Introduction

Al-Qaeda ‘the base’ is a peculiar case study in terms of studying terrorist organizations. The organization simultaneously operates as a terrorist organization, insurgent group, a network and a network of networks in more than 60 countries. It is both regional with respect to the activities of its affiliated groups and global in terms of its reach. Formed in the backdrop of Afghan War (1979-89) and after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda is primarily an Arab organization with leadership hitherto belonging to Arabs. Its volatile, fluid, and ever changing nature has allowed experts, academics, and practitioners to contemplate and study its characteristics. Ever since we see, despite of many claims, its unprecedented growth in many different countries located in all continents except South America.

Al-Qaeda is successor to Maktab al Khidmat (Services Bureau), a Peshawar-based support organization for catering the needs of Arab Mujahedeen landing in Peshawar, Pakistan to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Maktab was headed by Shaikh Abdullah Yousaf Azzam, an Arab Palestinian with a Muslim Brotherhood background and staffed by Arabs from many different countries[1].

Abduallah Azzam had his own ambitions beyond Maktab and Afghan War against the Soviets. In true sense he was an Islamist intellectual, foreseeing a Jihadi organization spearheading the global jihad movement to be started from the platform of Maktab al Khidmat al Mujahedeen. The real idea was to create an Islamic brigade of holy warriors, experienced and war tested. The numbers were to be drawn from the veterans of Afghan war and had to be of Arab descent[2].

Abdullah Yousaf Azzam was a homeless person of Palestinian origin, one of the displaced Palestinians because of the long standing Palestine-Israeli crisis. In his view Arab Nationalism, Arab Socialism and secular ideas of leaders like Jamal Abdul Nasir, Yasir Arafat, Anwar Sadat, Hafiz ul Asad, King Hussain had all failed to yield any result.

Four wars have been fought (1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973) and lost; whereas Israel remained a dominant power in the region in spite of superior military might of its Arab neighbors. After the Grand Mosque Siege in Mecca Saudi Arabia (1979) by ultra-orthodox Wahabi radicals belonging to the Movement of the Muslim Revolutionaries of Arabian Peninsula (MMRAP) the Saudi government launched a crackdown against militant groups[3]. On other hand the Saudis as a policy measure decided to support the Afghan Mujahedin against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The raison d etre was to export the Islamist militants within the Kingdom into the Afghan war zone. The Saudi policy makers thought the war would linger on for decades and by supporting the Mujahedeen they were trying to silence their own Islamist radical groups, either to be killed in action or never to return home again. The architect of this strategy was Prince Turki al Faisal, son of former King Shah Faisal and chief of Saudi intelligence (GID). He also headed the operation launched by Saudi forces during Grand Mosque Siege, saw the militants in action and had developed a good understanding about their ideology. The strategy worked for a while and Saudi government alongside US-CIA and Pakistani ISI participated in Operation Cyclone. The Saudis also financed the war by providing billions of dollars in this regard and even created their own Saudi backed Mujahedeen groups (Ittehad-e-Islami led by Abdul Rab Rasool Sayaf). But it did not work long enough to prevent further dangers to Saudi state as the war ended in 10 years and Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan leaving behind a fragile government and many Mujahedeen group, now to fight each other[4].

Problems grew further as many of the Arab Mujahedeen from Saudi Arabia chose to return home. Bin Laden was one of them who despite having played any significant role in actual combat operations in Afghanistan (remained active in relief and fundraising activities) decided to move back to Saudi Arabia. As he landed back he was given a warm welcome and proclaimed as Saudi War hero who defeated Soviet Union’s great Red Army. He became an instant celebrity in Saudi Arabia. People especially youth began to inspire his heroic status. He visited Saudi cities where he delivered lectures on jihad at mosques and community centers and shared his experiences of jihad against the Soviets. Bin Laden’s visit alarmed Saudi intelligence as it was almost certain that his thoughts could stir an already disturbed society that could pave the way of another rebellion against the Saudi Monarchy.

In August 1990 a significant and unexpected event occurred in the Middle East when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain amassed forces at Kuwaiti borders and few days later invaded Kuwait. It was expected that the next target of Iraqi Revolutionary Guards would be Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Panic encircled Saudi Royal circles. It was almost certain that a monarchy with no popular support base could be defeated as easily as Kuwaitis. Saddam Hussain’s one million strong war tested troops were on Saudi nerves. At this critical juncture the US rallied their support behind Saudis and American armed forces under UN umbrella started landing in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden who was in Saudi Arabia strongly opposed Saudi policy of inviting foreign troops. He paid visits to high level Saudi state officials to discourage them taking such and proposed his Arab Afghan brigade for the defense of Saudi territory in case of an Iraqi invasion. His offer was politely rejected by the Saudi Interior Minister Mohammad Nayef, who was in no mood to listen to his offer of few thousand Afghan war veterans to defend Saudi Arabia from a predictable Iraqi invasion. Bin Laden, a onetime Saudi intelligence asset went rogue as according to him letting ‘infidel US and allied soldiers’ in the Muslim Holy land of Arabia would be an unpardonable sin.

A rudimentary Al-Qaeda organization which was established in 1988 in Peshawar, Pakistan was now he left with. Soon after launching a war-words-campaign, in collusion with some Saudi clerics, against the Saudi government’s policy Bin Laden left the Kingdom along with his followers , four wives and children and moved first to Pakistan and then Sudan.

Another prime mover for Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden was Algerian civil war of 1990s. The war started after the military takeover of the country during the elections (municipal and first round of parliamentary) which seemed to be resulting in a pro-Islamist party Islamic Salvation Party’s victory[5]. The war was initially fought between military regime and Islamist/nationalist parties in alliance but in the latter part it took a different shape. The veteran Afghan Algerians joined forces with Islamist parties and finally formed their own Group Islamique Army (GIA). The GIA started a killing spree, with invoking the doctrine of Takfir and brutally slaughtering anyone not accepting their beliefs. According to one source,

“During the conflict between the government and Islamist rebels, jihadi groups massacred civilians, assassinated public personalities (including Berber singers, feminist leaders and academics), and targeted members of the press. Between 1996 and 1998, civilians were killed en masse in a directed and purposeful strategy of total war that eventually claimed more than 150,000 lives (mostly civilians)……GIA chief Abu al-Moudhir argued that civilians who fought against the jihad by ‘force, talk or with pen’ were legitimate targets, reflecting the doctrine of total war [6].”

Algerian extremist organizations (GIA and its splinter Salafist Group for Preaching and Jihad) termed killing civilians in the course of ‘Jihad’ as just and according to the ‘virtues of offensive jihad’. They applied the doctrine of Takfir[7] and justified killing civilians and anyone opposing their beliefs. The extreme views propounded by these groups were explicitly rejected by a wide majority of Muslim scholars; but at the same time these reasons were borrowed by Al-Qaeda in justifying attacks against the civilian targets. In fact Bin Laden financed significantly during the early phase of civil war. The Islamic militancy in Algeria was crushed by Algerian military together with the support of Algerian people who rejected such naked acts of violence and aggression upon unarmed civilians.[8] Theologically, it was Egyptian radical Syed Qutab inspired by Ibn-e-Taymiah of 13^th Century A.D, who sown the seeds of modern radicalism in Arab world. His commentary of Quran “Fi Zil Al Quran” (In the Shades of Quran) inspired Molana Abu-al-Ala Modoudi (Founder of Jamat-e-Islami), Azzam, Osama and Zawahiri alike. Qutab was later convicted for plotting an assassination of Jamal Abdul Naser then Egyptian President and was executed by hanging in 1966.

GIA though defeated but provided Al-Qaeda leadership a model jihadi organization. Before departing for Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996 Bin Laden had managed to establish a plethora of terrorist training camps in Sudan. It was only after immense pressure from Egyptian government and US air strikes on Osama hideouts firing hellfire cruise missiles that the Sudanese government forced Bin Laden and his followers to leave Sudan. Landing just before the advent of Taliban in Afghanistan (who became masters of Afghanistan in September 1996) the al-Qaeda leadership found a conducive and hospitable environment in their new base.

