AL QAEDA'S BLACK SWANS

Over four years after we began the war on terror, al Qaeda demonstrated that they still can manufacture events (black swans) that have the potential to throw our dynamically unstable global system into chaos. We appear be more vulnerable today to shocks of this type than we were four years ago.

The first attack, a successful one, on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, caused so much friction in Iraq's social systems, the country will likely end up in civil war. This would put the entire US venture in the country at immediate risk as the situation deteriorates. The second attack was an abortive attempt to take down the massive Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia. This was almost a disaster for the global economy (if the Aramco uniformed attack team had breached the second security ring, we would be looking at $100 a barrel oil today).

More is on the way. We should expect al Qaeda to begin to disrupt Saudi oil production in the more efficient but less glamorous method we have seen in Iraq and other locations, now that the attempted coup de main on Abqaiq was thwarted. These smaller and less difficult attacks, can in time replicate the effects of taking down a portion of Abqaiq. There will also be more attacks on Shiite symbolic targets, since even with the diminishing returns on terrorist attacks post-Askariya, it won't take much to continue the fragmentation.

Remember, al Qaeda is open source now. It is operating at a level of decentralization that will allow it to take the war to many locations simultaneously without central management. Bin Laden's threats reflect his inside knowledge of what is now a self-directed movement and not planning he has directed personally. Despite all of this current activity in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, we should also expect to see systems disrupted against US mainland targets in the not too distant future. The organization has more than enough capacity to accomplish this.

Comments

[P-]

'This was almost a disaster for the global economy (if the Aramco uniformed attack team had breached the second security ring, we would be looking at $100 a barrel oil today).'

... what we should be asking ourselves is
what does it tell us when an indirect attack on us could be even more devastating than a direct one to our homeland? I'm just surprised that it could be called the first attack of its' nature outside Iraq. They aren't thinking twice about hitting an Islamic country quite possible their own not even a delay of thought. They're making it an modus operandi. Knowing thy wnwmy is important!! but does the administration know it...

[enigma_foundry]

Totally agre with this thought as a starting point, although I have used different terms to describe this trend.

The war as I see it is being fought on two fronts.

One front is the construction of a series of inflection points, that AQ is directly involved in--for example:

(1)9/11 and the anthrax attacks
(2) the attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, and perhaps
(3) the future use of biological weapons, as WMD without fingerprints

All of these have had a very low possibiility of failure, and have been design to attack the underlying structure of a network so to alter the rules which the network uses to re-connect and re-integrate after becoming disconnected. The global economy itself proved to be somewhat more resilient than AQ had expected, and the anticipated effect on the global economy was much less (long term) than AQ expected.

The Second front is a war of attrition, which seeks to grind down networks, by increasing friction at all levels.

The ease of open sourcing the second front is much greater than the ease of open sourcing the first described front.

AQ needs to acheive a continued tempo of attacks on both fronts to drive the war were they want to; winning on one will only effect a holding pattern.

In that sense, I would return to the description I had provided about the only necessary global flows in these new decentralized networks to be flows of information, with commodities and even services becoming, as a result of this war re-localised.

Thus, the map is one of overlayed networks, with goods commodities flows occuring on a different scale and speed than information & expertise, which are not subject to the same pressures to resiliently decentralize.

[Cardenio]

" the Aramco uniformed attack team " ? Wait do you mean they were disguised as Aramco guys ? Or Aramco security stopped them ?

[daCascadian]

John Robb >"...we would be looking at $100 a barrel oil today..."

Bin Laden`s stated goal is to "bankrupt" the West & this is only one thread in his tapestry

Cardenio >"...Wait do you mean they were disguised as Aramco guys ?..."

in Aramco vehicles according to news reports

The "broken trust" factor is going to bite us in very nasty ways very soon

"The future will be a struggle between huge competing systems of psychopathology." - J. G. Ballard

[gmoke]

I haven't read that anybody has taken responsbility for the Askariya attack yet. It is possible that Al Qaeda did not blow the mosque up. Something else may be going on, another level of complexity added to the whirlpool of craziness.

[John Robb]

It's Zarqawi and his new fork of the OSW insurgency. It's probably one of the reasons they forked in the first place. The attack was perfectly in line with global guerrilla theory: fragmentation to primary loyalties is goodness. They won't ever claim it. Anonymity is a weapon.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2005/01/primary_loyalti.html

[dan]

It's been interesting to observe how the "anonymity" factor in the Askariya shrine attack works in practise: you get a flame & blame war of all against all, founded on the pre-conceived biases, or specific hostilities, of the accusers.

