Al-Qaeda’s continually improving and seemingly unopposed aggressive online marketing appears to stand on certain messaging pillars of excellence:

• Quick, accurate, and professional translations into multiple languages
• Web of unconnected unofficial satellite sites and social media addresses to echo rhetoric and act as a regenerative survivable network
• Use of multiple electronic platforms of differing sophistication to reach audiences with cell phones, dial up Internet, private wifi, radio, and publicly traceable computers
• Controversial headline-stealing themes such as the 2009 racist description of the U.S. President as a “house slave”
• Statements with pithy quotable sound bites
• Locals adding relevant hooks to leadership statements to bait their particular communities
• Creative art and music to inspire users and stimulate as many senses as possible
• Ability to bury statements and videos into unrelated sites—such as soccer and weight-lifting websites—to ensure their survivability amidst government and/or web hosting crackdowns

There are a number of government and private websites attempting to undermine al-Qaeda online marketing. One of the most robust promising private efforts can be found at seventhpillar.net. The site appears to be a miniature mirror of al-Qaeda’s initial online library with statements from terrorism victims, reformed violent extremist leaders, and religious heads. Statements are from sources throughout the Muslim world, and most statements are translated into 21 languages. The home page reads that seventhpillar.net “remains strictly non-political, non-religious, unbiased, and independent” and “is not affiliated with any government, government-connected entity, or propaganda”—indicating independence from government ownership, direction, and influence.

Theoretically, an online repository of competing narratives could act as an essential tool for governments, community leaders, bloggers, reporters, and activists to amplify effective voices to force al-Qaeda and affiliates onto the ideological defensive, dissuade those susceptible to violent extremist propaganda, and transform the apathy in some Muslim communities into visceral disgust over al-Qaeda’s massacre of Muslims and impiety.

However, the site has a ways to go to even compete, let alone outshine, al-Qaeda’s online radicalisation efforts.

Popular website monitoring services have neither information on the rating nor any statistics on viewership for seventhpillar.net—indicating an infinitesimal viewership and poor search engine optimisation (meaning an Internet user will have a hard time finding the site during a search engine query).

The following are some recommended vital steps for this site to potentially have a preventative effect on online radicalisation:

• Actively advertise its existence through search engine optimisation, aggressive social media, and links in related websites
• Be devoid of biased government clerical statements
• Offer sound bites and effective stand-alone quotations just as al-Qaeda boils long texts into popularly accessible quotes
• Explain more fully the credentials and shortcomings of the messengers of the competing narratives to give the appropriate weight to the message (seventhpillar.net only has short biographical descriptions of the authors without links for further research)
• Turn the material into downloadable audio and video formats on numerous platforms
• Add more material to the library to increase viewership

Although in dire need of more breadth, depth, and marketing, seventhpillar.net even in its fledgling state has the potential to somewhat impact those susceptible to radicalisation today because of their sound grounding in accepted Islamic concepts of laws of war and stress on piety and humanity. But it appears more a tool for community leaders than a direct effort to short circuit online radicalisation.

*Note: I am the president of nonprofit Seventhpillar.net and its biggest critic.

No, I am not suggesting that development counters radicalisation. There is no such proof. In fact the most deadly al-Qaeda-tied terrorists have had stable and relatively wealthy and educated backgrounds. Stabilisation may help to strip passive support and $10/day warzone IED layers from the irreconcilable core. But there is no proof that stabilisation will influence violent extremists’ ability to regenerate and spread.

Instead, I am suggesting NATO boldly and openly forces communities to directly take on radicalisation in return for development. Tit for tat. Sound manipulative? That’s because it is.
In Afghanistan’s counterinsurgency environment NATO combat forces are conducting stability operations—with a strong development component to empower local communities as well as national and local governance. Stability operations in theory take best practices from development and counterinsurgency to ‘drain the swamp’ of extremists and kill the violent extremist ‘mosquitoes’ themselves. The theory goes that populaces in stable areas will be less willing to support extremism and more willing to volunteer information on enemy identities, locations, and dispositions.

But two thorns gouge NATO’s strategy. First, if ideological core Taliban and al-Qaeda leading violent extremists can continue to reproduce its number it can still continue its insurgency even without popular support especially now that there is published date (2014) to pull out Western combat forces. Second, local populaces—aware of NATO’s stability mission and aware of the impending withdrawal—may be more likely to say and do anything to get whatever money, projects, and political power NATO is handing out to communities. Locals may be pragmatically grabbing what they can while they can.

In short, NATO faces a regenerative enemy hiding among potentially exploitative communities.
So, it is vital that NATO cut off core Taliban growth (cut off the process by which a person turns to violence in the name of an ideology or ‘radicalisation/mobilisation’) and get its bang for its buck with local populations.

One possible method is by forcing communities to pay for projects not with cash, information, or loyalty; but through aggressive counter-radicalisation activities. In other words, force the locals to directly stem Taliban core growth.

Tie development (empowering and securing communities) and grassroots counter-radicalisation efforts. Development can often equate to both power and security. Any project that may help a tribal leader stay in power, a tribal leader rise to power (especially a yet-untested son of an assassinated or absent clan elder), or a community leader gather more relative power in lieu of another tribe will likely bring community leaders to the bargaining table. As a village leader increases power—through money, the ability to bring in NATO projects, or favors from legitimate government offices, for example—he is able to leverage this power into security when the time is right. More money could turn into more arms, and better liaison with government and NATO outlets could also translate into security when needed. Development can bring short and long-term honor and benefit to community leaders and their relatives and neighbors.

In return for the power and security development offers, NATO units should ask or demand local jirgas and shuras to have their communities conduct the following activities (and points can be awarded for each activity, as long as there is reasonable proof that it happened yes, it can be that straightforward and simple):

• Prevent: Have their mullahs forcefully condemn violent extremism and violent extremism in crowds, on DVDs, and on the radio with such narrative themes as (see seventhpillar.net for a full description of counter-radicalisation narratives from southwest Asia):

o Violent extremists’ ‘jihad’ is impious and unprecedented

o Violent extremist leaders lack religious and militant authority

o Violent extremists gratuitously kill innocents

o Violent extremists spur government suppression of society

o Violent extremists cause societal instability

o Violent extremists aim to destroy tribes

• Reintegrate: Reinsert and rehabilitate non-ideological insurgents and formerly ideological Taliban with recorded recantations—names can be hidden to encourage full direct renunciations and damnations of the Taliban and its leadership.

• Kill: Aggressively hunt down and kinetically target violent extremists, where and when community militias exist outside competent Afghanistan national army and police reach (jirga or shura-intiatived tashkar, tsalweshtai, arbakai, chagha, or chalweshtai movements or NATO community defense initiate local forces). This activity is more than killing insurgents since it may help to prevent young locals from ‘going Taliban.’
These individual actions pale in comparison to the probable secondary orders of effect:

• Blood feud: Once battle against Taliban elements begins or increases, tribal revenge becomes central. In the very tribal (I am using the term ‘tribe’ here to mean ‘qaum’ or community which is loosely bound by location or blood for temporary periods) Afghanistan, vengeance is a key tribal attribute as with North Africa Middle East clans. Such feuds have been known to last up to and beyond six generations. In short, such a blood feud will ensure longevity of the indigenous counter-radicalisation movement.

• Escalation: Individual visceral vengeance when militia members wish to avenge their friends and family after the fighting has already begun can escalate. And when people die for a cause, others want to struggle on in the name of the dead. A narrative used at the height of a lashkar is often the previous sacrifices of the persons in the territory whom the Taliban victimised.

• Self-preservation: Once communities choose a side, there may be no going back. In other words, the tribe has now sworn to flagrantly be an enemy of the Taliban. At this point, continuing the ‘attack’ may be a community’s only option for survival

• Regional and international information operations: The recantations and mullah statements can be information operations narratives to undermine violent extremists nation, region, and worldwide—helping to prevent young persons from radicalising. What works locally may work internationally. And critics of violent extremism in a warzone, making statements in the face of violent reprisal, may be inspiring voices.

Here’s the short-short-version-executive summary of this operational consideration: Step one is to immediately stop payment to all projects. Step two is to force communities to pay for projects in the form of distinct radicalisation activities. Step three is to sit back and watch the communities become more and more committed to these activities.

Since there is there is no clear end state in a modern world obsessed with ‘exit strategies’ instead of a definable ‘goal,’ NATO forces on the ground in Afghanistan have the opportunity to permanently undermine regional violent extremist growth. Deny Southwest Asia to violent extremists. Destroy irreconcilable violent extremists. Collapse their ideology to stop future generations.

Amidst counterterrorism analysts-suddenly-turned-North Africa/Middle East-experts’ comments like ‘it's becoming clear that a transformation of the region is under way’, it may be time for a dose of reality. And when CNN and BBC flagrantly and suddenly take the side of the opposition—without any sense of history or even what the opposition might bring—it may be time to put events in perspective.

Before I begin, I cannot overstate enough that I am NOT an expert on the Middle East or North Africa. Nor am I an Arabist or counterterrorism expert. I am a lifelong student of these disciplines only.

But, after many conversations with colleagues in North Africa and Middle East—to cite everyone in this humble blog entry would make my essay a book and put sources at physical risk—I feel a need to throw a wet towel on all the half-thought-out ‘assessments’ plaguing newspaper opinion articles and ten-second sound bites competing with Charlie Sheen’s rants the world over.

While revolutionary outcomes in the Middle East could be peaceful and beneficial for Arabs (and I hope they are), history and current affairs cause us to be wary. Even a tertiary understanding of al-Qaeda will lead to the conclusion that violent extremists are and will continue to gain recruits and ground amidst the current changes. They are not on the sidelines of history, as too many erroneously optimistic dollar-a-day Fox News generals and Harvard talking heads might have us believe.

So the following brief bullet points are some food for thought for readers to research the situations and impacts of current protests and civil war in North Africa and the Middle East further.

• If any of the revolutions lead to more representative and responsive governments, the inevitable letdown from the current hysteria—comparable to Egypt’s elation following its 1952 revolt in which brought the Revolutionary Command Council and Muslim Brotherhood to power and elations following Sadat’s empowering of Islamists to counter communist influences—will justify al-Qaeda’s singular vision from Muhammad Abd-al-Salam Faraj that only its yet-to-be-defined interpretation of religious law could bring social justice and peace. Inevitable disappointment will grow al-Qaeda’s position.

• The Egyptian government has been a military dictatorship since 1952 (especially after it flushed out the Muslim Brothers in 1954) and does not represent its people. But it is the only modern government in the world that has completely defeated al-Qaeda ideologically and kinetically within its borders—to include al-Qaeda predecessor the Egyptian Islamic Jihad whose members still make up the preponderance of al-Qaeda leadership and drive its violent ideology and narrative. Anything less than this government that has committed crimes against humanity for almost 60 years may allow in elements of al-Qaeda whose hatred for the Egyptian military is arguably greater than that against the United States.

• Al-Qaeda will unlikely ever truly be a representative vanguard for any major sect of mainstream Muslims. However, even small numbers of bandits are enough to perpetuate the current transnational insurrection that is al-Qaeda. Counterinsurgency legend David Galula famously assessed in 1964 that even small numbers are ample enough to spoil any representative government and national security. Today, as you read this blog post, the small spaces and small fragments of time from chaos or civil war allow violent extremists to enter into North Africa and gain arms, recruits, and money enough to continue its minority insurrection.

• There is no proof that democracy—even if these revolutions bring forth some form of representative government—undermines al-Qaeda. The fledgling democracies in Baghdad and Kabul still face violent terrorist attacks—so many that they fail to make front headlines any longer. To say that al-Qaeda in Iraq or violent extremists in Afghanistan of any color are weak or have given up is undoubtedly a premature conclusion.

• If Libya continues in civil war, parties supporting either side may wittingly or unwittingly turn to al-Qaeda affiliates for help as the ousted Baathists did after March 2003.

• While CNN and BBC cheer on this ‘new age’ in the Middle East, they fail to recognise the oft deadly aftermath of successful revolutions. There was nothing liberal or progressive about Mao, Stalin, Nasser, Saddam, or Robespierre when they won. Likewise Egyptian military officers rightfully fear deadly reprisals following a new government—it was this security apparatus that made Saddam Hussein’s look tame.

• Some Western media talking heads point to Zawahiri’s recent rambling messages as evidence that al-Qaeda is a rambling-has-been-sidelined-empty force to current affairs. But Zawahiri was never a commander. Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaeda forefather Sayyid Imam both have considered Zawahiri incompetent, without any semblance of leadership skill, and punishable by al-Qaeda core tenets. Zawahiri has even failed as a talking head time and again with statements deriding Obama’s African American identity and attempting to co-opt American icon and hero Malcolm X’s vision. What is far more important is al-Libi and other sub-commanders’ silence as they are likely exploiting every inch and every minute of chaos in Northern Africa to squeeze out any recruits, money, and arms. To seasoned counterterrorism analysts, the silence is deafening.

• If the ‘mayor of Sana’a’ President Saleh were to leave office, Yemen would lose its only voice, to-date, seeking international assistance on the worst humanitarian crisis to face any nation state in history. Yemen will literally run out of potable water within a decade (some scientists put the timeframe closer to five years given immigration, a population boom, and an ever-growing water-sucking Qat trade). Chaos or an unpracticed government in Sana’a will seal the Yemen’s demise.

• Generation Facebook has no teeth. The young people in the streets of Tunis, Tripoli, Cairo, and Sana’a on CNN will not come to power. The already-organised Islamist groups and militant organisations will have more power and more sway than any unorganised tweeting 20-somethings. Just as the United States has an entire generation of hardened war veterans, so does the Arab world—from victimised political Islamists to jihad vets. But, unlike the United States’ ‘Generation Kill’, the Arab world’s ‘Generation Kill’ is more organised than its yuppie classes.

• We do not know what we do not know. And with the sparse anecdotal stories coming out of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, us consumers of information are like a blind man in an alien world. Making statements about the unfolding situations or building policy proposals from the anorexic information available is unwise.

Democracy is great. Freedom is great. Social justice is great.

But MTV-stylised peaceful protests will never bring change in the militant dictatorships of the Middle East and North Africa. If there is change, it will likely come at bloody costs and bloody reprisals.

Al-Qaeda is not dwindling or on the sidelines of history. This amorphous and exploitative international system will gain from any chaos—even if that chaos brings about positive change. Just as Bush Jr. should never have raised the victory flag in 2003, talking heads should refrain from doing the same in 2011.

And with the lack of insight and information on the side of the United States and West, the best advice may be that of my former Iraqi counterpart: ‘There is nothing in the desert for you. Stay the hell out.’

I recently returned from Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune where I helped to instruct U.S. Marine Corps and Army units on current counterinsurgency and counter radicalisation best practices before they deploy to Afghanistan. I learned much from the trainees—from privates to team leads to battalion commanders to a three-star general—who collectively had hundreds of years worth of experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Civilian and military leadership are now coining the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan as “stability operations.” Patraeus is requiring civilian and military outfits to take stability operations training—today called the “District Stability Framework”—prior to deployments. And most Marine units are already applying the methodology.

The theory of stability operations is that by mitigating sources of instability—not necessarily addressing all of a populace’s need or grievances , which would fall under the rubric of short-term emergency humanitarian or long-term development assistance—the population will not errantly support the Taliban and “£10/day insurgent” IED-layers will have a peaceful alternative. An ideal stability operations activity, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Marine Corps, would increase support for governance (traditional or official), decrease support for malign actors (such as the Taliban), and increase societal capacity so that Afghans are empowered to continue the stability operations torch long after NATO departs.

At its essence, stability operations aims to tear the population from the insurgents (the goal of any counterinsurgency mission).

The process involves collecting information—with an emphasis on local perceptions and key grievances—analysing this information with other sources of intelligence to identify sources of instability, design operations to mitigate instability, and then measure success.
During the analysis phase, staff are supposed to take open source and classified information from the operating and cultural environment along with local perspectives to identify what the drives of instability are. Examples of sources of instability could be a lack of water, lack of security, or a corrupt militia attached to a contracting agency.

During the next phase, operations officers develop courses of action to mitigate the identified sources of instability. For an operation to be viable it must increase support for the government, decrease support for spoilers, and increase societal and institutional capacity. It also must fall in line with the best practices of development assistance to include sustainability, local ownership, cultural acceptability, and flexibility .

Finally, pre-determined indicators measure operators’ output, impact, and overall stability in the appropriate region.

The information operations, when applying the “District Stability Framework,” is theoretically supposed to be simple—just an accurate reflection of the framework at work. The information operations’ message would just be a narrative of what a unit did. For example, such a narrative could be that U.S. Marines came to an area, determined that X was a source of instability, gave the locals training and money to build Y, and then Y mitigates X and made the area more stable.

Countering Radicalisation

While stability operations aims at the Taliban’s main source of strength—the population—the framework may ignore directly confronting the Taliban itself. Aiming at the Taliban is important because even if the Taliban loses support of more of the population, it can still disrupt governance and maintain shadow governments. David Galula’s Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Praeger Security International, Westport, Connecticut, 1964) states that insurgency will try to create disorder to undermine the efficacy of the government. Specifically, an insurgent attempts to dissociate the populace from the government: “Promoting disorder is a legitimate objective for the insurgent...disorder—the normal state of nature—is cheap to create and very costly to prevent.” Furthermore, “...the less sophisticated the counterinsurgent forces, the better they are.” In short, even a few hardcore Taliban can cause ruckus enough to destabilise Afghanistan and the region.

And, unfortunately, kinetics do not do the trick. Breaking up insurgent networks, killing individual fighters, and drone strikes are akin to mowing a lawn—the grass/insurgents relentlessly grow back. To say that the corps of hardcore ideological Taliban are regenerative is an understatement.

In post-Soviet Afghanistan, the Taliban faced massacres in the thousands from opponents and seemingly seamlessly rekindled its numbers in matters of days. When the Taliban captured Kandahar in 1994, 20,000 Afghan and Pakistani madrassa students joined the movement. When the Taliban faced one of its most formidable enemies Ismael Khan’s army in 1995, the Taliban generated 25,000 troops—many from Pakistani schools. When in 1997 the Taliban suffered 3,000 casualties and 3,600 taken prisoner in a spell of fighting, Pakistan’s madrassas shut down just to encourage 5,000 students to refill the ranks. This was just one of several episodes when schools closed down for the sole purpose of pushing youngsters to join the Taliban when numbers were low. In short, the Taliban in the 1990s never had a problem resurrecting its strength. And likewise, in 2011 the Taliban appear to be even more deadly than its late-October-2001 version.

Before writing further, I must explain what I mean by the term “Taliban.” The term “Taliban” is in 2011 all but meaningless—referring to disparate groups, tribes, and individuals in Pakistan and Afghanistan who seem to only agree on violent opposition the current Afghan and Pakistani governments and NATO presence. To date, not one U.S. Army or Marine commander, intelligence officer, or staff has been able to describe the Taliban without referring to an umbrella of many different and sometimes competing outlooks and ideologies. Some members appear only to join the “Taliban” for money, power, or marriage of convenience in opposing the Pakistani and Afghan regimes. Some members appear to only focus locally, others on particular provinces, others nationally, and others regionally. And finally, there are adherents who openly display al-Qa`ida’s transnational visions and ideology. It is this final group—who do not adhere to Mullah Omar’s once regional vision—who comprise the violent extremist irreconcilable Taliban in Afghanistan about which I refer.

Since stability operations will only starve Taliban of wider popular support, killing insurgents accomplishes nothing, and even reintegration of non-ideological Taliban (not the core Taliban who have been able to regenerate so easily) what can be done?

This is a question that may bridge counterinsurgency and counter radicalisation. An answer to this question may put a stop of the war in Afghanistan and make Afghanistan an impermissible environment for both Taliban and al-Qa`ida influence and ideology.

One method may be even more emphasis for the Village Stability Operations (also known as the Local Defence Initiative, Afghan Local Police, Community Defence Initiative, Afghanistan Public Protection Program, Interim Security Critical Infrastructure, or another innocuous title depending on what week it is). Some of these programs—modelled after Special Forces’ Vietnam-era Civilian Irregular Defense Group and U.S. Marine Corps’ Combined Action Platoon program—appear to be temporary minute-men neighbourhood watches while government police are still building presence and competency in outlying areas. Other programs, however, appear to be indigenous campaigns, spurred by multiple drivers and narratives, which NATO only later comes to identify and offer support in the form of arms, cash, projects, and training. It is this second class of Village Stability Operations, which may be the counter-radicalisation key to staunching ideological Taliban’s ability to regenerate.

These revolts have a counter radicalisation angle because they:

1) may help to prevent some Afghans from joining Taliban elements through coercion, inspiration, or simple peer pressure;

2) inspire, through actions and narratives, Afghans outside the control of an uprising;

3) and use an elder or mullah to propagate messages to inspire, grow, and retain militia to fight and die for a cause—essentially radicalising these troops against violent extremists and violent extremism.

Furthermore, counter-Taliban uprisings may signal long-term success. In David Kilcullen’s unclassified 2009 report “Measuring Progress in Afghanistan,” he emphasises anti-insurgent lashkar formation as a measurable metric of success because such events may lead to popular inoculation to Taliban ideology—meeting the strategic goal of making Afghanistan a permanent impermissible environment to al-Qa`ida and Taliban activity and influence.

And it is this support for uprisings—very often brokered through Green Beret and U.S. Marine Corps non-commissioned officers—that may bring to bear a new form of counter radicalisation that will undercut the very centre of the enemy in Afghanistan.

As you read this blog post, some tribes, villages, or militias are rebelling against Taliban and al-Qa`ida influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is important for policy makers and operators to understand narratives that drive counter-violent extremism insurrections in warzones and possibly how to support such indigenous and independent movements. (Whether supporting armed movements unlinked to the Kabul or Pakistani government is helpful or detrimental to stability or NATO goals is outside the scope of this article.)

But, first, before I give my brief description of grassroots counter-radical narratives, it is important to note why I am housing these movements under the counter-radicalisation rubric vice purely counterinsurgency. These movements are more than just paid armed militias killing violent extremists. These revolts:

1) prevent the young from joining the “other side” through intimidation, force, inspiration, and/or peer pressure;

2) disarm, reintegrate, or recruit former salaried non-ideological Taliban;

3) inspire, through actions and words, locals outside village centers to join up;

4) and employ an elder, tribal leader, talking head, or religious “leader” to generate narratives to inspire, grow, and retain fighters to fight and die for a cause—basically radicalizing these troops against al-Qaeda and some Taliban elements.

Second, it is essential to understand the importance of narrative to countering radicalisation. And for this I will invoke a definition I have used before in my blogs (from Michael Vlahos’ “The Long War: A Self Defeating Prophecy,” Asia Times, 9 September 2006):

In war, narrative is much more than just a story. “Narrative” may sound like a fancy literary word, but it is actually the foundation of all strategy, upon which all else—policy, rhetoric and action—is built. War narratives need to be identified and critically examined on their own terms, for they can illuminate the inner nature of the war itself. War narrative does three essential things. First, it is the organizing framework for policy. Policy cannot exist without an interlocking foundation of “truths” that people easily accept because they appear to be self-evident and undeniable. Second, this “story” works as a framework precisely because it represents just such an existential vision. The “truths” that it asserts are culturally impossible to disassemble or even criticize. Third, having presented a war logic that is beyond dispute, the narrative then serves practically as the anointed rhetorical handbook for how the war is to be argued and described.

And a counter-narrative does not necessarily have to be the inverse of violent-extremist narratives which (in the case of Afghanistan) stretch from “worldwide Islam is under attack” to “Karzai is corrupt” to “Afghans must win back their freedom from the U.S. invaders.” Likewise, a counter-narrative does not necessarily have to offer a solution such as “empowered tribalism will lead to stability” or “working with NATO is better than working with the Taliban—a lesser of two evils.” Especially NATO-led solution narratives reek of imperialistic hubris and are likely to backfire. A narrative could appear like a negative U.S. political campaign slogan: “the opposition is bad.” In short, by definition, an effective counter-radicalisation narrative simply slows, stops, or reverses radicalisation. (Radicalisation, in this case, is the process which leads to a person being willing to die or kill in the name of an ideological goal.)

