Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, the UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner near Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, was an armed Islamist group. Militants participated in the 2011 Libyan Civil War as the Libyan Islamic Movement, and are involved in the Libyan Civil War as members of the Libya Shield Force. Alleged militants include alleged Al Qaeda organizer Abd al-Muhsin Al-Libi who now holds a key command position in the Libya Shield Force.
As-Sahab Media is the official media wing of Al-Qaeda's core leadership based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It produces media featuring original sermons and speeches by senior Al-Qaeda commanders as well as footage of international operations carried out by Al-Qaeda. In addition to being released in Arabic, some published videos come with English subtitles.
Per Magnus Ranstorp is a Swedish scholar who has written about Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda and other militant Islamic movements. He is the Research Director of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College, directing a project on Strategic Terrorist Threats to Europe which focuses on radicalisation and recruitment of salafist-jihadist terrorists across Europe and the convergence between Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear Weapons, and Terrorism. Ranstorp graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota in 1985.
The Al Kifah Refugee Center is a charity that was active in the United States and was based in the Faruq Mosque in Brooklyn.
Rashid Rauf was an alleged Al-Qaeda operative. He was a dual citizen of Britain and Pakistan who was arrested in Bhawalpur, Pakistan in connection with the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot in August 2006, a day before some arrests were made in Britain. The Pakistani Interior Minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, claimed that "he is an al Qaeda operative with linkages in Afghanistan". He was identified as one of the ringleaders of the alleged plot. In December 2006, the anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities, and his charges were downgraded to forgery and possession of explosives. A 2022 article offers an assessment of the impact of Operation Overt and refers to Rauf's alleged role
Najmiddin Jalolov was the leader of the Jama'at al-Jihad al-Islami, a militant organization affiliated with Al Qaeda that operates in the larger Central Asian region. The group was also suspected of planning attacks in Russia and Western Europe.
Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri alias Abd al-Aziz al-Masri is an Egyptian member of the Shura Council of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda and a former member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, from which he migrated to al-Qaeda, along with Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Bakri is at large, and the United States Department of State is offering up to US$5 million for information about his location. The State Department wanted poster reads:
Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri is an al-Qaida member and an explosives and chemical weapons expert. He is a member of the al-Qaida Shura council and is a close associate of al-Qaida leaders Saif al-Adel and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Prior to joining al-Qaida, al-Bakri was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, under the direction of Ayman al-Zawahiri. He served as an instructor in al-Qaida's camps in Afghanistan, providing terrorist recruits with training in the use of explosives and chemical weapons. Al-Bakri also unsuccessfully attempted to hijack a Pakistani Air passenger flight in December 2000. It is likely that he continues to train al-Qaida terrorists and other extremists.
The Islamic Jihad Union is a militant Islamist organization founded in 2002 as a splinter group of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Headquartered in North Waziristan, a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, the group has been affiliated with both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Bosnian mujahideen, also called El Mudžahid, were foreign Muslim volunteers who fought on the Bosnian Muslim side during the 1992–95 Bosnian War. They first arrived in central Bosnia in the latter half of 1992 with the aim of helping their Bosnian Muslim co-religionists in fights against Serb and Croat forces. Initially they mainly came from Arab countries, later from other Muslim-majority countries. Estimates of their numbers vary from 500 to 6,000.
Fateh Kamel is an Algerian who was arrested in 1999 on charges of supporting a terrorist plot against attacks against French targets in Paris, and was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.
Karim Said Atmani was alleged to be a document-forger for the Groupe islamique armé, and shared an apartment with Ahmed Ressam.
The international activities of Al-Qaeda includes involvements in Europe, where members of the group have been involved in militant and terrorist activities in several countries. Al-Qaeda has been responsible for or involved in attacks in Western Europe and Russia, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings, 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing, and the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks.
Periodically Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior publishes a most wanted list. According to Asharq Alawsat Saudi Arabia has published four lists of "most wanted" suspected terrorists, and those lists contained 19, 26, 36 and 85 individuals.
The Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation was a tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization, nonprofit, charitable organization engaged in terrorism research and analysis. Although NEFA lists a New York address for its headquarters on its website, the organization's business offices are located in Charleston, South Carolina, according to the latter's Secretary of State.
Jarret Brachman is an American terrorism expert, the author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice and a consultant to several government agencies about terrorism.
A "jihobbyist" is a term coined by Jarret Brachman that denotes a person who is not an active member of a violent jihadist organization such as Al-Qaeda or the Somali Al-Shabaab yet is receptive to jihad and radical Islam.
Anwar al-Awlaki was an American-Yemeni cleric killed in late 2011, who was identified in 2009 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a known, important "senior recruiter for al Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, The One-Eyed, Nelson, and The Uncatchable, was an Algerian leader of the group Al-Murabitoun, former military commander of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, smuggler and weapons dealer. He was twice convicted and sentenced to death in absentia under separate charges in Algerian courts: in 2007 for terrorism and in 2008 for murder. In 2004, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Algeria for terrorist activities.
