Al-Qaeda

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File:Osama-med.jpg
Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in the 1990s.

Al-Qaeda (Template:ArB, Template:ArTranslit; "the foundation" or "the base") is an international Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organization and campaign comprising independent and collaborative cells that all profess the same cause of reducing outside influence upon Islamic affairs. Al-Qaeda itself is classified by the United States, European Union, United Nations, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and various other nations, as an international terrorist organization. Although al-Qaeda is philosophically heterogeneous, most prominent members of the movement are considered to have Salafi beliefs.

Sources differ on the origin of the name. Robin Cook, the late British member of Parliament and former foreign secretary, wrote in 2005 that "Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians." [1] Dr. Saad Al-Fagih, a surgeon at Peshawar (where the recruiting happened) explained that creation of the Al-Qaeda database was necessary to fix problems associated with a lack of documentation about the fighters who were recruited. [2] Other sources say that the name means simply the base, and that the organization chose its own name.[3][4]

The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when a cadre of non-Afghani, Arab Muslim fighters joined the largely United States and Pakistan-funded Afghan mujāhidīn anti-Russian resistance movement. Osama bin Laden, a member of a prominent Saudi Arabian business family, led an informal grouping which became a leading fundraiser and recruitment agency for the Afghan cause in Muslim countries; it channelled Islamic fighters to the conflict, distributed money and provided logistical skills and resources to both fighting forces and Afghan refugees.

After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 many committed veterans of the war wished to fight for Islamic causes elsewhere. The invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 saw U.S. and coalition troops sent to Saudi Arabia in preparedness for expelling Iraqi occupying forces from Kuwait. Al-Qaeda was strongly opposed to the secular regime of Saddam Hussein and bin Laden had offered use of his fighters' services to the Saudi throne, but the deployment of 'infidel' forces to Islamic sacred territory was seen by bin Laden as an act of treachery. He placed the grouping in militant opposition to the United States and its allies. Al-Qaeda came to claim the U.S. military presence in several Islamic countries (particularly Saudi Arabia), the U.S. support for Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and more recently the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq as reasons for militant action.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are senior members of al-Qaeda's shura council, and are believed to be in contact with some of al-Qaeda's other cells.


History of al-Qaeda

Afghan jihad

Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khadamat (Office of Services, MAK) — a Mujahidin organization fighting to establish an Islamic state during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden was a founding member of the MAK, along with Palestinian militant Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. The role of the MAK was to channel funds from a variety of sources (including donations from across the Middle East) into training Mujahidin from around the world in guerrilla combat, and to transport the combatants to Afghanistan. The MAK was mostly funded by donations from wealthy Muslim individuals but was also allegedly aided by the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and indirectly by the United States, which channeled much of its support via the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. During the latter half of the 1980s, the MAK was a relatively minor grouping in Afghanistan with no direct combatants; rather it limited its activities to fundraising, logistics, housing, education, refugee care, recruitment and the financing of other mujahideen.

After a protracted and costly war lasting nine years, the Soviet Union finally withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Mohammed Najibullah's socialist Afghan government was rapidly overthrown by elements of the Mujahidin. With Mujahidin leaders unable to agree on a structure for governance, anarchy ensued with ever-changing control of ill-defined territories falling under constantly reorganising alliances and schisms between regional warlords.

Outreach from Afghanistan

Toward the end of the Soviet military mission to Afghanistan, some mujahideen wanted to expand their operations to include Islamist struggles in other parts of the world. A number of overlapping and interrelated organizations were formed to further those aspirations.

One of these was the organization that would eventually be called al-Qaeda which was formed by Osama bin Laden in 1988. Bin Laden wished to extend the conflict to nonmilitary operations in other parts of the world; Azzam, in contrast, wanted to remain focused on military campaigns. After Azzam was assassinated in 1989, the MAK split, with a significant number joining bin Laden's organization.

Gulf War and start of U.S. enmity

Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had put the Saudi Arabian ruling House of Saud at risk both from internal dissent and the perceived possibility of further Iraqi expansionism. In the face of seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were well armed but outnumbered. Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahideen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. But from the strategic viewpoint, were Iraqi forces to be ejected from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia provided the only possible land-bridge whereby international troops could assemble in order that the Iraqi invasion could be repulsed.

