

Al-Qaeda

History organization ideology

Ben Simon

Copyright 2014 by Ben Simon

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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: The background for al-Qaeda's organization

Chapter 1: The condition of states within the Arab-muslim region

Chapter 2: The hostility between Islam and the West

Chapter 3: Radical Islam's organizational failure

Part 2: Al-Qaeda—history

Chapter 1: Osama Bin Laden

Chapter 2: Ayman Zawairi

Chapter 3: Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

Chapter 4: The Creation of Al Qaeda

Chapter 5: The establishment within Sudan

Chapter 6: Back to Afghanistan

Chapter 7: The Terror Attack over the United States

Chapter 8: Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Chapter 9: Europe's Islamism

Chapter 10: Terror in Madrid

Chapter 11: Terror in London

Part 3: Ideology

Chapter 1: Ideological inspirations

Chapter 2: Western "Wrongdoings"

Chapter 3: Strategizing the Struggle

Chapter 4: The Assumption – The West Can Be Defeated

Chapter 5: The struggle stages

Chapter 6: Courses of Action

Chapter 7: Jihad in the Eyes of Al Qaeda

Part 4: Al Qaeda's Organizational Characteristics

Chapter 1: The Leadership

Chapter 2: Activists' profile and training

Chapter 3: Command and Control

Chapter 4: Communication and Internet

Conclusions

About the Author

Footnotes

# Preface

In the core of this book, an attempt is made to figure out why young people, in the middle of their lives, found the courage to hijack airliners and be crushed along with them into the twin towers of New York. What motivated these young people to commit suicide? What motivated their leaders to send them to their own death? These are only a portion of the questions concerning al-Qaeda's enigma.

Indeed, in the beginning of my research, I tended to give the common answer, the answer that originally comes from Samuel Huntington's school of thought, which relates the violent global conflicts to the collision between various civilizations and the special violence Islam excels in. However, the truth that became clear to me is that none of the young people chose to end their lives because of the collision between various civilizations, but instead because of the political collision within Islamic countries between the political regimes and the nations that wish to be released from them. The "Arab Spring", which first broke out in December 2010 in Tunisia and ended with the removal of the Tunisian ruler, and the national rebellion in Egypt, along with many other rebellions occurring within the Arabic-Muslim region, have all made it clear that my assumptions have a realistic basis.

This book poses several questions, including the following: why has al-Qaeda been established, what are the main milestones in its history, what the ideology that guides its beliefs is, and what the organizational features according to which it operates are. My main argument is that Al-Qaeda was established, as previously mentioned, because of the internal political conflict within Islamic countries, and its leaders have understood that in order to be able to fight the Arabic-Muslim local regimes and become a proper alternative to them, it first has to fight the West, especially the United States. Besides the terror attack on the United States, I make my argument about historical events that took place during the organization's tenure, including its formation within Sudan, its fight and defeat within Iraq, and its taking root within Europe, which I see as the main danger to the West. I have conducted an analysis of the ideology guiding the organization, including its historical resources, its attitude toward the West, and the organization's present and future plans. Ultimately, I will analyze al-Qaeda's organizational aspects, including its leadership profile and its activists' profiles, while describing the way they are trained to perform terrorist activities.

In addition to the book's intention to understand and explain the riddle named al-Qaeda, this text hopes to shed light on radical Islam within the Arab-muslim region, and even in Europe. The book thus aims to assist researchers and decision makers, and also act as a Guide to the Perplexed for common people who wish to understand this phenomenon that is so fateful in the lives of each human being in the twenty-first century.

This book is based on available sources only. As opposed to the conventional impression, there is plenty of knowledge on the subject of al-Qaeda; the problem is not the lack of knowledge but the enormous excess of it. The main goal of this text was to not let the trees hide the forest.

The chapter of this book that deals with ideology won a prize on behalf of Inbar Atia's foundation, which is a memorial foundation that encourages research into the fight against terror in cooperation with the legacy of the intelligence center in Israel.

# Introduction

Humankind will forever remember September 11, 2001 as the day when terror rose to the level of strategic threat to the entire free world. On that day, al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, carried out the biggest and deadliest terror attack in history. A group of Islamic extremists took control of huge passenger airplanes while they were in the air, and set them on a collision course with the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense in Virginia. This attack, like other al-Qaeda attacks, had a symbolic meaning extending beyond the huge damage and terrible loss it resulted in. This was a declaration of war against the entire West, and against the United States in particular. This was an expression of the courage and religious determination of the terrorists who participated in the attack. Perhaps, more than anything else, this terrorist attack expressed hostility and rage against the "new Crusaders" that is, against the West and everything it represented.

On August 23, 1996, Bin Laden issued a legal pronouncement ("Fatwa" in Arabic), which declared that al-Qaeda's main goal was to expel the United States of America from the Arabian Peninsula. In November of the same year, Bin Laden announced to the American people that if the United States did not immediately remove its forces from the Persian Gulf, he would start a Jihad against the United States and its allies. It is clear from what he said that at the end of 1996, al-Qaeda arrived at a strategic decision to commence war against the US in retaliation for their military presence in the Persian Gulf region, particularly, in Saudi Arabia. Bill Clinton, the then president of the United States, claimed that the West had nothing against Islamic nations, but only against violent Muslim extremists. However, denying the existence of a conflict does not prove its non-existence.

Al-Qaeda's struggle against the United States—and the West in general—is often interpreted as part of what has been called an inevitable conflict between Christian civilization and Muslim civilization. This concept of "conflict," or "collision", was developed by Professor Samuel Huntington, who linked the collision to Muslim civilization and who lists several factors as explanations. First, he says, Islam is a sword religion and he magnifies military advantages. Second, he argues that "since Islam has been established in the Arabian Peninsula its expansion all around North Africa and within a big part of the Middle East has brought the Muslims to a direct contact with many various nations". Third, he claims that Muslims' violence stems from their "inability to digest" nations that are not Muslim and show tolerance toward them.

Professor Emmanuel Sivan, on the other hand, has determined that "the collision within the Muslim civilization – and this is the meaningful collision and not the one existing between the civilizations which is nothing but imagination – it is between the Islamic extremists and the governments." Sivan explains that Huntington was fascinated and captivated by the rhetoric of the extreme aspect of the Muslim world, which is important, however small, that deals with the struggle between Islam and the West; however, this section, which is al-Qaeda, is far from representative of the entire Islam religion. Though Sivan's research does not focus on al-Qaeda, Sivan comments on it and says that al-Qaeda's ultimate goal is to defeat the "near enemy"—that is, atheistic Arab governments—before anything else. On the issue of al-Qaeda's ultimate goal, there has been disagreement between researchers as well; Gilles Keppel assumes, as opposed to Sivan, that al-Qaeda's ultimate goal is to defeat Europe and the United States.

The first part of this book deals with the questions of why al-Qaeda was established and what was the context for its establishment. The first part will deal with the comprehensive historical background that allowed for al-Qaeda's appearance throughout the entire Muslim world, and even in Europe. On the basis of this part the allegation will be that al-Qaeda was established because three causes. The first, inside Islam, stems from Islamic countries' shaky situation at the end of the last century. The second is al-Qaeda's intention to manage a Jihad against the West, in order to expel them from Islamic lands.  The third cause deals with the desire of al-Qaeda to take control of the radical Islamic movement, both in the West and within local regimes. This third cause stems from what al-Qaeda sees as a failure of radical Islamic movement to take political control within the Islamic countries, which left these countries in the hands of evil and immoral rulers, subject to the exclusive control of the West.

In the second part, I will discuss the main events al-Qaeda experienced during the first two decades of its existence, starting with the organization's formation during the Afghanistan-U.S.S.R war and continuing up until 2005 and I will expand my discussion of a few key events in the organization's history. The first of these will deal with the Afghanistan-U.S.S.R war, which saw many Muslims recruited from various Muslim countries to create a multi-ethnic and transnational force that turned into the al-Qaeda organization at the end of the war. Next, I will review al-Qaeda's establishment in Sudan, where much of character of al-Qaeda has been shaped, including its international character. Another important era is the period of time in Afghanistan, when Osama Bin Laden returned and joined the Taliban, until its defeat by the United States in 2001. An important event I focus on is the terror attack on September 11, in the United States, the biggest achievement for al-Qaeda, and a moment which fortunately it did not succeed in repeating. I choose to end this part with al-Qaeda's terrorism in Europe, while emphasizing two different terrorist events: the first is the terrorist attacks in Britain on July 7, 2005, and the second is the terror attack in Spain on March 11, 2004.

Within the third part I wish to understand al-Qaeda's ideology; this section emphasizes the way in which the West is perceived in the eyes of al-Qaeda's deliberators and makes an effort to understand the main injustices al-Qaeda's deliberators ascribe to the "new Crusade". Eventually, I will seek to identify what al-Qaeda's "big plan" is in relation to the West, what al-Qaeda's goals are, and what strategy they are planning to take in order to achieve them.

The fourth part will be dedicated to a discussion of al-Qaeda's organizational structure which includes its leadership, its activists, its operating methods, and the significance of Internet networks to its worldview in terms of the communication it has with its people and the recruitment of new activists to its lines. This subject matter is a human profile of al-Qaeda's leaders and activists.

Basically, I assume al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization with political ambitions that aspires to become an elite group that will occupy the regimes of the states within the Arab-muslim region and unite them into one Islamic state. As a rule, elites all over the Arab-muslim region are not open to The Outsiders knocking on their door. Most of these elites include army officers wealthy families or, in the case of Saudi Arabia, people from the royal family. The elites used to accept people who resembled them and shared the same political view which is essentially secular, and closed their doors in the face of all others who did not belong to the regime circle. Fouad Ajami said of these regimes that "the officers and soldiers who usurp the regime turned into kings on their own way. Their regimes' cruelty, especially in Syria and Iraq, constituted a persuasive argument for the old royal family regime."

The citizens' desire to penetrate the regime and take part in political action was formulated by the philosopher Pareto, as a political phenomenon called the "Circulation of the Elites." According to this theory, the reigning elite is composed of the people who rule and their social class, and to this class participants from lower social classes or from the "non-ruling Elite" naturally penetrate. When individuals and groups find their way is blocked and they are unable to penetrate the dominating elite, the situation degenerates and the opposing body among the lower classes or among those who do not dominate will gather strength. In this case, the social balance will be undermined and each slight shock might shake society until a revolution erupts. The revolution will, in turn, create new elites and establish a new social balance. According to this approach, a sophisticated leadership will aim to integrate talented people who do not belong to the dominant elite into their regime; the dominant elite will become stronger, but perhaps even more importantly, the competitive elite will become weaker.

Implementing this theory for the case of al-Qaeda leads me to conclude that the al-Qaeda phenomenon can be explained by a group of people attempt to occupy the regimes of the countries in the Arab-muslim region and substitute alternative regimes. After the organization had been established for a period of time, it became clear that there was no longer hope for this kind of move without an act of violence. At the top of the organization are people who belong, according to Pareto's terms, to the non-dominant elite and who aim to become the ruling elite within their original countries as well as all other Islamic countries. When local regimes prevent political participation within their realm, they create a basic dissatisfaction that is translated into violence against the regime. Al-Qaeda is not the first Islamic movement to act this way. Many years before, an Islamic movement attempted to take control of local regimes while in direct conflict with these regimes and in the midst of acts of violence; however this attempt failed. After the Islamic people failed in their initial fight against the local regimes, al-Qaeda was established and first fought the West with the excuse that the West stands in the way of the Islamic movement, and, therefore, must be resisted until it is overpowered and retreats from Islamic lands.

In order to fully understand al-Qaeda's worldview, their main deliberators' manuscripts, which ascribe great importance to the beliefs behind their actions, must be analyzed in the sense of "think on the end before you begin." While the generation of the 1970s and 1980s spread its doctrine mainly by means of cassettes, al-Qaeda spreads its doctrine mainly through the Internet, which is accessible to all people, fast, cheap, visual, and interactive. The cassettes brought public awareness to the doctrine of radical Islam while the internet, the outstanding technology product of the twentieth century, has given wings to al-Qaeda.) Through this medium, the organization and activist leaders have spread their words and ideas to their target audience. After the war between Afghanistan and the United States, this ideology performed an important function for al-Qaeda's agenda and this framework dictated al-Qaeda's operation planning, including both its short-term and long-term goals.

This book is structured, by al-Qaeda's years of activity, that is, since the day it was established in 1988 up until the most recent activity, a period of about twenty years. However, naturally a book that focuses on ideology, even today, will not be complete if it does not also investigate the organization's ideological roots; these roots extend back to the days of ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and even to the former century, during the days of Sayyid Qutb. This investigation mainly focuses on the organization's leaders and deliberators' manuscripts, whose writings and operations found expression mainly at the end of the last century.

The internet provides a very large reservoir for research on this organization. This reservoir contains, first, books and essays that have been written by al-Qaeda's leaders. These books allow for research on the al-Qaeda leaders' ways of thinking on various subjects. Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri 's books, for example address al-Qaeda's attitude toward the Muslim brothers found within his book Al-Hisad Al-Murr (The Bitter Harvest);  he also has an interesting book that was written after the war between the United States and the Taliban, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner. Osama Bin Laden did not write books; however, the amount of manifestos he produced himself and the interviews he gave during the years, is enormous. In some sections of the manifestos and interviews, he expresses very interesting ideas and thoughts.

In my book, I will refer to the writings of philosophers identified with al-Qaeda, of whom the most prominent and notable are the Saudi Arabian Sheikh, Faris al-Zahrani, sometimes named "Abu Jandal al-Azdi", and the Saudi Arabian Sheikh, Abu Bakr Naji. This books is accompanied by many original documents that have been produced during the war between the United States and Afghanistan.

Concerning terminology, I make a clear distinction between Islam as a religion, which has 1.3 billion Muslim believers committed to it, and Islamism or radical Islam. The Islamist people who do not see Islam just a religion, relating to ceremony only, but instead see it as complicated political system dominating the judicial, economic, and social domains of the nation, and who prioritize the goal of redesigning the country by means of conservative and comprehensive inclusion of the Islamic law. These Islamic people, who name themselves in al-Qaeda's context as " "Jihādīyūn" or "Mujahedeen" as well, believe as a basic premise that Islam is not only a religion but also a political and cultural system involved in all domains of life. Often, Islamic trustees name themselves "the Islamic movement". The ideology guiding al-Qaeda is the ideology called "Salfia Jihadiya," which emphasizes the meaning of Salfia, that is the return to the first days of Islam on the one hand, and the meaning of Jihad as a means of achieving the organization's goals by force on the other hand.

# Part One: The background for al-Qaeda's organization
# Chapter 1: The condition of states within the Arab-muslim region

#

"September 11 was a unique event regarding its scope of horror, however from the despair intensity point of view it has expressed this event isn't different than any former terror attack that predicted the end of the movements executing them."  A deed of despair is how the important Arabic thinker, Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm, sees the terror attack of September 11. Was this indeed an act of despair? This chapter attempts to answer that question.

In the year during which el-Qaeda was established, 1988, the situation of the Arabic-Muslim countries was very bleak. Proof for this allegation was discovered when, about ten years later, the United Nations Organization (UN) appointed a chosen group of Arabic researchers to produce a report concerning the Arabic states' situation at the end of the twentieth century. The report painted a very dire picture. According to the parameters examined, the Arabic world was at the bottom of the scales compared to the other countries in the world, or at best, above only the African nations. The report showed that the analphabetic rate among the Arab world, even though it has declined during the past decades, is still high. The number of children attending elementary school is significantly lower than their numbers within developing countries. The expense for education per head, which in 1980 was 20% of the average within industrialized countries, had declined to 10% fifteen years later.

This report's research found that, in 1999, the Gross domestic product (GDP) of all the Arab countries combined, which totaled 531.2 billion dollars, was only lower that year than that of Spain, which totaled 595.5 billion dollars. This important UN document probably guided Osama Bin Laden, who indicated through a message broadcast on Al Jazeera—a message that was directed to all Muslim people—that the Muslim world was in a state of deterioration, and what could be more reflective of this situation than the comparison with the economy of Spain. Bin Laden referred to spain as Al-Andalus, which had been part of the Muslim world in the past, and asked how it could be even more powerful than all the economies of the Arab world combined.

During the past three decades, an economical trend of regression has been apparent. The labor productivity is low and still declining, while industry productivity remains unchanged and is still relatively low compared to other places in the world. While in 1960, the production per person was higher than the average of countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong-Kong, and Singapore, in 2003, it was half of South Korea's production. The unemployment rate within the Arab world is the highest among the developing countries.

The key to understanding the situation of the Middle East at the end of the twentieth century is located in the period following World War II, a time when British and French control came to an end. Some of the old regimes within the Islamic world were replaced by new regimes, and the rulers were encouraged to implement a policy of rapid development within societies that were in the middle of a significant transition. The population grew fast and the cities expanded, especially the capital cities. The social classes variously integrated, and the influence of new modes of communication, such as the cinema, radio, television, and audio cassettes, was evident in all domains of life. This rapid development was mainly beneficial to those who succeeded in dealing with the changes and adapting themselves to them. Those who immediate profits were the elites: the politicians, the army officers, the senior government officials, the businessmen, export and import sectors, and consumer products' industries, as well as the entrepreneurs whose businesses reached beyond national borders to the world market. Skilled workers also gained profits when political circumstances enabled them to efficiently organize themselves.

In the big cities, especially on their margins, a population of small employers, small merchants, and service suppliers for the wealthy emerged and they were surrounded by a large population of people who earned their living from "the informal sector," including vendors, people dealing with random employment, or the unemployed. Among the meaningful phenomena that particularly distressed societies following World War II, the phenomenon of population growth among Islamic societies especially stood out. For example, between 1965 and 1990, the Maghreb population grew at a rate of 2.65% per year, from 29.8 million people to 59 million people. The population in Algeria grew at a yearly rate of 3%, and in Egypt at a yearly rate of 2.3%, from 29.4 million to 52.4 million people between 1965 and 1990.

However, more than anything else, the 1967 military defeat by Israel reflected to the Muslim countries, especially to the Arab countries, their tragic situation. The military failure started a long process of self-criticism among the Arab-muslim countries, in the middle of which was a feeling of failure and lost opportunities in many other domains. The sense of failure also included the "values exported" from the West: thus, from the dream of socialism a bombastic bureaucracy and hidden unemployment remains, and from Arab unity nothing remains after the failed alliance signed by Syria and Egypt.

Egypt is a representative case. The 1950s reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who in the middle of the twentieth century many considered, that he signaled a better future in the political domain. It seemed as if the Arab people's dream of establishing a strong, independent country was about to come true. Nasser, who was known for his abounding charisma, succeeded in giving his people and the rest of the Arab world a sense of hope for a brighter future. As he spoke about the need to implement new secular ideas within the Arab world, such as "Arabic socialism" many people followed him with the desire to put their trust in him. Nasser's vision of a secular Arab country was indeed adopted by many Arab countries; however, during the last years of his life it was once again impossible to ignore his failures. The economic growth slowed, the standard of living for people of modest means did not reasonably grow, the social services' situation was disgraceful, the regime remained authoritarian and political participation was forbidden to the public, the intellectuals felt alienated, and cultural creativity was offended. Moreover, Egypt's status within the Arab world was at its lowest point, its army had been defeated, and within Egyptian society, there was a prevailing sense of crisis and loss of direction. Following Nasser's death, ayman al-zawahiri wrote the following: "his principles died as well because they didn't fit reality, and along with his death the myth that broke into pieces within the sand of the Sinai desert died as well."  Nasser's successors, Sadat and Mubarak, did not fare well with the Egyptian people, who suffered from years of large-scale unemployment affecting millions of people, from disgraceful poverty, and from governmental corruption that ruined every good place.

Saudi Arabia is wealthier than Egypt, along with being different in several other ways, however, just like Egypt, Saudi Arabia has also been generous, especially to its elites. While in Egypt the crisis was felt in the middle of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia underwent an economic crisis during the 1980s as a result of the drop in the price of crude oil on the world markets. This caused the gross domestic product per person to fall from 15,810 dollars in 1981 to less than 5,479 dollars in 1986. The economic crisis weakened the fringe benefits from which the citizens of Saudi Arabia had benefitted. Even worse than that, this crisis caused a high unemployment rate, about 25%, among university graduates.

Following these economic difficulties, Saudi Arabian leaders were accused of being immoral and having dubious managerial abilities.(44) Similar to Egypt, in this case the Saudi Arabian elites were also exposed to Western culture and looked to identify themselves with that culture. Arnold Hottinger wrote that the aristocrats of Saudi Arabia, who earn huge amounts of money, "aren't at all situated in a state where they are capable to become united in order to have influence upon their counties stability. They refer to [the Saudi Arabian] kingdom mainly as money factory. And that same 'homeland' in which they wish to retire, sooner or later, will probably be Texas or California."  In his criticism of the Saudi Arabian elite, which he knows very well, including the Saudi Arabian royal family, Bin Laden claims that the royal family members "didn't implement the Sharia and actually established the country for their own needs only."  Bin Laden also claimed in his criticism of the Saudi Arabian elite that the Saudi Arabian ordinary citizen, who is aware of the fact that his country is the biggest oil producer in the world, moans under the burden of massive taxes and receives poor services in return. The ordinary citizen perfectly understands that "the people in the mosques [are right] in saying that Saudi Arabia turned into an American colony." Bin Laden analyzes the royal family as an opponent who knows his competitors very well, including their significant weaknesses. He knew, most probably, that the royal family is the main source of the corruption and immorality of the kingdom. On the part of the princes, it has been said that, "they are affected by lust for gambling, alcohol and prostitution."  Each one of these princes receives today an allowance of a few thousand dollars per month, however, in light of their numerous desires, even this budget is not enough. Therefore, some of the princes look for finance their lavish lifestyles over the years. Among them: siphoning off money from "off-budget" programs controlled by senior princes, sponsoring expatriate workers who then pay a small monthly fee to their royal patron and, simply, "borrowing from the banks, and not paying them back."  The princes scorn the law because of their status. The birth rate for princes who are married to multiple women at the same time increased very fast, the royal family grew at a very fast rate, and so too did Saudi Arabia's troubles.

Most of the local regimes tended to have close relationships with the West and, therefore, were perceived – justifiably – as pungent opponents of radical Islamic organizations. For example, Professor Shimon Shamir wrote that, at the end of Nasser's reign, visitors to Egypt were impressed by the fact that the self-confidence of Egyptian elites grew stronger because of their relationship with the West, and there was a feeling that the Americans were definitely a factor with which "can do business with him."

