Al-Qaeda

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al-Qaeda القاعدة‎
Operational	1988 – present
Led by	Osama bin Laden Ayman al-Zawahiri
Active region(s)	Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia
Ideology	Islamism Sunni Islam Pan-Islamism
Status	Designated as Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department[1] Designated as Proscribed Group by the UK Home Office[2] Designated as terrorist group by EU Common Foreign and Security Policy[3]

Al-Qaeda, alternatively spelled al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida or al-Qa'idah, (Arabic: القاعدة‎; transliteration: al-qā‘idah; translation: The Base) is an international Sunni Islamic terrorist organization, or alliance of such organizations, founded in 1988^[4] by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (later replaced by Osama Bin Laden) and other veteran "Afghan Arabs" after the Soviet War in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda has attacked civilian and military targets in various countries, the most notable being the September 11 attacks in 2001. These actions were followed by the US government launching a military and intelligence campaign against al-Qaeda called the War on Terror.

Characteristic techniques include use of suicide attacks and simultaneous bombings of different targets.^[5] Activities ascribed to it may involve members of the organization, who have taken a pledge of loyalty to bin Laden, or the much more numerous "al-Qaeda-linked" individuals who have undergone training in one of its camps in Afghanistan or Sudan but not taken any pledge.^[6] Al-Qaeda's objectives include the end of foreign influence in Muslim countries and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate. Reported beliefs include that a Christian-Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam,^[7] and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is Islamically justified in jihad.^[8] Its management philosophy has been described as "centralization of decision and decentralization of execution."^[9] Following 9/11 and the launching of the War on Terrorism, it is thought al-Qaeda's leadership has "become geographically isolated", leading to the "emergence of decentralized leadership" of regional groups using the al-Qaeda "brand name."^[10][11]

Al-Qaeda has been labeled a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council,^[12] the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General,^[13][14] the Commission of the European Communities of the European Union,^[15] the United States Department of State,^[16] the Australian Government,^[17] Public Safety Canada,^[18] the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs,^[19] Japan's Diplomatic Bluebook,^[20] South Korean Foreign Ministry,^[21] the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service,^[22] the United Kingdom Home Office,^[23] Pakistan, Russia,^[24] the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs,^[25] and the Swiss Government.^[26]

Due to its secrecy and structure of semi-autonomous cells, al-Qaeda's size and degree of responsibility for particular attacks are difficult to establish.

Contents 1 Etymology 1.1 Claims of an American invention 1.2 Claims to be an actual organization 1.3 Merger with EIJ 2 History 2.1 Background 2.1.1 Qutbism 2.2 Jihad in Afghanistan 2.2.1 Alleged CIA involvement 2.2.2 Origins in Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) 2.3 Expanding operations 2.4 Gulf War and the start of U.S. enmity 2.5 Sudan 2.6 Refuge in Afghanistan 2.7 Militant operations pre-dating the September 11, 2001 attacks 2.7.1 The first terrorist attack 2.7.2 First World Trade Center bombing 2.7.3 1995-2000 fatwa declarations and bomb attacks 2.8 September 11, 2001, attacks and the United States response 3 Other regional activities 3.1 Africa 3.1.1 Algeria 3.1.2 Eritrea 3.1.3 Libya 3.1.4 Somalia and Kenya 3.1.5 Sudan 3.2 Europe 3.2.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina 3.3 Asia 3.3.1 Afghanistan 3.3.2 Pakistan and India 3.3.3 Indonesia 3.3.4 Philippines 3.4 The Middle East 3.4.1 Iraq 3.4.2 Israel and Palestine 3.4.3 Lebanon 4 Organization structure and membership 4.1 The chain of command 4.2 Individuals identified as "al-Qaeda members" 5 Criticism 5.1 Islamic sources 6 Attacks 6.1 Internet activities 7 Al-Qaedaism 8 See also 9 Notes & references 10 Further reading 11 Videos 12 External links

Etymology

In Arabic, al-Qaeda has four syllables. However, since two of the Arabic consonants in the name (the voiceless uvular plosive [q] and the voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ]) are not phones found in the English language, the closest naturalized English pronunciation is IPA: /ælˈkɑːiːdə//. More commonly, /ælˈkaɪdə/ and /ælˈkeɪdə/ are heard. Al-Qaeda's name can also be transliterated as al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, el-Qaida, or al Qaeda.^[27]

The name of the organization comes from the Arabic noun qā'idah, which means foundation or basis and can also refer to a military base. The initial al- is the Arabic definite article the, hence the base.

Osama bin Laden explained the origin of the term in a videotaped interview with Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni in October 2001:

The name 'al-Qaeda' was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al-Qaeda. The name stayed.^[28]

Saad Al-Faqih, a Saudi expert in al-Qaida, has stated that the name al-Qaida "...originated from a documentation system in the Bait al-Ansar guesthouse back in the 1980s."^[29]

Claims of an American invention

What exactly al-Qaeda is, or was, remains in dispute. In the BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares, writer and journalist Adam Curtis contends that the idea of al-Qaeda as a formal organization is primarily an American invention. Curtis contends the name "al-Qaeda" was first brought to the attention of the public in the 2001 trial of Osama bin Laden and the four men accused of the 1998 United States embassy bombings in East Africa. As a matter of law, the U.S. Department of Justice needed to show that Osama bin Laden was the leader of a criminal organization in order to charge him in absentia under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, also known as the RICO statutes. The name of the organization and details of its structure were provided in the testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, who claimed to be a founding member of the organization and a former employee of Osama bin Laden.^[30] To quote the documentary directly:

The reality was that bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri had become the focus of a loose association of disillusioned Islamist militants who were attracted by the new strategy. But there was no organization. These were militants who mostly planned their own operations and looked to bin Laden for funding and assistance. He was not their commander. There is also no evidence that bin Laden used the term "al-Qaeda" to refer to the name of a group until after September the 11th, when he realized that this was the term the Americans had given it.^[31]

Questions about the reliability of al-Fadl's testimony have been raised by a number of sources because of his history of dishonesty and because he was delivering it as part of a plea bargain agreement after being convicted of conspiring to attack U.S. military establishments.^[32][33] Sam Schmidt, a defense lawyer from the trial, had the following to say about al-Fadl's testimony:

There were selective portions of al-Fadl's testimony that I believe was false, to help support the picture that he helped the Americans join together. I think he lied in a number of specific testimony about a unified image of what this organization was. It made al-Qaeda the new Mafia or the new Communists. It made them identifiable as a group and therefore made it easier to prosecute any person associated with al-Qaeda for any acts or statements made by bin Laden.^[34]

Claims to be an actual organization

There is at least one public reference to the name "al-Qaeda" that pre-dates the 2001 trial. The name appears with the spelling "al-Qaida" in an executive order issued by President Bill Clinton in 1998, less than two weeks after the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Executive Order 13099, issued on August 20, 1998, lists the organization as one of several associated with Osama bin Laden, the others being the Islamic Army, Islamic Salvation Foundation, the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places, The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, and The Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites.^[35] The name "al-Qaida" could have been introduced to U.S. intelligence by Jamal al-Fadl, who had been providing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with intelligence about bin Laden since 1996, before ultimately appearing as a witness in the February 2001 trial of those accused of the 1998 United States embassy bombings.

In this trial, Jamal al-Fadl testified^[36] that al-Qaeda was established in either late 1989 or early 1990 to continue the jihad after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. He claimed that during the war against the Soviets, bin Laden had been funding a group called Maktab al-Khadamat, which was led by Abdallah Azzam. This organization was based in Pakistan and provided training, money and other support for Muslims who would cross the border into Afghanistan to fight. According to al-Fadl, the Maktab al-Khadamat was disbanded following the Soviet withdrawal, but bin Laden wanted to establish a new group to continue the jihadist cause on other fronts. Al-Fadl testified that al-Qaeda's leader was initially Abu Ayoub al-Iraqi, who was later replaced by Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, but that both of these leaders nevertheless "reported to" bin-Laden. Al-Fadl claims the group initially went by two different names "al-Qaeda" and "Islamic Army", before eventually settling on the former. A meeting was apparently held in Khost, Afghanistan to establish the new group, which al-Fadl claims to have attended. Al-Fadl's recollection was that this occurred in either late 1989 or early 1990.

Others such as CNN journalist Peter Bergen and author Lawrence Wright dispute Burke's contention. Bergen argues that two documents seized from the Sarajevo office of the Illinois-based Benevolence International Foundation show that the organization was established in August, 1988. Both of these documents contain minutes of meetings held to establish a new military group and contain the term "al-qaeda". ^[37]

Author Lawrence Wright also quotes this document (an exhibit from the "Tareek Osama" document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout^[38]), in his book The Looming Tower. Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988 indicate "the military base" ("al-qaeda al-askariya"), was a formal group: `basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make His religion victorious.` A list of requirements for membership itemized "listening and obedient ... good manners" and making a pledge (bayat) to obey superiors. ^[4] According to Wright, "[t]he name al-Qaeda was not used," in public pronouncements like the 1998 fatwa to kill Americans and their allies^[39] because "its existence was still a closely held secret."^[40] Wright writes that Al-Qaeda was formed at a August 11, 1988 meeting of "with several senior leaders" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, (Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and others), Abdullah Azzam, and Osama bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and continue jihad elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.^[41]

Merger with EIJ

In April 2002, the group assumed the name Qa'idat al-Jihad, which means "the base of Jihad". According to Diaa Rashwan, this was "...apparently as a result of the merger of the overseas branch of Egypt's al-Jihad (EIJ) group, led by Ayman El-Zawahiri, with the groups Bin Laden brought under his control after his return to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s."^[42]

History

Background

Qutbism

Main article: Qutbism

The radical Islamist movement in general and al-Qaeda in particular developed during the Islamic revival and Islamist movement of the last three decades of the 20th century along with less extreme movements.

Some have argued that "without the writings" of Islamic author and thinker Sayyid Qutb "al-Qaeda would not have existed."^[43] Qutb preached that because of the lack of sharia law the Muslim world was no longer Muslim, having reverted to pre-Islamic ignorance known as jahiliyyah. To restore Islam, a vanguard movement of righteous Muslims was needed to implement Sharia and rid the Muslim world of any non-Muslim influences, such as concepts like socialism or nationalism. Enemies of Islam included "treacherous Orientalists!" ^[44] and "world Jewry", who plotted "conspiracies" and "wicked[ly]" opposed Islam.

In the words of Mohammed Jamal Khalia, a close college friend of Osama bin Laden: Islam is different from any other religion; it's a way of life. We [Khalia and bin Laden] were trying to understand what Islam has to say about how we eat, who we marry, how we talk. We read Sayyid Qutb. He was the one who most affected our generation.^[45]

Qutb had an even greater influence on Osama bin Laden's mentor and another leading member of al-Qaeda,^[46] Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri's uncle and maternal family patriarch, Mafouz Azzam, was Qutb's student, then protégé, then personal lawyer and finally executor of his estate - one of the last people to see Qutb before his execution. "Young Ayman al-Zawahiri heard again and again from his beloved uncle Mahfouz about the purity of Qutb's character and the torment he had endured in prison."^[47] Zawahiri paid homage to Qutb in his work Knights under the Prophet's Banner. ^[48]

One of the most powerful effects of Qutb's ideas was the idea that many who said they were Muslims were not, i.e. they were apostates. These included leaders of Muslims countries since they failed to enforce sharia law.^[49]

Jihad in Afghanistan

Main articles: Soviet war in Afghanistan and Afghan Arabs

The origins of the group can be traced to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The United States viewed the conflict in Afghanistan, with the Afghan Marxists and allied Soviet troops on one side and the native Afghan mujahedeen on the other, as a blatant case of Soviet expansionism and aggression. The U.S. channelled funds through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to the native Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation in a CIA program called Operation Cyclone.^[50][51]

At the same time, a growing number of foreign Arab mujahedeen (also called Afghan Arabs) joined the jihad against the Afghan Marxist regime, facilitated by international Muslim organizations, particularly the Maktab al-Khidamat,^[52] whose funds came from some of the $600 million a year donated to the jihad by the Saudi Arabia government and individual Muslims - particularly wealthy Saudis who were approached by Osama bin Laden.^[53] Maktab al-Khidamat was established by Abdullah Azzam and Bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984. From 1986 it began to set set up a network of recruiting offices in the US, the hub of which was the Al Kifah Refugee Center at the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. This was a "place of pivotal importance for Operation Cyclone".^[54] Among notable figures at the Brooklyn center were "double agent" Ali Mohamed, whom FBI special agent Jack Cloonan called "bin Laden's first trainer";^[55] and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leading recruiter of mujahideen for Afghanistan, who obtained US entry visas with CIA help in 1987 and 1990.^[56][57] Al-Kifah had a training camp in Connecticut, where "Recruits received brief paramilitary training and weapons induction, according to evidence in [subsequent terrorist] trials". Several former members of the "active service" of the CIA were employed there as "expert consultants".^[58][59]

The Afghan Mujahedeen of the 1980s have been alleged to be the inspiration for terrorist groups in nations such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Chechnya, and the former Yugoslavia.^[60] According to Russian sources, the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 allegedly used a manual allegedly written by the CIA for the Mujihadeen fighters in Afghanistan on how to make explosives.^[61]

Alleged CIA involvement

Main article: Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden

Whether or not the al-Qaeda attacks were "blowback" from the American CIA's "Operation Cyclone" program to help the Afghan mujahideen is a matter of some debate. Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001, has written that al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies," and that the mujahideen that formed al-Qaeda were "originally ... recruited and trained with help from the CIA".^[62]

A variety of sources - CNN journalist Peter Bergen, Pakistani ISI Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, and CIA operatives involved in the afghan program such as Vincent Cannistraro and Milton Bearden - deny that the CIA or other American officials, had contact with the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) or Bin Laden, let alone armed, trained, coached or indoctrinated them. These sources argue that there was no need to recruit foreigners unfamiliar with the local language, customs or lay of the land since there were a quarter of a million local Afghans willing to fight^[63]; that Arab Afghans themselves would have no need for American funds since they received several hundred million dollars a year from non-American, Muslim sources; that Americans could not train mujahideen because Pakistani officials would not allow more than a handful of them to operate in Pakistan and none in Afghanistan; and that the Afghan Arabs were almost invariably militant Islamists reflexively hostile to Westerners uninterested in the fact that some Westerners were helping the mujahideen.

According to Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, the idea that "the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden ... a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. ... Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. ... The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him."^[64] But as Bergen himself admitted, in one "strange incident" the CIA did appear to give visa help to mujahideen-recruiter Omar Abdel-Rahman.^[65]

Origins in Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK)

Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khadamat (Services Office), a Muslim organization founded in 1980 to raise and channel funds and recruit foreign mujahadeen for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was founded by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Islamic scholar and member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Maktab al-Khadamat organized guest houses in Peshawar, in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, and paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan to prepare international non-Afghan recruits for the Afghan war front. Azzam persuaded Bin Laden to join MAK, to use his own money and use his connections with "the Saudi royal family and the petro-billionaires of the Gulf" to raise more to help the mujahideen.^[66] The role played by MAK and foreign Muslim volunteers, or "Afghan Arabs", in the war was not a major one. While 250,000 Afghan Mujahideen fought the Soviets and Marxist Afghan government, it is estimated that were never more than 2000 foreign mujahideen in the field at any one time.^[67] Nonetheless, foreign mujahedeen volunteers came from 43 countries and the number that participated in the Afghan movement between 1982 and 1992 is reported to have been 35,000.^[68]

The Soviet Union finally withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. To the surprise of many, Mohammed Najibullah's Marxist Afghan government hung on for three more years before being overrun by elements of the mujahedeen. With mujahedeen leaders unable to agree on a structure for governance, chaos ensued, with constantly reorganizing alliances fighting for control of ill-defined territories, leaving the country devastated.

The CIA was watching Osama bin Laden at least as early as 1995^{[citation needed]}, due to the discovery of the Oplan Bojinka plot, which in part involved a suicide airplane attack on CIA Headquarters.^{[citation needed]}

Expanding operations

Toward the end of the Soviet military mission in Afghanistan, some mujahedeen wanted to expand their operations to include Islamist struggles in other parts of the world, such as Israel and Kashmir. 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, formed by Osama bin Laden with an initial meeting held on August 11, 1988.^[69] Bin Laden wished to establish 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.

In November 1989, Ali Mohamed, a former special forces Sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, left military service and moved to Santa Clara, California. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and became "deeply involved with bin Laden's plans."^[70]. A year later, on November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of Mohammed's associate El Sayyid Nosair, discovering a great deal of evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers.^[71] Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane on November 5, 1990. In 1991, Ali Mohammed is said to have helped orchestrate Osama bin Laden's relocation to Sudan.^[72]

Gulf War and the start of U.S. enmity

Main article: Gulf War

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 country of Saudi Arabia and its ruling House of Saud at risk as Saudi's most valuable oil fields (Hama) were within easy striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait,^[73] and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent. In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were well armed but far outnumbered. Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahedeen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow U.S. and allied forces to deploy on Saudi territory^[74].

The deployment angered Bin Laden, as he believed 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 on April 9, 1994 his Saudi citizenship was revoked.^[75] His family publicly disowned him. There is controversy over whether and to what extent he continued to garner support from members of his family and/or the Saudi government.^[76]

Sudan

From approximately 1992 to 1996, al-Qaeda and bin Laden were located in Sudan, coming at the invitation of Islamist theoretician Hassan al Turabi following an Islamist coup d'état, and leaving after being expelled by the Sudanese government. During this time bin Laden assisted the Sudanese government, bought or set up various business enterprises, and established training camps where insurgents trained. But in Sudan bin Laden lost his Saudi passport and source of income in response to his verbal attacks on the Saudi king. ^[77]

Zawahiri and the EIJ, who served as the core of al-Qaeda but also engaged in separate operations against the Egyptian government, had even worse luck in Sudan. In 1993, a young schoolgirl was killed in an unsuccessful EIJ attempt on the life of the Egyptian Interior Minister, Hasan al-Alfi. Egyptian public opinion turned against Islamist bombings and ^[78] the police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members and executed six. In 1995 an even more ill-fated attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Mubarak led to the expulsion of EIJ and not long after of bin Laden by the Sudanese government.

Refuge in Afghanistan

Main article: Taliban

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

Throughout the 1990s, a new force began to emerge. The origins of the Taliban (literally "students") lay in the children of Afghanistan, many of them orphaned by the war, and many of whom 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 Ahmed Rashid, five leaders of the Taliban were graduates of a single madrassa, Darul Uloom Haqqania (also known as “the University of Jihad",)^[79] in the small town of Akora Khattak near Peshawar, situated in Pakistan but largely attended by Afghan refugees.^[80] This institution reflected Salafi beliefs in its teachings, and much of its funding came from private donations from wealthy Arabs, for whom bin Laden provided conduit. A further four leading figures (including the perceived Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar Mujahed) attended a similarly funded and influenced madrassa in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Many of the mujahedeen who later joined the Taliban fought alongside Afghan warlord Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi's Harkat i Inqilabi group at the time of the Russian invasion. This group 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 center of Kandahar, and after making rapid territorial gains thereafter, conquered the capital city Kabul in September 1996.

After Sudan made it clear that bin Laden and his group were no longer welcome 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 establish its headquarters. 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 Pakistani border regions are alleged to have trained militant Muslims from around the world.^{[citation needed]} Despite the perception of some people, al-Qaeda members are ethnically diverse and 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 United States air power in 2001 (see section September 11, attacks and the United States response). 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.

Militant operations pre-dating the September 11, 2001 attacks

The first terrorist attack

On December 29, 1992, al-Qaeda's first terrorist attack took place as two bombs were detonated in Aden, Yemen. The first target was the Movenpick Hotel and the second was the parking lot of the Goldmohur Hotel. The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope. Internally, al-Qaeda considered the bombing a victory that frightened the Americans away, but in the United States the attack was barely noticed. No Americans were killed because the soldiers were staying in a different hotel altogether, and they went on to Somalia as scheduled. However, little noticed, the attack was pivotal as it was the beginning of al-Qaeda's change in direction, from fighting armies to killing civilians.^[81] Two people were killed in the bombing, an Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker. Seven other mostly Yemenis, were severely injured.

Two fatwa are said to have been appointed by the most theologically knowledgeable of al-Qaeda's members, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, aka Abu Hajer al Iraqi, to justify the killings according to Islamic law. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim referred to the thirteenth-century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, much admired by Wahhabis. In a famous fatwa, Ibn Tamiyyah had ruled that Muslims should kill the invading Mongols, and so too Salim said al-Qaeda should kill American soldiers. The second fatwa followed another of Ibn Tamiyyah's, that Muslims should not only kill Mongols but anyone who aided the Mongols, who bought goods from them or sold to them. In addition the killing of someone merely standing near a Mongol was justified as well. He ruled these killings just because any innocent bystander, like the Yemenite hotel worker, would find their proper reward in death, going to Paradise if they were good Muslims and to hell if they were bad.^[82] This became al-Qaeda's justification for killing civilians.^[81]

First World Trade Center bombing

Main article: World Trade Center bombing

In 1993, Ramzi Yousef used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack was intended to break the foundation of Tower One knocking it into Tower Two, bringing the entire complex down. Yousef hoped this would kill 250,000 people. The towers shook and swayed but the foundation held and he succeeded in killing only six people (although he injured 1,042 others and caused nearly $300 million in property damage).^[83][84][85]

After the attack, Yousef fled to Pakistan and later moved to Manila. There he began developing the Bojinka Plot plans to blow up a dozen American airliners simultaneously, to assassinate Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton, and to crash a private plane into CIA headquarters. He was later captured in Pakistan.^[83][84]

None of the U.S. government's indictments against Osama bin Laden have suggested that he had any connection with this bombing, but Ramzi Yousef is known to have attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. After his capture, Yousef declared that his primary justification for the attack was to punish the United States for its support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and made no mention of any religious motivations.^[86]

1995-2000 fatwa declarations and bomb attacks

Main articles: 1998 United States embassy bombings and USS Cole bombing

On November 13 1995 a van containing a hundred pounds of Semtex explosive blew up near the communications center for the Saudi National Guard in downtown Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where some American military contractors and Army officers had been training the Saudi National Guard. Seven people were killed, and sixty people were injured. The Saudi government arrested four men, "torturing confessions" out of them that they had been inspired by bin Laden's speeches and trained at al-Qaeda's camp in Afghanistan, and quickly executed them. It is unclear if they had anything to do with the crime. As with many bombings suspected to be the work of al-Qaeda, bin Laden praised the attacks but denied authorizing the attack or training the bombers.^[87]

In 1996, al-Qaeda announced its jihad to expel foreign troops and interests from what they felt were Islamic lands. Bin Laden issued a fatwa,^[88] which amounted to a public declaration of war against the United States and any of its allies, and began to focus al-Qaeda's resources towards attacking the United States and its interests. Also occurring on June 25th, 1996 was the bombing of the Khobar towers, located in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa (binding religious edict) under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders (al-Jabhah al-Islamiyya al-'Alamiyya li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) declaring:

[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.^[89]

Neither bin Laden nor al-Zawahiri possessed the traditional Islamic scholarly qualifications to issue a fatwa of any kind; however, they rejected the authority of the contemporary ulema (seen as the paid servants of jahiliyya rulers) and took it upon themselves.^[90] Assassinated former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko alleged that the Russian FSB trained al-Zawahiri in a camp in Dagestan eight months before the 1998 fatwa.^[91][92] 1998 was also the year of the first major terrorist attack reliably attributed to al-Qaeda: the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, resulting in upward of 300 deaths, mostly locals. A barrage of cruise missiles launched by the U.S. military in response devastated an al-Qaeda base in Khost, Afghanistan, but the network's capacity was unharmed.

Bin Laden then turned his sights towards the United States Navy. In October 2000, al-Qaeda militants in Yemen bombed the missile destroyer U.S.S. Cole in a suicide attack, killing 17 U.S. servicemen and damaging the vessel while it lay offshore. Inspired by the success of such a brazen attack, al-Qaeda's command core began to prepare for an attack on the United States itself.

September 11, 2001, attacks and the United States response

Main articles: September 11, 2001 attacks and War on Terrorism

See also: Responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks

The attacks were the most devastating terrorist acts in American history, killing nearly 3,000 people, destroying four commercial airliners, leveling the World Trade Center towers, and damaging The Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.

The September 11, 2001, attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the United States and its allies by military forces under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others.^[93] Evidence points to suicide squads led by al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atta as the culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali as the key planners and part of the political and military command. Messages issued by bin Laden after September 11, 2001 praised the attacks, and explained their motivation while denying any involvement.^[94] Bin Laden legitimized the attacks by identifying grievances felt by both mainstream and Islamist Muslims, such as the general perception that the United States was actively oppressing Muslims.^[95] Bin Laden asserted that America was massacring Muslims in 'Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq' and that Muslims should retain the 'right to attack in reprisal'. He also claimed the 9/11 attacks were not targeted at women and children, but 'America's icons of military and economic power'.^[96]

Evidence has since come to light that the original targets for the attack may have been nuclear power stations on the east coast of the U.S. The targets were later altered by al-Qaeda, as it was thought that the US retaliation would be too great.^[97][98]

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the United States government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the United States attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. 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. U.S. President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over",^[99] and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power". Soon thereafter the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government in the war in Afghanistan.

As a result of the United States using its special forces and providing air support for the Northern Alliance ground forces, both Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps were destroyed, and much of the operating structure of al-Qaeda is believed to have been disrupted. After being driven from their key positions in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, many al-Qaeda fighters tried to regroup in the rugged Gardez region of the nation. Again, under the cover of intense aerial bombardment, U.S. infantry and local Afghan forces attacked, shattering the al-Qaeda position and killing or capturing many of the militants. By early 2002, al-Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow to its operational capacity, and the Afghan invasion appeared an initial success. Nevertheless, a significant Taliban insurgency remains in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's top two leaders, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, evaded capture.