***I must caveat the following descriptions by admitting that I have never lived amongst these militias. I have not gained the trust of and interviewed the leaders, the fighters, and the dissenters with fixed surveys over a significant period of time. And such polls are absolutely necessary to understand the actual motivations and inspirational myths such revolts use. I am, instead, relying on observations from colleagues in the field as well as local and international media. That is to say, I am as blind as a Louisiana Creole Cajun figuring out the tube system on her first day in London. But, perhaps such scattered secondhand sources are a starting point. And if you’re reading this and have a grant to donate, please help me as I go to live and work alongside these movements.***

SHINWARI

Revenge and disgust over kidnapping: Hajji Malik Osman—head of 400,000 members of his Shinwari tribe—reportedly agreed to unite his tribe against the Taliban in February 2010. His tribal elders even produced a written document pledging to keep the Taliban from six districts in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The turning point in 2009 may have been when the Taliban demanded that the Shinwari elders hand over a son of a tribal leader—after which the area was reportedly “free” of Taliban.

Distrust of outsiders: Shinwari elders to news agencies expressed their distrust and even hatred of both the coalition and Taliban. But it appeared that the coalition and Afghan government were the lesser of evils.

Distrust of the coalition and allied Afghan government may derive from xenophobia, U.S. house raids in the past, a 2007 incident when U.S. special forces killed 19 with small arms when driving through the district, and the arrest of Shinwari district security chief Ghalib Hassan in 2003 to GITMO without charge.[1] [2]

The Shinwaris have had a history of successfully repelling outsiders to include a ten-year fight and victory over Abdur Rahman Khan in the 1880s. Outsiders have often tried to invade because the Shinwaris own key terrain with smuggling routes through and around the Khyber Pass.

Tribal unity: Within weeks of the uprising, two sub tribes turned on one another over a land dispute leaving 13 dead and 35 injured. The counter-Taliban operations and patrols suddenly stopped. Militants had then begun to move through some Shinwari areas freely.[3]

Refocusing on a common enemy—the Taliban—may offer a chance to reunite and empower the highest level of tribal elders. Whether this will materialize is yet to be seen.

Money: The Shinwari tribe was reportedly promised $1.2 million USD in aid from the U.S. military—directly to the elders without NGO intermediaries. At this time elders bemoan to the media that only $200,000 has yet been dispensed. They are not shy in asking for money.

GIZAB

Reaction to oppression and intimidation: Gizab (100 miles north of Kandahar) has been a “rest-and-resupply” point for Taliban moving to, from, and between Helmand and Kandahar provinces as well as western Pakistan. Gizab is key terrain.

Taliban commanders apparently first arrived to Gizab in 2007, when residents (Pashtun, not like the surrounding Hazara-dominate areas) were apathetic, young persons gladly joined for money, and there was no police force.

But Gizab elders, in June 2010, rounded up around 300 fighters (from an initial modest lynch mob of 15) to repel the Taliban because of Taliban oppression and overall local resentment. U.S. military encouragement and the kidnapping of a local family, impelling the initial small lynch mob, may also have played roles.

Reportedly a small number of mid-level and low-ranking Taliban militants put their weapons down and have since reintegrated into the local society.

Money for the service of policing: The militia leaders went to Australian and U.S. special forces for help immediately when the revolt began. Australian then U.S. forces arrived to provide tactical support.

By the end of June 2010, residents of Gizab have become frustrated at the lack of Afghan government support claiming that the Afghan government-authorized 53-man police team with only a compensation of $60 USD per month per troop is far too little to retain an active militia and continue to stave off the Taliban.[4] [5] This movement does not appear ideological and may be holding out for the highest bidder.

ALIKOZAI

Revenge: The Alikozai last rose up against the Taliban in 2007 but were defeated without support from the Afghan government or NATO.[6] As is common to tribes in this area, avenging the dead is a matter of honor—even if it takes generations.

Furthermore, like most Taliban-infected areas, insurgents target key leaders. The following is an incomplete list of Taliban retribution against the Alikozai:[7]

• Haji Granai, deputy in Kandahar’s police force and Afghan Militia was assassinated.
• Akram Khakrezwal, Kabul’s chief of police, was assassinated via a suicide bomber in a mosque in Kandahar in 2005.
• Three of an elder’s brothers and fifty others were killed in an attack in Sangin’s bazaar in 2007.
• On 6 January 2011 gunmen shot tribal leader Haji Sayed Badaar Agha on his way to morning prayer, leaving him in “critical condition.”[8]

Self-preservation: Helmand governor Gulab Mangal’s spokesman recently stated that local Taliban fighters will supposedly no longer attack government and NATO troops while keeping the upper Sangin Valley (specifically the contested Sarwan-Qala area) free of foreign Taliban. Attempts have been made to reintegrate local “hired” Taliban.

Now that the Alikozai have chosen a side, there may be no going back. In other words, the tribe has now sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s enemy. At this point, continuing the “attack” may be the tribe’s only option for survival.

Power and money: Because the Alikozai are openly colluding, or at least communicating with the Marines in the area, they are likely pragmatically filling their coffers and trying to increase relative independence and muscle.

TURI

Religious differences: According to the BBC, Turis’ antipathy may derive from the Taliban’s religious stance, which dismisses Shi’a as non-believers—non-Muslim treacherous detractors of “true religion.”

Desperate self-preservation: The Turi Pakistanis have been keeping Taliban from using the Kurram tribal district (56 miles from Kabul) to enter Afghanistan since they ridded their area of Taliban militants in a September 2008 battle.

In retaliation for the Turis keeping the Taliban from entering Afghanistan, the Taliban have blocked eastern points of exit and ambushed Turi commuters attempting to leave the area into Pakistan. Therefore, Turis then relied only on trading and conducting business in Afghan villages just over the border.

But, in October 2010, the Pakistani military shut the Afghan borders—Terimangal, Spina Shaga, Khairlachi, Burki, and Shahidano. The Pakistani security forces claim that this embargo arises from security concerns over “sectarian clashes” which “miscreants from outside” can “exploit.”

Following the Pakistani security force blockade the Taliban and Haqqani network offered safe passage for Turis eastward into Pakistan in return for allowing the Taliban safe passage into Afghanistan. And for a fourth time, the Turis turned down such an agreement.[9] Perhaps the Turis realize such a deal would be temporary given the Taliban’s hatred of Shi’a and particular antipathy towards Turi stubbornness.

DIR

Visceral humanitarian disgust: In the district of Dir, in northern Pakistan, Taliban militants began building up since around 2005. The commander of these 200-400 violent extremists “Khitab” was, according to the Pakistani government, linked to al-Qaeda.

Only four of 25 villages offered shelter to the militants while village elders tried for months in 2009 to persuade—peacefully—the Taliban to abandon the area.

But then in June 2009, in an apparent attempt to intimidate and mollify the population, an insurgent suicide bomber detonated at a mosque prayer killing at least 30 innocents.

This attack, instead of pacifying the population, ignited locals to build an over 1000-strong militia to hunt down and kill Taliban and rid the area of militants and their influence.

The end result was the Taliban cornered and then encircled in the northwest area of a valley in Ghazigeh and three Taliban commanders dead.

Enemy of Islam: Said an area man providing medical aid to wounded militia members, “[t]his bomb blast proved the last straw. This made the people violent…We are not quitting the area until we destroy them. We know this is not Islam. These are criminals.” It is unknown if this religious bent is ubiquitous, but such a narrative appears to have the potential to inspire and recruit.

Distrust of government: The militants were, in 2009, split between how much government military intervention would be wise. Some felt that sloppy indiscriminant bombing would mean civilians dead and a population’s exodus. Others felt that strong Pakistani military might could be necessary to completely destroy Taliban remnants in the area—an all-out-war would be the only way to keep villagers safe.[10]

Both sides of the argument appear wary of government involvement and the side effects of clumsy military support.

******

SO WHAT?

NATO must understand the narratives of uprisings against violent extremism to foresee where the next uprising might be, what carrots can be offered to encourage an uprising’s continuity or growth, what messages information operations teams should use, and when to sit back and do nothing.

Grassroots uprisings may be the most promising phenomenon to make Afghanistan and western Pakistan impermissible environments for violent-extremism influence.

Now what is needed is an on-the-ground study of the narratives that drive, sustain, and grow indigenous insurrections against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

[1] Starkey, Jerome, “Afghan Shinwari elders vow to support Hamid Karzai in exchange for US cash,” The Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7007102.ece, 29 January 2010.

[2] Al Jazeera, “Million dollar militia,” http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/09/201091142034452109.html, 8 September 2010.

[3] Motlagh, Jason, “A Sunni Awakening: Not So Easy in Afghanistan,” Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, http://pulitzercenter.org/articles/sunni-awakening-not-so-easy-afghanistan, 17 March 2010.

