AQ in Iraq Archives - Selected Wisdom

January 11, 2013 by Clint

Ansar al Sharia’s Overt Support For Foreign Fighters in Iraq

Last night @azelin made an interesting discovery linking Ansar al Sharia in Libya with foreign fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq. See the post here. Aaron spotted some Ansar al Sharia propaganda calling for the release of Libyan foreign fighters currently detained in Iraq.

A month ago, Ansar al-Shari’ah in Benghazi (The Supporters of Islamic Law; ASB), on its official Facebook page via its official media outlet al-Rayyah Foundation for Media Production uploaded a poster (see above) promoting a demonstration on Sunday December 16 in Tripoli and Benghazi

Aaron, with the help of Green Mountain, thought to compare the names and pictures of the detained Libyans with the Sinjar records of foreign fighters to Iraq. Here’s what he found.

Two of the individuals also contained pictures in their Sinjar application for the Islamic State of Iraq. Below, you can see a comparison of the application photo from 2006 on the left and what I am assuming is a relatively recent photo of the same individual in Iraqi custody, which is from the above flier. There are slight differences due to aging and likely poor conditions in Iraqi prisons and the second picture looks closer in similarity to the before and after than the first one. For those reading, what do you think (leave a comment below)?

Check out his post and the pictures and see what you think. Are these the same people?

Also of note this morning, Asher Berman of Syria Survey said there are other groups in Libya also supporting the release of these Libyan foreign fighters to Iraq.

So what does all this mean? Some will say this shows these Libyan groups are al Qaeda. Others will say just that it shows definitive support for global jihad. For me, I’ll wait and see what happens over the next few months.

If interested in looking at the translated foreign fighter records from Sinjar, see this link. And if you want to just look at the coded names from this data, see this spreadsheet here.

December 26, 2012 by Clint

What is the primary affiliate of al Qaeda a year after Bin Laden’s death? Poll Results #10

From May 2, 2012 through July 2012, I asked a related question with respect to the relative strength of al Qaeda (AQ) affiliates. After asking each respondent whether al Qaeda affiliates were ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’ (see the results here), I asked respondents:

Which affiliate is the primary node of al Qaeda globally?

In total, 165 respondents selected a primary node of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was the clear favorite on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death. This seems unsurprising as AQAP was discussed profusely in the U.S. media during the May/June 2012 timeframe.

Here’s a chart showing the selections of voters this past summer.

Again, consistent with my break down of previous questions, I have shown the votes based on different demographic categories. Here are some that caught my eye.

’Government Non-Military’ voters were less likely to select AQAP and appear to believe AQ Central in Afghanistan and Pakistan remains the central node of al Qaeda.
Those selecting ‘Television’ as their primary source (note – a small group of voters), were more likely than any other demographic to select an ‘Emerging AQ in North Africa’ as the primary node.
Travel played an interesting dynamic in this vote. Those who have traveled outside the U.S./EU more than 2 years were evenly split between AQAP and AQ Central being the primary node of AQ. However, those that have traveled less than 2 years outside the U.S./EU selected AQAP at the same rate as the majority but were more diffuse in their selections beyond AQAP including the selection of al Shabaab at a rate of almost 10%.

Here are the results of all voters broken down by demographic group.

December 18, 2012 by Clint

Are al Qaeda affiliates getting ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’? Poll results #9

On May 2, 2012, one year after the death of Osama Bin Laden, I asked the following question here at this blog:

Do you think the following al Qaeda (AQ) affiliates have become stronger or weaker over the past year? (Select ‘Stronger’ or ‘Weaker’ for each affiliate)

AQIM
AQ in East Africa/al Shabaab
AQAP in Yemen
AQ Central in Pakistan/Afghanistan
Emerging AQ affiliate in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia
AQ in Iraq
AQ in the Caucasus

In total, roughly 175 respondents answered this question between May 2, 2012 and the end of July 2012. The results of this question are really seven-fold as each al Qaeda affiliate was assessed independently. Below are the results of respondents’ collective assessments of each al Qaeda affiliate. I’ve showed an aggregated comparison of all respondent votes below in a chart. This compares the percentage of all votes for each al Qaeda affiliate.