After some deliberation the Saudi Monarch refused bin Laden's offer and instead opted to allow United States and allied forces to deploy on his territory. Bin Laden considered this a treacherous deed. He believed that the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops he was quickly forced into exile to Sudan and his Saudi citizenship was revoked.

Shortly afterwards, the movement which came to be known as al-Qaeda was formed.

Sudan

In 1991, Sudan's National Islamic Front, an Islamist group that had recently gained power, invited al-Qaeda to move operations to their country. For several years, al-Qaeda ran several businesses (including an import/export business, farms, and a construction firm) in what might be considered a period of financial consolidation. The group was responsible for the construction of a major 1200 km (845mi) highway connecting the capital Khartoum with Port Sudan. But they also ran a number of camps where they trained aspirants in the use of firearms and explosives.

In 1996, Osama bin Laden was asked to leave Sudan after the US put the regime under extreme pressure to expel him, citing possible connections to the 1994 attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak while his motorcade was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A controversy exists regarding whether Sudan offered to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. prior to the expulsion. There are conflicting reports on whether the Sudanese government ever indeed made such an offer, but they were prepared to turn him over to Saudi Arabia who declined to take him. [citation needed]

Osama bin Laden finally left Sudan in a well planned and executed operation accompanied by some 200 of his supporters and their families travelling directly to Jalalabad, Afghanistan by air in late 1996.

Bosnia

The secession of Bosnia from the multicultural Yugoslavian Federation and the subsequent declaration of Bosnia-Herzegovinan independence in October 1991 opened up a new ethnic and quasi-religious conflict at the heart of Europe.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was ethnically diverse, with a nominal Muslim majority but with significant numbers of ethnic (Orthodox Christian) Serbs and (Roman Catholic) Croats distributed across its territory. It comprised a large, but militarily weak component of the former Yugoslavia and Yugoslav disintegration saw some ethnic Serbs and some ethnic Croats within Bosnia, supported by their rump adjacent states (Serbia and Croatia), engage in a three way conflict against the Bosniaks dominated core.

Radical Arab veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan seized on Bosnia as a new opportunity to "defend Islam". Besieged on two fronts and seemingly abandoned by the West, the Bosnian regime was willing to accept any help it could get, military or financial, including that of a number of Islamic organisations, of which al-Qaeda was one.[5]

Several close associates of Osama bin Laden (most notably, Saudi Khalid bin Udah bin Muhammad al-Harbi, alias Abu Sulaiman al-Makki) joined the conflict in Bosnia[5], but while al-Qaeda might initially have seen Bosnia as a possible bridgehead enabling the radicalisation of European Muslims for operations against other European states and America, Bosniaks had been secularised for generations and their interest in fighting was largely limited to securing the survival of their nascent state.

The "Bosnian Mujahidin" (comprising largely Arab veterans of the Afghan war and not necessarily members of al-Qaeda) thus operated as a largely autonomous force within central Bosnia. While their bravery in the fray initially attracted a small number of native Bosnians to join them, their brutality and a rising number of atrocites committed against civilians came to appall many native Bosnians and repelled new recruits. At the same time, their vigorous attempts to Islamicize the local population with rules on appropriate dress and behaviour were widely resented and largely went unheeded. In his book Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: the Afghan-Bosnian network, Evan Kohlmann sums up: ‘In spite of vigorous efforts to ‘Islamicise’ the nominally Muslim Bosnian populace, the locals could not be convinced to abandon pork, alcohol, or public displays of affection. Bosnian women persistently refused to wear the hijab or follow the other mandates for female behaviour prescribed by extreme fundamentalist Islam.’

The signing of the Washington Agreement in March 1994 brought to an end the Bosnian-Croatian conflict. While the "Bosnian Mujahidin" remained to fight on in the war against the Serbs, the Dayton Peace Accord of November 1995 brought that conflict to an end and required that foreign fighters disband and leave the country, with aid being conditional on this taking place. With Bosnian government support, NATO forces took effective action to close their bases and deport them. A limited number of former Mujahidin who had either married native Bosnians or who could not find a country to go to were permitted to stay in Bosnia and granted Bosnian citizenship, but with the war in Bosnia over, many committed battle-hardened veterans had already returned to familiar territory.

Return to Afghanistan

After the Soviet withdrawal, Afghanistan was effectively ungoverned for seven years and plagued by constant infighting between the former allies, the various Mujahidin groups and their leaders.