[4] Chandrasekaran, Rajiv, “U.S. eager to replicate Afghan villagers’ successful revolt against Taliban,” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/20/AR2010062003479.html, 21 June 2010.

[5] Australian Government Department of Defence, “Gunfire to Governance at Gizab,” Operation SLIPPER Afhganistan, http://www.defence.gov.au/media/departmentaltpl.cfm?CurrentId=10211, 29 April 2010.

[6] Blackburn, David, “Progress in Afghanistan?” The Spectator, http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6204968/progress-in-afghanistan.thtml, 13 August 2010.

[7] Tribal Analysis Center, “Alikozai Tribal Dynamics: A Very Unusual Durrani Tribe,” Tribal Analysis Center, LTD, http://www.tribalanalysiscenter.com/PDF-TAC/Alikozai%20Tribal%20Dynamics.pdf , April 2009.

[8] Abi-Habib, Maria, Habib Khan Totakhil, “Afghan Tribal Leader Attacked After Agreeing to Help Coalition,” The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730704576065803612868740.html, 6 January 2011.

[9] BBC, “Pakistan army blockades anti-Taliban tribe in Kurram,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11625216, 26 October 2010.

[10] Tavernise, Sabrina, Irfan Ashraf, “Attacked, Pakistani Villagers Take on Taliban,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/asia/10pstan.html, 10 June 2009.

Like all Americans, my new year is not dictated by the Roman, Chinese, or Islamic calendars. But instead the milestone for year’s end is the American football Super Bowl. And as a counter-radicalisation analyst, I choose Super Bowl time as an opportunity to wrap up the year’s terrorist messaging. In this case, I will recap the year’s Taliban messages—concluding that the Taliban leadership is mostly internationally focused and has little to do with the myriad of Taliban elements on the ground in Afghanistan.

 Hearts and Minds: Still from a Taliban Propaganda Video

The Taliban or Taliban related entities released 63 statements or videos in the past year.

32 messages focus on Islam being under attack by colonialist imperialist powers—to include references to Gitmo, Palestinians, Iraq, Afghanistan as one front in a larger war, and social oppression in Europe. The Taliban leadership may be attempting to raise money internationally or may, in fact, be buying more into the al-Qaeda narrative that Islam (writ large in all its manifestations) is under attack.

30 messages concentrate on Taliban strength—claiming Taliban tactical or strategic successes and inevitable U.S. defeat. These messages, as in past years, are likely intended to show that the Taliban is somehow a homogenous army winning a war to shore up funds, recruits, and morale. These bravado-filled statements and videos want to show Taliban victorious.

13 messages claim that the media, U.S. public affairs outlets, and/or the UN propagate lies and are biased. Most messages in this vein, this year, attempted to dispel rumors of NATO-Taliban negotiations.

Eight messages referred, at some point, to the fight against NATO as a national battle under an Islamic rubric, led by religious warriors who represented the everyman.

Eight messages asserted that the Taliban do not cause civilian casualties. That distinction, according to the Taliban, belongs to the United States.

And only two messages out of 68 for the entire year claim that the Karzai government is corrupt. One message argues that the Kandahar government is broken. This finding flies in the face of recent published analyses that the Taliban leadership uses the narrative of corruption as a cornerstone of its propaganda strategy. The Taliban lack of emphasis on national government corruption could undermine U.S. assumptions that ineffective governance and instability must be fixed to win the war. But it is more likely that this finding substantiates claims that the Taliban leadership has little ideological control and anorexic tactical control over the innumerable “Taliban” elements on the ground in Afghanistan. It should also be noted, that official Taliban leadership statements may be produced mainly for international and regional audiences rather than the almost Internet-less Afghans outside Kabul.

Bottom line: The Taliban are as varied as the flavors at a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop—too many to count and often independent of Mullah Omar’s influence.

The following is a very brief summary of Taliban statements and al-Qa`ida publications of Taliban propaganda and videos:

19 January 2011: Taliban do not cause civilian casualties, the coalition does.

18 January 2011: Helmand ceasefire is untrue and perpetrated by the U.S.-backed governor.

13 January 2011: This date marks the 31^st anniversary of the communist invasion, which jihadists were required to defeat.

12 January 2011: Senator Graham’s remarks over permanent U.S. bases expose U.S. colonist motives—denying Afghans their inalienable rights and freedoms.

20 December 2010: Only foreigners leaving will cause peace and security. The United States will be defeated. The United States oppresses Afghans.

20 December 2010: Just as Soviet officials died from bad health the current Afghan war caused a lethal dent on Holbrook’s ill health.

7 December 2010: U.S. chemical and poisonous weapons have killed civilians and caused birth defects—a crime against humanity.

1 December 2010: The solution to the Afghan situation is NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. NATO will face many casualties.

30 November 2010: There will be no negotiations. The only solution is NATO withdrawal. The media is biased and irresponsible.

26 November 2010: The war will not bring peace and is illegal and unjustified. Indigenous persons are the victims.

16 November 2010: The Kandahar government is a failure. No organs work except the U.S.-run police. Taliban offer working courts.

9 November 2010: The peace initiative is one-sided and run by those who have forfeited credibility in Afghanistan.

8 November 2010: Media are propaganda puppets perpetuating the false rumors of negotiations.

3 November 2010: The 10-year war has meant terror and massacres and not any progress or soil gained for NATO due to the Afghan people fighting alongside the jihadists. The war is unjustifiable and unwinnable for the United States.

25 October 2010: The UN should end and not extend the illegal protracted war for the UN to regain any legitimacy.

18 October 2010: NATO forces are invaders who should look at history and end the illegitimate invasion.

14 October 2010: Taliban hold 75% of Afghanistan. Despite heavy investments, the United States has suffered devastating defeats.

8 October 2010: Taliban have retreated from some areas but left behind IEDs and ambush traps.

7 October 2010: Patraeus has no secret Taliban contacts—the claim is a desperate cry of a weak enemy.

6 October 2010: Taliban publishes a video of suicide bombers in Kandahar.

6 October 2010: Bangladeshi leaders—who head a Muslim-majority nation—will be too insightful to join the United States in Afghanistan. At least the Bangladeshis will not allow the country to help the United States continue to enslave and destabilize Afghanistan.

27 September 2010: The elections were fraudulent and only involved the invaders’ puppets.

23 September 2010: Americans are bent on continuing occupation. America will face defeat and usher in its own downfall.

20 September 2010: American might and coercion has no effect on Afghans. The subjugation of Afghans is impossible. The jihad is an Afghanistan-wide independent and holy resistance of the masses.

13 September 2010: Muslims worldwide are being killed and dishonored: to include Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas. Pray for defeat of oppressors.

7 September 2010: As Sahab releases video of rocket attack in Kunar along with audio and video of Usama bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahri, and other South Asia al-Qaeda figures.

3 September 2010: Patraeus is lying about any progress in Afghanistan. The Taliban will guarantee safety to reporters who want to survey Afghanistan to uncover the truth.

31 August 2010: The UN lies about civilian casualties and covers up for U.S. imperialism and massacres.

31 August 2010: Petraeus’ is ridiculing the intellect of the masses with claims of success. He would serve America best by withdrawing forces from the unwinnable war.

23 August 2010: Afghans cannot tolerate the United States killing civilians. The United States is on the verge of failure. Wikileaks will unveil U.S. covert activities to include its drug smuggling.

19 August 2010: UN is biased and incorrect in naming the Taliban as the number one killer of civilians.

19 August 2010: Media lack ethics, neutrality, and honesty in depicting the Taliban.

16 August 2010: U.S. attempts to prop up local militias is an attempt to disintegrate Afghanistan. The communists did the same resulting in civil war. Afghans should remain united under nationalism and Islam.

13 August 2010: Petraeus’ only real strategy is mass murder. All Afghans are becoming more resentful. Taliban are successfully attacking convoys.

12 August 2010: The Dutch withdrawal meets the needs of the Afghan and Dutch peoples. Other nations should follow suit and continue to bring the United States on the verge of failure and collapse.

10 August 2010: Time magazine’s cover of an Afghan with her nose and ears cut off was immoral for wrongly accusing the Taliban and is professionally unethical for showing the image. The act is barbaric, inhumane, and un-Islamic. The Taliban sympathizes with their sister Aisha, and such an atrocity is a crime against humanity and against Shari’a.

6 August 2010: As-Sahab shows a video of a mortar attack against a military base in Kunar with audio and video from Usama bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other South Asia extremist leaders.

4 August 2010: A five-hour conference in Lisbon cannot come up with a rational solution to Afghans’ problems. U.S. actions will prolong the war and suffering. The only solution is immediate withdrawal of all forces.

2 August 2010: A Taliban operation generated McChrystal’s firing. There will be no peace until invaders leave and an Islamic government is set up.

26 July 2010: A U.S. soldier is in Taliban custody in a safe place.

13 July 2010: The Taliban has enjoyed a number of tactical solutions and should withdraw today.

24 June 2010: Al-Somood magazine tells stories of heroes and martyrdom.

21 June 2010: In a Q&A, Sirajuddin Haqqani urges Muslims of the world to donate money and technical expertise to aid the Taliban. The Taliban has nothing to do with planting opium.

11 June 2010: Muslims of the world should support the Palestinians (following the Flotilla incident). All Muslims should unite to defeat colonialism everywhere.

8 June 2010: Reports of negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan governments are lies.

7 June 2010: As-Sahab releases a video of an ambush against troops in Kunar.

3 June 2010: Reports of the murder of 12 students in Ghazni are false. Four spies were caught—confessing without interrogation—and sentenced to death.

25 May 2010: On the 31^st anniversary of the communist coup, the Americans—even worse than the communists—kill innocents and detain thousands in Gitmo, Bagram, Kandahar, and other secret jails. America will collapse like the soviets and should leave the prideful Afghans alone.

24 May 2010: A video shows a Taliban attack against a U.S. base in eastern Nurestan province.

18 May 2010: An announcement warns of a nationwide Taliban spring offensive targeting all persons supporting NATO.

11 May 2010: As-Sahab releases a video of rockets firing off near Ghazni.

7 May 2010: As-Sahab releases a video of two rocket attacks on bases in Khost.

3 May 2010: Al-Somood magazine celebrates the exploits of Jalaluddin Haqqani.

29 April 2010: Al-Somood magazine celebrates the exploits of Jalaluddin Haqqani.

23 April 2010: As-Sahab releases a video of a suicide truck bomb detonating in Khost.

26 March 2010: Reported UN contacts with the Taliban are a lie. Obama must pull out forces from Afghanistan.

19 March 2010: The Karzai government impinges on Afghans’ freedom of speech. Media in Afghanistan lacks neutrality.

11 March 2010: The Taliban releases a translated German Mujahidin Taliban call for donations.

3 March 2010: The Taliban’s planned Marjah defensive actions are working as expected. The United States is prolonging the war and better off leaving.

2 March 2010: The United States has made no headway in Marjah. The United States should end its invasion and learn from the failures of past empires from Alexander the Great through the Soviet Union.

1 March 2010: As-Sahab releases a video of a suicide bombing supposedly targeting an army and CIA headquarters.

1 March 2010: As-Sahab releases a video interview with the Jordanian suicide bomber of a CIA base in December 2009. He refers to the situations in Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

10 February 2010: The German Taliban Mujahidin condemns European bans on the Muslim Burqa.

Although comparison’s between the ancient Kharijites and al-Qaeda are clumsy and misinformed, the Kharijite history may still be useful for informing modern counter-radicalisation narratives.

Some counterterrorism analysts have mistakenly described al-Qaeda as modern day Kharijites—the murderers of the fourth caliph and arguably the first “terror” movement in Islamic history. Although propaganda campaigns—such as those from the Moroccan and Saudi governments—deride al-Qaeda as Kharijites as an insult to engender public visceral disgust for al-Qaeda’s irreligious and criminal nature, these criticisms are only rhetorical.

In fact, al-Qaeda are not Kharijites. Al-Qaeda’s beliefs have no roots in the al-Khawarij. The Kharijites held many nuanced views that do not resemble this modern insult. Some Kharijites were actually peaceful and still thrive today—able to provide counter-narratives against al-Qaeda. In short, modern misuse of the term does not necessarily represent what this movement actually was.

The Kharijites were active during Islam’s first civil war and disputed the rightful caliph amongst those who knew the Prophet himself. While they wished to interpret the Quran as literally as possible in the same way as al-Qaeda, they didn’t have the burden of an additional millennium of scholarship, history, and examples on which to draw. The difference in time, circumstances, and personalities is so great that comparisons must be carefully considered.

Despite these limitations, some Kharijite principles are echoed in al-Qaeda ideology and strategy: takfirism; the rule of God being the only important matter (no man-made decisions allowed); a willingness to murder innocents; a willingness to use any methods; aiming to topple rulers from power and take over the world; an ideology that spread over time and space through disparate groups without a central command structure; and a defensive narrative that the sanctity of Islam is under attack.

Most importantly, the Kharijite movements can inform research on counter narratives in several ways.

First, the Ibadis (one of the four major Kharijite sects) most likely suffered from violent divisions as they moderated their views. It is possible that the Ibadis, as a society, moderated independently seeing the rationality of ruling realistically over a vast area and the fate of the violent Azraqis (another of the four sects) who were killed off. But it is more likely that there were divisions, stands, and even violence between lines of thought and clans over the future of the Ibadis. Although the internal, grassroots narratives are unknown, it is probable that such narratives—if they are ever revealed—could inform modern-day counter narratives. One counter narrative that almost certainly played a role was the inevitable societal repression that would occur if the Ibadis remained violent.

Second, the criticisms of the Kharijites—during the time of the Kharijites—may inform what grassroots counter-extremist narratives may appeal. For example, killing innocent women and children, an overly literal interpretation of the Quran, and lack of governance may be main narratives of anti-violent extremist movements. Such notions led Ali and then the Umayyads to rally support of armies, militias, and citizens to fight the Kharijites.

Third, the actual uncompromising ideology of the Kharijites could inform an internal reformation or insurrection within al-Qaeda. As al-Qaeda rulers gain fame and take liberties with interpreting the Quran, a Kharijite-like narrative over complete equality of all Muslims, strict adherence to the Quran (without modern-day adaptations), and need to rebel against any leader who came to power without consensus of Muslims over that leader’s stellar credentials may drive groups to split from and fight al-Qaeda.

Brief history of the Kharijites

Many scholars believe the “Kharijites” to be the first “violent extremist” group, who claimed to kill in the name of their particular interpretation of Islam.

Some ancient and modern scholars believe that the Kharijites may have originally been motivated by the third caliph’s (Uthman) corruption, unequal distribution of wealth, and cronyism. Other scholars believe that Kharijite roots lie during the period of the Prophet (the Kharijite actions being a conservative reaction to post-Prohet changes), and yet others believe the roots to be in the Arab life before the Prophet. But most today appear to buy off on the fact that the Kharijites began during the battle of Siffin in 657.

The group originally comprised warriors from Basra who fought on the side of Ali, the fourth caliph, against the Syrian Ummayads. During the battle of Siffin in modern day Syria, Ali negotiated with his opponents. Ali tried to stave off battle, but the Syrians only offered self-rule over Syria and Egypt—which Ali outright rejected. Then after four days of fighting and tens of thousands dead, Ali began to win. Desperate, his opponents put Qurans on their spears. Despite Ali’s orders to attack on, many in his army refused so Ali forged an arbitration scheme in which each side would decide on a scholar, both of whom would come to consensus on the outcome of the dispute from the Quran alone. But the Kharijites, who had fought on Ali’s side perceived Ali to be the rightful leader. And thus, the Kharijites perceived this compromise tantamount to heresy. They asked Ali to repent, but Ali denied that he acted sinfully. So the Kharijites felt they could no longer fight under Ali and fled to al-Nahrawan in modern day Iraq and invited other Basran fighters.

On their way these other Basrans may have begun, as they later continued to do and for which they became famous, interrogating Muslims. If the innocent passer-byers did not answer Kharijite questions to the Kharijites’ liking, the Basrans would murder the travelers and their families.

Two more times the Kharijites asked Ali to repent. Ali did not. The Kharijites even killed an envoy Ali sent to try to settle the dispute diplomatically. Ali initially intended to deal with the Syrians first, but after legend of Kharijites’ murders abounded and under pressure from his staff, Ali turned to al-Nahrawan to attack. Ali gave the Kharijites the opportunity to surrender. Out of the original 4,000, only 1,500 (or 1,800 by other accounts) remained, others fled. Ali massacred them in 658 (this date is contested). This battle cemented the divide between the Kharijites and Shi’a (the mainstream of those that followed Ali and believed him to be the rightful caliph).