Egypt, led by Sadat, seemed ready to open a new chapter concerning their relationship with the West. Sadat instituted a policy of openness, "infitah," a broad perception that included economic liberalism, political pluralism, freedom for citizens, and open doors to the world. A book written about Anwar Sadat by one of Egypt's valued interpreters who was familiar with the government classes, Ahmad Baha-Eldin - which emerged out of the mirror positioned by Fouad Ajami - reveals Sadat's admiration of the West. It is about a ruler who boasted of his love for his country but who "however hated Cairo and its intellectuals and spent as much as he could time outside his raging capital." His love for the West, which took hold of Sadat and burned him, resided within his heart from the beginning. As he came back from Guinea in 1960, he combined his trip with a vacation in Vienna. He wanted to visit a beautiful place in which he wouldn't hear the words "colonialism" and "imperialism." Vienna, said the future ruler, is one of the most beautiful places in the world, "very precious to me." He felt nothing but scorn for the nonaligned world. Even then, when Iran and Egypt were enemies in soul and mind, he appreciated Iran's shah. Sadat even admired the shah, because he understood the fact that only one imperialist regime existed in the world, Pax Americana, and that the Soviet Union was nothing but "a fraud and Pretense."

In Algeria as well, the elites yearned after Western glamour, while Islam retained a strong presence among the common people. As Ajami put it, this was a Mediterranean society, "which found itself caught between an Islamic mission sounding from beneath and between a history of exposure to fashion and lifestyle of Europe and especially to the lifestyle of France."

The Islamic countries' shaky political state and the criticism of their leadership became one of the main subjects within al-Qaeda ideology. For example, Bin Laden turned to the common people and encouraged them to raise themselves against the failing leadership by stating: "I require from the Muslim people to expulse the leaders who support these tyrants and appoint strong and honest leaders who will be capable to deal with the difficult circumstances and protect the Islamic nation and people."

Within a reaction to the terror attack of September 11, 2001, one Sudanese citizen wrote that the responsibility for creating the Bin Laden phenomenon belonged to the Arab world collectively, including all the mistakes made during the past decades. He expressed himself in the following manner:

I do not speak about the governments: this is the story known to them and which turned into an (excuse) that enables us to escape from responsibility: as if our rulers fell on us from nowhere and no time and aren't our own flesh and blood and part of our mentality and way of life... I talk about the elites and the educated leaders from all currents who have become known among the Arab world. Each one of these currents reached the regime of some Arab country at a certain point of time and had great influence on the Arab street. We, Arab people are a nation of grown up people who reached their chapter and attained independence from Great Britain, France and America dozens of decades ago. Look and see what we have done with our free will. We got lost within the immorality labyrinths, the economical backwardness and the civil wars on the day when we have lost our democracy and the people right not to be oppressed, because you see their mothers gave birth to them as freemen. Bin Laden and the like who suffer from political blindness and stupid and crazy radicalism are part of the local Arab product, at least at a 70% rate... we must stop introducing him as a stepson of the American and Western hegemony: he is a legal son of the Arab-muslim helplessness.

Indeed, desperation moved al-Qaeda to act, and this realization has been expressed within a notable set of processes that surrounded several Arab countries. The trend started in December 2010, with the Tunisian rebellion that dismissed the ruler Zin El-Abadin Ben-Ali, was followed by the Egyptian revolution and had not ceased at the time of this book's writing.

Although it is still too early to estimate the waves of protest within the Arab-muslim region, it is already known today that the protests in many countries were directed against the local regimes. They were perceived as corrupt regimes that ruined every good spot and therefore were responsible for the shaky and insecure state of the countries within the region, and as well were responsible for the poverty, hunger, and unemployment from which these countries' citizens suffered. The imperative to replace the local regimes, which came from within the Arab-muslim nations, most probably stemmed from the nations' need to replace the elites who had degenerated and led them into a situation in which they suffered from depreciation.

# Chapter 2: The hostility between Islam and the West

Power produces objection. Scrutinizing al-Qaeda's writings reveals the fact that its thinkers fully believe that the power the West takes against Islam is bound to produce a violent objection. Thinkers there can be no cure for the Islamic countries' morbidities. Al-Qaeda spokesmen believe that Islam must defeat the West because of the fact the Islamic religion is superior and this is the only way to achieve the desired result of Islamic victory and the defeat of the West before the day of judgment (Yawm ad-Din ).

Al-Qaeda thinkers believe, unlike Samuel Huntington, that a religious conflict, not a conflict of civilizations, exists between Islam and the West; however, unlike Western thinkers, al-Qaeda thinkers are convinced that the struggle between the religions is about to end with a victory for Islam. In their opinion, since the beginning of Islam, the power has passed from Christianity to the hands of Islam and back, like the rhythms of a pendulum. According to their perspective, the entire Islamic world is now obliged to take part in the struggle, and al-Qaeda has to take the lead and be the pioneer. Al-Qaeda seeks to have greater influence against American globalization by leading the universal Jihad (aalmiyat al-Jihad).

The claim that there has been a prolonged conflict between Islam and the West has a strong historical basis, and the relationship between them has indeed been characterized by tough competition and even conflicts and wars that have lasted hundreds of years. **We should take into consideration that Islam has not always been the prime offender, the West has not always had the upper hand, and Islam was not always the weaker of the two**. In the beginning, Islam achieved impressive military victories and its armies conquered many Christian countries, moving up to Spain and the South of France in Western Europe. In southeastern Europe, the Islamic armed forces twice arrived at the gates of Vienna.

The Crusades, which lasted for roughly 200 years (1095–1291), made an impression that cannot be erased on either side. In 1095, Pope Urban II called the Council of Clermont to require warriors from the Christian world to free the sacred graves from the atheist Muslims and "save" the Christians in the East. Following the pope's call, the first crusade hit the road in 1096 in order to conquer and settle the holy land, and its warriors conquered Jerusalem, brutally killed its inhabitants in 1099, and settled down there. The Muslims perceived the Christians and the Crusades' initiatives as an existential danger and therefore announced a Jihad against them. As one of the Syrian poets living in this period of time said:

Atheism exploited the Islam, therefore the bitter tears will last longer... pigs' blood cover their walls and Koran parchments are raised as incense within them. I swore in the name of Allah and in the name of the Islamic religion that old people and young people will protect it. Tell the religion devoted people whoever they may be: "consent to Allah call, consent!"

Faced with this Christian threat to Islam, a Muslim leader emerged, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. This leader, who acted in order to unite the kingdoms of Syria and Iraq, invaded the kingdom of Jerusalem, encountered the Crusaders' army in Hattin and quickly defeated them in combat in an act that has been inscribed within the history books as a bright victory. In October 1187, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn conquered Jerusalem and afterwards the rest of the Crusaders' cities as well, except for Tyre. In 1291, the Muslims attacked Acre, broke through its strong fortifications, and destroyed the city. The Muslims also destroyed all of the coastal towns in order to prevent an additional Christian invasion in the future.

During the time following the Crusades, there was no peace and quiet between the Christians and the Muslims. For hundreds of years there was no winning or losing side, until, in 1683, the Ottoman empire distress over Vienna ended in a great defeat of the Ottoman people. After this victory, the West took the lead and won a series of military victories. Napoleon attained military success and conquered Egypt in 1798, almost without a battle.  The French conquered Algeria in 1830, Tunisia in 1881, and Morocco in 1911. The British people conquered Egypt in 1882. Up until the twentieth century, France and Great Britain took control over most of the Middle East.

This period saw the beginning of the great nations' imperialism and colonialism in the Middle East. France had the biggest pretensions of all: she wanted to take control of foreign nations, such as Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, and turn their citizens into Frenchmen through education. The Frenchmen named this pretentious process "assimilation," or "absorption", in order for the conquered nations to be assimilated by the conquering nation and turn into Frenchmen. The British people preferred not to invest too many resources in the colonies under their control, and therefore they referred to their regime as "an indirect rule."  Despite the difference in the two approaches, both stemmed from a deep conviction among the Europeans that they represented an immeasurably more superior culture than that of the "natives," the Islamic culture.  Therefore, they believed the native people were obliged to adopt European culture and be assimilated into it.

The United States did not have colonial pretensions, but instead held imperialistic ambitions that resulted from the need to influence the nature of things within the Middle East. These ambitions determined American policy in the Middle East, especially after petroleum was discovered and its degree of importance made clear to the United States. Further, the establishment of independent states within Islam domains has not limited the great nations' influence, especially not that of the United States. The petroleum discovery and the industrialized world's dependence on this resource increased the American people's involvement with the Islamic states.

During the last decades, great anger has accumulated among Islamic people toward the West, especially toward the United States, corresponding to a latent accumulating anger toward their own leaders, claiming that they cooperate with the West and act against their own people's interests.

The Muslim emigration to Europe created a new conflict sphere and greatly broadened militant Islam's ability to manage a war of terrorism against the West. A great number of the activists within al-Qaeda are young Muslims who argued with the West and many of them are second or third generation immigrants to Europe.

Al-Qaeda thinkers take the approach that the rivalry within the Arab-muslim region exists between the elites who align with the West while the depressed people who identified with the Islam. For example, zawahiri, the most fluent philosopher of al-Qaeda, claimed that in Egypt, there are two competing factors: the first factor is the Egyptian government and the second factor is the national power that supports the Islamic movement in general, and the hard-core Jihadists in particular. According to Zawahiri, the Egyptian government "is supported by the United States, by the West, by Israel and by most of the Arab leaders."  The second power depends on "Allah only, on the national support it receives and on the support flowing to it from the Jihad movements existing in the entire world, from Chechnya in the North and up till Somalia in the South."

For Zawahiri approach, the hostility derives from a clear reason: the regimes (governments) insist upon the removal of Islam from the regime by employing power and rigged elections. Therefore, the state has been opened to the enemies of Islam, the Americans and the Jews, through the signing of agreements that prevent Muslims from the possession of weapons of mass extermination, enable the demilitarization of Sinai, and permit American forces to be present in the land of Egypt and, more directly, include unconcealed agreements to participate in mutual drills with the Americans. The regimes are led by political elites who were not satisfied with this and joined the West, especially the United States, which took a resolved position that "the [Egyptian] regime won't survive on its own against the fundamentalist attack."  Zawahiri also believed that the Americans assumed the result of Islamic victory would be the expulsion of the United States from the Middle East. This fear became stronger in light of the possibility that Islamic caliphate will be established and formed. The danger is that caliphate such as this will sway the Islamic countries and the result will be an historical change that will end with the expulsion of the West from the Near East.

Zawahiri laments the fact that the Islamic movement encountered a sincere weakness in transferring its message to the common people, and instead focused on delivering a message to the governmental elite. In Zawahiri's opinion, the United States' fear of Islamic strength in the 1990s produced a situation in which the US spread military forces throughout the Middle East, particularly at the beginning of the first Gulf war; and so, since the invasion of Iraq, the United States has changed "from a hidden wire puller to a visible and unconcealed opponent of the Muslims."

Zawahiri sharply criticizes the mutual military drills Egypt performs with the United States, arguing that they are intended, eventually to prevent the Islamic movement from taking control of the governments within Arab countries. Zawahiri admits that every little piece of freedom that will be given to the Islamic movement is expected to shake the governments of the countries within the Arab-muslim region. One of the heaviest sins the United States committed against Islam, from his point of view, is the essential function it fulfilled by establishing the state of Israel and further assisting Israel. Israel, according to Zawahiri, is an ancient base of the United States. The United States made a striking appearance during the second Gulf war, transforming from an actress acting behind the scenes into the main actor, unfurling her presence in the area along with a massive military force. As long as she was not personally present, she gave excuses for her influence, such as her will to assimilate Western values like democracy. However, as she moved to the front of the stage the interests became more tangible, the most prominent being the oil resources.

Zawahiri claims that the American involvement in Egypt went too far and became a case of real direct control. According to him, an American intelligence office operates within the headquarters of Egypt's internal security and receives a daily report of the number of people imprisoned and the number of people that have been released. The American army has bases all over Egypt, including Cairo. According to Zawahiri, the mutual military maneuvers, named "bright star," are performed by landing on Alexandria beach and leading from there toward Cairo, in order to protect the regime against "the fundamentalists" who might claim the government.

Zawahiri's rage stems from the fact that a military drill such as "bright star," in which Egypt took part, was directed toward the Islamic movement and not toward Israel. According to Zawahiri, the United States left the job of taking over the Islamic people in the hands of the Egyptian regime; however, she would also not hesitate to do this by herself. The transition of the United States from an influencing actor to a direct participant stems from the United States' fear of the fact that its agents—the local regimes—are not capable of doing so themselves, and also as a result of their failures within the region, which have forced the United States to take a direct role in combat. The Americans' fear that their agents are not capable of taking control stems from the Islamic movement strengthening to the point where the United States must fight it directly. The United States understands that it is impossible to persuade Muslims to accept Israel and its own expansion policy for an even larger Israel, while at the same time persuading them that the Americans will not be likely "to go on and rob the Muslims' wealth sources."

Al-Qaeda was thus established because of its leaders' desire to make a political change within the Islamic countries. The difficult situation of most Islamic countries at the end of the last century was accompanied by a sense of absence and despair from the local regimes, created the impetus to replace the ruling elites. Its leaders assumed that the local regimes succeeded in surviving only because of the West's support. Instead of fighting the regimes themselves, which are not democratic and are not subjected to the authority of the law, al-Qaeda's people assumed that it is better to first fight what they named "the snake head," the United States, hoping that the expulsion of the West from Islamic countries would pave the way for their domination, and the domination of similar organizations, over the Islamic nations.

Al-Qaeda sees the West, and in the United States as the leader of West, a dangerous enemy, and preserves the hostility between Islam and the West whose starting point can be located within the Crusades that began 1,000 years ago. The rivalry that existed because of a religious reason turned into a general rivalry that relates to all realms of life, and today stems from the West's political influence over Islamic countries. Al-Qaeda assumes, and largely is right, that the West prevents radical Islamic organizations from taking control of countries within the Arab-muslim region because of economic interests, led by the desire for control over the oil resources that are perceived as a necessary elixir for the Western economies.

# Chapter 3: Radical Islam's organizational failure

The turbulent social-political situation of the countries located within the Arab-muslim region, and the continuing Western influence within these countries, have significantly contributed to the political strengthening of radical Islamic organizations. In most Islamic countries, radical Islamic organizations took the stage in the past decade and became the only genuine opposition to the ruling regimes. These organizations, led by the Muslim brothers, used a magical and charming slogan, "Islam is the solution."  This slogan invoked an opinion according to which the return to Islamic roots will bring about a cure to all the diseases of Islam and that Islam contains all the answers to all the questions. According to this idea, if the people who believe in the Islamic laws will commit to it, the Islamic civilization could return to its glory days.

Seeing Islam as a genuine solution to the Islamic countries' troubles, and a source of identification, signification, and hope, is called the Islamic "resurrection" or the "awakening" era. The meaning of the concept "awakening" is related to the idea that the solution to all problems is not necessarily found within Western ideologies, but instead within Islam. The Islamic awakening does not necessarily Denies modernization, however it vigorously rejects the West and expresses a renewed commitment to Islam as "a Guide to the Perplexed" for the individual, for society, and for the country, that can pave one's way to the modern world. The Islamic awakening movements emerged and grew as a social and political factor in the Middle East, mainly serving as a political form of expression that opposed the existing social and political order, while developing a viable and realistic alternative to the regimes that ruled the Arab-muslim countries.

The appeal to Islam and its transformation into an important political tool resulted from the fact that no other political alternative existed. Within the authoritative local regimes operating in the Arab-muslim region, the appeal to radical Islam remained the only solution for all those who wished to act politically to criticize the regime or try to replace it. During this period, the regimes within the Arab-muslim space depressed every political activity not supported by them, and religion turned into the exclusive solution.

Islam provided those who took hold of it with an ultimate source of identification. It enabled unity through meetings in mosques and listening to the sermons performed there. The local regimes did not, in fact, favorably regard the strengthening of radical Islam, which posed a threat to their existence, but because it was about religion, those who stuck to Islam were usually treated with velvet gloves, except, of course, in cases in which the radical Islamic movements constituted an immediate and concrete danger to the regimes' existence.

These determinations do not exist in order to nullify the religion's meaning in many Muslims' daily lives. The meaning of the Islamic religion is more prominent in Muslims' lives as a faith and way of life; however, correspondingly, in other people's eyes, religion is an ax to grind that is a means for achieving a goal, which is a political aim and not the goal itself. Fouad Ajami made it clear in this context that because the Arab world countries took men and women from the lower classes out of political life and depressed the centers of power activity—such as the traditional market, religious institutions, professional associations, and the workers' organizations—a wild Islamic alternative developed marginally, "mainly amongst the young people, whom inspiration is faith in the coming of the Messiah and not the Democracy."

The Islamic awakening was accompanied by a kind of objection toward the entire world, in the sense of "we are visible and therefore we exist." They thus aspired to move beyond their immediate vicinity. In this regard, there were Islamic fanatics who were deeply interested in the Islamic resurrection, strict about obeying the Islamic rules concerning social behavior, and covered with religious effects so that Islam would not exist within the heart only, but would also be visible. The men grew beards and the women covered up their faces and sometimes even their arms. The mosques were filled with people, especially on Fridays when the Islamic fanatics streamed in to listen to the "Khutbah," which is the weekly preaching. The externalization of the Islamic resurrection found expression in Islamic talk that used multitude quotations taken from the Koran, the use of Islamic symbols, and the presentation of Islam as the only source of a regime's legitimacy.

The Islamic resurrection transpired within organizations of civil society; it occurred in a setting called Da'wah. Da'wah literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation", whose deeper meaning is the approach to religion and preparing the ground. Within the limits of the " Da'wah " activity, the Islamic resurrection movement established alternative social services in various domains, starting with religion and education and finishing with medicine and welfare. The main idea of " Da'wah " was that there is a need to prepare the ground through a slow process that might bear fruit in the future. Practically, the " Da'wah " turned into a strategy, into a long-range program, for Islamic movements to demonstrate their political strength, so that the day will come when they will perceive the regime from the bottom up.

The Islamic movement which called "The Society of the Muslim Brothers" should be named "mother movement," in the sense that it was the first movement, and largest ever established, and it thus inspired the establishment of additional movements and organizations. The Muslim brothers movement was established in Ismailia, in Egypt, by the Egyptian teacher named Hassan al-Banna. Since its establishment, this movement has acted mainly through non-violent means in order to achieve its goals through " Da'wah." Still, violence has always been an available option in the eyes of the Muslim brothers' movement. Indeed, since the establishment of the movement in 1928, together with the movement's choice to use the " Da'wah" way to spread its messages among the people, the movement has not hesitated, from time to time, to use violent means in order to achieve its goals. There have been a few waves of violence in Egypt since the end of the 1940s. The choice the movement made to use violent means provoked various Arab regimes to adopt an iron-fist approach in order to torpedo its violent plans.

The violent orientation of the Muslim brothers in the 1940s turned the movement into a dangerous element in relation to regime stability within Egypt. The friction between the Muslim brothers and the Egyptian regime reached its peak in 1948: in November of that year, the Egyptian police caught a vehicle belonging to a secret wing (Aljihaz Alsiri) of the Muslim brothers. Within this vehicle, they found the plans of this secret wing, including assassination plans against the regime leaders. The exposure of the programs caused many arrests of the leaders and the former prime minister, Fahami Nukrashi, even called for declaring the movement illegal. In December 1948, the Prime Minister of Egypt Nukrashi was murdered by a member of the Muslim brothers movement. One month later, Hassan al-Banna, the movement leader and founder, was also murdered by a person who was suspected to be an agent of the Egyptian government.

In June 1952, as "the free officers" in Egypt defeated the pro-Western government and banished King Farouk from Egypt. The Muslim brothers sincerely welcomed them. However, this partnership did not last long, after it became clear that the secular Nasserism would not be able to march with the Islamic ideology of the Muslim brothers. Hostility between the parties soon developed and turned into an open conflict following the 1954 assassination attempt of Nasser.

The strong militant line of the movement was renewed, and became more intense under the leadership of Sayyid Qutb, who was one of the movement leaders and who, during a certain period, edited its journal. Qutb turned into one of the bitterest enemies of the Egyptian government, and within his book, titled "Milestones" (Ma'alim fi al-Tariq), called for an Islamic revival and the renewed implementation of the Sharia as the state's exclusive law. The thing that frightened the Egyptian authorities was his call for activating physical force through the Jihad, in order to destroy the "Jahilia" regime (meaning un-Islamic). Qutb expressed his opinion by saying that the secular Egyptian regime was a Jahilia regime, a pre-Islamic regime, and therefore had to be fought through the Jihad and vanquished from the Earth. The Egyptian government took this opportunity to use its great power to oppress the brothers. Qutb was arrested during this time. When the Egyptian government found that Qutb was not ready to reconsider his views, the order to execute him was given on August 29, 1966.

Qutb was thus executed in 1966, one year before the Six Day War. This war's fateful results provoked severe public criticism for the Egyptian regime and raised the horns of two radical Islamic organizations in Egypt, both of which clearly support terrorism. These two organizations believed in activating great violence in order to depose the local regime that were perceived as "the distant enemy": the first organization was "the Egyptian Jihad," and the second organization was " al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya," the Islamic group.

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization was also known in Egypt as "the Jihad," "the Jihad group," and "the Jihad organization." This underground radical organization, which was established in Egypt at the end of the 1970s, emerged from the integration of two Egyptian Islamic groups: the first group operated in Cairo and was led by Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj and Zawahiri, and the second group operated in Upper Egypt and was led by Karam Zuhdi. In 1987, the Islamic Jihad distributed a manifesto that said that the organization faced four main assignments, which were:

1) The dismissal of any leader who will desecrate the dignity of Islam.

2) War against every Muslim community that abandons Islam.

3) Re-establishment of the Islamic caliphates and the nomination of a new caliph.

4) Homeland liberation, the liberation of captives, and religious distribution.

This document clearly testifies to the fact that the Islamic Jihad's goals then were focused in Egypt: they aimed for the defeat of the "near enemy," that is, the Egyptian regime, and not "the distant enemy," that is the West, especially the United States of America.

Faraj was an electrical engineer and a self-educated Muslim scholar who developed the concept of "Jihad" in one of its most extreme versions. He was regarded as one of the most important but distorted Jihad theoreticians, and was directly influenced by Sayyid Qutb, and even by the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathir, Ibn Taymiyyah's student. Faraj's development of the concept of "Jihad," which he laid out in a book named "jihad- The Neglected Obligation," was not only theological. This book was designed to present the Egyptian regime as atheistic and non-Islamic, and therefore one must be seduced by the government in order to activate power.

