Death of Osama bin Laden
 | This section documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
On May 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (May 2, Pakistan Standard Time), U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under Obama's direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan,[137][138] about 50 km (31 mi) north of Islamabad.[139] According to U.S. officials a team of 20–25 US Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command and working with the CIA stormed bin Laden's compound in two helicopters. Bin Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which U.S. forces experienced no injuries or casualties.[140] According to one US official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the Pakistani authorities.[141] In Pakistan some people were reported to be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces.[142] The site is a few miles from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.[143] In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that U.S. forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties."[144] Details soon emerged that three men and a woman were killed along with Bin Laden, the woman being killed when she was “used as a shield by a male combatant”.[141] DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister,[145] confirmed bin Laden's identity.[146] The body was recovered by the US military and was in its custody[138] until, according to one US official, his body was buried at sea according to Islamic traditions.[139][147] One U.S. official stated that "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult."[148] U.S State Department issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following Bin Laden's death and U.S Diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior U.S official said.[149] Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Time Square to celebrate Bin Laden's death.[150]
Attacks
Al-Qaeda has carried out a total of six major terrorist attacks, four of them in its jihad against America. In each case the leadership planned the attack years in advance, arranging for the shipment of weapons and explosives and using its privatized businesses to provide operatives with safehouses and false identities.
Al-Qaeda usually does not disburse funds for attacks, and very rarely makes wire transfers.[151]
1992
On December 29, 1992, al-Qaeda's first terrorist attack took place as two bombs were detonated in Aden,Yemen. The first target was the Movenpick Hotel and the second was the parking lot of the Goldmohur Hotel.
The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope. Internally, al-Qaeda considered the bombing a victory that frightened the Americans away, but in the U.S. the attack was barely noticed.
No Americans were killed because the soldiers were staying in a different hotel altogether, and they went on to Somalia as scheduled. However little noticed, the attack was pivotal as it was the beginning of al-Qaeda's change in direction, from fighting armies to killing civilians.[152] Two people were killed in the bombing, an Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker. Seven others, mostly Yemenis, were severely injured.
Two fatwas are said to have been appointed by the most theologically knowledgeable of al-Qaeda's members,Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, to justify the killings according to Islamic law. Salim referred to a famous fatwa appointed by Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century scholar much admired by Wahhabis, which sanctioned resistance by any means during the Mongol invasions.[153][unreliable source?]
1993 World Trade Center bombing
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack was intended to break the foundation of Tower One knocking it into Tower Two, bringing the entire complex down.
Yousef hoped this would kill 250,000 people. The towers shook and swayed but the foundation held and he succeeded in killing only six people (although he injured 1,042 others and caused nearly $300 million in property damage).[154][155][page needed]
After the attack, Yousef fled to Pakistan and later moved to Manila. There he began developing the Bojinka Plot plans to implode a dozen American airliners simultaneously, to assassinate Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton, and to crash a private plane into CIA headquarters. He was later captured in Pakistan.[154]
None of the U.S. government's indictments against bin Laden have suggested that he had any connection with this bombing, but Ramzi Yousef is known to have attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. After his capture, Yousef declared that his primary justification for the attack was to punish the U.S. for its support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and made no mention of any religious motivations.[155]
Late 1990s
In 1996, bin Laden personally engineered a plot to assassinate Clinton while the president was in Manila for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. However, intelligence agents intercepted a message just minutes before the motorcade was to leave, and alerted the U.S. Secret Service. Agents later discovered a bomb planted under a bridge.[156]
The 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, resulting in upward of 300 deaths, mostly locals. A barrage of cruise missiles launched by the U.S. military in response devastated an al-Qaeda base in Khost, Afghanistan, but the network's capacity was unharmed.
In October 2000, al-Qaeda militants in Yemen bombed the missile destroyer U.S.S. Cole in a suicide attack, killing 17 U.S. servicemen and damaging the vessel while it lay offshore. Inspired by the success of such a brazen attack, al-Qaeda's command core began to prepare for an attack on the U.S. itself.
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11, 2001, attacks were the most devastating terrorist acts in American history, killing approximately 3,000 people. Two commercial airliners were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center towers, a third into The Pentagon, and a fourth, originally intended to target the U.S. Capitol, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the U.S. and its allies by military forces under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others.[157] Evidence points to suicide squads led by al-Qaeda military commanderMohamed Atta as the culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali as the key planners and part of the political and military command.
Messages issued by bin Laden after September 11, 2001, praised the attacks, and explained their motivation while denying any involvement.[158] Bin Laden legitimized the attacks by identifying grievances felt by both mainstream and Islamist Muslims, such as the general perception that the U.S. was actively oppressing Muslims.[159]
Bin Laden asserted that America was massacring Muslims in 'Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq' and that Muslims should retain the 'right to attack in reprisal'. He also claimed the 9/11 attacks were not targeted at women and children, but 'America's icons of military and economic power'.[160]
Evidence has since come to light that the original targets for the attack may have been nuclear power stations on the east coast of the U.S. The targets were later altered by al-Qaeda, as it was feared that such an attack "might get out of hand".[161][162]
Designation as terrorist organization
Al-Qaeda has been designated a terrorist organization by the following countries and international organizations:
War on Terrorism
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the U.S. government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the U.S. attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were Paramilitary Officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).
The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the U.S. would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. U.S. President George W. Bushresponded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over",[181] and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power".[182]
Soon thereafter the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government in the war in Afghanistan.
As a result of the U.S. using its special forces and providing air support for the Northern Alliance ground forces, both Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps were destroyed, and much of the operating structure of al-Qaeda is believed to have been disrupted. After being driven from their key positions in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, many al-Qaeda fighters tried to regroup in the rugged Gardez region of the nation.