Debate raged about the exact nature of al-Qaeda's role in the 9/11 attacks, and after the U.S. invasion began, the U.S. State Department also released a videotape showing bin Laden speaking with a small group of associates somewhere in Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban was removed from power.^[100] Although its authenticity has been questioned by some,^[101] the tape appears to implicate bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and was aired on many television channels all over the world, with an accompanying English translation provided by the United States Defense Department.

In September 2004, the U.S. government commission investigating the September 11 attacks officially concluded that the attacks were conceived and implemented by al-Qaeda operatives.^[102] In October 2004, bin Laden appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks in a videotape released through Al Jazeera, saying he was inspired by Israeli attacks on high-rises in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: "As I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."^[103]

By the end of 2004, the U.S. government claimed that two-thirds of the top leaders of al-Qaeda from 2001 were 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). Despite the capture or death of many senior al-Qaeda operatives, the U.S. government continues to warn that the organization is not yet defeated, and battles between U.S. forces and al-Qaeda-related groups continue.

In the meantime, autonomous regional branches of al-Qaeda continue to emerge around the world.

Other regional activities

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)

Africa

Algeria

Main articles: Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb and Islamic insurgency in Algeria (2002-present)

See also: 11 December 2007 Algiers bombings

An insurgency is being waged by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (which is called today as the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb) against the Algerian government. It is a spin-off to the Algerian Civil War that ended in 2002, and has been linked to bombings in Algiers, Batna and Dellys.

The group has declared its intention to attack Algerian, French, American and Spanish targets. It has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State, and similarly classed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.

Eritrea

As soon as the allied Somali and Ethiopian forces drove the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) out of Somalia in January of 2007, U.S. accused Eritrea of providing safe haven for some of their leadership.^[104] America also condemned Eritrea since it continued to "fund, arm, train and advise the insurgents" attacking the Somalia government.^[105][106] According to a regional Somali government, some Eritrean soldiers were also sited working with Arab and al-Qaeda fighters against the Somalia government, and the foreign alliance attacked government positions.^[107]

In 2007 there were reports that the Eritrean government is sheltering the leadership of the insurgency in Somalia.^[108] The United Nations continued to report of Eritrean assistance to Somalis with alleged links to al-Qaeda. Accordingly, the UN Security Council said that Eritrea has secretly supplied "huge quantities of arms" to a Somali insurgent group with alleged ties to al Qaeda, in violation of an international arms embargo and despite the deployment of African peacekeepers" adding that it has been "provided to the al-Shabaab (an extremist group which emerged within the ICU’s armed forces and is led by a kinsman and protégé of the ICU council leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Aden Hashi Farah "Eyrow", who trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda before returning to Somalia after 9/11^[109]) by and through Eritrea" since December 2006.^[110] Sheikh Aweys himself and other members of the Islamic Courts Union who are wanted by the U.S. over suspected links to al-Qaeda (the UN has Sheikh Aweys on a list of individuals "belonging to or associated with" al Qaeda, which he denies^[111]) organized a congress in Eritrea to strengthen their militant opposition to the Somalia transitional government.^[112]

Libya

On November 3, 2007, al-Zawahiri claimed in a 28-minute recording posted on an Islamic website that "... members of the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya announce that they are joining the al-Qaeda group ..." According to al-Jazeera news service, Abu al-Laith appeared to be the leader of the new Libyan wing. Fighting Islamic Group first announced its presence in 1995, vowing to overthrow Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Libyan leader. In 2001, the group was added to a UN list of individuals and institutions "belonging to, or associated with, al-Qaeda".^[113]

Somalia and Kenya

Main article: Somali Civil War

See also: Islamic Courts Union

Activities of al-Qaeda in Somalia are alleged to have begun as early as 1992.^[114] The organization's role during the course of the 1992–1994 UN missions was limited to a handful of trainers. Ali Mohamed and other al-Qaeda members purportedly trained forces loyal to warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid.^[115] Osama bin Laden himself claimed in an interview with ABC's John Miller to have sent al-Qaeda operatives to Somalia. One of the al-Qaeda fighters present during the interview claimed to have personally slit the throats of three American soldiers in Somalia.^[116] Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, states the terrorist organization did train some of Aidid's men, but they were not personally part of the fight with US forces in the 1993 battle of Mogadishu.^[117]

In 2002 an another successful terrorist attack in Kenya after the U.S. embassy bombing, a car-bomb placed in a resort hotel popular among Israeli tourists claimed the lives of 15 people. The hotel bombing occurred 20 minutes after a failed attack on an airplane, when a terrorist fired an SA-7 MANPAD against an Israeli airliner carrying 261 passengers, which was taking off from the airport; the missile seemingly failed to track its target, nor did it detonate, and landed in an empty field.

Lately, al-Qaeda was also linked to militant Islamic Courts Union (ICU) front in Somalia. It is believed several terrorist attacks were orchestrated from Ras Kamboni, in the extreme southern tip of Somalia adjacent to Kenya, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings and the 2002 Mombasa hotel bombing.^[118] On June 22, 2006, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer announced the U.S. was seeking the assistance of the ICU in the apprehension of suspects who carried out attacks against its East African embassies and a hotel in Kenya.^[119] She listed the following persons as suspected of being in Somalia (name and nationality): Fazul Abdullah Mohamed (Comoros), Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (Kenya), and Abu Taha al-Sudan (Sudan). When the ICU did not cooperate, the U.S. first financed the rival warlord factions, and then followed with limited air strikes as the ICU rule in Mogadishu fell in the face of Ethiopian Army assault. The Pentagon said a high level al-Qaeda member from the ICU was captured in Somalia and transferred to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.^[120][121]

Sudan

In 1991, Sudan's National Islamic Front, an Islamist group that had recently gained power, invited al-Qaeda to move operations to Sudan.^[122] For several years, al-Qaeda operated several businesses (including import/export, farm, and construction firms) in what might be considered a period of financial consolidation. The group built a major 1200-km (845-mi) highway connecting the capital Khartoum with Port Sudan.^[123] However, they also ran a number of camps where they trained operatives in the use of firearms and explosives.

In 1996, Osama bin Laden was asked to leave Sudan after the United States 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. Controversy exists regarding whether Sudan offered to turn bin Laden over to the U.S. prior to the expulsion. There is an audio tape (Audio) (Transcript) recording of former President Bill Clinton talking about the offer from the Sudanese government. There are conflicting reports on whether the Sudanese government indeed made such an offer, but they were in fact prepared to turn him over to Saudi Arabia, who declined to take him.^[124] Osama bin Laden finally left Sudan in a well-executed operation, arriving at Jalalabad, Afghanistan by air in late 1996 with over 200 of his supporters and their families.