Faraj's resistance to the Egyptian regime resulted from his views and opinions, according to which the secular regime wasn't Muslim at all, and the state, Egypt, was not a Muslim state. Faraj relied on a dogmatic opinion, according to which a state can only be defined as Muslim if the Sharia, the Islamic law, is the exclusive state law. A second condition is that the Muslim state must induce a sense of personal security derived from the balance between an atheist house and the Islamic house. Faraj determined that Egypt is an atheistic house because Sharia is not the exclusive state law. The main criterion for Faraj, according to which there is a need to judge the government, is in fact the question of whether the laws used by the present ruler are the creation of God—the Sharia laws—or whether they are the work of men. Faraj refers to the dogma determined by Ibn Kathir, according to which the Mongolians' ruler, Genghis Khan, became illegal from a Muslim point of view, when he legislated rules that were the fruit of human thinking and not God's creations; therefore it was decided that these laws had to be fought. Those who legislate rules that are not the Sharia are unbelievers in Allah, and should be resisted until the regime returns to Islam and adopts the Sharia exclusively. Faraj claimed that the Koran and the Hadith basically deal with the affairs of the Jihad, including the war against servicing Allah and the objection to Satan, and Muslims must adopt the original Jihad and implement it in their day-to-day lives. This is not just a personal effort, but a struggle Islam manages against its enemy. The Muslims within his doctrine are called to be Jihad warriors among Islamic services; they are the real soldiers of Islam, and they must be ready to give their lives in order to achieve its righteous goals. The exchange for this will express itself in the Garden of Eden for the martyrs, and appositely in the Muslim state for the rest of people living on this Earth. Faraj opposed the Muslim brothers' way, which required them to integrate with state institutions, obey its laws, and accept its political rules.

It seems that the difference the Islamic extremists outlined between a ruler who adopts the Sharia (and therefore is a legitimate ruler) and a ruler who does not adopt the Sharia (and therefore is not legitimate) is sophisticated and designed to bypass a most important rule within Islam: it is forbidden to rebel against a legitimate Muslim ruler. The rule that the radical Islamic thinkers have determined is that a regime is not legitimate if it does not adopt the Sharia, and instead grants priority to other rules. It might be that this determination stems from the Islamists' diagnosis that a modern state is not capable of managing itself only according to the Sharia, and must instead adopt a long series of other modern rules that are not related to the Sharia.

Many of the Egyptian Jihad members became important and influential members within Al-Qaeda, including AL- Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef. In February 1998, the Egyptian Jihad members united themselves into one organization in tandem with Al-Qaeda, and the formal name became Qaeda al-jihad. Still, it should be noted that AL- Zawahiri served as Bin Laden's deputy then and was also the Egyptian Jihad leader.

The second organization is the previously mentioned Al-Jemaah Al-Islamiyah, also known as "the Islamic group." This organization has been defined as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe, because it has made its top priority the goal of deposing the secular Egyptian regime and establishing a Muslim dogma state instead.

The Islamic group organization was established in the 1970s at Assiut University in Egypt. Its founders hoped to create an organizational framework different than that of the Muslim brothers, because they assumed that the Muslim brothers' movement was too liberal and spent too much energy worshipping its founder father, Hassan al-Banna. As a terrorist organization, it mainly attracted jobless university graduates and students. This organization mainly operated in southern Egypt and its members set a goal of destroying the Egyptian regime the organization was willing to take violent actions inside the country in order to cause the Egyptians to support the government, and refused to consider any political compromise.

In 1980, the Islamic group and the Jihad organization decided to unite. The members of both organizations swore allegiance to Omar Abed Al-Rahman, who was nominated to be the leader (in Arabic: Amir) of both organizations. On October 6, 1981, the members of the Jihad organization and the Islamic group, who united themselves, assassinated President Anwar Sadat. Following the assassination, the Egyptian regime performed a series of arrests. The government put most of the organization's members on trial and executed a small group that conspired against the president, including Faraj. Among the people who were arrested and accused of belonging to the Egyptian Jihad was Al-Zawahiri, who after a while was released from prison and was one of al-Qaeda's founders. As their leaders were behind bars in prison, the Egyptian terrorist organizations separated once again because of disagreements on various subjects.

At the beginning of the 1980s, because of the irreconcilable aggressive steps taken by the Mubarak government to suppress Islamic terrorism, and the resulting inability of these organizations to function, their members moved into Afghanistan. Egypt then enjoyed a few years of peace and quiet; however, with the return of the terrorist organizations' activists to Egypt, the country once again experienced a series of violent and fatal terrorist actions. The "Islamic Group" was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Egyptians in the 1990s, mainly Coptic Egyptians and government employees.

In June of 1995, the organization's members, along with the Egyptian Jihad, were involved in the attempted murder of President Mubarak, while he was visiting Ethiopia. The president was able to escape and, as a response to this, ordered Egyptian security forces to forcefully suppress the Islamic organizations, including the Islamic Group.

On July 5, 1997, as thousands of Islamic group members were imprisoned in Egypt, a group of people from the organization reached a one-sided cease-fire agreement. When the Islamic Group members' case was discussed in a court of law, they read a declaration out loud, over which six organization members had placed their signatures, and according to which they agreed to halt all terrorist activity inside Egypt and outside of it. This enterprise was perceived suspiciously by the Egyptian regime and the Egyptian media. The suspicion had solid grounds, as some leaders of the Islamic terrorist organizations in Egypt were found to oppose this ceasefire, supporting the continuation of terrorist attacks and perceiving the cease fire as a disgraceful surrender. In order to refute any connection to the compromise, the Islamic Group executed a particularly deadly attack in Luxor, in November 1997, in which fifty-eight tourists and four Egyptian citizens were killed. This terrorist attack, which was mainly directed at the tourism industry, which is one of the country's main source of income, provoked resistance from the Egyptian "streets" and was denounced by many among Egyptian society. However, the compromise plan vanished for a certain period of time.

Four years following the failure of the peace enterprise, it was revived once again by the Egyptian regime and by the Islamic Group leadership. This attempt at reconciliation was possible thanks to an essential change in the Islamic Group's ideology. In light of the readiness for reconciliation, the Egyptian regime was able to arrange meetings between the organization leaders in order to reach a compromise.

The path to peace and the negotiating tactics chosen by the organization were the only options; no alternative existed. The Islamic organizations surrendered because the Egyptian regime used its significant power to destroy them and remove their will to fight. In the 1990s, the Egyptian regime fought the radical Islamic organizations in a bitter and cruel war of "do or die." This intense war included mass arrests and using extreme economic measures against them. The Mubarak regime did not even hesitate to activate different and unique torture methods in order to break the spirit of the movement activists and its leaders. Despite the brutal methods employed by the Egyptians in order to suppress the radical Islamic organizations, they treated the movement activists who displayed a willingness to reconcile with velvet gloves; they therefore ordered the release of thousands of imprisoned Egyptians, including a leader named Karam Zuhdi, who expressed regret for taking part in the murder of Sadat.

This willingness to reconcile would have been impossible without an essential change in the organization's ideology concerning two essential domains: the first is the attitude about Sharia, and the other is the attitude toward the Jihad. Up until the reconciliation agreement, the radical Islamic organizations were not willing to give up on the application of Sharia as the custom state law. However, the new and essential compromise determined that "even in case the leader doesn't apply a law or laws from among the Islamic Sharia, he isn't considered as an atheist as long as he doesn't think his judgments aren't better than Allah judgments." According to the new approach, it is possible to attribute attenuating circumstances to a ruler, because of which he can be forgiven for abstaining from applying the Sharia.

Another far-reaching compromise determined that there is a need to adapt the Sharia to fit the spirit of the times. According to this spirit of reconciliation, the Sharia must go through the following changes:

The Sharia brought down by Allah is the upper regime, however the religious law implemented by the Sharia in reality, has to be a humane and renovated religious law that fits itself to the renovations of time and place, interests, reality, norms and all the human changes. There is a godly regime, which foundations are the basic principles: [this regime] doesn't occupy itself with the smallest details. On the other hand, the regime of the human beings is the one that deals with ... the secondary and changing issues. The human beings are entitled to determine rules that will fit themselves to their generation and these rules are obligatory to all human beings, as long as they aren't contradictable to the Sharia rulings.

If, for example, a ruler believes that human rules are not better than Allah's laws, he should not be defined as an atheist. Thus, the government abstains from applying these rulings, as in the following example: "because we are not alone in this world, because other forces ambush us or because of the fear from an internal brother war between the Muslims and the Christians – in this case we accept the fact that there is justification for this... it is forbidden to declare this ruler as an atheist by no means."

Concerning the Jihad, a revolutionary transformation also took place, as the Jihad against the local regimes was understood to be misguided. This was because the personal disaster of many young people going to jail had weakened the entire nation. Until recently, these enormous concessions made by the Islamists in Egypt did not receive the attention they deserved and weren't emphasized as they should have been, causing Zawahiri to feel restless. He justifiably defined them as "a surrender." For the time being, it seemed that the terrorist organizations in Egypt had surrendered to the power of the Egyptian regime.

The uprising of radical Islam characterized Syria more intensely. A Syrian student named Mustafa Al-Sibai, who studied in Egypt and was influenced by Hassan Albana, returned to Syria and established a political organization that produced both an alliance between the Muslim brothers and a radical Islamic movement on behalf of Shabab Muhammad. From this point forward, radical Islam was identified in Syria as "the Muslim brothers" until its defeat by President hafez al-assad.

The 1955 ascension of the Baath party, which believed in a secular ideology, struck a deathblow to the Muslim brothers in Syria, and the two movements became bitter rivals in 1963, when the Baath party took power in Syria. In that same year, a small group of Muslims went underground in Aleppo and Hama in order to organize an armed protest against the regime. Isam Al-Atar, an important proponent of Islamic ideology who operated out of the German city of Aachen, used his journal, _Al-Raid_ , to call for the destruction of the secular Syrian regime. The Assad government acted hesitantly toward the provocations of Syria's radical Islam, and this last movement increased its power up through the end of the 1970s.

From the middle of 1979 through the mid-1980s, the entire enterprise moved to the radical Islam of Syria, and then the seeds of rebellion turned into an open uprising that threatened the regime's stability. After hiding out within the crowded neighborhoods of cities such as Aleppo and Hama, in which vehicles could not enter, the Syrian Islamic fanatics emerged for a terrorist activity that was designed to spread destruction and fear. They set buildings on fire, shut down stores, organized demonstrations, and did whatever they could in order to rule the streets. They sent extermination squads to kill the Ba'ath Party activists. Thus, between 1979 and 1981, in Aleppo alone, 300 people were considered Ba'ath party activists and were part of the Alaouite community, to which the Assad family belongs. In March 1980, the Muslim brothers moved to a more daring strategy that involved large-scale civic uprisings in Halab, Humas, and Adalib A-Zur. The government's reaction, which was hesitant up until this point, became more resolved during March of 1980. On March 8, 1980, Hafat delivered a speech targeted at the Muslim brothers in Syria and sent them an open warning, saying that: "yes! I believe in God and in the Islam message... you see I have been and always will be Muslim, just as Syria will always be a fortress tower swinging the Islam up. However the Islam enemies, the religion merchants, will be erased from the face of the earth."

Following the speech, Assad took steps to erase the radical Islamic organizations from the face of the earth. Contrary to the point of view that it is impossible to entirely depress terror, Assad the father largely succeeded in doing so.

On March 9, Syrian air force helicopters were sent to, Jisr al-Shughur a city between Aleppo and Latakia, and embarked upon a military operation that left about 200 people belonging to radical Islam dead. A few days later, the entire third armored division was sent north to Halab in order to depress the uprising there. El-Hama underwent a similar process, and Syrian military forces were sent there in order to deal with the rebels. The cruelty used to depress this revolt of Islamic fanatics in Syria was unprecedented. On June 27, 1980, defense troop units under Rifaat al-Assad, President Hafez al-Assad's brother, were sent by plane to Tadmor prison. These forces were sent into the prison with a clear command to kill anyone located between its walls. Within hours, the Syrian Special Forces had mercilessly killed about 500 Islamic prisoners.

In the beginning of 1982, relations between Al-Hama, the radical Islam fortress, and the Baath government in Syria were at their lowest point. During the night of February 2, 1982, radical Islamic warriors were posted at an ambush for a Syrian military patrol. Islamic snipers, who were located upon the roofs, succeeded in killing about twenty Syrian soldiers and officers. Reinforcements from the Syrian army were sent to this location and the Islamic people announced an uprising against the Syrian regime. The Syrian government was first frightened for a moment, but a decision at the top ranks of the government was made to destroy the uprising that broke in Al-Hama, no matter the cost. A military force of about twelve thousand soldiers surrounded the city. For the next three weeks, artillery fire showered over the city and destroyed entire sections while killing many citizens. Dozens of mosques were destroyed and warriors who escaped to underground pits choked to death. The Islamic uprising was thus annihilated in Syria.

Concerning radical Islamic suppression, Thomas Friedman from _The New York Times_ , wrote that the Al-Hama uprising had been suppressed according to "Hama rules". "In February 1982," Friedman wrote in his book, From Beirut to Jerusalem that "President Assad decided to end his Hama problem once and for all. With his sad eyes and ironic grin, Assad always looked to me like a man who had long ago been stripped of any illusions about human nature. Since fully taking power in 1970, he has managed to rule Syria longer than any man in the post-World War II era. He has done so by always playing by his own rules. His own rules, I discovered, were Hama Rules."  Indeed, Assad the father succeeded in suppressing the Al-Hama rebellion because he allowed any action against the rebels, without rules or limits. Al-Hama rules— the real rules of Middle East politics —"are no rules at all."

In the course of the 1970s, 1980s, and the first half of the 1990s, the dominant thought among the Islamists was that they should focus their main effort on the "near enemy", that is on the local regimes, and that it was the local rulers who had "lost their willpower, sold their dignity, and thus paved the way for Western exploitation and colonialism". During a long stretch of time, all the documents that were produced and sent out on behalf of the Jihadists dealt with the near enemy, and only the near enemy. One of the most enthusiastic proponents of the near enemy approach within the Jihad during these years was Zawahiri. His opinions concerning the importance of the near enemy reflected the importance of the near enemy in most Islamists' eyes; they believed that "the way to Jerusalem passes through Cairo", and that priority must be given to defeating pro-Western regimes instead of war against the Western regimes themselves.

The defeat suffered by the terrorist organizations within the Arab-muslim region states caused them to look for an alternative to their states of origin. The war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was perceived as a golden opportunity to escape from their motherlands and find a little bit of comfort in the terror within Afghanistan. This is how the Amir of the Islamic Group in the Marsa Matruh district, Nabil Abed Al-Rahman, described how the decision to leave Afghanistan was made:

The idea [to leave] of the Jihad in Afghanistan came up during the days when I spent time in prison, in 1983, along with the leaders and members of the Egyptian Islamic groups and movements. The government used to remand us in prison permanently during this period of time. We used to be found innocent from a certain case, and arrested [administrative detention] for a period of three months. As we came out of prison, we would be arrested again for a period of six months. We became tired and said: there is no other way but manage the Jihad movement from outside [Egypt]. The call [to Jihad] must be global and not local... [that is there is a need] to transform the Jihad from a Jihad against the rulers of the Arab countries into a Jihad against the international atheists who have control over those Arab rulers. In the beginning of the 80's, discussions took place among the leaders inside the prisons and a decision has been made about globalization of the "Dawa" and globalization of the movement... I was imprisoned along with [Mohammad Shuki] Al-Islambuli on case number 712... and we were found not guilty. Afterwards, we were arrested again and again up until we couldn't go out to the street.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor Alquds Alarabi, said that the ascension of the radical Islamic organizations, including Al-Qaeda, was a result of an inability to occupy the government within the local regimes in peaceful ways: The first way would be through elections taking place in democratic countries. Regarding this idea, Atwan says the answer is simple; because there is no democracy in the Arab world, this way is out of the question. The second way is through a coup d'etat; however, coups d'etat do not occur within the Arab world, because the officers of the Arab world turn to the business world and are not interested in dealing with politics. The third way is when, upon God's will, the leader dies. This could be a reasonable opportunity for regime change, however the leaders decided to interfere with God's will as well and started to appoint their sons to inherit their rule, "so that even death doesn't free us from punishment of these." Therefore, it is natural that organizations such as Bin Laden's organization will strike the country that supports these regimes—the United States.

Perhaps if democratic regimes had prevailed within the Islamic countries, their leaders would have acted in democratic ways in order to make the required change, but without democracy the only way left was the way of violence. Striking out against the Western countries, led by the United States, has followed the insight that local regimes that depressed any revolt against them by activating great violence had benefitted from Western protection and therefore had managed to survive. Al-Qaeda assumed that if it attacked the West and expelled its armed forces from the Islamic countries, a real opportunity to rule these countries would open up to them.

There is also a need to understand al-Qaeda's establishment in terms of its leaders' desire to confront the Islamic movements that have existed within Islamic countries since the end of the 1920s, who had failed in all their attempts to take control of the government and rule it how they wished. Al-Qaeda is then a revolutionary organization that came up against the old order and seeks to fix and improve it.

In this situation, al-Qaeda believes it has an important function, which is:

al-Qaeda organization, which is one of the by-products of the suppression regimes and of the Arab dictatorship... became an umbrella and ideology behind which ephemeral and radical Islamic organizations, that see violence and bloodshed as the only means to express their internal conflicts and despair, accumulate. The killing of citizens is an unjustified criminal deed. However it is our right to ask what these regimes did [for the sake of] these people. Did they obtain a life of dignity for them? [did they bring about] the fact that all people are equal in the face of [the law] and justice? [did they] uprooted the corruption or put an end to the tortures and humiliations within the prisons?

The ultimate political solution for failing local regimes in countries within the Arab-muslim region is the political Islam that has existed for about eighty years now. However, for now this solution has also failed. Up until the Arab Spring began in December 2010, the regimes proved they are ready to activate any kind of violence in order to maintain power, and eventually these regimes emerged from these conflicts as winners. The result was that radical Islam was oppressed within its countries of origin, and therefore many of the islamists left these countries and moved to Afghanistan and, later, to Europe.

# Part 2: Al-Qaeda—history
# Chapter 1: Osama Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda's first leader, cultivated his own myth, presenting himself as an ascetic individual who renounced earthly burdens. Bin Laden expressed this ascetic image through both his appearance and his mannerisms. Bin Laden was tall and very thin; he usually covered his head with a white turban, dressed in an old, worn military jacket in camouflage colors and was often seen carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Soft-spoken and pleasant to those in his inner circle, Bin Laden consulted often with his men - but made his decisions alone.

Bin Laden's ways impressed his followers, who knew that his modest and perilous lifestyle was one of choice – the choice of a man born to one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia, and maybe even in the entire Middle East. It was apparent to all Bin Laden's followers that, if he so wished, he could have lived a life of wealth and comfort, just like his many brothers - but instead he had made a deliberate decision to give all that up. Bin Laden's choice to renounce the pleasures of this world was especially prominent in his extreme rejection of the hedonistic lifestyle of the Arab - Muslim elite. Herein lies part of the secret of the admiration felt for Bin Laden and the other members in Al Qaeda's leadership.

Osama's efforts to cultivate his ascetic image were not in vain. Behind his image was a political man who strove for power and influence, and his ascetic façade was a means to that end. Bin Laden wanted to resemble both physically and spiritually the forefathers of Islam, the humble Salafists, who reminded people of the times when Islam had flourished. Osama's modesty formed the basis from which he developed the charismatic aura that engulfed him in the eyes of his flock. In this context, Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard once described how, after a certain period in which they were under siege and food was scarce, he came to Bin Laden and told him that the fighters are hungry. Bin Laden replied that Muhammad's warriors were said to have tied stones to their bellies to take their mind of their hunger pangs, and so how could our fighters complain when they have bread and water?

Osama Bin Muhammad Bin Awad Bin Laden was born to a Yemeni family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 10, 1957. Osama's father, Muhammad, came to Saudi Arabia from Hadhramaut in Yemen. The literal meaning of Hadhramaut is "death has come." A Shafi'i Sunni, Muhammad was a member of the Sayyidi tribe, said to originate from the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and which had migrated to Hadhramaut from Iraq in about 1000 CE. Hamida, Osama's mother, is from the Syrian Al-Attas family. Osama's father divorced her shortly after she gave birth to Osama.

Bin Laden grew up during the 1960s and 1970s in Jeddah, a city on the Red Sea coast. Jeddah, which is the Arabic word for "grandma", is a port city about 60 kilometers from Mecca. The 1960s and 1970s were years of Islamic awakening, which greatly influenced the young Bin Laden and shaped his personality. As a student, Bin Laden engaged in numerous social and political activities at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, which served as a political greenhouse for him. Professors at the University, who were influenced by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement, led these activities, and with their help, Bin Laden was exposed to the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Muhammad Bin Laden, Osama's father, started his life in Saudi Arabia as a simple and poor worker who worked as a porter in Jeddah Harbor. He could not read or write, but was considered a very clever man with great charisma. Carmen Bin Laden, the wife of Osama's brother, Yeslam, wrote in her book _Inside the Kingdom_ that Muhammad was considered an extremely charismatic character, whose sons admired him to the point of worship. Carmen also wrote that a story circulated among family members that when he started working as a building contractor, Muhammad competed for a contract to pave an asphalt road. To find the most efficient way to get from one point to another, Muhammad followed a mule and set the course of the road according to the path it took. With this plan in hand, he applied for the contract and won. Muhammad was married 22 times, but not to more than 4 women at a time, as is the law in Islam. Osama was the seventeenth of his father's 55 children.

Soon enough, Muhammad Bin Laden was one of the largest building constructors in Saudi Arabia, and was renowned for his company's grandiose projects. Bin Laden's contraction company specialized in large projects, such as building airports and superhighways across the Arab world. The company's main pride and joy, though, was to construct mosques and religious institutes. Bin Laden's construction company built the holy mosques in Mecca and in Medina. When Muhammad, Bin Laden's father, learned that the Jordanian government had issued a tender to restore the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, he offered the lowest price possible, a step that gained him the contract and considerable reputation.

In addition to his talent as a contractor, Muhammad had the ability to forge social connections with lucrative financial value. His public relations skills led him to create strong bonds with the Saudi Royal Family. His firs work for the Royal Family was to build a road allowing King Abdulaziz to drive his car all the way up to his bedroom in the Huzam Palace in Jeddah. This was a success, and the Royal Family repaid Muhammad by giving him priority over other construction companies in building Royal projects.

Within several years, Bin Laden's construction company became one of the largest in the country. Muhammad was even nominated as an honorary Minister, responsible for public projects. Muhammad was not only the Royal Family's contractor, he was also its confidant; and with time, the business relationship turned into a strong bond between the two families.

In 1990, the company was registered as a holding group named _Saudi Binladin Group_. This huge holding group, which is one of the wealthiest and most stable in Saudi Arabia, employs around 36,000 people and is known for its relations with well-known Western and international companies. Today, the Bin Laden family is considered the wealthiest in Saudi Arabia after the Royal Family, owns many companies beside its construction company, and is connected to the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia as well as other wealthy families around the world.

Osama Bin Laden adored his father and saw him as a role model, but unfortunately he did not have much time to spend with him. Muhammad was killed in an airplane crash in 1967, when Osama was only 10 years old. That said, even when Muhammad was alive he did not manage to see all of his children and spend time with them, for he was an important businessman, and the father of dozens of children.