Mufti Nizam ud din Shamzai[9] of Binori Mosque Karachi facilitated talks between Taliban and Osama in Karachi in the early years of the Afghan Jihad, as the Mufti was Mullah Omer’s (Leader of Taliban) mentor.Khaled Ahmed a Pakistani Journalist is of the view, “this was the same Shamzai who, while accompanying a post-9/11 delegation led by then ISI chief Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, ended up persuading Mullah Omar to go on fighting the Americans instead of causing Al Qaeda to leave Afghanistan.”[10] Bin Laden in association with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohammad Atef, Seif al-Adal and different religious scholars from around the world issued the famous Fatwa, ‘Declaration of Jihad Against The Americans Occupying The Land of Two Holy Sanctuaries’ on 23^rd August, 1996 from the Hindukush Mountains, Afghanistan[11]. A fax was circulated to several Arab newspapers. Osama was of the view, “each of you knows the injustice, oppression, and aggression the Muslims are suffering from the Judeo-crusading alliance and its lackeys”.[12]

In 1998 from the platform of World Islamic Front against Jews and Crusaders bin Laden issued another Fatwa along with signatories like Ayman Al Zawahiri, Abu Yasir Rifaí Ahmad Taha of Egyptian Islamic Group, Sheikh Abdul Salam Muhammad Khan leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad (HuJ) Bangladesh, Fazlur Rehman Khalil leader Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) Pakistan and Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan[13]. . The fatwa stated

 “To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible, until the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the Haram Mosque [in Mecca] are freed from their grip and until their armies, shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the lands of Islam, incapable of threatening any Muslim”. [14]

Afghanistan became the orchestrating ground for future Al-Qaeda attacks against western targets starting from East African Embassies’ Bombings in 1998, USS Cole attack in 2000 and finally September 11 attacks.

Al-Qaeda justified September 11 attacks and killing civilians on, 24 April, 2002, six months after the attacks, in a press release titled A Statement from Qaidat al-Jihad Regarding the Mandates of the Hero’s and the Legality of the Operations in New York and Washington. All these conditions were based on Manichean and dualist principles of Wahabi/Salafi sect of Islam Takfiri by characteristics:

In reciprocity for avenging the killings of Muslim civilians’ death in Palestine (as Al-Qaeda believed that that killing Muslim civilians had allowed them to level score with killing American civilians)[15]

• Inability to distinguish Civilians from combatants

• Assistance of civilians in ’deed, word or mind’.

• The necessity of war  (in order to weaken the ‘enemy’ because the WTC was an ‘enemy stronghold’)

• Human shields (as the civilians had become human shields)[16]

The next decade of Al-Qaeda’s global Jihad witnessed Anwar al Awlaki a fine orator both in English and Arabic dominating the Jihadi cyber world with his lectures, involved in the brainwashing of Fort Hudson, Texas shooter Major. Nadal Hussein who killed 13 US soldiers in November, 2009 , Sameer Khan a US-Pakistani who accompanied him to Yemen for launching Al Qaeda propaganda “Inspire” magazine, and the Nigerian Umer Farooq Abdul Mutlib the famous underwear bomber who was captured by US authorities while on board a plane from Amsterdem to Detriot, Michigan on Christmas day 2009. Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike on 30^th September, 2011 in Yemen.[17]

The US born Awlaki who resumed a leadership role in Al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) gave AL Qaeda fighters a new justification, “In democracy power resides with people. American people are the source of power on whose taxes the US troops are waging wars elsewhere in the Muslim world, thus killing an American is an individual duty of every Muslim”[18]

There have been several theories and models about Al-Qaeda presented by a number of academics on the subject, journalists in the field and practitioners in combat operations who have worked for number of years in Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of their assignments and closely covered the growing trends of Islamic extremism. Most of them are journalists; some of them even interviewed Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Sudan and developed theories for understanding the phenomenon of Al-Qaeda.   All of them have different and interesting views letting scholars and researchers of this subject to draw inferences for closely examining and studying the matter. We must not forget that not many people have had access to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden and these were some of the individuals who worked hard enough and managed to seek the truth about the Al-Qaeda.

Different Models and Perspectives

Bruce Riedel’s Theory

According to Bruce Riedel, the former CIA analyst and White House aide during Clinton Administration and author of several books on Al-Qaeda considers Al-Qaeda as the only global Islamist terrorist organization. It has global reach and tentacles across the world. The way it has managed to launch terrorist attacks from New York to New Delhi and created a network of franchise and like-minded terrorist groups makes it a unique case. According to Riedel the main objective of Al-Qaeda was to create an environment of hostility amongst Muslims so that hatred against the US and the west continue to grow and eventually resulted in a global war of religions. Al-Qaeda leadership in fact wanted to drag the US in Afghanistan and that was the very objective of 9/11 attacks.

Riedel believes Taliban were aware of all the Al-Qaeda operations from day one and in fact Mullah Omar was taken into confidence beforehand. Omar was in loop and handsomely compensated by Al-Qaeda by eliminating his enemies (Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud) through Al-Qaeda planning and the use of suicide bombers. Taliban was also provided with Al-Qaeda trained Arab, Pakistani, Chechens, Uzbeks, Tajiks and other non-Afghan volunteers who fought against the forces of Northern Alliance alongside Taliban forces (Al-Qaeda’s storm troopers called Brigade-55). Al-Qaeda trained Arab brigade had most fierce and hardcore militants with higher fighting capabilities and morale than the Taliban troops.

According to Reidel, it was only after the “betrayal” by the hands of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf that Al-Qaeda and Taliban both started to suffer. Riedel believes that both had never anticipated such ‘U-turn’ from Pakistan. They were looking for the Pakistani support and pretty sure about getting the support in the global war against the US and the west. In fact it was Pakistani President General Musharraf’s unexpected move that according to them turned the tables in allied forces’ favor. On the other hand Pakistani President made the move for salvaging his own forces and country that could have been destroyed if he had taken the wrong side.

According to Riedel the real planner behind all Al-Qaeda beliefs and philosophy is Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is one person that encompasses all the traits of a global terrorist. He has written books and articles in justification of his set of beliefs and remained operational and pivotal in many acts of terror. His thoughts have influenced Bin Laden to the very extend and it was his guidance and ideas that the whole organizational structure was laid upon. Bin Laden, was, though, the leader of the organization but the organization worked under the principles set by Zawahiri. Bin Laden the supreme commander of the organization, was one of the ‘knights’ (in typical Zawahirian terminology) fighting for the greater good of the organization. For Riedel, Zawahiri is the most determined of all jihadists.

For Bin Laden and his organization the primary enemy is the US because of its support to the Jewish state of Israel. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 between French and British foreign ministers was the first step of creating animosity. The agreement reached between the two was about the dissolution of Ottoman Empire after the World War-I partitioning between the two. Another matter of outrage was Balfour Declaration, a plan to provide Jews a homeland in Palestine. All these agreements did not involve American backing but at a later stage the US did assume a new role and provided assistance. According to Riedel, Al-Qaeda and is ideologues have set forth their agenda for the global jihad movement:

“Al-Qaeda has an ambitious agenda for the new century. Its ultimate goal is to create (or in its view to restore) the Islamic caliphate from Spain to Indonesia, uniting all the lands of the modern Muslim world and some territories lost in Christian recon quests over the past few centuries. Although it has no blueprint for governing the caliphate, it plans to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on the model of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, whose governing barely functioned in its brief history. …..they are well aware that they do not have a mass following in the Muslim world and that they are not on the verge of taking over even a single Muslim country. They agreed themselves as a vanguard movement, a small group of ‘knights’, showing the way for Ummah. ”

The first step that Al-Qaeda wanted to take was to bleed the US and its allies by terrorist attacks like 9/11, London Underground Bombings 2005, Madrid Bombings 2004, and US embassies’ bombings in East Africa in 1998. It wanted the US to retaliate and overreact. Then the time would be ripe for a propaganda campaign laden with conspiracies theories about US aims of looting Muslim countries’ wealth and oil along with supporting Israel. Bringing the US and its allies to Afghanistan was one of the aims successfully achieved. After achieving all of this then the time would come for confronting the US forces with guerrilla warfare in the difficult terrains of Afghanistan.

