Isegoria

When Newsweek went back to its al-Qaeda insider, Hafiz Hanif, he reported that his old friends are on the ropes:

When Newsweek interviewed Hanif (his nom de guerre) for our Sept. 13, 2010, cover story, “Inside Al Qaeda,” he estimated that the group had roughly 130 Arabs in Waziristan, along with dozens more Chechens, Turks, Tajiks, even recruits from Western Europe. But little more than a year later, he estimates there are no more than 40 to 60 al Qaeda operatives of any nationality on either side of the border. “Al Qaeda was once full of great jihadis, but no one is active and planning opera-tions anymore,” he complains. “Those who remain are just trying to survive.”

The son of longtime Afghan war refugees living in Pakistan, Hanif had just turned 15 when (against his parents’ strenuous objections) he ran away to join the war against the U.S. forces in his home country. That was in early 2009, and for the next year and more, the bright but impressionable boy lived among al Qaeda fighters in the isolated wilds of North Waziristan. His parents finally persuaded him to return home in June 2010, but he headed out again this past June in hope of reconnecting with his old unit. He was shocked by what he found. “The flower is wilting,” he told a Newsweek correspondent who met with him in December in a Taliban safe house near the Afghan town of Khost. “I think the once-glorious chapter of al Qaeda is being closed.”
[...]
“As long as the Sheik [Osama] was alive, our leaders were strong and were determined to fight. But his death and the drones have sucked the blood out of our leadership. Now leaders seem to spend all their time moving from one place to another for their safety.” Lying low didn’t save Sheik Ayatullah; the drones got him soon after Hanif’s return to Waziristan.

New recruits have stopped coming, Hanif says. “When new people came they brought new blood, enthusiasm, and money. All that has been lost.” The money may be a bigger problem than the manpower, he says. Al Qaeda used to receive millions of dollars a year from Arabian Gulf contributors, but Hanif’s uncle says his contacts tell him the donations have dried up. Instead, he believes, the money is going to the more productive and generally nonviolent Arab Spring movements in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen. “I think Arab people now think the fight should be political at home and not terrorism aimed at the West,” says the uncle. “The peaceful struggle on Arab streets has accomplished more than bin Laden and Zawahiri ever have.”
[...]
Hanif says he spent the next five months with [the Taliban-allied Pashtun army led by Sirajuddin Haqqani] and took part in several cross-border raids into Afghanistan — “picnics,” his fellow fighters called them. “We’d cross the border on operations of one, two, or three days; make short, sharp attacks; and then return,” he says. “Crossing into Afghanistan is easier than ever. There’s no one to stop us.” When Haqqani fighters run into Pakistani troops, they just keep going, Hanif says; they’re never challenged. “I think there’s an understanding,” he says.

Posted in War | 2 Comments »