Again, under the cover of intense aerial bombardment, U.S. infantry and local Afghan forces attacked, shattering the al-Qaeda position and killing or capturing many of the militants. By early 2002, al-Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow to its operational capacity, and the Afghan invasion appeared an initial success. Nevertheless, a significant Taliban insurgency remains in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's top two leaders, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, evaded capture.
Debate raged about the exact nature of al-Qaeda's role in the 9/11 attacks, and after the U.S. invasion began, the U.S. State Department also released a videotape showing bin Laden speaking with a small group of associates somewhere in Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban was removed from power.[183] Although its authenticity has been questioned by some,[184] the tape appears to implicate bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and was aired on many television channels all over the world, with an accompanying English translation provided by the U.S. Defense Department.
In September 2004, the U.S. government commission investigating the September 11 attacks officially concluded that the attacks were conceived and implemented by al-Qaeda operatives.[185] In October 2004, bin Laden appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks in a videotape released through Al Jazeera, saying he was inspired by Israeli attacks on high-rises in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: "As I looked at those demolished towers inLebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."[186]
By the end of 2004, the U.S. government proclaimed that two-thirds of the most senior al-Qaeda figures from 2001 had been captured and interrogated by the CIA: Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002;[187] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003; and Saif al Islam el Masry in 2004.[citation needed] Mohammed Atef and several others were killed.
Activities
Africa
Al-Qaeda involvement in Africa has included a number of bombing attacks in North Africa, as well as supporting parties in civil wars in Eritreaand Somalia. From 1991 to 1996, bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan.
Islamist rebels in the Sahara calling themselves Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have stepped up their violence in recent years.[189] French officials[citation needed] say the rebels have no real links to the al-Qaeda leadership, but this is a matter of some dispute in the international press and amongst security analysts. It seems likely that bin Laden approved the group's name in late 2006, and the rebels "took on the al Qaeda franchise label", almost a year before the violence began to escalate.[190]
Europe
In 2003, Islamists carried out a series of bombings in Istanbul killing fifty-seven people and injuring seven hundred. Seventy-four people were charged by the Turkish authorities. Some had previously met Bin Laden, and though they specifically declined to pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda they asked for its blessing and help.[191][192]
In 2009, three Londoners, Tanvir Hussain, Assad Sarwar and Ahmed Abdullah Ali, were convicted of conspiring to detonate bombs disguised as soft drinks on seven airplanes bound for Canada and the U.S. The massively complex police and MI5 investigation of the plot involved more than a year of surveillance work conducted by over two hundred officers.[193][194] British and U.S. officials said the plan—unlike many recent homegrown European terrorist plots—was directly linked to al-Qaeda and guided by senior Islamic militants in Pakistan.[195][196]
Arab world
Following Yemeni unification in 1990, Wahhabi networks began moving missionaries into the country in an effort to subvert the capitalist north. Although it is unlikely bin Laden or Saudi al-Qaeda were directly involved, the personal connections they made would be established over the next decade and used in the USS Cole bombing.[197][citation needed] Concerns grow over Al Qaeda's group in Yemen.[198]
In Iraq, al-Qaeda forces loosely associated with the leadership were embedded in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded byAbu Musab al-Zarqawi. Specializing in suicide operations, they have been a "key driver" of the Sunni insurgency.[199] Although they played a small part in the overall insurgency, between 30% and 42% of all suicide bombings which took place in the early years were claimed by Zarqawi's organization.[200] Reports have indicated that oversights such as the failure to control access to the Qa'qaa munitions factory inYusufiyah have allowed large quantities of munitions to fall into the hands of al-Qaida.[201] In November 2010, the Islamic State of Iraq militant group, which is linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, threatened to "exterminate Iraqi Christians".[202][203]
Significantly, it was not until the late 1990s that al-Qaeda began training Palestinians. This is not to suggest that resistance fighters are underrepresented in the network as a number of Palestinians, mostly coming from Jordan, wanted to join and have risen to serve high-profile roles in Afghanistan.[204] Rather, large groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—which cooperate with al-Qaeda in many respects—have had difficulties accepting a strategic alliance, fearing that Al-Qaeda will co-opt their smaller cells. This may have changed recently, as Israeli security and intelligence services believe al-Qaeda has managed to infiltrate operatives from the Occupied Territories into Israel, and is waiting for the right time to mount an attack.[204]
Kashmir
Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri consider India to be a part of the ‘Crusader-Zionist-Hindu’ conspiracy against the Islamic world.[205] According to the 2005 report 'Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment' by Congressional Research Service, bin Laden was involved in training militants for Jihad in Kashmir while living in Sudan in the early nineties. By 2001 Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen had become a part of the Al-Qaeda coalition.[206] According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Al-Qaeda is thought to have established bases in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during the 1999 Kargil War and continues to operate there with tacit approval of Pakistan's Intelligence services.[207]
Many of the militants active in Kashmir were trained in the same Madrasahs as Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Fazlur Rehman Khalil of Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was a signatory of Al-Qaeda's 1998 declaration of Jihad against America and its allies.[208] In a 'Letter to American People' written by bin Laden in 2002 he stated that one of the reasons he was fighting America is because of her support to India on the Kashmir issue.[209][210] In November 2001 Kathmandu airport went on high alert after threats that Bin Laden planned to hijack a plane from there and crash it into a target in New Delhi.[211] In 2002 U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on a trip to Delhi, suggested that Al-Qaeda was active in Kashmir though he did not have any hard evidence.[212][213] He proposed hi tech ground sensors along the line of control to prevent militants from infiltrating into Indian administered Kashmir.[213] An investigation in 2002 unearthed evidence that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates were prospering in Pakistan-administered Kashmir with tacit approval of Pakistan's National Intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence[214] In 2002 a special team of Special Air Service and Delta Force was sent into Indian Administered Kashmir to hunt for Bin Laden after reports that he was being sheltered by Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen which had previously been responsible for 1995 Kidnapping of western tourists in Kashmir.[215]Britain's highest ranking Al-qaeda operative Rangzieb Ahmed had previously fought in Kashmir with the group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and spent time in Indian prison after being captured in Kashmir.[216]