Acquiring nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction was one of the major aims of Al-Qaeda. For this purpose the organization had been eyeing towards the nuclear program of Pakistan. Taking over Pakistan was another major objective in the Al-Qaeda’s worldwide planning.

Riedel does not foresee Al-Qaeda as a major threat to world peace like that of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or Soviet Union of previous century. But he believes that it would require considerable planning and well-structured reforms to defeat the organization, both militarily and politically.

“At the end of day, al-Qaeda is not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union. It is a relatively small organization that can be defeated by wise and smart policy. Though it is responsible for the worst day save one in US history, its demise should not take decades to achieve. ”

As far as the 9/11 attacks were concerned Riedel believed that the inspiration was sought from the 1994 hijacking of Air France jet by the Algerian Islamist terrorist organization GIA and plan of crashing it over Eifel Tower in Paris in 1994. The French intelligence agencies aborted the plan as they already had some sort of intelligence reports of the plan in offing and it was put to a halt by luring hijackers into a trap at Marseilles airport where the French commando units successfully aborted the plan.

Peter Bergen on Al-Qaeda

Peter Bergen, a former CNN’s terrorism analyst, Al-Qaeda expert and author of famous books on Al-Qaeda The Osama bin Laden I Know, and Holy War Inc: The Secret World of Osama Bin Laden has different things to say about Al-Qaeda and its leader Bin Laden. Like other authors and researchers on the same subject matter, Bergen also thoroughly investigated the phenomenon; in fact he was one of the few western journalists to interview Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1996. For getting to know the Al-Qaeda’s rationale Bergen conducted a hectic pillar to post research work keeping in view of all the undercurrents and causes.

According to Bergen, Al-Qaeda and its leaders and followers are not some bunch of people who have overnight developed such hatred-laden theories against the west, heretic Muslims (in their eyes) and especially the US. They are the people fighting for certain causes and for that they even do not get bothered to kill unarmed citizens, women, children and senior citizens strictly forbidden in Islam’s holy war concept. Bin Laden although adheres to Wahabi/Salafi thoughts but it is indeed Qutbism, the political thoughts of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Syed Qutb that seems more reflective in his actions. Bergen is one the few western journalists who had managed to interview Bin Laden personally in Afghanistan (in his lair in southern Afghanistan for CNN International).

According to Bergen, Bin Laden’s views are similar to that of Samuel Huntington’s famous theory of Clash of Civilizations, primarily between Islam and the western civilization or what Huntington called is as Christian-Judaic civilization.  The focus of Laden’s ideas as reflected in his speeches is also Jihad against Jews and “Crusader”. On many occasions Laden called for jihad against adherents of Judaism and Christianity, as he considered them chips of the same block and “allied against Muslims”, in hatching a conspiracy to occupy and dominate Muslim lands and resources. Bergen believes these thoughts have founded the fundamentals of Bin Laden’s thinking and thus become the manifesto of Al-Qaeda.

As Bin Laden has not acquired any formal theological education and therefore relied heavily upon radical Islamist theologians like Safar al-Hawali, Salman al-Oudah and Omer Abdul Rahman from the beginning. Initially he was inspired of Abdullah Azzam, his teacher and mentor in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia who also later convinced him to move to Peshawar (base camp) in jihad against the “atheist” Soviets. In his later phase of life he was in the company of Ayman al Zawahiri, more radical than Azzam in interpretation of Jihadist thoughts and believer in Takfiri doctrines. Bergen sees a profound impact of Zawahiri’s thoughts and ideas on Bin Laden’s personality. As Azzam was more anti-Israeli in his thinking because of the fact the he was a Palestinian, on the other hand Zawahiri was anti-American and anti-Hosni Mubarak’s regime of Egypt. Zawahiri being an Egyptian was anti-American because of American support to Mubarak’s regime in power. Therefore both of his mentors had personal cum nationalist agendas, camouflaged in the garb of religiosity.

Albeit these influences on his personality, Bin Laden himself had some of his own notions. He was Saudi but had problems of identity. His father was a Yemeni immigrant to Saudi Arabia in early 1930s he had migrated to Saudi Arabia in search of better life and settled in Jeddah and became a naturalized citizen. Mohammad Bin Laden had worked for the US multi-national firm Armco as manual laborer, when he first arrived there in Jeddah. With the passage of time Laden family   became rich and famous in Saudi Arabia but still identity crisis continued to deepen and remained as many of the Saudis still considered them Yemenis.

The roots of Al-Qaeda as Bergen described are found in Muslim Brotherhood Movement. Although there have been many influences in Bin Laden’s thought development but the initial one was his exposure to Muslim Brotherhood.

“Soon after, he attended Jeddah’s prestigious King Abdul Aziz University, from which he received a degree in economics and public administration.

It was there that Bin Laden first became associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group, and first came under the spell of two prominent teachers of Islamic studies, Abdullah Azzam and Muhammad Qutb. The influence of these men cannot be underestimated—it’s as if Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman’s brother had taught him about capitalism[19].”

Moreover he met Afghan Jihadist leaders Burhan uddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasool Sayaf while performing Hajj in early 1980s who also encouraged him to join Jihad in Afghanistan. Abdullah Azam, his teacher and Jihadist ideologue at Jeddah University also convinced him to join in. Soon after reaching Peshawar, Pakistan in 1983, Bin Laden financed Bait ul Ansar (guest house) for Mujahedin coming from Arab countries at a posh locality in Peshawar. His mentor Abdullah Azzam was also running a Services Office (Maktabul Khidmat) and was active in providing logistical support to Mujahedin. Another person with whom Bin Laden worked closely was Afghan Mujahedin commander Gulbadin Hekmatyar of Hizb e Islami (HI). HI was the favorite of Pakistani intelligence among seven most prominent Jihadi organizations. Hekmatyar was one of the least successful and less competent jihadi commanders but extremely ruthless and hardcore Islamist of all the Afghan commanders. He had connections in Pakistan much earlier to the Afghan crisis of 1979. When Afghan President Daud Khan raised the issue of Pashtunistan in mind-seventies and rejected the British-established Durand Line (1892), Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with his Afghan affairs advisor General Naseer ullah Babar (Inspector General of Frontier Corp-NWF Province) launched a counter campaign of supporting radical Islamist groups of Afghanistan, basically to neutralize the issue of Pashtunistan.

Another close associate of Bin Laden was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Sayyaf was even worse in his Wahabi/Salafist radical Islamist ideology. His main backer was Saudi intelligence (GID) and he himself was a stern Wahabi/Salafi. Prince Turki al Faisal, the chief of Saudi intelligence had close ties with both Sayyaf and Bin Laden because of his family. Prince Turki and Bin Laden kept on meeting each other whenever Turki visited Pakistan. There is a strong possibility that Bin Laden might have been recruited by Turki and became an active source of Saudi intelligence. But most of the time Bin Laden remained very close to Azzam, who indeed had become most dominating influence on his personality. He was more like a father-figure to him because of the age difference, teacher-student relationship and scholarship. Despite his presence in Peshawar and his terms with Jihadi commanders, Bin Laden played a limited. It is suspected that he went to the battle field and took part in actual fighting only once, along with other Arab Afghans. Things remained smooth until Bin Laden became acquainted with Zawahiri and other members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

“The Afghan war did not only move men like Bin Laden spiritually; it also enabled them to meet key figures in terrorist organizations in the Arab World. In 1987 Bin Laden was introduced to members of Egypt’s Jihad group, the organization behind the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. A leader of the group, Ayman al Zawahiri, had settled in Peshawar and was putting his skills as a physician to work at a hospital for Afghan refugees. In 1989, Bin Laden founded his Al-Qaeda organization that would eventually merge with al-Zawahiri’s Jihad group[20].”

According to Bergen, Bin Laden initiated the al-Qaeda project to make a database of all Arab Afghan those who had participated in Afghan war. He was perhaps the only Arab Afghan after the death of his mentor Azzam, who had good terms with all the key commanders and their backers, and Saudi intelligence.