So, for the Sadrists it is "takfiris" who are responsible, for Iran it's the US/Israel, at the Belmont Club it's Iran/Hizbullah, for some Sunnis it's SCIRI seeking to keep hold of the Interior Ministry by rolling out a "strategy of tension", for other Sunnis it's Jafaari playing the same game, for others it's Zarqawi and/or ex-Baathists, or it could be the Syrians, or it could be the Saudis...

It's amazing how this kind of event simply sharpens and deepens the notions that people already hold. It's psyops of the first order in terms of conception and execution - as it justifies more violence and promotes the degradation of the civil bonds that keep most Arab Iraqis ( and others ) from reducing to the LCD.

My own view is that it was conceived and financed by AQII and sub-contracted to a highly-professional third-party ( probably ex-SRG or Baath MI ) cell.

[Gyges]

"sub-contracted to a highly-professional third-party"

From here http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2006/02/samarra-specialist-demolition-minister.html

"Published: 2/24/2006 Agence French Press
The bombing of a revered Shiite shrine containin gthe tombs of Hazrat Imam Hasan Askari and Imam Ali Naqi and which sparked a wave of violence in Iraq was the work of specialists, Construction Minister Jassem Mohammed Jaafar said on Friday He gave details of the way the explosives had been placed saying that it must have taken at least 12 hours.

"According to initial reports, the bombing was technically well conceived and could only have been carried out by specialists," the minister told Iraqia state television."

Some (only a few) of the technical details in the blog.

[enigma_foundry]

"I haven't read that anybody has taken responsbility for the Askariya attack yet. ..."

"The attack was perfectly in line with global guerrilla theory: fragmentation to primary loyalties is goodness. They won't ever claim it. Anonymity is a weapon."

"It's been interesting to observe how the "anonymity" factor in the Askariya shrine attack works in practise: you get a flame & blame war of all against all, founded on the pre-conceived biases, or specific hostilities, of the accusers..."

The reason for this is the attack is an 'Information Bomb' and I'd suggest we all read just a little Paul Virilio here.

The masses don't need to understand Paul V.'s concepts here--as deCascadian had suggested in an earlier post when I'd brought up Virilio--his conceptual structure is rigorous and can form the basis of predictive model for this type of attack.

[Duncan Kinder]

For a precedent to the current situation, read _The Sea Rover's Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730_ , by Benerson Little, who is a former Navy Seal.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1574889109/sr=8-1/qid=1141068720/ref=sr_1_1/103-8645646-3435041?%5Fencoding=UTF8

According to Little, the pirates, buccaneers, and privateers of the 17th Century Caribbean were engaged in a long term, low level guerilla - type warfare against the Spanish Empire, which depended upon gold shipments from the Americas to sustain itself.

Their largely ad hoc tactics served to served to disrupt the Spanish infrastructure, thereby leading to Spain's decline.

[sammy small]

AQ may be "open source" but their programming language is based upon the preachings of host Imams throughout the ME. If ever there was a need to implement official "assassination" by the West, a case could be easily made for a rank ordered list of Imams and their termination with extreme predjudice.

[Vince]

As Lind highlights it (http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_2_23_06.htm) Pakistan is another very very hot place (Baloch guerillas learning fast + cartoons psy-op effects):
Gas supply to Punjab, NWFP suspended : http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/27/top6.htm

Rockets fired on minister’s house : http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/27/top2.htm

Pakistan passenger train attacked: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4754514.stm

[Vince]

PS: It's good to read you back again, can't wait to read your book !

[Vince]

PS(2) : I realize that speaking of psyop about the cartoons affair may be misleading. By this word I just mean that AQ may have raised and exploited this issue (I don't mean there was a fabricated and conscious psyop from anyone at the beginning).

[Hakim Hazim]

Complicating the issue of militant cults is the virus that breeds lone wolves (small groups or individuals, examples from the US include individuals like Malvo, Muhammad and Tim Mcveigh) in Islamic populations that simply want to remain unknown while inciting violence between the Shiites and Sunnis. These individuals have a motivational drive to please God in some capacity. They will wage jihad on several levels against the West, giving rise to other "Black Swans." As the virus spreads and the idea/religion of Al Qaeda grows and mutates into a larger sect with universal appeal, the lone wolves will cause massive and unpredictable damage to the state system.

[Corona Sherona]

I didn't know that these events had names-black swans. It is good to know that some people see that the blame game is useless, and that planes probably aren't going to be the line of attack that they use again. Unfortunately I fear they will be much more creative and terrifying next time.

[Barry]

enigma foundry:

"One front is the construction of a series of inflection points, that AQ is directly involved in--for example:

(1)9/11 and the anthrax attacks"

Anthrax attacks? Last I heard, before the administration started 'moving on' from those attacks, the anthrax was domestic. Even an administration which lies like it breathes stopped pushing the story of the anthrax being Al Qaida.

[S]

"Anonymity is a weapon"

Seems anonymity works if you are anonymous -the unibomber for example. Notwithstanding shrine bombing which plays to local sectarianism, how is any atack on the United States or west remotely anonomious? 911 was a unifying event. Preconceived notions nodoubt shape opinion, but in this instance they have an unmistakable root structure. Apart from the open source jihadist movement, who else seeks to destroy US infrastructure/hijack planes/murder innocents/ and destroy our economy. Ok just about everyone in theory, but in practice not the chinease, spanish, russian, Cossack, Merovinginan or other conspiritor.

This is about decapitating the hydra. In the myth, "Heracles defeated the Hydra by remembering the words of his wise teacher, Chiron, who had said, "We rise by kneeling; we conquer by surrendering; we gain by giving up." All his other weapons having failed, Heracles remembered his mentor's words and knelt down in the swamp and lifted up the monster by one of her heads into the light of day, where she began to wilt. Heracles then cut off each of her heads, dipping his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood at the same time. However, none re-grew. After he had severed all nine heads, a tenth one appeared; Heracles recognised this as a jewel and buried it under a rock. the information bomb in reverse - 30,000 in Paris, a western bulwark against the cartoon infitada?

Fear and chaos for their own sake don't accomplish much (?)(Africa for example); at some point don't you have to come out of the shadows to claim legitimacy (PLO). Note previous coment on Hydra.

The inevitable diffusion of global power will have less to do with GG movements and more to do with the China and India "accidents."

I think is the story about the guy who loses his wallet in a bar and is outside looking in the street. When asked why, he points to the streetlights. As far as recognizing the evolution, would be GG get way too much credit and the west too little (or too much depending on which side of the pond you live). Maybe I am too blithly optimistic that we are not heading for a mad max movie.

Color me more black and white

[AoT]

"PS(2) : I realize that speaking of psyop about the cartoons affair may be misleading. By this word I just mean that AQ may have raised and exploited this issue (I don't mean there was a fabricated and conscious psyop from anyone at the beginning)."

If you look around and read more about the cartoon incident you'll find that it was indeed PsyOps. A Danish imam toured the cartoons around the mideast with three extra, especially offensive cartoons. It seems a bit strange that little note of this has been made by the media. It is also interesting to note that the riots began erupting months after the original cartoons were published.(mid october '05 if I remember correctly.)

[enigma_foundry]

One front is the construction of a series of inflection points, that AQ is directly involved in--for example:

(1)9/11 and the anthrax attacks"

The reasoning behind the anthrax attacks was puzzling at first for me too.

It would be an extraordinary co-incidence if the anthrax attacks just happened to happen a week before 9/11.

The reason is to shape the perception of subsequent bio-warefare activities, which will almost certainly (unless there is a extraordinary stroke of luck) be completely anonymous.

The reason the Bushies haven't pressed the biowarfare more is because they:

(1) Don't want to do the things necessary to protect us, which would look very different fromm a massive defence buildup, but would require a large investment in the public health infrastructure, and a research program to sequence wild virii.

(2) They also are engaging in some wishful thinking.

(3) They think they will be able to respond quickly (they won't) and the casualties will be minimal (they won't be) and that deterence could have an effect (it won't) They also think that their power will be reinforced by the type of biowarfare we will see, but in point of fact it will be their doom, especially after they demonstrated there incompetence with Katrina.

Unfortunately, our own leaders are just as much out enemies as AQ is.

[S]

Interesting discussion on Dark Matter here, which reinforces point that GG play a rather nominal role in the bigger picture. Economic imbalance from domestic habits - not ilitary overreach - is more germane to declining US prospserity and power shift east than a global conspiracy by a group of people who don't have a stellar track record of accretive contributions to advancing civilization/industry.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/setser/117392

[Cardenio]

"I just hit several people with a vehicle," he told the dispatcher. "I don't have any weapons or anything on me; you can come and arrest me now." Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar punishes 9 Chapel Hill students for the actions of the United States government. "People all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States turn to be killed."

Fucko here should be considered " Al Qaeda " as an open-source-volunteer-systems-distrupting-point-on-a-chart-mook