Irregular Warfare Podcast - The Bin Laden Papers: The Inner Workings of Al-Qaeda’s Leadership

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

This episode dives into the internal workings and communications of al-Qaeda and uses that insight to draw lessons for counterterrorism strategies. From the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden to the recent strike against Ayman al-Zawahiri, targeting key leaders has been a cornerstone of recent counterterrorism strategies, but what do these terrorist leaders have to say about the effectiveness of the campaigns against them? Retired General David Petraeus and Dr. Nelly Lahoud join hosts Laura Jones and Jeff Phaneuf to discuss how decapitation strikes fit into broader counterterrorism strategies, including what insights we can glean from the treasure trove of digital information gathered from the Abbottabad compound after bin Laden's death.

By and large, I would have actually contended that it tended to confirm what it was we thought at the time, which was that bin Laden remained a very, very significant figure. He was, after all, the founder of al-Qaeda. He was symbolically of extraordinary importance. But we recognized that his operational control was really very limited. The fact that we know so much about al-Qaeda at the moment is remarkable. For a very long time, al-Qaeda's leaders were content that though they were operationally

impotent, they were very content with the fact that they were still alive, that the enemy didn't know that they were operationally impotent, that the enemy was spending enormous resources on their own security. And we now know from the papers that al-Qaeda was shattered. Welcome to episode 59 of the Irregular Warfare podcast. I'm your host, Laura Jones, and my co-host today is Jeff Vanoff. Today's episode dives into the internal workings and communications of Al-Qaeda and uses that insight to draw lessons for counterterrorism strategies. Our guests begin by explaining how a treasure trove of digital information gathered from the Abbottabad compound after the death of Osama bin Laden led to a deep understanding of the state

of Al-Qaeda leading up to 2011. They continue by discussing al-Qaeda's relationship with regional players and discuss the seeming disconnect between internal nuanced understandings of al-Qaeda's capabilities and public perception of the same. They go on to discuss the efficacy of certain counter-terror tactics, such as drone strikes, from the eyes of al-Qaeda leadership. They conclude by reflecting on how decapitation strategies play into wider counterterror efforts. General David H. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of the Surgeon of Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command,

and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following retirement from the military, he served as the director of the CIA. General Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy and earned a PhD from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. He is now a partner at KKR and chairman of the KKR Global Institute. Dr. Nellie LaHood is currently an associate professor of security studies at the Army War College. Her research has focused on the evolution and ideology of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Prior to teaching at the War College, Dr. Lahoud was a senior fellow at New America. She previously served as an associate professor at the Department of Social Sciences and senior associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military

Academy at West Point. She is the author of the Bin Laden Papers, How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth About Al-Qaeda, Its Leader, and His Family, which forms the basis of our conversation. You are listening to the Irregular Warfare Podcast, a joint production of the Princeton Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point, dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. Here's our conversation with General David Petraeus and Dr. Nellie LaHood. General David Petraeus, Dr. Nellie LaHood, thank you so much for being with us at the Irregular Warfare podcast today. We're really looking forward to starting this conversation and getting into the bin Laden papers and talking about counterterrorism

strategies. Great to be with you. Thanks. Big fan of the podcast. Keep up the great work. Thank you for hosting me. I'm delighted to be with you. Thanks. Big fan of the podcast. Keep up the great work. Thank you for hosting me. I'm delighted to be with you. To start us off, Dr. Lahoud, if you could, a theme in your book seems to be that the United States misjudged al-Qaeda as an organization, at least publicly, in terms of overall capability and effectiveness after the initial invasion of Afghanistan. What do the bin Laden papers say about the state of al-Qaeda in the 10-year period from 2001 to 2011? Let me say a few words about what the bin Laden papers are about. And they actually owe their existence to the special operations forces who carried out the Abbottabad raid that killed bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad in May 2011. The mission was supposed to be completed within 30 minutes and the SEALs were trained for this and while the mission was underway and though bin Laden was killed before the 30 minutes were up the SEALs still requested additional time on the ground because they found some computers and

electronic gear on the second floor. Now I learned from members of the SOF community that this was routine, that since the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, all SOF operations included sensitive site exploitation, SSE. So, Admiral McRaven immediately recognized the potential invaluable intelligence that these computers and electronic gear could yield, and he gave the go ahead. I reached out to him to inquire about the additional time that this yield spent on the ground, and he kindly let me know that at 40 minutes, he told them to wrap it up, and eight minutes later or so, they took off. Now, what we have now, thanks to these additional 18 minutes, Now, what we have now, thanks to these additional 18 minutes, is a vast, rich collection.

Within a year after the raid, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the ODNI, declassified some 17 documents through the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. And subsequently, the ODNI declassified three other batches on its own website. But in November 2017, the CIA declassified the largest batch of documents. Now, we're talking a massive volume. According to their press release, over 470,000 files. And they said that they declassified everything that they were ever going to declassify. Now, when I decided I was going to write a book based on these papers, I must have clicked on thousands of files before I determined that the text files were going to be the most important.

