Crushed in the Shadows: Why Al Qaeda Will Lose the War of Ideas

Abstract

As a network of affiliate groups, Al Qaeda's more diffuse structure, since the end of 2001, is described as one of its greatest strengths. Certainly, after losing its territorial base in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda as “network” has gained in tactical agility and global reach. This article argues, however, that Osama bin Laden's ceding of command-and-control to autonomous Al Qaeda “franchises” represents an important source of weakness in the battle for hearts and minds in the Muslim world. As Al Qaeda's global jihad is increasingly imported by its affiliates into local and sectarian conflicts, the death toll is largely Muslim and civilian. The targeting of Muslim civilians is exceptionally difficult to justify, morally, theologically, and by bin Laden's own standards of legitimate jihad. This article will show how the killing of Muslim civilians undermines the crucial lynchpins of bin Laden's ideology and alienates the popular support that “Al Qaeda central” see as indispensable to Al Qaeda's success.

Notes

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5. Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, p. 272.

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10. Bruce Hoffman, “Lessons from Mumbai,” The National Interest, 1 December 2008. See also Hoffman, “Innovative, Ruthless, Disciplined Terrorism Stalks Us Again,” The Sunday Times, 30 November 2008.

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20. World Islamic Front fatwa, 23 February 1998, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 61.

21. Letter to the Americans, 6 October 2002, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 162.

22. Videotape message, 29 November 2004, in Mansfield, In His Own Words, p. 236.

23. Interview with Al-Jazeera, December 1998, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 76.

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26. Videotape address of 29 October 2004, p. 238.

27. Statement of 26 December 2001, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 150.

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31. Interview with Alluni, p. 121.

32. Interview with Mir, p. 141.

33. Audiotape address to the International Conference of Deobandis, 9 April 2001, p. 96. This is surely an implicit reference to the hadith, which describes “the believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties [as] like one body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.”

34. Audiotape address to the People of Iraq, 11 February 2003, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 181.

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37. Interview with Alluni, p. 118.

38. Videotape address of 29 October 2004, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 240.

39. Interview with Alluni, p. 119.

40. Interview with Mir, p. 140.

41. “Jihad and the Superiority of Martyrdom,” reprinted in Raymond Ibrahim, The Al-Qaeda Reader (New York: Broadway Books, 2007), pp. 141–171.

42. Interview with Alluni, p. 114.

43. Statement of 16 December 2004, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 262.

44. See “Audio Message from Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi—Commander of Al-Qaeda's Jihad Committee in Mesopotamia,” 18 November 2005. Available at www.globalterroralert.com

45. “An Interview with Abdulmalek Droukdal,” New York Times, 1 July 2008.

46. Interview with Mir, p. 140.

47. Yusuf al-Ayiri applied exactly this argument to excuse the killing of Muslims in operations conducted in Western countries. Because the Muslims are living among legitimate targets, they are effectively serving as human shields for the enemy.

48. Rahimullah Yousafsai interview with Osama bin Laden, 22 December 1998. Available at http://www.jihadunspun.com/BinLadensNetwork/interviews/abc01–1998.html (accessed 6 March 2006).

49. “Jihad and the Superiority of Martyrdom,” reprinted in Raymond Ibrahim, The Al-Qaeda Reader (New York: Broadway Books, 2007), p. 163.

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51. Ayiri, “The Islamic Ruling.”

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53. Al-Zawahiri, “Jihad and the Superiority of Martyrdom,” p. 157.

54. David Cook, Martyrdom in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 46.

55. See Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, pp. 47–50.

56. See Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 137–139.

57. Bin Laden statement of 14 February 2003, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 202.

58. Audiotape address, 9 April 2001, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 96.

59. See “Al-Qaeda Call on Muslims to Fight Israel,” CNN, 28 July 2006. Available at http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/27/zawahiri.tape/index.html (accessed 1 April 2008). Hizballah's leadership made it clear, however, that Al Qaeda's support was not wanted.

60. Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, p. 259.

61. See Michael Scheuer, “Abu Yahya al-Libi: Al-Qaeda's Theological Enforcer—Part 2,” Terrorism Focus 4(27) (14 August 2007). Available at http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373619 (accessed 2 December 2007).