Osama's brothers mostly received a Western education, just like the rest of the Saudi elite. Most of them studied at Victoria College in Alexandria alongside the rest of the Arab world's wealthy families. At different periods, this college was home to princes from the Jordanian Royal Family, members of Zaid Al-Rifai's family from Jordan and from the Saudi Arabian Khashoggi family. One of the students was Kamal Adham, who ran Saudi Arabia's Secret Service (Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah), during King Faisal's reign.

Edward Said, who also studied in this college, described the institution as being built on the purity of English education, a place that trained British teachers and where the curriculum was the same as in Europe. Said cynically remarked that English was the language of instruction in this institution, and that Arabic was restricted to members of its administration.

A large part of Bin Laden's brothers were predisposed, due to their education and upbringing, toward Western culture. For example, Osama's brother Salem, who was born in 1946, studied at Millfield School in Britain, and ran the family business after his father died. In complete contrast to Osama, Salem was enthralled by the West and even played guitar in an amateur rock band. While still a student he married Caroline Gary, an art student of Scottish dissent. Salam, like his father, was killed when the ultra-light airplane he was piloting crashed in San Antonio in Texas.

Yeslam, another prominent member of the Bin Laden family, also followed the ways of the West. Yeslam studied in South California University in Los Angeles in the 1970s. After his studies, he settled in Switzerland and became a Swiss citizen. Yeslam ran the Swiss arm of the Saudi Binladin Group from Geneva. Yeslam was in a feud with his brother and did not speak with him after 1981. In total, during the 9/11 terror attack 13 members of Osama Bin Laden's family were in the United States and all were in a hurry to leave immediately after it, for obvious reasons.

The Bin Laden's family wealth was obvious wherever they went. The owner of hotel in Falun, Sweden, recalls how in 1970 Osama Bin Laden and his brothers stayed in her hotel. According to her, the family brought a luxurious Rolls Royce, which they parked outside the hotel entrance even though they were told not to do so. It seemed as if they acted just to defy the rules. When they were informed by the hotel management that they would be fined for illegal parking, they brushed the warning aside, saying that "it seems amusing to visit the police station every so often, and have a little chat with the policemen". When asked how they got the Rolls Royce to Sweden in the first place, they replied that it had not been a problem, because they have a private airplane. When hotel staff cleaned the family's rooms they were astonished to see the amount of expensive clothes packed in their suitcases. One day, when the hotel owner asked the family if they would like the hotel to launder their clothes, they replied that there is no need - and added that she could keep the clothes if she wanted to.

Osama's youth was defined by a series of events that shook the Arab-Muslim world and which undoubtedly influenced his character as a leader. During his lifetime he saw the awakening of the Muslim world, including the overthrow of the Shah in Iran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. Another event that left a huge impact on him was the takeover of Islam's Holy of Holies – the Grand Mosque in Makkah by a group led by Juhayman al-Otaybi who claim that his justification was that the royal family had lost its legitimacy through corruption and imitation of the West. Osama also saw with deep agony how Egypt, " um al-dunya " (the Mother of the world), the leader of the Arab world, signed a peace treaty with Israel.

Osama knew the West –he visited Europe few times as a boy – but, unlike his brothers, from an early age he felt hatred towards it and everything it represented. Unlike his brothers, guided by his own personal preferences, Osama attended the élite Al-Thager Model School. From there he went on to study for a degree in Engineering and Economics in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, but only completed the requirements for a degree in Engineering.

# Chapter 2: Ayman Zawairi

While Bin Laden was the familiar face of al-Qaeda, the most important character behind the scenes was Ayman Zawahiri, who for a long time acted as Bin Laden's second-in-command. Zawahiri has also gone under the following names: Abu Muhammad , Abu Fatima , Muhammad Ibrahim , Abu Abdallah , Abu al-Mu'iz , The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz (أستاذ, "Master" in the Egyptian dialect), Abu Mohammed, Nur al-Din ,and Abdel Muaz.

For a long time, Zawahiri was deemed Bin Laden's right hand. Alongside Bin Laden, he is considered the mastermind behind the organization's deadliest terror attack. In addition, Zawahiri is regarded as one of Al-Qaeda's greatest ideologists. Just like Bin Laden, he gained respect and supporters mainly because of his willingness to live modestly and sacrifice his lifestyle and that of his family for his fate. In a typical statement, Zawahiri said that "My friends and I think that we lived more than we should have", and added that they were all "willing to die for Allah". In 2001, Zawahiri lost his wife as a result of an American airstrike on al- Qaeda's strongholds in Afghanistan.

There was nothing in Zawahiri's background that suggested he would have a future as an arch-terrorist. He was born to a respectable Egyptian family, part of the country's ruling elite. In the late 1960s, the Zawahiri family lived in a new and relatively modest part of Cairo's al-Mahdi neighborhood. The family had immigrated to Egypt in 1860 from a small village in Saudi Arabia named Zawahiri, from which they had taken their name. Muhammad, Ayman's father, and his mother Umayma, both hailed from prosperous families in Egypt. Muhammad came from the Zawahiri family, many of whom were doctors, himself included. Muhammad's brother is considered one of the top dermatologists in Egypt. In 1995, the Zawahiri family boasted 46 doctors, lawyers and members of parliament. The Zawahiri family always been proud of the fact that, in 1929, one of its members, Muhammad Ahmed al-Zawahiri, served as the Grand Mufti of Al Azhar Mosque, the most important religious institution in Islam.

Ayman's mother, Umayma Azzam, also hailed from a famous and wealthy clan. Her father, Abdel Wahab Azzam served as President of Cairo University. He also established King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. Ayman's grandfather served several times as an Egyptian Ambassador, and his mother's grandfather, Ambassador Abed al-Rahman Assam, was one of the founders of the Arab League.

Though considered an outstanding student, Zawahiri did not study at Victoria College in Cairo, which was right next to the family's home, but in an ordinary State-run school. Even as a teenager, Zawahiri's tendency toward Islam was obvious, and as he grew older his belief grew as well.

There is a link between Sayyid Qutb, the greatest Islamic ideologist of the Twentieth Century, and Zawahiri. A year after Qutb was hanged under orders of the secular regime in Egypt, Zawahiri established a small resistance cell in Cairo that included himself and some of his close high school friends. Zawahiri read Qutb's writings devotedly, and established the Egyptian Jihad after being powerfully influenced by them. In 1973, several small cells joined ranks – among them Zawahiri's group – to form the "Islamic Jihad".

Kamal Habib characterized the members of this organization thus:

_"Most of us came from wealthy or well-to-do families. As children, it was expected of us to rise up the social ladder like everyone else, but we did not act as our parents expected us to. Why? This was a riddle for us as well. For example, after finishing his studies, Ayman opened a clinic in a duplex in the Al-Mahdi neighborhood in Cairo. Allegedly he was supposed to be happy. But the fact is that Ayman was not happy and that led him to the path he chose."_

Zawahiri admired Qutb and was heard saying that "Sayyid Qutb had a central role in the guidance of Muslim youth in the second half of the Twentieth Century, in Egypt in particular and in the Arab world in general". In referring to "Muslim youth" he probably also referred to himself.

Zawahiri finished his studies in 1974 and served for three years as a medical doctor in the Egyptian Army. In 1981, following the arrests after Sadat's assassination, he too was arrested. He was accused of trying to stage a coup, but was convicted of the lesser charge of supplying weapons to the assassins, and was sentenced to three years in prison. While in the Egyptian prison, Ayman was subjected to severe torture that left its mark on him and consumed him with a desire to take revenge on the Egyptian regime. Egyptian sociologist Saad Aladdin Ibrahim said that he believed this to be the main driving force behind this desire.

In 1984, Zawahiri was released from prison and opened a clinic in in the Al-Mahdi neighborhood in Cairo where he grew up. The period following his release was especially hard, and he testified that he felt like a foreigner in his own country, because he was constantly under surveillance by the Egyptian regime, which saw him as dangerous. After a period of unease in Egypt, Zawahiri left for Saudi Arabia, which served as a haven for rebels like him from all corners of the Islamic world.

In 1987, following a certain time in Saudi Arabia, Zawahiri made his way to Pakistan and from there to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, Zawahiri opened a clinic to treat wounded Islamic fighters (Mujahidin) and distributed an Islamic magazine called Al-Fatah (The Conquest). Zawahiri enjoyed his stay in Afghanistan and managed to acquire an enormous amount of knowledge about terrorism, a field that interested him far more than medicine.

# Chapter 3: Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

Abdullah Azzam is the third most important character who participated in the creation of Al Qaeda's initial ideology and basic principles. Azzam was considered a key figure in the years of fighting in Afghanistan. He was the person who, next to Bin Laden, shaped the strategy of what became the Global Jihad, as well as the concept of assembling well-trained units of quality volunteers from various Islamic States, who spread the idea of Jihad in the West. Azzam is considered the "man who revived Jihad in the Twentieth Century".

Azzam was born in 1941, in the Palestinian village of Silat al-Harithiya, about eight kilometers northwest of Jenin. He grew up in a peasant family and a modest home. While he was still young, he managed to learn the Quran by heart and showed great love for Allah and Islam. Azzam was a bright student who excelled in his studies in grade school and high school in his village.

Azzam's childhood was influenced immensely by the Great Arab Rebellion that occurred in British Mandate Palestine between 1936 – 1941. He grew up hearing tales of glory about Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, one of the heroes of that rebellion who distinguished himself as a warrior and as a man with exceptional religious dedication. As a child, Azzam was influenced by the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood and in later years by the writings of Sayyid Qutb and Ibn Taymiyyah.

After finishing high school, Azzam continued to study in the Kadouri Agricultural School. Despite being the youngest student in his class, he was considered the brightest. After finishing his college degree, he worked as a teacher in a village in southern Jordan. After a short period as a teacher, he continued his studies in the University of Damascus, graduating cum laude in 1996 with a degree in Sharia Law.

After Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, Azzam decided to move to Jordan, as he refused to live under Israeli occupation. The speedy Israeli victory, achieved with almost no resistance, led him to attempt to research the reasons for the Palestinian defeat and what had gone wrong among Muslim nations that made them lose so easily. The military failure affected his confidence in the secular Arab States and he reached the conclusion that, as secular politics had failed, Islam was the only answer.

For a short time during the 1960s, Azzam was a fighter, but when he realized that Palestinian terror organizations had adopted a more secular ideology, he concluded that he was wasting his time and moved instead to Egypt.

In 1970, Azzam studied for a Master's degree in Islamic Law at Egypt's Al-Azhar University. In 1971 he received a scholarship from Al-Azhar allowing him to pursue a Doctorate, and in 1973 he was granted a doctorate in Islamic Law. During his academic studies in Cairo, Azzam met with individuals like Zawahiri and Omar Abd al-Rahman, who shared their admiration for the ideology of Sayyid Qutb.

After completing his studies, Azzam attempted to reconnect with the Palestinian terror groups, who were experiencing a period of prosperity. But soon enough – especially after realizing that the Palestinian organizations had retained their secular ideology and were far from his conception of Islam – he decided to abandon them forever. Azzam later said that he realized how desperate his attempt to reconnect with the terror groups was when he asked another Palestinian terror activist which religion is behind the revolution. The activist replied that there was no religion, just the revolution itself. Azzam decided to immigrate to Saudi Arabia to practice teaching and preaching. Saudi Arabia was a safe haven for many such as Azzam and a large number of Al Qaeda's men stayed there in one stage of their life or another.

After earning his Doctorate in Islamic Law in 1973, Azzam moved to Jordan. He became a lecturer in the University of Amman and was considered very successful and much sought after by his students. However, Azzam did not hesitate to criticize the Jordanian regime, and this eventually made him lose his position at the University. In 1981, Azzam immigrated to Saudi Arabia and found employment as a professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah - where Bin Laden would later study. 1981 was an uneasy year for fundamental Islamists like Abdullah Azzam, as Saudi Arabia was in great turmoil following the events of November 20, 1979 when Juhayman al Otaybi and his group of militants took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. After two weeks, the Saudi security forces managed to regain control using bruit force. However, the attempt sent shockwaves through Saudi Arabia, and the Government began to impose restrictions on people it considered potentially dangerous.

Several months after Azzam was accepted at Abdulaziz University, he was seconded to the Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he worked for several years. In 1984 Azzam left Islamabad, after the Pakistani government became displeased with the assistance he gave to the Afghani Mujahidin. He moved to Peshawar and began teaching in a college for preaching and Jihad. Peshawar is close to Afghanistan, where Azzam was to remain until the end of his days.

In Afghanistan, Azzam worked to unite the different Islamic factions in the war against the Soviets into a unified group with a coherent goal – to drive out the invaders from Afghani land. As a charismatic leader, Azzam would pay daily visits to his fighters on the battlefield. His greatest contribution was to morale and the recruitment of new fighters. To get money and recruits, Azzam frequently traveled around the world during the 1980s, mainly to Europe and North America. He visited around 50 cities in the United States alone, where he carried out fundraising and preached Jihad.

During the 1980s, the United State was still indifferent to the terrorist threat and its leaders did not believe that it could strike their country as well. For that reason, Azzam and Zawahiri's numerous visits to the superpower, and the fact that they were allowed to preach their beliefs there undisturbed, should not come as a surprise. For example, in 1988 Azzam participated in a World Islamic Convention in Oklahoma City, and visited an institution in Brookline, New York for the enlisting of new Jihadi fighters. This branch, run by local Islamic activists, continued to operate for another decade.

Al Qaeda's leaders are the leaven in the dough of the Arab – Muslim world. They have undoubted high standards and are from wealthy families. They did not choose to join a terror organization because of financial difficulties, but rather out of a strong aspiration to change the very nature of the society in which they lived.

# Chapter 4: The Creation of Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda was created as an international, Sunni Jihad organization, to carry out acts of terror or support similar acts by funding of other, like-minded, Islamic organizations. The organization states that its path is Jihad and that is the reason for which its people have gathered.

Insights into how Al Qaeda defines itself and its goals can be obtained from a document published during the group's early years, and which was intercepted by U.S. forces. By reading this document we learn that Al Qaeda defines itself as an Islamic group (Jama'a Islamiya) whose goal is waging a war of Jihad against its enemies. Further, the document teaches that the organization follows Sunni Islam, meaning the ways and customs of the Prophet Muhammad, and represents a particular oral tradition of Islam in general and the ways of Salafism (Salaf Al-Salih) in particular.

Therefore, while the West dubs Al Qaeda a terror organization, Al Qaeda defines itself as an organization whose goal is to wage Jihad, and calls its fighters Mujahideen or Jihadiun. The concept of Jihad is the cornerstone of Al Qaeda's perception, as established by Abdullah Azzam, one of the organization's ideological founders. In a saying is attributed to him, Azzam expressed his feeling about Jihad like this:

_"The love of Jihad has taken over my life, over my soul, over my feelings. If preparing [for Jihad] is terror – than we are terrorists. If protecting honor is extremism – than we are extremists. If waging Jihad against your enemies is fundamentalism – than we are fundamentalists."_

Al Qaeda's orientation is international. Unlike other Islamic and Arab-Muslim secular terror organizations, whose members share the same nationality, Al Qaeda is an organization made up of fighters from across the Muslim world. A glance at the countries of origin of its leaders in enough to understand this fact: Bin Laden is a Saudi from a Yemeni family; Abdullah Azzam is a Palestinian from Silat al-Harithiya, a village near Jenin; Ayman Zawahiri is an Egyptian from Cairo.

The trans-national nature of Al Qaeda is not merely a geographical fact, but forms part of the organization's ideology: one of its main aspirations is to form a group of fighters from all the lands of Islam, but mainly from the Arab States. Al Qaeda's human infrastructure is backed by the "Afghani Arabs" - Mujahideen groups that gathered in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and disbursed after the war to various Arab States, bringing with them a wave of deadly terror such as the Arab world has never experienced. A main principle of Al Qaeda's ideology is an objection to the very concept of nationality, and a striving to return to the days of the early Islamic _Ummah_. The Salafist movement believes that only the restoration of the _Ummah_ can allow Islam to once again achieve its phenomenal military conquests from days of yore.

The Immediate background for the establishment of Al Qaeda was the Afghan-Soviet War. On April 17, 1978 the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, a party with a Leninist-Marxist bent, seized power in a military coup, deposing King Mohammad Zahir Shah. The Marxist, pro-Soviet regime ruled Afghanistan for 18 months until the _Mujahideen_ , Islamic warriors, came to oppose it.

These events developed into an all-out war. On December 25, 1979, Soviet military forces invaded Afghanistan en masse to drive back the Mujahideen and help the Leninist-Marxist party remain in power. The Islamic resistance to the Soviets involved dozens of different Islamic organizations that worked together to drive out the Soviet Union.

The United States strongly supported the Afghani Mujahideen, since it saw the war as a golden opportunity to wear down, and even defeat the Soviet Red Army. Acting alongside the United States were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, who also wished to prevent the spread of Communism among Islamic States.

Azzam was among the first Muslims to understand that the Soviet War in Afghanistan offered an opportunity to spread the concept of global Jihad. Azzam saw Jihad as one of the pillars of Islam and even preached, whenever he could, that Muslims act upon it. Azzam's worldview, which he later bequeathed to Al Qaeda, believed the Islamic Resistance to be on a global scale. In Azzam's opinion, the _Mujahideen_ must take advantage of the fact that Muslims are scattered all over the world to create a global movement to fight the Western infidels.

Several years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Azzam published an Islamic Fatwa declaring the Soviet war in Afghanistan a Jihad war and instructing that every Muslim had a moral obligation to take part in it and kill "infidels" ( _Kufar_ ). He later wrote that after researching the fall of the Muslim World in the Modern Era, he came to the conclusion that failure to fulfill the commandment of Jihad was the reason for that fall. He believed that the goal of Jihad is to establish the Islamic _Ummah,_ 151 and all land that had been under Islamic rule during the Caliphate would return to Islam only via Jihad. For that reason, Azzam believed that it was incumbent on every Muslim to act upon it.

During 1984- 1985, the CIA became increasingly dissatisfied with the bickering and rivalry between the various Islamic factions and decided that together with Pakistan's intelligence agency, it should support the recruitment of Arab volunteers to join the war. The Afghanistan war had become a magnet, attracting thousands of Muslim volunteers, mostly of Arab descent, from the Middle East and Central Asia. Indeed, the war gave rise to a new phenomenon in the Arab-Muslim world, whereby Muslims - mostly Arabs - from all over the world, with only religion to connect them, banded together to fight a common enemy. The war brought Muslims from many different countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan, Jordan, Turkey, Tunisia, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Pakistan. Even though there were thousands of volunteers it must be considered that the number of Muslim Fighters in Afghanistan was only a fraction of that of the Soviet soldiers in the country, and most of the burden of fighting fell on the Afghani army, who suffered many casualties.

Many young Saudi men – one of them the then-unknown 23-year-old Osama Bin Laden – were among the fighters who traveled initially to Peshawar in Pakistan and then to Afghanistan. The young Bin Laden joined Azzam, integrated quite well as one of the Mujahideen's staff members in the field and addressed the issue of severe shortage in supplies. Bin Laden was quite successful in establishing fundraising networks to supply drugs, food and weapons to the Mujahideen.

The networks Azzam and Bin Laden created enjoyed worldwide support. Saudi Arabia and the United States poured billions of dollars into supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to push back against the Soviet spread. This international aid included the transfer of combatants from place to place and supplying them with arms. Despite this extensive aid, towards the end of the war, Bin- Laden and his men would deny that they ever received assistance from the United States.

The first establishment Azzam and Bin Laden created was founded in the early 1980s and was called "the House of Supporters" (Beit Al-Ansar). Its purpose was to gather and train _Mujahideen_ , as well as supply the many volunteers pouring into Peshawar with food and a place to sleep. In October, 1984 Azzam and Osama Bin- Laden founded the Afghan Services Bureau (Maktab Al- Khidamat). This office dealt mainly with fundraising and the allocation of resources to assist volunteers, as well as the guidance and management of the thousands of men who traveled to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets alongside the local Mujahideen. Its goal was to connect those fighting in Afghanistan and who were gathering rich military experience, and to maintain them as a power base that would spread Bin Laden's doctrine of militant Islam beyond the borders of Afghanistan, even after the war was over. The Afghan Services Bureau was actually a non-governmental organization that operated not only in Afghanistan but in various countries around the world, such as Pakistan (mainly in Peshawar) and the United States, in the Al- Kifah ("Struggle") center in Brookline, New York.

From 1984, Bin Laden's participation in the war grew. He fought in battles, but became notorious for his strategic understanding that victories are won by raising large amounts of money and also new recruits who could be trained and sent to the battlefield, and for the amounts of money he was personally willing to invest in the cause. These successes were also backed by Bin Laden's tremendous charisma.

The Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in the late 1980s at the end of a long and bloody war in which they saw defeat at the hands of the Mujahideen _._ For Bin- Laden and his allies, the withdrawal of the Soviet Union - the infidel, Communist superpower which Azzam had dubbed the "Red Cancer" \- was perceived as a great victory for Islam after years of bitter failures. The Mujahideen's victory did not bring an end to the civil war in Afghanistan, however. After the Soviets' departure, local power struggles began in Afghanistan. These resulted in the Taliban forces asserting control over vast swathes of the country. At that stage, Bin Laden decided that he wanted to separate from Azzam and set up his own organization. To his relatives he explained that, following the war, Muslims must work to establish an Islamic caliphate and government.

Between 1988 and 1989, a group of people, including Osama Bin- Laden, Mohammed Atef (also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri), Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri (the _nom de guerre_ of Ali Amin al-Rashidi), Abu ayoub al-Iraqi, Jamal al-Fadl and others, established Al-Qaeda ("The Base"). Bin- Laden realized that the Muslims had an opportunity and that they must act to create an organization whose purpose is global Jihad and military victories against the West and the reigning superpower, the United States. This organization would be based on the Mujahideen veterans of the Soviet war with Afghanistan. This was the basic idea behind Al- Qaeda.

The literal meaning of the name Al- Qaeda is "The Base". One explanation behind that name is that the organization was established directly after the end of the war in Afghanistan on the basis of a computerized list of names of thousands of veteran combatants. Another explanation was given by Bin Laden himself, who claimed the Mujahideen's activity had been concentrated around a particular training base that had the nickname Al- Qaeda, and the name stuck Either way, in April 2000, after Al- Qaeda merged with Ayman Zawahiri's Egyptian Jihad organization, it changed its name to Al- Qaeda Al- Jihad, but was still referred to as Al- Qaeda.

When the Soviet withdrawal began, the leaders of the Islamic Jihad disagreed regarding future plans and how best to use those Jihad fighters who survived the war. Two people with opposing worldviews contested with each other to persuade Bin Laden and influence Al- Qaeda's agenda: one was Abdullah Azzam and the other was Ayman Zawahiri.