And with the help of two research assistants, we went through all the text files, nearly 97,000 files, and we identified what was internal documents and what was not. Once we identified the internal communications, we identified about 6,000 Arabic pages of al-Qaeda's internal communications. Now, with the risk of stating the obvious, these were not meant for public consumption. These were al-Qaeda's closely guarded secrets. Now, the files, these 6,000 pages, are brimming with revelations. And to your question, Laura, they transform our understanding about al-Qaeda's

fate post-9-11 and its inner workings. For nearly a decade after 9-11, al-Qaeda was assumed to be responsible for international terrorist attacks that were carried out in the name of jihad. Now, the papers reveal a different story altogether. We learn from the letters that in the wake of Operation Enduring Freedom, bin Laden had to disappear out of necessity. And for nearly three years, he wasn't able to communicate with his associates. Al-Qaeda itself was shattered following the Taliban's collapse in early December 2001. And when bin Laden resumed contact with his associates in 2004, they apprised him of the group's grim situation. The letters speak of the group's afflictions,

aimlessness, and ordeals. And judging by subsequent letters, al-Qaeda did not regain its ability to mount international attacks after 9-11. Now, to be sure, al-Qaeda was responsible for the November 2002 Mombasa attacks. And the reason why al-Qaeda was able to pull off this attack is because the operatives who planned these attacks had been dispatched to East Africa before 9-11. Now, on this basis, it's a completely different story from the one that we've known about al-Qaeda's abilities and involvement in global jihad.

Now, global jihad continued after al-Qaeda was shattered, but judging by the letters, as I said earlier, judging by the letters, al-Qaeda was not behind these attacks, but other non-state actors acting in the name of shahad, sometimes acting in al-Qaeda's name, carried out these attacks. So, General Petraeus, did the information revealed in these papers align with how the U.S. viewed the state of aleus, did the information revealed in these papers align with how the U.S. viewed the state of al-Qaeda at the time, or was this enlightening to you? There were really several cuts of analysis at these different papers. The first was sort of the standard, what we always did, what JSOC forces always did after an operation, which is an

immediate, if you will, tactical analysis. Go through them very, very quickly. See if there's anything that could provide some kind of information that would lead to a subsequent operation of some type or some important revelation or some ticking time bomb that is out there or something along those lines. And there was not anything particularly significant, although I will note that I did recognize that they did target me personally. I was the only one mentioned by name for targeting the U.S. president was mentioned by position. And again, that caused some degree of, I guess, alarm or what have you, because it was fairly specific.

It was going to be at Kabul International Airport as we're taking off. And that was the idea that bin Laden had. I don't think it had actually developed. Over time, there were more detailed analyses conducted by the agency and the greater intelligence community. By and large, I would have actually contended that it tended to confirm what it was we thought at the time, which was that bin Laden remained a very, very significant figure. He was, after all, the founder of al-Qaeda. He was symbolically of extraordinary importance. But we recognized that his operational control was really very limited. It wasn't as if he was orchestrating the activities of al-Qaeda in Iraq or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or the remnants of al-Qaeda senior leadership, even much less al-Qaeda small elements Arabian Peninsula, or the remnants of al-Qaeda senior leadership, even

much less al-Qaeda small elements trying to reestablish themselves in eastern Afghanistan, which we beat back every time that it happened and continued to right up until the end of our time in Afghanistan. So in many respects, I would have actually said more confirmatory, at least for those of us who were inside this, living it. And even in Iraq, I had already focused, for example, the of us who were inside this, living it. And even in Iraq, I had already focused, for example, the most dangerous man in the world, we thought at the time was not Osama bin Laden. It was the individual in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who was the

most effective in social media, such as they were at the time, YouTube and so forth, Anwar al-Awlaki, who later met his demise in September of 2011, I believe it was, late September. And the editor also of Inspire magazine, which was an extremist e-zine published, again, out of Yemen. We were very, very concerned about what was going on in Yemen because they were recruiting. Again, Anwar al-Awlaki was very effective at encouraging people to take a one-way ticket to Damascus and then travel into Iraq and blow themselves up. But al-Qaeda's senior leadership, AQSL, as they referred to at the time, by and large was still exceedingly disrupted.

I mean, the fact that he had to communicate the way he did by basically recording some kind of message on a medium then transport it hard copy if you will or disc to someone else and then on from there the fact that he was having to do that meant that he was just very limited in what he could do other than in a sense exhort i can just imagine what zarkawi or his successors in iraq received this stuff and shrugged their shoulders and said hey hey, you know, he's not providing me resources or any other really valuable capabilities. Got it. Thank you. And then they went about what it was that they intended to do inside Iraq, which was try to foment a Sunni-Shia civil war. We didn't make huge changes as a result of what we found out about Osama bin Laden,

noting how significant the operation was, but also noting that we had no illusions that taking the head off the snake was going to have any significant effect on al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, al-Qaeda in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda al-Shabaab in Somalia, or the other affiliates that were out there. They were franchisees using the name and certainly occasionally echoing his various words of encouragement or inspiration, but not taking direction from him and not truly being enabled by anything that al-Qaeda senior leadership really did. From an insider's perspective, it's very revealing to hear that

from General Petraeus. And you're absolutely right about the fact that al-Qaeda was shattered. And in 2004, if I may offer a different angle, it was actually Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq who was the most important leader of al-Jihad. And also more revealing is that AQAP, in the eyes of al-Qaeda, was an incompetent group. Its leaders were incompetent. And in fact, one of its leaders was writing to al-Qaeda that we need your help because we don't even know much about shihad. We don't know when to act. And we find bin Laden and his associates very much concerned about the fact that AQAP was launching attacks against the governments that it cannot beat. And they were concerned about the fact that AQAP was launching attacks against the governments that it cannot beat and they were concerned that the other regional powers were going to intervene.