U.S. officials believe that Al-Qaeda was helping organize a campaign of terror in Kashmir in order to provoke conflict between India and Pakistan.[217] Their strategy was to force Pakistan to move its troops to the border with India, thereby relieving pressure on Al-Qaeda elements hiding in northwestern Pakistan.[218] In 2006 Al-Qaeda claimed they had established a wing in Kashmir; this has worried the Indian government.[208][219] However the Indian Army Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, GOC-in-C Northern Command, said to reporters that the army has ruled out the presence of Al-Qaeda in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir; furthermore he said that there is nothing that can verify reports from the media of Al-Qaeda presence in the state. He however stated that Al-Qaeda had strong ties with Kashmiri militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed based in Pakistan.[220] It has been noted that Waziristan has now become the new battlefield for Kashmiri militants fighting NATO in support of Al-Qaeda and Taliban.[221][222][223] Dhiren Barot, who wrote the Army of Madinah In Kashmir[224] and was an Al-Qaeda operative convicted for involvement in the 2004 financial buildings plot, had received training in weapons and explosives at a militant training camp in Kashmir.[225]
Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of another Kashmiri group Jaish-e-Mohammed, is believed to have met bin Laden several times and received funding from him.[208] In 2002 Jaish-e-Mohammed organized the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl in an operation run in conjunction with Al-Qaeda and funded by Bin Laden.[226] According to American counter-terrorismexpert Bruce Riedel, Al-Qaeda and Taliban were closely involved in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 to Kandahar which led to the release of Maulana Masood Azhar &Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh from an Indian prison in exchange for the passengers. This hijacking, Riedel stated, was rightly described by then Indian Foreign minister Jaswant Singh as a 'dress rehearsal' for September 11 attacks [227] Bin laden personally welcomed Azhar and threw a lavish party in his honor after his release, according to Abu Jandal, bodyguard of Bin Laden.[228][229] Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been in Indian prison for his role in 1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, went on to murder Daniel Pearl and was sentenced to death by Pakistan. Al-Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf, who was one of the accused in 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, was related to Maulana Masood Azhar by marriage.[230]
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri militant group which is thought to be behind 2008 Mumbai attacks, is also known to have strong ties to senior Al-Qaeda leaders living in Pakistan.[231] In Late 2002 top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested while being sheltered by Lashkar-e-Taiba in a safe house in Faisalabad.[232] The FBI believes that Al-Qaeda and Lashkar have been 'intertwined' for a long time while the CIA has said that Al-Qaeda funds Lashkar-e-Taiba.[232] French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was the top French counter-terrorism official, told Reuters in 2009 that 'Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a member of al-Qaeda.'[233][234]
In a video released in 2008, senior Al-Qaeda operative Adam Yahiye Gadahn stated that "victory in Kashmir has been delayed for years; it is the liberation of the jihad there from this interference which, Allah willing, will be the first step towards victory over the Hindu occupiers of that Islam land."[235]
In September 2009 a U.S. Drone strike reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri who was the chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, a Kashmiri militant group associated with Al-Qaeda.[236] Kashmiri was described by Bruce Riedel as a 'prominent' Al-Qaeda member[237] while others have described him as head of military operations for Al-Qaeda.[238][239] Kashmiri was also charged by the U.S. in a plot against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper which was at the center of Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.[240] U.S. officials also believe that Kashmiri was involved in the Camp Chapman attack against the CIA.[241] In January 2010 Indian authorities notified Britain of an Al-Qaeda plot to hijack an Indian airlines or Air India plane and crash it into a British city. This information was uncovered from interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, an operative of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, who had been arrested in India.[242]
In January 2010 U.S. Defense secretary Robert Gates, while on a visit to Pakistan, stated that Al-Qaeda was seeking to destabilize the region and planning to provoke a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.[243]
Internet
Timothy L. Thomas claims that in the wake of its evacuation from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and its successors have migrated online to escape detection in an atmosphere of increased international vigilance. As a result, the organization's use of the Internet has grown more sophisticated, encompassing financing, recruitment, networking, mobilization, publicity, as well as information dissemination, gathering and sharing.[244]
Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s al-Qaeda movement in Iraq regularly releases short videos glorifying the activity of jihadist suicide bombers. In addition, both before and after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq), the umbrella organization to which al-Qaeda in Iraq belongs, the Mujahideen Shura Council, has a regular presence on the Web. The range of multimedia content includes guerrilla training clips, stills of victims about to be murdered, testimonials of suicide bombers, and videos that show participation in jihad through stylized portraits of mosques and musical scores. A website associated with al-Qaeda posted a video of captured American entrepreneur Nick Berg being decapitated in Iraq. Other decapitation videos and pictures, including those of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il, and Daniel Pearl, were first posted on jihadist websites.
In December 2004 an audio message claiming to be from Bin Laden was posted directly to a website, rather than sending a copy to al Jazeera as he had done in the past.
Al-Qaeda turned to the Internet for release of its videos in order to be certain it would be available unedited, rather than risk the possibility of al Jazeera editors editing the videos and cutting out anything critical of the Saudi royal family.[245] Bin Laden's December 2004 message was much more vehement than usual in this speech, lasting over an hour.
In the past, Alneda.com and Jehad.net were perhaps the most significant al-Qaeda websites. Alneda was initially taken down by American Jon Messner, but the operators resisted by shifting the site to various servers and strategically shifting content.