Europe

Main article: 2003 Istanbul bombings

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Main article: Bosnian mujahideen

Following the end of the Bosnian War and, especially, after the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center, the links between the Bosnian mujahideen, Al Qaeda and the radicalization of some European Muslims has become more widely discussed. In an interview with US journalist Jim Leherer former US peace envoy to Bosnia Richard Holbrooke states:

There were over 1,000 people in the country who belonged to what we then called Mujahideen freedom fighters. We now know that that was al-Qaida. I'd never heard the word before, but we knew who they were. And if you look at the 9/11 hijackers, several of those hijackers were trained or fought in Bosnia. We cleaned them out, and they had to move much further east into Afghanistan. So if it hadn't been for Dayton, we would have been fighting the terrorists deep in the ravines and caves of Central Bosnia in the heart of Europe.^[125]

In 1996, in a book titled "Offensive In the Balkans", Mr. Yossef Bodansky, Director of the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives, wrote as follows on the "Bosnian Jehad":

"...The build-up of new Islamist units was completed in Bosnia- Herzegovina in the Spring of 1995. These forces are closely associated with the Armed Islamist Movement (AIM) and Islamist international terrorismsuicide terrorists), both veteran Arabs and newly trained Bosnians.^[126]

London's The Spectator has noted, "If Western intervention in Afghanistan created the mujahedin, Western intervention in Bosnia appears to have globalised it." Several current and former top al-Qaeda militants and financers reportedly participated in the Bosnian civil war with the full support of the United States. It was for the Bosnian jihad that the 9/11 'paymaster', Omar Sheikh, was reportedly recruited to fight by the CIA and MI6. Al-Qada, in addition to his reported financing of the Bosnian jihad, has been identified as one of Osama bin Laden's "chief money launderers".^[127] In his paper on the connection between Bosnian mujahideen and 'home grown' terrorists in Europe, terrorism expert Evan F. Kohlmann writes that:

Indeed, some of the most important factors behind the contemporary radicalization of European Muslim youth can be found in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the cream of the Arab mujahideen from Afghanistan tested their battle skills in the post-Soviet era and mobilized a new generation of pan-Islamic revolutionaries.^[128]

On 19 October 2005 Bosnian police raided the apartment of a Swedish national of Bosnian heritage in Sarajevo, finding explosives, rifles, other arms and a videotape pledging vengeance for the "brothers" killed fighting Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to western intelligence officials the cache belonged to an underground group that was aiming to blow up the British Embassy in Sarajevo. The raid confirmed a suspicion among intelligence agents that Bosnia was becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks in Europe. In particular, Islamic radicals were believe to be looking to create cells of so-called "White al Qaeda", non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police to watch for potential terrorists. According to one Western intelligence agent "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe,... It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists."^[129]

U.S. and NATO country intelligence officers have long worked together in Sarajevo to keep an eye on Islamic radicals in Bosnia. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA and other foreign agencies set up a joint, fortified headquarters to keep tabs on terrorism suspects in Bosnia-Herzegovina.^[129]

Asia

Afghanistan

Main articles: Civil war in Afghanistan (1996-2001) and War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

See also: Taliban

Pakistan and India

Main articles: Waziristan War and Lashkar-e-Toiba

Indonesia

Main article: Jemaah Islamiyah

See also: 2002 Bali bombings, 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing, 2004 Australian embassy bombing, and 2005 Bali bombings

Philippines

Main article: Abu Sayyaf

The Middle East

See also: Ghriba synagogue bombing, Riyadh compound bombings, 29 May 2004 Al-Khobar massacres, 2005 Amman bombings, and 2005 Sharm el-Sheikh attacks

Iraq

Main articles: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and Al-Qaeda in Iraq

See also: Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, Mujahideen Shura Council, and Islamic State of Iraq

Osama bin Laden first took interest in Iraq when the country invaded Kuwait in 1990, raising concerns the secular Baathist government of Iraq might next set its sights on Saudi Arabia, homeland of bin Laden and Islam itself. In a letter sent to King Fahd, he offered to send an army of mujahedeen to defend Saudi Arabia, but the offer was rebuffed.^[130] During the Gulf War, the organization's interests became split between outrage at the intervention of the United Nations in the region and hatred of Saddam Hussein's secular government.

Links between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda, as claimed by the Bush Administration (which formed a crucial part of the WMD justification for the Iraq invasion), were non-existent or exaggerated, according to the report of both the United States Government's 9/11 Commission^[131] and the Pentagon;^[132] despite these conclusions, Vice President Dick Cheney has continued to publicly assert an Iraqi–al-Qaeda link.^[133] Recently, the US has acknowledged that the role of al-Qaeda in post-invasion violence in Iraq was overstated.^[134] The US also claimed that al-Qaeda was in contact with the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam from its inception in 1999; however, Ansar al-Islam's founder, Mullah Krekar, has staunchly denied any such link.^[135]

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, elements at first loosely associated with al-Qaeda, commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have supported local resistance to the occupying coalition forces and the emerging government, particularly targeting Iraq's Shia majority.^[136] They have been implicated in the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Iraq,^[137] as well as hundreds of other small and large scale attacks on the military and civilian targets.^[138] Eventually, al-Zarqawi claimed allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004.

Al-Zarqawi was killed by U.S. air strikes on a safe house near Baqubah on June 7, 2006. Before his death, he was allegedly trying to use Iraq as a launching pad for international terrorism, most notably dispatching suicide bombers to attack hotels and government targets in Jordan.^[139] Since the killing of al-Zarqawi, it was believed that Abu Ayyub al-Masri took over as head of "al-Qaeda in Iraq". On September 3, 2006 the second-in-command of "al-Qaeda in Iraq", Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi (also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana), was arrested north of Baghdad, along with a group of his aides and followers.^[140]

In a 39 page document retrieved in November and a 16 page document retrieved in October gives insight on how Al-Qaeda in Iraq is in panic and fear. The documents reveal how local fighters are being mistreated by the foreign fighters and labeled as "scoundrels, sectarians, and non-believers." Abu-Tariq, states that the number of fighters has dwindled from 600 to 20 fighters. ^[141]

See also: Canal Hotel bombing, Al-Askari Mosque bombing (2006), and 2007 al-Askari Mosque bombing

Israel and Palestine

Bin Laden's and Ayman al-Zawahiri's repeatedly refer to the Palestinian cause in their manifestos and interviews. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and organization formed in the Gaza Strip during the 1970s by Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd Al Aziz Awda as a branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an organization currently led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, is active in its attacks against Israel.