What is interesting about this is that bin Laden and his associates as you rightly noted out were unable to influence let alone control these regional jihadi groups. And again here, I think from an outsider like myself who is reading some of the publicly available intelligence reports, al-Qaeda was very much dominant in the news. Al-Qaeda was always perceived to be al-Qaeda central. There was an AQC that somehow they were in command of global jihad. And in fact, as late as 2010, we find bin Laden's in the letters trying to come up with something that resembles AQC, Al-Qaeda Central. And we find him writing to his associates saying, get those regional jihadi leaders to agree to a memorandum of understanding that they would really have to agree that they can't act, they can't release anything to the situation. And by the way, I've been reading in

the press about something called Al-Qaeda Central. I think it's a great idea. Let's do that. Now, for those outsiders like myself, it was very clear for those of us who was reading that Al-Qaeda was dominating them, that somehow there was a much closer relationship between bin Laden, his associates, as well as other regional jihadi groups in Iraq, in Yemen, in Somalia, and in the Islamic micro. Now, it's comforting to know that the insiders saw it differently. You're right to say that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was not particularly effective inside Yemen. Although, again, they were carrying out very destructive operations at various times. What they did have was, again, arguably the next most dangerous man in the world was the talented bomb maker. Keep in mind, this is the origin of the

shoe bomb, the printer cartridge bomb, the underwear bomb, the bomb that almost killed the then Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. So the effectiveness of that organization in terms of what it could do externally was very, very alarming. There was no other organization that could have brought down an aircraft had we not intercepted those operations and had not the shoe bomb malfunctioned or not functioned fully. So that was the concern. And again, from the perspective of the guy commanding on the ground during the surge in Iraq, Zarqawi's dead, but there was another leader that steps up. The fact is that the biggest and most damaging type of attack at that time in Iraq were those that we termed high-profile attacks, and these, again, suicide bomb vest or suicide car bombs that were responsible in a single day

one time in Iraq, in Baghdad, in three different market bombings, killing over 150 Iraqi innocent civilians and wounding several times that number. So these were absolutely deadly. And they were inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, who was the one, more than anyone else in the world, who seemed to be able to encourage individuals successfully to fly to Damascus, link up with the facilitators in Syria, and then go into Iraq and blow yourselves up for the cause. This might build into your response here, Nellie, but I'd kind of like to jump out slightly and build a more macro picture of just overall US CT strategy in general. And, you know, did the Bin Laden papers reveal that we had been too al-Qaeda focused?

Was that not a revelation at all? Or can we speak to how we treated each individual al-Qaeda franchise or individual terrorist organizations differently? Or did we find effectively the same strategy worked across the board? Well, again, you're talking about different al-Qaidas. And so we literally distinguish between AQSL, whatever state it may have been in, as long as bin Laden was alive, actually, as long as al-Ary is alive, there is an AQSL. Whether it is significant or not is another question. And in our view, it was very significant symbolically. Even the occasional,

just occasional appearance in some media at all by a leader of AQSL was significant. It means they're still out there. Bin Laden has survived. He's thumbing his nose at the great United States, and we can't even seem to locate this guy who caused the worst, planned and executed the worst terrorist attack on our soil in history. The bottom line is that we approach each of these different franchises fairly discreetly, with some exceptions. about the Syrian fighters. But what also the papers reveal is that there were hundreds of fighters crossing from Saudi Arabia

and from Jordan into Iraq. These didn't gain much of a press. And in fact, we know this because the intermediary from Iraq went and met with al-Qaeda's leaders because when they wanted to join, become under the umbrella. This is the intermediary of Zarqawi,

put it to al-Qaeda's leaders, that we have, you know, with God's help, God willing, quote unquote, we are gaining quite a lot of fighters. The fighters from Syria were not as significant as those who were crossing the border from Saudi Arabia and from Jordan. It was somehow easier in the press to be talking about Syria, but somehow very little attention was given to other, you know, friendlier states, I suppose, to the United States. Yeah, we gave a lot of attention to them. And so the comprehensive approach that we ultimately adopted when I was the commander of the surge in Iraq, as we had a comprehensive approach for everything, because again, no single action is enough. Again, decapitation is necessary but not sufficient. Counterterrorism operations

in general are necessary but not sufficient. You have to have a comprehensive approach. Well, the comprehensive approach to reducing the flow of fighters from Syria, and the one I highlighted were the 110 or so would-be suicide bombers. There were hundreds more that were coming in every month who were just regular fighters that were drawn to the action, because that seemed to be the place. In the same way that you saw even more so in the heyday of the Islamic State when it had a caliphate in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria, where thousands of fighters were flowing in there because nothing succeeds like success. They had a very aggressive and effective social media campaign. They could offer a young man who felt disaffected somewhere else, unemployed, not part of a society,

