Oct 8, 2009 9:15 AM

Qaeda: Drones Suck, But Spies Are Worse

The drone strikes get all the headlines. But what’s really worrying al Qaeda are the agents in their midst. The Ruling Concerning Muslim Spies, written by the al-Qaeda’s rising star and self-made theologian Abu Yahya al-Libi, is a lengthy religious treatise on the purported Islamic legitimacy of executing undercover informants. The book contains a number […]

The drone strikes get all the headlines. But what's really worrying al Qaeda are the agents in their midst.

The Ruling Concerning Muslim Spies, written by the al-Qaeda's rising star and self-made theologian Abu Yahya al-Libi, is a lengthy religious treatise on the purported Islamic legitimacy of executing undercover informants. The book contains a number of statements that portray al-Qaeda as primarily concerned about local spies – and the American drones they bring. From the NEFA Foundation’s translation:

We would not be exaggerating if we said that the frontline of the Crusader's campaign, which is carried out by the U.S. and its allies against the Muslims and their lands, is the spying networks in all its types, shapes, and forms. These networks are the basic resource that the enemy relies on for its small and large military operations.
The spying networks are their eyes to see the hidden things that they cannot see and are their hands that are still extending inside the houses, in the forests, up the mountains, into the valleys, and inside the dark caves in order to catch a target that their developed technology was not able to reach...
As you know, may God make you useful to others, the biggest obstacle that face the mujahidin in the various jihad fronts today, and as a result of which they suffer adversity after another, is the spies who are today considered to be the strongest of soldiers of the Cross and its stooges. Without them, the Americans will be rendered ineffective. Has not been for the spies, they Americans would have been able to reach their crucial and important targets.

Over the past two weeks, anonymous senior administration officials have been pushing for a counterterrorism approach to Afghanistan, modeled on what's seen as a successful drones-and-agents campaign in Pakistan. In some corners of the press, that's been (mis)translated into a debate between roboplanes and more flesh-and-blood troops. But Libi's book makes clear that it's the combination of HUMINT and DRONEKILL that's really bugging the terror group.

But before we get too drunk on dronewar, let’s step back and consider a few things. First, U.S. military commanders, as Spencer Ackerman notes, argue that American troops in Afghanistan also play an important role in facilitating intelligence collection. More importantly, though, the world offers terrorists like al-Qaeda many options for safe havens and replacement middle managers. For as much as Libi's book tells us about the impact of the intelligence penetration of al-Qaeda, it says more about the group’s ideological decline. While parts of the book contain descriptions of the intelligence campaign against al-Qaeda, the bulk of its 90 pages is devoted to a rearguard defense of the group's violence against the Muslims who spy on it, highlighting a vulnerability that has bedeviled Bin Laden and his followers as of late.

As the debate over strategies in the Af-Pak region continues, it’s worth pondering how these various strategies contribute to the decline of al-Qaeda’s ideology, and not just the checkmarks on our most-wanted lists.

[Photo: Noah Shachtman]

ALSO: