23. May 2008 by Dan Verton.

by Michael Burleigh

Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute

HISTORY AND POLICY
“History” crops  up a  lot in  our  conflicts  with  violent jihadists.  A   war  on  terror  was  proclaimed,  and  then rejected,  because   the  term   was  belatedly   deemed  as
descriptively meaningless  as a  “war on  Blitzkrieg” and as futile as  a “war  on drugs.”  Among alternatives  that have been put  forward are  “the long  war,”  “the  first  global
terrorist war,”  the counter  campaign against  the  “global jihadist  insurgency,”   and  an   “anti-Islamic  extremism” battle.

Commentators and  politicians seek  to give  our opponents a historically familiar face by substituting steel helmets for the chequered  keffiyahs and  turbans. We  have heard  about “Islamofascism” and  “Islamobolshevism,” both of which terms risk boxing  our thinking  into the  past even  as they give needless offense  to  Muslims  by  claiming  that  they  are latter-day Nazis.

Since we  are also  engaged in  a “war of hearts and minds,” there has  been much talk of a Cold War, running parallel to three wars–in  Afghanistan, Iraq  and against  the  “global
jihadist insurgency.”  As an  American commentator  recently wrote in  Foreign Affairs, if we take 9/11 as the equivalent of 1947,  we are  only six  years into  a struggle  that may
abate in 2043 if our descendants are fortunate.

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19. May 2008 by Dan Verton.

 By OLIVIER GUITTA 5/19/08

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s No.2, makes a point to regularly mention in his broadcasts the Muslim lands that needs to be “liberated.” The list includes ?the usual suspects? for every respectable jihadist: “Palestine”, Kashmir and Chechnya but interestingly, the list includes two tiny Spanish enclaves located in Morocco: Ceuta and Melilla.

For the time being Zawahiri focus on the enclaves rather than the whole “Al Andalus” (historic Spain). Indeed their importance should not be underestimated.
The two enclaves administered by the Spaniards, (as Hong Kong was by the British) physically inside Morocco, are in fact neither Spanish nor Moroccan. Ceuta and Melilla ? 140 miles apart as the crow flies, or 240 miles by road — on the Moroccan coast hover between Islamic and Christian cultures. The 12 square mile territories however have a vital and strategic importance; they serve as beachheads between Europe and Africa. Ceuta is only 13 miles from the European coast. And Morocco and Spain have been fighting over them for years. Now the Islamists have joined the fray.

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