The U.S. is currently attempting to extradite a British information technology specialist, Babar Ahmad, on charges of operating a network of English-language al-Qaeda websites, such as Azzam.com.[246][247] Ahmad's extradition is opposed by various British Muslim organizations, such as the Muslim Association of Britain.
Aviation network
Al-Qaeda is believed to be operating a clandestine aviation network including “several Boeing 727 aircraft”, turboprops and executive jets, according to a Reuters story. Based on a U.S.Department of Homeland Security report, the story said that Al-Qaeda is possibly using aircraft to transport drugs and weapons from South America to various unstable countries in West Africa. A Boeing 727 can carry up to 10 tons of cargo. The drugs eventually are smuggled to Europe for distribution and sale, and the weapons are used in conflicts in Africa and possibly elsewhere. Gunmen with links to Al-Qaeda have been increasingly kidnapping some Europeans for ransom. The profits from the drug and weapon sales, and kidnappings can, in turn, fund more terrorism activities.[248]
Alleged CIA involvement
Experts debate whether or not the al-Qaeda attacks were blowback from the American CIA's "Operation Cyclone" program to help the Afghan mujahideen. Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, has written that al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies", and that "Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."[249]
Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations from 2002 to 2008, wrote in a letter published in the New York Times on January 19, 2008:
The strategy to support the Afghans against Soviet military intervention was evolved by several intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. After the Soviet withdrawal, the Western powers walked away from the region, leaving behind 40,000 militants imported from several countries to wage the anti-Soviet jihad. Pakistan was left to face the blowback of extremism, drugs and guns.[250]
A variety of sources—CNN journalist Peter Bergen, Pakistani ISI Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, and CIA operatives involved in the Afghan program, such as Vincent Cannistraro—deny that the CIA or other American officials had contact with the foreign mujahideen or Bin Laden, let alone armed, trained, coached or indoctrinated them.
This runs counter to the account of Milton Bearden, the CIA Field Officer for Afghanistan from 1985 to 1989, who distinctly recalls the unease he used to feel when meeting the Jihadi fighters: "The only times that I ran into any real trouble in Afghanistan was when I ran into 'these guys' – You know there'd be kind of a 'moment' or two that would look a little bit like the bar scene in Star Wars, ya know. Each group kinda jockeying around and finally somebody has to diffuse [sic] the situation."[251]
But Bergen and others argue that there was no need to recruit foreigners unfamiliar with the local language, customs or lay of the land since there were a quarter of a million local Afghans willing to fight;[252] that foreign mujahideen themselves had no need for American funds since they received several hundred million dollars a year from non-American, Muslim sources; that Americans could not have trained mujahideen because Pakistani officials would not allow more than a handful of them to operate in Pakistan and none in Afghanistan; and that the Afghan Arabs were almost invariably militant Islamists reflexively hostile to Westerners whether or not the Westerners were helping the Muslim Afghans.
According to Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with bin Laden in 1997, the idea that "the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden ...[is] a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. ... Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. ... The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him."[253] But as Bergen himself admitted, in one "strange incident" the CIA did appear to give visa help to mujahideen-recruiter Omar Abdel-Rahman.[254]
Criticism
According to a number of sources there has been a "wave of revulsion" against Al-Qaeda and its affiliates by "religious scholars, former fighters and militants" alarmed by Al-Qaeda'stakfir and killing of Muslims in Muslim countries, especially Iraq.[255]
Noman Benotman, a former Afghan Arab and militant of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, went public with an open letter of criticism to Ayman al-Zawahiri in November 2007 after persuading imprisoned senior leadership of his former group to enter into peace negotiations with the Libyan regime. While Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the affiliation of the group with Al-Qaeda in November 2007, the Libyan government released 90 members of the group from prison several months later after "they were said to have renounced violence."[256]
In 2007, around the sixth anniversary of September 11 and a couple of months before Rationalizing Jihad first appeared in the newspapers,[75] the Saudi sheikh Salman al-Ouda delivered a personal rebuke to bin Laden. Al-Ouda, a religious scholar and one of the fathers of the Sahwa, the fundamentalist awakening movement that swept through Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, is a widely respected critic of jihadism.[citation needed] Al-Ouda addressed Al-Qaeda's leader on television asking him
My brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocent people, children, elderly, and women have been killed ... in the name of Al-Qaeda? Will you be happy to meet God Almighty carrying the burden of these hundreds of thousands or millions [of victims] on your back?[257]
According to Pew polls, support for Al-Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in the years leading to 2008.[258] The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al-Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank.[259]
In 2007, the imprisoned Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, an influential Afghan Arab, "ideological godfather of Al-Qaeda", and former supporter of takfir, sensationally withdrew his support from al-Qaeda with a book Wathiqat Tarshid Al-'Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w'Al-'Alam (Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World).
Although once associated with al-Qaeda, in September 2009 LIFG completed a new "code" for jihad, a 417-page religious document entitled "Corrective Studies". Given its credibility and the fact that several other prominent Jihadists in the Middle East have turned against al-Qaeda, the LIFG's about face may be an important step toward staunching al-Qaeda's recruitment.[260]
See also
- 9/11 Commission
- Adam Yahiye Gadahn – an American-born member of al-Qaeda
- Al Qaeda Network Exord
- Alternative theories of Al-Qaeda
- Bin Laden Issue Station (former CIA unit for tracking Osama Bin Laden)
- Bosnian Mujahideen
- Steven Emerson
- Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
- List of designated terrorist organizations
- Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
- Operation Cannonball
- Psychological operations
- Religious terrorism
- Special Activities Division
- Takfir Wal Hijira
- Targeted killing
- Terrorist organizations as destructive cults
- Videos of Osama bin Laden
- Pakistan and state terrorism
| This section documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
On May 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (May 2, Pakistan Standard Time), U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under Obama's direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan,[137][138] about 50 km (31 mi) north of Islamabad.[139] According to U.S. officials a team of 20–25 US Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command and working with the CIA stormed bin Laden's compound in two helicopters. Bin Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which U.S. forces experienced no injuries or casualties.[140] According to one US official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the Pakistani authorities.[141] In Pakistan some people were reported to be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces.[142] The site is a few miles from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.[143] In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that U.S. forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties."[144] Details soon emerged that three men and a woman were killed along with Bin Laden, the woman being killed when she was “used as a shield by a male combatant”.[141] DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister,[145] confirmed bin Laden's identity.[146] The body was recovered by the US military and was in its custody[138] until, according to one US official, his body was buried at sea according to Islamic traditions.[139][147] One U.S. official stated that "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult."[148] U.S State Department issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following Bin Laden's death and U.S Diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior U.S official said.[149] Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Time Square to celebrate Bin Laden's death.[150]
Attacks
Al-Qaeda has carried out a total of six major terrorist attacks, four of them in its jihad against America. In each case the leadership planned the attack years in advance, arranging for the shipment of weapons and explosives and using its privatized businesses to provide operatives with safehouses and false identities.
Al-Qaeda usually does not disburse funds for attacks, and very rarely makes wire transfers.[151]
1992
On December 29, 1992, al-Qaeda's first terrorist attack took place as two bombs were detonated in Aden,Yemen. The first target was the Movenpick Hotel and the second was the parking lot of the Goldmohur Hotel.
The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope. Internally, al-Qaeda considered the bombing a victory that frightened the Americans away, but in the U.S. the attack was barely noticed.
No Americans were killed because the soldiers were staying in a different hotel altogether, and they went on to Somalia as scheduled. However little noticed, the attack was pivotal as it was the beginning of al-Qaeda's change in direction, from fighting armies to killing civilians.[152] Two people were killed in the bombing, an Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker. Seven others, mostly Yemenis, were severely injured.
Two fatwas are said to have been appointed by the most theologically knowledgeable of al-Qaeda's members,Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, to justify the killings according to Islamic law. Salim referred to a famous fatwa appointed by Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century scholar much admired by Wahhabis, which sanctioned resistance by any means during the Mongol invasions.[153][unreliable source?]
1993 World Trade Center bombing
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. The attack was intended to break the foundation of Tower One knocking it into Tower Two, bringing the entire complex down.
Yousef hoped this would kill 250,000 people. The towers shook and swayed but the foundation held and he succeeded in killing only six people (although he injured 1,042 others and caused nearly $300 million in property damage).[154][155][page needed]
After the attack, Yousef fled to Pakistan and later moved to Manila. There he began developing the Bojinka Plot plans to implode a dozen American airliners simultaneously, to assassinate Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton, and to crash a private plane into CIA headquarters. He was later captured in Pakistan.[154]
None of the U.S. government's indictments against bin Laden have suggested that he had any connection with this bombing, but Ramzi Yousef is known to have attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. After his capture, Yousef declared that his primary justification for the attack was to punish the U.S. for its support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and made no mention of any religious motivations.[155]
Late 1990s
In 1996, bin Laden personally engineered a plot to assassinate Clinton while the president was in Manila for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. However, intelligence agents intercepted a message just minutes before the motorcade was to leave, and alerted the U.S. Secret Service. Agents later discovered a bomb planted under a bridge.[156]
The 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, resulting in upward of 300 deaths, mostly locals. A barrage of cruise missiles launched by the U.S. military in response devastated an al-Qaeda base in Khost, Afghanistan, but the network's capacity was unharmed.
In October 2000, al-Qaeda militants in Yemen bombed the missile destroyer U.S.S. Cole in a suicide attack, killing 17 U.S. servicemen and damaging the vessel while it lay offshore. Inspired by the success of such a brazen attack, al-Qaeda's command core began to prepare for an attack on the U.S. itself.
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11, 2001, attacks were the most devastating terrorist acts in American history, killing approximately 3,000 people. Two commercial airliners were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center towers, a third into The Pentagon, and a fourth, originally intended to target the U.S. Capitol, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 fatwa issued against the U.S. and its allies by military forces under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others.[157] Evidence points to suicide squads led by al-Qaeda military commanderMohamed Atta as the culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Hambali as the key planners and part of the political and military command.
Messages issued by bin Laden after September 11, 2001, praised the attacks, and explained their motivation while denying any involvement.[158] Bin Laden legitimized the attacks by identifying grievances felt by both mainstream and Islamist Muslims, such as the general perception that the U.S. was actively oppressing Muslims.[159]
Bin Laden asserted that America was massacring Muslims in 'Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq' and that Muslims should retain the 'right to attack in reprisal'. He also claimed the 9/11 attacks were not targeted at women and children, but 'America's icons of military and economic power'.[160]
Evidence has since come to light that the original targets for the attack may have been nuclear power stations on the east coast of the U.S. The targets were later altered by al-Qaeda, as it was feared that such an attack "might get out of hand".[161][162]
Designation as terrorist organization
Al-Qaeda has been designated a terrorist organization by the following countries and international organizations:
War on Terrorism
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the U.S. government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the U.S. attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were Paramilitary Officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).
The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the U.S. would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. U.S. President George W. Bushresponded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over",[181] and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power".[182]
Soon thereafter the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government in the war in Afghanistan.
As a result of the U.S. using its special forces and providing air support for the Northern Alliance ground forces, both Taliban and al-Qaeda training camps were destroyed, and much of the operating structure of al-Qaeda is believed to have been disrupted. After being driven from their key positions in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, many al-Qaeda fighters tried to regroup in the rugged Gardez region of the nation.
