The Neo-Salafi Challenge.

Experts like Taheri tend to believe the Shi'ite Islamist militancy and the terrorist groups it generates constitute the greatest challenge to Washington's global war on terror. But experts who believe the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran is more vulnerable to potential destruction by the US than the Neo-Salafi militants of the Sunni sect base their argument on the fact that Iran wants to project itself as a responsible world power and, therefore, seem to be convinced that eventually the US and Iran could have a lasting peace agreement.

The latter argument would suggest lasting Shi'ite-US alliance as a possibility. But this could have a potentially damaging effect on Washington's relations with the Sunni status quo in the Arab world, i.e, Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, etc. Yet experts who favour a US-Shi'ite alliance point to the fact that the Neo-Salafi challenge to the US - including 9/11 - is more serious and depends on funding from rich people of the Sunni Arab status quo. In Saudi Arabia, the state religion is Wahhabism. The Neo-Salafi current of Sunni militants, also known as "takfiris" such as Zarqawi, has emanated from Egypt but is the same as the Neo-Wahhabi terrorists of al-Qaeda who are now active in the Saudi kingdom. Yet the takfiris depend heavily on wealthy Muslims in the rich GCC states (see news23-gccStockCrash-Iran-Jun5-06).

One US expert focusing on the Neo-Salafi challenge is Michael Scheuer, who served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He was chief of the Osama bin Laden unit at the Counter-terrorist Centre from

1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America. The following are extracts from an article by Scheuer published on May 31, though Mr. Scheuer did not mention such definitions as Neo-Salafism or Neo-Salafi insurgents (with underlining by APS):

"In recent weeks, media reports from both Iraq and Afghanistan have suggested the appearance of a slow evolution of the Islamist insurgents' tactics in the direction of the battlefield deployment of larger mujahideen units that attack "harder" facilities. These attacks are not replacing small-unit attacks, ambushes, kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings in either country, but rather seem to be initial and tentative forays toward another stage of fighting. In the past month, reports have suggested Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Iraqi resistance allies are trying to train semi-conventional units, and this month's large-unit action by the Taliban at the town of Musa Qala in southern Afghanistan may be straws in the wind in this regard.

"Al-Qaeda believes that it and its allies can only defeat the US in a 'long war', one that allows the Islamists to capitalize on their extraordinary patience, as well as on their enemies' lack thereof. Before his death in a firefight with Saudi security forces, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Abu Hajar Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, wrote extensively about how al-Qaeda believed the military fight against the US and its allies would unfold. He envisioned a point at which the mujahideen would have to develop semi-conventional forces. He identified this period as the "Decisive Stage".

"Muqrin told his insurgent readers that the power of the US precluded any expectation of a quick victory. He wrote that the war would progress slowly through such phases as initial manpower mobilization, political work among the populace to establish trust and support, the accumulation of weaponry and other supplies, the establishment of bases around the country and especially in the mountains, the initiation of attacks on individuals and then a gradual intensification of the latter until a countrywide insurgency was under way.

"Each of these steps was essential and none could be skipped, Muqrin maintained; the steps would prolong the war, thereby allowing the mujahideen to grow in numbers, experience and combat power. 'We should warn against rushing from one stage to the next', he wrote. 'Rather, we should be patient and take all factors into consideration. The fraternal brothers in Algeria, for instance, hastily moved from one stage to the other ...The outcome was the movement's retreat...from 1995-1997". As these steps were traversed by the mujahideen, Muqrin argued that the resources, political will, morale and manpower of the insurgents' enemies would be eroded and their forces would assume more static positions in order to limit the attrition they suffered.

"In this stage of the insurgency, Muqrin predicted that the US and its allies would conduct far fewer large-scale combat operations in the countryside and would turn toward conducting smaller raids on specific targets, while simultaneously hardening their bases and protecting their supply routes and lines of communication... Muqrin wrote the mujahideen could begin the final stage of preparation for victory, 'which is building a military force across the country that becomes the nucleus of a military army'.

"With the end of the constant pressure and danger generated by major enemy sweep operations, Muqrin wrote that the mujahideen should begin 'taking advantage of the areas where the regime has little or reduced presence' to train semi-conventional military units. In these areas, 'the mujahideen will set up administrative centers and bases ...They will build camps, hospitals, sharia courts and radio transmission stations at these areas, which will serve as a staging area for their military and political operations'.

"Currently, Anbar province in Iraq; Nuristan, the Kunar Valley, Kandahar and Paktika provinces in Afghanistan; and swathes of Pakistan's border provinces would seem to meet the requirements laid down by Muqrin. It should be clearly noted that Muqrin neither envisioned nor called for mujahideen units that could evenly square off with the units of their foes.

