Al-Qaeda has its origins in the uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thousands of volunteers from around the Middle East came to Afghanistan as mujahideen , warriors fighting to defend fellow Muslims. In the mids, Osama bin Laden became the prime financier for an organization that recruited Muslims from mosques around the world.
These "Afghan Arab" mujahideen , which numbered in the thousands, were crucial in defeating Soviet forces. He founded an organization to help veterans of the Afghan war, many of whom went on to fight elsewhere including Bosnia and comprise the basis of al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden also studied with radical Islamic thinkers and may have already been organizing al-Qaeda when Iraq invaded Kuwait in Bin Laden was outraged when the government allowed U. In he was expelled from Saudi Arabia for anti-government activities. The first actions of al-Qaeda against American interests were attacks on U. A string of terrorist actions suspected to have been orchestrated by al-Qaeda followed see sidebar , and in August bin Laden issued a "Declaration of War" against the U.
Al-Qaeda also worked to forge alliances with other radical groups. In February , bin Laden announced an alliance of terrorist organizations? In Sudan? Bin Laden was the "guest" of the Taliban until the U.
Al-Qaeda set up terrorist training camps in the war-torn nation, as it had in Sudan. Although al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have become virtually synonymous, bin Laden did not run the organization single-handedly. His top advisor was al-Zawahiri , bin Laden's successor. Al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian surgeon from an upper-class family. He joined the country's Islamist movement in the late s. He served three years in prison on charges connected to the assassination of Anwar Sadat , during which time he was tortured.
After his release he went to Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden and became his personal physician and advisor. He was likely instrumental in bin Laden's political evolution. Al-Zawahiri is suspected of helping organize the massacre of 67 foreign tourists in the Egyptian town of Luxor and was indicted in connection with the bombing of U. In , he was one of five Islamic leaders to sign on to bin Laden's declaration calling for attacks against U. He is wanted by the FBI and has been sentenced to death by Egypt in absentia.
In March the Pakistani military began an assault on al-Qaeda troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. These troops were believed to be defending al-Zawahiri, who managed to escape.
Al-Qaeda's leadership oversees a loosely organized network of cells. It can recruit members from thousands of "Arab Afghan" veterans and radicals around the world. Its infrastructure is small, mobile, and decentralized? Local operatives rarely know anyone higher up in the organization's hierarchy. Al-Qaeda differs significantly from more traditional terrorist organizations. It does not depend on the sponsorship of a political state, and, unlike the PLO or the IRA, it is not defined by a particular conflict.
Instead, al-Qaeda operates as a franchise. It provides financial and logistical support, as well as name recognition, to terrorist groups operating in such diverse places as the Philippines , Algeria , Eritrea , Afghanistan, Chechnya , Tajikistan , Somalia, Yemen, and Kashmir. Furthermore, local groups may act in the name of al-Qaeda in order to bolster their own reputation?
The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs. According to bin Laden's fatwa religious decree , it is the duty of Muslims around the world to wage holy war on the U.
Muslims who do not heed this call are declared apostates people who have forsaken their faith. Al-Qaeda's ideology, often referred to as "jihadism," is marked by a willingness to kill "apostate"? Muslims and an emphasis on jihad. Although "jihadism" is at odds with nearly all Islamic religious thought, it has its roots in the work of two modern Sunni Islamic thinkers: Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Qutb.
Al-Wahhab was an 18th-century reformer who claimed that Islam had been corrupted a generation or so after the death of Mohammed. He denounced any theology or customs developed after that as non-Islamic, including more than 1, years of religious scholarship.
He and his supporters took over what is now Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism remains the dominant school of religious thought.
Sayyid Qutb, a radical Egyptian scholar of the midth century, declared Western civilization the enemy of Islam, denounced leaders of Muslim nations for not following Islam closely enough, and taught that jihad should be undertaken not just to defend Islam, but to purify it. Al-Qaeda's infrastructure in the country was destroyed and their military commander, Muhammed Atef , was killed.
Abu Zubaydah , another top operative, was captured in Pakistan. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, however, escaped. They have released audio and video messages to the Arab media from time to time.
In March the U. The decision to encompass Iraq in "the war on terror" was highly controversial. Although President Bush asserted that there was a working relationship between Hussein and al-Qaeda, no solid proof of collaboration between them? On March 11, , Spain's most horrific terrorist attack occurred: people were killed and 1, were injured in bombings at Madrid's railway station.
Evidence soon emerged that al-Qaeda was responsible. By April, a dozen suspects, most of them Moroccan, were arrested for the bombings. On April 4, several suspects blew themselves up during a police raid to avoid capture. Many Spaniards blamed their prime minister's staunch support of the U. Four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, killing at least 52 and wounding more than A group calling itself the Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility on a Web site, asserting that the attacks were a retaliation for Britain's involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A year after the bombing, British investigators concluded that the links between the bombers and al-Qaeda were marginal. The four bombers, all born in Britain, had all visited Pakistan, but there was no evidence of any direct support from al-Qaeda.
As the Iraqi insurgency has continued, however, suspected al-Qaeda terrorists have moved into the country and are likely responsible for kidnappings and a string of suicide-bomb attacks.
In February , U. The letter outlined plans to destabilize Iraq by igniting sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Al-Zarqawi is thought to have been the mastermind behind the 1, to 3, foreign insurgents fighting in Iraq. For a time, al-Zarqawi appeared to position himself as a rival to bin Laden, but in Oct. In an audiotape a few months later bin Laden declared that "the dear mujahed brother Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the prince of al-Qaeda in Iraq," and announced that "we, in al-Qaeda organization, welcome him joining forces with us.
Despite the U. There have been continued attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists since September 11, Until his death, Osama bin Laden played an important role in shaping the group's mission, and al-Zawahiri still does. In April, , bin Laden offered a truce to Europe, saying that al-Qaeda would not attack any country, with the exception of the U.
America took its eye off the ball by invading Iraq. The results were a wave of violence across the world. A relentless campaign, primarily using drones and highlighted by the commando raid that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, gradually wore down the core by In September , Zawahiri planned his last major international terror plot: to hijack the Pakistani Navy frigate Zulfiqar and use it to sink a U.
The plot was foiled only at the last moment. Zawahiri remains alive and he continues to issue statements from his hideout in Pakistan, but the core is defeated. The heir of the al-Qaida organization in Iraq—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—has lost control of most of the ground it once held in Iraq and Syria but remains a very dangerous terrorist threat, with offshoots in Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The Islamic State also has cells in Western Europe.
The ideology of bin Laden and Zawahiri played very little role in the Arab Spring in or the revolutions in Algeria and Sudan this year. It was criticized as too cautious by the Islamic State; ironically, time has shown that al-Qaida was right not to announce a caliphate or try to control territory. Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State continue to inspire so-called lone wolf attacks by individuals who have no physical connections to either group.
The central jihadi message that Islam is under attack by the West remains a potent one, reinforced by Islamophobia and bans on Muslims. The speed with which ISIS spread underscores how vulnerable the police states of the Middle East are when they become crippled by civil war.
The Saudi-Iranian proxy war feeds sectarian tensions and creates failed states in places like Yemen, where al-Qaida can stage a comeback. The success of the war against al-Qaida has made possible the policy discussion about bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. But it should also underscore the necessity of close counterterrorism cooperation with reliable partners in the Islamic world, not ones that pursue some terrorists while harboring others like Pakistan.
The global jihadi threat has been transformed over the last two decades, but vigilance remains essential. The administration has been right to insist that the Afghan Taliban renounce and condemn al-Qaida as a crucial beginning to any deal about the future of Afghanistan.
0コメント