Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda (/ælˈkaɪdə, ˌælkɑːˈiːdə/; Arabic: ‫ اﻟﻘﺎﻋﺪة‬al-

Qāʿidah, IPA: [ælqɑːʕɪdɐ], translation: "The Base", "The
Al-Qaeda
Foundation", alternatively spelled al-Qaida and al- ‫اﻟﻘﺎﻋﺪة‬
Qa'ida) is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national
organization founded in 1988[38] by Osama bin Laden,
Abdullah Azzam,[39] and several other Arab volunteers
during the Soviet–Afghan War.[10]

Al-Qaeda operates as a network of Islamic extremists and

Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions
Salafist jihadists. Al Qaeda’s long-term plans included the
creation of a unified and global caliphate. The Leaders Osama bin Laden † (1988–
organization was founded by Emir Osama bin Laden, 2011)
whose undisguised goal was to become a strong state Ayman al-Zawahiri (2011–
under the banner of the caliphate. Bin Laden stated that a present)
strong Islamic state is needed. And this state must rest on
the crucial points laid down by the Prophet Mohammed Dates of operation 1988–present
after his 13 years of research in Mecca. These crucial Group(s) Al-Qaeda Central (1988–
points are obedience, respect, strong community, present)
inclusion, and jihad.[40] The organization has been
designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Al-Qaeda in Iraq (2004–
Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 2013, became Mujahideen
(NATO), the European Union, the United States, China, Shura Council in January
the United Kingdom, Russia, India, and various other 2006)
countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on Mujahideen Shura
non-military and military targets in various countries, Council (January 2006–
including the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the October 2006, became
September 11 attacks, and the 2002 Bali bombings. Islamic State of Iraq in
October 2006)
The United States government responded to the Islamic State of Iraq
September 11 attacks by launching the "War on Terror", (2006–2013)
which sought to undermine al-Qaeda and its allies. The Islamic State of Iraq and
deaths of key leaders, including that of Osama bin Laden, the Levant (2013–2014)
have led al-Qaeda's operations to shift from top-down Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
organization and planning of attacks, to the planning of Maghreb (2007–present)
attacks which are carried out by a loose network of Tawhid al-Jihad (2008–
associated groups and lone-wolf operators. Al-Qaeda present)
characteristically organises attacks which include suicide Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
attacks and the simultaneous bombing of several Peninsula (2009–present)
targets.[41] Al-Qaeda ideologues envision the removal of Ansar al-Sharia
all foreign influences in Muslim countries.[8][42][43] Al-Shabaab (2010–
present)
Al-Qaeda members believe that a Christian–Jewish Al-Nusra Front (2012–
alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam.[44] As Salafist 2017, became Tahrir al-
jihadists, members of al-Qaeda believe that the killing of Sham in January 2017)
non-combatants is religiously sanctioned. Al-Qaeda also Tahrir al-Sham (alleged,
opposes what it regards as man-made laws, and wants to 2017–present)
replace them with a strict form of sharia law.[45] Al-Mourabitoun (2013–
2015, joined AQIM in
Al-Qaeda has carried out many attacks on people whom December 2015)
it considers kafir.[46] It is also responsible for instigating Jund al-Aqsa (2014–
sectarian violence among Muslims.[47] Al-Qaeda regards 2017)
liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretical Al-Qaeda in the Indian
and its members and sympathizers have attacked their Subcontinent (2014–
mosques and gatherings.[48] Examples of sectarian present)
attacks include the Yazidi community bombings, the Sadr Khorasan Group
City bombings, the Ashoura massacre and the April 2007 Al-Qaeda in Sinai
Baghdad bombings.[49] Peninsula
Imam Shamil Battalion
Following the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, the Guardians of Religion
group has been led by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri. Organization (2018–
present)
Al-Qaeda Kurdish
Battalions
Contents Ansaru
Organization Al-Qaeda in Bosnia and
Affiliates Herzegovina
Jama'at Nasr al-Islam
Leadership
wal Muslimin
Osama bin Laden (1988 – May 2011) Abu Hafs al-Masri
After May 2011 Brigades
Command structure
Field operatives Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad
Insurgent forces Active regions Worldwide
Financing
Allegations of Qatari support Predominantly in the
Middle East
Strategy Rebel group with
Name current territorial control
in:
Ideology
Religious compatibility Mali
Attacks on Civilians Somalia[1]
History Syria[2]
Jihad in Afghanistan Yemen[3]
Expanding operations
Ideology Salafist jihadism[4][5]
Gulf War and the start of US enmity
Wahhabism[6]
Sudan
Qutbism[7]
Refuge in Afghanistan
Pan-Islamism[8][9]
Call for global Salafi jihadism Anti-communism[10]
Fatwas Anti-Zionism[11][12]
Iraq Antisemitism[11][12][13][14][15]
Somalia and Yemen Anti-Shi'ism[16]
United States operations
 Death of Osama bin Laden Size In the Afghan region: <100
Syria (2011)[17] 300–3,000 (2012–

India 14)[18][19] 800 (2018)[20]

Attacks In Libya: 5,000[20]

1992 In the Maghreb: 800–
Late 1990s 1,000+ (2015)[21][22]
September 11 attacks In West Africa: 100+
Designation as a terrorist group (2015)[23][24]

War on Terror In the Arabian Peninsula:

6,000–8,000 (2018)[25]
Activities
Africa In Mali: 800–5,400
Europe In Russia: 100[20]
Arab world In Somalia: 7,000–
Kashmir 9,000[26][27]
Internet In Syria: Tahrir al-Sham
Online communications 7,000–11,000 (2018)[28][29]
Aviation network Hurras al-Din 2,000–
Involvement in military conflicts 3,000[30]
Alleged CIA involvement In the Sinai Peninsula:
Alleged Saudi and Emirati involvement 1,000[20]

Broader influence In Nigeria: 2,000–3,000[31]

Criticism Total: 31,400+ – 57,600+~

Other criticisms Allies State allies:
See also Saudi Arabia
Publications (alleged, denied)[32]
References Qatar (alleged,
Sources denied)[33]
Bibliography Iran (alleged,
Reviews denied)[34][35]
Government reports Pakistan (alleged,
External links denied)[36]

Non-state allies:
Organization
Taliban
Al-Qaeda only indirectly controls its day-to-day Tehrik-i-Taliban
operations. Al-Qaeda's philosophy calls for the Pakistan
centralization of decision making, while allowing for the Islamic Movement
decentralization of execution.[50] Al Qaeda’s top leaders of Uzbekistan
have defined the organization’s ideology and guiding
strategy, and they have also articulated simple and easy- Turkistan Islamic
to-receive messages. At the same time, mid-level Party
organizations were given autonomy, but they had to Lashkar-e-Taiba
consult with top management before large-scale attacks Caucasus Emirate
and assassinations. Top management included the shura Haqqani network
council as well as committees on military operations,
finance, and information sharing. Through Al Qaeda’s Egyptian Islamic
information committees, he placed special emphasis on Jihad
communicating with his groups.[51] However, after the Jaish-e-Mohammed
War on Terror, al-Qaeda's leadership has become Jemaah Islamiyah
isolated. As a result, the leadership has become
decentralized, and the organization has become Opponents State opponents:
regionalized into several al-Qaeda groups.[52][53]
Iraq
Many terrorism experts do not believe that the global NATO
jihadist movement is driven at every level by al-Qaeda's
leadership. However, bin Laden held considerable ISAF (2001–
ideological sway over some Muslim extremists before his 14)
death. Experts argue that al-Qaeda has fragmented into a Resolute
number of disparate regional movements, and that these Support
groups bear little connection with one another.[54]
United States
This view mirrors the account given by Osama bin Laden United Kingdom
in his October 2001 interview with Tayseer Allouni:
France
Russia
this matter isn't about any specific person Soviet Union
and... is not about the al-Qa'idah
(1988–1991)
Organization. We are the children of an
Islamic Nation, with Prophet Muhammad as China[37]
its leader, our Lord is one... and all the true
believers [mu'mineen] are brothers. So the Non-state opponents:
situation isn't like the West portrays it, that
there is an 'organization' with a specific name Islamic State of
(such as 'al-Qa'idah') and so on. That Iraq and the Levant
particular name is very old. It was born Hezbollah
without any intention from us. Brother Abu
Ubaida... created a military base to train the Hamas
young men to fight against the vicious, Houthis
arrogant, brutal, terrorizing Soviet empire... Southern
So this place was called 'The Base' ['Al- Movement
Qa'idah'], as in a training base, so this name
grew and became. We aren't separated from Battles and wars War on Terror
this nation. We are the children of a nation,
and we are an inseparable part of it, and from In Afghanistan
those public demonstrations which spread
from the far east, from the Philippines to Afghan Civil War
Indonesia, to Malaysia, to India, to Pakistan, (1996–2001)
reaching Mauritania... and so we discuss the War in Afghanistan
conscience of this nation.[55] (2001–present)

Bruce Hoffman, however, sees al-Qaeda as a cohesive In Tajikistan

network that is strongly led from the Pakistani tribal
Civil war in Tajikistan
areas.[54]
Affiliates In Chechnya

Al-Qaeda has the following direct affiliates: Second Chechen War

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) In Yemen

Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)
al-Qaeda insurgency in
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
Yemen
al-Shabaab
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra Front known Yemeni Civil War
as Al-Qaeda in Syria) (2015–present)
Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM)
In the Maghreb
Al-Qaeda in Bosnia and Herzegovina[56]
Al-Qaeda in Caucasus and Russia Maghreb insurgency
Al-Qaeda in Gaza Northern Mali conflict
Al-Qaeda in Kurdistan[57]
Al-Qaeda in Lebanon In Iraq
Al Qaeda in Spain
Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago Iraq War

Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula Iraqi insurgency

The following are presently believed to be indirect In Pakistan

affiliates of al-Qaeda:
War in North-West
Caucasus Emirate (factions) Pakistan
Fatah al-Islam[58] Balochistan conflict
Islamic Jihad Union[59]
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan In Somalia
Jaish-e-Mohammed[60] Somalia War (2006–
Jemaah Islamiyah 2009)
Lashkar-e-Taiba[61]
Somali Civil War (2009–
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group[62] present)

Al-Qaeda's former affiliates include the following: In Syria

Abu Sayyaf (pledged allegiance to ISIL in 2014[63]) Syrian Civil War
Al-Mourabitoun (joined JNIM in 2017[64]) Military intervention
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (became the Islamic State of Iraq, against ISIL
which later seceded from al-Qaeda and became ISIL)
American-led
Al-Qaeda in the Lands Beyond the Sahel (inactive
intervention in Syria
since 2015[65])
Ansar al-Islam (majority merged with ISIL in 2014)
In Egypt
Ansar Dine (joined JNIM in 2017[64])
Islamic Jihad of Yemen (became AQAP) Sinai insurgency
Jund al-Aqsa (defunct) Egyptian Crisis (2011–
2014)
 Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa Designated as a See below
(merged with Al-Mulathameen to form Al-Mourabitoun terrorist group by
in 2013)
Rajah Sulaiman movement (defunct)

Leadership

Osama bin Laden (1988 – May 2011)

Osama bin Laden served as the emir of al-Qaeda from the organization's
founding in 1988 until his assassination by US forces on May 1, 2011.[66]
Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was alleged to be second in command prior to his
death on August 22, 2011.[67]

Bin Laden was advised by a Shura Council, which consists of senior al-
Al-Qaeda militant in Sahel
Qaeda members.[68] The group was estimated to consist of 20–30 people. armed with a Type 56 assault
rifle, 2012
After May 2011

Ayman al-Zawahiri had been al-Qaeda's deputy emir and assumed

the role of emir following bin Laden's death. Al-Zawahiri replaced
Saif al-Adel, who had served as interim commander.[69]

On June 5, 2012, Pakistani intelligence officials announced that al-

Rahman's alleged successor as second in command, Abu Yahya al-
Libi, had been killed in Pakistan.[70]

Nasir al-Wuhayshi was alleged to have become al-Qaeda's overall Osama bin Laden (left) and Ayman
second in command and general manager in 2013. He was al-Zawahiri (right) photographed in
concurrently the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 2001
(AQAP) until he was killed by a US airstrike in Yemen in June
2015.[71]

Abu Khayr al-Masri, Wuhayshi's alleged successor as the deputy to Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed by a
US airstrike in Syria in February 2017.[72]

Al-Qaeda's network was built from scratch as a conspiratorial network which drew upon the leadership
of a number of regional nodes.[73] The organization divided itself into several committees, which include:

The Military Committee, which is responsible for training operatives, acquiring weapons, and
planning attacks.
The Money/Business Committee, which funds the recruitment and training of operatives through the
hawala banking system. US-led efforts to eradicate the sources of "terrorist financing"[74] were most
successful in the year immediately following the September 11 attacks.[75] Al-Qaeda continues to
operate through unregulated banks, such as the 1,000 or so hawaladars in Pakistan, some of which
can handle deals of up to US$10 million.[76] The committee also procures false passports, pays al-
Qaeda members, and oversees profit-driven businesses.[77] In the 9/11 Commission Report, it was
estimated that al-Qaeda required $30 million-per-year to conduct its operations.
The Law Committee reviews Sharia law, and decides upon courses of action conform to it.
 The Islamic Study/Fatwah Committee issues religious edicts, such as an edict in 1998 telling
Muslims to kill Americans.
The Media Committee ran the now-defunct newspaper Nashrat al Akhbar (English: Newscast) and
handled public relations.
In 2005, al-Qaeda formed As-Sahab, a media production house, to supply its video and audio
materials.

Command structure

Most of Al Qaeda’s top leaders and operational directors were veterans who fought against the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were the
leaders who were considered the operational commanders of the organization.[78] Nevertheless, Al-
Qaeda is not operationally managed by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Several operational groups exist, which
consult with the leadership in situations where attacks are in preparation.[79]

When asked in 2005 about the possibility of al-Qaeda's connection to the July 7, 2005 London
bombings, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said: "Al-Qaeda is not an organization. Al-
Qaeda is a way of working... but this has the hallmark of that approach... al-Qaeda clearly has the ability
to provide training... to provide expertise... and I think that is what has occurred here."[80] On August 13,
2005, The Independent newspaper, reported that the July 7 bombers had acted independently of an al-
Qaeda mastermind.[81]

Nasser al-Bahri, who was Osama bin Laden's bodyguard for four years in the run-up to 9/11 wrote in his
memoir a highly detailed description of how the group functioned at that time. Al-Bahri described al-
Qaeda's formal administrative structure and vast arsenal.[82] However, the author Adam Curtis argued
that the idea of al-Qaeda as a formal organization is primarily an American invention. Curtis contended
the name "al-Qaeda" was first brought to the attention of the public in the 2001 trial of bin Laden and
the four men accused of the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa. Curtis wrote:

The reality was that bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had become the focus of a loose
association of disillusioned Islamist militants who were attracted by the new strategy. But
there was no organization. These were militants who mostly planned their own operations
and looked to bin Laden for funding and assistance. He was not their commander. There is
also no evidence that bin Laden used the term "al-Qaeda" to refer to the name of a group
until after September 11 attacks, when he realized that this was the term the Americans had
given it.[83]

During the 2001 trial, the US Department of Justice needed to show that bin Laden was the leader of a
criminal organization in order to charge him in absentia under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act. The name of the organization and details of its structure were provided in the
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, who said he was a founding member of the group and a former employee of
bin Laden.[84] Questions about the reliability of al-Fadl's testimony have been raised by a number of
sources because of his history of dishonesty, and because he was delivering it as part of a plea bargain
agreement after being convicted of conspiring to attack US military establishments.[85][86] Sam Schmidt,
a defense attorney who defended al-Fadl said:
 There were selective portions of al-Fadl's testimony that I believe was false, to help support
the picture that he helped the Americans join together. I think he lied in a number of specific
testimony about a unified image of what this organization was. It made al-Qaeda the new
Mafia or the new Communists. It made them identifiable as a group and therefore made it
easier to prosecute any person associated with al-Qaeda for any acts or statements made by
bin Laden.[83]

Field operatives

The number of individuals in the group who have

undergone proper military training, and are capable of
commanding insurgent forces, is largely unknown.
Documents captured in the raid on bin Laden's
compound in 2011 show that the core al-Qaeda
membership in 2002 was 170.[87] In 2006, it was
estimated that al-Qaeda had several thousand
commanders embedded in 40 different countries.[88] As
of 2009, it was believed that no more than 200–300
members were still active commanders.[89]
Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir interviewing
According to the 2004 BBC documentary The Power of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, 1997
Nightmares, al-Qaeda was so weakly linked together that
it was hard to say it existed apart from bin Laden and a
small clique of close associates. The lack of any significant numbers of convicted al-Qaeda members,
despite a large number of arrests on terrorism charges, was cited by the documentary as a reason to
doubt whether a widespread entity that met the description of al-Qaeda existed.[90] Al-Qaeda’s
commanders, as well as its sleeping agents, are hiding in different parts of the world to this day. They are
mainly hunted by the American and Israeli secret services. Al Qaeda's number two leader, Abdullah
Ahmed Abdullah, was killed by Israeli agents. His pseudonym was Abu Muhammad al-Masri, who was
killed in November 2020 in Iran. He was involved in the 1988 assassination attempt on the U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.[91]

Insurgent forces

According to author Robert Cassidy, al-Qaeda maintains two separate forces which are deployed
alongside insurgents in Iraq and Pakistan. The first, numbering in the tens of thousands, was "organized,
trained, and equipped as insurgent combat forces" in the Soviet–Afghan war.[88] The force was
composed primarily of foreign mujahideen from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Many of these fighters went
on to fight in Bosnia and Somalia for global jihad. Another group, which numbered 10,000 in 2006, live
in the West and have received rudimentary combat training.[88]

Other analysts have described al-Qaeda's rank and file as being "predominantly Arab" in its first years of
operation, but that the organization also includes "other peoples" as of 2007.[92] It has been estimated
that 62% of al-Qaeda members have a university education.[93] In 2011 and the following year, the
Americans successfully settled accounts with Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, the organization’s
chief propagandist, and Abu Yahya al-Libi’s deputy commander. The optimistic voices were already
saying that it was over for al- Qaeda. Nevertheless, it was around this time that the Arab Spring greeted
the region, the turmoil of which came great to al-Qaeda’s regional forces. Seven years later, Ayman al-
Zawahiri became arguably the number one leader in the organization, implementing his strategy with
systematic consistency. Tens of thousands loyal to al-Qaeda and related organizations were able to
challenge local and regional stability and ruthlessly attack their enemies in the Middle East, Africa,
South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and Russia alike. In fact, from Northwest Africa to South Asia, al-
Qaeda had more than two dozen “franchise-based” allies. The number of al-Qaeda militants was set at
20,000 in Syria alone, and they had 4,000 members in Yemen and about 7,000 in Somalia. The war was
not over.[94]