Below this chart, I’ve compiled the votes of respondents into a table showing the break out of votes for each al Qaeda affiliate stratified across different demographic attributes. During this past summer, respondents clearly rated AQAP in Yemen as ‘stronger’ at higher rates than any other affiliate. However, I wonder how they would rate AQAP in Yemen now, 6 months later?

Here are some points that I found interesting in the deeper examination of respondents’ votes across each al Qaeda affiliate.

AQIM

- ‘Government Non-Military’ voters and ‘Private Sector’ voters rated AQIM ‘stronger’ at lower levels then other professional groups.

- Again, those preferring ‘Social Media’ as their primary information source were the most likely to select AQIM as ‘stronger’.

AQ in East Africa/al Shabaab

- Again, ‘Government Non-Military’ voters were the least likely to select al Qaeda threats from the Horn of Africa as ‘stronger’. Meanwhile, ‘Private Sector’ voters switched and were more likely than most to select Shabaab as getting ‘stronger’. Is that the effect of lots of television news reports about the Shabaab merger with AQ Central during the February 2012 timeframe?

AQAP in Yemen

- During this survey, all groups thought AQAP was ‘stronger’. Students and Academics were most convinced that AQAP was ‘stronger’ while ‘Government Non-Military’ were the most skeptical of AQAP’s strength.

AQ Central in Pakistan/Afghanistan

- All groups seemed to think AQ Central was weaker a year after Bin Laden’s death. Academia is particularly down on AQ Central. But here’s where it gets weird, ‘Government Non-Military’ voters were more likely than other voters to believe that AQ Central is ‘stronger’ a year after Bin Laden’s death. The same group that was skeptical about AQIM, AQAP, and Shabaab is less skeptical about AQ Central.

- Television viewers were most likely of from information source to believe that AQ Central was ‘stronger’, although they were still less than 50% in this assessment.

Emerging AQ affiliate in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia

- Voters were most undecided about the strength of al Qaeda in North Africa. 51% thought this emerging affiliate was ‘stronger’ and 49% thought this emerging affiliate was ‘weaker’. I wonder what the vote would be if I ran this in the week after the Benghazi attacks?

- A strange breakdown of this affiliate occurs with regards to information sources. Those preferring intelligence reports and newspapers believe this affiliate is ‘weaker’ but magazine readers were more likely to say ‘stronger’.

AQ in Iraq

- Overall, AQ in Iraq was assessed as ‘weaker’, but academics and those with PHD’s were more likely to select AQ in Iraq as ‘stronger’ a year after Bin Laden’s death.

AQ in the Caucasus

- The threat of al Qaeda in the Caucasus – does anyone really know anything about this threat – appears to be ‘weaker’ based on all votes, but social media watchers were the group most likely to select ‘stronger’.

Here are the breakdown charts by demographic group for each AQ affiliate assessed by voters.

October 19, 2012 by Clint

Syria Support and ‘Loss Aversion’ – How do we think about foreign intervention? – 1 Year Post UBL – Results #5

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I wanted to find out two things with regards to one question.

How supportive were voters to a Western intervention in Syria similar to the support provided to the Libyan resistance to overthrow Qaddafi?
How susceptible were voters to the bias of loss aversion? Much of the debate surrounding a Syrian intervention centers on the fear of military weapons and aid falling into the hands of al Qaeda affiliated individuals and groups. Dan Ariely describes in his books, The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational, how fear of losses can loom larger than gains thus influencing our decisions with regards to risk. Having backed militias in Afghanistan that later provided the seeds for al Qaeda, the U.S. national debate with regards to backing the Libyan rebellion and now the Syrian uprising continually echoes with fears of “What if terrorists get our weapons?” – a justifiable fear.

To test these two things with one question, I’ve conducted a several month long experiment here at this blog via the “1 Year After Bin Laden” poll beginning on May 2, 2012 and a series of blog posts (#1,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6) during the months of August through October. These blog posts used a variety of framing techniques designed to skew voting results with regards to ‘loss aversion’ testing (BTW – only @jeremyscahill - a journalist of course – called me out on my ridiculous framing of some of the questions). The experiment and results come in two parts.