Bergen rejected all conspiracy theories involving CIA in the making of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. He did not approve of any such idea that CIA had recruited and trained him or that he was a renegade CIA agent. He blamed Pakistani intelligence apparatus for recruiting and training the Afghans from refugee camps in Pakistan and that all the seven major Afghan Mujahedin parties (Peshawar Seven) had bases in Pakistan. Arab Afghans, according to Bergen had been an instrument of Saudi intelligence and Saudis paid dollar for dollar paralleled with the Americans in Afghan war.  In his own words:

“The United States wanted to be able to deny that CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). The ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favour the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Former CIA official Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency’s Afghan operation in the late 1980s, says: ‘The CIA did not recruit Arabs,’ as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight and the Arabs who did come for jihad were ‘very disruptive’…..one Afghan told me, ‘Whenever we had a problem with one of them we just shot them. They thought they were kings[21].’”

Bergen also acknowledges the fact that there had been some level of assistance or one may call approval from CIA for Arab Afghans to play their role in the war. There were instances when American CIA was found helping and supporting the Arab Afghan but the nature of their relationship and to the extent that it had reached during the war, is not clear. Indeed some of the Arab Afghan leaders including Azzam repeatedly visited the US during 1980s for recruitment purposes. They were issued visas and accommodation arrangements were made. According to one source Azzam time and again visited the US and preached in at least 43 US cities for recruitment of US Muslims[22].

During his investigative course Bergen traced Bin Laden’s background and even visited his ancestral village at Hadramout, Yemen. He chronicled all of his journeys from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, then Afghanistan, and later to Sudan and then again in Afghanistan; and the evolution of his organization from once a group of few veteran jihadist to an international patent organization.

Most importantly as Bergen considers Al-Qaeda’s primary agenda is to galvanize Islamic revolution across the globe and to create anti-American/western sentiments amongst Muslims, capitalizing on Muslims’ plight in several different territorial conflicts. Moreover agenda includes dissemination of Qutbian ideas in a situation when these ideas seem real and easily adaptable to masses.

“One cannot underestimate the influence of Qutb on the jihadist groups in Egypt and by extension, on Bin Laden. A journalist and critic, Qutb visited the United States as a student between 1948 and 1951 and was ‘appalled by the racism and sexual permissiveness’. He returned to Egypt with ‘an uncompromising hatred of the west and all of its works’ and promptly joined the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which by 1940s was already a significant mass movement with perhaps half a million members and which opposed the regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who took over in a 1952 coup. The slogan of the brotherhood was resounding and ….The execution of Qutb elevated him to martyr hood; his writings were subsequently devoured by Islamists. The Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih describes Qutb’s writings as the ‘most important’ for the militant Islamist movements.[23]”

According to Bergen the one person that greatly influenced Bin Laden in latter part of his life was undoubtedly Zawahiri. He could be termed as Bin Laden’s alter-ego. The merger of Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda with Zawahiri’s Islamic Jihad is quite convincing in translating the influence of Egyptian Islamist movements which were mostly home grown Egyptian organizations against consecutive dictatorial regimes in Egypt since 1948. Bergen believes that the best results could be obtained in the ongoing war on terror by eliminating Zawahiri not Bin Laden. Where Bin Laden constituted the body of Al-Qaeda and its global Jihad network, Zawahiri is the brain. The global Islamist network that Bin Laden managed to encompass was only with the assistance of Zawahiri and his ties with other Jihadist groups. No one knew Bin Laden before his acquaintance with Zawahiri and his group of jihadists, it was only after their alliance that the Al-Qaeda emerged on the scene evolved into a worldwide patent terrorist organization.

“The profound impact of al-Zawahiri on Bin Laden’s thinking has become increasingly clear, and some of have suggested that this little known physician is more important to Al-Qaeda than Bin Laden himself. Like the late Abduallah Azzam before him, al-Zawahiri has influenced his younger partner to become even more radical. During their all public appearances, al-Zawahiri sits beside Bin Laden, a cerebral taciturn man in his fifties, his face framed by heavy glasses, a beard, and a white turban. He speaks English very well and sometimes acts as Bin Laden’s interpreter[24].”

Zawahiri was not the only Egyptian that has influenced in the making of Bin Laden’s thought and his radical mindset and pent-up aggression. There had been others closely circled around him. There is a long list, but some prominent amongst them were Abu Hafs al-Masri, Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri (former Egyptian police officer later fled Egypt during the crackdown against Islamist), former American-Egyptian US Marine Corp soldier Ali Mohammad (Zawahiri’s source in US forces), Riffa Ahmad Taha, Mohammad Shawki Islambouli (brother of Anwar Sadat’s assassin) and Blind Shaikh Omer Abdel Rahman, all key players in Al-Qaeda’s establishment.

Finally as it seems convincing that the Bin Laden thoughts are derived from Huntington’s Clash of Civilization thesis and he firmly believes in the ideas propounded by Samuel Huntington, though in his own way of thinking. Huntington’s theory, according to Bergen sounds very impressive but time has proved it wrong in many ways. Since he made his theory public several wars have erupted and destabilized world peace but not on the same lines as outlined by Huntington; most of those wars were of ethnic and linguistic by virtue of nature. Since then more Muslims not non-Muslims have so far been killed in wars fighting each other on the basis of sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Bergen called this phenomenon Clash of Acquaintances.  Moreover there had been wars fought on the same issues between many other non-Muslim communities such as War and genocide in Rwanda and many in other regions of the world.

In Bergen’s view Al-Qaeda is a Hydra-headed monster. The only way according to him is to block the source of its never ending supply of trained foot soldiers and for that matter he believes the only solution is the shutting down of all training camps which are the source.

“If Al-Qaeda is to be buried in that unmarked grave, the most effective plan beyond eliminating the leadership of the group is to shut down permanently the Afghan training camps where the foot soldiers of Holy War Inc learn their deadly skills. Without the training camps, Al-Qaeda recruits cannot easily learn how to construct devastating bombs or create disciplined cells capable of carrying out complex operations such as the September 11 attacks[25].”

Pervez Musharraf on Al-Qaeda

In 2006, former President of Pakistan and military dictator General Pervez Musharraf, a big time War on Terror Warrior presented his own ideas about Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.  In his book In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (Simon and Schuster, 2006), he described events relating to the manhunt and arrest of 672 Al-Qaeda suspects from the bordering areas of Pak-Afghanistan. Musharraf in 2006 claimed that “Bin is dead” and most of Al-Qaeda leadership is either dead or captured during the US-led War on Terror. At that time it was difficult to challenge the authentic nature of his ideas as he was heading the country as well as Pakistan Army and premier intelligence agency ISI (he was Chief of Army Staff and President).

According to Musharraf, the name Al-Qaeda was coined by Palestinian Afghan War veteran Abdullah Azzam, who used it first in one of his articles in a magazine called “al-Jihad” in 1988 used to publish from Peshawar, Pakistan in Arabic. He said, “in fact, the full name used by Azzam was Al-Qaeda al Sulbah, ‘the solid base’.” But that was not the Al-Qaeda what it later became in the hands of Bin Laden after the death of Azzam. The purpose of such an organization for Azzam was to create a base of Afghan War veterans for “Muslim awakening” by means of social services and charity work. Azzam’s Al-Qaeda was never meant to be a military organization or if it would be then the goal was only to liberate Palestine. Musharraf believes that there must have a difference of opinion between Azzam and Bin Laden over the agenda of this organization and that eventually led to the assassination of Azzam in late 1989. Bin Laden was suspected to be behind his murder in Peshawar[26].

The predecessor organization to Al-Qaeda was Maktab al Khidmat (Services Bureau), an organization established by Azzam at Peshawar in 1982 to facilitate the Arab mujahedin landing in Pakistan from several different countries to wage Jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets. The MK coordinated financial and logistical support from Saudi Arabian intelligence agency and some Saudi backed Afghan groups of Mujahedin. Apart from working with Azzam, Bin Laden also set up his own base in Jaji, eastern Afghanistan and fought briefly with Soviet forces on and off.