Again, under the cover of intense aerial bombardment, U.S. infantry and local Afghan forces attacked, shattering the al-Qaeda position and killing or capturing many of the militants. By early 2002, al-Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow to its operational capacity, and the Afghan invasion appeared an initial success. Nevertheless, a significant Taliban insurgency remains in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's top two leaders, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, evaded capture.
Debate raged about the exact nature of al-Qaeda's role in the 9/11 attacks, and after the U.S. invasion began, the U.S. State Department also released a videotape showing bin Laden speaking with a small group of associates somewhere in Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban was removed from power.[183] Although its authenticity has been questioned by some,[184] the tape appears to implicate bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks and was aired on many television channels all over the world, with an accompanying English translation provided by the U.S. Defense Department.
In September 2004, the U.S. government commission investigating the September 11 attacks officially concluded that the attacks were conceived and implemented by al-Qaeda operatives.[185] In October 2004, bin Laden appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks in a videotape released through Al Jazeera, saying he was inspired by Israeli attacks on high-rises in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: "As I looked at those demolished towers inLebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."[186]
By the end of 2004, the U.S. government proclaimed that two-thirds of the most senior al-Qaeda figures from 2001 had been captured and interrogated by the CIA: Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002;[187] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003; and Saif al Islam el Masry in 2004.[citation needed] Mohammed Atef and several others were killed.
Activities
Africa
Al-Qaeda involvement in Africa has included a number of bombing attacks in North Africa, as well as supporting parties in civil wars in Eritreaand Somalia. From 1991 to 1996, bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan.
Islamist rebels in the Sahara calling themselves Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have stepped up their violence in recent years.[189] French officials[citation needed] say the rebels have no real links to the al-Qaeda leadership, but this is a matter of some dispute in the international press and amongst security analysts. It seems likely that bin Laden approved the group's name in late 2006, and the rebels "took on the al Qaeda franchise label", almost a year before the violence began to escalate.[190]
Europe
In 2003, Islamists carried out a series of bombings in Istanbul killing fifty-seven people and injuring seven hundred. Seventy-four people were charged by the Turkish authorities. Some had previously met Bin Laden, and though they specifically declined to pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda they asked for its blessing and help.[191][192]
In 2009, three Londoners, Tanvir Hussain, Assad Sarwar and Ahmed Abdullah Ali, were convicted of conspiring to detonate bombs disguised as soft drinks on seven airplanes bound for Canada and the U.S. The massively complex police and MI5 investigation of the plot involved more than a year of surveillance work conducted by over two hundred officers.[193][194] British and U.S. officials said the plan—unlike many recent homegrown European terrorist plots—was directly linked to al-Qaeda and guided by senior Islamic militants in Pakistan.[195][196]
Arab world
Following Yemeni unification in 1990, Wahhabi networks began moving missionaries into the country in an effort to subvert the capitalist north. Although it is unlikely bin Laden or Saudi al-Qaeda were directly involved, the personal connections they made would be established over the next decade and used in the USS Cole bombing.[197][citation needed] Concerns grow over Al Qaeda's group in Yemen.[198]
In Iraq, al-Qaeda forces loosely associated with the leadership were embedded in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded byAbu Musab al-Zarqawi. Specializing in suicide operations, they have been a "key driver" of the Sunni insurgency.[199] Although they played a small part in the overall insurgency, between 30% and 42% of all suicide bombings which took place in the early years were claimed by Zarqawi's organization.[200] Reports have indicated that oversights such as the failure to control access to the Qa'qaa munitions factory inYusufiyah have allowed large quantities of munitions to fall into the hands of al-Qaida.[201] In November 2010, the Islamic State of Iraq militant group, which is linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, threatened to "exterminate Iraqi Christians".[202][203]
Significantly, it was not until the late 1990s that al-Qaeda began training Palestinians. This is not to suggest that resistance fighters are underrepresented in the network as a number of Palestinians, mostly coming from Jordan, wanted to join and have risen to serve high-profile roles in Afghanistan.[204] Rather, large groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—which cooperate with al-Qaeda in many respects—have had difficulties accepting a strategic alliance, fearing that Al-Qaeda will co-opt their smaller cells. This may have changed recently, as Israeli security and intelligence services believe al-Qaeda has managed to infiltrate operatives from the Occupied Territories into Israel, and is waiting for the right time to mount an attack.[204]
Kashmir
Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri consider India to be a part of the ‘Crusader-Zionist-Hindu’ conspiracy against the Islamic world.[205] According to the 2005 report 'Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment' by Congressional Research Service, bin Laden was involved in training militants for Jihad in Kashmir while living in Sudan in the early nineties. By 2001 Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen had become a part of the Al-Qaeda coalition.[206] According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Al-Qaeda is thought to have established bases in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during the 1999 Kargil War and continues to operate there with tacit approval of Pakistan's Intelligence services.[207]
Many of the militants active in Kashmir were trained in the same Madrasahs as Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Fazlur Rehman Khalil of Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was a signatory of Al-Qaeda's 1998 declaration of Jihad against America and its allies.[208] In a 'Letter to American People' written by bin Laden in 2002 he stated that one of the reasons he was fighting America is because of her support to India on the Kashmir issue.[209][210] In November 2001 Kathmandu airport went on high alert after threats that Bin Laden planned to hijack a plane from there and crash it into a target in New Delhi.[211] In 2002 U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on a trip to Delhi, suggested that Al-Qaeda was active in Kashmir though he did not have any hard evidence.[212][213] He proposed hi tech ground sensors along the line of control to prevent militants from infiltrating into Indian administered Kashmir.[213] An investigation in 2002 unearthed evidence that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates were prospering in Pakistan-administered Kashmir with tacit approval of Pakistan's National Intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence[214] In 2002 a special team of Special Air Service and Delta Force was sent into Indian Administered Kashmir to hunt for Bin Laden after reports that he was being sheltered by Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen which had previously been responsible for 1995 Kidnapping of western tourists in Kashmir.[215]Britain's highest ranking Al-qaeda operative Rangzieb Ahmed had previously fought in Kashmir with the group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and spent time in Indian prison after being captured in Kashmir.[216]