The few survivors fled and spread.

Then, in 661, right before Ali set off to launch his third military campaign against the Syrians, a single Egyptian Kharijite killed Ali with a sword to the head to reportedly avenge those killed during the massacre in al-Nahrawan.

As Kharijites fled to areas in modern day Iraq, they killed Muslims not abiding by Kharijites’ beliefs (several revolts were put down):

• Only merit should decide the chief Imam. He would, in effect, only be the chief scholar of other scholars.

• The community leader had no special status except greater merit. He/she had no special tribal ties, financial wellbeing, sex, ethnicity, or spiritual enlightenment.

• “Wayward” Imams must be deposed or killed (but the Kharijites offered no solution to the logical quandary that an Imam cannot be publicly deposed if he has power over the polity in the first place).

• Tribal and national status did not matter: only religion.

• Laws and principles should resemble the original Muslims in Medina.

• Labeling Muslims unbelievers (known as takfirism) allowed the original Kharijites to kill Muslims to include pregnant women and children.

• Guerilla tactics, terrorist attacks, and ambushes were tactics of choice.

After several failed revolts in Basra, the Kharijites split into four sects over permissibility of killing non-Kharijite Muslims and fled to different areas of North Africa, Southwest Asia, East Asia, and Europe:

• Azraqis fled to modern day Iran (near Basra) and continued to kill and steal from all Muslims who did not abide by their beliefs in 684. They believed that they alone owned the House of Islam and all others were destined for hell. Furthermore, they emphatically pushed the notion that only God could make decisions—the Quran and not man could determine law only. Most conducted widespread massacres and killed even pregnant women and children (a very small minority moderated and lived in Basra’s inner city, suspending their judgment of non-Kharijites). Even after their leader was killed they continued to grow in number until Umayyad armies literally tracked down and exterminated them by 699. The movement, though may have inspired some further rebellions:

- In 756, Abu Hamza al-Khariji appealed to Meccans to march against Syria. The Umayyads defeated the assault. From the description of this type of violence, Abu Hamza’s uprising appeared to bear traits of the Azraqi ideology.

- Kharijite rebels in 854 overran and controlled parts of the towns of Bust and Zaranj (on the border of modern day Afghanistan/Iran). It is feasible that the Azraqis—who established a base in Iran—influenced this later iteration of Kharijites. The local governors and community leaders established vigilante forces, which may have helped the army to defeat these Kharijites by 865.

• Najdites fled to modern day Saudi Arabia. Initially they were similar to the Azraqis in belief and tactics but were forced to moderate when they began to control large swaths of land and populations (to include Bahrain, Oman, and parts of Yemen). For example they began to forbid killing women and children; not punish every thief, adulterer, and sinner; allow some intellectual freedom; and dub naysayers as hypocrites vice disbelievers. Punishing all detractors in such a wide area of land was impractical. There was a distinction between fundamental/required and non-fundamental laws. This moderation helped allow the Najdites to rule more of the Arabian Peninsula then even the Umayyads. After leadership quarrels and the death of Najda in 692 or 693 and some Ummayad suppression, they moderated further. The remainders believed there was no need to rebel and accepted living under “infidel” rule realizing that unanimously agreeing upon one Imam would be practically impossible. There are no known modern traces.

• Sufris, like the Ibadis, believed that one had to create a polity if possible (the Azraqis gladly lived without recognizing a caliph and the Najdites initially concurred with this notion) and fled to modern day Saudi Arabia and North Africa. They held a strict interpretation of the Quran but forbade political murder and murder of children. The movement appeared to stop in the 10^th century likely from government suppression.

• Ibadis fled to the Arabian Peninsula and further sects fled worldwide—from modern day Algeria to Sicily to China. From 777 to 909 the Rustamid dynasty united Ibadis in North Africa from its base in western Algeria. Today Ibadis comprise minorities in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Tanzania. In 793, Ibadis established another base in Oman still thriving today. After they initially fled, they quickly moderated—obviating the need for government attack. They forbade killing and any type of terrorism, practiced “quietism” (disengagement from violence), outreached to Muslims peacefully to attempt voluntary conversions on trade and pilgrimage routes, and conducted constructive diplomacy with the ruling Umayyad Empire. Today approximately 75% of Omanis are Ibadi—now a cultural heritage more than a practiced religion.

Sources:

Cook, Michael, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Crone, Patricia, Medieval Islamic Political Thought, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004.

Goldziher, Ignaz, Muslim Studies: Volume Two, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1971.

Kennedy, Hugh, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East From the Sixth to the Eleventh Century, Longman, London, 1986.

Madelung, Wilferd, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the early Caliphate, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.

Timani, Hussam S., Modern Intellectual Readings of the Kharijites, Peter Lang, New York, 2008.

Watt, W. Montgomery, Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey, Rutgers, Piscataway, New Jersey, 1962.

Understanding, identifying, and helping to amplify narratives that drive counter-Taliban tribes may be the key to an Afghanistan that repels violent extremism and al-Qaeda for generations to come.

Foremost, one must understand the centrality of Afghan tribes, finally being accepted widely in NATO ranks.

Afghanistan’s history overflows with occupiers attempting and failing to subjugate, sideline, or dismember tribes that have existed well before Islam. Tribal revolts defined the resistances against Alexander the Great in 330BC, the Arab empire in 667 AD, the Mongols in 1220, three Anglo-Afghan wars from 1839 to 1919, the Soviets in the 1980s, and the Pakistani-trained and funded Taliban in the 1990s. Tribes are arguably the most stable and resilient social spine in Afghanistan even today—even after the Taliban has killed hundreds of top tribal leaders and NATO has misguidedly attempted to circumvent clan elders to create and support a non-traditional monopoly of power in Kabul.

In the past year, possibly cautiously re-treading the footsteps that led to the 2006 Anbar Awakening in Iraq, regular and special forces have launched initiatives to support local militias and tribes to fight violent Taliban elements. These NATO efforts reportedly attempt to build local defence initiatives and bridge these neighborhood watch-like movements with “official” national government police and army commands.

Even more importantly, some tribes have initiated anti-violent extremist insurrections themselves. It is these grassroots movements, begun alone but requiring NATO backing eventually, that may have the greatest chance at posing an enduring threat to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Such campaigns do not necessarily fit into David Kilcullen’s counterinsurgency best practice paradigm. The efforts may be against foreign occupiers and the Afghan central government in addition to foreign Taliban elements and ideologies. The movement, furthermore, may lead to longer term warlordism that had plagued Afghanistan in the period between the Soviets and Taliban. Finally, the movement may steal some of the violent extremists away from the rest of the deeply fractured Taliban. In short, tribal uprisings against the Taliban may serve to make Afghanistan impermissible to internationally focused violent extremism but spur some local societal instability.

The Guardian reported on 3 January 2011 that both Afghan and NATO commanders are “hoping” for a tribal uprising to root out the violent foreign elements of the Taliban from the Sangin district. The area has been a hotbed of violence between NATO, drug traffickers, and the Taliban since 2006. But some tribal elders along with some insurgents have reportedly—on their own initiative—agreed with NATO to ward off non-indigenous violent extremist Taliban members. Helmand governor Gulab Mangal’s spokesman stated that local Taliban fighters will supposedly no longer attack government and NATO troops while keeping the upper Sangin Valley (specifically the contested Sarwan-Qala area) free of foreign Taliban.

The elders were from the Alikozai tribe—the largest in Sangin. The Alikozai last rose up against the Taliban in 2007 but were viciously defeated without support from the Afghan government or NATO. The current commander in charge of the area U.S. Marine Corps Major General Richard Mills appears cautiously confident that this uprising will be both effective and enduring. Caution derives from numerous past failed anti-Taliban tribal insurrections. In addition to Alikozai’s 2007 failure, tens of thousands of the Shinwari tribe in eastern Afghanistan failed to effectively combat the Taliban despite inter-tribal agreements and a written proclamation to repel violent extremists and poppy growers.

Although it is impossible to compare the Anbar Awakening with any of the failed or so-far fledgling tribal uprisings in Afghanistan, there are ideological, visceral, and self-interested drivers that may be common to both theaters of war—defined against an enemy that shares similar tactics, laws, and ends (those of al-Qa`ida in Iraq and violent al-Qa`ida-leaning members of the Taliban).

These drivers become narratives to grow ranks and keep fighters fighting. The narratives are not window dressing on an active revolt but the soul, purpose, and identity of the anti-extremist insurrection. They are the main effort. As Michael Vlahos’ “The Long War: A Self Defeating Prophecy” (Asia Times, 9 September 2006) describes:

In war, narrative is much more than just a story. “Narrative” may sound like a fancy literary word, but it is actually the foundation of all strategy, upon which all else—policy, rhetoric and action—is built. War narratives need to be identified and critically examined on their own terms, for they can illuminate the inner nature of the war itself.

The personal narratives of a tribal leader will likely differ from the messages intended to recruit and will likely differ over time according to changing circumstances. In Iraq, numerous and sometimes competing narratives helped the Anbar Awakening turn into an almost nationwide movement. The narratives centered around the following pillars, all echoed today in Afghanistan:

• Defence of tribal identity—al-Qaeda killed tribal leaders who may have posed any type of threat, and al-Qaeda openly announced their intent to destroy the tribal system which was counterproductive to its vision of an Islamic state in which Muslims are only subjugated to a caliph
• Personal power plays—young tribal leaders whose fathers hid in Syria because of earlier collusion with Saddam Hussein hurried to jockey for favor, territory, and governmental positions to earn money, jobs, stability, and respect
• Visceral disgust over innocent deaths—the deaths of children from one particular tribe became a rallying cry to unify tribal militias
• Xenophobic repulsion of foreigners—although al-Qaeda comprised mostly nationals, many of the suicide bombers and most violent offenders were foreigners creating a deep “us versus them” fissure
• Revolt against foreign ideology—like Pashtunwali, Iraq’s tribal structure and way of life (trading, for example) were threatened by a religious ideology that did not jibe with local customs to include forbidding music and smoking and not letting women sit in chairs

NATO has three choices regarding narratives. First, it can ignore messaging entirely and ignore the fact that narratives have been the main battle space for the Taliban and al-Qaeda since their inceptions. Second, NATO can cautiously send in social scientists to conduct deeply flawed warzone surveys and anthropologists to draw generalized conclusions to recommend a carefully targeted information operations campaign that may take another decade to execute. Third, NATO can learn from the Taliban and al-Qaeda and become risk-acceptant—forcefully amplifying narratives from what data is currently available not worrying about discrepancies, cross-messaging, and contradictory narratives. Al-Qaeda is just short of reckless in its broad messaging. NATO, likewise, should aggressively provide tribes the technical means to broadcast their narratives to make as much of Afghanistan as possible an impermissible environment to violent extremist militants, influence, and ideology.

As NATO nervously attempts to support some indigenous counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation movements in eastern Afghanistan—once dubbed the Local Defence Initiative—commanders would be wise to learn from comparable grassroots campaigns.

One such historical movement is Washington, DC metropolitan area’s Straight Edge campaign in the 1980s. Fighting age (18-35) Latino, African American, and White males used rhetoric, peer pressure, and outright fighting to curb drug activity in the narcotics hubs of the then criminal haven that was the U.S. capital city.

The word Straight Edge described loosely connected cells of friends and gangs, who abstained from drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Some drew “X”s on their hands or tattooed “X”s on their bodies (a vestige from the original DC “930 Club” which wrote “X”s on patrons hands who did not drink in 1981) to mark their identity. There was no single leader or ideologue, but instead a loose network related only through an antipathy to intoxicants. Nor was the movement connected to any “religion,” but depending on one’s definition of religion the Straight Edge movement could have been described as a leaderless faith.

Crossed: 'X' Tatoos Became the Sybol of the Straight Edge Movement 

Both the violent manifestations of some of Straight Edge's  messages, which often included fighting drug sellers and pushers in DC, and the campaign’s counter-culture and deeply anti-authority characteristic preempted its use in mainstream government anti-drug commercials.

However, the Straight Edge movement arguably did more to prevent young people from joining DC’s drug culture than any ineffective government campaign. Straight Edge was cool. If the drug culture of the 1980s was a rebellious romantic avenue for youths to define their independence against parents and government, Straight Edge was a cooler counter-counter revolution—also against authority and willing to execute violence.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign on television talk shows, taped public service announcements to include a special “Good Morning America” episode, and family sitcoms such as “Different Strokes” and “Punky Brewster” appeared to have done little throughout the city that lay in the shadow of the US Capitol building. Her efforts failed to tap into the same youthful thrill seeking, anger, and peer pressure that may have helped perpetuate the drug culture. Straight Edge, on the other hand, short-circuited many would-be abusers to the anti-drug side.

While Straight Edge adherents helped to make their respective neighborhoods impermissible or less permissible environments for drug pushers, the family-friendly Just Say No campaign had no measurable effect on DC’s communities.

Straight Edge later expanded nationally and internationally mostly into more peaceful manifestations. Some US supremacists and militia members have also claimed to hale from Straight Edge roots, but there is no correlation between these persons and any part of Straight Edge movements or ideology.

In short, the following factors may have helped to propel youth away from drugs and into the arms of a movement bent on demystifying, damning, and fighting drug use:

• Bravado and violence
• Opposition to a clear enemy—drugs
• A simple, clearly recognizable, and tattoo-able symbol
• A simple and clear ideology that could unite disparate groups from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds
• Complete independence from government influence and support
• An anti-establishment and counter-culture backbone
• A draw to youthful thrill seeking, angst, rebellion, indiscretion, and identity searching

The basic tenets of this grassroots campaign may inform analysis, identification, and possible support of counter-radicalisation movements in Afghanistan.

NATO and the Afghan government appear to suffer from heartburn at the thought of supporting vigilantes, militias, and abnormally strong tribes who may fight Taliban elements in the short run but cause civil strife and disorder in the long run. But enduring grassroots campaigns, that do not necessarily fall into the Western norm of state-run policing and neighborhood watches, may have the best chance at both fighting violent extremists and preventing spread of violent extremist influence.

From the first day the angel Gabriel came to the Prophet Muhammad to the moment you are now reading this blog post, there has never been a wide consensus on the meaning or application of the term “jihad.”

Every school of Islamic thought, author, scholar, violent extremist, and individual devotee differs on when and how to apply “jihad” even in its outward and violent materialization. While some liberal-leaning academics like Halim Rane (In Reconstructing Jihad Amid Competing International Norms, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009) come to an absolute conclusion that “jihad” is defensive and inherently peaceful in a modern context, al-Qaeda leaders come to an absolute conclusion that “jihad” is inherently offensive, violent, and limitless.

As further examples, Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdullah and the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca have denounced suicide bombings of innocents. Ninth-century scholar Muhammad al-Tabari interpreted the many verses on warfare in the Quran to mean that killings innocents is impermissible. But mainstream Muslims overwhelmingly believe that violent “jihad” is permissible and even necessary given the right circumstances such as with the Palestinian plight. And legendary violent extremist promoters such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Anwar al-Awlaki, Sayyid Qutb, and Muhammad Abd-al-Salam Faraj believe that violent “jihad” is obligatory at all times under any circumstance. In short: there is no consensus on “jihad.” And there never has been.

Conclusions on Islamic law and warfare are also not as simple as dependence on scholarship (such as the mainstream scholarship from the four largest Sunni schools of law) versus literalist Salafi interpretation. Even within the schools of traditionalists, modernists, or literalists, Muslim scholars come to different conclusions on “jihad.”

This conclusion is a double-edged sword for governments and community leaders building counter-al-Qaeda narratives.

The idea that there has never been a consensus on “jihad” could be used to criticise al-Qaeda that it is overly and perhaps irreligiously confident in its particular view of “jihad.” In short, al-Qaeda certainty has no historical precedent.

But al-Qaeda could use the idea that there is no single consensus on “jihad” to conclude that it can define its own “jihad”—free of criticisms against al-Qaeda that claim al-Qaeda definition is wayward. Without precedent, perhaps al-Qaeda is free to define its own interpretation of laws of war.

The bottom line is that, just like Christian extremists and their opponents who cherry pick bible quotations, a counter-narrative campaign based solely on Islamic religious texts and past precedents may be stepping into a rhetorical quagmire.