"Although the formation of such insurgent units would mark 'the era of victory and conquests for the mujahideen', Muqrin wrote, the development of 'semi-regular forces that gradually become regular forces with modern formations' would not yield forces equivalent to those of the enemy. 'By modern', Muqrin wrote, 'I mean the need for these troops to be knowledgeable about regular warfare, the army formations [and] their function in urban areas. I do not mean following the suit of the regimes...'

"The purpose of these forces? 'Through these regular forces', Muqrin explained, 'the mujahideen will begin to attack small cities and publicize the conquest and victories in the media to lift the morale of the mujahideen and the people in general and break the morale of the enemy'.

Muqrin continued: 'The reason the mujahideen should target the small cities is that when the enemies' soldiers see these [small] cities falling into the hands of the mujahideen it will destroy their morale and they will realize that they are no match for the mujahideen'.

"...Muqrin uses for his example the activities of the Afghan mujahideen from 1988-92. In Afghanistan, this period encompassed the era after the Soviet military terminated its large-scale, hammer-and-anvil sweep operations - leaving most of the country's non-urban areas to the mujahideen - and after the Soviet withdrawal when the Afghan communists were hunkered down in a few urban bastions.

"In these years, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Jalaluddin Haqqani began to train small, semi-conventional units to use in attempts to take small cities of the kind to which Muqrin refers. Both Afghan commanders successfully used these units; Massoud took...small cities in northern Afghanistan - including Takhar - and Haqqani took Khost, then the capital of Paktia province. These relatively small victories produced a substantial morale boost among the Afghan mujahideen and their supporters and produced equal dismay among their enemies.

"In a similar but more recent example of this phenomenon, the Iraqi insurgency's morale received a boost - and the US-led coalition was embarrassed - when Zarqawi's forces took and temporarily held the small city of al-Qaim near the Syrian border in September 2005.

"...[It] is again important to note that al-Qaeda's doctrine as explained by Muqrin does not call for semi-conventional units to replace guerrilla forces; the latter will remain a main force of the insurgency, as well as its safety net. At this stage, Muqrin wrote, 'we should keep the guerrillas because the mujahideen may need them in some cases'.

"Muqrin argued that it was always possible that the enemy would revert to large-scale aggressive offensive operations and force the insurgents back into an earlier stage of the war. He also noted that the enemy's airpower would always afford it great mobility.

"'It should be noted here that the main bases on the mountains must maintain a strong garrison and that the conquests [taking small cities] should not tempt the mujahideen to abandon their fortified bases', Muqrin warned. 'This is [done] so not to give the enemy an opportunity to conduct a rear-landing operation, taking advantage of the absence of the mujahideen in these bases. This is why we mentioned earlier that the mujahideen must keep the guerrillas constantly prepared'.

"The larger insurgent units that have been sporadically operating in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past year may signal the initial, limited success of Muqrin's call for the building of semi-conventional...units.

"...It will suffice to say that what is known about al-Qaeda's doctrine for the 'long war' calls for the eventual creation of such units, and that al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's instructions to Zarqawi - in a letter intercepted on July 9, 2005 - clearly infers that the mujahideen will need semi-conventional forces to control Iraq after the withdrawal of the US-led coalition".

Basra Crackdown: PM Maliki on May 31 visited the southern oil capital of Basra and declared a month-long state of emergency in an attempt to restore order to a city beset by quarrelling Shi'ite political parties, militias and criminal gangs.

In an address to local officials, tribal leaders and others broadcast on state TV, Maliki said: "We will strike with an iron fist on the heads of gangs who are manipulating security. Gangs, which exploit the security vacuum in this country, kidnap and trade in their hostages.

Reuters quoted officials as saying security forces would be deployed on Basra's streets. Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani had earlier suggested that the central government be empowered to dismiss provincial officials in an attempt to end the crisis.

Locals claim that security has deteriorated sharply in the predominantly Shi'ite city of more than 1.5m in recent months. There are some 8,000 British troops in the Basra region. By then at least 115 people had been killed since the beginning of April, while nine British troops were killed in the city in May.

The killings stem from a number of overlapping conflicts in a city which even by Iraqi standards is politically fragmented and polarised.

The dominant forces in Basra's local government are a handful of Shi'ite Islamist groups, notably al-Fadhila al-Islamiya, Jaysh al-Mahdi militia of radical mullah Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr forces of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), all with strong links to Iran.

Much of the violence, meanwhile, is blamed on renegade subgroups of Jaysh al-Mahdi and Badr militia, not necessarily under the control of their leaderships, who reportedly engage in kidnapping and extortion.

The gangs compete for a share of the black market fuel trade worth billions of dollars nationally, and include crude oil siphoned directly from nearby pipelines or gasoline smuggled to the Gulf by the city's fishing fleet.

Representatives of the city's Sunni Arab minority say they have been targets of sectarian killers, with two Sunni religious men shot dead in recent weeks. In addition, the erratic behaviour of Fadhila, which holds the governorship, has been blamed for contributing to paralysis in the local administration which has allowed militia activity to surge.