After the death of his mentor Azzam, Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and his small number of followers remained unknown and did not come into limelight until their 1998 US Embassies’ attack in East Africa, while they moved back to Afghanistan from Sudan. It was from then onwards that the Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were highlighted in world media. According to Musharraf, Bin Laden established another organization called Islamic World Front, a merger of several different small groups of radical militant organizations belonging to South and South-east Asian countries. He used this forum for delivering his Fatwa against the Americans in 1998. But it was Al-Qaeda that provided him fame as the Americans got to know about Al-Qaeda not the Islamic Front.

In reality though, in February 1998, nine years after the formation of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden formed an umbrella organization called the Islamic World Front. The initiative was to present Al-Qaeda in a more formal fashion with its multinational membership and providing umbrella for jihadist groups not acting in tandem. General Musharraf believes that the Al-Qaeda from its earliest days had an Egyptian stamp on it most of the high profile leaders were Egyptians. It has a worldwide presence and its purposes are the following:

1.     To coordinate with existing Islamist groups and to create new ones at places where there are none.

2.     To proselytize.

3.     To drive Americans forces out of Muslim countries.

4.     To combat the designs of Israel and the United States in the Middle East.

5.      To support the Muslims’ struggles for freedom everywhere.

6.     To pool all Muslim resources for the common cause of Jihad[27].

Although Musharraf never claimed in his book about the death of Bin Laden but later on while interacting with the international media he acknowledged the fact that he might have been died of kidney failures and other diseases required sterile environment.

In an exclusive interview to CNN International he said,

“I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient…..Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. “One was specifically for his own personal use, I don’t know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. … I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan[28].”

The same view point was also expressed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an interview with CNN International. He seconded Musharraf’s claim and said:

“I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead,”  “But still, you never know. He might be alive. Five months ago, six months ago, I was thinking that he was alive.

“The more we don’t hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere[29].”

About Mullah Omar he said, “We know of that,” he said. “And we have come close to arresting him several times, but he’s been able to escape.[30]”

In another interview Musharraf designated the present day Al-Qaeda as a God father figure to worldwide network of militant jihadi organization and provides a platform of logistical support, technical expertise and financial assistance to any radical organization in need. For Musharraf it was the US that abandoned the 30,000 Mujahedin in Pakistan and Afghanistan after winning the Cold War against arch rival Soviet Union. There was no plan for the settlement of those Afghan War veterans. No assistance of any form was provided; neither to Pakistan nor to Afghanistan to rehabilitate them. It was Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden that took the advantage and cajoled those Mujahedin into the Al-Qaeda camp[31].

The annual “Country Reports on Terrorism 2008”, published by the United States’ department of State to some extend also seconded Musharraf’s ideas in its report.

“Additionally, supporters and associates worldwide who are ‘inspired’ by the group’s ideology may be operating without direction from AQ central leadership; its impossible to estimate their numbers. AQ serves as a focal point of ‘inspiration’ for a worldwide network that is comprised of many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, including some members of the Gama’at al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Group, Lashkar i Jhangvi, Harakat ul-Mujahedin, Ansar al-Sunnah, the Taliban, and Jemaah Islamiya[32].”

Ahmed Rashid’s Model

Ahmed Rashid, an expert on Afghan affairs, author of bestsellers Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (I.B.Tauris, 2000) and Descent into Chaos (Penguin Books 2008) presented his own version about Al-Qaeda linked with Taliban. Though more famous for expressing his expertise about Taliban, Rashid also viewed Al-Qaeda only resurrected during the Taliban period. According to Rashid, it was during the Taliban era in Afghanistan (1996-2001) that a weak and demoralized Bin Laden was able to make his dreams come true. It was only under the Taliban rule and their patronage that Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden’s international network grew to become what we see it today. Rashid sees certain other elements working behind the scenes; first for installing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and then promoting it. For Rashid, the Taliban swift successes and series of victories one after another was only because of the role Pakistani intelligence agencies played behind the scenes. Rashid does not consider any role of Pakistani intelligence agencies in promoting the cause of Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda but in fact they allowed him to use the playing field only to further their own strategic interests. During his years in Peshawar Bin Laden worked closely with Gulbaden Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami. Bin Laden also provided funds for toppling the government of Benazir Bhutto in a vote of no confidence against her in 1989.

The United States did not play any role when Taliban were taking over Afghanistan and committing worst human and women rights violations, the US desire was to see a stable government in Afghanistan to pursue the goal of exploring central Asian untapped oil reserves. In this regard many US oil companies were already negotiating agreements with Taliban leadership. Washington had no problem with the internal policies of Taliban and was not at all concerned about the human rights abuse being carried out against ethnic minorities and women. The US concern was of course Bin Laden only after when he used Afghanistan as a base to carry out terrorist attacks against the US embassies in 1998. It was only after that the US policy makers started to draw policy measures for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda but not for those harboring the Al-Qaeda leadership. Albeit the fact that Bin Laden was instrumental in lobbying and financing against the first government of Benazir Bhutto (1988-1990) the second Bhutto government (1993-1996) was the period when Taliban were backed by Pakistan and helped succeed in their endeavor to take Kabul. As Rashid explains,

“During Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s second term of office (1993-96), the retired Interior Minister General Naseerullah Babar promoted the Taliban. He wanted to free Afghan policy from the ISI. Both Bhutto and Babar were deeply suspicious of the ISI’s power and resources, which it had used to discontent against Bhutto in her first term in office……Babar ‘civilianized’ support to the Taliban. He created an Afghan Trade Development Cell in the Interior Ministry, which ostensibly had the task of co-ordinating efforts to facilitate a trade route to Central Asia-although its principal task was to provide logistical backing for the Taliban, not from secret funds but from the budgets of government ministries.[33]”

It was during the same period that Al-Qaeda flourished and established a viable playing ground for recruitment, planning and putting its agents into the fields of operation. Bin Laden was not invited by the Taliban; he was already there in Afghanistan before the Taliban climbed over the echelons of power in Kabul.  He tactfully developed a close relationship with Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, even establishing matrimonial alliance by giving his daughter in marriage to Omar and swore allegiance to supreme leader. He was eventually successful in developing a close and tight relationship with Taliban high command and in becoming a confidant of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, though he also developed enmity with some Taliban high ups who considered Bin Laden a bad omen for Afghanistan.

Rashid indeed views a primary role of Pakistan in establishing Taliban in Afghanistan and it was the Taliban who provided sanctuaries to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda which was at that time crucial for the further existence of the organization. Rashid also views with suspicion the shifting of training camps being run for Kashmiri Mujahedin in Afghanistan.

“The Taliban handed over Al-Qaeda the running of the training camps in eastern Afghanistan that the ISI and Pakistani extremists had earlier run for Kashmiri insurgents. Bin Laden now gained control over all extremist groups who wanted or needed to train in Afghanistan. In return, he began to fund some of Mullah Omar’s pet projects, such as building a grand mosque in Kandahar and constructing key roads. Until then, the Taliban had not considered America an enemy and showed little understanding of the world affairs. But now Taliban leaders began to imbibe the ideas of global jihad.[34]”

Bin Laden was homeless and badly wanted a place to settle down and in Taliban he received a whole country for his endeavors. While settled in Afghanistan he started to galvanize support for its organization by training Islamist groups across the world interested in jihadi activity. Al-Qaeda trainers in Afghanistan imparted training to almost all militant Wahabi/Salafi inspired and Deobandi groups of Pakistan, known for their extremist activities, mostly sectarian violence. In Afghanistan Al-Qaeda established a network of training camps with experts imparting quality training to future Islamist terrorists. His financial condition was as worse while he was in Sudan, where he lost considerable amount of family inherited money in futile efforts to build roads and farms in Sudan. His financial conditions also improved as Pakistani jihadist groups and sympathizers in Pakistan and Middle East filled al-Qaeda coffers with enough money to embark upon his global agenda of waging war against the western/American interests.

“This support base in Pakistan was to prove critical to al-Qaeda’s survival after 9/11. Between 1996 and 2001, al-Qaeda trained an estimated thirty thousand militants from around the world [35].”

The Taliban-Al-Qaeda alliance became clear in those years and Afghanistan had become the central hub of recruitment and training of radical Islamist groups across the globe.