Throughout the 1990s a new force began to emerge. The origins of the Taliban (literally "students") lay in children of Afghanis, many of them orphaned by the war, and many of whom had had been educated in the rapidly expanding network of Islamic schools (madrassas) either in Kandahar or in the refugee camps on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

According to Ahmad Rashid's well-regarded book Taliban, five leaders of the Taliban were graduates of a single madrassa, Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, near Peshawar which is situated in Pakistan but which was largely attended by Afghan refugees. This institution reflected Salafi beliefs in its teachings and much of its funding came from private donations from wealthy Arabs for which bin Laden provided conduit. A further four more leading figures (including the perceived Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar Mujahed) attended a similarly funded and influenced madrassa in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The ties between the Afghan Arabs and Taliban ran deep. Many of the mujahidin who later joined the Taliban fought alongside Afghan warlord Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi's Harkat i Inqilabi grouping at the time of the Russian invasion. This grouping had also enjoyed the loyalty of most Afghan Arab fighters.

The continuing internecine strife between various factions and accompanying lawlessness following the Soviet withdrawal enabled the growing and well-disciplined Taliban to expand their control over territory in Afghanistan and they came to establish an enclave which it called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In 1994, they captured the regional centre of Kandahar and making rapid territorial gains thereafter, went on to conquer the capital, Kabul, in September 1996.

After Sudan made it clear bin Laden and his group were no longer welcome in that year, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan -- with previously established connections between the groups, a similar outlook on world affairs and largely isolated from American political influence and military power -- provided a perfect location for al Qaeda to headquarter.

Some 200 bin Laden supporters and their families departed Khartoum for Jalalabad by air in 1996. Thereafter al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and a measure of legitimacy as part of their Ministry of Defense, although only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border regions are alleged to have trained militant Muslims from around the world. Despite the perception of some people, al-Qaeda members are ethnically diverse and are connected by their radical version of Islam.

An ever-expanding network of supporters thus enjoyed a safe haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan until the Taliban were defeated by a combination of local forces and U.S. troops in 2001. Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders are still believed to be located in areas where the population is sympathetic to the Taliban in Afghanistan or the border Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Start of militant operations against civilians

On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of Egyptian Islamic Jihad issued a fatwa under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders (al-Jabhah al-Islamiyya al-'Alamiyya li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) saying that "to kill Americans and their allies, civilians, and military is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able." Neither man possessed the traditional Islamic credentials, education or stature to issue a fatwa of any kind; they, however, rejected the authority of the contemporary Ulema and took it upon themselves. This was also the year of the first major attack reliably attributed to al-Qaeda, the embassy bombings in East Africa, which resulted in upward of 300 deaths. In 1999, Egyptian Islamic Jihad officially merged with al-Qaeda, and al-Zawahiri became bin Laden's closest confidant.

September 11 attacks

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Al-Qaeda is most well known for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The September 11, 2001 attacks were attributed by authorities to al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the United States by bin Laden and others. In response to the attacks, the United States began to build up military forces in preparation for an attack on Afghanistan (whose government harboured bin Laden's organization). Before the United States invaded, the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the United States would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. President Bush responded by saying "We know he's guilty. Turn him over" and soon thereafter the United States invaded Afghanistan and, together with the Afghan Northern Alliance, deposed the Taliban government.[6]

As a result of this invasion, Taliban training camps were destroyed and much of the alleged existing operating structure of al-Qaeda was disrupted, although strong resistance has remained in Afghanistan, and its main leaders, including Bin Laden, have not been caught. The American government now claims that two-thirds of the top leaders of al-Qaeda in 2001 are currently in custody (including Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Saif al Islam el Masry, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri) or dead (including Mohammed Atef), though it warns the organization is not yet defeated and battles between the United States forces, the Taliban and al-Qaeda continue.

Activity in Iraq

File:Zarqawi001.jpg
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
See also: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda

Osama bin Laden first took interest in Iraq when the country invaded Kuwait in 1990 (giving rise to concerns the secular, socialist Baathist government of Iraq might next set its sights on Saudi Arabia, homeland of bin Laden and of Islam itself). In a letter sent to King Fahd, he offered to send an army of Mujahideen to defend Saudi Arabia [7].

