The recent al Qaeda surge
Bill Roggio:
The Cartoon general uprising
These attacks may are may not be coordinated with the Muslim general uprising over the Danish cartoons. In revolutionary warfare theory a general uprising is usually planned after opposing forces have been degraded to a point that they are inable to resist a widespread resistance of the people as a whole. In this situation, it has been the forces of radical Islam that have been degraded over the last four years. Whether they will be able to sustain the widespread tantrum over cartoons, it is unlikely that they can, they will continue to take advantage of it while they can. Tantrums are eventually couterproductive, and as the violence in Nigeria as shown, they sometimes beget counter tantrums. It takes more than a tantrum to win a war and al Qaeda is clearly losing one.
...Bin Laden's and Zawahiri's threatened offensive has begun and appears to be ineffective at this point. It starts with a provacation in Iraq that is similar to the old school yard taunt of "Let's you and them fight." It is followed up with an ineffective attack in Saudia Arabia, which demonstrated al Qaeda's current lack of capacity to make militarily significan attacks. While events in Iraq have yet to play out completely, so far the violence there has barely exceeded the sectarian violence in Nigeria.
The timing of the attack indicates al-Qaeda may be in a period of increased operational tempo throughout the region. Past major al-Qaeda attacks have come in bursts, and the recent set of attacks appears to be no different. Minerva, at Terrorism Unveiled, indicates al-Qaeda plots are no longer centrally planned, but farmed out to the regional groups which receive financial or logistical support. However the proximity of the Samarra and Abqaiq achieve the desired effects for al-Qaeda – large scale operations designed to disrupt the governments of Iraq and Saudi Arabia while demonstrating al-Qaeda's power and relevance in the region. We think the attacks were coordinated.
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The Cartoon general uprising
These attacks may are may not be coordinated with the Muslim general uprising over the Danish cartoons. In revolutionary warfare theory a general uprising is usually planned after opposing forces have been degraded to a point that they are inable to resist a widespread resistance of the people as a whole. In this situation, it has been the forces of radical Islam that have been degraded over the last four years. Whether they will be able to sustain the widespread tantrum over cartoons, it is unlikely that they can, they will continue to take advantage of it while they can. Tantrums are eventually couterproductive, and as the violence in Nigeria as shown, they sometimes beget counter tantrums. It takes more than a tantrum to win a war and al Qaeda is clearly losing one.
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