what he wanted. But the flow through Syria was very important. And what we requested and what the State Department did was have their Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism, who happened to be a retired three-star former JSOC commander, he literally went all around the region and asked countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, will you stop the flow of military-age males on a one-way ticket from Riyadh or wherever to Damascus? Because they are flowing into Iraq, some of them are blowing themselves up and others are becoming fighters. And we had very, very good support from those different countries. And that was part of what reduced the flow. There were a number of other activities as well. And ultimately, the key leader who was facilitating that, as you will recall, also was brought to justice, I think, in October of 2008, roughly. Dr. Lahoud, we'd like to dig in on some specific claims that are made in your book. And specifically here, I'd like to ask you about drone strikes and how al-Qaeda viewed them

and whether they were strategically effective in terms of their use in this case. The drone campaign was highly effective, and the papers are brimming with even more new revelations. Al-Qaeda's leaders refer to the drones as a calamity with which we've been afflicted. And one of the documents suggests that Al-Qaeda's security committee believed that it worked out how the drones worked and operated, specifically the drones and spying nexus. Let me explain a little bit. They came to ascertain that the drones identified their targets by means of spies on the ground. And the area of North Waziristan, according to the letters, was infested with spies. Practically everybody was on the CIA's payroll as far as they were concerned.

And we find, you know, in the book, I translate long passages from these letters about the fact that the spies, according to al-Qaeda, use a variety of tools to communicate the location of the target by placing these tools on the roofs of houses, cars, or the like. And according to al-Qaeda's security committee report that reached bin Laden, they managed to dismantle some of the spy networks. And they believed that they devised security measures that allow their members and their fighters to ev that the drones are successful not because of the enemy's sophisticated campaign, but they blamed it on their own fighters for not being able to follow simple and basic security measures. From their perspective, all they needed was to hide. And two factors contributed to the success of the drones from al-Qaeda's side. We're talking about people

who took up fighting, who took up jihad in God's path, and all of a sudden they're being asked to hide. So hiding was not really part of a sort of ideological culture, if you like, so it was very difficult for al-Qaeda to discipline their fighters on the front. The second aspect, the second factor that contributed to the success of the drones was that spying is unlawful in Islam. In Islam, Muslims are not supposed to spy on fellow Muslims. And so when al-Qaeda managed to dismantle and in fact eliminate dozens of people who had acted as spies,

they were in effect spying on fellow Muslims. So this became an insurmountable problem for al-Qaeda. Clearly from the paper's perspective, the drones were highly effective. Starting 2008, the campaign clearly escalated because the letters that reached bin Laden, you know, were reporting about the martyrdom of brothers, quote unquote. And by 2011, we find bin Laden's top associate telling him many of us are going to die because the groups here cannot be disciplined. Nobody is listening to us. And they were resigned that they were going to die. disciplined. Nobody is listening to us. And they were resigned that they were going to die.

I'd just add here, I think we sensed that drones were a game changer. A lot of us had experienced essentially the development of capabilities of drones from the moment where we did the invasion of Iraq when I was a two-star general division commander. And there was one drone, as I recall, one predator for the entire U.S. Army Corps. And we were all fighting over the three army divisions and trying to get priority. And the feed was not particularly clear or precise to the point that it was becoming much, much more important. And as we'll discuss later on, it's become even more important over the years. It enables an entire new way of carrying out counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. So again, hugely, hugely significant in the fight against al-Qaeda senior leadership and also

the leaders of al-Qaeda affiliates really throughout the world. Second, we were really quite amused or really quite enjoyed the paranoia that was revealed in the files in the papers of al-Qaeda's senior leadership, especially because we knew about this during the time. I mean, we were getting lots of real-time feedback from all variety of different sources and methods. And indeed, we sought to plant the seeds of additional worry and additional concern where we could to make them even more paranoid so that they would be even less capable and even more limited in their abilities to communicate. That said, we did feel that there needed to be

refinements to the conduct of drone operations. I had always had on the wall of my operation centers from the time that I was a two-star in Iraq through the three and four-star tours there, Central Command, Afghanistan, and so forth, we always had a sign that asked a question. Will this operation take more bad guys off the street than it creates by its conduct? That's a pretty important question. The bottom line is that if an operation is going to create more bad guys by its conduct than it actually takes off the battlefield, you're supposed to go sit under a tree until the thought of that operation passes. And the point is that you have to be very, very careful in the conduct of drone strikes, needless to say, not to have innocent civilians killed, not to have collateral damage or damage of important infrastructure, et cetera, if that is at all

avoidable. And again, there are rules of engagement that govern all this. And our sense was around this particular time that, again, we needed to make refinements to that. And indeed, that is what was done in the years that lay ahead. I'd like to go into another avenue that, Dr. Lahoud, you bring up in the book, and you kind of explore al-Qaeda's relationship and the senior leadership relationship with countries like Pakistan, Iran, and the Afghan Taliban. And I was wondering if you could kind of just introduce us to those themes and what you found through exploring these papers. And then General Petraeus, if you could follow up on that, just with how al-Qaeda's relationships