During the Gulf War, the organization's interests became split between outrage with the intervention of the United Nations in the region and hatred of Saddam Hussein's secular government, as well as expression of concern for the suffering that Islamic people in Iraq were undergoing.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda took more formal interest in the region and is known to have been responsible for actively organizing and aiding local resistance to the occupying coalition forces and the emerging government. During Iraq's elections in January 2005 al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for nine suicide blasts in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formally merged his organisation "Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad" with al-Qaeda on 17 October 2004, and the organization began to use the banners of "al-Qaeda in the Land Between the Two Rivers". In the merger al-Zarqawi declared loyalty to Osama bin Laden.

Harmony Papers

Documents seized from al-Qaeda were recently declassified from the Harmony database and became the subject of a published study from West Point titled Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qa’ida’s Organizational Vulnerabilities. [8] The papers give an interesting look into the history of the movement, organizational structure, tensions among leadership and the lessons learned.

One al-Qaeda writer concluded that one of the lessons learned is how the influence of secular Baathist thinking distorts the message of jihad. This writer advises the movement not to allow the jihad message to be influenced by the Iraqi Baath message.[8]

Israel

Though al-Qaeda is seen to have considerable support in the Middle East, some in the region villainise the organisation for "ignoring the Palestinian cause". Though there could be an endless list of reasons why al-Qaeda are seemingly inactive in the Palestinian territories; one theory is that al-Qaeda are unwilling to co-opperate with the mainly Sh'ia groups such as Hezbollah who fund Palestinian resistance.

Incidents attributed by some to al-Qaeda

Note: al-Qaeda does not take credit for most of the following actions, resulting in ambiguity over how many attacks the group has actually conducted. Following the U.S. declaration of the War on Terrorism in 2001, the U.S. government has striven to highlight any connections between other terrorist groups and al-Qaeda. Some prefer to attribute to al-Qaedaism actions that might not be directly planned by al-Qaeda as a military headquarter, but which are inspired by its tenets and strategies.

Many terrorist attacks have been attributed to al-Qaeda.

The first militant attack that al-Qaeda allegedly carried out consisted of three bombings at hotels where American troops were staying in Aden, Yemen, on December 29, 1992. A Yemeni and an Austrian tourist died in one bombing.

There are disputed claims that al-Qaeda operatives assisted in the shooting down of U.S. helicopters and the killing of U.S. servicemen in Somalia in 1993. (see: Battle of Mogadishu)

Ramzi Yousef, who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (though probably not an al-Qaeda member at the time), and Khalid Sheik Mohammed planned Operation Bojinka, a plot to destroy airplanes in mid-Pacific flight using explosives. An apartment fire in Manila, Philippines exposed the plan before it could be carried out. Youssef was arrested, but Mohammed evaded capture until 2003.

Al-Qaeda is often listed as a suspect in two bombings in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996: the bombing at a U.S. military facility in Riyadh in November 1995, which killed two people from India and five Americans, and the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed American military personnel in Dhahran. However, these attacks are usually ascribed to Hizbullah.

Al-Qaeda is believed to have conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 5,000 others.

In December 1999 and into 2000, al-Qaeda planned attacks against U.S. and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations; however, Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial. Part of this plot included the planned bombing of the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, but this plot was foiled when bomber Ahmed Ressam was caught at the US-Canadian border with explosives in the trunk of his car. Al-Qaeda also planned to attack the USS The Sullivans on January 3, 2000, but the effort failed due to too much weight being put on the small boat meant to bomb the ship.

Despite the setback with the USS The Sullivans, al-Qaeda succeeded in bombing a U.S. warship in October 2000 with the USS Cole bombing. German police foiled a plot to destroy a cathedral in Strasbourg, France in December 2000. See: Strasbourg cathedral bombing plot

The most destructive act ascribed to al-Qaeda was the series of attacks in the United States on September 11th, 2001.

Several attacks and attempted attacks since September 11, 2001 have been attributed to al-Qaeda. The first of which was the Paris embassy attack plot, which was foiled. The second of which involved the attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid, who proclaimed himself a follower of Osama bin Laden, and got close to destroying American Airlines Flight 63.

Other attacks ascribed to al-Qaeda and its affiliates:

Al-Qaeda has strong alliances with a number of other Islamic militant organizations including the Indonesian Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah. That group was responsible for the October 2002 Bali bombing, and the 2005 Bali bombings.

