Qualified Human Resources for enhanced performances
What makes
up an organization is neither the brand nor the product, it is foremost the
quality of its working force despite its size and proportions. Many would argue
that the Al Qaeda network should concentrate its resources on upgrading its
recruitment process, yet I argue, along line Bruce Hoffman, that quantity is a
negligible factor in the working mechanisms of militant groups. Focusing instead
on qualifying the members of the network and recruiting selectively skilled
individuals will enhance beyond proportions the reach and impact of Al Qaeda.
"Terrorism
is not a numbers game," says Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown
University's Center for Peace and Security Studies. "That is the point of
terrorism: A small number of dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated
individuals can have a disproportionate impact on any society's sense of
security and profoundly affect government policies."[1]
It is
indeed clear to the public opinion, as it is for policy makers, that skilled
militants who can hack into GPS navigation systems, perform high profile assassinations,
assemble explosive devices and sabotage nuclear stations are far more dangerous
than individuals with lite weaponry in the middle of the Afghan chain
mountains.
It is
indeed precarious for the network survival to uphold the philosophy it instated
at its beginnings, a philosophy which imposes on the group a volatile chain of
commands with no specification of long term targets. As al-Hammadi, Khalid
points out in his series of articles in Al Quds Al Arabi: Al-Qaeda's management
philosophy has been described as "centralization of decision and
decentralization of execution.
The decentralization
of execution puts forwards numerous risks and imposes a specific modus
operandi. As restraints are loose on the command execution of the group’s
operational units, the necessity to achieve successful attacks in the shortest
delays overturns the need to secure an elaborate and impactful strategy with
low costs and high gains.
The
comparison drawn between the attacks of Madrid, the 9/11 and other major accomplishments
of Al Qaeda, and the seeming less assaults and suicide bombings executed in
Afghanistan and Iraq points the importance of carrying on elaborate missions
with skilled executives instead of rushed strikes.
Investing
in human resources should become the driving motives of Al Qaeda, and securing
recruits with college and university degrees in Engineering, Computer sciences
and military specializations will allow the network to move from decentralized anarchic
execution to focal and high precision missions of the scale of the 9/11.
An example
of such investments Al Qaeda should start engaging on is of the caliber of high
tech research on communication and networks breaching. The latest news in BBC
of the researchers who used spoofing to hack into a flying drone shows the
possibility to use knowledgeable university students to deviate flying targets
using GPS navigation systems and use them as projectiles or intelligence
sources[2].
These are
the 21st century new challenges of Al Qaeda, and in a world of rapid
change an exponential advance, catching up with the drastic improvements in the
different vital sectors in the military field or civilian sectors is a
necessity for survival. The working mechanisms of the past have succeeded in
securing a temporary expansion of the network, but since the post-soviet era,
Al Qaeda has only receded from the field of action and from the minds and
hearts of its supporters. A visionary leadership, under the command of a young
generation of executives with appropriate knowledge and qualifications to meet
the ever improving counter-terrorism techniques and policies worldwide is more pressing than ever.
Mohamed Amine Belarbi
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