AQ Central's Role in Subway Bomb Plot
With most of the publicity being focused on Najibullah Zazi, his accomplice Zarein Ahmedzay’s arrest and guilty plea did not receive all that much media attention comparatively. One of the more interesting pieces of information to come out of Ahmedzay’s court proceedings, though, is the revelation that Zazi, Ahmedzay, and their alleged accomplice Adis Medunjanin met with two senior al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, now deceased, who instructed them to carry out suicide attacks in the U.S. rather than fighting against U.S. and Coalition forces abroad. The New York Times and Daily News report on Ahmedzay’s court proceedings and the AQ central connection here and here.
Recent trends in Islamist violence have suggested that pressure on al Qaeda’s central leadership in Pakistan has led to attacks being increasingly planned and directed by local and regional affiliates rather than AQ central. This new revelation stemming from the subway bombing plot, however, suggests that al Qaeda’s core leadership is still actively engaged in planning and directing attacks against Western targets, raising the possibility that military pressure against AQ central in Pakistan might not be as quite as restrictive as previously believed.
Though the details of what instructions were given are not clear at this point, it is interesting to note that though the prosecutors’ statements suggest that the al Qaeda leaders that met with Zazi and his accomplices told them to conduct a suicide attacks, the specifics of the attack plans, including choice of targets, seem to have been left largely up to the conspirators themselves.
Maintaining this level of operational flexibility allows the central leadership to hedge against adverse outcomes, such as capture or death of the original “masterminds” as occurred in this case, which have become a much more likely given the increased pressure from Pakistani and U.S. forces.
The military pressure in Pakistan is clearly yielding results as attacks out of Pakistan and involving AQ central’s leadership are way down. If single, apparently vague inspiration sessions with small groups of individuals have become sufficient impetus for attacks of this magnitude, however, U.S. and Pakistani forces’ future ability to disrupt AQ central’s ability to “plan and direct” significant attacks might not be as much a foregone conclusion as previously thought.