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Al-Qaeda is suspected to have planned and carried out two nearly simultaneous attacks against Israeli civilian targets in Mombasa, Kenya, on November 28, 2002. Al-Qaeda also increased its external operations in 2005 by claiming credit for attacks including^[142] a rocket attack that narrowly missed U.S. Navy ship in Eilat, Israel, and the firing of several Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

An extremist Gaza Strip group calling itself Army of Islam or "the organization of al-Qaeda in Palestine",^[143] which gained notoriety with kidnapping of Alan Johnston, draws inspiration from al-Qaeda.^[144]

Lebanon

Main article: 2007 North Lebanon conflict

Shakir al-Abssi, a former associate of al-Qaeda in Iraq, recruited Palestinian refugees in Lebanon into Fatah al-Islam and rose against the government.^[145] The exact nature of the group's al-Qaeda links remains a matter of controversy.

On the 9th of may 2008, after the clashes between the Hezbollah and government loyalists, Al-Qaeda declared war on Hezbollah.^[146]

Organization structure and membership

The chain of command

Though the current structure of al-Qaeda is unknown, information mostly acquired from 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.^[147]

Osama bin Laden is the emir and Senior Operations Chief 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. Ayman al-Zawahiri is al-Qaeda's Deputy Operations Chief and Abu Ayyub al-Masri is possibly the senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

• The Military Committee is responsible for training operatives, acquiring weapons, and planning attacks.
• The Money/Business Committee runs business operations, provides air tickets and false passports, pays al-Qaeda members, and oversees profit-driven businesses. In the 9/11 Commission Report, it is estimated that al-Qaeda requires $30,000,000 USD per year to conduct its operations.
• 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 handled public relations.
• In 2005, al Qaeda formed As-Sahab, a media production house, to supply its video and audio materials.

The number of individuals belonging to the organization is also unknown. 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. Therefore the extent and nature of al-Qaeda remains a topic of dispute.^[148]

Its rank and file has been described as changing from being "predominantly Arab," in its first years of operation, to "largely Pakistani," as of 2007.^[149] It has been estimated that 62% of al-Qaeda members have university education.^[150]

Individuals identified as "al-Qaeda members"

9/11 hijackers (American Airlines 11): Mohammed Atta Satam al-Suqami Waleed al-Shehri Wail al-Shehri Abdulaziz al-Omari 9/11 hijackers (United Airlines 175): Marwan al-Shehhi Fayez Banihammad Mohand al-Shehri Hamza al-Ghamdi Ahmed al-Ghamdi 9/11 hijackers (American Airlines 77): Hani Hanjour Khalid al-Mihdhar Majed Moqed Nawaf al-Hazmi Salem al-Hazmi 9/11 hijackers (United Airlines 93): Ziad Jarrah Ahmed al-Nami Saeed al-Ghamdi Ahmed al-Haznawi

Suspects at large (1998 Embassy Bombings and 2002 Kenya hotel bombing): Fazul Abdullah Mohamed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Abu Taha al-Sudan Other al-Qaeda leaders: Osama Bin Laden Saif al-Adel Sulaiman Abu Ghaith Abu Hafiza Abu Faraj al-Libbi (arrested in Pakistan, 2005)[151] Abu Mohammed al-Masri Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, 2003)[152] Thirwat Salah Shirhata Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed in June 2006)[153] Ayman al-Zawahiri Abu Zubaydah (captured in 2002) Abu Ayyub al-Masri (unconfirmed reports killed in a clash May 1, 2007)[154] Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.

Criticism

Islamic sources

According to a number of sources there has been a "rising tide of anger in the Islamic world toward Al Qaeda and its affiliates" by "religious scholars, former fighters, and militants ... alarmed" by Al Qaeda's takfir and killing of Muslims in Muslim countries, especially Iraq. ^[155][41]

Noman Benotman, a former Afghan Arab and militant of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, went public with an open letter of criticism to Ayman al-Zawahiri in November 2007 after persuading imprisoned senior leadership of his former group to enter into peace negotiations with the Libyan regime. While Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the affiliation of the group with al-Qaeda in November 2007, the Libyan government released 90 members of the group from prison several months later after "they were said to have renounced violence." ^[156]

In 2007, around the sixth anniversary of September 11, Sheikh Salman al-Ouda, a Saudi religious scholar and one of the fathers of the Sahwa, the fundamentalist awakening movement that swept through Saudi Arabia in the '80s, delivering a personal rebuke to Osama bin Laden. Al Ouda addressed Al Qaeda's leader on MBC, a widely watched Middle East TV network, asking him

My brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocent people, children, elderly, and women have been killed ... in the name of Al Qaeda? Will you be happy to meet God Almighty carrying the burden of these hundreds of thousands or millions [of victims] on your back? ^[157]

In 2007, the imprisoned Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, an influential Afghan Arab, "ideological godfather of Al Qaeda", and former supporter of takfir, sensationally withdrew his support from al Qaeda with a book Wathiqat Tarshid Al-'Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w'Al-'Alam ("Document of Right Guidance for Jihad Activity in Egypt and the World").

Usama Hassan, an Imam in London and former supporter of al-Qaeda who traveled to Afghanistan to train as jihadi was alienated by the July 2005 bombings in London and now preaches against bin Laden and helped launch the Quilliam Foundation.^[158]

According to Pew polls, support for Al Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in recent years.^[159] The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank.^[160]

Attacks

Main article: Timeline of al-Qaeda attacks

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.^[161] Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s al-Qaeda movement in Iraq regularly releases short videos glorifying the activity of jihadist suicide bombers. In addition, both before and after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq), the umbrella organization to which al-Qaeda in Iraq belongs, the Mujahideen Shura Council, has a regular presence on the web where pronouncements are given by Murasel. This growing range of multimedia content includes guerrilla 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 musical scores. A website associated with al-Qaeda, for example, posted a video of captured American entrepreneur 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 on jihadist websites.

With the rise of “locally rooted, globally inspired” terrorists, counter-terrorism 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. 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.^[162]

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 removed by al Jazeera editors concerned about offending the Saudi royal family.^{[citation needed]} With the assistance of two influential broadcast anchors, al-Qaeda's reach through video over the Internet and TV has significantly expanded.^[163]

In the past, Alneda.com and Jehad.net were perhaps the most significant al-Qaeda websites. Alneda was initially taken down by American Jon Messner, but the operators resisted by shifting the site to various servers and strategically shifting 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.^[164][165] Ahmad's extradition is opposed by various British Muslim organizations, such as 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.”^{[citation needed]}

Al-Qaedaism

Al-Qaedaism, or al-Qaedism, is a political neologism coined after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 which refers to the set of religious beliefs, political doctrines, objectives, practices and methods, inspired by al-Qaeda. It is based on a militant, dogmatic and orthodox form of Islamism.