“In 2000 the  clear indications that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were partners in creating an international army for terrorism based in Afghanistan were still receiving little attention abroad……Al-Qaeda now organized Arab and North African fighters into special unit called Brigade 055, which backed the Taliban army in some of its bloodiest offensives against the Northern Alliance. Al-Qaeda enlisted other extremist groups to fight on its behalf, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Chechen fighters from the breakaway republic of Chechnya, and Uighur Muslims from China’s eastern province of Xingjiang. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda training camps were churning out thousands of terrorists from around the world, many of whom remained behind in Afghanistan.[36] ”

Thus it became evident, according to Rashid in promoting the agenda of installing a pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul the Pakistani intelligence agencies inadvertently supported Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden and allowed them to keep up the activities. Taliban regime, isolated from the world affairs, busy in fighting Northern Alliance and having very little knowledge about the outside world relied heavily on Laden’s Al-Qaeda. They had been supported by Saudi Arabia but only in terms of military equipment. The Taliban leadership was being toyed by Al-Qaeda. All three players in this game had their own vested interests.

According to Rashid, the Al-Qaeda’s real agenda that what it was doing right now or what it would be capable of doing in upcoming years was totally unexpected for both Pakistan and Taliban. In later years both suffered because of the deeds of Al-Qaeda. Taliban regime was toppled by allied forces and Pakistan became a victim of its fall out effects on all over the Pakistani society as it continues to suffer to this day.

Al-Qaeda has its charming ways costing heavily anyone such as Pakistan and Taliban. Bin Laden charmed both; for Taliban he provided trained foot soldiers to fight against their enemies along with funds, and for Pakistan he opened up his training camps to provide fresh recruits of Mujahedin to fight against the Indian forces in Kashmir. In fact he managed to gain the confidence and pretended to be an “innocent Jihadi” fighting a holy war. Pakistanis had already alienated former Mujahedin groups (then called Northern Alliance) and totally banking on Taliban regime. Pakistanis, according to Rashid, backed Taliban, even by sacrificing their own society and cultural norms. The wave of Talibanization was also penetrating Pakistani society’s fabric and fundamentalism coupled with sectarian extremist violence was already on rise. At the end of the day it was Pakistan that suffered the most and became the worst victim.

Jason Burke’s Theory

According to Jason Burke, renowned British journalist (Times of London correspondent) and hardcore Al-Qaeda researcher, the organization had been in existence for some period of time but it does not exist anymore.  The peculiar thought was propounded by him in his famous book Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (Penguin Books, 2004). Burke embarked upon a journey to find the real story behind the functioning of the world’s most notorious terrorist organization and made this conclusion that it didn’t exist anymore. In his own words:

“The nearest thing to Al-Qaeda, as popularly understood, existed for a short period, between 1996 and 2001. Its base had been Afghanistan, and what I had seen at Tora Bora were the final scenes of its destruction. What we have currently is a broad and diverse movement of radical Islamic militancy. Its roots go back decades at the very least. Elements can be traced back to the earliest days of Islam .”

In his well-researched work Burke traced the very origins of radical Islamist movements in Middle East and South Asia. He stressed over the need of tackling a new wave of terror coming up with the rise of radical Wahabi/Salafi Islam. Pan-Islamist organizations like Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat e Islami (JI) and Hizb Tahrir (HuT), once used to have small number of supporters and sympathizers but the political canvas of Muslim societies has started to change significantly and now these organizations have considerable political appeal. Apart from these international organizations there had been radical and semi-radical Islamist movements such as 18th century Wahabism and 19th century Deobandi movement, and 20th century Tableghi Jamaat. Those movements were apolitical initially but in later years political parties with stern Islamist agendas established from their platforms. Many of the political parties later produced splinter groups, both radical and violent.

Islamist parties which were formed before the Second World War were beaten back in elections in all newly founded Muslim states by secular and nationalist forces. But decades later in early 1970s and 1980s their vote bank started to swell because of the failures of secular and nationalist parties in almost every Muslim-majority country. The ruling parties failed to deliver to their impoverished masses and poverty touched new levels. It was mostly because of the dictatorial attitude of secular/nationalist leaders dominant in most of the Muslim-majority countries. Corruption and cronyism also paved the way for creating disillusionment amongst the masses. Political leaders, bureaucrats and military generals amassed large chunks of wealth whereas on the other hand masses remained poverty-ridden. Standard of living in most of the Muslim majority countries kept plunging and the ruling elite continued to enjoy all the privileges. Military coups also dissatisfied the populace and any mass movement was crushed. Alike Nazi Party’s tremendous growth in the backdrop of Weimer Republic‘s failure the Islamist parties took full advantage of the situation. Like IRA, these Islamist parties formed their militant groups to conduct terrorist acts and at the same time political wings like those of Sean Finn to oversee the political matters. This practice is still in fashion amongst most Islamist parties.  In such manner the parent party could easily distance itself from any act of terror and condemn the act and when time comes for the negotiations with the authorities the political wing comes forward and does the job.

According to Burke, low levels of GDP growth rates, high levels of inflation and unemployment and corruption were all the indicators that reflected the failure of political regimes in many of the Muslim states. With Saudi Arabia’s sponsoring of Wahabi/Salafi thoughts and exporting Saudi brand of radical Islam, things became even more difficult to cope up with.

In the words of Bernard Lewis, a hypothetical scenario if Ku Klux Klan gains control of Texas and it would start using the oil-rich American state’s resources to propagate KKK’s thoughts to the Christian world . The Saudi oil wealth also played a pivotal role in galvanizing support for its brand of extremist Islam which was violent and dangerous. Although a strong percentage of Muslims still does not adhere to such version of Islam but Saudi money has played its role in amassing support for radical Wahabi/Salafi brand of Islam. Countries with little or no support-base of Wahabism are now having hundreds of mosques built with Saudi money and support and involved in preaching Wahabism/Salafism in these countries.  Growth of number of Muslims adhering to Saudi brand of Islam is steadily increasing, which is quite alarming.

Burke explained the reasons. Firstly the Afghan War (1979-89) provided a solid base for the Islamist movements’ radicalized groups to come to Pakistan capitalize on ISI-CIA run training camps. Before Afghan Jihad and Islamic Group but their rank and file did not have any formal training of asymmetric warfare and had no such patronage. Afghan War was such a golden opportunity for radical Islamist cells worldwide that hundreds of thousands benefitted from highly sophisticated training programs designed for guerrilla warfare, close quarter combat, hit and run, and manufacturing and deployment of explosives devices. Few years later in 1993 Ramzi Yousaf, an Islamist radical of Kuwaiti-Pakistani origin, trained at such facilities, planted a van full of explosives beneath World Trade Centre causing billions of dollars of loss and six deaths.

Ramzi in late eighties graduated from one of such camps established in lieu of specialized training course in explosives. Most prominent abettor of WTC bombing was Omer Abdul Rahman (Blind Shaikh), who arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan in early eighties for the indoctrination of holy warriors by the Saudi intelligence.  He received his US visa with CIA assistance and escaped prosecution from Egyptian authorities for his alleged role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadaat in 1981.

Secondly, according to Burke, the formal religio-political parties with Islamist and Pan-Islamic agendas are not directly involved in terrorist acts and neither these parties preach violence to their workers. But these parties act as springboards for producing sleeper cells and independent of mother organizations.  Usually colleges’ students of natural sciences are recruited with middle-class educated backgrounds with little understanding of religion in are particular targets. It is true that pan-Islamist religious parties like Jamat-e-Islami Pakistan, Hizb ur-Tahrir, Muslim Brotherhood and even non-political Tableghi Jamaat never explicitly ask their workers and followers to take up arms against the states but instrumental in agenda setting and developing mindset for Jihad in the name of God. The message of these parties is usually very subtle and conveyed between the lines. Every party’s propaganda cell plays a crucial role in recruitment and grooming the mindset of workers and sympathizers. Reading and teaching of selected and particular Jihadist text from Quran and Hadith without contextual interpretations, are different ways that the Jihadi propaganda machinery works.

