MORAl HAzARD, DISCIPlInE, AnD THE MAnAgEMEnT Of TERRORIST ORgAnIzATIOnS

f the mid-1990s through 2001 two of the West’s most implacable terrorist foes, Abu Hafs al-Masri and Abu Khabab, carried on what appears to have been a long-running feud within al-Qaeda, a feud that came to an end only when Abu Hafs al-Masri was killed by the U.S. military. Abu Hafs joined al-Qaeda early on and served as the group’s military commander from 1996 onward. Abu Khabab was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who ran his own camps in Afghanistan and began working closely with al-Qaeda in the late 1990s as an explosives expert. That two such individuals competing for prominence in a global terrorist organization would not get along is hardly surprising. That their feud would entail lengthy arguments about reporting requirements, air travel reimbursements, and the proper accounting for organizational property does seem a bit odd. One does not usually think of terrorist masterminds writing notes like the one Abu Hafs sent to Abu Khabab in the late 1990s taking him to task for six specific errors including: