships from crossing the Bab el-Mandib strait from Yemen to the Gulf of Suez because they would be passing near by the sea of Jedda, which is one of the holy areas. They considered the entire Red Sea as holy and forbidden to Christians! The Ottoman ships would take the goods from the Christian traders at Yemen and transport it for them to theGulf of Suez and give it to them at the Mediterranean.[Page 100] Robbing the Muslims' Treasury and their Foundational Wealth; If we were to add the fact that the Islamic world extending east from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines, to the coasts of the Atlantic ocean and west to the Morocco coasts, Mauritania, and Senegal, and from central Asia, the Caucuses, the Balkans, North Africa to South Asia, the Indonesian islands, and south to the center of sub-Saharan Africa; if we were to know that this Islamic world owns a tremendous strategic reserve of mineral resources, since a number of its governments are considered among the top exporters of important industrial metals; and if we add to that the agricultural and zoological fortunes abundant to these regions, in addition to what it provides from land, sea, and air transportation resources as well as the transit rights for the area, which contains four of the five most important international naval straits and passageways, the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandab, Suez canal, and Gibraltar, and its skies are transportation nodes between the four geographical directions in the world; if we considered all of this, we would be amazed at how this region contains countries which top the lists of poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy in the world!

al-qaida chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2016 part 17-79-the deep battle against the...

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