Although there have been no identified al-Qaeda attacks within the territory of the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks, numerous al-Qaeda attacks in the Middle East, Far East, Africa and Europe have caused extensive casualties and turmoil. In the aftermath of several March 11, 2004 attacks on commuter trains in Madrid, a London newspaper reported receiving an email from a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, claiming responsibility and a videotape claiming responsibility was also found. The timing of the attacks with the Spanish elections, made many political interpretations to the real identity of the perpetrators, blaming in the first instances the ETA. However the Interpol, the Spanish Government, police and judicial institutions agree that it is more likely to have a fanatic Islamic cell involved. On April 3, 2004, in Leganes, Madrid, four Arab terrorists blew themselves up, killing one special assault police and wounding eleven.

It is also believed that al-Qaeda was involved in the 7 July 2005 London bombings, a series of attacks against mass transit in London which killed 52 innocent people, not including the 4 suicide bombers (see Mohammad Sidique Khan).A statement from a previously unknown group, "The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe", claimed responsibility; however, the authenticity of the statement and the group's connection to al-Qaeda have not been independently verified. The suspected perpetrators have not been definitively linked to al-Qaeda, although the contents of a video tape made by one of the bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan prior to his death and subsequently sent to Al Jazeera gives strong credence to an al-Qaeda connection. However, as with the Madrid attacks, it leaves significant doubts and questions unresolved. An apparently unconnected group attempted to duplicate the attack later that month, but their bombs failed to detonate.

Al-Qaeda is suspected of being involved with the 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks in Egypt. On July 23, 2005, a series of suspected car bombs killed about 90 people and wounded over 150. The attack was the deadliest terrorist action in the history of Egypt.

Al-Qaeda is also suspected in the November 9, 2005 Amman, Jordan attacks in which three simultaneous bombings occurred at American owned hotels in Amman. The blast killed at least 57 people and injured 120 people. Most of the injured and killed were attending a wedding at the Radisson Hotel. The targeting of celebrating Muslim civilians cost al-Zarqawi (the man believed to have planned the attacks) greatly in Jordanian public opinion, and to a lesser extent in Arab public opinion as a whole.

The chain of command

Though the current structure of al-Qaeda is unknown, information mostly acquired from the defector Jamal al-Fadl provided American authorities with a rough picture of how the group was organized. While the veracity of the information provided by al-Fadl and the motivation for his cooperation are both disputed, American authorities base much of their current knowledge of al-Qaeda on his testimony.

Bin Laden is the emir of al-Qaeda (although originally this role may have been filled by Abu Ayoub al-Iraqi), advised by a shura council, which consists of senior al-Qaeda members, estimated by Western officials at about twenty to thirty people.

  • The Military committee is responsible for training, weapons acquisition, and planning attacks.
  • The Money/Business committee runs business operations. The travel office provides air tickets and false passports. The payroll office pays al-Qaeda members, and the Management office oversees money-making businesses. In the US 911 Commission Report it is estimated that al-Qaeda requires 30,000,000 USD / year to conduct its operation.
  • The Law committee reviews Islamic law and decides if particular courses of action conform to the law.
  • The Islamic study/fatwah committee issues religious edicts, such as an edict in 1998 telling Muslims to kill Americans.
  • In the late 1990s there was a publicly known Media committee, which ran the now-defunct newspaper Nashrat al Akhbar (Newscast) and did public relations. It is currently assumed that media operations are now outsourced to internally redundant parts of the organization.

Political Revolt or Structured Terrorist Organization: Unknown

Some organizational specialists have said that al-Qaeda's network structure, as opposed to a hierarchical structure is its primary strength. The decentralized structure enables al-Qaeda to have a worldwide distributed base while retaining a relatively small core. While an estimated 100,000 Islamist militants are said to have received instruction in al-Qaeda camps since its inception, the group is believed to retain only a small number of militants under direct orders. Estimates seldom peg its manpower higher than 20,000 world wide.

For its most complex operations (such as the 9/11 attacks on the US) all participants, planning and funding are believed to have been directly provided by the core al-Qaeda organisation. But in many attacks around the world where there appears to be an al-Qaeda connection, its precise role has been less easy to define. Rather than handling these operations from conception to delivery, al-Qaeda often appears to act as an international financial and logistical support-network, channelling income obtained from a network of fundraising activities to provide training capital and coordination for local radical groups. In many cases it is these local groups, only loosely affiliated to core al-Qaeda, which actually undertake the attacks.

