Austin Bay Blog

This week’s suicide attacks on Saudi oilfields flopped. However, Al Qaeda has the Saud regime in its gunsights, and has for some time.

This post continues my series of looks at the declassified Al Qaeda documents found at West Point’s counter-terror center’s wbsite.

Pirates got the black spot, Lady MacBeth had the damned spot. I’ll title this document “the Oil Spot”
— a curious phrase but genocidal fanatics are curious people. (But not so curious– see update on tache d’huile–provided by a commenter.)

The website’s synopsis is a good introduction and survey of the document:

The author writes to his honored mentor and presents his views on the leadership skills and tactics that Al-Qa’ida must use to achieve victory. Emphasis is given to the political and military methods as well as public relations strategies and information management techniques that can produce positive results for Al-Qa’ida.
Key Themes: The writer emphasizes a leadership style that calls for reflection, self-knowledge, and the development of a database on Al-Qa’ida members and programs. The movement must be guided by the study of its people and the development of practical conclusions.
Next is a review of the public relations assets. Osama Bin Laden is considered a “…star similar to the fortress of Saddam” who has used the Al-Jazeera channel very effectively. Insufficient effort was made to exploit the success of the Mujahideen in Somalia against the Americans. The bombings in Dar es Saalam and Nairobi likewise were not exploited successfully for their promotional value in the Saudi peninsula and are described as a “horrible informational and political shortfall.”
Al-Qa’ida should emulate Hamas and have the statements of “martyrs” videotaped prior to their operations. If the efforts of martyrs from the Peninsula were publicized, this would have a tremendous impact on recruitment in Saudi Arabia.

I’ve added the emphasis.

The synopsis ends with this paragraph:

The fight against the Americans (Jews and Crusaders) is characterized as a series of battles; the struggle with Saudi Arabia is a war. An oil spot strategy must be pursued against Saudi Arabia, with the goal of expanding the circle of jihad through successful operations that break down the fear barrier which keeps Mujahideen from fully engaging the Saudi state.

What’s the oil spot? (See comments: Al Qaeda, the base, intends to expand.)

The phrase appears on page 43 in the text (toward the end of the document). I’ll post the excerpt from page 43. (Page in this case is the translators page, not the pdf page). The letter’s author, is Abu Huthayfa, has been discussing guidance from Osama Bin Laden (aka Abu Abdullah). They focus on some strategic and operational goals, based on “lessons learned.” (Expanding is the key guidance.) Much of the focus is on “informational” operations (information, media, propaganda, psyops) :

Page 43
1- Reinstituting confidence in the hearts of the Muslim masses concerning the jihad Movement after they had almost turned away from it as a result of some setbacks, which were used by the counterinformational media to keep the people away from it. Reinstituting confidence is done by hitting the enemies who do not differ in their hostilities to Islam and its peoples as well as in usurping their resources and occupying their lands.
2- Preparing the environment for fighting the Saudi system, which utilizes arbitrary measures to limit jihad efforts, by arousing the sense of dignity and valor in the hearts of the people as well as by exploiting their hatred of the system resulting from these measures.
3- Struggle is the key for fighting the Saudi system.
4- Acquiring political, military, and administrative experiences through field battles to become a stock in the assets of the mujahidin in their war against the system; war build combatants.
5- Discrediting the awesomeness image of the Saudi system and removing the leaf of mulberry tree used to cover its genitals [shortcomings].
6- Breaking the barrier of fear and hesitation from the minds of the mujahidin for participating in jihad activities.
7- Expanding the circle of jihad horizontally and vertically via assassinating some of the leaders of disbelief in the system; this is called (the oil spot).
8- After the escalation of operations against the crusader enemy in a compounding rate and at the critical point, the mujahidin command declares war against the Saudi system at the appropriate circumstance and after a long practice in carrying out item 7 [above] while taking into consideration the principles and techniques of guerilla war.
[to] Page 44…

“Oil spot” :it indicates the assassination of senior Saudi leaders. (UPDATE: With the intent of gaining control of the Arabian Peninsula– and using that to expand Al Qaeda’s influence.)

This excerpt (near the beginning of the document) contains the author’s operational and strategic assessments. He is very interested in activities on the “Peninsula” (Arabian peninsula, especially Saudi Arabia). Al Jazeera figures into the calculations.:

We can summarize the most important developments as follows:
1- The emergence of a number of students at the prominent jihad level of our ancestors who are willing to sacrifice, fight for freedom, and boldly say the truth. Moreover, they have the capability to qualify for administrative and military duties.
2- Security violations produced a hundred young men capable of handling programmatic tasks and security matters. They acquired some administrative experience in managing struggle domestically and developed some appropriate tactical and strategic beliefs through years of rich and live experience. Some of these people can be justly described as (a thunderbolt of war if he has the appropriate people).
Page 8
[Blank page]
Page 9
3- A great informational and political vacuum developed especially after the stagnation of Al-Mis‘ari and Al-Faqeeh [varant An-Naqiyya] project, and subsequently, most of the people, especially the committed, left this project.
4- Osama Ben Ladin emerged as a star similar to the fortress of Saddam and advanced to face the American enemy along with the Saudi regime. The people in that area responded favorably to his stated objectives and expressed their admiration with some comments and reservations.
5- People have great desire to know Osama and listen to his statements. This was obvious when Al-Jazeera Channel aired his interview with it. This movement is fully capable to fill in the political vacuum in the peninsula due to its sound organization and good program. Regrettably, this movement suffered from great political and informational deficiency, which makes you sympathetic to its blessed march. In fact this deficiency is considered one of the killers of the movement. We will go over some of the incidents that did not have adequate informational and political coverage.
1- If we go back a little (to the events in Somalia) and carefully think of this situation, we will recognize the extent at which we fell short in the informational and political efforts. We did not invest these events politically to serve the jihad program. Most of the people inside [the country] are unaware of the great effort the mujahidin made against the American forces.
Page 10

Somalia –yes, Somalia and the US pullback is an essential experience for Al Qaeda. America is also in Al Qaeda’s gunsights. The author adds:

There is still an opportunity to publish the file of Somalia and the role of the men over there in the informational media and to invest it politically to serve the movement’s project whose one of its objectives is to fight the Americans. Publicizing those events will motivate and encourage the nation, breaks the barrier of fear and gives it a live and actual example of the recent experiment in which the mujahidin succeeded in achieving the target and driving the enemy away.

Here’s some technical advice for the “informational” and Political” sections on producing propaganda:

Page 25

They can do that by giving well-prepared speeches, songs, and reading poetry, etc. Then the informational section undertakes the appropriate technical production segments of the celebration, and finally this [video- aped] celebration is distributed to the people. The political application of this event is based on the fact that we live in a country of immigration where we practice our normal life including marriage and happy occasions and enjoy every blessed occasion of life despite the war declared by the international enemy. These occasions will have important implications and varying psychological effects on the minds of different people; however, all implications fall in one path and that is shaking up the conscience of the people and moving the feelings of the hesitant on the issue of immigration especially when the compares between his situation and the situation of his brothers in the country of immigration who are living happily, in a relaxed mood and with no worries or sad moments and always ready to fight. This is only one of many examples; the political section must always be alert and conscious of every case that serves the interest of the [jihad] project; he should delve into it and utilize it to serve the goals of the Movement. The political developments facing the nation are many although the people are unaware of . Thus, they need someone to clear them up such as the alleged peace efforts with the Jews, the terrorist conferences such as the conference of Sharm al-Sheik [Egypt], the conference of the Arab ministers of the interior, in addition to many other issues, in which the political section can do a great job in explaining them, analyzing them and using them in awakening the Muslim masses…

Overall assessment: Read my post on Takfir wal-Hijra. This document reflects Salafist/jihadist thinking from the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it has “matured” in some respects. America “ran” from Somalia. Resistance to the Saudi regime has increased. The document drives another stake into the foolish argument that “America created Al Qaeda” or “our actions are responsible for their terror.”

UPDATE: A tipjar reminder –if you are so inclined, please hit this site’s tipjar to support the April 22 milblog conference in Washington. Thank you.

UPDATE 2: Excellent discussion in the comments. The “ink spot” interpretation may be spot on, so to speak.

UPDATE 3: And it is spot on. Follow this link.Double Tonguer Word Wrester says:

Gallieni called this carefully coordinated military and social strategy the tache d’huile, the oil spot. Start out and carefully secure a hundred such bases and you are on your way to conquering a country.

Andy Krepenivich used it in a Foreign Affairs article. Mea culpa– I read that article when it appeared. Shouldn’t have missed the reference but did. Again, thanks to the commenters.