Experiment iteration #1 – Last question of the “1 Year After Bin Laden” survey – May 2, 2012 through July 16, 2012

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I distributed the “1 Year After Bin Laden” survey in a variety of venues. However, there were two versions of this survey. Some respondents (90 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime if they can guarantee that 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no demonstrated connection to or ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Some respondents (106 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria – a question designed to frame the issue in terms of losses. The hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing ‘loss of support to al Qaeda’ would select the choice to “not support the Syrian rebellion” at a higher rate. Here’s the alternate question.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime even if 5% of all support provided would be lost to resistance fighters with a demonstrated connection and ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #1: In this first experiment, I detected no sense of loss aversion skewing respondent choices with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance. It didn’t matter which question voters received, they selected “Yes” or “No” in roughly the same distribution regardless of question context. The overall balance of votes was 39% saying “Yes, we should support the rebels” and 61% saying “No, we should not support the rebels.” In fact, those that received the loss aversion question were slightly more likely to select “Yes, we should support the rebels.” I’ll have more analysis of these results below, but here is the breakdown chart of professional group votes for the Syria support question during the months of May through July. Interesting points were:

‘Academia’ voters were most likely to reject the notion of supporting the Syrian resistance.
‘Military’ voters were more inclined to support the Syrian resistance even if some support were lost to people affiliated with al Qaeda.

Experiment iteration #2 – Single question posted at “Selected Wisdom” – August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012

After analyzing the results from the “1 Year After Bin Laden” poll, I wondered if question wording, structure or placement made the bias of loss aversion not emerge. Starting at the end of August, I decided to run this experiment again to look for 1) whether loss aversion was present with respondent choices and 2) if overall support for a Syrian intervention had changed since media coverage of Syria fighting became more profuse in recent months.

Through a series of blog posts on Syria and distribution of links on Twitter, several respondents (42 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no connection to or affinity for al Qaeda?

Alternatively, some blog posts and Twitter links received answers to a different question (40 in total) with regards to their support for backing the Syrian resistance – again the hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing ‘loss of support to al Qaeda’ would select the choice to “not” support the Syrian rebellion at a higher rate.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 5% of all support will be lost to fighters connected to or aligned with al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #2: In the second experiment, despite significant changes in the intensity of the Syrian conflict, elapse of time, question framing, etc., I received almost the exact same results as in experiment #1. I detected no ‘loss aversion’ bias. Again, the overall balance of votes was 39% saying “Yes, we should support the rebels” and 61% saying “No, we should not support the rebels.” A quick caveat, some of the voters to the second experiment were assuredly the same as those that voted in the first experiment. However, a significant amount were different as I used different and more dissemination platforms in the second experiment to gather an alternative sample. I’ll post more cumulative analysis below, but here is a chart showing the results of experiment #2 from August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012.

So, what does this all mean? I have lots of theories but a definitive answer would require more experimentation. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

The crowd showed no real bias towards ‘loss aversion‘. Looking at the table below, across the board respondents of all demographic breakdowns were generally split at a rate of 40% for intervention (‘Yes’ -Votes) and 60% against intervention (‘No’- Votes) with one notable exception in yellow.
I believe the resistance to ‘loss aversion’, assuming I properly crafted the questions, results from a highly educated audience that knows a considerable bit about counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and national security in general. Respondent knowledge of the topic helps them offset against question framing and arrive at decisions more analytically in this context. This doesn’t mean that if you asked the same audience ‘loss aversion’ questions about the stock market, for example, that they would be equally resistant. My guess would be I along with many of the respondents would be much more prone to a ‘loss aversion’ bias if queried on subjects for which we have limited knowledge and less data from which to offset the fear of losses.
The ‘loss aversion’ question in the context of a Syrian intervention may not have worked because many I have talked to, and several respondents noted below, have a definitive ideological stance about foreign intervention of any kind. Essentially, many I talk to reference getting involved in Syria quickly retort with “we should never get involved in these foreign interventions, look what happened in Libya (Iraq, Afghanistan, fill in the blank).” Others will quickly respond with, “we intervened in Libya, so why shouldn’t we help out the Syrians?” I believe individual respondent stance on foreign intervention in general overrides any bias detection injected by me through question structure. Whether its Syria or any country, respondents have a pre-determined position on interventions.
The recent U.S. support to Libya likely plays heavy on the minds of respondents and, depending on political preferences, can shape the responses to the Syria question. The debate on Syria currently rests in a bizarre twist as I noted in a post this week. The GOP appeared against a Libyan intervention under the Obama administration last year, but now has gone all in for supporting a Syrian intervention. Meanwhile, the Democratic Obama administration backed the Arab Spring uprising in Libya but seems particularly reluctant to get involved in Syria before the upcoming election. I’m curious how this will shake out in next week’s Presidential debate, and I have no idea how this shapes respondent choices to the Syria question during Experiment #1 or Experiment #2.

I’ll conclude with some last points related to the results breakout in the table below. The table shows the results by demographic attribute in Experiment #1 across both question types -”gain” and “loss”. The results for Experiment #2 are at the bottom. In green, I’ve highlighted lines I found particularly interesting and in yellow I’ve highlighted the most fascinating result. Here are some final points:

Those identifying ‘Social Media’ as their primary information source were more against intervention on average. Meanwhile, those that prefer ‘Newspapers’ seemed more balanced in their support for or against an intervention in Syria.
Those preferring ‘Television’ as their primary information source (a small sample) were ironically more supportive of intervention in Syria. Is this because television portrayals provide more sympathy to the opposition and relate atrocities to the viewer in a different way? No idea, but interesting.
The most interesting result is in yellow and relates to whether respondents live in and around the Washington DC metropolitan area. Those residing around the nation’s capital were 20% more likely to be against a Syrian intervention than those that are currently living outside the beltway. How about that? What do folks in DC believe that the rest of the U.S. and world perceives differently?
In Experiment #2, I thought support for a Syrian intervention might go down after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. However, the incident didn’t seem to change voting patterns. In fact, the small sample of voters just before the attack were more against a U.S. intervention than those that voted after the Benghazi tragedy.

Here’s the full table, thanks to those that have voted and below the table are the additional comments provided by respondents to support their vote – some really insightful comments that define the key factors needing analysis as the U.S. sets its policy in Syria moving forward.

Here are the open comments submitted during experiment #1 from May through June 2012.

Here are the open comments provided during experiment #2 from the end of August through mid-October.

October 12, 2012 by Clint

AQAP in Yemen Getting the Money After UBL – 1 Year After Bin Laden – Poll Results #4

In my opinion, one of the most critical questions after the death of Osama Bin Laden was where would donor funding to al Qaeda go after the death of the group’s leader? Last year, after Bin Laden’s death, voters (40%) forecasted that Gulf donor funds would shift to AQAP in Yemen. However, an interesting contrast occurred with ‘Private Sector’ voters, who using their experience with business and money, noted that it may instead be “Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa amongst the Arab Spring” that receive a boost in funding. Another interesting finding from the spring of 2011 was from the week prior to Bin Laden’s death where voters believed funding would remain focused on supporting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The implication of these two forecasts appeared clear: Bin Laden was central to drawing donor support from the Gulf. For the full results of last year’s forecast, see this link.

A year later, on May 2, 2012, I asked the following question:

Since Usama Bin Laden’s death, the largest portion of Gulf donor contributions to extremism have gone to:

al Shabaab in Somalia to create an alternate safe haven for AQ
AQ in Iraq to counter Iraq’s Shia dominated government
AQ in Pakistan & the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan to sustain AQ Central
AQAP in Yemen as a more viable group proximate to the Gulf
AQIM to help them exploit North African insecurity
Islamist groups vying for power amongst North African uprisings
Other

Overall, ‘AQAP in Yemen’ received the most votes across the board (40%) and the majority of every professional group. After AQAP in Yemen, just under 20% of voters voters selected ‘AQ in Afghanistan and Pakistan’ and ‘Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa’ – an interesting result that concurs with the forecasts of the ‘Private Sector’ voters last year. Essentially, voters thought the investment in an emerging al Qaeda affiliate was of equal value to backing the old original leaders of al Qaeda in Pakistan. Here are the results for each professional category across all groups surveyed. I went with raw vote totals for this graph and the vote totals and percentages for all demographics is below in a table.

In the following table, I’ve totaled the votes of each demographic for each terror affiliate and percentage of votes from each demographic breakdown selecting each terror affiliate. In green I’ve highlighted a couple demographic breakdowns where the voting pattern is slightly different and higher with regards to ‘AQAP in Yemen’.

