I bet Al Qaeda would make its Companies House filings on time
Quite interesting, if amazingly wordy for the content, document from the RAND corporation. Apparently AQI was a fairly standard insurgency operation almost exactly in line with Che Guevara's book on guerilla warfare, and it had quartermastering, payroll and means for "living off the land", in terms of channelling the proceeds of crime and robbery into the struggle. I'm always very wary of treating things like this as complete records (they're unaudited, and we really don't know how much off-the-books looting the AQI gangs carried out, so the numbers for individual income of insurgents have to be regarded as very shaky), but it's interesting withal. They also act quite surprised at the idea that terrorist groups have fixed costs and overheads, which IMO is probably more likely to account for the kinda-sorta experience curves/power law relationships that Aaron Clauset finds in terrorist attacks than anything interesting about self-organised criticality.
This is the sort of central organisation that we don't think exists in Afghanistan, btw; but I must admit I was surprised at how easy it apparently was for AQI to organise a shadow payments system based on cash couriers moving around the place.
I always assumed that the ability of AQI to maintain an infrastructure was due to its having links with various currents in the Iraqi security forces, who could move money and materiel around on its behalf. The Afghan insurgents arguably have comparable support in the Pakistani army, but the Pakistani army isn't operating openly in Afghanistan, so the practical assistance is harder to provide.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention probable close links with the Saudi elites (through intermediaries, of course).
ReplyDeleteRemember, the Afghan 'insurgents' are going to generally be Afghanis (allowing for the fact that the tribes overlap the border with Pakistan). They're already organized to some extent, and spent 30-20 years ago dealing with the Soviets.
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