with those entities and those governments affected our broader policy and strategies when we went after their organization. Al-Qaeda is a non-state actor, and I've been studying the group for a very long time, and it didn't surprise me at all that the papers were littered with hostility towards states such as Pakistan and Iran. Still, they bring up some new revelations. We learn from the papers that as far as al-Qaeda was concerned, the Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, from al-Qaeda's perspective, the ISI and the CIA were two sides of the same coin. They were convinced that the ISI was helping the CIA in North Waziristan to recruit

spies and so on. It is remarkable. We find bin Laden's papers in his own letters. He goes on after the ISI and anybody that collaborates with them. And in fact, this really corroborates his public statements against Pakistan. But interestingly, we know a little bit more about what Pakistan did earlier on after 9-11. We learned from the papers that some of al-Qaeda's senior leaders fled Afghanistan to Pakistan initially, where they were met by a comprehensive campaign of arrest. And according to the letters, some 600 brothers were captured by the ISI, and many were killed. So al-Qaeda's leaders, the remaining leaders, decided that they were going to cross illegally into Iran. There, they had the support of what they refer to in the

letters as the Baloch brothers. These are Sunni militants who work against the Iranian regime, and they helped al-Qaeda's leaders, who included one of bin Laden's wives and some of his children, to forge IDs and rent houses. For almost a year, they were able to evade the authorities in Iran. But once the Iranian authorities tracked them down, initially they imprisoned the men. And the men, at a certain point after months of imprisonment, they went on hunger strike. And they decided that we're going to combine the men and their women and children together. So clearly Pakistan and Iran were no friends of al-Qaeda. If anything, they constrained a great deal al-Qaeda's ability to be operational. Now, from my perspective, I was surprised, if not shocked, about al-Qaeda's relationship with

the Afghan Taliban. Let me be clear, bin Laden and his associates continued to maintain their loyalty to Mullah Omar, whom they considered to be sincere. Other senior Afghan leaders was a completely different story. And we learned from the letters that as early as 2004, perhaps even earlier, al-Qaeda felt concerned about the Afghan Taliban. They thought that they may be betrayed by the Afghan Taliban who were lured by the American dollars. And in 2004, bin Laden's associates recommended to bin Laden that they should pack up and leave and head to Iraq, where, according to the letters, when God knew of our afflictions, he opened the door of jihad for us in Iraq. As of 2007, the letters speak that the Afghan Taliban, the senior Afghan Taliban leaders, wanted to be

dissociated from al-Qaeda because they no longer wanted to be associated with the label terrorism. And in 2010, bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, he writes in a letter to bin Laden fearing that he sensed that the Afghan Taliban were psychologically ready to enter into negotiations with the United States that would render al-Qaeda operationally impotent. I would generally agree with all of that. I think that Dr. Lahoud has captured the papers, which capture the reality quite well. I would offer the relationship with Iran was a bit more fraught in the sense that on occasion, our belief was that they allowed transit of some al-Qaeda figures through Iran, given that they were going to fight the Americans.

And so it was not uniformly prohibitive of al-Qaeda transit, but certainly the fact that so many were imprisoned and so forth was very, very significant and known at that time. With Pakistan, I think you've captured exactly right. Frankly, Pakistan would have preferred that al-Qaeda just went away and died. They were a source of enormous friction with the United States. And then I think very importantly, you've captured the relationship between Mullah Omar and bin Laden very well. But the fact is that that didn't extend into the ranks, that this was really a personal relationship, keeping in mind that, of course, Mullah Omar brought about his own demise, or at least the demise of the Taliban regime by refusing

an American request to expel al Qaeda from their soil and to deal with them. He did not. We came in and toppled the Taliban regime. So that relationship was very, very close. So the relationship between the rank and file, again, was not particularly one of real affection at all. Again, a little bit different with the Haqqani network, the Haqqani wing of the overarching Afghan Taliban structure. But I think that the papers captured this right. I think your interpretation of those, again, is spot on. On the Haqqani point, that is very interesting, because as you said, General Petraeus, they were very close, al-Qaeda and the Haqqanis. It is clear from the papers that they were close, that they trusted the Haqqanis. However, in 2010, when they were

reporting, they were mentioning when Bob Woodward's book came out, Obama's Wars, some passages were translated for bin Laden's attention. And in that book, Bob Woodward mentioned something about the Haqqanis and Pakistanis ISI. And there was, I think, I am speculating a bit, but there was a hint in the letters that there was a question mark about, is it possible that the Haqqanis could be close to the ISI? And, you know, now we know that the Haqqanis now are on board with the rest of the Afghan Taliban. So it may be the case that as of 2010, al-Qaeda's leaders began to suspect that the Haqqanis might want to go their own separate ways and pursue their own agenda. As we look ahead to a future of small footprint operations, with a military and political