Azzam wanted to create a vanguard that would be the bedrock – in Arabic '"al-Qaeda al-Sulba"' - for a future Muslim state. He hoped that out of the bedrock, an ideal Islamic society would rise, out of which the new Islamic Ummah would be resurrected and which would reestablish the great Islamic Caliphate of the past. Azzam refused the "Fitna", the civil war in the Islamic world, and said that instead, the organization should focus the Mujahideen's strength on fighting the West until it was driven out of Islamic lands. As Azzam saw it, since the West, and the in particular the United States, had absorbed such movements as Bolshevism, Zionism and even the Japanese Empire, its only remaining major enemy was Islam, hence the justification for Jihad against the West. For this reason, Azzam believed that after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the best next step for the Arab fighters who fought in Afghanistan would be to join the Afghan Jihad movements to complete the triumph of Islam.

In 1984 Azzam published a book titled ' _The Signs of The Merciful in the Jihad of the Afghan_ ' _._ From it, we can understand that in his view, the Soviet- Afghan War was the most important event of the Twentieth Century. Azzam expressed hope and faith that this war would be used to leverage a great Islamic action, whose goal was global Jihad - an Islamic revival after two hundred years of defeat and disgrace.

Azzam believed that an approach that called for the overthrow of secular regimes in Arab States – such as Egypt and Jordan – was wrong and that the Jihad must face the West as its first priority, to push Western military forces out of Muslim countries. According to Azzam's approach, the battlefield is a global one, so all the Jihads must join forces to unite and train together. They then must choose a convenient battlefield to fight and defeat Western powers.

Unlike Azzam, Zawahiri believed that a true Islamic revolution would be achieved by a series of internal wars and coups against secular Muslim regimes. In Al- Qaeda's first years, Zawahiri was still the leader of the Egyptian Jihad organization. As such, he still hoped that one of the radical Islamic groups would take control of Egypt in a military coup, overthrow the existing regime and establish an Islamic state under Sharia Law.

Until the mid 1990ss, Zawahiri was a great supporter of internal rebellions - overthrowing the government in a revolution - and rejected any call from his allies to make terrorism an international, or even a regional project. Until that time, Zawahiri was certain that Al Qaeda must first act locally to eradicate domestic regimes, as a first step in the long-awaited Islamic revival. late 1990s, however, Zawahiri had a change of heart. He came to the conclusion that "one must burn the hands of those who set fires in Muslim fields" – in other words, the United States. The reason for this drastic change was partly his belief that attempts to overthrow local regimes had failed, but also because of the Egyptian Jihad lacked funds. The local activists have been imprisoned by the thousands and the Muslim public had turned against the terror organizations behind them.

The rivalry between Zawahiri and Azzam helped Bin- Laden's leadership flourish. In 1989, a bomb exploded under Azzam's car, killing him and two of his sons. Presumably, Zawahiri was behind this assassination, since he considered Azzam a dangerous ideological enemy – and Zawahiri never hesitated to use violence against those who stood in his way. In any case, Bin Laden's compromise was to choose Azzam's strategy and to establish a tactical alliance with Zawahiri.

The connection between Bin Laden and Zawahiri was the one that gave Al Qaeda its guidelines: Zawahiri brought part of his organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and its seasoned fighters, as well as the ideology of jihad, his determination and operational planning skills. Bin Laden brought his fundraising and strategic abilities, and a hefty dose of charisma and courage.

# Chapter 5: The establishment within Sudan

After the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Bin Laden returned to his country of origin, Saudi Arabia, which was in shock following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This Iraqi attack was considered a real threat to Saudi Arabia's security, and the general feeling was that the Gulf Kingdom would be Iraq's next target. As precaution, Saudi Arabia decided to let U.S. forces strike a forward base in the Kingdom.

In view of the perceived Iraqi threat, Bin Laden offered the Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Sultan, a hundred thousand Mujahideen to fight against Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein. Not only was Bin Laden's offer rejected outright, it also led the Saudis to suspect the Al Qaeda leader to be a collaborator of the Islamic Awakening movement, whose aim was to overthrow the government. Bin Laden was considered by the Saudi intelligence service as an individual capable of posing a threat to the regime.

The Saudi authorities dealt with Bin Laden using a 'carrot and stick' approach. On the one hand, they took action against him, confiscating his passport, freezing his bank accounts and waging a defamation campaign against him in the media. On the other, Saudi authorities urged Bin Laden several times to return to Saudi Arabia and renounced his terrorist lifestyle, but he refused.

According to many witnesses, the significant U.S. presence - about five hundred thousand soldiers – in Saudi Arabia, was a fateful turning point in the career of Bin Laden. That military presence convinced him beyond any doubt that the United States is Islam's main enemy; that Jihad must be declared against it; and that efforts should be made to drive the U.S. out of the Middle East and particularly Saudi Arabia.

There is no doubt that the source of Bin Laden's anger towards the United States was rooted in religious sentiment. According to the Hanbali School, an infidel's presence in the land of Hijaz, that is Mecca and Medina, is a serious offense that cannot be tolerated. However, Bin Laden channeled his religious interest into political power and took advantage of the American presence in Saudi Arabia to kill two birds with one stone. First, he preached about driving off the Americans who had decided to "defile" the most holy land of Islam; and second, he had a golden opportunity to attack the Saudi Royal Family for their collaboration with "infidels."

In the words of Bin Laden, the Saudi intelligence was 'following him'. In April 1991, under the pretext of attending an Islamic convention, Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia on his way to Afghanistan and in 1992 traveled from there to Sudan. Jamal Al- Adlouni testified that Al – Qaeda's leaders moved from Afghanistan to Sudan at the end of 1990.

Thus, despite the fact that Al - Qaeda was formed in the late 1980s, only in Sudan did it manifest itself. Sudan, Africa's largest country, was governed from 30 June 1989 by the National Islamic Front - an Islamic-oriented political party whose vision was to establish an Islamic State, with Sharia law. At the beginning of his sojourn in Sudan, Bin Laden was received with open arms and was a welcome guest of the government. The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, Hassan Al Turabi, met with Bin Laden and urged him to move his entire operation to Sudan. Bin Laden expressed his willingness to help Turabi in the war against Sudanese Christians in south Sudan. In return, Turabi allowed Bin Laden to use Sudan as a base for his international business and as a training center to prepare his forces. One of Bin Laden's initial steps in Sudan was the establishment of his headquarters in Khartoum's Riyadh neighborhood. Then, gradually, he moved about a thousand of his men to Sudan. To relocate Al - Qaeda, he rented or purchased apartments, agricultural farms and office buildings in Khartoum.

Bin Laden's activities in Sudan range from establishing a network of economic institutions as well as a network of terrorist institutions. His economic activity focused on creating a large number of financial companies and a global network of NGOs, whose primarily mission was fundraising. However, it seems that there was no systematic planning in selecting those businesses, which give the impression that they were created without order or logic. For example, Bin Laden established a leather goods factory, two large farms, a salt production farm and a large road construction company. His business in Sudan also include a holding company, Wadi Alhakik; a construction company, al-Hijrah; an agricultural company known as Al Themar; an investment company named Laden International and a trucking business named the Kodrat Transport Company. The only activity that had economic value for Bin Laden was the construction of a highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan near the Red Sea. Bin Laden's economic network expanded outside of Sudan and included businesses in Cyprus and Zagreb; an office in Sarajevo which supported the struggle of Bosnian Muslims in Serbia and Croatia; an NGO in Baku, Azerbaijan and many other businesses that were formed without any apparent connection.

Bin Laden's lack of Inexperience in managing corporations and the irrationality of his investments resulted in him systematically losing his fortune during his stay in Sudan. His financial losses in Sudan began in 1991, when the Sudan's BCCI bank closed, resulting in Bin Laden losing the money had had invested in that institution. Bin Laden also lost heavily when he attempted to appease the Sudanese government by transferring funds that were never paid back. Bin Laden gave Khartoum an $8 million low interest loan to purchase wheat to help refill the country's empty granaries. On another occasion, when Sudan opened a new airport opened, Bin Laden donated $ 2.5 million. As a result, when he stopped receiving his financial allowance from his family, Bin Laden was left with a huge deficit and no ability to repay his debts. At the end of 1994 Bin Laden told his followers that he had lost all of his money.

On the other hand, Bin Laden's activity in Sudan focused on establishing an extensive terror network. When Saudi Arabia started to press Pakistan to expel Islamic terrorists near its border, Bin Laden came to their aid and offered many of them employment. These new recruits flocked to Sudan and became Bin Laden's partners in establishing a local Jihad network that was also a global network with branches worldwide. Al - Qaeda established around 23 training camps in Sudan, which trained hundreds of young people in, among other things, kidnappings, establishing terrorist cells and urban warfare.

As part of his plan of global Jihad, Bin Laden established extensive relationships with, and invested in, other radical Islamist groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Eritrea and Yemen. Bin Laden also contacted radical Islamic organizations in Africa and Asia, including in Nigeria, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia. Bin Laden is also credited for establishing a Muslim organization, Al Kifah, in the United States. That group comprised several branches, with the largest operating out of Brooklyn's Al-Farouk mosque. Other branches of Al Kifah were scattered across the United States, including in Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Tucson.

Bin Laden saw to it that in Sudan, the Islamic Military Shura (IMS), a council tasked with coordinating the activities of a network of terrorist organizations, was in charge in Sudan. The IMS included the Shura Council of Al Qaeda as well as the leaders of several terrorist organizations that were still regarded as independent. The leaders of those groups were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Libya and many central-African countries.

The highlight of Al Qaeda's terror activities in Sudan – an event directly linked to Zawahiri - was the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during his visit to Ethiopia. In April 1995, Zawahiri first laid his plans to assassinate Mubarak. Two months later, on June 26, 1995, Mubarak flew to Ethiopia for a summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity. During that visit, Mubarak's car was ambushed. Two of his bodyguards were killed, but Mubarak survived and ordered his driver to return to the airport. Among the militants who took part in this assassination attempt was Mustafa Hamza, a good friend of Bin Laden. It is plausible that Bin Laden himself also took part in the attempt on Mubarak's life.

The Mubarak assassination attempt resulted in intense diplomatic pressure on Sudan to expel Bin Laden. That pressure came from three directions: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United States. It is known that the U.S. State Department as well as the CIA leaned on the Sudanese government to expel Bin Laden out of Sudan; it is also known that the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Timothy Karenina, worked behind the scenes to encourage the Sudanese do so. Sudan was also pressured by Saudi Arabia, a country whose government Bin Laden criticized, especially when it ordered the Saudi _Ulama_ [educated Muslim elite] to refrain from voicing their opinions on political matters. The Egyptians were also not idle, and applied pressure on the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden from their country. The man who eventually convinced Bin Laden to leave Sudan was the same person who urged him to come there in the first place – Hassan Al-Turabi. It should be pointed out that, although the official date of the establishment of Al- Qaeda is 1989-1988, the nascent movement formed into an organization during its time in Sudan. It was in this African country, under Islamist rule, that Al-Qaeda transformed itself into a dangerous international organization.

# Chapter 6: Back to Afghanistan

Bin Laden had been banished from Afghanistan, but returned to it out of lack of choice - no other country would accept him. Despite his despair, and perhaps because of it, Osama Bin Laden referred to his exile as a _Hijra_. The _Hijra_ ('migration'), a reference to an event of great importance in Muslim history, during which Prophet Muhammad had to leave his hometown of Mecca, and settle in Yathrib, whose residents agreed to accept him as the Prophet of Allah.

The Prophet's decision to settle in Yathrib - known after the Hijra as Medina, 'the City' - was a success. It was from Medina that the Islamic Expansion began – a phenomenon that is still continuing, with Islam now numbering over 1.3 billion followers. Bin Laden recalled the Hijra, and it seems he referred to his move from Sudan to Afghanistan as his own version of that event, seeing himself in the role of the Prophet Muhammad and viewing all the difficulties he encountered as events that taught him something. Interestingly enough, Bin Laden claimed that the Taliban treated him as the Prophet Muhammad who emigrated from Mecca to Medina and themselves as the _Ansar_ , the Prophet's helpers.

For their part, the Saudis - who did not want to receive Bin Laden - preferred he stayed well away from their country, in Afghanistan. When the Afghan Taliban consulted with the Saudi authorities regarding Bin Laden, they were advised to host him but to treat him with a certain level of suspicion.

Taliban (a Dari Persian word meaning 'Students') is a Sunni Islamist movement that rose to power in Afghanistan in 1996 and held it until 2001, when it suffered a military defeat by the United States. The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in light of the devastation, destruction and anarchy that followed the war with the Soviets. The group's rise to power was accepted by many Afghanis with a sense of hope tinged with doubt. They wished to put an end to the prolonged anarchy and violence that their country has known for centuries.

The Taliban started life as a group of students who enrolled in the various Madrassas - religious schools - that arose in the 1980s near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Taliban members who attended Madrassas formed political groups which maintained their political nature over time. For example, eight young men from one Madrassa, Darul Ulum Haqqania, were later recruited to the Taliban and eventually found themselves as ministers in the Taliban government.

The Taliban movement was inspired by the ideology of the Daovandi, which developed in India under the British colonial rule. A cornerstone of this ideology is the emphasis on education and religious studies as the main tools to promote goals such as the freeing of Islam from foreign influences and the strengthening of faith in the Quran and Sharia Law. In the early days of the Taliban movement, militant Jihad was not a top priority, but in the wake of the Afghan war the Taliban adopted many Wahhabi principles into its teachings.

Taliban members aimed to fight corruption and restore security and stability to the regions in their control. To justify their political takeover, the Taliban adopted a supernatural religious motif, according to which the Taliban's leader, Mohammad Omar, claimed that he had experienced an "amazing vision" in which Muhammad appeared to him and instructed him to bring peace and security to his strife-ridden country.

The Taliban movement started life in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, in a predominantly Pashtun region. In this city, the Taliban were able to enforce Sharia Law and restore security and order. The movement's initial successes created a chain reaction, which resulted in large numbers of the Pashtun population joining its ranks. After taking control of Kandahar, the Taliban continued working to take over the whole of Afghanistan and succeeded, except for a particular region northern Afghanistan which they were unable to control, mainly because of Iranian aid to Shia forces and to Uzbeks in the region.

Mullah Mohammad Omar was the Taliban's spiritual and political leader. He grew up in Kandahar and is of Pashtun descent. After Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Omar's family fled to Peshawar in Pakistan where they settled in a refugee camp. Mullah Omar studied in a madrassa and was recruited to fight in the Afghani Mujahedeen, where, due to his courage and intelligence, he was appointed to senior field positions. After the war with the Soviets ended, Mullah Omar established his own madrassa, where he gathered many supporters. Mullah Omar founded the Taliban to shape Afghanistan's political reality and to establish an Islamic Emirate. At a meeting of Muslim clerics, Mullah Omar was declared 'Emir of the Faithful' - a high-ranking religious title which granted him an important status in the religious community.

Saudi Arabia provided enthusiastic support to the Taliban during its short-lived reign in Afghanistan. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Juber, a key member of the Council of the _ulema_ alongside Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz, promoted the idea that the Saudis had to strengthen their ties with, and increase their support to, the Taliban. Even the Saudi Royal Family supported the Taliban. When the Royal Family was invited to hunting trips in Kandahar, they would use enormous transport planes, which carried large quantities of equipment, including luxury SUVs. When they left, they would gift their vehicles to the Taliban, who used them as military vehicles.

At first, the Afghan people were positive toward the Taliban, because of its success in returning order and reducing corruption. However, because the Taliban regime showed no willingness either to establish foreign relations or rebuild the economy and infrastructure, Afghanistan found itself in dire straits economically, with high unemployment rates, especially in urban areas.

Wherever it ruled, the Taliban instilled dread and fear in its citizens, saying that its policy was a full implementation of Sharia Law; the regime executed whoever it found guilty of murder and adultery and - as required by Sharia - cut off the hands of those found guilty of theft. The Taliban regime also forced all men to grow beards.

The Taliban opposed all forms of media, and loathed television, music and film. Their extremist interpretation of Islam was such that they strongly opposed education for girls over age ten. The Taliban also forbade women from working. This decision affected those households that depended on women as their sole providers – including the 25,000 war widows who were left with no livelihood at all. As dictated by Sharia Law, women who went out in public had to cover themselves from head to toe with a _burka_. Women who violated this rule were severely punished. Also, it women and girls were not permitted to travel except when escorted by a male relative. The penalties for violating these orders were brutal, and often even fatal. Women were often publicly stoned to death for fairly minor violations, or were imprisoned without trial. The Taliban kidnapped many women, whose bodies were discovered only later. Incidents of rape were frequent. Severe psychological symptoms were another harmful consequence of life under the Taliban rule and rates of depression and suicide soared.

The severe oppression and the ongoing human rights violations hindered the recovery of Afghanistan's ailing economy. In the light of Afghanistan's devastated economic infrastructure, the Taliban regime did receive assistance from international organizations as well as donations from various countries to provide the population with food and other services. Therefore, despite plans by the Taliban regime to get rid of opium trading, it became – from lack of any other choice - an important source of income.

Afghanistan under the Taliban – because of its similar worldview on various matters and its isolation from American influence - provided Bin Laden with a comfortable safe haven. Bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan on May 18, 1996, after he was expelled from Sudan. In practice, he and his men lived in an area that was not under Taliban control, and which was fighting the Taliban¬ at the time. At the end of September 1996, the Taliban captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and became almost the sole rulers of the country.

A strong connection was established between the Taliban and Bin Laden and his entourage because of their shared Saudi Wahhabi ideological worldview. Under this new arrangement, Bin Laden was expected to give money to the Taliban in return for refuge and shelter. Bin Laden established his home in Afghanistan, in Kandahar, near the home of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Due to the strength of their bond, Bin Laden gave the Taliban millions of dollars he had managed to obtain from wealthy Saudi donors. Bin Laden also contributed the services of his _Mujahideen_ to the Taliban to help them fight against rival Afghan groups, and made his training camps available for Pakistan-supported terrorist organizations, which also had friendly relations with the Taliban.

As part of the alliance between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Bin Laden gave the Taliban military aid to fight their Azeri rivals, a Persian-speaking Shia group from northern Afghanistan. The Azeri and the Taliban had a bitter rivalry. After the Taliban established its rule, it devised a plan to rid the north of Afghanistan from its Shia population. The Taliban approached the Azeris and offered them three choices: either to convert to Sunni Islam, cross the border into Iran or to be killed. Many fled and many were died at the hands of the Taliban. According to the UN, the Taliban killed around 5,000 to 6,000 Shias. The researcher Dore Gold stated that hostility between the Shia and the doctrine of Wahhabism, which is upheld by Bin Laden and the Taliban, had deep historical roots: as a Wahhabi, Bin Laden grew up with great hostility towards Shia Islam and saw it as a faction of the heretics that must be fought against.

As part of its close alliance with the Taliban, Al – Qaeda were granted permission to use aircraft belonging to Afghanistan's national carrier, Ariana Airlines, in order to smuggle drugs from Afghanistan and trade them for massive quantities of arms. Opium taxes in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan were paid in gold, which was then transferred to cities like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where it was converted into Western currency. Bin Laden believed in cooperating with the Taliban over the export of drugs, and that the drug trade would benefit both parties. And indeed, Bin Laden took about a ten percent cut of Afghanistan's opium export revenues and convinced the Taliban that this was needed to finance their activities. The Saudis in turn donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban to ensure Bin Laden would not target them with terror activities. Agreement to this effect was reached between the Taliban, the Saudis and Bin Laden in a meeting in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's stay in Afghanistan under Taliban protection him to further progress Al- Qaeda's ideology and to plan terror attacks. His first strategic move was his declaration of Jihad against the West. On August 23, 1996, Osama Bin Laden issued a _fatwa_ which stated that his organization's goal was to expel U.S. troops from the Arab Peninsula, to overthrow the Saudi government, to free Islam's holy sites and to support Islamic organizations around the world. In November of the same year, Bin Laden gave an interview to an American journalist, Gwyn Roberts, in which he sent a message to the United States that he planned to start a Jihad against it and its allies, unless it immediately removed its forces from the Persian Gulf. As 1996 came to a close, Bin Laden made a strategic decision to wage war against U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf, especially in Saudi Arabia. In July 1997, Bin Laden met with another American journalist and was quoted as saying: "We destroyed the Soviet Army and maybe even the Soviet Union. I pray that Allah will allow us to turn the United States to a shadow of itself as well. "

On 23 February 1998, Osama Bin Laden and Zawahiri jointly published a Fatwa in Al-Quds Al-Arabia newspaper, published in London, under the title "World Islamic Front". According to the article, since the United States declared war against God and the Prophet Mohammed, they on their part call to kill every American and every Jew in any place on earth. They see it as "personal duty" that applies to every Muslim, every time he gets a chance to do so. Three months later, Bin Laden was interviewed and said that "It is better for Muslims to kill Americans than any other heretics."  When asked by an American journalist how he can order the killing of innocent people Bin Laden replied: "And this comes from an American, whose country dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of innocent people? We did not invent these laws. We simply use the methods of war you implement and turn it against you."

Al Qaeda's time in Afghanistan together with the Taliban is regarded as its Golden Age by the organization's thinkers. However, Muslims should have been on their guard because of Al Qaeda's support for the Taliban - a harsh regime, abusive and violent against its citizens, and especially against women. The likelihood that the Taliban system could solve the problems of the Arab-Muslim world is very faint.

# Chapter 7: The Terror Attack over the United States

The highlight of Al Qaeda's terrorist activities since its establishment was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack against the United States.

The date of the attack - September 11 - is the name given to the largest terrorist attack in history, during which 19 Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four of United and American Airlines passenger airplanes. Two of the airplanes were directed toward the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York and succeeded in destroying them. A third airplane targeted the Pentagon and completely destroyed one of its wings. The fourth airplane, which the hijackers attempted to crash at the White House or the House of Representatives, crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.

The terror attack was considered an act of war against the United States and had enormous effects on how the United States conducted itself in many areas. The September 11 attack directly led the United States to go to war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and indirectly led them to declare war against Iraq, two years later.

Several hours after the attack, the FBI knew the names of the terrorists involved. The information was found among the personal effects of Mohammed Atta, the man who coordinated the attack, whose luggage had not been loaded onto the connecting flight which was to crash into the World Trade Center, the result of a mistake by the airport baggage handlers. The numerous documents seized revealed the identity of the 19 hijackers, including their background and motives: 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the UAE, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon. Most of the hijackers were educated, physically and mentally mature and determined to carry out the task assigned to them and pay for it with their lives.