Financing

In the 1990s, financing for al-Qaeda came partly from the personal wealth of Osama bin Laden.[95] Other
sources of income included the heroin trade and donations from supporters in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and
other Islamic Gulf states.[95] A WikiLeaks-released 2009 internal US government cable stated that
"terrorist funding emanating from Saudi Arabia remains a serious concern".[96]

Among the first pieces of evidence regarding Saudi Arabia's support for al-Qaeda was the so-called
"Golden Chain", a list of early al-Qaeda funders seized during a 2002 raid in Sarajevo by Bosnian
police.[97] The hand-written list was validated by al-Qaeda defector Jamal al-Fadl, and included the
names of both donors and beneficiaries.[97][98] Osama bin-Laden's name appeared seven times among
the beneficiaries, while 20 Saudi and Gulf-based businessmen and politicians were listed among the
donors.[97] Notable donors included Adel Batterjee, and Wael Hamza Julaidan. Batterjee was designated
as a terror financier by the US Department of the Treasury in 2004, and Julaidan is recognized as one of
al-Qaeda's founders.[97]

Documents seized during the 2002 Bosnia raid showed that al-Qaeda widely exploited charities to
channel financial and material support to its operatives across the globe.[99] Notably, this activity
exploited the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the Muslim World League (MWL).
The IIRO had ties with al-Qaeda associates worldwide, including al-Qaeda's deputy Ayman al Zawahiri.
Zawahiri's brother worked for the IIRO in Albania and had actively recruited on behalf of al-Qaeda.[100]
The MWL was openly identified by al-Qaeda's leader as one of the three charities al-Qaeda primarily
relied upon for funding sources.[100]

Allegations of Qatari support

Several Qatari citizens have been accused of funding al-Qaeda. This includes Abd Al-Rahman al-Nuaimi,
a Qatari citizen and a human-rights activist who founded the Swiss-based non-governmental
organization (NGO) Alkarama. On December 18, 2013, the US Treasury designated Nuaimi as a terrorist
for his activities supporting al-Qaeda.[101] The US Treasury has stated that Nuaimi "has facilitated
significant financial support to al-Qaeda in Iraq, and served as an interlocutor between al-Qaeda in Iraq
and Qatar-based donors".[101]

Nuaimi was accused of overseeing a $2 million monthly transfer to al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of his role as
mediator between Iraq-based al-Qaeda senior officers and Qatari citizens.[101][102] Nuaimi allegedly
entertained relationships with Abu-Khalid al-Suri, al-Qaeda's top envoy in Syria, who processed a
$600,000 transfer to al-Qaeda in 2013.[101][102] Nuaimi is also known to be associated with Abd al-
Wahhab Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman al-Humayqani, a Yemeni politician and founding member of
Alkarama, who was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the US Treasury in
2013.[103] The US authorities claimed that Humayqani exploited his role in Alkarama to fundraise on
behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).[101][103] A prominent figure in AQAP, Nuaimi was
also reported to have facilitated the flow of funding to AQAP affiliates based in Yemen. Nuaimi was also
accused of investing funds in the charity directed by Humayqani to ultimately fund AQAP.[101] About ten
months after being sanctioned by the US Treasury, Nuaimi was also restrained from doing business in
the UK.[104]

Another Qatari citizen, Kalifa Mohammed Turki Subayi, was sanctioned by the US Treasury on June 5,
2008, for his activities as a "Gulf-based al-Qaeda financier". Subayi's name was added to the UN Security
Council's Sanctions List in 2008 on charges of providing financial and material support to al-Qaeda
senior leadership.[102][105] Subayi allegedly moved al-Qaeda recruits to South Asia-based training
camps.[102][105] He also financially supported Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani national and senior
al-Qaeda officer who is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11 attack according to the
September 11 Commission report.[106]

Qataris provided support to al-Qaeda through the country's largest NGO, the Qatar Charity. Al-Qaeda
defector al-Fadl, who was a former member of Qatar Charity, testified in court that Abdullah
Mohammed Yusef, who served as Qatar Charity's director, was affiliated to al-Qaeda and simultaneously
to the National Islamic Front, a political group that gave al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden harbor in
Sudan in the early 1990s.[98]

Legal proceedings from the trial United States vs. Enaam M. Arnaout revealed that Qatar Charity was
cited by Bin Laden in 1993 as one of the charities used to channel financial support to al-Qaeda
operatives overseas.[107] The same documents also report Bin Laden's complaint that the failed
assassination attempt of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had compromised the ability of al-Qaeda to
exploit charities to support its operatives to the extent that it was capable of before 1995.[107] It is alleged
that the Qatar Charity gave financial support to members of al-Qaeda in Chechnya. This accusation was
publicly denied by Hamad bin Nasser al-Thani.[108] Qatar Charity is among the NGOs allegedly
channelling funds to Ansar Dine in North Mali, according to French military intelligence reports from
France's intervention in the country in early 2013.[108][109]

Qatar financed al-Qaeda's enterprises through al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra. The
funding was primarily channeled through kidnapping for ransom.[110] The Consortium Against Terrorist
Finance (CATF) reported that the Gulf country has funded al-Nusra since 2013.[110] In 2017, Asharq Al-
Awsat estimated that Qatar had disbursed $25 million in support of al-Nusra through kidnapping for
ransom.[111] In addition, Qatar has launched fundraising campaigns on behalf of al-Nusra. Al-Nusra
acknowledged a Qatar-sponsored campaign "as one of the preferred conduits for donations intended for
the group".[112][113]

Strategy
In the disagreement over whether Al-Qaeda's objectives are religious or political, Mark Sedgwick
describes Al-Qaeda's strategy as political in the immediate term but with ultimate aims that are
religious.[114] On March 11, 2005, Al-Quds Al-Arabi published extracts from Saif al-Adel's document "Al
Qaeda's Strategy to the Year 2020".[115][116] Abdel Bari Atwan summarizes this strategy as comprising
five stages to rid the Ummah from all forms of oppression:

1. Provoke the United States and the West into invading a Muslim country by staging a massive attack
or string of attacks on US soil that results in massive civilian casualties.
2. Incite local resistance to occupying forces.
3. Expand the conflict to neighboring countries and engage the US and its allies in a long war of
attrition.
 4. Convert al-Qaeda into an ideology and set of operating principles that can be loosely franchised in
other countries without requiring direct command and control, and via these franchises incite attacks
against the US and countries allied with the US until they withdraw from the conflict, as happened
with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but which did not have the same effect with the July 7, 2005
London bombings.
5. The US economy will finally collapse by the year 2020, under the strain of multiple engagements in
numerous places. This will lead to a collapse in the worldwide economic system, and lead to global
political instability. This will lead to a global jihad led by al-Qaeda, and a Wahhabi Caliphate will then
be installed across the world.

Atwan noted that, while the plan is unrealistic, "it is sobering to consider that this virtually describes the
downfall of the Soviet Union."[115]

According to Fouad Hussein, a Jordanian journalist and author who has spent time in prison with Al-
Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's strategy consists of seven phases and is similar to the plan described in Al Qaeda's
Strategy to the year 2020. These phases include:[117]

1. "The Awakening." This phase was supposed to last from 2001 to 2003. The goal of the phase is to
provoke the United States to attack a Muslim country by executing an attack on US soil that kills
many civilians.
2. "Opening Eyes." This phase was supposed to last from 2003 to 2006. The goal of this phase was to
recruit young men to the cause and to transform the al-Qaeda group into a movement. Iraq was
supposed to become the center of all operations with financial and military support for bases in other
states.
3. "Arising and Standing up", was supposed to last from 2007 to 2010. In this phase, al-Qaeda wanted
to execute additional attacks and focus their attention on Syria. Hussein believed that other countries
in the Arabian Peninsula were also in danger.
4. Al-Qaeda expected a steady growth among their ranks and territories due to the declining power of
the regimes in the Arabian Peninsula. The main focus of attack in this phase was supposed to be on
oil suppliers and cyberterrorism, targeting the US economy and military infrastructure.
5. The declaration of an Islamic Caliphate, which was projected between 2013 and 2016. In this phase,
al-Qaeda expected the resistance from Israel to be heavily reduced.
6. The declaration of an "Islamic Army" and a "fight between believers and non-believers", also called
"total confrontation".
7. "Definitive Victory", projected to be completed by 2020.

According to the seven-phase strategy, the war is projected to last less than two years.

