Making Sense of Muslim Fundamentalisms: The Clash Within Islam by Nimrod Hurvitz & Eli Alshech

Author:Nimrod Hurvitz & Eli Alshech [Hurvitz, Nimrod & Alshech, Eli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367856465
Google: YAs_zQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 50607751
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-01-15T10:59:44+00:00

Militants – debate over public support

This disagreement among militant fundamentalists surfaced in the aforementioned letter that Ayman al-Zawahiri sent to Abu Musʻab al-Zarqawi in which he cautioned that the removal of apostate rulers in Arab countries “will not be accomplished by the mujahid movement while it is cut off from public support.”22 Al-Zawahiri, who initiated jihad campaigns against Westerners and Muslims alike, was aware that indiscriminate terror leads to the loss of public support. By contrast, al-Zarqawi, a former street thug from Zarqa, who seemed intoxicated by his new power and the adulation of the young fighters that surrounded him, threw caution to the wind.

Al-Zawahiri’s candid criticism was risky. Al-Zarqawi was considered by many aficionados of al-Qaeda to be a military success story. The heavy losses that his men inflicted on the Americans, coupled with his reckless policies and sadistic exhibitionism, transformed the petty criminal into a hero. People had high hopes for this ruthless young leader, who was bleeding the Americans dry. In fact, many believed that he would drive America out of Iraq, just as the Somalis had forced American soldiers out of Somalia in the early 1990s and as the mujahidin drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan. However, despite his success in winning the admiration of a certain segment inside the movement, he was losing the support of large swathes of Iraqi society, and Muslims in general. This, in Zawahiri’s view was detrimental to al-Qaeda’s long-term strategy.

Al-Zawahiri sought for al-Qaeda to become “a consensus.” To achieve this goal, it had to be perceived as “palatable,” even inspiring. It had to take into account the public’s views, beliefs and sensitivities, manipulating them skillfully. For our purposes, it is the importance that al-Zawahiri ascribes to the media that is most interesting. He addresses its ability to shape public opinion directly: “more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”23 Time and again, al-Zawahiri drove home the message that al-Zarqawi’s military achievements were counter-productive because they led to the loss of public support.

Al-Zarqawi’s critics were painfully aware that in past clashes with strong regimes, in Egypt and Syria in the 1980s and 1990s, they were driven out of these countries. Despite those failures, Iraq was seen by al-Qaeda as a golden opportunity if they handled their affairs adroitly, because of the vacuum created when the Americans removed Saddam Hussein from power and dismantled his security forces. In light of this opportunity al-Zawahiri wrote of al-Qaeda’s plans: “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or Amirate,…The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.”24 These three stages hinge upon one crucial achievement – attaining the “popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries.”25

Rejecting this advice, al-Zarqawi continued on his path of blind terror. As a consequence, in 2007, several major Iraqi tribes broke away from al-Qaeda and teamed up with American forces. They established the Sunni Awakening Movements, whose members were disillusioned with al-Qaeda’s cruelty and rigid implementation of Islamic law.

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