establishment that is now focusing on great power competition, is there information within the bin Laden papers that provides lessons for U.S. counterterrorism strategy? Maybe I should start here because what I would offer is that much more than what is found in the papers that influence counterterrorism and really counterinsurgency going forward was our practical experience. And here is where, again, we come back to drones, because by now we now have armadas of drones, and they're becoming incredible enablers. We also have more and more and more precise air munitions, both from drones and manned aircraft. We have improvements in the fusion of intelligence, especially with the United States. The bottom line is that we have the evolution of a new possibility,

which is that we can have, as you noted, a small footprint. And if you can limit the cost in terms of blood and treasure, you can have a sustainable operation, which is important because many of these operations need to be sustained for a long period of time. I think one of the lessons we have learned is that if you take your eye and pressure off these groups, and or the host nation forces that you left to do that are unable to do that themselves, without your help, that they can reconstitute. The most significant of those lessons, of course, was in Iraq. But the possibility, because of the advent of, again, armadas of drones, fusion of intelligence, and an awareness of how better to perform, not just train and equip, those have to be a part of this, but it's the advise, assist, and enable, and I would submit that that's a more descriptive turn than by, with, and through, which is ungrammatical as well as less descriptive, but you're not doing it for them. You are enabling them as they do it. So the Iraqi security forces reconstitute themselves. We help them do that in the wake of the blows struck by the Islamic State, and then we advise, assist, and enable them

as they retake these different areas of Tikrit and northern Iraq and ultimately the Battle of Mosul, the location of the capital of the Islamic State in Iraq, and then, of course, Raqqa in Syria and other areas in Syria as well. That is dramatic. That is very, very significant because, again, it enables you to have a sustainable and therefore sustained campaign. That is essentially what we are doing throughout Africa now with very small footprints. And I support the reinsertion of U.S. forces, small, very small forces into Somalia, for example. Again, even if you can't carry out the comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency campaign that is actually needed in Somalia, as an example, or many of the other locations, at least you can carry out disruptive activities. And the element that will enable you best to do the disruption in many cases will be

drone strikes and or precision airstrikes that are enabled by drones pinpointing the location of particularly important senior leaders and even in some cases supporting host nation forces or regional forces as they are carrying out operations on the ground. So I think this is actually revolutionary and I applaud the U.S. Army, which created now, I think it's five security force assistance brigades that are designed essentially to perform, advise, assist and enable operations and avoid having to take a conventional brigade combat team of 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers and strip it down to, say, 1,500 to 2,000 to carry out a particular mission for which we now have the SFABs. And I think the experience of which so far is pretty impressive. I'd like to offer two reflections. And I would like, if I may invite General Petraeus to comment on these issues. And this, I want to go back to the drones. Generally speaking, judging by the letters, the drones were highly effective. But if al-Qaeda is correct that they managed to work out how the drones operated, will they be

as effective when it comes to other more disciplined groups? And this is one element. The other element about the drones, I don't want to minimize how impressive the CIA seems to have been. And to be clear, some women and children of al-Qaeda's fighters were killed during the drones. But it is clear from al-Qaeda's leaders' letters that the drones were very precise. So they were horrified by how precise they were, which suggests to me that the CIA was not really taking any shortcuts in terms of its reconnaissance missions. The point that I want to raise is that the drones remain contested under international law. And the international law professor Philip Alston at NYU has raised this issue time and again. And the late General Powell has suggested that perhaps we should remove the CIA from having the main authority over the drones and hand it to the army.

Because the reason why the drones remain contested under international law is because they lack accountability and transparency. If the Pentagon has the authority over the drones, this would be a completely different situation. And I wonder what General Petraeus has to say about this aspect, because frankly, judging by the letters, I don't see anything that the CIA should be hiding. And I don't see any suggestions that somehow that the CIA was being indiscriminate in its drone attacks. So I wonder if there is any possibility that the Pentagon should have authority over this. Well, that's been a big debate in various administrations over the years, actually. And what you run into is a conundrum. And I'm not

going to acknowledge that the CIA does conduct operations or anything else. All I will stipulate is that if the CIA carries out operations, kinetic operations, by necessity, it has to be under Title 50 authority. So it has to be under the heading of covert action. And one of the requirements of covert action is that you don't talk about it. You can selectively release, as the president did, for example, in the wake of the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, but you have to be very careful in how much you do that, or you have to declassify everything. But the fact that it's Title 50 has significant advantages, it has some drawbacks. And I experienced those drawbacks over the years, a couple of different times where I

said, without getting specific, we need to come up on the net on this. We're getting hammered in the court of public opinion. And it's not true what they're saying. This is a seriously bad guy, you know, whatever it may be. This is perhaps when I was in uniform and something happened. And yet you cannot because it is Title 50. It's just one of life's great conundrums. The fact is, again, without confirming or denying the conduct of these operations, what I will say is that there is no organization that actually remotely can do what the CIA can do. Keep in mind that there are individuals in the Counterterrorism Center that had been there for a decade or so that were determined to stay

until bin Laden was brought to justice, then someone else, what have you. And they can continue to progress and all the rest of this. Whereas if you look at a typical headquarters of an extraordinary unit within JSOC, they're rotating. And the commissioned officers in particular can only spend a couple of years there. They have to go to another organization. They have to go to a staff college, a war college, what have you. So the point is that the expertise in the actual headquarters that is conducting operations to identify and find very serious terrorists is just unequal. And again, I think I'm the only one that has had the privilege to observe really closely what you have in the military in that regard, and then also very closely, obviously, what you have at the agency.