According to Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute and Katherine Zimmerman of the American
Enterprise Institute, the new model of al-Qaeda is to "socialize communities" and build a broad
territorial base of operations with the support of local communities, also gaining income independent of
the funding of sheiks.[118]

Name
The English name of the organization is a simplified transliteration of the Arabic noun al-qāʿidah (‫)اﻟﻘﺎﻋﺪة‬,
which means "the foundation" or "the base". The initial al- is the Arabic definite article "the", hence "the
base".[119]
In Arabic, al-Qaeda has four syllables (/alˈqaː.ʕi.da/). However, since two of the Arabic consonants in
the name are not phones found in the English language, the common naturalized English pronunciations
include /ælˈkaɪdə/, /ælˈkeɪdə/ and /ˌælkɑːˈiːdə/. Al-Qaeda's name can also be transliterated as al-Qaida,
al-Qa'ida, or el-Qaida.[120]

Bin Laden explained the origin of the term in a videotaped interview with Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer
Alouni in October 2001:

The name 'al-Qaeda' was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-
Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We
used to call the training camp al-Qaeda. The name stayed.[121]

It has been argued that two documents seized from the Sarajevo office of the Benevolence International
Foundation prove that the name was not simply adopted by the mujahideen movement and that a group
called al-Qaeda was established in August 1988. Both of these documents contain minutes of meetings
held to establish a new military group, and contain the term "al-Qaeda".[122]

Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote that the word al-Qaeda should be translated as "the
database", because it originally referred to the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen militants
who were recruited and trained with CIA help to defeat the Russians.[123] In April 2002, the group
assumed the name Qa'idat al-Jihad (‫ ﻗﺎﻋﺪة اﻟﺠﮭﺎد‬qāʿidat al-jihād), which means "the base of Jihad".
According to Diaa Rashwan, this was "apparently as a result of the merger of the overseas branch of
Egypt's al-Jihad, which was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, with the groups Bin Laden brought under his
control after his return to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s."[124]

Ideology
The radical Islamist movement developed during the Islamic revival and
the rise of the Islamist movement after the Iranian Revolution (1978-1979).

Some have argued that the writings of Islamic author and thinker Sayyid
Qutb inspired the al-Qaeda organization.[125] In the 1950s and 1960s, Qutb
preached that because of the lack of sharia law, the Muslim world was no
longer Muslim, and had reverted to the pre-Islamic ignorance known as
jahiliyyah. To restore Islam, Qutb argued that a vanguard of righteous
Muslims was needed in order to establish "true Islamic states", implement
sharia, and rid the Muslim world of any non-Muslim influences. In Qutb's
view, the enemies of Islam included "world Jewry", which "plotted
conspiracies" and opposed Islam.[126]

Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian In the words of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a close college friend of bin
Islamist who inspired al- Laden:
Qaeda

Islam is different from any other religion; it's a way of life. We

[Khalifa and bin Laden] were trying to understand what Islam
has to say about how we eat, who we marry, how we talk. We
read Sayyid Qutb. He was the one who most affected our
generation.[127]
Qutb also influenced bin Laden's mentor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[128] Zawahiri's uncle and maternal family
patriarch, Mafouz Azzam, was Qutb's student, protégé, personal lawyer, and an executor of his estate.
Azzam was one of the last people to see Qutb alive before his execution.[129] Zawahiri paid homage to
Qutb in his work Knights under the Prophet's Banner.[130]

Qutb argued that many Muslims were not true Muslims. Some Muslims, Qutb argued, were apostates.
These alleged apostates included leaders of Muslim countries, since they failed to enforce sharia law.[131]

The Afghan jihad against the pro-Soviet government further developed the Salafist Jihadist movement
which inspired Al-Qaeda.[132]

Religious compatibility
Abdel Bari Atwan wrote that:

While the leadership's own theological platform is essentially Salafi, the organization's
umbrella is sufficiently wide to encompass various schools of thought and political leanings.
Al-Qaeda counts among its members and supporters people associated with Wahhabism,
Shafi'ism, Malikism, and Hanafism. There are even some Al-Qaeda members whose beliefs
and practices are directly at odds with Salafism, such as Yunis Khalis, one of the leaders of
the Afghan mujahedin. He was a mystic who visited the tombs of saints and sought their
blessings – practices inimical to bin Laden's Wahhabi-Salafi school of thought. The only
exception to this pan-Islamic policy is Shi'ism. Al-Qaeda seems implacably opposed to it, as it
holds Shi'ism to be heresy. In Iraq it has openly declared war on the Badr Brigades, who have
fully cooperated with the US, and now considers even Shi'i civilians to be legitimate targets
for acts of violence.[133]

Attacks on Civilians

Following its 9/11 attack and in response to its condemnation by Islamic scholars, Al-Qaeda provided a
justification for the killing of non-combatants/civilians, entitled, "A Statement from Qaidat al-Jihad
Regarding the Mandates of the Heroes and the Legality of the Operations in New York and Washington".
According to a couple of critics, Quintan Wiktorowicz and John Kaltner, it provides "ample theological
justification for killing civilians in almost any imaginable situation."[134]

Among these justifications are that America is leading the west in waging a War on Islam so that attacks
on America are a defense of Islam and any treaties and agreements between Muslim majority states and
Western countries that would be violated by attacks are null and void. According to the tract, several
conditions allow for the killing of civilians including:

retaliation for the American war on Islam which al-Qaeda alleges has targeted "Muslim women,
children and elderly";
when it is too difficult to distinguish between non-combatants and combatants when attacking an
enemy "stronghold" (hist) and/or non-combatants remain in enemy territory, killing them is allowed;
those who assist the enemy "in deed, word, mind" are eligible for killing, and this includes the
general population in democratic countries because civilians can vote in elections that bring enemies
of Islam to power;
the necessity of killing in the war to protect Islam and Muslims;
 the prophet Muhammad, when asked whether the Muslim fighters could use the catapult against the
village of Taif, replied affirmatively, even though the enemy fighters were mixed with a civilian
population;
if the women, children and other protected groups serve as human shields for the enemy;
if the enemy has broken a treaty, killing of civilians is permitted.[134]

History
The Guardian in 2009 described five distinct phases in the development of al-Qaeda: its beginnings in
the late 1980s, a "wilderness" period in 1990–1996, its "heyday" in 1996–2001, a network period from
2001 to 2005, and a period of fragmentation from 2005 to 2009.[135]

Jihad in Afghanistan

The origins of al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet War in

Afghanistan (December 1979 – February 1989).[10] The United
States viewed the conflict in Afghanistan in terms of the Cold War,
with Marxists on one side and the native Afghan mujahideen on the
other. This view led to a CIA program called Operation Cyclone,
which channeled funds through Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency to the Afghan Mujahideen.[136] The US
government provided substantial financial support to the Afghan
Islamic militants. Aid to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan
mujahideen leader and founder of the Hezb-e Islami, amounted to CIA-funded and ISI-trained Afghan
more than $600 million. In addition to American aid, Hekmatyar mujahideen fighters crossing the
Durand Line border to fight Soviet
was the recipient of Saudi aid.[137] In the early 1990s, after the US
forces and the Soviet-backed
had withdrawn support, Hekmatyar "worked closely" with bin
Afghan government in 1985
Laden.[138]

At the same time, a growing number of Arab mujahideen joined the

jihad against the Afghan Marxist regime, which was facilitated by international Muslim organizations,
particularly the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK).[139] In 1984, MAK was established in Peshawar, Pakistan,
by bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Islamic scholar and member of the Muslim
Brotherhood. MAK organized guest houses in Peshawar, near the Afghan border, and gathered supplies
for the construction of paramilitary training camps to prepare foreign recruits for the Afghan war front.
MAK was funded by the Saudi government as well as by individual Muslims including Saudi
businessmen.[140] Bin Laden also became a major financier of the mujahideen, spending his own money
and using his connections to influence public opinion about the war.[141]

From 1986, MAK began to set up a network of recruiting offices in the US, the hub of which was the Al
Kifah Refugee Center at the Farouq Mosque on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Among notable figures at the
Brooklyn center were "double agent" Ali Mohamed, whom FBI special agent Jack Cloonan called "bin
Laden's first trainer",[142] and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leading recruiter of mujahideen
for Afghanistan. Azzam and bin Laden began to establish camps in Afghanistan in 1987.[143]

MAK and foreign mujahideen volunteers, or "Afghan Arabs", did not play a major role in the war. While
over 250,000 Afghan mujahideen fought the Soviets and the communist Afghan government, it is
estimated that there were never more than 2,000 foreign mujahideen on the field at any one time.[144]
Nonetheless, foreign mujahideen volunteers came from 43 countries, and the total number that
 participated in the Afghan movement between 1982 and 1992 is reported to
have been 35,000.[145] Bin Laden played a central role in organizing
training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers.[146][147]

The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Mohammad

Najibullah's Communist Afghan government lasted for three more years,
before it was overrun by elements of the mujahideen.

Expanding operations

Toward the end of the Soviet military mission in Afghanistan, some foreign
mujahideen wanted to expand their operations to include Islamist struggles
in other parts of the world, such as Palestine and Kashmir. A number of
Omar Abdel-Rahman overlapping and interrelated organizations were formed, to further those
aspirations. One of these was the organization that would eventually be
called al-Qaeda.

Research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed on August 11, 1988, when a meeting in Afghanistan between
leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden took place.[148] An agreement was
reached to link bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the
jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.[149]

Notes indicate al-Qaeda was a formal group by August 20, 1988. A list of requirements for membership
itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat ) to
follow one's superiors.[150] In his memoir, bin Laden's former bodyguard, Nasser al-Bahri, gives the only
publicly available description of the ritual of giving bayat when he swore his allegiance to the al-Qaeda
chief.[151] According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because
"its existence was still a closely held secret."[152]

After Azzam was assassinated in 1989 and MAK broke up, significant numbers of MAK followers joined
bin Laden's new organization.

In November 1989, Ali Mohamed, a former special forces sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina, left military service and moved to California. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and
became "deeply involved with bin Laden's plans."[153] In 1991, Ali Mohammed is said to have helped
orchestrate bin Laden's relocation to Sudan.[154]

Gulf War and the start of US enmity

Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden returned to
Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 had put the Kingdom and its ruling House of
Saud at risk. The world's most valuable oil fields were within striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait,
and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent.