Rather than al-Qaeda evolving as a single monolithic organization, like a typical political party or military command structure, or one headed by a central figure like a crime syndicate, the exact opposite was created: a diverse, loosely-organized and widely-disbursed movement or ideology^[166] with many small and localized "self-generating" terrorist cells^[167] and individuals, some of which are not directly connected to al-Qaeda at all.^[168] It may be applied to other political movements, organizations and individuals who adopt similar beliefs and practices through the copycat effect or are accused of such through misattribution. The term is also applied retroactively to provide a name for the motive of Islamic fundamentalists who act or have acted similarly, even before the formal organization or naming of the al-Qaeda organization.

See also

9/11 Commission Adam Yahiye Gadahn - (Arabic: آدم يحيى غدن‎; born September 1, 1978) is an American-born member of the al-Qaeda organization Al Barakaat Bin Laden Issue Station (CIA unit for tracking bin Laden, 1996-2005) Terrorist organizations as destructive cults Insurgency in Saudi Arabia Ladenese epistle List of terrorist organisations

Wikinews has related news: Internally distributed DHS memo: al-Qaeda and Hezbollah may attack U.S. within three years Wikinews has related news: DHS video confirms details of leaked internal memo on al-Qaeda threat, and more Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Al-Qaeda Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal Videos of Osama bin Laden The Power of Nightmares (BBC documentary) Psychological operations Religious terrorism Steven Emerson Takfir Wal Hijira Terrorist incidents Islamofascism Islam Bosnian Mujahideen Nuclear 9/11

Notes & references

Further reading

• Alexander, Yonah; Michael S. Swetnam (2001). Usama bin Laden's al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network. Transnational Publishers, Incorporated. ISBN 1-57105-219-4. 
• Bell, J. Bowyer (2002). Murders on the Nile: The World Trade Center and Global Terror, 1st edition, Encounter Books. ISBN 1-893554-63-5. 
• Bergen, Peter (2002). Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, 1st Touchstone edition, Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-3495-2. 
• Bergen, Peter (2006). The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, reprint edition, Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-7892-5. 
• Bin Laden, Osama (2005). in Bruce Lawrence (Ed.): Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden, James Howarth (Translator), Verso. ISBN 1-84467-045-7. 
• Burke, Jason (2004). Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-396-8. 
• Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, reprint edition, Penguin (Non-Classics). ISBN 0-14-303466-9. 
• Corbin, Jane (2003). Al-Qaeda: In Search of the Terror Network that Threatens the World. Nation Books. ISBN 1-56025-523-4. 
• Devji, Faisal (2005). Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-4437-3. 
• Esposito, John L. (2002). Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-515435-5. 
• Friedman, George (2005). America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies, reprint edition, Broadway. ISBN 0-7679-1785-5. 
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2005). The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-79140-5. 
• Gerges, Fawaz A. (2006). Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-101213-X. 
• Gunaratna, Rohan (2003). Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, reissue edition, Berkley Trade. ISBN 0-425-19114-1. 
• Habeck, Mary (2006). Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11306-4. 
• Hamud, Randall B. (2005). in (Ed.): Osama Bin Laden: America's Enemy in His Own Words, 1st edition, Nadeem Publishing. ISBN 0-9770935-0-6. 
• Kepel, Gilles (2004). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 1-85043-722-X. 
• Mamdani, Mahmood (2004). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon. ISBN 0-375-42285-4. 
• Reynalds, Jermey (2007 October). War of the Web: Fighting the Online Jihad. World Ahead Publishing. ISBN 0-9746701-7-0. 
• Roy, Olivier (2004). Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13498-3. 
• Sageman, Marc (2004). Understanding Terror Networks. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812238087. 
• Scheuer, Michael (2006). Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America, revised edition, Potomac Books. ISBN 1-57488-967-2. 
• Smucker, Philip (2004). Al Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail. Potomac Books. ISBN 1-57488-628-2. 
• Whelan, Richard (2005). Al-Qaedaism: The Threat to Islam, The Threat to the World, 1st edition, Ashfield Press. ISBN 1-901658-54-6. 
• Williams, Paul L. (2002). Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror, 1st edition, Alpha. ISBN 0-02-864352-6. 
• Williams, Paul L. (2005). The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-59102-349-1. 
• Wright, Lawrence (2006). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41486-X. 

Videos

• (1) Al-Qaeda Internet News Broadcast Celebrates U.S. Hurricanes and Gaza Pullout, Reports Zarqawi's Anti-Shiite Campaign and Chemical Mortar Shells in Iraq at MEMRI
• (2) Al-Qaeda's Internet News Broadcast Expresses Solidarity with Al-Jazeera Reporter Tayseer 'Alouni Who Was Sentenced to Seven Years in Jail by a "Crusader Infidel Spanish Court" at MEMRI
• Inside 9/11 (2005) from The National Geographic Society. An Emmy nominated documentary that covers the events, principles, and organizations that lead to 9/11.
• Al-qaeda Training Video.
• Al-qaeda and Suicide Bombers.

External links

• Athena Intelligence Advanced Research Network on Insurgency and Terrorism
• Al-Qaeda and Talbighi Jamaat
• Al-Qaeda Videos
• Al Qaeda’s Battle Plan 2007 and beyond - Crusade Media News
• Al Qaeda's Nuclear Weapons by Crusade Media News
• Al Qaeda. The role in the North Caucasus Agentura.Ru Studies and Research Centre /ASRC/:
• JihadMonitor.org Open Sources Project on Jihadist Terrorism
• Rewards for Justice - Most Wanted Terrorists
• Is this Al Qaeda's Final Warning? May 29, 2007 - Crusade Media News
• U.S. Dept. of Justice, Al Qaeda Training Manual.
• The Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU)
• PBS FRONTLINE "Al Qaeda's New Front" January 2005
• Al-Qaida has been more active in Britain
• Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive; Alan Cullison, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2004.
• The making of the terror myth; Guardian; October 15, 2004
• The Power of Nightmares; A three-part BBC documentary about the War on Terrorism
• Al Qaeda Terrorism Coverage
• Middle East Media Research Institute TV clips
• Al-Qaida at the Open Directory Project
• Al-Qaedaism: The Threat To Islam, The Threat To The World Book Review
• The Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) - Extremism and Terrorism Section
• Osama's Big Lie
• Al-Qaeda at Ynetnews Lexicon

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