Lenin was famously hierarchially minded, but this is quite against what most communists were doing.

I think the cell structure spread out more with information technology, but this would make him even more of an innovator, not less of one.

Very, very intelligent.

I wonder how much of it is, to him, a game in which he is just playing on the right side? Sounds more like a strategist, right-hand man for a figurehead than a typical jihadi fighter with nothing to lose.

You wrote: “Is there anyone on the planet who did not already know … Useless”¦”

The thing I learned from reading about Mustafa was that he was describing this very early on. He may not have orginated these ideas, but he understood them before they were wide spread. Also I was impressed that he was only caught recently. Obviously a smart man.

He’s Syrian. The first bit of fighting he does (in his early 20s in the early 80s) is with the Muslim Brotherhood. But where? Against who? In Syria? Egypt? Is there a Lebanon connection if this is the early 80s?

Then he goes to Spain in 85.

But in 87 he’s in Afghanistan, presumably fighting the Russians.

In 1992 he’s back in Europe organizing cells. Against Europeans? Why? Was that his intention all along? Since 85? Or is this an idea he got in Afghanistan? From OBL? Or in response to the western troops in Saudi for the first gulf war?

Instead of racial profiling, surely “motivational” profiling would be more interesting.

Moreover, Iranians, and Persian peoples, are often light-haired. Well, maybe not as often as the Irish, but more often than you’d think. Probably about 25% of the population of Tajikistan would never be picked out as non-Aryan by the profilers. Same goes for Iranians, Uzbeks, and Afghans. Because they’re Aryans is why, actually, but never mind the facts.

Tajik Girl
Another Tajik Girl
And… Another Tajik Girl
Tajik Boy
Iranian Girl

Also… plastic surgery. Hair dye. Try it sometime: that stuff does actually work. Just look at Pam Anderson.

Anyone could be a terrorist. But most people aren’t.

But what I really wanted to say was that that guy is brilliant. I mean in an intellectual way, obviously. Wasn’t he the one who set up much of Al Qaeda’s cell system, moving from the traditional hierarchial system to one that resembled a more network system?

He also developed a number of intersting liberation-theology type theories based on the Quran and his own philosophical arguments.

I think since Timothy McVeigh and Johnny Walker Lind, we have all known that terrorists could be any skin color. In fact, the most wanted terror organization in the US before 2001 was/is composed of mainly European-American males: the Earth Liberation Front.

However, none of these facts have had any perceptible impact on reducing racial profiling and discrimination against minority populations.

On the one hand, the understanding that Al Qaeda operatives could be white, black, red, yellow or brown (to paraphrase Jesse Jackson) stops racial profiling, makes it easier for the percieved stereotypical “terrorists” i.e. Arabs to live in America and the West, and all the rest.

However, it also ups the fear factor — anyone could be Al Qaeda, anyone could be a terrorist…

Is there anyone on the planet who did not already know that jihadi terrorist organizations are organized into cells with minimal inter-communication? Useless…