FOR MORE than a year, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has sought the release of documents captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have pressured Pentagon officials, cajoled intelligence analysts, listened to would-be whistleblowers, interviewed Iraqis and filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests with multiple government agencies. Today, because of two developments that have nothing to do with these efforts, we will all learn more about the captured documents and what they tell us about our enemies in the global war on terror.
Yesterday, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, released 28 captured al Qaeda documents in connection with the publication of a study called, Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al Qaeda’s Organizational Vulnerabilities. The documents come from the Department of Defense’s HARMONY database. They provide a fascinating look into the ideology of terror that motivates al Qaeda members and sympathizers, the conflicts among these individuals and groups, and their widely disparate views on everything from Mohammad Farah Aidid in Somalia to the late King Fahd in Saudi Arabia, from working with “infidels” to the terrorists’ reaction to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
