Al-Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization led by Salafi jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings and the September 11 attacks; it has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The information he gave under torture to Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush Administration in the months preceding its 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration, although reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
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.
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is a Kuwaiti regarded as one of al-Qaeda's spokesmen. He is married to one of Osama bin Laden's daughters. In 2013, Gaith was arrested in Jordan and extradited to the United States. In 2014, he was convicted in a U.S. federal court in New York for "conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists" and sentenced to life imprisonment He is serving his sentence at the federal ADX Florence prison in Colorado.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death on July 31, 2022.
Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (AHIF) was a charity foundation, based in Saudi Arabia. Under various names it had branches in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Comoros, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Tanzania, and the United States, and "at its height" raised between $40 and $50 million a year in contributions worldwide. While most of the foundation's funds went to feed poor Muslims around the world, a small percentage went to Al-Qaeda, and that money was "a major source of funds" for the terrorist group. In 2003, Saudi authorities ordered Al-Haramain to shut down all overseas branches, and by 2004 Saudi authorities had dissolved Al-Haramain. However, US intelligence officials believed it had reopened branches under new names.
A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the lobby of the JW Marriott Jakarta hotel, killing 12 people and injuring 150. Those killed including a white Dutch man while the rest were Indonesian. The hotel was viewed as a Western symbol, and had been used by the United States embassy for various events. The hotel was closed for five weeks and reopened to the public on September 8.
This article is a chronological listing of allegations of meetings between members of al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to conspiracy theories involving Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki was an American imam who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a US government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first US citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government.
Hezbollah has a Foreign Relations Unit and maintains relations with a number of foreign countries and entities. These are particularly Shia states, but also Sunni groups like those affiliated with the Palestinian cause; and the group is also suggested to have operations outside the Middle East in places such as Latin America and North Korea.
Dr Junaid Ismail Dockrat is a South African dentist who has recently been listed by the UN Security Council as a terror suspect along with his cousin Farhad Ahmed Dockrat for the alleged links with the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. This was at the request of the United States Government who describe he and Farhad Ahmed Dockrat as being terrorism "facilitator(s) and terrorist financier(s)". He currently resides in Mayfair, a suburb of Johannesburg. The South African Government has requested proof that he and his cousin are indeed involved with Al-Qaeda and the pair deny the claims.
Terrorism in South Africa has not been seen as a significant threat to the security of the state since the end of apartheid.
Tarik Shah is an African American Muslim with a career as a professional jazz musician. As the sole student of Slam Stewart, Shah began playing the upright bass at age 12 and went on to play with Betty Carter, Ahmad Jamal, Abbey Lincoln and Art Taylor among others. He is a composer, a jazz educator, and lyricist. An expert in martial arts, Mr. Shah was arrested in May 2005 at the age of 42 in New York City, accused and eventually charged with providing aid for terrorist activity based on evidence from an FBI sting. He initially pled not guilty to all charges. After 31 months of solitary confinement, he was convinced a fair trial was unlikely given the Islamophobia following 9-11. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
According to the complaint, both also made a formal oath of loyalty, called a bayat, to Al Qaeda in a meeting with an undercover F.B.I. agent that was secretly recorded. An indictment handed up by a federal grand jury Monday accused the men of conspiring to provide material support for terrorism, specifically for Al Qaeda. It was less than a page long and added no details.
Muhammad Rabee al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian Islamist who was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 War on Terror. He is the younger brother of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is an Islamist militant organization that aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state. To that end, it is currently engaged in an insurgency campaign in the Maghreb and Sahel regions.
Abdelhakim Belhaj is a Libyan politician and military leader. He is the leader of the Islamist al-Watan Party and former head of the Tripoli Military Council. He was the emir of the defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi guerrilla group.
Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, or al-Salabi is a Muslim historian, religious scholar and Islamist politician from Libya. He was arrested by the Gaddafi regime, then left Libya and studied Islam in Saudi Arabia and Sudan during the 1990s. He then studied in Qatar under Yusuf al-Qaradawi and returned to Libya during the 2011 overthrow of Gaddafi and distributed weapons, money, and aid to Islamist groups in the country. His actions were criticized by members of the internationally recognized Libyan government under the National Transitional Council who he in turn criticized as being secular.
Ismail Abdel Salam Ahmed Haniyeh is a senior political leader of Hamas and formerly one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority. Haniyeh became prime minister after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah–Hamas conflict, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip. In September 2016, reports indicated Haniyeh would replace Khaled Mashal as Chief of Hamas's Political Bureau. He was elected as Hamas political chief on 6 May 2017.
Sana-ul-Haq, better known as Asim Umar, was an Indian militant and the leader of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the creation of AQIS and introduced Asim Umar as its leader in a video posted online in September 2014.
Since the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, allegations of Saudi Arabian government involvement in the attacks have been made, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regularly denying such claims.