Fadhila has quarrelled with the police as well as influential Shi'ite mullahs in the city. More recently Fadhila cadres in the oil sector reportedly threatened to interfere with production after Maliki handed the formerly Fadhila-dominated Oil Ministry portfolio to Hussein Shahristani, a respected Shi'ite independent trusted by Grand Ayatullah Ali al-Sistani - the highest Shi'ite religious figure in Iraq.

Several of the region's tribes have clashed with each other and with police, while Maliki and others have said that both the behaviour of British troops in the city as well as infiltration from Iran have contributed to the tensions.

Despite an apparent consensus in Basra that the current situation is intolerable, the city's political fragmentation might make it difficult for even a forceful outsider such as Maliki to restore a sense of stability. Before his speech, the PM was forced to quiet members of his audience who began trading accusations of responsibility for the violence. Maliki said: "We cannot negotiate with everybody shouting".

Arriving from Baghdad with Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president and three other senior officials in a US helicopter, Maliki berated local leaders and ordered the Iraqi Army to take over the streets in Basra.

It was the first serious test of Maliki's power since he became prime minister in April and pledged to deal decisively with political militias and criminal gangs whose growing power is threatening the Iraqi state. Addressing an auditorium crowded with tribal leaders, politicians, and university professors, he said: "Security comes first, second and third". He has repeatedly pledged to have militia forces disbanded.

The visit underscored the plight of Iraq's once-quiet south, which was long held as a model for security in an otherwise war-ravaged country. In the past year, the rival Shi'ite parties and their militias have been locked in bitter disputes over who will run the government and who will control of the oil wealth.

Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, controls virtually all Iraq's oil exports. The oil flow from the north has all but stopped because of attacks on pipelines. "This is a very rich area", said Mark Marrano, deputy regional co-ordinator for the US Embassy, adding: "Everybody is trying to get a piece of the pie".

There had been about 400 murders, more than double the number for February and March. In May, 10 soldiers were killed across four southern provinces, a toll matched only in January 2005, when a British military plane crashed.

Maliki spoke directly of the rise in violence in blunt language: "What are these assassinations? What is this killing? What are the gangs that kill and kidnap? What is going on in this city, which sacrificed so much through history?"

The governor of Basra, Muhammad al-Wa'eli, belongs to Fadhila, which controls the most seats in the provincial council. A bloc led by SCIRI detests Wa'eli and wants to remove him, but has failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed to do it.

The struggle has raised questions about the balance of power between Baghdad and the provinces. (A law drawn up under the former US administrator, Paul Bremer, gives the provinces full control over their police forces and their local governments, a fact Wa'eli's supporters are quick to point out).

Aqil Taleb, a Fadhila member on the council, was on June 1 quoted as saying: "They can't get the votes they need" to remove him. Even Maliki can't change the governor without them".

The meeting with Maliki took place in a cultural centre for the South Oil Co. (SOC) in northern Basra and was attended by about 400 Basra citizens, tribal shaiks and officials, including the governor, who arrived after it began, and the police chief. Wa'eli had tried to fire the police chief several times.

Officials from Baghdad who attended included Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemy; Khalid al-Atiya, deputy speaker of the House of Representatives; Baha' al-A'raji, a parliament member close to Sadr, whose influence and militia in Basra are strong; and Safa al-Safi, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs.

Maliki's political acumen was tested immediately. An hour after the meeting began, the discussion descended into a shouting match, with tribal shaiks hurling insults at the chairman of the Basra Provincial Council, Muhammad Sa'doun al-Abadi.

Abadi accused the media of exaggerating the troubles of the region and said local leaders had done their best with too few resources, adding: "Don't put all the blame or all the mistakes or all the collapse on the local government here".

Some time later in Abadi's speech, several tribal shaikhs began to shout from a few rows back. "Liar!" one blurted out. "None of this is true. You are a liar".

When organisers proposed that participants break for lunch, there was more shouting. "We don't want to eat, we want to talk!" someone said, adding: "All the tribes are here and if we don't have a solution we will make a revolution".

Maliki silenced them, saying: "My brothers, peace". He led them in a quick prayer and then said: "The highest voice is not usually the winner".

Although many frustrations spilled into the open during the debate, the thorniest issues - the corrupt police and oil smuggling - were left to be discussed in private.

Basra's police force is heavily infiltrated by local militias. The chief of the police, Maj. Gen. Hassan Swadi al-Sa'd, said only about half of his force was trustworthy.

In a measure of how unstable Basra had become, Sa'd was recently the target of a bomb attack but escaped unscathed. He blamed corrupt police.

Then, on May 30, gunmen strafed two of his senior guards, killing one and seriously wounding the second.