In other words, they show you the way but ask you to do it yourself without their support. Don’t ask don’t tell is their policy. According to Burke if background of Pan-Islamist parties is traced then one would find that all of these have one way or other similar in many aspects with almost same manifestos. Many of their ideologues are western educated. Vote banks of these parties have traditionally been limited in Muslim countries, with some exceptions.

Even during its heydays the Al-Qaeda (1996-2001), according to Burke, used to provide financial, logistical and technical assistance to Islamist terrorist cells across the world. Independently formed cells such Hamburg Cell had sought help from Al-Qaeda for doing “something”. Hamburg cell members Mohammad Atta, Zaid bin Jarrah, Marwan al-Shehi and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh just wanted to participate in ‘jihad’ anywhere and by any means, but it was Al-Qaeda leadership that provided them a plan after carefully studying their profiles. Al-Qaeda did not send them to fight Northern Alliance as many of the Uzbeks and Chechens were sent by Bin Laden to fight alongside Taliban forces at war against their bête noire. Respecting their western orientation Al-Qaeda provided them a plan of action and financed them to further get trained for the execution of the plan called ‘Planes Operation’. Whether East African Embassies’ bombings or USS Cole bombing, Al-Qaeda provided a game plan and assisted the planners of local origins to execute their plans. When Taliban with all their military might had not been unsuccessful in defeating Ahmad Shah Masoud’s forces, again Bin Laden provided Arab suicide bombers to assassinate the Northern Alliance leader and Ayman al Zawahiri used his connection for providing the means to access Masoud.

Burke believes that Al-Qaeda works as a functionary organization or a terrorist university that provides help and assistance to radical Islamic cells, without magnitude and direction. Even during the Afghan War, Bin Laden and his fellow Arab Afghans were hardly seen in action. They kept a restrictive role of supporting the Afghan Mujahedin with their finances, logistics (guest houses in Peshawar) and arranging medical treatment facilities for the wounded where Zawahiri as medical practitioner remained quite active.

Burke even rejected the very notion that Al-Qaeda had ever been a formal and well-structured organization. The very first intelligence reports were collected by CIA and FBI in 1996 from one defected Al-Qaeda member, the Sudanese Jamal al Fadl who in fact embezzled Bin Laden’s money and then defected to CIA only to immigrate to the US.  Most of the preliminary information about Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden and this organization’s activities came from this source, which could not be relied heavily because of the character of Jamal al Fadl. Burke also rejected theories that Bin Laden was trained by the CIA. The group of Arab Afghans who started to join the war was mainly encouraged by Abdullah Azzam and he had agendas different then Bin Laden and Zawihiri. His idea was to build an Arab brigade to fight the Soviets and later to liberate his homeland Palestine from the Israeli occupation. Influx of Islamist Egyptians in Afghanistan changed the course. Egyptian core group members like Zawahiri, Seif al-Adal, Mohammad Atef, Ahmad Khdir and Omer Abdul Rahman had agendas different than Azzam. They wanted to use the brigade for creating havoc in Egypt and “liberate” it from the clutches of ‘apostate’ dictators like Hosni Mubarak and implement Sharia law in Egypt, their homeland.

The mysterious assassination of Azzam left the future fate of Arab Afghans in the hands of Bin Laden who immediately left Pakistan for his homeland Saudi Arabia. Not all of the Arab Afghans could go back to their respective countries as many of them were wanted for militant activities in their own countries. Many preferred to settle in tribal areas of Pakistan, mingled with the locals and married the local women. Some who went back to their countries created troubles for the ruling elite as they started to preach militant Islamist thoughts and rebelled against the states. Such type of mutinies and armed rebellion had taken place in Algeria and political canvas was also disturbed by veteran Afghan warriors in Yemen. Formerly there had never been an Arab brigade and all the recruits from Arab countries were sent along with Afghan Mujahedin. It was in fact a dream of Abdullah Azzam to create such brigade (al-Qaeda tal Salbah or the sold base) after the end of Afghan War. Bin Laden wanted to have this brigade under his command with Saudi government as the main backer. He saw the involvement of countries backing their own Afghan Mujahedin parties during the Afghan War. He tried and presented the idea before Saudi government officials in the wake of an upcoming gulf War (after Iraqi invasion of Kuwait) but his idea was politely rejected by the Saudis. Frustrated by his own government’s behavior Bin Laden searched for a base to start his own activities. He found one in first in Sudan and then in Afghanistan. Settling in Sudan was a considerable failure but Afghanistan turned out to be a big success as far as his plans were concerned.

Finally Burke defines two broad groups of radical Muslims. According to him:

“The first can be termed ‘intellectual activists’. These are men who can justify their attraction to radical Islam in relatively sophisticated terms. They share common elements, particularly in regards to their backgrounds, with more moderate political Islamists. This group would include Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Dr Ayman al Zawahiri, Bin Laden himself, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Omar Saeed Shaikh, Abu Doha, Abu Qutada and arguably Mohammad Atta, and many others. Such men are drawn from the same social groups who were involved in the earliest Islamist movements of the colonial period.”

For Burke, these individuals had at least some political and religious insight and they wanted to bring about revolutionary Islamist change. They belonged to a generation of Islamists who found themselves in the middle of nowhere. With all their wealth and comfortable lives they were not satisfied, perhaps because of the circumstances and conditions they were living in. They were confused, and had very little understanding of true spirit of Islam or any other religion.

“It matches the experience of the 17-year-old Pakistani lower-middle-class youth torn between the mullah and MTV. If he accepts his desire to be part of the westernized world he will have to address the fact that he will only ever enjoy an ersatz, inferior version of ‘western’ life of his equivalent in London or Los Angeles. His clothes will never be as up to date, his skin will never be the right colour, and his chances of per-marital sex will always be infinitesimally lower. An alternative of course is to reject the west and all it stands for in favour of the affirming, empowering, certainties of radical Islam, which teaches him that he is no longer subordinate but merely denied what is rightfully his.”

The second group of Islamist radicals is from a different class, poverty-ridden and less educated.

“The second group of radical Muslim activities emerged at the end of the 1980s and has become increasingly dominant though the 1990s. They are less educated, more violent and follow a more debased, popularized form of Islam. They are more unthinkingly radical, bigoted and fanatical. Instead of being drawn from frustrated, aspirant groups within society they are more often drawn from its margins, from those who have fewer expectations to be disappointed. ”

In short Burke’s ideas could be summarized in terms of a threat much bigger than Al-Qaeda, and Islamist radicals according to him are not united under one umbrella group or organization but in small decentralized cells. These cells operate independently and seek financial and technical assistance occasionally from Al-Qaeda. The expertise and experience that Al-Qaeda leadership provides to these cells in times of need is indeed the real forte of Al-Qaeda and distinguishes it from all other Islamist parties and terrorist organizations. The cells may be composed of highly educated university students or immigrant workers, living in some western country or local cells in almost every Muslim-majority country. There is no such definition or it is highly improbable to make a profile of these groups. For Burke, Bin Laden throughout his jihadist career had endeavored to achieve a Godfather like figure amongst the Jihadi organizations worldwide.

In Burke’s theory the problem of radicalization of Muslim youth could not be solved without addressing the issues of international significance, where Muslims are involved and need support for resolution of long standing issues from international community. If world community fails to address the ongoing problems of disgruntled Muslim youth and a de-radicalization campaign is not launched then the result would be further radicalization of and growth of Al-Qaeda affiliated groups. In other words Al-Qaeda will come up to fill up the vacuum.

In his own words:

“The causes of terrorism must be addressed; moderate Muslim leaders must be engaged and supported; it must be recognized that genuinely authentic and appropriate governments in the Islamic world will include a strong representation of Islamists; the spread of hard line strands of Islam at the expense of tolerant, pluralistic strains must be rolled back; repressive governments must be made to reform; a huge campaign must be launched to convince the Muslim world that the West is not a belligerent foe but a partner in mutual prosperity; every policy in every sphere must be weighed carefully and its adverse impact on the youthful populations of the Islamic world considered  .”

