Again, their trained troops were not numerically inferior to or less capable than the Afghans’. Likewise, when the Byzantines withdrew from their imperial lands in Syria and Egypt at the beginning of the conquests, their numbers and equipments were much greater and better than the Muslims’. So what happened? What was the reason of their defeat? 

 

Sometimes this sort of decision is made in such a way that is impossible for a military analyst to anticipate it prior to its happening, even if it is the day before!

 

What happened is known in the books of war as ‘the collapse of the fighting will’. The collapse of the fighting will happens under one of two conditions: the first condition is when the side that is withdrawing- if rational- realizes that the material or moral losses (which have several forms) ensuing from its persistence to fight are more than its gains if it continues to fight. The second condition is the exhaustion of the patience of the side that is withdrawing. We may embed the first condition within the second such as to say: the collapse of the fighting will results from the exhaustion of the patience of the side that is collapsing.

 

Therefore, the enemy wishes:

-    To shorten the duration of the battle as much as possible

-    To spare his troops the bloodshed because he knows that this will scare his troops and it will be one of the factors in prolonging the battle.

 

In order to achieve these two goals, the enemy lays down a vicious plan. This plan is that he will avoid bloodshed as much as possible in the beginning; rather he will work towards assembling the largest number of youth in prisons and paint the picture that those who do not resist under pressure will not be fired upon. In reality, he does not hope that the matter comes to that. During the first period of the imprisonment stage, as long as there continues to be a large number of people outside the prison, he applies a modest amount of pressure inside prisons, except on a few of the brothers which he intends to pressurize. Then when he gathers the largest amount of brothers in prisons, he begins to put pressure on all of them and on their kin outside the prisons. He begins to turn prisons into a hell, resorts to almost prohibiting visits and monitors the support and assistance which reaches their kin. The image becomes bleak and people begin to prevent their kin from joining jihadists or assisting them on account of the many examples they see. The condition of the jihadists begin to deteriorate and the tyrant begins in this stage to change his strategy from one of reducing bloodshed and multiplying arrests to a strategy of termination and eradication after everyone has been prepared for it through the media. He carries out killing operations during crackdowns and here the situation inches closer to its end and the patience of the jihadists begins to be exhausted.—God forbid!.— after the situation began to exhaust the patience of those youths who were in prison.

 

Likewise, one of the strategies that the enemy follows is the strategy of ‘mobilization’, whereby he pacifies some of the cities and regions and uses their troops for mobilizing his forces in one or two regions where the arrests and confrontations abound. He does that to reassure his troops that they are much larger numerically than the jihadists. Then after he stops and tightens his grip on that region, he transfers his forces to other calm regions. 

 

Roughly all of the preceding happened under the vicious Egyptian regime when it confronted the jihadist movement since it had planned in the beginning of the 90s to begin a campaign for striking Islamic entities. 

 

If we had the power, which the enemy has, then we would be capable of ending the battle from the beginning 
because our troops are not afraid of bloodshed and death; rather, they seek it out. But we do not have this power - and this is one of the Sunna of God regarding missionary activities. Therefore, our plan, in light of all the previous facts, will be to prolong the period of the battle by opposing the goals of the enemy and initiating strong and painful blows provided that our focus—according to our capacities— is directed in the beginning towards the comprehensive response in opposition to his goals more than towards surprising him by directing strikes against him. After a while, if we are successful, then our actions will only be surprise strikes against him because, in light of the observed experiments, his days in the second stage (of the battle) will be spent resisting our attacks until we arrive at the stage of his collapse, by the permission of God.

We must thwart the strategy of mobilization by spreading out our operations over the largest area of land. Despite their limitation in the beginning, the operations must expand over the largest area possible.  We should prevent him from assembling the largest number of brothers in prison  so that he would wield the largest number of cards of pressure by:
1-    Avoiding security laxity as much as possible and executing security instructions accurately. Pertinent to this point , certain stories have spread among brothers that a brother was exposed to an ambush and he had CDs or papers with him. The instructions were that he was to destroy them so that he could skirt the ambush without any problems. However, he kept them for some reason and he said prayers and dhikr [saying the names of God or other religious formula] until the situation safely passed. Of course, all of us affirm the reality of stories like these, praise be to God. However, we should know that what the brother did was a sin. He disobeyed the instructions and he exposed himself and a group of his brothers- those who knew him- to danger. His sin and those of others may render dhikr ineffective the next time. Also part of security carelessness is trying to know what does not concern you. There are many manifestations of security carelessness, so seek it out in its most likely locations.

2-    The second method which will thwart this strategy is to transform the crackdowns he launches to arrest brothers into a hell and to bring down the largest number of his forces. That requires a high price in blood and money and takes a lot of time to prepare for. However, if individuals are arrested or killed in house raids, there must be an unexpected action that directs a strike of deterrence and “paying the price” (against him), (accompanied by) a media announcement that the strike is because of the arrest or the killing of brother so-and-so. The few actions in the beginning by means of attacking his forces or the forces of the Crusader enemy should be announced through the media as being reactions to his practices in prisons or his arrests and that we are targeting his Crusader masters in order to fill them and him with spite, provided that we make it clear that we will not stop targeting the people of tyranny; rather, their practices cause us to do more and make our operations more fierce. 

Roughly all of the preceding represents the policy followed by our brothers, the Lions of the Arabian Peninsula. We beseech God to grant them firmness in the cause and steadfastness in guidance. Prolonging the duration of the conflict and finding a power capable of launching strong strikes that would incline the enemy toward reconciliation; naturally, from his side only. Directing strikes against his economic interests and threatening the interests, the economy, and the luxuries of those who support him.—using a good media justification, as we set forth in our detailed study.—makes the enemy pullback (to protect) the interests which he possesses. 

We conclude this essay with an incident in the Battle of Badr: when the polytheists sent Umayr Bin Wahab al-Jumahi as their spy against the Muslims, he said, after ascertaining that there was no ambush or reinforcement for the small number of Muslims: “ I saw that they have 300 men, more or less. However, O assemblage of Qurays, I saw the tribulations caused by fate. We plainly state that Yathrib is the bearer of stagnant death and a people who have no power or refuge save their swords. By God, what I saw is that a man among them fights until he kills a man from among you. If they strike you down in accordance with their numbers, what good is living afterwards?

We take from this incident that if we are able to truly make the enemy feels this way and reinforce it (as our forebears did during their time), that will be the beginning of his defeat, by the permission of God. Let the readers refer to books of sira [books about Muhammad and his Companions] in order to read about the effect of these words on the ranks of the Quraysh.

By the permission of God, those feelings will be the beginning of the path toward hastening the exhaustion of the enemy’s patience. Truly, our battle with him is a battle of patience.