U.S. officials believe that Al-Qaeda was helping organize a campaign of terror in Kashmir in order to provoke conflict between India and Pakistan.[217] Their strategy was to force Pakistan to move its troops to the border with India, thereby relieving pressure on Al-Qaeda elements hiding in northwestern Pakistan.[218] In 2006 Al-Qaeda claimed they had established a wing in Kashmir; this has worried the Indian government.[208][219] However the Indian Army Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, GOC-in-C Northern Command, said to reporters that the army has ruled out the presence of Al-Qaeda in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir; furthermore he said that there is nothing that can verify reports from the media of Al-Qaeda presence in the state. He however stated that Al-Qaeda had strong ties with Kashmiri militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed based in Pakistan.[220] It has been noted that Waziristan has now become the new battlefield for Kashmiri militants fighting NATO in support of Al-Qaeda and Taliban.[221][222][223] Dhiren Barot, who wrote the Army of Madinah In Kashmir[224] and was an Al-Qaeda operative convicted for involvement in the 2004 financial buildings plot, had received training in weapons and explosives at a militant training camp in Kashmir.[225]
Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of another Kashmiri group Jaish-e-Mohammed, is believed to have met bin Laden several times and received funding from him.[208] In 2002 Jaish-e-Mohammed organized the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl in an operation run in conjunction with Al-Qaeda and funded by Bin Laden.[226] According to American counter-terrorismexpert Bruce Riedel, Al-Qaeda and Taliban were closely involved in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 to Kandahar which led to the release of Maulana Masood Azhar &Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh from an Indian prison in exchange for the passengers. This hijacking, Riedel stated, was rightly described by then Indian Foreign minister Jaswant Singh as a 'dress rehearsal' for September 11 attacks [227] Bin laden personally welcomed Azhar and threw a lavish party in his honor after his release, according to Abu Jandal, bodyguard of Bin Laden.[228][229] Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been in Indian prison for his role in 1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, went on to murder Daniel Pearl and was sentenced to death by Pakistan. Al-Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf, who was one of the accused in 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, was related to Maulana Masood Azhar by marriage.[230]
Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri militant group which is thought to be behind 2008 Mumbai attacks, is also known to have strong ties to senior Al-Qaeda leaders living in Pakistan.[231] In Late 2002 top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested while being sheltered by Lashkar-e-Taiba in a safe house in Faisalabad.[232] The FBI believes that Al-Qaeda and Lashkar have been 'intertwined' for a long time while the CIA has said that Al-Qaeda funds Lashkar-e-Taiba.[232] French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was the top French counter-terrorism official, told Reuters in 2009 that 'Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a member of al-Qaeda.'[233][234]
In a video released in 2008, senior Al-Qaeda operative Adam Yahiye Gadahn stated that "victory in Kashmir has been delayed for years; it is the liberation of the jihad there from this interference which, Allah willing, will be the first step towards victory over the Hindu occupiers of that Islam land."[235]
In September 2009 a U.S. Drone strike reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri who was the chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, a Kashmiri militant group associated with Al-Qaeda.[236] Kashmiri was described by Bruce Riedel as a 'prominent' Al-Qaeda member[237] while others have described him as head of military operations for Al-Qaeda.[238][239] Kashmiri was also charged by the U.S. in a plot against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper which was at the center of Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.[240] U.S. officials also believe that Kashmiri was involved in the Camp Chapman attack against the CIA.[241] In January 2010 Indian authorities notified Britain of an Al-Qaeda plot to hijack an Indian airlines or Air India plane and crash it into a British city. This information was uncovered from interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, an operative of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, who had been arrested in India.[242]
In January 2010 U.S. Defense secretary Robert Gates, while on a visit to Pakistan, stated that Al-Qaeda was seeking to destabilize the region and planning to provoke a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.[243]
Internet
Timothy L. Thomas claims that in the wake of its evacuation from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and its successors have migrated online to escape detection in an atmosphere of increased international vigilance. As a result, the organization's use of the Internet has grown more sophisticated, encompassing financing, recruitment, networking, mobilization, publicity, as well as information dissemination, gathering and sharing.[244]
Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s al-Qaeda movement in Iraq regularly releases short videos glorifying the activity of jihadist suicide bombers. In addition, both before and after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq), the umbrella organization to which al-Qaeda in Iraq belongs, the Mujahideen Shura Council, has a regular presence on the Web. The range of multimedia content includes guerrilla training clips, stills of victims about to be murdered, testimonials of suicide bombers, and videos that show participation in jihad through stylized portraits of mosques and musical scores. A website associated with al-Qaeda posted a video of captured American entrepreneur Nick Berg being decapitated in Iraq. Other decapitation videos and pictures, including those of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il, and Daniel Pearl, were first posted on jihadist websites.
In December 2004 an audio message claiming to be from Bin Laden was posted directly to a website, rather than sending a copy to al Jazeera as he had done in the past.
Al-Qaeda turned to the Internet for release of its videos in order to be certain it would be available unedited, rather than risk the possibility of al Jazeera editors editing the videos and cutting out anything critical of the Saudi royal family.[245] Bin Laden's December 2004 message was much more vehement than usual in this speech, lasting over an hour.
In the past, Alneda.com and Jehad.net were perhaps the most significant al-Qaeda websites. Alneda was initially taken down by American Jon Messner, but the operators resisted by shifting the site to various servers and strategically shifting content.