Conclusion

Global War on Terror (GWOT), since its inception has been an effort to mainly destroy, dismantle the sanctuaries, and disrupt financial flows to Al-Qaeda. At global scale allied countries involved in GWOT have endeavored to dislodge and curb Al-Qaeda, some have been quite successful in doing so but many others have contracted the Al-Qaeda disease. Today Al-Qaeda has more branches, offshoots, affiliates and associated movements than ever. Though considered unfavorable in several public opinion polls by a great majority of Muslim populace in Muslim-majority countries but still it has been able to widen the network. Recently we see many different faces of Al-Qaeda emerging out of conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Mali, Pakistan, Nigeria, Algeria, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Philippines, Turkey and associated cells based in Europe, Australia and North America. Although, Al-Qaeda in Iraq has defected over the leadership and its jurisdiction issues in Syria with Zawahiri’s appointed Jabath-al-Nusra front, Al-Qaeda in Iraq has changed its name to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), announced Caliphate and reportedly attracted many other radicals pledging oath of an allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi. However, Zawahiri is still able to exercise his power and influence on other offshoots. The Al-Qaeda strategic plan as elucidated by Al-Qaeda strategist Seif al-Adal seems to be at work though at a slow pace[37]. The post-9/11 scenario has seen an unprecedented growth of Al-Qaeda ideological concepts[38]. The current trends predict a future of Al-Qaeda at least in near future despite the fact that its leader Osama Bin Laden is no more alive to lead the terrorist network he created. The unique Al-Qaeda character which makes it more or less a terrorist university or consultancy has made security strategists’ job much more difficult to curb it activities. On the other hand we observe Al-Qaeda strategists like Abu Musab al-Suri, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Saif al-Adal, Mohammad al-Muqadisi and Obaid al-Qurashi at work for devising tactical and strategic plans. Therefore we could conclude that Al-Qaeda does have a future and its operational might is likely to increase. On the other hand, we observe new Islamist violent non-state actors appear to have come up to take Al-Qaeda’s place, with more radical agendas, manpower, skills, and control of territories. ISIS, Islamic Front in Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Ansar-e-Dine in Mali, though, have similar Islamist ambitions but definitely exert more control, and power, keeping in view of regional context.

Dr Farhan Zahid is an associate research fellow at CRSS. A police officer by profession, Dr.Zahid did his Ph.D. in Counter Terrorism from University of Brussels, Belgium.Dr Zahid has authored more than 20 research papers and articles. He writes on counter-terrorism, al-Qaeda, Pakistani al- Qaeda-linked groups, and Islamist violent non-state actors in Pakistan, Jihadi Ideologies and the Afghan Taliban. 

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[1] Andrew McGregor, Jihad and the Rifle Alone: Abdullah Azzam and the Islamist Revolution, The Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 Fall 2003

[2] Profile of Dr Abdullah Yousaf Azzam, Global Jihad, available at: http://www.globaljihad.net/view_page.asp?id=67

[3] James Wynbrandt, A Brief History of Saudi Arabia, InfoBase Publishing, 2010, p.240

[4] For details see, Steve Colls, Ghost Wars: The Secret of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Penguin Books, New York and London, 2004

[5] For details on origins and history of GIA see Brynjar Lia, The Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Musab al-Suri, Hurst Foundation Books, London, 2007, p.127

[6] Quintan Wiktorowicz, and John Kaltnor, Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda’s Justification for September 11, Middle East Policy Council, Volume X, Summer 2003, Number 2

[7] Takfir is referred to anathematizing other sects of committing apostasy and heresy,  thus justified to be killed by the Salafi /Wahabi interpretation of Islam

[8] For more on Sayed Qutb, see, Farhan Zahid, “Analysis of the Influence of Sayed Qutb’s Islamist Ideology on the Development of Jihadism”, Foreign Analysis Paper No 8, Centre Francais de Recehrche sur le Renseignement, Paris, France (September 2014)

[9]Nizam ud din Shamzai was one of the founders and mentors of the Taliban Movement in Afghanistan. His students from the Binori Madrassa in Karachi joined Mullah Omar and his Taliban Movement on Shamzai’s orders. Nizam ud din Shamzai and his disciple Qari Saifullah Akhter mediated between the Taliban in Afghanistan and Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.  Nizam ud din Shamzai issued more than 2000 Fatwas (religious edicts).Most of those Fatwas were against the USSR, India and Israel. After the establishment of Al-Qaeda by Osama bin Laden formed in1998, the US became the main target of his Fatwas. He also issued a Fatwa against the US invasion of Afghanistan and calling upon all Muslims to wage jihad against the US and allied forces.

[10] Khaled Ahmed, “The Ghost of Osama bin laden,” News Week Pakistan, 28 July, 2013, http://newsweekpakistan.com/the-ghost-of-osama-bin-laden/ (accessed 2 September, 2014).

[11]In 1996 after a terrorist attack on a US military compound in east Saudi Arabia, the Khobar Towers, Osama bin Laden issued a public declaration of war in the ‘ Al Islam ‘ newspaper in London, of Jihad against the United States military in the Middle East and against USA collaborators – the Saudi Arabian regime. Under the pressure of Saudi Arabia and USA Osama bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan and in the end of 1996 he left Sudan, in a well planned and executed operation, with all his staff and family members to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In February 1998 while stationed in Afghanistan Bin Laden issued anther Fatwa along with Ayman Al Zawahiri, Rifaai Taha, , Fazlur Rehman Khalil, and Amir Hamza,  under the title ” The World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders ” through the Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper in London. The Fatwa was a war declaration against the West, the Jews and against all those who fight true Muslims in the world.  The Fatwa became the Al Qaeda manifest. (for details see www.globaljihad.net)

[12] Gilles Kepel and Jean- Pierre Milelli, “Al Qaeda in its own words,” (Cambridge 2008), 47

[13] Ibid,56

[14] Ibid,55

[15] Moreover from Al-Qaeda’s view point Democracy is a system of Kufr, therefore, anything related to it tantamount to Kufr. For details see Al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Mohammad al-Muqadisi’s book, Democracy is Relgion.

[16]  Quintan Wiktorowicz, and John Kaltnor, Killing in the Name of Islam

[17] “Anwar-Al Awlaki Fast Facts, CNN, August 23, 2013, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/23/world/meast/anwar-al-awlaki-fast-facts/ (accessed September 2, 2014)

[18] Awlaki lecture, “Allah is preparing us for Victory”, available at, https://archive.org/details/Anwar.Awlaki.Audio.Archive

[19] Peter L. Bergen, Holy War Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden, The Free Press, 2001, p. 47

[20] Ibid, p.59

[21] Ibid, P.65

[22] Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: US Policy towards, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, Stanford University Press, California, p.75

[23] Ibid, P.199-200

[24] Ibid, p.202

[25] Ibid, p. 233-234

[26] Pervez Musharraf,  In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, Simon and Schuster, 2006, P, 219

[27] Ibid, p.219

[28] Interview with CNN International http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/01/19/gen.musharraf.binladen.1.19/index.html

[29]Hamid Karzai Interview with CNN, available at: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/06/karzai.binladen/index.html

[30] Ibid

[31] Interview with Der Spiegel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,628960-2,00.html

[32] Country Reports on Terrorism 2008, United States Department of State Publication, Office of the Coordination for Counterterrorism, April 2009, p.319

[33] Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, I.B. Tauris, 2000, p.184

[34] Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, Penguin Books, 2008, p.15

[35] Ibid, p.16

[36] Ibid, p.17

[37] According to Saif al-Adl,

1. The Awakening (2000-2003)
2. Opening Eyes (2003-2006)
3. Arising and Standing Up (2007-2010)
4. Removing Apostate Arab Regimes (2010-2013)
5. Declaring Islamic State/Caliphate (2013-2016)
6. Total Confrontation (2016 onwards)
7. Definitive Victory by 2020

[38]  Al-Qaeda ideology revolves around key concepts: Wahabi / Salafi Ideology,Theory of Jahiliya , Doctrine of Takfir, Establishment of Global Islamic Caliphate, Enforcement of Sharia Law, Militant Global Jihad, Ouster of Secular Muslim Regimes, To Reclaim Lost Territories, To Drive out Foreign Forces from Muslim Lands