As we begin to conclude our conversation, I'd like to ask about the broader implications for decapitation strategies within counterterrorism. Was targeting al-Qaeda's senior leadership in Bin Laden really an effective part of our CT strategy? And Dr. Luhut, I'd like to start with you and what you saw in the papers about al-Qaeda's perception of our decapitation strategy. Everything in the papers should serve to help us understand counterterrorism strategies and that, you know, history is very important.

With respect to decapitation, I mean, I'm biased here because the book that I wrote is based on a very successful mission and all the papers that were recovered. Now, scholars of terrorism would tell you that, you know, some groups, they rely and are very dependent on leaders. Others are less so. In the case of bin Laden, by the end of his time, he was confined to his compound. He had no ability to exercise any influence over global jihad. Nevertheless, his aspirations were always there, and he maintained his intention to attack the United States,

and he was planning future attacks, whether he was able to carry them out or not. The fact that we know so much about al-Qaeda at the moment is remarkable. For a very long time, al-Qaeda's leaders were content that though they were operationally impotent, they were very content with the fact that they were still alive, that the enemy didn't know that they were operationally impotent, that the enemy was spending enormous resources on their own security. And we now know from the papers that al-Qaeda was shattered in ways that at least from the public perception and from the media reports, we didn't know that before. General Petraeus said earlier that, you know, as insiders, they had different information, but that is certainly not the intelligence reports that were made publicly available for a very long time.

for a very long time. So in the eyes of itself, al-Qaeda's leaders, as well as other shihadi groups, now realize they can see themselves in the mirror as being much weaker than they actually were, that the fact that they could sound menacing is not necessarily a source of power. Well, let me just add then that certainly decapitation operations targeting senior leaders are absolutely necessary. They are essential, but they are not sufficient. It generally requires more. You have to have a comprehensive, again, civil military and, for lack of a better term, counterinsurgency strategy, even to deal with large terrorist organizations. Certainly it's something like the Islamic State, but also al-Qaeda in Iraq.

And if you look at the Anaconda strategy slide that we developed when I was privileged to command the surge in Iraq, and this was a slide that basically depicted our approach to the al-Qaeda in Iraq elements and also to the most dangerous Sunni insurgent elements. And in the center of that slide, you had their names, then the next concentric ring around that, you had all of the elements that they needed to continue their operations. So they needed, for example, money. They need sanctuary. They need communications. They need some kind of ideology or overarching themes. They need explosive experts. They need explosives. They need weapons, ammunition. They need vehicles, all of this. So you identify everything that they need to survive and to continue dangerous operations against the host country and our forces. And then we, around that,

have all of the activities that we're pursuing in a very comprehensive manner. And then the question is, how do you keep them from having that? And we designed specific activities and campaigns to deny that. We had a financial action task force. We had the effort to, again, counter the flow of fighters and suicide bombers through Syria. Obviously, we had, again, decapitation. We had the capture-kill operations. We had a variety of other activities also, though, to convince the people to support us instead of tacitly or actively supporting al-Qaeda or the Sunni insurgents. You obviously have to train host nation forces, host nation CT forces, host nation conventional, and then police and all the rest of that. It's rule of law, it's detainee operations,

it's intelligence, it's local politics, it's national politics. All of this, in other words, you need more than operations by counter-terrorist forces to deal with this. In fact, you need much more than that. What then are broader implications for the exploitation of SSSE and the integration of that as actionable intelligence from the tactical to strategic level? And then also in academic study, you know, there's been Latin papers were pretty rapidly declassified and available for public consumption. So are there broader lessons for this going future? Well, first of all, the sensitive site exploitation, SSE as it was termed, evolved very rapidly over the years. I would argue that it actually started to a slight degree with the operations that were conducted in Bosnia, actually, again, immediately after 9-11 and that first year after it. And then, of course, what was going on in Afghanistan at the same time. But as an example, what was seized in one of the particular raids against the Benevolence International Foundation actually put the head of that in jail in the United States by what was

found and then shared with the FBI, who was part of that particular operation. By the way, we took an approach that I would commend now as well, which is to start with a legal focus rather than just a counterterrorism focus. And there's a difference or an intelligence focus, because if you start with the idea that you might actually prosecute someone in a court of law, there are techniques that you use in terms of chain of custody and all the rest of that that are a little more rigorous than if you're trying to just tear through the stuff and immediately exploit it tactically to turn within the enemy's decision cycle and then more specifically over time. But when it came to AROC and JSOC, what General McChrystal built there

