Background on al-Qaeda Decision Making

Although the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States by the foreign terrorist organization known as al-Qaeda stunned the country with their ruthlessness and boldness, earlier attacks on American assets (Khobar Towers, the USS Cole,¹ and American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania) by essentially the same group on distant shores, although successful, were carried out in a clumsy, almost amateurish fashion.² How this terrorist organization progressed from primitive tactics to a sophisticated plan of attack involves a bit of history.

In the 1970s, a very bitter and bloody revolt was under way in Egypt. President Mubarak and his large security service brutally crushed this revolt by a movement of Islamic fundamentalists, which ultimately adopted the name Egyptian Jihad. There were a few revolutionary groups in Egypt at the time, but Egyptian Jihad was number one on Mubarak’s terrorist target list.

During the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), an international force of Moslems, called the Afghan Arabs, formed. They numbered 3,000 to 4,000.³ During the war, a Saudi, Osama bin Laden, worked with an Egyptian physician, Ayman al Zawahiri, who more or less led the Egyptian Jihad contingent in Afghanistan.

The fighting groups, the Afghan Arabs, under Osama bin Laden were basically hit-and-run guerilla units, operating from caves or the desert. The Egyptian Jihad, under Ayman al Zawahiri, fought differently. Zawahiri knew the clandestine ways in which to set up cells, secret communications, and the basics of planning urban warfare. In 1998 the two groups merged; they now go by the name Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad.⁴

After the war, the Afghan Arabs moved from country to country—Somalia, Sudan, Yemen—as a dispersed unit. In Yemen they reassembled under the leadership and direction of bin Laden. Later they settled back in Afghanistan under the protection of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban.⁵

Zawahiri had a huge impact on bin Laden’s thinking—politically, militarily and religiously.⁶ At about this time, the terror war essentially turned into a religious war: the fundamental Islamic militants versus the world, with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt being the prime targets. In essence, Zawahiri became bin Laden’s political thinker, religious leader, organizer and planner. Because Zawahiri could not reverse the trend toward his main target, Egypt, he managed to convince bin Laden that the principal target for disruption was the United States because of its interference in the Middle East—particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Both Zawahiri and bin Laden sought to bring about a world dominated by their brand of Islam. The seeds were planted in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and, because of its geographic location and religious bent, Pakistan. Bin Laden had access to the necessary funding for the group’s activities, while Zawahiri had the knowledge, experience, and organizational abilities to carry out those activities.

Over the years, the Egyptian Jihad groups had experience in secret work, cell building and organization. Their ranks were populated with well-trained scientists, engineers, medical personnel, and seasoned fighters. Because of their talent and experience, these Egyptian Jihad groups took control of Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad. It is important to note that Zawahiri places a high premium on recruiting well-educated individuals. Those interested in joining Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad were put through a battery of tests, which were basically intelligence tests. Those who scored well were chosen and trained in special camps, while the lesser performers were sent on to more basic boot camps.

The organization is loosely knit, but directions come from the top. While ideas and information flow in from personnel stationed abroad, Zawahiri and his group of terror scholars select targets. Local support is supplied by lower-level cell members. At the critical time, the technical squads travel to target countries to construct and design weapons. The technical squads usually leave the target country at least two days before the attack.⁷

For the 11 September 2001 attack, a different operational strategy came into play, particularly in member selection and required training. The 19 attackers were clearly not all at the same level of training, experience, or even intellect. The final plan came from Zawahiri’s inner circle, with bin Laden’s blessing it, so to speak.

Probably because of the size of the project, plus initial lack of familiarity with the United States, key people were selected for special training and intelligence gathering in the United States. Intelligence-surveillance teams were sent in very early (circa 1992). All the data needed to be synthesized. At the appropriate time (4 to 6 months before the attack), the muscle crowd arrived. The elements of 11 September were put together with apparently one person, Mohamed Atta, knowing where most of the pieces fit.⁸ His direction and final plans were approved via the brain group in Afghanistan.

We have no doubt that Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad will stage further attacks against the United States, both domestically and abroad.⁹ The U.S. intelligence apparatus has been harshly criticized for the intelligence failure that permitted the terrorists’ success on 11 September. But it is not a question of simply acquiring human and electronic intelligence or formulating lists of possible terrorist targets.¹⁰ Were those responsible for homeland security to identify a thousand possible targets, that alone would be of little value, since we as a country would not have the resources (human, hardware, or financial) to develop effective countermeasures for all the identified targets. To maximize our ability to protect U.S. assets, we must be able to meaningfully sort through the many possible targets and prioritize them by the probable severity of their individual impacts. While we clearly are unable to have active countermeasures against all possible attacks, we undoubtedly can develop countermeasures for the subset that would have the most severe consequences.

We have constructed a model that would permit a well-organized terrorist group such as Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad to prioritize its targets or enable elements of the Intelligence Community to identify the most likely terrorist actions.

Terror Target Selection

We do not know Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad’s exact method of target selection. Reports and records that were uncovered in raids and interrogations imply that target suggestions came in large numbers from more than 60 countries. Targets and plans were in most cases nothing more than thinly spun plots. The ruling counsel for Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad would gather all this information and then proceed to filter it down. The group’s field organization was transnational, with broad mixtures of targets, motives, and experience. The leaders communicated the targets to the selection groups.

Zawahiri’s group had recruited and trained individuals who were well educated and knowledgeable in modern technology, management, and decision making. An inspection of graduate enrollments in Western universities underscores this point.

Bin Laden’s overriding role was, undoubtedly, to direct the financial aspects. In fact, he functioned as the group’s venture capitalist. Many channels of money flow were unknown to Western intelligence services. We believe that some critical funding pathways will never be discovered; they will simply vanish.¹¹

We believe that target selection proceeds in this way:

• Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad’s inner circle selects mission objectives
• As ideas for targets (plus some intelligence) flow in from the field groups, the filtration process starts
• Knowledgeable area-specific and target-specific teams make the project cuts
• When a target area of interest needs more intelligence, the teams send out requests
• The iterative process continues until there is reasonable justification to send the data up to the next higher decision level

We denote the mission objectives as and the target or event as . Thus,

		(Equation 1)
		(Equation 2)

And

p > i

(Equation 3)

With the exception of the singular case

p = i

(Equation 4)

The targets or events will be weighted numerically by estimating the impact of a particular event on the overall objective—that is, _ji is the impact of the j^th event on the i^th objective. Thus,

(Equation 5)

The assessment of scores for equation 5 is performed by the group of terror experts, consisting of military, technical, transportation, medical, financial, public relations, religious, and computer communication specialists.

There are many scales and methods to subjectively weight assessments of outcomes. Our experience in assessing impacts is that they tend to conform to Stevens’ power function of the form

R = kCn

(Equation 6)

a function that is linear in a log-log plot (that is, a plot of log R as a function of log C). Using this scale results in a number that represents the n^th impact on the n^th objective. It follows that

(Equation 7)

_n is the n^th normalized target or event as weighted by the objectives.

In equation 7, the _n events may cover many categories—airplanes, harbors, national events. Each of the _n may be further unfolded. Thus, _n represents a type of super vector. The categories can be separated so that they represent mutually exclusive classes.

The degree of the attacks, however, may take the form of mixed-category targeting. In this case, equation 7 becomes

(Equation 8)

Where _ml is the Kronecker Delta; if m = n, G = 0, also in general G_mlG_lm.

Equation 8 is a cross-impact matrix of events that also uses the Stevens scale.

Along with estimates of the probability, P, of success (or failure) of the correlated events’ occurring, it leads to

(Equation 9)

Equation 9 yields a list of the cross-correlated normalized targets weighted by objectives and probability of success. Final targets would be further screened by their relative costs and benefits.

We believe that the selection of targets for 11 September had little to do with financial impacts. The objectives were spectacular events (high public relations score) and a large body count. The actual results no doubt surprised the Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad: more than $600 billion in estimated stock market loss and about $60 billion in direct costs to the U.S. economy.¹² We believe that these numbers are low.

Fielding the operation cost the Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad about $500,000. A new objective has definitely been added to the terror list of objectives (’s): economic impact. In the future, we believe, the number-one objective in target selection will be to further severely damage the U.S. economy.

The actual computations using the equations of the above model are straightforward. We have developed a computerized version, which allows calculations to be performed at any level: global, area, or target type. The computer version also allows for sensitivity analysis in various scenarios.

We believe that this approach would be useful to those responsible for defending national, state, city, or corporate installations.

Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad will keep improving on its planning and become even more deliberate with respect to objectives.

References

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1. “In January 2000, 10 months before the attack on USS COLE (DDG 67) in Aden, USS THE SULLIVANS was the target of a failed terrorist attack in the harbor of Aden, Yemen,” according to Navysite.

2. Faruqi Anwar, “Opposition Claims 6 Saudi Have Confessed to Bombing US Airmen,” Associated Press, 14 August 1996.

3. Simon Reeve, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999, p. 55).

4. Lawrence Wright, “The Man Behind bin Laden,” New Yorker, 16 September 2002.

5. Rahimullah Yusufiai, The News—Pakistan, September 1998.

6. Ibid.

7. John Miller, Michael Stone, and Chris Mitchell, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (New York: Hyperion, 2002).

8. Ibid.

9. However, Qaeda al Egyptian Jihad will do so without Osama bin Laden, who is undoubtedly dead. No coward, had he survived the concerted attacks in Afghanistan, he would have shown himself long ago. On the other hand, Ayman al Zawahiri, the brains behind their efforts, has always preferred to stay out of the limelight.

10. We frequently hear individuals formerly associated with U.S. intelligence discussing the long lists of possible terrorist targets that have been identified. Given the resources they have available, those lists are probably long indeed. But developing lists is the easy part. No doubt we could list hundreds, probably thousands, of possible targets. Rationally determining what constitutes the most likely target is the challenging part. That’s where our model can contribute greatly.

11. Ghalam Hanain, “Money in the Rain: Pakistan’s Havala Operators Reap a Bonanza,” Newsline Pakistan, 8 August 1998.

12. Ron Scherer and Amanda Paulson, “Costliest Disaster in US History,” Christian Science Monitor, 20 September 2001.