In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were outnumbered.
Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahideen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi
army. The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow US and allied forces to
deploy troops into Saudi territory.[155]
The deployment angered bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two
mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. After speaking publicly against the Saudi
government for harboring American troops, he was banished and forced to live in exile in Sudan.

Sudan

From around 1992 to 1996, al-Qaeda and bin Laden based themselves in Sudan at the invitation of
Islamist theoretician Hassan al-Turabi. The move followed an Islamist coup d'état in Sudan, led by
Colonel Omar al-Bashir, who professed a commitment to reordering Muslim political values. During this
time, bin Laden assisted the Sudanese government, bought or set up various business enterprises, and
established training camps.

A key turning point for bin Laden occurred in 1993 when Saudi Arabia gave support for the Oslo
Accords, which set a path for peace between Israel and Palestinians.[156] Due to bin Laden's continuous
verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan on March 5, 1994
demanding bin Laden's passport. Bin Laden's Saudi citizenship was also revoked. His family was
persuaded to cut off his stipend, $7 million a year, and his Saudi assets were frozen.[157][158] His family
publicly disowned him. There is controversy as to what extent bin Laden continued to garner support
from members afterwards.[159]

In 1993, a young schoolgirl was killed in an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the Egyptian prime
minister, Atef Sedki. Egyptian public opinion turned against Islamist bombings, and the police arrested
280 of al-Jihad's members and executed 6.[160] In June 1995, an attempt to assassinate Egyptian
president Mubarak led to the expulsion of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), and in May 1996, of bin Laden
from Sudan.

According to Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the Sudanese government offered the
Clinton Administration numerous opportunities to arrest bin Laden. Ijaz's claims appeared in numerous
op-ed pieces, including one in the Los Angeles Times[161] and one in The Washington Post co-written
with former Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney.[162] Similar allegations have been made by
Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose,[163] and Richard Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, in a
November 2003 interview with World.[164]

Several sources dispute Ijaz's claim, including the 9/11 Commission, which concluded in part:

Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin
over to the US. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador
Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney
had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no
indictment out-standing.[165]

Refuge in Afghanistan

After the fall of the Afghan communist regime in 1992, Afghanistan was effectively ungoverned for four
years and plagued by constant infighting between various mujahideen groups. This situation allowed the
Taliban to organize. The Taliban also garnered support from graduates of Islamic schools, which are
called madrassa. According to Ahmed Rashid, five leaders of the Taliban were graduates of Darul Uloom
Haqqania, a madrassa in the small town of Akora Khattak.[166] The town is situated near Peshawar in
Pakistan, but the school is largely attended by Afghan refugees.[166] This institution reflected Salafi
beliefs in its teachings, and much of its funding came from private donations from wealthy Arabs. Four
of the Taliban's leaders attended a similarly funded and influenced madrassa in Kandahar. Bin Laden's
contacts were laundering donations to these schools, and Islamic banks were used to transfer money to
an "array" of charities which served as front groups for al-Qaeda.[167]

Many of the mujahideen who later joined the Taliban fought alongside Afghan warlord Mohammad Nabi
Mohammadi's Harkat i Inqilabi group at the time of the Russian invasion. This group also enjoyed the
loyalty of most Afghan Arab fighters.

The continuing lawlessness enabled the growing and well-disciplined Taliban to expand their control
over territory in Afghanistan, and it came to establish an enclave which it called the Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan. In 1994, it captured the regional center of Kandahar, and after making rapid territorial
gains thereafter, the Taliban captured the capital city Kabul in September 1996.

In 1996, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a perfect staging ground for al-Qaeda.[168] While not
officially working together, Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and supported the regime in such
a strong symbiotic relationship that many Western observers dubbed the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan as, "the world's first terrorist-sponsored state."[169] However, at this time, only Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of
Afghanistan.

While in Afghanistan, the Taliban government tasked al-Qaeda with the training of Brigade 055, an elite
element of the Taliban's army. The Brigade mostly consisted of foreign fighters, veterans from the Soviet
Invasion, and adherents to the ideology of the mujahideen. In November 2001, as Operation Enduring
Freedom had toppled the Taliban government, many Brigade 055 fighters were captured or killed, and
those that survived were thought to have escaped into Pakistan along with bin Laden.[170]

By the end of 2008, some sources reported that the Taliban had severed any remaining ties with al-
Qaeda,[171] however, there is reason to doubt this.[172] According to senior US military intelligence
officials, there were fewer than 100 members of al-Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan in 2009.[173]

Al Qaeda chief, Asim Omar was killed in Afghanistan's Musa Qala district after a joint U.S.-Afghanistan
commando airstrike on September 23, Afghan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) confirmed in
October 2019.[174]

In a report released May 27, 2020, the United Nations' Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring
Team stated that the Taliban-Al Qaeda relations remain strong to this day and additionally, Al Qaeda
itself has admitted that it operates inside Afghanistan.[175]

On July 26, 2020, a United Nations report stated that the Al Qaeda group is still active in twelve
provinces in Afghanistan and its leader al-Zawahiri is still based in the country.[176] and that the UN
Monitoring Team has estimated that the total number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan were "between
400 and 600".[176]

Call for global Salafi jihadism

In 1994, the Salafi groups waging Salafi jihadism in Bosnia entered into decline, and groups such as the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad began to drift away from the Salafi cause in Europe. Al-Qaeda stepped in and
assumed control of around 80% of non-state armed cells in Bosnia in late 1995. At the same time, al-
Qaeda ideologues instructed the network's recruiters to look for Jihadi international Muslims who
believed that extremist-jihad must be fought on a global level. Al-Qaeda also sought to open the
"offensive phase" of the global Salafi jihad.[177] Bosnian Islamists in 2006 called for "solidarity with
Islamic causes around the world", supporting the insurgents in Kashmir and Iraq as well as the groups
fighting for a Palestinian state.[178]

Fatwas

In 1996, al-Qaeda announced its jihad to expel foreign troops and interests from what they considered
Islamic lands. Bin Laden issued a fatwa,[179] which amounted to a public declaration of war against the
US and its allies, and began to refocus al-Qaeda's resources on large-scale, propagandist strikes.

On February 23, 1998, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with
three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Americans and their
allies.[180] Under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders,
they declared:

[T]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual
duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to
liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the holy mosque [in Mecca] from their grip,
and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to
threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the
pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more
tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.[181]

Neither bin Laden nor al-Zawahiri possessed the traditional Islamic scholarly qualifications to issue a
fatwa. However, they rejected the authority of the contemporary ulema (which they saw as the paid
servants of jahiliyya rulers), and took it upon themselves.[182]

Iraq

Al-Qaeda has launched attacks against the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian
violence.[183] Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites[184] while claiming responsibility
for Shiite mosque bombings.[185] The same month, a statement claiming to be from Al-Qaeda in Iraq was
rejected as a "fake".[186] In a December 2007 video, al-Zawahiri defended the Islamic State in Iraq, but
distanced himself from the attacks against civilians, which he deemed to be perpetrated by "hypocrites
and traitors existing among the ranks".[187]

US and Iraqi officials accused Al-Qaeda in Iraq of trying to slide Iraq into a full-scale civil war between
Iraq's Shiite population and Sunni Arabs. This was done through an orchestrated campaign of civilian
massacres and a number of provocative attacks against high-profile religious targets.[188] With attacks
including the 2003 Imam Ali Mosque bombing, the 2004 Day of Ashura and Karbala and Najaf
bombings, the 2006 first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra, the deadly single-day series of
bombings in which at least 215 people were killed in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the
second al-Askari bombing in 2007, Al-Qaeda in Iraq provoked Shiite militias to unleash a wave of
retaliatory attacks, resulting in death squad-style killings and further sectarian violence which escalated
in 2006.[189] In 2008, sectarian bombings blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq killed at least 42 people at the
Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala in March, and at least 51 people at a bus stop in Baghdad in June.
In February 2014, after a prolonged dispute with al-Qaeda in Iraq's successor organisation, the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), al-Qaeda publicly announced it was cutting all ties with the group,
reportedly for its brutality and "notorious intractability".[190]

Somalia and Yemen

In Somalia, al-Qaeda agents had been collaborating closely with its

Somali wing, which was created from the al-Shabaab group. In
February 2012, al-Shabaab officially joined al-Qaeda, declaring
loyalty in a video.[191] Somalian al-Qaeda recruited children for
suicide-bomber training and recruited young people to participate in
militant actions against Americans.[192]

The percentage of attacks in the First World originating from the

Afghanistan–Pakistan (AfPak) border declined starting in 2007, as
al-Qaeda shifted to Somalia and Yemen.[193] While al-Qaeda leaders
were hiding in the tribal areas along the AfPak border, middle-tier
leaders heightened activity in Somalia and Yemen.

