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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 state known as the 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, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a Saudi-born Islamic dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. Bin Laden is most widely known as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
There were several video and audio recordings released by Osama bin Laden between 2001 and 2011.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022.
In Islam, Taqiyya is a precautionary dissimulation or denial of religious belief and practice. Generally, taqiyya is the action of committing a sinful act for a pious goal.
Richard Alan Clarke is an American national security expert, novelist, and former government official. He served as the Counterterrorism Czar for the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-Terrorism for the United States between 1998 and 2003.
Michael F. Scheuer, is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies. One assignment during his 22-year career was serving as Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station from 1996 to 1999. He also served as Special Advisor to the Chief of Alec Station from September 2001 to November 2004.
Abu Musab al-Suri, born Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar, is a suspected Al-Qaeda member and writer best known for his 1,600-page book The Global Islamic Resistance Call. He has held Spanish citizenship since the late 1980s following marriage to a Spanish woman. He is wanted in Spain for the 1985 El Descanso bombing, which killed eighteen people in a restaurant in Madrid, and in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings. He is considered by many as 'the most articulate exponent of the modern jihad and its most sophisticated strategist'.
Osama bin Laden authored two fatāwā in the late 1990s. The first was published in August 1996 and the second in February 1998. At the time, bin Laden was not a wanted man in any country except his native Saudi Arabia, and was not yet known as the leader of the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda. Therefore, these fatāwā received relatively little attention until after the August 1998 United States embassy bombings, for which bin Laden was indicted. The indictment mentions the first fatwā, and claims that Khalid al-Fawwaz, of bin Laden's Advice and Reformation Committee in London, participated in its communication to the press.
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.
Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul is a Yemeni citizen who has been held as an enemy combatant since 2002 in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He boycotted the Guantanamo Military Commissions, arguing that there was no legal basis for the military tribunals to judge him.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is an author and the founder and chief executive officer of Valens Global. In addition to his role at Valens Global, Dr. Gartenstein-Ross is a Senior Advisor on Asymmetric Warfare at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. An internationally-recognized expert on political violence, his work primarily focuses on the development of strategic plans, execution of analytic projects, and instruction at the professional and academic levels. In 2011, Gartenstein-Ross wrote Bin Laden's Legacy: Why We're Still Losing the War on Terror.
Ed Husain is a British author and a professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University. As a political advisor he has worked with leaders and governments across the world. He is also a senior fellow and director of the Atlantic Council’s N7 Initiative which is focused on peace in the Middle East and broadening and strengthening relationships between Israel and its Arab and Muslim neighbours. He has held senior fellowships at think tanks in London and New York, including at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) at the height of the Arab uprisings (2010–2015). While at CFR, his policy innovation memo led to the US-led creation of a Geneva-based global fund to help counter terrorism. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on terrorism and insurgency.
Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from prominent militant Islamist scholars and ideologues from the classical to contemporary eras, such as Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Sayyid Qutb, Nizamuddin Shamzai and Abdullah Azzam. During his middle and high school years, bin Laden was educated in Al-Thager Model School, a public school in Jeddah run by Islamist exiles of the Muslim Brotherhood; during which he was immensely influenced by pan-Islamist ideals and displayed strict religious commitment. As a teenager, bin Laden attended and led Muslim Brotherhood-run "Awakening" camps held on desert outskirts that intended to raise the youth in religious values, instil martial spirit and sought spiritual seclusion from "the corruptions" of modernity and rapidly urbanising society of the 1970s in Saudi Arabia.
Bruce O. Riedel is an American expert on U.S. security, South Asia, and counter-terrorism. He is currently a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He also serves as a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group.
Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, kunya Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, is a Mauritanian Islamic scholar and poet previously associated with al-Qaeda. A veteran of the Soviet–Afghan War, he served on al-Qaeda's Shura Council and ran a religious school called the Institute of Islamic Studies in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from the late 1990s until the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
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.
The September 11 attacks were carried out by 19 hijackers of the Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda. In the 1990s, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declared a holy war against the United States, and issued two fatāwā in 1996 and 1998. In the 1996 fatwā, he quoted the Sword Verse. In both of these fatāwā, bin Laden sharply criticized the financial contributions of the American government to the Saudi royal family as well as American military intervention in the Arab world.
An End to al-Qaeda: Destroying Bin Laden's Jihad and Restoring America's Honor is a non-fiction book about counterterrorism strategies towards al-Qaeda, written by U.S. Navy retired cryptology analyst Malcolm Nance. The book describes how the September 11 attacks changed the traditional Muslim community around the globe. Nance criticizes the approach of the George W. Bush administration, including the verbiage and public presentations used in the War on Terror. The author argues al-Qaeda is not part of Islam but is instead a dangerous religious cult. Nance writes the United States should commit to better education with a public relations campaign to encourage traditional believers in Islam around the world to denounce al-Qaeda.
References
- ↑ "Terrorist letter's validity doubted". The Washington Times . October 18, 2005.
- ↑ Min, Brian (July 1, 2019). "U.S. Army War College disinvites speaker critical of Islam". The College Fix . Retrieved August 15, 2020.
- ↑ Bale, Jeffrey M. (2013). "Denying the Link between Islamist Ideology and Jihadist Terrorism: "Political Correctness" and the Undermining of Counterterrorism". Perspectives on Terrorism . 7 (5): 5–46.
- 1 2 "In Their Own Words; Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri explain their bloody actions." Archived 2012-11-03 at the Wayback Machine , The Washington Post , October 7, 2007
- ↑ "Raymond Ibrahim". Hoover Institution. Retrieved April 21, 2017.
- ↑ "Bin Laden writings to be translated", USA Today , Associated Press, January 20, 2005
- 1 2 "Fellows". Middle East Forum.
- ↑ Pertwee, Ed (October 2017). 'Green Crescent, Crimson Cross': The Transatlantic 'Counterjihad' and the New Political Theology (PDF). London School of Economics. p. 268.
- ↑ Ibrahim, Raymond (26 February 2009). "Taqiyya Revisited: A Response to the Critics".
- ↑ "Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst - Special Reports". Archived from the original on 2009-03-03. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
- ↑ "Interpreting Taqiyya: Special Report", Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst. IHS Jane's Information Group. November 12, 2008.
- ↑ "Taqiyya Revisited: A Response to the Critics". Raymond Ibrahim. 26 February 2009.