It was a man named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who came up with the concept of this terrorist attack. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed largely represents the profile of a senior Al – Qaeda operative: a devout Muslim, from a wealthy family, with an academic education acquired in the West, and who moved from place to place most of his life. Khalid was raised in Kuwait in a family from Baluchistan, a mountainous Sunni-dominated region that stretches across parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Khalid's family were Sunni Muslim and very militant, and three of his brothers were killed in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. So it was no surprise when, at the age of sixteen, Khalid joined the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1983, after graduating from high school in Kuwait, Khalid went to study at Chowan University in North Carolina. After one semester at Chowan, Khalid transferred to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in December 1986. During his studies, Khalid learned English, but was also well versed in Arabic and Urdu. Just like Sayyid Qutb, who worked in but detested the U.S., Khalid too disliked the American lifestyle and avoided socializing with American students.

After graduating in the United States, Khalid joined the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan. His journey to Afghanistan passed through the Pakistani border town of Peshawar in early 1987, where his brother, Zaid, introduced him to Abed Rasul Al-Saif, who led an Afghani organization named Hizb Al-Ittihad Al-Islami. Al-Saif became Khalid's spiritual mentor. After undergoing a course of intensive training, Khalid fought for three months in battles against the Soviets, before being called to serve as Abdullah Azzam's aide. After the war, from 1988 to 1992, Khalid managed an NGO that operated in Peshawar and Jalalabad, which was supported by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Its aim was to provide aid to Mujahedeen who had fought in Bosnia. Years later, after he was captured by the Americans, Khalid admitted that he started thinking about a terror attack in the United States after Ramzi Yousef, his cousin, headed the team that carried out the first attack against the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993. In that attack, the terrorists used a car bomb, which they parked below the World Trade Center hoping that the resulting explosion would cause the collapse of the Twin Towers. The attack killed six people and injured hundreds more, but the goal of destroying the towers was not fulfilled. After the attack, Ramzi Yousef managed to escape to Pakistan, but was eventually caught and extradited to the U.S. The rest of his cell was arrested immediately after the attack.

Khalid told his American interrogators that he came up with the idea of using passenger aircraft as guided missiles after the failure of that first attack in 1993. He believed that an attack on large and well-constructed buildings using standard explosives could have only limited success. Therefore, he said, "We started to think about using airplanes."

Just like Ramzi Yousef, Khalid believed the most effective way to influence U.S. policy was by affecting a serious blow to its economic interests. Khalid's letters, retrieved from Ramzi Yousef's laptop, showed that the two had tried to figure out together what would hurt the U.S. economy the most. They concluded that a strike in New York, or a terrorist attack on California, would give them the best results.

In 1994 the pair began planning a huge attack, dubbed Manila Air or the Bojinka Plot. They planned to blow up 12 American airplanes over the Pacific Ocean, which would kill about 4,000 passengers simultaneously. Khalid and Ramzi began to implement the idea, and started to acquire explosives and watches, but this attack was not carried out because the Filipino authorities became suspicious and foiled it.

In 1996, knowing that the American authorities were after him, Khalid returned to Afghanistan to renew his ties with Al-Saif. Around this time, Bin Laden and his entourage came from Sudan to Afghanistan. A meeting, through intermediaries, took place at Tora Bora between Osama Bin Laden and Khalid, who hoped to raise Al Qaeda's support in financing and recruitment, both of which were required for a large-scale attack against the United States. During the meeting Khalid talked with Bin Laden about some of his ideas for terror attacks, but Bin Laden believed that the time was not right for such a massive attack. At that time, Al Qaeda was busy preparing for attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa. It can also be assumed that Bin Laden wanted to see how the attacks could be carried out successfully in Africa and only then move to plan an attack in the U.S.

Although Bin Laden showed no enthusiasm for supporting a large terrorist attack at the time, his willingness to meet with Khalid is derived from the respect and admiration he felt for Khalid's relative Ramzi Yousef, who was already famous for the first attack on the Twin Towers. Bin Laden, who was still establishing himself in Afghanistan, offered Khalid the opportunity join Al Qaeda and pledge allegiance to him, but Khalid rejected the offer and preferred to act independently, as long as he was still able to do so.

Al – Qaeda's successful attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa and their resonance encouraged Bin Laden to move ahead with his plan to hit the United States. In April 1999, Bin Laden gave Khalid a green light to work on his terrorist attack plot and checked the feasibility of the operation. The main problem faced by Al-Qaeda's leaders was how to recruit 20 bombers for such a mission, get them into the United States and train them to pilot aircrafts without arousing the suspicions of the U.S. intelligence services.

The command method used in this operation demonstrates that Al Qaeda's and Bin Laden's _modus operandi_ was already based on a Distributed Command system: the top echelon, headed by Bin Laden, studied the feasibility of ideas and proposals from field operatives, confirmed the program, and then gave orders for its implementation. Al Qaeda leaders were involved in the outline of the program, but its field operatives enjoyed a considerable autonomy and freedom of action. Despite his high position as a leader, Bin Laden repeatedly emphasized that he viewed consultation with the Shura Council - supposedly the ultimate authority in determining the organization's strategic plan – to be a prime obligation. Al-Qaeda's Shura Council was not Bin Laden's rubber stamp, and its members were known to oppose some of the strategic proposals he proposed, including such issues as the timing of the attack and its chosen targets.

Ultimately, after many deliberations, the Shura Council approved the outline proposal for the 9/11 terror attack. Following a series of meetings, in which Bin Laden, Khalid and Muhammad Atef participated, it was upon that the strike would include the following targets: the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Once approved, Bin Laden functioned as the operation's Supreme Commander and focused attention on defining the mission's objectives and securing funding for it. More importantly, Bin Laden personally selected some of the participants, such as Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, and suggested them to Khalid as potential candidates.

After Bin Laden in the chain of command came Khalid. He planned the operation and was the driving force behind it. Khalid won great support from Al Qaeda's operatives, especially Mohammed Atef, the organization's military commander and Bin Laden's right hand man. They saw Khalid as an effective, intelligent commander who would see the mission through.

After the operation was approved, its planners very quickly realized that they would not have a shortage in candidates to carry it out. Dozens of young men expressed their willingness to be sent on this suicide mission, but it was clear that only a few of them would qualify. The main problem was to find English speakers familiar with Western culture and who could learn to fly an aircraft in a short period of time.

The chosen terrorists were divided into two groups. The first was named 'the Saudi group' because most of its members were of Saudi origin, and the second was named 'the Hamburg cell'. The Hamburg cell was entrusted with most of the operational duties. This group consisted of Muslim students studying in Hamburg, and included Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, which were chosen to learn to fly the airplanes and pilot them to their destinations.

The Saudi group consisted mainly of Saudi youth whose job was to assist the Hamburg group. Many were university graduates from Saudi Arabia, and most had gained some combat experience in Chechnya and came from well-off families. The editor of Saudi daily Al-Watan dubbed them "middle-class adventurers".

Except Hani Hanjour, who was intended to become a pilot because of his prior training, the main role of the Saudi group was to help take control of the aircraft and allow the members of the Hamburg cell to fly it. At the start of the preparations for the terrorist attack, Bin Laden appointed two people loyal to him to run the operation: the first was Nawaf Al-Hazmi Saudi, the son of a rich merchant from Mecca. The second was Khalid al-Mihdhar, also a member of an important Mecca family. Both were experienced fighters who had fought in Bosnia.

The Saudi group also included two brothers from the Saudi Al-Shehri family. One of them was Mohand Al-Shehri, a 24-year-old elementary school physical education teacher. Mohand Al-Shehri lived in Khamis Mushait in Saudi Arabia's 'Asir Province, a region from whence many of the Saudi attackers came. He was recruited to Al Qaeda in a mosque in his hometown. After he was recruited, he was trained in Krav Maga, bombmaking and toxic materials in Al Qaeda's Al-Farouk training camp, and was sent to fight in Chechnya and Afghanistan. After gaining experience in Afghanistan for nine months, he returned to Saudi Arabia and in December 2000 was sent to the United States. Al-Shehri's brother Walid, who took part in the attack, was considered less religious, less devoted, and less scholarly than Al-Shehri, since he could not finish his studies. They came from a wealthy Saudi family and their father, Mohammad Al-Shehri, was a wealthy businessman and a friend of Bin Laden's father.

Another Saudi participant was Abdulaziz al-Omari, who was 23 at the time of the attack. A graduate of the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, al-Omari was influenced by radical Islamic figures and wanted to join Al Qaeda. Al-Omari went to Afghanistan in December 2000, where he trained in the Al-Farouk camp, eventually becoming its religious guide. He then joined the Taliban to assist in various battles.

Contrary to popular belief, at least two members of the Saudi group, Satam al-Suqami and Salem al-Hazmi, were not devout Muslims and even drank alcohol, an act strictly forbidden in Islam. However, Salem al-Hazmi's father claimed that Salem quit drinking alcohol and had frequently visited the mosque in the months prior to his death.

In the fall of 1999, the Saudi group was sent on a terrorism course in a training camp in Afghanistan. The Mes Aynak training facility was located in an abandoned Soviet mine near Kabul. Al Qaeda opened the camp after the United States destroyed another training camp near Khost, in a cruise missile attack in August 1998, and before the Taliban allowed Al - Qaeda to open its Farouq camp near Kandahar. In Mes Aynak, the Saudi group underwent extensive training, including an advanced commando course led by Saif al-Adel, who was one of the highest-ranking members of Al Qaeda. Training included physical fitness, combat, firing from a moving motorcycle and night combat operations. Following the training, the Saudi group was moved to Karachi in Pakistan. There, Khalid instructed them how to behave among Westerners. Khalid collected aviation magazines, telephone directories and flight charts of major airlines operating in the United States and taught the Saudi group operatives how to read telephone books, identify flight times, use the Internet, use code words in the media, book flights and even rent apartments. During the course, the activists watched movies showing planes being hijacked. They also used flight simulator software to increase their familiarity with aircraft models and learn about security flaws allowing access to the cockpits. Khalid explained to the Saudi group that they should watch the doors of the cockpit to see at what times the Captain leaves and who brings food to the cockpit and when.

Why were so many of the terrorists Saudis? The answer lies in Bin Laden himself, who is also Saudi. Despite his stated desire to create a global Islamic _Ummah_ , secretly, Al Qaeda's leaders and activists remained patriotic to their various countries, especially Bin Laden, who sought to glorify the land of his youth - Saudi Arabia, as well as his father's country of origin, Yemen,. As a proud Saudi, Bin Laden wanted most of his terrorists to be Saudis, so he recruited mostly young men of Saudi origin, including those who were to serve as pilots. When he realized that the young Saudi recruits - except Hani Hanjour - would not be able to learn to fly airplanes in a short period of time, as required by the plan of attack, he agreed to mobilize young people from other nationalities, including an Egyptian commander. It is interesting to note that Saudi commentators tended to see the young Saudis who joined the September 11 suicide attack plot as acting in protest against the Saudi regime, since a blow against American interests was seen as a blow against the Saudi regime itself.

However, Al Qaeda put its main trust in the men of the Hamburg cell, which was discovered by Al Qaeda's leadership almost by accident. The cell, most of whose preparation was carried out completely spontaneously, planned to fly to Chechnya to volunteer in the ongoing insurgency against Russia, but they were delighted when they were offered a meeting with Bin Laden. The latter spoke with them at length, in order to size them up before asking them to give their consent to participate in a heroic suicide operation. Bin Laden did not give the men any details, telling them only that they had been chosen for a secret mission and promising that they would enter Heaven as martyrs. They swore loyalty immediately to him and expressed their willingness to join Al-Qaeda without reservations. Immediately after they were sworn in as members of Al Qaeda, the Hamburg cell members received an order to return home to Hamburg and destroy their passports to hide their trip to Afghanistan. They were ordered to shave their beards, obtain new passports and prepare for aviation studies in the United States.

Al Qaeda's operational commander in the U.S. was Mohamed Atta, who was born on September 1, 1968 in the village of El-Sheikh, Egypt. Atta's family comes from Egypt's upper middle class. His father is a lawyer, and Atta's two sisters were bright students and among the best in their class. When they finished their studies, one became a doctor and the other became a Professor of Zoology. After graduating from Cairo University in 1990 with a degree in Architecture, Atta joined an engineers' association connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. In the fall of 1991, while in Egypt, Atta met a couple from Germany and asked them to help him continue his studies in that country. When the family suggested Atta study in Hamburg and invited him to stay with them, he responded positively. In July 1992, after studying German, Atta traveled to Germany. He spent a short time in Stuttgart and then moved to live with his host family in Hamburg. Atta identified himself as Mohammad al-Amir in Germany, though in the United States he was known as Mohammad Atta. In Hamburg, Atta enrolled on a Master's program in urban planning at the Technical University of Hamburg, where he remained until his graduation in fall 1999. Atta was considered an intelligent student with a good command of German. Atta's friends in Germany described him as smart, with strong religious beliefs and a lot of suppressed anger, especially regarding the internal situation in Egypt and the West's policy towards the Middle East. During a study tour in Cairo in 1995, Atta criticized the Egyptian regime and the system of nepotism in Egypt. Atta was very frustrated because he realized his chances of getting a job as an engineer in Egypt were very low, because Egyptian universities qualified more engineers than the country's labor market could absorb.

When Atta arrived in Germany he was considered religious but not a fanatic. However, his attitude to religion slowly changed. In 1998, Atta met one of his former classmates from the University of Cairo, who was impressed by the tremendous change Atta had undergone and by his transformation into a Jihad fighter. Indeed, it seems that somewhere around 1996 Atta underwent a process of internal change, accompanied by the psychological alienation he felt due to his stay in a foreign country.

One clue to Atta's personal mental state at that time could be the chilling fact that in 1996, when he was only 26, Atta wrote a will with multiple instructions that dealt mostly with issues relating to the purity of the dead, including technical instructions of how to purify his body according to Sunni practices, especially Wahhabi ones, including a prohibition on mourners to weep or mourn him at his grave.

Atta found an outlet for his feelings in Hamburg's Al-Quds mosque, which he visited frequently. In this mosque Atta found the social identity he longed for. When interacting with other students he often voiced his anti-American and anti-Jewish feelings, which were focused primarily on condemning what he termed 'the global Jewish movement', which he believed was located in New York and controlled the world's economy and media.

Atta established a prayer group in the mosque, through which he met Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who became a close friend, and later on, a member of Atta's terrorist cell. Al-Shibh was born in 1972 in Yemen to a non-religious Muslim family. From 1987 to 1995 he worked as a messenger boy for the Yemen International Bank. In 1995 al-Shibh asked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen for a visa to enter the United States, but was rejected. As an alternative he went to Germany, where he attempted to get political asylum under a false identity of a Sudanese citizen, named Ramzi Omar. When the visa application was rejected, al-Shibh returned to Yemen. He then filed a visa application to enter Germany again, this time equipped with a letter from a Yemeni businessman who said that he was willing to support al-Shibh during his studies in Germany. This time, al-Shibh's visa application was accepted and he traveled to Hamburg.

Al-Shibh's attitude toward Jihad changed drastically in 1996, when he met Atta in the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg and became close friends with him, on the basis of Atta's extremist worldview. Although al-Shibh was willing to take part in the September 11 suicide operation, he was not able to do so after the U.S. Embassy refused him a visa, and so he functioned as a facilitator and coordinator between Khalid and the senior commanders. In the end, al-Shibh was captured by the Americans and gave them highly valuable intelligence regarding the attack. Al-Shibhwas described by those who knew him as a charming and caring person, who possessed great wisdom. His welcoming personality was in complete contrast to that of Atta, who was a withdrawn and stern man.

A third member of the Hamburg cell was Ziad Jarrah, a Sunni Arab from a rich, secular Lebanese family. As a child, Jarrah's mother - who had Christian relatives – took him to church every Sunday, and for a long time Jarrah thought he was Christian. When he graduated high school, Jarrah went to study in Greifswald, Germany, where he met a Turkish student who fell in love with him. After a year in Germany, Jarrah began a process of change and radicalization, and began reading books on Jihad. After a period in Greifswald, Jarrah was accepted by the Hamburg University of Aeronautics. Like al-Shibh, Jarrah paid frequently visits to the al-Quds mosque in Hamburg and was recruited there.

In 1998, al-Shibh and Atta began sharing a small apartment in Hamburg with a young student from the United Arab Emirates named Marwan al-Sheihhi. Al-Sheihhi was born in May 1978 in Ras al-Khaimah, in the UAE. His father, who died in 1997 and was an Imam at the local mosque, had a considerable influence over al-Sheihhi. After graduating from high school in 1995, al-Sheihhi served in the UAE army and when his military service ended, he received a scholarship to study in Germany, where he moved in 1996. While in Germany, al-Sheihhi became a religious Muslim, but his faith did not prevent him from dressing fashionably and sometimes renting a car to go for trips across Germany and the Netherlands. Al-Sheihhi, who piloted the plane that crashed into the World Trade Center's southern tower, was described by his flight instructors in the United States as a young man who displayed childish behavior and was captivated by Atta's charisma.

In late 1997, Atta left Germany for a long period of time. The other members of his cell left Germany at the same time. All the cell members returned in spring 1998, and it is estimated that during their absence they had been in Al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan. Atta justified his absence from Germany by claiming he made a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia; however, this claim sounds illogical, as he had completed the _Hajj_ just a year previously, and the likelihood that a person would make the pilgrimage twice in such a short time is low. Another reason to believe that Atta had been in Afghanistan was that when he returned ti Germany, he told the authorities he wished to renew his passport, claiming it was lost. He likely did this to conceal from the German authorities the places to which he traveled. A stay in Pakistan or Afghanistan could have prevented him from obtaining a visa to the United States. The most likely conclusion, therefore, is that in the last months of 1997 the Hamburg group spent time in Afghanistan.

The Hamburg cell formed around Hamburg's Al-Quds mosque under the guidance of a Moroccan Imam, Mohammed Fazazi. Fazazi, who disseminated recordings of his sermons all over Europe, had radical Islamic views and believed that Muslims living in the West should reject democracy and Western values, and instead follow only the Quran. Fazazi preached that the European countries were waging war against Islam and that they should be beaten mercilessly, and that this is an obligation for all Muslims. Shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Fazazi left Hamburg and returned to Morocco, where he was suspected of being the spiritual leader of the Moroccan terrorist organization Salafiya Jihadiya. The Moroccan authorities convicted Fazazi for his role in a series of terror attacks in Casablanca and sentenced him to a 30-year prison term.

The final group formation occurred in the summer of 1998, when Atta and his friends rented an apartment together, after the lease on Atta's student apartment ended. The group chose an apartment in an area they thought to be sufficiently isolated, and which was nicknamed "the forgotten island". The apartment became a kind of sanctuary for the group. The curtains were always drawn, and there was no furniture. Instead, the group laid newspapers on the floor and ate their modest meals while sitting on them. In 1999, Atta and his friends met in at Mohammed bin Nasser Bilafa's home in Hamburg as part of a study group. It was then that they began to grow beards and wear traditional Arab clothing.

At the outset of their training, the cell members were required to learn to fly civilian aircraft. It soon became clear to the group that this training was not available in Germany, and they decided to complete their training in the United States. It was then that the group decided that they would be joined by another member, a trained pilot named Hani Hanjour, who replaced another Hamburg cell member, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, after he failed to get a U.S. visa.

In 1999, after successfully completing his studies in urban planning in Germany, Atta focused on the preparations for the terror attack. Al Shehhi, Atta and Jarrah were all sent to the United States after receiving tourist visas in May and June 2000. The three traveled to Florida to study aviation. The Florida school did not check their visas and accepted them. In December 2000, Atta bought training videos that showed how to fly planes like the Boeing 747 and Boeing 757. Atta and his friends did not rely solely on their aviation classes and trained with flight simulators as well.

At the same time, Zacarias Moussaoui, another Al Qaeda member, also tried to learn to fly. However, his desire to learn to pilot large passenger planes without any elementary knowledge in the field aroused his instructors' suspicions, and led to his arrest on immigration charges. During his trial, Moussaoui said he intended to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House. Attempts to bring more pilots into the United States failed, because the immigration authorities had become suspicious. Al Qaeda was therefore decided to settle on its four available pilots and to use them to hit their chosen targets.

In the months preceding the attack, Atta traveled to Europe several times and met with members of Al Qaeda. One of the meetings was in Madrid and lasted six days. We now know that there was an Al Qaeda cell in Madrid with direct ties to the Hamburg cell. When Atta returned to Miami, the immigration officer informed him that he had violated the terms of his tourist visa. Atta was detained for questioning, but eventually received a visa extension of eight months.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the terrorists hijacked four passenger planes that had taken off from airports on the East Coast for long distance flights to the West Coast, all with full fuel tanks. The hijackers were split into four squads, one for each plane. Each squad consisted of a pilot and assistants from the Saudi group. American Airlines Flight 11, piloted by Atta, crashed at 08:46 into the northern tower of the World Trade Center; United Airlines Flight 175, piloted by Marwan al Shehhi crashed into the southern tower at 09:03; American Airlines Flight 77, piloted by Hani Hanjour crashed into the Pentagon; and United Airlines Flight 93, piloted by Ziad Jarrah crashed in an open field near Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people lost their lives in the terror attack. Most of those killed were people who had been inside the World Trade Center towers when the planes hit.

Many theories have been raised to explain the reasons behind the attack. One researcher, Richard Clark believed that the terror attack was a response to the United States' support of Israel. Other analysts saw Bin Laden as a person with a political agenda who used terrorism to promote his ideologies. Yet others, like journalist Peter Bergen, claimed Bin Laden wanted to force the United States into acts of revenge and thus drag it into a war in the Middle East. Abu Jandal, Bin Laden's bodyguard, supported this view by saying that Bin Laden intended to drag the United States into conflict with the Islamic world because he realized that Al Qaeda would not be able to continue committing large-scale acts of terrorism indefinitely.

Bin Laden's own words reveal his intentions regarding the terror attack on the United States. The first and major cause behind the attack was the need, as he saw it, to implement Al Qaeda's policies and strike the United States, to make it understand that the American presence in the Middle East conflicts with Washington's own interests. Bin Laden declared Jihad against the United States twice, and he meant it. For him, the declarations of jihad were declarations of war. The September 11 attack was a realization this promise, and there is no doubt that the United States should have considered his declarations as a warning sign.

The second factor in the attack is retaliation, a desire to punish the United States and to retaliate against its so-called wrongdoings. Osama Bin Laden made it clear that Al Qaeda's actions were a result of direct military attacks by the United States, or by its emissary – Israel - against the Palestinians and Iraq. Bin Laden said that: "As the Zionist - American alliance reaps our sons and the inhabitants of Al Aqsa with American planes and tanks and with Jewish hands, while our sons are dying in Iraq as a result of the oppressive siege of America and its agents - Al Qaeda went on the offensive." This implies that Bin Laden's motive was reprisal and revenge.

The third and most important reason for the attack was a need, as Bin Laden saw it, to humiliate the United States and hurt its pride; in his words "the oppression, arrogance and aggression of the Zio -States of America"; and also a desire to emphasize the courage of the attackers.

