Washington's Dark Secret by John Maszka

Author:John Maszka [Maszka, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: POL037000 Political Science / Terrorism
ISBN: 9781640121096
Publisher: Potomac Books
Published: 2018-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Al-Qaeda’s Strategic Object

In the previous chapters, I’ve established that terrorism is perhaps much older than one might have guessed and that a number of the foundational principles of modern jihadism are not so modern after all.

I now continue my investigation by comparing and contrasting the ideological underpinnings of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. I’ll begin with a brief discussion of al-Qaeda and then progress to a more thorough discussion of IS. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have received so much media coverage that it need not be repeated here. Therefore, my discussion of al-Qaeda will be limited to a discussion of its core ideological composition.

Bin Laden largely picked up where his mentor, Abdullah Azzam, left off. He adopted both defensive and offensive forms of militant jihad, as well as the concept that universal jihad was a personal duty. One sees this last influence in bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa (quoted above).

The fact that bin Laden embraced the legitimacy of waging militant jihad in defense of Muslim soil is evident in his offer to employ al-Qaeda fighters to protect Saudi Arabia from a potential Iraqi invasion. Bin Laden also clearly embraced the legitimacy of waging offensive militant jihad as is evident by al-Qaeda’s basic overall strategy: (1) attack the far enemy in order to weaken the corrupt puppet regimes of the Middle East, and (2) liberate the international Muslim community by toppling those very regimes―at the very top of the list was the ruling family in Saudi Arabia.1

Bin Laden denounced the Saudi regime for its willingness to cooperate with the West and particularly for accommodating the American military on what he regarded as sacred Muslim soil. In this regard one can clearly trace the influences of Ibn Taymiyyah and Al-Wahhab in bin Laden’s pronouncement of takfir on the House of Saud.2

Like Qutb, bin Laden and Zawahiri embraced the vision of a vanguard and the necessity of the use of military force to establish a Muslim state. In no election would al-Qaeda be found on the ticket (you may recall that this was Zawahiri’s main contention with the more moderate political aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood).

However, bin Laden and Zawahiri also wanted to build and safeguard popular opinion among the worldwide Muslim community so as not to tarnish the al-Qaeda brand.3 To an extent they also believed that the Muslims were largely ignorant of Islam (brainwashed by corrupting influences), and therefore they had to be taught. In this respect they were waging a campaign to win hearts and minds more in line with al-Banna and the moderates in the Muslim Brotherhood that Zawahiri despised.4

Finally, al-Qaeda clearly broke with the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of attacking the near enemy in favor of the strategy spelled out above. This decision was no doubt informed by Azzam’s tremendous influence on the young bin Laden. But it was also due to al-Qaeda’s sheer inability to overthrow the Saudi regime, which bin Laden attributed to American support. If al-Qaeda could have overthrown the Saudi regime, it most definitely would have. It certainly tried.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.