62. Statement faxed to Al-Jazeera, 24 September 2001, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 101.

63. This mysterious leader of the jihadi umbrella group “The Islamic State of Iraq” is also known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

64. Mohammed M. Hafez, Suicide Bombers in Iraq (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press [2007]), p. 73.

65. Abu Abdullah Ahmad al-Imran in Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W. W. Norton [2007]), p. 246.

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67. Letter from Atiyeh to al-Zarqawi.

68. “Bin Laden Issues Iraq Message,” Al-Jazeera, 23 October 2007.

69. Although Roy was writing in 1994, this observation is striking for its applicability to Afghan politics today.

70. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994), pp. 200–201.

71. “By pronouncing takfir against the whole of society… Zouabri gave his blessing to a sectarian tendency within the group that gradually cut it off from any possible base within Algerian society, and even within the ranks of the young urban poor from whom its support had originally come.” Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), p. 273.

72. Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus'ab Al-Suri (London: Hurst, 2007), pp. 122–125.

73. Ibid., p. 155.

74. Ibid., p. 3.

75. Brynjar Lia, “Dissidents in al-Qaida: Abu Mus'ab al-Suri's Critique of bin Laden and the Salafi-Jihadi Current,” lecture at Princeton University, 3 December 2007.

76. Ibid.

77. Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), p. 154.

78. Interview with Al-Jazeera, December 1998, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 74.

79. Sheikh Salman al-Odah, “A Ramadan Letter to Osama bin Laden,” aired on MBC Television, 14 November 2007. Available at http://www.islamtoday.com/showme2.cfm?cat_id=29&sub_cat_id=1521 (accessed 10 December 2007).

80. “Major Jihadi Cleric and Author of Al-Qaeda's Sharia Guide to Jihad Sayyed Imam vs. Al-Qaeda (2),” MEMRI, 25 January 2008. Available at http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP182608 (accessed 25 January 2008).

81. Quoted in Khalil al-Anani, “Jihadi Revisionism: Will It Save the World?” Middle East Brief (Brandeis University), no. 35 (April 2009), p. 5.

82. See Abdul Hameed Bakier, “Al-Qaeda's Al-Zawahiri Repudiates Dr. Fadl's ‘Rationalisations of the Jihad,’” Terrorism Focus 5(17) (20 April 2008).

83. “Dispute in Islamic Circles over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shiites, and Non-combatant Non-Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq,” MEMRI, 11 September 2005. Available at http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA23905 (accessed 11 February 2008).

84. “Prominent Salafi Jihadist Sheikh Tries to Quell Escalating Strife Between Al-Qaeda and Awakening Movement in Iraq,” MEMRI, 15 January 2008. Available at http://memri.org/1bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD181108 (accessed 16 January 2008).

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87. Reprinted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, p. 352.

88. See my Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming June 2010).

89. Statement of 26 December 2001, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 147.

90. For after the East Africa bombings, see interview with Al-Jazeera, p. 76; for after the 11 September attacks, see interview with Alluni, p. 107.

91. Michael Scheuer, “Coalition Warfare: How Al-Qaeda Uses the World Islamic Front Against Crusaders and Jews—Part 1,” Terrorism Focus 2(7) (31 March 2005). Available at http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369530 (accessed 3 November 2007).

92. Bruce Hoffman, “The External Links, Leadership and Support Network: The 7 July 2005 Bombings and the 2006 Airline Bombing Plot,” conference paper presented to the Pluscarden Programme for the Study of Global Terrorism and Intelligence, “Countering Home-Grown Terrorism,” 23 March 2009, p. 17.

93. Bin Laden, Address to the People of Europe, in Lawrence, Messages to the World, p. 234.

94. Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh in Turki Al-Saheil, “Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Talks to Asharaq Al-Awsat,” Al-Sharaq Al-Awsat, 1 October 2008. For more on Al Qaeda's violence as communication, see the author's “Asymétrie Morale” in Didier Danet, Christian Malis, and Hew Strachan, eds., La Guerre Irrégulière (Paris: Economica [forthcoming October 2010]).

95. Al-Odah, “A Ramadan Letter.”