Another main purpose behind the attack was to increase the feeling of unity in the Muslim nation, or, as Bin Laden put it, to: "[Strengthen] the religious spirit of brotherhood between Muslims, a fact which represents a huge step in the consolidation of Muslims under the banner of Monotheism, in order to establish the Righteous Caliphate, with the will of Allah. It is now known to people that America was hit, this oppressive power, and that you can humiliate, degrade and suppress it. "

Looking back, we can now say the attack shook the very foundations of the United States. The first result of the attack was to undermine Americans' sense of security and the feeling that their country, which lies across the ocean, is immune to terrorist attacks and that no one would dare attack the world's mightiest superpower. The idea that Islamic terrorists could hijack passenger planes and crash them into symbols of the U.S. Government shocked America. Before September 11, it was only Japan who had dared attack U.S. territory, and that country paid a hefty price for that.

The second strategic outcome of the September 11 attack was the high economic cost it entailed, which proved almost unbearable for the United States. The immediate economic damage following the terrorist attack was enormous. This was reflected in the decline in income of many companies, especially airlines, hotels and entertainment businesses, which amounted to tens of billions of dollars. Furthermore, in the wake of the attack the U.S. allocated enormous amounts of resources to finance two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These these two wars cost roughly a trillion dollars, though less conservative estimates claim the cost could even have been as much as $ 1.5 trillion.

Beyond the enormous economic damage of the attack, Al Qaeda managed to force the United States to rethink its approach to Islam and the Middle East. This outcome was clearly reflected in President Barack Obama's June 4, 2009 speech at Cairo University in Egypt, in which he called for a new relationship between the United States and Islam. Obama said that he "[sought] a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interests and respect, and upon the truth that America and Islam are not mutually exclusive, and need not compete with each other."

Up until the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda functioned as a terrorist organization with a hierarchical structure, characterized by clear leadership. After the U.S. attack on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001, the terror group became an elusive and decentralized organization, which in one more poetic description was compared to a sand dune - something that takes a particular shape at one moment and changes in the next moment. Al Qaeda became an organization that spans the globe, spreading its branches in different areas, with the most important being in Iraq, the Far East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Europe. Its terrorist activity is carried out in small cells and is directed by the organization's leadership, somewhere on the Pakistan Afghanistan border.

# Chapter 8: Al-Qaeda in Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and coalition forces gave rise to great hopes among the leaders of Al Qaeda. At various stages of the war, especially when Al Qaeda seemed to have the upper hand, its leaders nurtured their ambitions of achieve victory over the United States, after which Al Qaeda would gain control over the heart of the Middle East. A letter from Al Zawahiri to Zarqawi indicates that Al Qaeda's short-term strategic objectives were to remove the Americans from Iraq and establish an Emirate. The long term goal of Jihad was to overthrow secular regimes in Iraq's neighboring countries and unite them under a single Islamic Caliphate. Al Qaeda saw the war in Iraq as a test case for their strategy, according to which the organization would try to battle U.S. forces in guerrilla warfare, and to bring Muslims from around the world to Iraq to fight for the cause.

Al Qaeda's leaders saw the Jihad in Iraq as a fateful stage, equal in importance to the Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The events provoked strategic thought across all divisions of the organization, part of which expressed itself in unbridled enthusiasm from this historic opportunity to re-establish an Islamic caliphate in the historic cradle of the Abbasid Caliphate.

In 2003, the United States, together with a coalition of several countries led by President George W. Bush, invaded Iraq. The purpose of this war, as Washington saw it, was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the liberation of the Iraqi people from the yoke of this dictator, and the confiscation and neutralization of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was suspected of manufacturing. In the first phase of the war, which lasted about three weeks, coalition forces succeeded in occupying Iraq.

Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, senior officials, including President Bush, claimed that the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had cooperated between the years 1992-2003, and that Saddam and Al Qaeda plotted to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States. However, these claims proved baseless when further examinations by U.S. intelligence concluded that the contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda had never matured into full cooperation. On April 29, 2007, the former director of the CIA, George Tenet, told the news program 60 Minutes that there was no evidence of any connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein regarding the 9/11 terrorist attacks or any other attack against the United States. An intensive investigation by the FBI into the 9/11 attacks also failed to find any evidence of Iraq's involvement. Further, it must be said that ideologically Al Qaeda was opposed to regimes such as that of Saddam Hussein and so the theory that Al Qaeda conspired with such a regime appears ludicrous.

With the takeover of Iraq by the coalition forces, the U.S. outlined an ambitious political program to re-shape the country. The main idea of the program was to transform Iraq into a democratic state with a party-based representation of the population. This of course appealed to Iraq's majority Shia population because it gave them an opportunity to take control of the government. On the other hand, Iraqi Sunnis opposed the plan, since its outcome would certainly harm them and their undisputed reign over Iraq.

To understand the special nature of terrorism in Iraq, it is important to understand the geopolitical situation in that country prior and after U.S. occupation. It is also essential to examine the roots of Shia - Sunni rivalry and the political structure in Iraq in recent decades.

Geopolitically, Iraq is split along clear ethnic and religious lines. The Sunni population, which makes up around 20% of the population, is located in the country's center, in Tikrit near Baghdad, in Mosul and Rutba. Shias, who constitute about 65% of the population, are concentrated in southern Iraq, and from Baghdad all the way to Basra in the south of the country. The Iraqi Kurds are located in the north and represent around 15% of the population.

The roots of Sunni- Shia rivalry are deep and go back to the beginning of Muslim history. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, he was replaced as leader of the Muslim community by four Caliphs. With the death of the last Caliph, Muhammad's cousin Ali Ibn Abi Talib, an argument broke out between supporters of Ali who wanted his son, Hassan, to take his place, and those who believed that Mu'awiya, the first Caliph of the Umayya clan, a dynasty of Muslim rulers from Damascus, should replace Ali.

Eventually, Ali's son, Hassan, withdrew his claim, and the Shias tried to put another of his sons, Hussein, in his place. The rivalry led to a war, culminating in the Battle of Karbala in 680, where Hussein and his family were slaughtered by Yazid Mu'awiya from the Umayyad clan.

Shias cultivated an extensive theological tradition, which attributes particular religious virtues to Ali and his sons, Hassan and Hussein. These traditions distinguished the Shias from mainstream Sunni Islam. According to Shia belief, Ali and his successors established a dynasty of Imams who had secret knowledge and infinite powers and who were able to work miracles. One of Shia Islam's most important tenets is the belief that the Twelfth Imam will return as the Redeeming _Mahdi_ , one who will mediate between God and Man. Moreover, according to Shia Islam, Ali inherited Muhammad's prophetic powers.

This separatism and different theological beliefs are the cause of most of Sunni antagonism towards the Shias, especially from Saudi Wahhabists who see the Shia as a religious sect, distinct from Islam, and as their enemies. In 1802, 12,000 Wahhabists, under the command of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, invaded the southern part of Ottoman Iraq for a campaign of revenge against Shias. In April that year, the Wahhabists entered Karbala, killing about 4,000 Shias and looting their places of worship, including the tomb of Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad who died as a martyr.

From the 1920s, the Sunni minority, who numbered only about a fifth of the population, dominated Iraq politically. Iraq, formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, was occupied during World War I and in 1920 came under British government mandate and political influence until 1958. On July 14, 1958, the Iraqi Army led by Colonel Qasim carried out a coup, and Qasim was installed as the country's absolute ruler until 1963. Following the coup, Iraq was declared a Republic, but was in fact controlled by several dictators, the last of which was Saddam Hussein, who ruled the country from 1979.

Under the Saddam regime, the Sunni elite held most key positions in Iraq, including government officials, military intelligence personnel and senior military officers. While the Ba'ath Party formally controlled the Iraqi Republic, in practice the country was ruled by Saddam Hussein, himself as Sunni.

Under Saddam, Iraq fought several costly wars, including the 1980-1988 war with Shia Iran, during which Saddam toughened his approach towards his country's Shia population and under his orders tens of thousands of Shia Iraqis were expelled, imprisoned, tortured and even killed. Shia religious leaders were arrested and the regime banned pilgrimage to the Shia holy places.

In 1991, then U.S. President George W. Bush encouraged Iraqi Shias to rebel against the Saddam regime, but when they did, Saddam ended the rebellion by using chemical weapons against the Shia population.

In 1990, after Iraq invaded its oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, a U.S.-led coalition defeated and expelled Saddam's forces. After the ceasefire, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Iraq neutralize all its weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Repeated evasions by Iraq, and Western suspicions that Saddam was secretly producing weapons of mass destruction and cooperating with Al Qaeda, led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

After it occupied Iraq in 2003, the U.S. began to implement its ambitious political program regarding the design of the new Iraqi regime, whose first steps focused on Saddam's ousting and prosecution, and the replacement of his Sunni government by Shias. However, Saddam's ouster created a political vacuum that was not immediately filled even when a new government was elected. All government enforcement agencies - including the military, intelligence agencies and internal security services - were disbanded without suitable replacements put in place. The coalition forces did not consider what their plans should be for Iraq after winning the military campaign, and were engaged mostly in pursuing Saddam and searching for evidence for weapons of mass destruction. As a result, the entire frame of Iraq's government and social services collapsed in one fell swoop. After the entire governmental infrastructure was destroyed, a vacuum formed, which caused huge chaos.

In accordance with Al Qaida's forecast, a bloody guerrilla war began between the coalition forces in Iraq and local terrorist groups, a war that has continued for many years and led to the deaths of around 100,000 Iraqi civilians and several thousand coalition soldiers.

In 2003 there were 40 Iraqi terrorist organizations, each with a different ideology, goals and tactics. These terrorist organizations can be divided into several groups, each with its own agenda. The first group incorporates fragments of the defeated army and former Baath Party members, supporters of Saddam Hussein, and insurgents who wanted to regain power. The second group, led by Muqtada Al Sadr and his men and supported by Iran, consists of Shias who discovered the benefits of power after years of having their rights denied. Alongside these two opposing factions, there were also the Iraqi Kurds, who can themselves be divided into two groups: the Democratic Party, headed by Massoud Al Barzani, now President of the Kurdistan Region; and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani, the current President of Iraq. Some of the Kurdish and Iraqi - Shia factions did not see the occupying forces as enemies and do not fight them.

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq was Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, one of the founders of the organization. Zarqawi was born in 1966 under the name Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh to a Trans-Jordan Hassan Bedouin family. His _nom de guerre_ , al-Zarqawi, was taken from the town of Zarqa in Jordan, where he grew up.

As a child, Zarqawi was not a particularly bright student, and preferred to play soccer instead of attending school. At the age of 17, Zarqawi dropped out of school and began abusing drugs and alcohol. During this period he was also imprisoned for sexual assault.

In spring 1989, when he turned 20, Zarqawi went to Afghanistan. When he got there, however, he realized that the war in which he wanted to fight was already ending. Instead, Zarqawi accepted a job offer to become a reporter for an esoteric Jihadist newsletter, Albonian Almrsos. Before traveling to Afghanistan, Zarqawi stayed, like many before him, in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar. There, he met Isam Mohammad Tahir Al Barqawi

, also known as Abu Muhammad A-Maqdisi, who became his mentor. Al-Maqdisi is one of the most ardent supporters of Al Qaeda and one of the fathers of Salafi Jihadist ideology.

In 1992, Zarqawi returned to Zarqa, where he founded a radical Islamist organization called Bay'at Al Imam (Arabic: "Oath of Allegiance to the Imam"), to provide assistance to Mujahedeen returning from Afghanistan, and to undermine the Jordanian government. He stockpiled weapons at his home, which led to his arrest in 1993 on charges of conspiring against the government. Zarqawi and Al Maqdisi were sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment with forced labor. In court, Zarqawi denied the allegations against him and said that he found the weapons and ammunition on the street. A trial witness said that this argument, along with other similar answers, left no doubts as to how intelligent Zarqawi really was.

During his time in prison, Zarqawi became a devout Muslim, who prevented his cellmates from reading anything except the Quran, while he himself was occupied by learning the Quran by heart. Prison shaped Zarqawi's identity as an aggressive leader: there, he achieved his leadership by force, by terrorizing his fellow inmates and convincing many of them to join the Islamic movement. In 1999, Zarqawi was released from prison following a general amnesty issued by Jordan's new king, Abdullah Bin al-Hussein.

Following his release, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan. He refused an official offer to join Al Qaeda, but in early 2000 he agreed to a proposal by Saif Al Adel, a top ranking Al Qaeda operative, to set up a training camp in Herat. In 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and when it became clear that a U.S. invasion to Afghanistan was imminent, Zarqawi fled to Iran. There, Zarqawi was perceived as a threat to the government and forced to leave the country, after the Iranian authorities captured a group of his men as they traveled from Iran to Turkey to carry out a terror attack in Israel.

In May 2002, Zarqawi moved with a group of his men to Iraqi Kurdistan. His stay in the mountainous area in northern Iraq was convenient for him, since there it was far harder for military forces to track and locate him. Zarqawi used his time there to plan the assassination of a U.S. diplomat named Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan. The three terrorists arrested following the assassination told their interrogators Zarqawi's name. The three were sentenced to death along with Zarqawi, even though he was not present at the trial.

By the time that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Zarqawi had become the most wanted terrorist in that country. Although Zarqawi had no connection to Al Qaeda at that time, he agreed to help coordinate the transfer of Al Qaeda operatives from Syria to Iraq. This role gave him a position of power and influence, and he exploited it well.

Zarqawi's "master plan" was, first and foremost, to prevent the U.S. from establishing a democratic state in Iraq, which would allow the Shia majority to take over the country's governmental institutions. Zarqawi wanted to establish an Islamic theocracy, or at least to occupy the land so that it could be used as a base for terrorist activity. The intermediate objectives of his strategy were to remove the U.S. military from Iraqi territory, and prevent local people from aligning themselves with the coalition forces. Zarqawi attempted to achieve these objectives via attacks on police stations, politicians and religious leaders. Another of Zarqawi's aims was to encourage a civil war by carrying out repeated attacks on Shia civilians.

In 2004, Zarqawi signaled to Al Qaeda that he was willing to work with the group. Zarqawi's requests to work with Al Qaeda, asked via the Internet, were willingly accepted. The partnership with Zarqawi gave Al Qaeda numerous military achievements on the Iraqi front, while Zarqawi was defined only as a second-tier partner. Zarqawi, for his part, increased his status, and enjoyed a level of prestige and legitimacy reserved only for Al Qaeda operatives. On behalf of Al Qaeda, Zarqawi became a commander of an entire front; enjoying Al – Qaeda's global operational network services and its funding.

Zarqawi repeatedly emphasized his allegiance to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He said that he did not seek to challenge Bin Laden's leadership, and that he would never strive to achieve personal fame. He explained that Al Qaeda in Iraq wanted to become the organization's spearhead and vanguard. In return for Al Qaeda's agreement to sponsor him in Iraq, Zarqawi promised: "We will be your loyal soldiers and be ready to work under your flag, and obey your instructions."

Zarqawi detailed his strategic outlook in a letter, in which he wrote a strategic analysis of the situation in Iraq. The overall picture, as indicated in the letter, is that Al Qaeda was operating in the interests of Iraqi Sunnis, and that it saw other communities - Kurds and Shias – as enemies.

According to Zarqawi, the Shia was the Sunnis' most dangerous enemy, mainly because they could disguise their true intentions. In the letter, Zarqawi insults the Shias and calls them snakes, venomous scorpions and liars: their appearance is misleading, he writes, because though they talk openly about collaboration, they secretly yearn for war. He writes that theologically, Shias are not Muslims and that it is clear beyond doubt that Shia has nothing to do with Islam, just like Christianity has nothing to do with Judaism; Shias are infidels who worship at tombs and who believe they received the true revelation.

Zarqawi states in the letter that the Shias' political ambition is to take over key positions in Iraq with the help of their U.S. allies. The withdrawal of the weak U.S. military from Iraq will intensify the Sunnis' problems, since they will have to face an army of Shia terrorists. Shias are sophisticated and far more cunning than the Americans, Zarqawi writes, which they show through their recruitment of key Sunni personnel, including scientists, philosophers and doctors, into their ranks.

Zarqawi argues in the letter that, as the days go by, so the aspirations of the Shias grow and grow. Even as he writes his letter, he says, the Shia already plans to establish an enormous state that will span Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Zarqawi claims that the Shias are working in collaboration with the Americans, whose initial purpose was to occupy Iraq to strengthen "Greater Israel", extending from the Nile to the Euphrates. However, Zarqawi argued, since Sunnis dominated Iraq, the Americans decided to join forces with the treacherous Shias, and their intention was to allow the Shias to control Iraq.

In his letter, Zarqawi even sees the Kurds as traitors who have sold their souls to the Americans and who are a Trojan horse at the heart of the Islamic nation. He accuses the Kurds of hosting the Israelis, and of turning Iraq into a rear base for the Americans and Israelis; in turn, he accuses the Israelis of using the Kurds to control the Muslim world financially and economically and of using them for espionage.

Neither does Zarqawi spare the Sunnis from criticism. He claims that ever since the Sunnis lost their leader, they have been fighting among themselves. For him, the Sunnis' greatest sin lies in their "sit and wait" policy. Zarqawi notes, very cynically, that many Sunnis hate Americans and would like them gone from Iraq, but in practice most of them do not lift a finger for Jihad.

According to Zarqawi, Iraqi Jihadis were the salt of the earth. Most of them were Sunnis and followed the Salafist movement. However, in his view, even these fighters are not without sin. While Zarqawi thought that the Jihadis' main problem is that they lack combat experience, he also felt that, because they were a product of a totalitarian regime that transformed Iraq into a police state by spreading terror and fear, they had lost any sense of trust. For that reason, Zarqawi believed, most Jihadi teams operated in separately and with great suspicion.

In his letter, Zarqawi points out many problems that in his view made the war in Iraq harder to fight. The country is flat, except in the north, and there are no places like forests to which fighters could escape and hide. Jihadis were therefore exposed to dangers, especially as Iraq's homeland intelligence agency had eyes everywhere.

At the beginning of the war, the U.S. military was slow and cumbersome, as they had to operate among the Iraqi people who felt hostility towards Washington, and so it was very easy for Jihadis to attack American forces. But with time, the U.S. grasp on Iraq became tighter. Zarqawi estimated in his letter that the U.S. would hand over its power to the elected government and then, without doubt, any scope for terrorism would gradually decrease.

What was Zarqawi's operational plan? First and foremost, he believed that damaging the Shias politically, militarily, and religiously would provoke them into an open war with the Sunnis. Only then would the Sunnis rally against the Shias.

There were several reasons for Zarqawi's desire to drag the Shias into an open confrontation. First, he believed that the Shias had declared a secret war on Islam and that the Shias were the Sunnis' closest and most dangerous enemy to the Sunnis. Second, the Shias had joined the Americans to fight against the Mujahedeen. Third, a war against the Shia would drag the Islamic nation into a war in Iraq. Zarqawi was especially concerned about those Shias who had enlisted in the Iraqi Army, Police and internal security forces. He believed that under the guise of saving the State and its citizens, those Shias would eliminate the Sunnis and claim that they were remnants of Saddam's Baath Party and terrorists. Zarqawi though that Iraqi forces already started to spread in the Sunni Triangle – the densely populated area north of Baghdad inhabited mostly by Sunnis – where they were appointing Sunni supervisors to hunt down Shias.

Al Qaeda in Iraq included Mujahedeen from all around the Muslim world, who saw the Iraqi battlefield as ideal for a war of attrition war with the U.S. This organization, whose full name in Arabic is _Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn_ ("Al Qaeda in the country of the two rivers"), consisted of three small Sunni groups: Ansar al-Islam ("The Helpers of Islam"), Jaish Ansar Al Sunnah ("Army of Sunni Helpers") and Al Tawhid Wa Al Jihad "Unity and Jihad"). These organizations retained their independence, but often carried out combined military operations involving members of all three groups. Overall, Al Qaeda in Iraq's Jihadis number between 700 to 2,000 men, out of a total of around 20,000 terrorists operating in Iraq.

While Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda was formed mostly of Arabs from the Gulf States, Egypt and North Africa, Zarqawi's group included mainly Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians. However, when the fighting in Iraq began and Zarqawi's organization started to suffer losses, he began to recruit fighters from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Gulf States as well. Two of Zarqawi's top men, Abu Hisar Al Iraqi and Abdul Hadi Al Iraqi, were former officers of the Iraqi army.

Al Qaeda's immediate goal in Iraq was to wear down U.S. forces and make them retreat. Between 2003 -2006, coalition forces came under constant terror attacks from Al Qaeda that resulted in thousands of casualties each year. In some months, there were around 100 terrorist attacks per day. According to the Brookings Institute, from March 2003 to September 2005, the coalition forces suffered a total of 2,092 casualties.

Not all of Al Qaeda's terror attacks were directed against U.S. Forces. Some targeted Iraqi government forces: between June 2004 and January 2005, 1,300 Iraqi policemen were killed in attacks. Yet more attacks targeted the Iraqi infrastructure, such as oil industry installations. Al Qaeda also carried out kidnappings, decapitating their captives while documenting the process with a video camera. In May 2004, Al Qaeda beheaded an American citizen, Nicholas Berg, in an attack that was videoed and broadcast online. The video footage shows four masked men, who read out Berg's death sentence and warn other Westerners to stay out of Iraq, otherwise they will suffer the same fate. Afterwards, one of the men pulls out a long knife, crying "Allahu Akbar", and cuts off Berg's head. This murder, attributed to Zarqawi himself, gave rise to considerable turmoil around the world, including within Al Qaeda itself.

Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in massive terror attacks that targeted Shias. One of the biggest attacks took place on February 3, 2004, on the Day of Ashura, which Shias commemorate as a day of mourning for Hussein ibn Ali. On that day, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had gathered to Karbala, Al Qaeda carried out a series of attacks in the city and at other sites around Iraq. During the attacks, the authorities managed to capture several car and suicide bombers before they detonated their explosives. Nevertheless, the attacks killed over 200 people and left hundreds more wounded.

Such attacks, especially in light of the religious sensitivity of the Day of Ashura for Shias, intensified the fears of a sectarian war between Shias and Sunnis. However, the authorities succeeded in restoring order, and in subsequent years while Al Qaeda continued to carry out attacks on this day, they were on a far smaller scale.

A crucial turning point in the war on terror was when Sunni Iraqis came out openly against Al Qaeda and declared war on the organization.

Many Sunnis refused to accept that Al Qaeda was attacking their fellow Iraqis simply because they are Shia. In Anbar Province, Sunni tribal leaders united to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, and one Sunni leaders in Saladin province north of Baghdad said that Al Qaeda were "a bunch of brigands and highwaymen who disrespect Iraqi women and shed Iraqi blood."