In January 2009, al-Qaeda's division in Saudi Arabia merged with

its Yemeni wing to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP).[194] Centered in Yemen, the group takes advantage of the Current military situation in Somalia:
country's poor economy, demography and domestic security. In Controlled by Al-Shabaab and
August 2009, the group made an assassination attempt against a Allies
member of the Saudi royal family. President Obama asked Ali
Abdullah Saleh to ensure closer cooperation with the US in the
struggle against the growing activity of al-Qaeda in Yemen, and
promised to send additional aid. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
drew US attention from Somalia and Yemen.[195] In December 2011,
US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that the US operations
against al-Qaeda "are now concentrating on key groups in Yemen,
Somalia and North Africa."[196] Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
claimed responsibility for the 2009 bombing attack on Northwest
Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.[197] The AQAP Current military situation in Yemen:
declared the Al-Qaeda Emirate in Yemen on March 31, 2011, after Controlled by al-Qaeda and
capturing the most of the Abyan Governorate.[198] Ansar al-Sharia

As the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen escalated in July

2015, 50 civilians were killed, and 20 million were in need of
aid.[199] In February 2016, al-Qaeda forces and Saudi Arabian-led coalition forces were both seen
fighting Houthi rebels in the same battle.[200] In August 2018, Al Jazeera reported that "A military
coalition battling Houthi rebels secured secret deals with al-Qaeda in Yemen and recruited hundreds of
the group's fighters. ... Key figures in the deal-making said the United States was aware of the
arrangements and held off on drone attacks against the armed group, which was created by Osama bin
Laden in 1988."[201]

United States operations

In December 1998, the Director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center reported to President Bill Clinton
that al-Qaeda was preparing to launch attacks in the United States, and that the group was training
personnel to hijack aircraft.[202] On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacked the United States, hijacking
four airliners within the country and deliberately crashing two into the twin towers of the World Trade
Center in New York City. The third plane crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington
County, Virginia. The fourth plane was crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.[203] In total, the
attackers killed 2,977 victims and injured more than 6,000 others.[204]

US officials noted that Anwar al-Awlaki had considerable reach within the
US. A former FBI agent identified Awlaki as a known "senior recruiter for
al-Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator.[205] Awlaki's sermons in the US were
attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, and accused Fort Hood shooter
Nidal Malik Hasan. US intelligence intercepted emails from Hasan to
Awlaki between December 2008 and early 2009. On his website, Awlaki
has praised Hasan's actions in the Fort Hood shooting.[206]

An unnamed official claimed there was good reason to believe Awlaki "has
been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the US [in
2002], including plotting attacks against America and our allies."[207] US
President Barack Obama approved the targeted killing of al-Awlaki by April
2010, making al-Awlaki the first US citizen ever placed on the CIA target
Anwar al-Awlaki list. That required the consent of the US National Security Council, and
officials argued that the attack was appropriate because the individual
posed an imminent danger to national security.[208][209][210] In May 2010,
Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, told interrogators he
was "inspired by" al-Awlaki, and sources said Shahzad had made contact with al-Awlaki over the
Internet.[211][212][213] Representative Jane Harman called him "terrorist number one", and Investor's
Business Daily called him "the world's most dangerous man".[214][215] In July 2010, the US Treasury
Department added him to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and the UN added him to its
list of individuals associated with al-Qaeda.[216] In August 2010, al-Awlaki's father initiated a lawsuit
against the US government with the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging its order to kill al-
Awlaki.[217] In October 2010, US and UK officials linked al-Awlaki to the 2010 cargo plane bomb
plot.[218] In September 2011, al-Awlaki was killed in a targeted killing drone attack in Yemen.[219] On
March 16, 2012, it was reported that Osama bin Laden plotted to kill US President Barack Obama.[220]

Death of Osama bin Laden

On May 1, 2011, US President Barack Obama announced that Osama

bin Laden had been killed by "a small team of Americans" acting
under direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad,
Pakistan.[221][222] The action took place 50 km (31 mi) north of
Islamabad.[223] According to US officials, a team of 20–25 US Navy
SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations
Command stormed bin Laden's compound with two helicopters. Bin
Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which US View of Osama bin Laden's
forces experienced no casualties.[224] According to one US official compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,
the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the where he was killed on May 1, 2011
Pakistani authorities.[225] In Pakistan some people were reported to
be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces.[226]
The site is a few miles from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.[227] In his broadcast announcement
President Obama said that US forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties."[228] 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".[225] DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples
on record from his dead sister,[229] confirmed bin Laden's identity.[230] The body was recovered by the
US military and was in its custody[222] until, according to one US official, his body was buried at sea
according to Islamic traditions.[223][231] One US official stated that "finding a country willing to accept
the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult."[232] US State Department
issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following bin Laden's death and US diplomatic facilities
everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior US official said.[233] Crowds gathered outside the White
House and in New York City's Times Square to celebrate bin Laden's death.[234]

Syria

In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad revealed in an interview with a

Kuwaiti newspaper that he doubted that al-Qaeda even existed. He
was quoted as saying, "Is there really an entity called al-Qaeda? Was
it in Afghanistan? Does it exist now?" He went on further to remark
about bin Laden, commenting "[he] cannot talk on the phone or use
the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of
the world? This is illogical."[236]

Following the mass protests that took place in 2011, which

demanded the resignation of al-Assad, al-Qaeda affiliated groups
Military situation in the Syrian Civil
and Sunni sympathizers soon began to constitute an effective
War as of April 9, 2019.
fighting force against al-Assad.[237] Before the Syrian Civil War, al-
Controlled by al-Nusra Front
Qaeda's presence in Syria was negligible, but its growth thereafter
was rapid.[238] Groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant have recruited many foreign
Mujahideen to train and fight in what has gradually become a highly
sectarian war.[239][240] Ideologically, the Syrian Civil War has served
the interests of al-Qaeda as it pits a mainly Sunni opposition against
a secular government. Al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Sunni
militant groups have invested heavily in the civil conflict, at times
actively backing and supporting the mainstream Syrian
Opposition.[241][242] The scene of the October 2012
Aleppo bombings, for which al-
On February 2, 2014, al-Qaeda distanced itself from ISIS and its Nusra Front claimed
actions in Syria;[243] however, during 2014–15, ISIS and the al- responsibility[235]
Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front[244] were still able to occasionally
cooperate in their fight against the Syrian government.[245][246][247]
Al-Nusra (backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey as part of the Army of Conquest during 2015–2017[248])
launched many attacks and bombings, mostly against targets affiliated with or supportive of the Syrian
government.[249] From October 2015, Russian air strikes targeted positions held by al-Nusra Front, as
well as other Islamist and non-Islamist rebels,[250][251][252] while the US also targeted al-Nusra with
airstrikes.[252][253][254] In early 2016, a leading ISIL ideologue described al-Qaeda as the "Jews of
jihad".[255]

India
In September 2014 al-Zawahiri announced al-Qaeda was establishing a front in India to "wage jihad
against its enemies, to liberate its land, to restore its sovereignty, and to revive its Caliphate." Al-
Zawahiri nominated India as a beachhead for regional jihad taking in neighboring countries such as
Myanmar and Bangladesh. The motivation for the video was questioned, as it appeared the militant
group was struggling to remain relevant in light of the emerging prominence of ISIS.[256] The new wing
was to be known as "Qaedat al-Jihad fi'shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya" or al-Qaida in the Indian
Subcontinent (AQIS). Leaders of several Indian Muslim organizations rejected al-Zawahiri's
pronouncement, saying they could see no good coming from it, and viewed it as a threat to Muslim youth
in the country.[257]

In 2014 Zee News reported that Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official
for South Asia, accused the Pakistani military intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of
organising and assisting Al-Qaeda to organise in India, that Pakistan ought to be warned that it will be
placed on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, and wrote that "Zawahiri made the tape in his hideout
in Pakistan, no doubt, and many Indians suspect the ISI is helping to protect him".[258][259][260]

Attacks
Al-Qaeda has carried out a total of six major
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 businesses to provide operatives with
safehouses and false identities.[261]

Al-Qaeda usually does not disburse funds for

attacks, and very rarely makes wire Map of major attacks attributed to al-Qaeda:
1. The Pentagon, US – September 11, 2001
transfers.[262]
2. World Trade Center, US – September 11, 2001
3. Istanbul, Turkey – November 15 and 20, 2003
1992 4. Aden, Yemen – October 12, 2000
5. Nairobi, Kenya – August 7, 1998
6. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – August 7, 1998
On December 29, 1992, al-Qaeda launched its
first attack, the 1992 Yemen hotel bombings.
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.[263]

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 US, the attack was barely noticed. No American
soldiers were killed because no soldiers were staying in the hotel which was bombed. However, an
Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker were killed in the bombing. Seven others, mostly Yemenis,
were severely injured.[263] Two fatwas are said to have been appointed by 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.[264]

Late 1990s
 1998 Nairobi embassy al-Qaeda around the world
bombing

In 1996, bin Laden personally engineered a plot to assassinate United

States President Bill Clinton while the president was in Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation. However, intelligence agents intercepted a message before the motorcade was to leave, and
alerted the US Secret Service. Agents later discovered a bomb planted under a bridge.[265]

On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in East Africa, killing 224 people, including 12
Americans. In retaliation, a barrage of cruise missiles launched by the US military devastated an al-
Qaeda base in Khost, Afghanistan. The network's capacity was unharmed. In late 1999 and 2000, Al-
Qaeda planned attacks to coincide with the millennium, masterminded by Abu Zubaydah and involving
Abu Qatada, which would include the bombing of Christian holy sites in Jordan, the bombing of Los
Angeles International Airport by Ahmed Ressam, and the bombing of the USS The Sullivans (DDG-68).

