More on my al-Maghribi speculation

In this post, I speculated that a chain of intelligence successes in the latter part of 2005 may have provided a lead that played a role in the Jan 13 missile strike in Damodala that killed perhaps as many as 5 senior Al Qaeda commanders.

That post referred to a Stratfor analysis suggesting that US intelligence may have used al-Maghribi in one way or another to find the location in Damodala where it was thought Al Qaeda #2 Zawahiri might be.

The chain of intelligence successes involved a couple of high-ranking terrorist finance officials, and several high-ranking terrorist propaganda officials in Iraq.

One thing that's always puzzled me is why the Coalition Forces and US intelligence chose to tell us about those successes at all. Over the past few months we have heard about other seemingly unrelated intelligence successes, such as the operations against foreign fighter facilitators in the western Euphrates river towns.

But, we haven't heard about too many of these kinds of successes. Coalition Forces have captured or detained thousands in Iraq. Surely some of these have led to some significant successes against the enemy. Yet we are not inundated with accounts of the useful intelligence gleaned from all these captures. Intelligence officials are usually shy anyway about revealing details about their operations. You could be telling the other side information they don't have, and information is key in warfare.

So, why did we hear about these operations involving propaganda officials?

I pointed out in the previous post that al-Maghribi was a senior Al Qaeda propaganda official. And being the son-in-law of Zawahiri, he could have had unique knowledge of either Zawahiri's whereabouts, or how to contact him. That post was about how someone in the chain might have provided information that put US intelligence on to al-Maghribi, and through him, to Zawahiri and the strike which nearly killed him.

One thing I haven't talked much about is what started the chain in the first place. The chain I spoke of started with the capture of Abu Khalil, an executive assistant and banker to the then #2 official in Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Abu Khalil was apprehended Sept 24. How was Abu Khalil found?

This is pure speculation again, but here's a possibility, one related to another significant intelligence success sitting out in plain view.

On October 11, 2005, news was released that a letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi had been intercepted. The letter was dated July 9, but details were not given as to how or when exactly the letter was intercepted. According to the CNN article:

The U.S. government is adamant that the al-Zawahiri letter is real for a couple of reasons.

First is the way in which it was obtained. All a Director of National Intelligence spokesman will say for the record is the letter "was obtained in counter-terrorism operations in Iraq" and that "it was intended for Zarqawi." The DNI is sure because of who they got it from, where, and how.

So, we're told the letter was intercepted in Iraq, and as a result of counter-terrorism operations.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence also explained why news of the letter was released.

The letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi is dated July 9, 2005. The contents were released only after assurances that no ongoing intelligence or military operations would be affected by making this document public.

The letter's existence was made public only after officials were satisfied it no longer had any intelligence value that could only be exploited while its existence was still secret. This implies its intelligence value was exploited in the period before news about the letter was released.

My speculation is this: Did the interception of the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi play a role in the intelligence operation that led to the capture of Abu Khalil? Perhaps the letter was carried by a trusted courier who also had knowledge of Abu Khalil's whereabouts.

Again, note the dates involved. Abu Khalil was captured Sept 24. However, news of his capture was not released until October 15. This was four days after news of the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi was released.

The ONDI said the letter's existence was revealed only after officials were sure doing so wouldn't jeopardize any ongoing operations. With the capture of Abu Khalil, had the letter, and the means by which it was intercepted, served its usefulness, and so it was safe to reveal the letter's existence?

If the letter did play a role in the capture of Abu Khalil, it had to have been intercepted before September 24. Starting with the interception of the letter, then, did a plan start to develop aimed at targeting Zawahiri?

With the interception of the letter, US intelligence must have learned a little bit about how it got from Zawahiri to Iraq. If it did play a role in the capture of Abu Khalil, whoever was carrying it somehow had information that could be tied to some very important terrorist officials.

Back to my earlier question then. Why did we hear about these successful operations against various propaganda officials at the end of 2005?

Again, speculation, but perhaps US intelligence was telling al-Maghribi, and also Zawahiri, that their propaganda operation in Iraq was being hit hard. The interception of the letter started a chain of operations that picked off a number of terrorists involved in propaganda operations, and US intelligence wanted the Al Qaeda leadership to know why it was happening.

Perhaps the intent was to spook al-Maghribi, since these people being captured might have knowledge that could lead to al-Maghribi, and make him commit some rash action that would enable US and Pakistani intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan to start tracking him.

In his letter to Zarqawi, Zawahiri said two interesting things. He said:

Please take every caution in the meetings, especially when someone claims to carry an important letter or contributions. It was in this way that they arrested Khalid Sheikh.

and

However, the real danger comes from the agent Pakistani army that is carrying out operations in the tribal areas looking for mujahedeen.

Zawahiri was no fool. He seems to be saying he knew his courier network to Iraq was vulnerable, and perhaps the intelligence successes mentioned above confirmed his fears.

He also knew that Pakistani troops on the ground in the region where he might have been hiding posed an obvious threat. And indeed, the Jan 13 strike in Damodala proved him right.

Perhaps he avoided that meeting in Damodala because something gave him reason to specifically doubt the security of that meeting. With the propaganda network in Iraq under attack, and its relation to his son-in-law, Zawahiri's antennae were probably extra-sensitive to possible dangers.

It is regrettable that US intelligence may have lost a prime opportunity to nail Zawahiri. That trail may be cold for awhile, until leads can be built up again through other means. I note that since the end of December, CentCom and MNF-Iraq have not released much news at all about similar intelligence successes in Iraq. Perhaps with the end of the al-Maghribi operation, there was no longer a need to.