in particular was just a machine. And I walked through that process several times over the years in different positions to see how it was evolving, you know, that they would take the hard drives out of computers. Those would go in one box and there was a whole team that did nothing but quickly exploit what was in the hard drive. There was a pocket litter, there were cell phones, there were other laptops. Again, all of the different potential items that you could pick up on an objective as you went after a particular high value target, we knew very rapidly how to exploit it. And then over time, how you did in the same way that the bin Laden papers were immediately exploited for anything that might be immediately useful and relevant, and then more detailed over time,

and eventually actually declassifying it in the way that ultimately was the case. I should just note, by the way, though, that there were many people at the time who felt that there was stonewalling on this and there were accusations that there were even cover-ups because we weren't releasing it fast enough. And that was not at all the case. We knew what was in there that had been exploited. It was really just the laborious process. As Dr. LaHood mentioned, I mean, we're talking about tens of thousands, actually, I guess it was, of actual individual files that had to be combed through in another language, of course, and then declassified. in particular, confirms that there was no great item here that was politically so sensitive that the administration at the time, or subsequently, was dragging its feet on releasing these particular documents. General Petraeus is absolutely correct. My sense about actionable intelligence, I thought

the government agencies used the papers very well. And the reason I say this as an outsider is every time I tried to search the fate of the names of people whose names are mentioned in the papers, I would find out that they were soon afterwards, they were captured, particularly by the Pakistani Intelligence Agency, which suggests some closer cooperation with the CIA. So on actionable intelligence, I was very impressed. With respect to the understanding, analytical understanding, the group's strengths and weaknesses, al-Qaeda's relationship with regional jihadi groups, I was much less impressed. Also, including Iran and Pakistan's relationship with al-Qaeda, again, I was much less impressed. And in some ways, my job was much easier because I was one person reading all these papers together. And I was in a position to connect the dots between

the letters because you can't understand them any other way. And I just build very quickly on something that Dr. Luhut said, and that is that what she just said is accurate, that Pakistan was hugely embarrassed by the fact that the number one terrorist in the world, however ineffective he may have been actually operationally at that point in time, but still the most significant figure, the founder of al-Qaeda, had been hiding out for years in a compound less than a mile and a half or so from the Pakistani military academy. Indeed, I'd spoken there when I was the Central Command Commander, and I suspect that we were flaring, you know,

on final in our helicopter as we were about to land at the parade field or whatever the helipad at the Military Academy. So this was enormously embarrassing to them. And it did indeed lead to a real impetus for, let's get the rest of these guys, again, keeping in mind the source of friction that this was for the relationship with the most important country for Pakistan in the world at that time, the United States. And finally, today, I'd just like to ask you both what you think the broader implications for practitioners, policymakers and academics are. for practitioners, policymakers, and academics are? From my perspective, you know, as an academic, history matters.

And I think though General Petraeus saw this somewhat differently, I thought that for a very long time, al-Qaeda's capabilities were overestimated. There were so many international attacks that were attributed to al-Qaeda and that now we know from the letters that al-Qaeda heard about these attacks from the news. I hope that these letters and the analysis from these letters would allow us to assess the groups differently in the future. Most importantly, I guess, is not just to look at what unites groups, but also about the things, the elements that divide them. And I think one of the main shortcomings of the global war on terror is that for a very long time, global jihadi groups were assessed as if they were all one and the same, that they were

all part of the same umbrella, whereas the divisions among these groups were much, much greater than what united them. Well, I think actually the organization that Dr. Lahoud was part of at West Point has done this very, very well. The Counterterrorism Center there and the Social Sciences Department, again, is truth and lenience. It's my old department when I was privileged to be at West Point as an instructor. And I think they've figured out how to do this. And again, it's very, very similar to what the military does, just not on the same industrial strength scale or the intelligence community. You know, you go through it rapidly, try to identify, is there something really significant right away? The minute you get access to something, then more painstakingly, and then ultimately, again, you just marinate in it to the point that you can develop the understanding that Dr. LaHood demonstrates in her great book. Journalists, I think, do the same. They also live these experiences, in some cases have insights and assessments that in some cases can actually be

as good as or perhaps even in some cases better than the folks that are actually carrying them out, if the folks that are carrying them out are rotating particularly frequently or something like that. There are notable journalists over the years who have spent years in these different war zones who had a deep understanding of the dynamics of them and with whom we probably should have spent more time over the years getting from them, not only sharing with them our assessments, but getting from them what they felt as well. General David Petraeus, Dr. Nali Lahoud, thank you again for being with the Irregular Warfare podcast today. And thank you for the enlightening conversation and letting us

learn from your experiences and expertise. Great to be with you again and great to be with Dr. Lahoud in this case. It was my privilege. Thank you very much. Dr. Liu in this case. It was my privilege. Thank you very much. Thank you again for joining us for episode 59 of the Irregular Warfare podcast. We release a new episode every two weeks. In our next episode, Kyle and I discuss the book, The Insurgent's Dilemma, A Struggle to Prevail, with Ambassador James Jeffrey and author David Uco. Following that, Kyle and I discuss the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with Carter Malkazian and James Cunningham. Be sure to subscribe to the Irregular Warfare podcast so you don't miss an episode. The podcast is a product of the Irregular Warfare

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And one last note, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and do not represent those of Princeton, West Point, or any agency of the U.S. government. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.