The 2002 Bali bombing and subsequent bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003 provide some insight into al-Qaeda's decentralized method of operations: the attacks showed far greater coordination and effectiveness than might historically have been expected from regional terrorist networks. But police investigations and subsequent trials showed that while al-Qaeda was believed to have provided expertise and coordination, much of the planning and all the personnel who undertook the attacks came from local radical Islamist groups.

Al-Qaeda has been known to establish and foster new groups to further the radical Islamic interest in local conflicts. Indeed the Taliban might be deemed to fall into this category, the roots of the organisation formed from radicalised students from the bin Laden funded medressas of the Afghan refugee camps at the time of the Russian occupation.

Is al-Qaeda a global network or a small organization?

Al-Qaeda has no clear structure, and this permits debate as to how many members make up the organization, whether it is millions scattered across the globe, or whether it is even zero. According to the controversial BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares, al-Qaeda is so weakly linked together that it is hard to say it exists apart from Osama bin Laden and a small clique of close associates. The lack of any significant numbers of convicted al-Qaeda members despite a large number of arrests on terrorism charges is cited by the documentary as a reason to doubt whether a widespread entity that meets the description of al-Qaeda exists at all. The extent and nature of al-Qaeda remains a topic of dispute.

The al-Qaeda name itself does not seem to have been used by bin Laden himself to apply to his organization until after the September 11 attacks. Previous attacks attributed to bin Laden and al-Qaeda were, at the time, claimed by organizations under a variety of names. Bin Laden himself has since attributed the al-Qaeda name to the MAK base in Pakistan, dating from the Afghan war days. Daniel Benjamin in "The Age of Sacred Terror" cites an incident in the early 1990s where a document titled "The Foundation", Arabic "Al-Qa'eda", was found on an associate of Ramzi Youssef [9]. Fawaz A. Gerges writes that "Although in 1987 sheikh Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual father of the Afghan Arabs, planted the seeds of a transnationalist organization called 'Al Qaeda al-Sulbah' (the Solid Foundation), the bin Laden network saw the light much later, around the mid-1990s."[10]

Other alleged al-Qaeda leaders include:

Internet activities

In the wake of its evacuation from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and its successors have migrated online to escape detection in an atmosphere of increased international vigilance. As a result, the organization’s use of the Internet has grown more sophisticated, encompassing financing, recruitment, networking, mobilization, publicity, as well as information dissemination, gathering, and sharing. More than other terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda has embraced the Web for these purposes. For example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda movement in Iraq regularly releases short videos glorifying the activity of jihadist suicide bombers. This growing range of multimedia content includes terrorist training clips, stills of victims about to be murdered, testimonials of suicide bombers, and epic-themed videos with high production values that romanticize participation in jihad through stylized portraits of mosques and stirring musical scores. A website associated with al-Qaeda, for example, posted a video of a man named Nick Berg being decapitated in Iraq. Other decapitation videos and pictures, including those of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il, and Daniel Pearl, were first posted onto jihadist websites.

With the rise of “locally rooted, globally inspired” terrorists, counterterrorism experts are currently studying how al-Qaeda is using the Internet – through websites, chat rooms, discussion forums, instant messaging, and so on – to inspire a worldwide network of support. The July 7, 2005 bombers, some of whom were well integrated into their local communities, are an example of such “globally inspired” terrorists, and they reportedly used the Internet to plan and coordinate, but the Internet’s precise role in the process of radicalization is not thoroughly understood. A group called the Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe has claimed responsibility for these London attacks on a militant Islamist website – another popular use of the Internet by terrorists seeking publicity.

The publicity opportunities offered by the Internet have been particularly exploited by al-Qaeda. In December 2004, for example, bin Laden released an audio message by posting it directly to a website, rather than sending a copy to al Jazeera as he had done in the past. Some analysts speculated that he did this to be certain it would be available unedited, out of fear that his criticism of Saudi Arabia — which was much more vehement than usual in this speech, lasting over an hour — might be edited out by al Jazeera editors worried about offending the touchy Saudi royal family.

In the past, Alneda.com and Jehad.net were perhaps the most significant of al-Qaeda websites. Alneda was initially taken down by an American, but the operators resisted by shifting the site to various servers and strategically changing content. The U.S. is currently attempting to extradite an information technology specialist, Babar Ahmad, from the UK, who is the creator of various English language al-Qaeda websites such as Azzam.com [13][14]. Ahmad's extradition is opposed by various British Muslim organizations, such the Muslim Association of Britain.

Finally, at a mid-2005 presentation for U.S. government terrorism analysts, Dennis Pluchinsky called the global jihadist movement “Web-directed,” and former CIA deputy director John E. McLaughlin has also said it is now primarily driven today by “ideology and the Internet.”

Financial activities

Financial activities of al-Qaeda have been a major preoccupation of US government following the September 11, 2001 attacks, leading for example to the discovery of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's tax evasion, for which his wife, Lucía Hiriart de Pinochet, has been arrested in January 2006. It was also discovered by investigative reporter Denis Robert that funds from Osama bin Laden's Bahrain International Bank transited through illegal unpublished accounts of "clearing house" Clearstream, which has been qualified as a "bank of banks".

Unclassified definition of al-Qaeda

Moazzam Begg, while held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, requested a definition of al-Qaeda, when he was presented with a "Summary of Evidence" against him, in preparation for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which accused him of being a member of al-Qaeda, or the Taliban, or associated forces.[15] The unclassified definition offered to Begg by the US Department of Defense was:

"Al Qaeda is a radical Sunni Muslim umbrella organization established to recruit young Muslims into the Afghani Mujahideen and is aimed to establish Islamist states throughout the world, overthrow ‘un-Islamic regimes’ expel US soldiers and Western influence from the Gulf, and capture Jerusalem as a Muslim city."

Begg also asked for, and was not provided with, a definition of al-Qaeda's "associated forces".

Notes on naming

Al-Qaeda's name can also be transliterated as al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, el-Qaida, or al Qaeda. In Arabic it is spelled القاعدة. Its Arabic pronunciation (IPA /ɛlˈqɑːʕidʌ/) can be approximated as IPA /ɛl 'kɑ:-idʌ/, which for American English speakers could be spelled "el-kAW-ee-deh," with the emphasized "AW" and "ee" clearly separated. However, English speakers more commonly pronounce it in a manner influenced by its spelling - IPA /ɑɫ 'kaɪdɑ/ for American English, /ɑ:ɫ 'kaɪdɑ:/ in British English. Listen to the US pronunciation (RealPlayer).

Al-Qaeda has other names, such as:

  • International Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders
  • Islamic Army
  • Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places
  • Osama bin Laden Network
  • Osama bin Laden Organization
  • Islamic Salvation Foundation
  • The Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites

See also

Notes & references

  1. ^ "The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means", Guardian Unlimited, 8 July 2005. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
  2. ^ Interview: Dr. Saad Al-Fagih, Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 14 May 2006.
  3. ^ 9-11 Commission: Chapter 2 - The Foundation of the New Terrorism. National Committee on Terrorist Attacks on the United States
  4. ^ definition of "al Qaeda", the free dictionary
  5. ^ a b Kohlmann, Evan F. (2004). Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network. Berg. ISBN 1859738079.
  6. ^ U.S. Jets Pound Targets Around Kabul, Portsmouth Herald, October 15 2001
  7. ^ "Who is Osama Bin Laden?". BBC News. 2006-05-28. Retrieved May 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ a b Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al-Qa'ida's Organizationsl Vulnerabilities (.pdf), West Point, February 14 2006 Cite error: The named reference "WestPoint" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ "The making of the terror myth". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved October 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ Gereges, Fawaz A. (2005). The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Oxford: Cambridge University Press. p. 306. ISBN 0521791405.
  11. ^ "Pakistan 'catches al-Qaeda chief'". BBC News. 2005-05-04. Retrieved May 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ "How mobile phones and an £18m bribe trapped 9/11 mastermind". Guardian Unlimited. March 11, 2003. Retrieved May 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Whitlock, Craig (August 8, 2005). "Briton Used Internet As His Bully Pulpit" (http). WashingtonPost.com. Retrieved May 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  14. ^ "Babar Ahmad Indicted on Terrorism Charges". United States Attorney's Office District of Connecticut. October 6, 2004. Retrieved May 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Moazzam Begg's dossier (.pdf) from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, hosted by Associated Press

External links

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