‘Academia’ was more likely than the average and more likely than other professional groups to select ‘AQAP in Yemen’. ‘Academia’ was also less enthralled with ‘Emerging Islamist Groups’ than other professional groups.
Likewise, those that chose ‘Newspapers’ as their primary information source also selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’ at a slightly higher rate than the average. This also makes me wonder if newspapers have been reporting on AQAP in Yemen more than other threats. Don’t know, just a theory.

Highlighted in yellow are lines where votes were lower than average for AQAP.

Military voters selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’ less than any other group. In fact, ‘Military’ voters selected ‘AQAP in Yemen’, ‘AQIM in Sahel’ and ‘AQ in AFPAK’ at roughly the same rate. Maybe they know something the rest of us don’t know.

September 26, 2012 by Clint

ISW Report “Jihad in Syria”: Context on Conflict

Last week, the Institute for the Study of War (aka ISW) put down another solid report on the conflict in Syria entitled Jihad in Syria. The Syrian conflict is horribly confusing and sporadically covered further muddying the debate over whether the West should or should not support the overthrow of the Assad regime. ISW clearly has the best team and coverage of the conflict and has added a new dimension with this report expanding on their previous detailing of the FSA. Elizabeth O’Bagy has done an excellent job breaking down the different groups and facets of jihadism in Syria and appears to have really added some more horsepower to ISW’s team.

Here are some of the key findings from the summary I found of particular note:

I discussed on Twitter with some folks that I thought Syria would be the most ideal spot for jihadi migration as opposed to other Arab Spring revolutions. This report notes:

Compared to uprisings in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, the opposition in Syria faces a much greater threat of jihadist infiltration. Many jihadi elements now operating in Syria are already familiar with the terrain, having been sponsored by the Assad regime for over three decades. These jihadi elements turned against their former regime allies in 2011 and are now cooperating with local jihadists.

Being an election year in the U.S., the al Qaeda hype about Syria has been significant in certain circles. However, this report notes:

Al-Qaeda’s direct involvement in Syria has been exaggerated in the media. However, small al-Qaeda affiliated networks are operating in the country, including elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Fatah al-Islam and Jordanian Salafi-jihadists. Rather than sending large numbers of operatives, these networks are providing operational support, including trainers and bomb makers, in order to capitalize on the instability in Syria and expand their influence in the region.

And so the question remains, what should the U.S. do in Syria? ISW’s report recommends…

The U.S. Government has cited concern over arming jihadists as a reason for limiting support to the Syrian opposition. However, U.S. allies are already providing material support to the Syrian opposition, and competing sources of funding threaten Syria’s future stability by enhancing the influence of more radical elements. The confluence of jihadist interest with that of the Gulf states raises the possibility that these states may leverage jihadists for their own strategic purposes, while simultaneously limiting Western influence.

So if you haven’t voted yet, cast your opinion now, should the U.S. back the rebels in Syria?

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

August 6, 2012 by Clint

Hoffman’s take on al Qaeda in Syria

Dina Templ-Raston of NPR did a nice short clip on the extent of al Qaeda infiltration and participation in the Syrian revolts against the Assad regime. The short clip- (click here al Qaeda in Syria) – mixes discussion from Ambassador Dan Benjamin at the U.S. Department of State and the Godfather of terrorism and counterterrorism research, Dr. Bruce Hoffman. Knowledge Ninja Sensei Dr. Bruce (He’s a notch or two above all other knowledge ninjas) provides some interesting perspective on how al Qaeda integrates into rebellions at first, by supporting rather than commanding rebels. Dr. Hoffman notes here.

“The key here is that al-Qaida is not waging these struggles as independent units, rather they are presenting themselves or offering fighters as force multipliers,” …”In the past, they have been very effective of co-opting the local agenda of these groups,” Hoffman said. “We’ve seen it certainly with the Pakistani Taliban that staged the 2010 Times Square attempted bombing. We’ve seen it certainly with al-Shabab in Somalia. And the Free Syrian Army certainly wouldn’t be the first who thought they could control terrorists.”

Ahh, this poses an interesting dilemma for the past week’s discussion on “who should we call al Qaeda?“. In the beginning, al Qaeda doesn’t really taking outright control of local groups. Instead, al Qaeda provides to militant group’s what they need, foreign fighters, weapons, and funding, and then later embed themselves within the leadership of the militant group instituting their jihadi ideology and strategic agenda on a group now in debt to al Qaeda for past support. So, who do we call “al Qaeda’?

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