On October 12, 2000, al-Qaeda militants in Yemen bombed the missile destroyer USS Cole in a suicide
attack, killing 17 US 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 US itself.

September 11 attacks

The September 11 attacks on America by al-Qaeda killed 2,977 people —

2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, and 55
military personnel. Two commercial airliners were deliberately flown into
the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a third into the Pentagon, and a
fourth, originally intended to target either the United States Capitol or the
White House, crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania. It was also the deadliest foreign attack on American soil since Aftermath of the September
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 11 attacks

The attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998
fatwa issued against the US and its allies by persons under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and
others.[266] Evidence points to suicide squads led by al-Qaeda military commander Mohamed Atta as the
culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh 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.[267] Bin Laden legitimized the attacks by identifying
grievances felt by both mainstream and Islamist Muslims, such as the general perception that the US
was actively oppressing Muslims.[268]

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 people, but "America's icons of military and economic power," despite the fact he planned
to attack in the morning when most of the people in the intended targets were present and thus
generating the maximum number of human casualties.[269]

Evidence has since come to light that the original targets for the attack may have been nuclear power
stations on the US East Coast. The targets were later altered by al-Qaeda, as it was feared that such an
attack "might get out of hand".[270][271]

Designation as a terrorist group

Al-Qaeda is deemed a designated terrorist group by the following countries and international
organizations:

Australia[272] Malaysia designated Al-Qaeda's Malaysian

Azerbaijan[273] branch[292]
Bahrain[274] Netherlands[293]
Belarus[275] New Zealand[294]
Brazil[276] Pakistan[295]
Canada[277] Philippines[296]
China[37][278] Russian Federation[297]
European Union[279] Saudi Arabia[298]
France[280] South Korea[299]
India[281] Sweden[300]
Indonesia[282] Switzerland[301]
Iran[283] Tajikistan[302][303]
Ireland[284] Turkey designated Al-Qaeda's Turkish
branch[304]
Israel[285][286]
United Arab Emirates[305]
Japan[287]
United Kingdom[306]
Kazakhstan[288]
United Nations Security Council[307]
Kyrgyzstan[289]
United States[308]
NATO[290][291]
Uzbekistan[309][310]
Vietnam[311]

War on Terror
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the US government
responded, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the
Taliban, which it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. The US 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 US would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in US troops in Afghanistan
the attacks. US President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We
know he's guilty. Turn him over",[312] and British Prime Minister
Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power".[313]

Soon thereafter the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern
Alliance removed the Taliban government as part of the war in Afghanistan. As a result of the US special
forces and air support for the Northern Alliance ground forces, a number of 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.

By early 2002, al-Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow to its operational
capacity, and the Afghan invasion appeared to be a success. Nevertheless, a
significant Taliban insurgency remained in Afghanistan.

Debate continued regarding the nature of al-Qaeda's role in the 9/11

attacks. The US State Department released a videotape showing bin Laden
speaking with a small group of associates somewhere in Afghanistan shortly
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before the Taliban was removed from power.[314] Although its authenticity
after his arrest in
has been questioned by a couple of people,[315] the tape definitively
Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in
implicates bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. The tape
March 2003
was aired on many television channels, with an accompanying English
translation provided by the US Defense Department.[316]

In September 2004, the 9/11 Commission officially concluded that the attacks were conceived and
implemented by al-Qaeda operatives.[317] 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 in Lebanon, 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."[318]

By the end of 2004, the US 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;[319] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003;[320] and Saif al Islam el Masry in
2004.[321] Mohammed Atef and several others were killed. The West was criticized for not being able to
handle Al-Qaida despite a decade of the war.[322]

Activities
Africa

Al-Qaeda involvement in Africa has included a number of bombing

attacks in North Africa, while supporting parties in civil wars in
Eritrea and 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.[324][325][326] French officials say the rebels have no real links
to the al-Qaeda leadership, but this has been disputed. 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.[327]
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(formerly GSPC) area of operations
In Mali, the Ansar Dine faction was also reported as an ally of al-
Qaeda in 2013.[328] The Ansar al Dine faction aligned themselves
with the AQIM.[329]

In 2011, Al-Qaeda's North African wing condemned Libyan leader

Muammar Gaddafi and declared support for the Anti-Gaddafi
rebels.[330][331]

Following the Libyan Civil War, the removal of Gaddafi and the
ensuing period of post-civil war violence in Libya, various Islamist
militant groups affiliated with al-Qaeda were able to expand their
operations in the region.[332] The 2012 Benghazi attack, which
resulted in the death of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans, is suspected of having been carried out by
various Jihadist networks, such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,
Ansar al-Sharia and several other Al-Qaeda affiliated
groups.[333][334] The capture of Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, a
senior al-Qaeda operative wanted by the United States for his Front page of The Guardian Weekly
involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings, on on the eighth anniversary of the
September 11 attacks. The article
October 5, 2013, by US Navy Seals, FBI and CIA agents illustrates
claimed that al-Qaeda's activity is
the importance the US and other Western allies have placed on
"increasingly dispersed to 'affiliates'
North Africa.[335] or 'franchises' in Yemen and North
Africa."[323]
Europe

Prior to the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda was present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its members
were mostly veterans of the El Mudžahid detachment of the Bosnian Muslim Army of the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three al-Qaeda operatives carried out the Mostar car bombing in 1997. The
operatives were closely linked to and financed by the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and
Herzegovina founded by then-prince King Salman of Saudi Arabia.

Before the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan, westerners who had been recruits at al-
Qaeda training camps were sought after by al-Qaeda's military wing. Language skills and knowledge of
Western culture were generally found among recruits from Europe, such was the case with Mohamed
Atta, an Egyptian national studying in Germany at the time of his training, and other members of the
Hamburg Cell. Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef would later designate Atta as the ringleader of the
9/11 hijackers. Following the attacks, Western intelligence agencies determined that al-Qaeda cells
operating in Europe had aided the hijackers with financing and communications with the central
leadership based in Afghanistan.[106][336]

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.[337][338]

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 US
The MI5 investigation regarding the plot involved more than a year of surveillance work conducted by
over two hundred officers.[339][340][341] British and US officials said the plot – unlike many similar
homegrown European Islamic militant plots – was directly linked to al-Qaeda and guided by senior al-
Qaeda members in Pakistan.[342][343]

In 2012, Russian Intelligence indicated that al-Qaeda had given a call for "forest jihad" and has been
starting massive forest fires as part of a strategy of "thousand cuts".[344]

Arab world

Following Yemeni unification in 1990, Wahhabi networks began

moving missionaries into the country. Although it is unlikely that
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.[345] Concerns grew over Al
Qaeda's group in Yemen.[346]

In Iraq, al-Qaeda forces loosely associated with the leadership were

embedded in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group commanded by
USS Cole after the October 2000
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Specializing in suicide operations, they have
[347] attack
been a "key driver" of the Sunni insurgency. 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 group.[348][349] Reports have indicated that oversights such as the failure to control
access to the Qa'qaa munitions factory in Yusufiyah have allowed large quantities of munitions to fall
into the hands of al-Qaida.[350] In November 2010, the militant group Islamic State of Iraq, which is
linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, threatened to "exterminate all Iraqi Christians".[351][352]

Al-Qaeda did not begin training Palestinians until the late 1990s.[353] Large groups such as Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad have rejected an alliance with al-Qaeda, fearing that al-Qaeda will co-opt their
cells. This may have changed recently. The Israeli security and intelligence services believe that al-Qaeda
has managed to infiltrate operatives from the Occupied Territories into Israel, and is waiting for an
opportunity to attack.[353]

As of 2015, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are openly supporting the Army of Conquest,[244][354] an
umbrella rebel group fighting in the Syrian Civil War against the Syrian government that reportedly
includes an al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and another Salafi coalition known as Ahrar al-Sham.[248]
Kashmir

Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri consider India to be a part of an alleged Crusader-Zionist-Hindu
conspiracy against the Islamic world.[355] According to a 2005 report by the Congressional Research
Service, bin Laden was involved in training militants for Jihad in Kashmir while living in Sudan in the
early 1990s. By 2001, Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen had become a part of the al-Qaeda
coalition.[356] According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), al-Qaeda
was thought to have established bases in Pakistan administered Kashmir (in Azad Kashmir, and to some
extent in Gilgit–Baltistan) during the 1999 Kargil War and continued to operate there with tacit approval
of Pakistan's Intelligence services.[357]

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.[358] In a 'Letter to American People' (2002), bin
Laden wrote that one of the reasons he was fighting America was because of its support to India on the
Kashmir issue.[359][360] In November 2001, Kathmandu airport went on high alert after threats that bin
Laden planned to hijack a plane and crash it into a target in New Delhi.[361] In 2002, US Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on a trip to Delhi, suggested that al-Qaeda was active in Kashmir though he
did not have any evidence.[362][363] Rumsfeld proposed hi-tech ground sensors along the Line of Control
to prevent militants from infiltrating into Indian-administered Kashmir.[363] An investigation in 2002
found evidence that al-Qaeda and its affiliates were prospering in Pakistan-administered Kashmir with
tacit approval of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.[364] In 2002, a special team of Special Air Service
and Delta Force was sent into Indian-Administered Kashmir to hunt for bin Laden after receiving
reports that he was being sheltered by Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which had been
responsible for kidnapping western tourists in Kashmir in 1995.[365] 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.[366]