The U.S. is currently attempting to extradite a British information technology specialist, Babar Ahmad, on charges of operating a network of English-language al-Qaeda websites, such as Azzam.com.[246][247] Ahmad's extradition is opposed by various British Muslim organizations, such as the Muslim Association of Britain.
Aviation network
Al-Qaeda is believed to be operating a clandestine aviation network including “several Boeing 727 aircraft”, turboprops and executive jets, according to a Reuters story. Based on a U.S.Department of Homeland Security report, the story said that Al-Qaeda is possibly using aircraft to transport drugs and weapons from South America to various unstable countries in West Africa. A Boeing 727 can carry up to 10 tons of cargo. The drugs eventually are smuggled to Europe for distribution and sale, and the weapons are used in conflicts in Africa and possibly elsewhere. Gunmen with links to Al-Qaeda have been increasingly kidnapping some Europeans for ransom. The profits from the drug and weapon sales, and kidnappings can, in turn, fund more terrorism activities.[248]
Alleged CIA involvement
Experts debate whether or not the al-Qaeda attacks were blowback from the American CIA's "Operation Cyclone" program to help the Afghan mujahideen. Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, has written that al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies", and that "Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."[249]
Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations from 2002 to 2008, wrote in a letter published in the New York Times on January 19, 2008:
The strategy to support the Afghans against Soviet military intervention was evolved by several intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. After the Soviet withdrawal, the Western powers walked away from the region, leaving behind 40,000 militants imported from several countries to wage the anti-Soviet jihad. Pakistan was left to face the blowback of extremism, drugs and guns.[250]
A variety of sources—CNN journalist Peter Bergen, Pakistani ISI Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, and CIA operatives involved in the Afghan program, such as Vincent Cannistraro—deny that the CIA or other American officials had contact with the foreign mujahideen or Bin Laden, let alone armed, trained, coached or indoctrinated them.
This runs counter to the account of Milton Bearden, the CIA Field Officer for Afghanistan from 1985 to 1989, who distinctly recalls the unease he used to feel when meeting the Jihadi fighters: "The only times that I ran into any real trouble in Afghanistan was when I ran into 'these guys' – You know there'd be kind of a 'moment' or two that would look a little bit like the bar scene in Star Wars, ya know. Each group kinda jockeying around and finally somebody has to diffuse [sic] the situation."[251]
But Bergen and others argue that there was no need to recruit foreigners unfamiliar with the local language, customs or lay of the land since there were a quarter of a million local Afghans willing to fight;[252] that foreign mujahideen themselves had no need for American funds since they received several hundred million dollars a year from non-American, Muslim sources; that Americans could not have trained mujahideen because Pakistani officials would not allow more than a handful of them to operate in Pakistan and none in Afghanistan; and that the Afghan Arabs were almost invariably militant Islamists reflexively hostile to Westerners whether or not the Westerners were helping the Muslim Afghans.
According to Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with bin Laden in 1997, the idea that "the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden ...[is] a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. ... Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. ... The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him."[253] But as Bergen himself admitted, in one "strange incident" the CIA did appear to give visa help to mujahideen-recruiter Omar Abdel-Rahman.[254]
Criticism
According to a number of sources there has been a "wave of revulsion" against Al-Qaeda and its affiliates by "religious scholars, former fighters and militants" alarmed by Al-Qaeda'stakfir and killing of Muslims in Muslim countries, especially Iraq.[255]
Noman Benotman, a former Afghan Arab and militant of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, went public with an open letter of criticism to Ayman al-Zawahiri in November 2007 after persuading imprisoned senior leadership of his former group to enter into peace negotiations with the Libyan regime. While Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the affiliation of the group with Al-Qaeda in November 2007, the Libyan government released 90 members of the group from prison several months later after "they were said to have renounced violence."[256]
In 2007, around the sixth anniversary of September 11 and a couple of months before Rationalizing Jihad first appeared in the newspapers,[75] the Saudi sheikh Salman al-Ouda delivered a personal rebuke to bin Laden. Al-Ouda, a religious scholar and one of the fathers of the Sahwa, the fundamentalist awakening movement that swept through Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, is a widely respected critic of jihadism.[citation needed] Al-Ouda addressed Al-Qaeda's leader on television asking him
My brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocent people, children, elderly, and women have been killed ... in the name of Al-Qaeda? Will you be happy to meet God Almighty carrying the burden of these hundreds of thousands or millions [of victims] on your back?[257]
According to Pew polls, support for Al-Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in the years leading to 2008.[258] The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al-Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank.[259]
In 2007, the imprisoned Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, an influential Afghan Arab, "ideological godfather of Al-Qaeda", and former supporter of takfir, sensationally withdrew his support from al-Qaeda with a book Wathiqat Tarshid Al-'Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w'Al-'Alam (Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World).
Although once associated with al-Qaeda, in September 2009 LIFG completed a new "code" for jihad, a 417-page religious document entitled "Corrective Studies". Given its credibility and the fact that several other prominent Jihadists in the Middle East have turned against al-Qaeda, the LIFG's about face may be an important step toward staunching al-Qaeda's recruitment.[260]
See also
- 9/11 Commission
- Adam Yahiye Gadahn – an American-born member of al-Qaeda
- Al Qaeda Network Exord
- Alternative theories of Al-Qaeda
- Bin Laden Issue Station (former CIA unit for tracking Osama Bin Laden)
- Bosnian Mujahideen
- Steven Emerson
- Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
- List of designated terrorist organizations
- Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
- Operation Cannonball
- Psychological operations
- Religious terrorism
- Special Activities Division
- Takfir Wal Hijira
- Targeted killing
- Terrorist organizations as destructive cults
- Videos of Osama bin Laden
- Pakistan and state terrorism
No comments:
Post a Comment