US officials believe that al-Qaeda was helping organize attacks in Kashmir in order to provoke conflict
between India and Pakistan.[367] 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.[368] In
2006 al-Qaeda claimed they had established a wing in Kashmir.[358][369] However Indian Army General
H. S. Panag argued that the army had ruled out the presence of al-Qaeda in Indian-administered Jammu
and Kashmir. Panag also stated that al-Qaeda had strong ties with Kashmiri militant groups Lashkar-e-
Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed based in Pakistan.[370] It has been noted that Waziristan has become a
battlefield for Kashmiri militants fighting NATO in support of al-Qaeda and Taliban.[371][372][373] Dhiren
Barot, who wrote the Army of Madinah in Kashmir[374] 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.[375]

Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of Kashmiri group Jaish-e-Mohammed, is believed to have met bin
Laden several times and received funding from him.[358] 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.[376] According to American counter-terrorism expert 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 and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh from an Indian prison. This hijacking,
Riedel stated, was rightly described by then Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh as a 'dress rehearsal'
for September 11 attacks.[377] Bin Laden personally welcomed Azhar and threw a lavish party in his
honor after his release.[378][379] Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been in prison for his role in the
1994 kidnappings of Western tourists in India, went on to murder Daniel Pearl and was sentenced to
death in 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.[380]

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.[381] In late 2002, top al-Qaeda
operative Abu Zubaydah was arrested while being sheltered by Lashkar-e-Taiba in a safe house in
Faisalabad.[382] 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.[382] Jean-Louis Bruguière 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."[383][384]

In a video released in 2008, American-born 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."[385]

In September 2009, a US drone strike reportedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri who was the chief of Harkat-ul-
Jihad al-Islami, a Kashmiri militant group associated with al-Qaeda.[386] Kashmiri was described by
Bruce Riedel as a 'prominent' al-Qaeda member[387] while others have described him as head of military
operations for al-Qaeda.[388][389] Kashmiri was also charged by the US in a plot against Jyllands-Posten,
the Danish newspaper which was at the center of Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.[390]
US officials also believe that Kashmiri was involved in the Camp Chapman attack against the CIA.[391] 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.[392]

In January 2010, US 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.[393]

Internet

Al-Qaeda and its successors have migrated online to escape detection in an atmosphere of increased
international vigilance. The group's use of the Internet has grown more sophisticated, with online
activities that include financing, recruitment, networking, mobilization, publicity, and information
dissemination, gathering and sharing.[394]

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 they would be available unedited, rather than risk the
possibility of al Jazeera editing out anything critical of the Saudi royal family.[395]

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 US government charged a British information technology specialist, Babar Ahmad, with terrorist
offences related to his operating a network of English-language al-Qaeda websites, such as Azzam.com.
He was convicted and sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison.[396][397][398]

Online communications

In 2007, al-Qaeda released Mujahedeen Secrets, encryption software used for online and cellular
communications. A later version, Mujahideen Secrets 2, was released in 2008.[399]

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 2010 Reuters story. Based on a US 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 Europeans for ransom. The profits from the drug and weapon sales, and
kidnappings can, in turn, fund more militant activities.[400]

Involvement in military conflicts

The following is a list of military conflicts in which Al-Qaeda and its direct affiliates have taken part
militarily.
 Start of End of
Conflict Continent Location Branches involved
conflict conflict
1991 ongoing Somali Civil War Africa Somalia Al-Shabaab
Civil war in Afghanistan Islamic State of
1992 1996 Asia Al-Qaeda Central
(1992–1996) Afghanistan
Al-Qaeda insurgency in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
1992 ongoing Asia Yemen
Yemen Peninsula
Civil war in Afghanistan Islamic Emirate
1996 2001 Asia Al-Qaeda Central
(1996–2001) of Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–
2001 ongoing Asia Afghanistan Al-Qaeda Central
present)
Algeria
Chad
Mali
Insurgency in the Maghreb Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
2002 ongoing Africa Mauritania
(2002–present) Maghreb
Morocco
Niger
Tunisia
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
2003 2011 Iraq War Asia Iraq
Islamic State of Iraq

War in North-West
2004 ongoing Asia Pakistan Al-Qaeda Central
Pakistan
Insurgency in the North
2009 ongoing Asia Russia Caucasus Emirate
Caucasus
2011 ongoing Syrian Civil War Asia Syria al-Nusra Front

Saudi Arabian-led Al-Qaeda in the Arabian

2015 ongoing Asia Yemen
intervention in Yemen Peninsula[201][401][402]

Alleged CIA involvement

Experts debate the notion al-Qaeda attacks were an indirect result 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."[403]

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.[404]
A variety of sources, including 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.

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.[405]
Bergen further argues that foreign mujahideen had no need for American funds since they received
several million dollars per year from internal sources. Lastly, he argues that Americans could not have
trained the 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 Bergen, who conducted 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."[406]

Jason Burke also wrote:

Some of the $500 million the CIA poured into Afghanistan reached [Al-Zawahiri's] group. Al-
Zawahiri has become a close aide of bin Laden... Bin Laden was only loosely connected with
the [Hezb-i-Islami faction of the mujahideen led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar], serving under
another Hezb-i-Islami commander known as Engineer Machmud. However, bin Laden's
Office of Services, set up to recruit overseas for the war, received some US cash.[407]

Alleged Saudi and Emirati involvement

A CNN report has revealed that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been handing
out sophisticated American-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters in Yemen.[408]

In October 2014, US Vice President Joe Biden stated that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
had "poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who
would fight against Al-Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra, and al
Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."[409]

Broader influence
Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, was inspired by Al-Qaeda, calling it
"the most successful revolutionary movement in the world." While admitting different aims, he sought to
"create a European version of Al-Qaida."[410][411]

The appropriate response to offshoots is a subject of debate. A journalist reported in 2012 that a senior
U.S. military planner had asked: "Should we resort to drones and Special Operations raids every time
some group raises the black banner of al Qaeda? How long can we continue to chase offshoots of
offshoots around the world?"[412]
Criticism
Islamic extremism dates back to the Kharijites of the 7th century. From their essentially political
position, the Kharijites developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni
and Shiʿa Muslims. The Kharijites were particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to Takfir,
whereby they declared other Muslims to be unbelievers and therefore deemed them worthy of
death.[413][414][415]

According to a number of sources, a "wave of revulsion" has been expressed against al-Qaeda and its
affiliates by "religious scholars, former fighters and militants" who are alarmed by al-Qaeda's takfir and
its killing of Muslims in Muslim countries, especially in Iraq.[416]

Noman Benotman, a former Afghan Arab and a militant member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
(LIFG), went public with an open letter of criticism to Ayman al-Zawahiri in November 2007, after
persuading the imprisoned senior leaders 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
after "they were said to have renounced violence."[417]

In 2007, on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks,[149] 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. 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?[418]

According to Pew polls, support for al-Qaeda had dropped in the Muslim world in the years before
2008.[419] Support of suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, dropped by half or
more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent had a favorable view of al-Qaeda, according
to a December 2017 poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank.[420]

In 2007, the imprisoned Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, an influential Afghan Arab, "ideological godfather of al-
Qaeda", and former supporter of takfir, withdrew his support from al-Qaeda with a book Wathiqat
Tarshid Al-'Aml Al-Jihadi fi Misr w'Al-'Alam (English: 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 reversal may be
an important step toward staunching al-Qaeda's recruitment.[421]

Other criticisms

Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American journalist based in Syria created a documentary about al-Shabab, al-
Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia. The documentary included interviews with former members of the group
who stated their reasons for leaving al-Shabab. The members made accusations of segregation, lack of
religious awareness and internal corruption and favoritism. In response to Kareem, the Global Islamic
Media Front condemned Kareem, called him a liar, and denied the accusations from the former
fighters.[422]

In mid-2014 after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant declared that they had restored the Caliphate,
an audio statement was released by the then-spokesman of the group Abu Muhammad al-Adnani
claiming that "the legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the
expansion of the Caliphate's authority". The speech included a religious refutation of Al-Qaeda for being
too lenient regarding Shiites and their refusal to recognize the authority Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-
Adnani specifically noting: "It is not suitable for a state to give allegiance to an organization". He also
recalled a past instance in which Osama bin Laden called on al-Qaeda members and supporters to give
allegiance to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi when the group was still solely operating in Iraq, as the Islamic
State of Iraq, and condemned Ayman al-Zawahiri for not making this same claim for Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi, and that Zawahiri was encouraging factionalism and division between former allies of ISIL
such as the al-Nusra Front.[423][424]

See also
Al-Qaeda involvement in Asia Islamic Military Alliance
Al Qaeda Network Exord List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War
Allegations of support system in Pakistan for Operation Cannonball
Osama bin Laden Psychological warfare
Bin Laden Issue Station (former CIA unit for Religious terrorism
tracking bin Laden)
Takfir wal-Hijra
Steven Emerson
Videos of Osama bin Laden
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
Violent extremism

Publications
Al Qaeda Handbook
Management of Savagery

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Adam Curtis (2004). The Power of Nightmares. BBC.
"Al Qaeda's New Front" (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front) from PBS Frontline,
January 2005
"Inside al Qaeda" (https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=zUUUS_wRKLo) – video report by
National Geographic
 Al-Qaida collected news and commentary (https://www.theguardian.com/world/al-qaida) at The
Guardian
"al-Qaeda collected news and commentary" (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/org
anizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html). The New York Times.

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This page was last edited on 6 March 2021, at 00:28 (UTC).

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