Yet other leaders said that Bin Laden's actions were against the moral principles of Islam. Member of the armed forces in Diyala accused Al Qaeda of spreading corruption and attempting to occupy Iraq under the guise of religion and Islam, and promised to eliminate the members of the organization. In late 2005 - early 2006 these tensions turned into violent clashes and resulted in the banishment of Zarqawi's men from various Sunni-controlled regions. Zarqawi attacked the Sunni Islamic Party, accusing it of "selling its religion and disrupting Jihad for Parliamentary seats." He called upon Sunnis in general and the Islamic Party in particular to join the Jihad and end their cooperation with U.S. forces, warning that if they refused, they would suffer.

Abd-al Mun'em Mustafa Halima, popularly known as Abu Basir Al-Tartusi – a Syrian exile living in London and considered a senior theoretician of Jihadist Salafist Islam - criticized the ease with which Jihadist groups accuse each other of heresy and of cooperation with the enemy, and eventually attack and kill each other, thus violating the strict prohibition against shedding Muslim blood. Al Tartusi urged Jihadists in Iraq to unite and establish their activity on a principle of mutual consultation ( _Shura_ ). With these remarks Al Tartusi criticized Al – Qaeda's attempt to impose its control over other organizations.

June 7, 2006 was a turning point in the war, when the Americans managed to kill Zarqawi. . Near the time of Zarqawi's death Professor Amatzia Baram estimated that this was "a serious blow to Al Qaeda, but not a fatal one, since Zarqawi was primarily a symbol. Nevertheless, this is a very important symbol that will affect the morale of the rebels. As an organizer, Zarqawi was the most effective coordinator of mass attacks."

Indeed, the killing of Zarqawi did have an impact on the war on terror. After Zarqawi's death, there was a decrease in terrorist activities and in the number of casualties from attacks. By January 2009, the number of fatalities had dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of the war – 191 Iraqis were killed that month. A similar decline was seen in the number of U.S. soldiers killed. In 2008, the number of soldiers killed was the lowest since the beginning of the invasion – a total of 314 soldiers.

A senior commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq admitted, in February 2008, that the Al Qaeda was in serious trouble in Iraq, because it had lost several outposts and its status was declining. According to the commander, the reason for the decline is because the death of civilians in Iraq was unnecessary and caused many Iraqis to denounce the organization altogether. He also admitted the weakening of Al Qaeda was due to the vast intelligence activities of both the Iraqi government and the US.

Thus, the current situation in Iraq is far from that envisioned by Bin Laden. Al Qaeda in Iraq has failed miserably and is far from achieving its goals. Instead of Al Qaeda solving Iraq's woes, it has become its problem. Al Qaeda under the guidance of Zarqawi demonstrated narrow-minded interests that encouraged a Muslim sectarian war that stands in complete contrast to Al Qaeda's vision of a united Muslim nation. The situation in Iraq demonstrated to the U.S. that their vision of a democratic Iraq in such a complex geo - political reality is far from complete, but Al Qaeda also learned a lesson that will not soon be forgotten.

# Chapter 9: Europe's Islamism

Islamist thinkers discovered the political potential to change the face of Europe as soon as the early 1980s, when fundamentalist Islamists began to treat Europe as a high value target that needed to be conquered.

At that time, however, to take Europe by force seemed too farfetched a possibility, and so the idea became to gain control over the continent using sophisticated and manipulative techniques. For this purpose, Islamists devised a strategic master-plan called the "The Project". The document was discovered in a villa belonging to the director of the Islamic Al Taqwa Bank, who was in Europe and admitted his contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The plan talked about a gradual takeover, and included strategic objectives such as: the creation of a social network to coordinate activities between different Islamic organizations; avoiding obvious alliances with terrorist and terrorism so as to maintain a moderate appearance; covering up tracks to hide the goals of radical Islam; avoiding any relations that could damage Islam's power-base in the West; establishing financial networks to fund activities connected with "converting" the West; gathering information and creating the ability to store it; warn Muslims about actions about to be taken against them; encourage academic institutes to research Islamism; develop a comprehensive hundred-year plan to advance the understanding of Islamist ideology; establish an extensive network of non - governmental organizations to set up schools, hospitals and charities that could serve Muslims wherever they are; strive to get Muslims democratically elected to all Western institutions, including governments, NGOs, trade unions and private organizations.

Thus, Western Islamists had a plan to subdue and control the West. And so, "Allah willing, we will turn the West to Dar al - Islam through an external invasion". Islamists living in the West would be the fifth column, and the plan was that "if an Islamic state decides to invade the West, we will be its army and its soldiers from within"If Islam was not able to defeat the West by the sword, they will defeat it with an "ideological invasion". Without a direct connection to that program, immediately after World War II, the Muslim immigration to the West began. At first it was but a trickle, but it quickly became a tidal wave. Today, more than 60 years after the end of the war, it may change Europe's demography.

Today, there are about 20 million Muslims living in the European Union, which does not include Muslims living in other European countries, including Russia, where the Muslim population is estimated at around 20 to 24 million. After the War, the wounded continent desperately needed workers, but was unable to produce them itself, due to the casualties of war and a low birth rate. To maintain production capabilities, Europe needed 1.6 million immigrants per year. This was due to two main reasons: while industry and production resources in Europe steadily increased, the birth rate in Europe decreased. Currently, there is not a single EU country with a birth rate that can maintain a stable population size, i.e. 2.1 children per woman. The second reason is that not only is the population of Europe failing to grow, in some countries, including Germany and Italy, the population is decreasing as the number of deaths is greater than that of births. By 2020, for example, the population in Belgium, which was 8 million in 2001, is projected to drop to 7 million, and by the end of the 21st century Belgium will have a population of just 4.5 million. While the rate of non - Muslims is expected to drop by 3.5%, by 2015 the Muslim population is expected to double. A glimpse into the future suggests that the number of Muslims in Europe in 2050 will represent at least 20% of the population, and the proportion of Muslims in France might reach a quarter of the population by 2025.

All this becomes more meaningful when realizing, for example, that more than 15% of the Europeans between the ages of 15-25 are Muslims and that 25% of the population of Brussels under the age of 25 are Muslims. Spain's population is expected to shrink by almost 25% by 2050. A survey in Germany shows that 25% of men and 20% of women, age 20-30, do not intend to have children and do not see this as a problem.

While Europe's Christian community is expected to diminish, the growth rate of the Muslim communities is very rapid. Although most European countries closed their borders to worker immigration during the late 1970s, Western European countries still continue to allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter for family reunification and as asylum seekers, in addition to the 500,000 illegal immigrants who enter every year. Migration was made possible because of geographical proximity to migrants' countries of origin and international crime organizations that traffic people in in exchange for very large sums of money.

In addition to Europe's many Muslim immigrants, the birth-rate of Muslims living in Europe is extremely high. Today, around half of Muslims in Europe were born there and the birth rate among Muslims is about three times greater than that of non - Muslims. The result is that the Muslim community in Europe multiplies rapidly and is considerably younger than the non-Muslim community. In this context, it is important to emphasize that demographic trends may change due to changes in immigration policies, or social change among Muslims, who may undertake voluntary birth control measures.

The visual manifestation of Muslim immigration to Europe is obvious to anyone visiting the continent: Muslim slums surround wealthy urban centers. These slums threaten stability in Europe, where some countries fail to enforce law and order in these places. For example, several European countries have urban neighborhoods that are "off limits"; Muslim suburbs where law enforcement officers do not enter. In some enclaves, Sharia law is enforced by local Muslim clerics.

European Muslims tend to live in ghettos, in confined geographical areas. Upon arrival, Muslim immigrants choose to live on the outskirts of major cities. They housed themselves in the most miserable slums, initially because housing costs are low and later because these neighborhoods were already Muslim areas. Two-thirds of British Muslims live in certain neighborhoods in London, such as Tower Hamlets; and a third of French Muslims live in Paris itself or its suburbs. More than a quarter of Marseilles' citizens are Muslims, 20% of Malmo's citizens are Muslims, and 15% of the inhabitants of Brussels and Birmingham are Muslims. The identification with Islamic rule is not seen only in residential areas but also in appearance: in European cities, one can see a growing number of Muslim women wearing the hijab, niqab or burqa. A Muslim woman needs to have great courage to refuse to wear these clothing items. This is a most alarming trend. Surveys indicate that many European Muslims reject Western values, but still insist on receiving social benefits from the countries they loathe. They retain their identity, they are Muslims, first and foremost, and often do not feel European.

The large numbers of immigrants concentrated in ghettos and the sense of alienation among them has raised the question of identity. These are no longer temporary workers, but residents who have a different religion than that of the Christian majority and whose status, in all aspects of life, including employment, education, and housing, is considerably inferior in comparison to non-Muslim population. The unemployment rate among Muslims is double that of their host countries; academic achievements of Muslim immigrants are lower than average; the number of working Muslim women is minimal and promotion prospects of Muslims in their workplace are low. Another indicator of the difficult social situation faced by Muslims is that many prison inmates in European countries are Muslims.

The Muslim immigrants' rapid birth rate, along with a rather shaky social and economic status in Muslim communities in Europe, sparked an urge to translate the demographic power into political power. The initial phase of Muslim politics began the moment a change was sparked in the Muslim consciousness in Europe, when they began to see themselves not just as individuals but as Muslim communities that nurture an Islamic identity. A physical manifestation of this politicization is the establishment of mosques and Islamic centers. This way, sites such as Finsbury Park Mosque in north London and the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan turned into greenhouses of Islamic Radicalism that attract many young Muslims.

The spread of Islamic radicalism in Europe is similar to that of the Muslim immigration after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, most radical Muslims were members of the Muslim Brotherhood who fled the regimes in Egypt and Syria. However, the watershed moment for radicalism in general and Al Qaeda in particular occurred at the end of the Afghanistan-Soviet war. At the end of the 1980s, thousands of "Afghan Arab" fighters, afraid to return to their home countries, preferred to immigrate to Europe. Many of them came illegally, and a significant percentage sought asylum in Europe, knowing that the countries' welfare systems would sustain them. For example, every year tens of thousands of Muslims are granted political asylum in Germany alone. Immigration to rich European countries like Germany stemmed from a wish to take advantage of that country's generous welfare system, which provided free medical insurance and monthly welfare payments sufficient to purchase food and basic supplies.

The generous and forgiving attitude of the Europeans and their gestures of goodwill towards the Islamists were interpreted by Muslims as signs of weakness. For example, Abu Hamza, an Egyptian Islamist granted asylum in Britain, said that the only thing British about him is his passport, which he uses to move from place to place. According to Abu Hamza, "I consider myself British to the extent that I use my British documents to move around. If the question is whether I consider myself British because I agree with British policy, the answer is, of course, negative... I live here and I hold a passport. It is a superficial identity; real identity is in the heart and in the mind, and this is the [identity] that drives a man. This [identity] is Islam..."  In the eyes of these Muslims, Islam is superior to Western culture in every way and the only solution "to stop [European] racism is to call them to join Islam, so they will understand what they are missing".

The first waves of radical Islamists who came to Europe brought with them the dangerous ideology of Salafi Jihadism, which glorifies a return to the ways of the past and holy war against all non-Muslims. Europe was late to understand the size of the threat posed by Salafi-Jihadist Muslims, their hostility to the West and everything it stands for, and did not anticipate the destructive effect of this radical propaganda on struggling young immigrants.

Indeed, European governments direct most of their efforts to combat those Muslim youths who were born in Europe but chose to identify with radical Islamic values, including Salafi- Jihadist doctrines. These radical Islamic youths are second- and third-generation immigrants born in Europe. This makes them full European citizens, who speak the local language, but who identify with radical Islam. As terrorism experts from the Spanish police told the El Pais newspaper: "These are Spanish people, the children of immigrants. They study and wear Western clothes. They do not look like radicals, and often they do not look different from others."

This is a new phenomenon that poses a challenge to internal security services in European countries. Indeed, while the first wave threat that Europe faced was that of "imported" radical Islam, the current threat is ten times more threatening - "a threat from within". Muslims of European descent are the new face of Al Qaeda in Europe – such as those who carried out the "7/7" London attacks on July 7, 2005, and those responsible for the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

Even worse, those young European Muslim who identify with Al Qaeda's ideology and Salafi- jihadist doctrines, have also elected to adopt the doctrine of "Al Tafsir Al Hijr". The "Al Tafsir Al Hijr" Organization was established in Egypt in the 1960s on the basis that a society that does not comply with Quran is not a Muslim society, but a society of infidels, in a state of barbarism, just like pre – Islamic civilizations. Young members of this organization disavowed "infidel society" and lived in isolation in caves, while referring to the process as a "Hijr". The radical doctrine of Tafsir al Hijr was imported to Europe and went through further radicalization. Its core values are a differentiation from Western European society while maintaining a false image of a Western lifestyle. Those operating under the doctrine of Tafsir Al Hijr behave like young Christian Europeans. They drink alcohol, eat pork, go out with girls and dance in clubs. But this is a front to deceive the intelligence agencies who follow them.

Since 2001, Al Qaeda terror cells have been exposed throughout Europe. This should deeply worry the Europeans. Networks of Al Qaeda cells are spread in various European countries, especially where there is a human infrastructure infused with Salafi - jihadist ideology. Countries where Al Qaeda cells were found include The Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium and the U.K. This is a broad web of interconnected terrorist cells, which I believe represents only the tip of the iceberg. Al Qaeda's extensive grip is particularly dangerous to the West, since from Europe there is easy access to anywhere on the globe including the United States and Israel. This grip is one of Al Qaeda's strong points, if not the strongest, and we must remember that the organization's most dangerous and extravagant actions were all related to Europe.

Al Qaeda abused the freedom of movement enjoyed by those living in the EU in order to construct its terrorist network. In September 2001 for example, intelligence services uncovered an Al Qaeda terrorist network operating in seven different European countries. This network planned to detonate a truck bomb at NATO's Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium and to blow up the U.S. Embassy in France. Police in the Netherlands and Belgium found the location of the activists' apartments, confiscated weapons and false passports and discovered that one of the suspects was a Tunisian-born immigrant named Nizar Trabelsi, who had been assigned to wear an explosives vest and blow himself up after entering the U.S. embassy. In the late 1980s, Nizar had been a professional football player for German club Fortuna Dusseldorf, but became an alcoholic and started abusing drugs. His recovery from drug and alcohol abuse began in 1997, when he was recruited by a man named Djamel Beghal to the Tafsir al Hijr organization as he prayed in a mosque in Dostrum in northwestern Germany

Both Beghal and Trabelsi visited the same mosques in London in the 1990s and knew each other, but it was Britain's Abu Qatada who nurtured them. Abu Qatada was the one who sent the two recruits to training camps in Afghanistan, where they met with a high-level Al Qaeda operative named Abu Zubayhdah and may have met with Bin Laden. Beghal was arrested in Dubai for carrying a false passport, and confessed to the UAE authorities that it was Abu Zubayhdah who told him to become an active agent, and he even brought with him gifts from Bin Laden. In March 2005, a French court convicted Beghal and five others of attempting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Beghal was sentenced to ten years in prison and was released in 2011 but rearrested immediately afterward.

Al Qaeda was even able to take root in a country such as the Netherlands, whose Muslim population is 950,000 out of a total of about 16 million. Most Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands originate from Turkey or Morocco. In the 1960s and 1970s the Dutch government encouraged immigrants from Morocco to come to the Netherlands, to help the country cope with a labor shortage. However, despite the large number of Muslim migrants who came to the Netherlands, only a few immigrated through legal channels and as a result currently only 50% of Muslim migrants in the Netherlands hold Dutch nationality.

Although the Netherlands is considered a tolerant nation, in recent years and especially since the murder of Theo Van Gogh in 2004, there has been a backlash in attitudes to immigrants in general and Muslim immigrants in particular. This backlash has occurred against a background of population statistics showing that, over the next few years, the number of migrants in the Netherlands' four largest cities is expected to exceed that of local residents.

In France, home to between four and five million Muslims out of a total population of 60 million people, represents a particular challenge for Al Qaeda. Most Muslims in France are immigrants from North Africa, usually Algeria and Morocco, and most came to France after World War II to work in various industries. A large portion of France's Muslim population found itself living in poor neighborhoods built by the government after World War II to provide temporary housing outside the major cities. The financial situation of Muslims in France is not good - 33% of French Muslims are unemployed, compared to a national unemployment rate of 10.2%.

Germany has also had to contend with Al Qaeda terrorism. Three million Muslims live in Germany, most of them immigrants from Turkey. Germany's policy towards immigrants is fairly lenient, as reflected in the country's willingness to take in political asylum seekers and integrate Islamic content into the German curriculum, even though the general public opposes this.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, intelligence services revealed that the main operatives, including the pilots, had lived and worked in Hamburg and that most had been accepted as students at German universities.

In 2000, German intelligence services also uncovered a plot by four Algerian Al Qaeda terrorists to attack the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France. The four men were convicted of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to plant a bomb, and sentenced to prison terms of between 10-12 years.

In exposing this Al Qaeda network, the German authorities also revealed the extensive freedoms enjoyed by terrorists in the UK. The investigation into the plot found that the attack had been planned, financed and guided from Britain.

The findings shed light on Britain's role as a sanctuary for radical Muslims, as a logistics base and as a source for funds. Three of the five German conspirators stayed in the U.K. before they were arrested. The lifestyle of one of the conspirators, Lamine Maroni, explains why French intelligence services dubbed Britain a "revolving door" for terrorists. Maroney demanded and received housing and income support payments from the British authorities and no one suspected him of being a terrorist for a long time. It turns out that Maroni stayed in the U.K. after he was granted political asylum, while all of his personal effects were provided to him by a welfare organization in Sheffield. For most of his time in Sheffield, Maroni did not work, and lived alone in his musty apartment where he occupied himself by reading verses from the Quran. The only job Maroni agreed to engage in was the sale of marijuana for cash. The few times that Maroni did leave his apartment was to pray in one of Sheffield's mosques.

According to many indicators, the U.K.'s Al Qaeda center revolved around a man named Abu Qatada Al Filistini. Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Othman, settled in London after Britain agreed to grant him political asylum. Abu Qatada acted as a religious guide and was the inspiration behind Al Qaeda's activity in Europe.  Abu Qatada was born in Bethlehem in 1959 or 1960. In 1989 he moved to Afghanistan and it is estimated that between that time and 1993 he was involved with Al Qaeda. In 1994, Abu Qatada was granted political asylum in the U.K. and has since become a major operative of Al Qaeda in Europe. During his stay in Britain, Abu Qatada gradually became one of the most prominent sources of ideological authority in support of global Jihad. In 2001, Abu Qatada was described by Baltasar Garzon, the top Spanish judge who examined the activity of the Al Qaeda cell in Spain, as "the spiritual head of the mujaheddin in Europe" and "Bin Laden's right-hand man".  A special appeals committee of the British immigration authorities investigated Abu Qatada's case and found that he was heavily involved in Al Qaeda in Britain and was considered a danger to British security. The high status of Abu Qatada in the organization's network in Europe may be indicated by the frequent meetings he held with active Al Qaeda cell members in Madrid headed by Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dahdah. Abu Dahdah was alleged to have raised money for Al Qaeda from businessmen in Madrid, which he then sent to Abu Qatada via messenger. The cash raised was intended for the promotion of Al Qaeda's goals in Europe, including the support of Chechens in their war against Russia. According to the indictment against Abu Dahdah, between 1995 and 2000 he traveled 20 times to London to see Abu Qatada or his right-hand man, Abu Al Walid. Since 1998, Jamal Zogam, one of Al Qaeda's senior terrorists who took part in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, traveled to London and often met with Abu Qatada. On one trip he accompanied Abu Dahdah. The U.K. functioned as a key country for Al Qaeda in Europe was a nexus, connecting between countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

Al Qaeda in Italy

A million Muslim immigrants live among Italy's 57 million-strong Catholic population. Most Muslims migrated to Italy in the last 20 years from Mediterranean countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia, and many of them migrated to Italy illegally.

Italy's terrorist activity revolved around a Milan mosque, The Islamic Cultural Institute, which has been nicknamed "Al Qaeda's Central Station in Europe". The mosque was headed by Anwar Shaaban, an activist with an Egyptian terrorist organization named the Islamic Group. Another activist from the Islamic Cultural Institute testified that Shaaban recruited fighters and sent them for training in Afghanistan. Investigators found that there had been a large number of telephone calls between the Institute in Milan and a mosque in New York, headed by Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman, known as "The Blind Sheikh". The Italian police claimed that the activists were also linked to at the first attack on the World Trade Center.

The European response to the threat of radical Islamic is hesitant to say the least. European media outlets often censor themselves on matters related to Islamic extremism and crimes of Muslims in Europe. When such phenomena do receive media exposure, the typical European response is one of self-blame. In Malmo, Sweden's third largest city, for example, incidents of rape, robbery, school-burning, murders, honor killings and anti-Semitic propaganda were so out of control that many local Swedish citizens left the city. The government on its part attributed the problems in Malmo to "Swedish racism".

The most prominent example of the government's weakness and the power of Islamic violence are the riots that broke out in Paris in October 2005. During the riots, two civilians were murdered by rioters, around 126 policemen were injured, 9,000 vehicles were destoyed and the French police arrested 2,900 people. The French government's reaction was a typical European response when dealing with immigrants, even those whose existence is a danger to the basic values of European culture. The French authorities insisted that the riots were an expression of social-economic frustration, while honest observers claimed they primarily indicated a trend of religious separatism.

The French - Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, one of France's prominent intellectuals, argued that the riots were not a result of French racism, poverty or deprivation. In his view, the interpretation of these events is filled with false dialog, designed to obscure what is happening from the French and calm those who are worried about what is happening in Europe. For Finkielkraut, the events were crystal clear. Despite all that the country has done for them, the Islamic immigrants have fostered hatred towards France that stems from their Islamic culture "and the bourgeoisie and the wimpy schools encourage them". In Finkielkraut's view, France is on a collision course with radical Islam - to which I would add that it is not only France but all of Europe who are on that course. This situation will not change unless European politicians decide on a radical shift in their policies.

# Chapter 10: Terror in Madrid

The largest terror attack in Europe after World War II was carried out in Madrid, on March 11, 2004. Exactly 911 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in Manhattan, a group of Muslim extremists carried out a series of deadly attacks on Madrid's rail system, killing 191 passengers and injuring another 2,000.

For radical Islamists in general and Al Qaeda in particular, Spain represents a land that used to be under Islamic rule and which therefore must return to Muslim hands. For this reason, the country is colloquially referred to as "Andalusia", not Spain.

Islamic history in Spain begins in 711 CE, when Muslim forces invaded the Iberian Moroccan Peninsula. These invaders took advantage of the weakness of Visigothic Hispania, and conquered the land within a few years. Most of the peninsula, apart from the mountainous areas to the north, became a province in the Umayyad Caliphate called "Al-Andalus". Leading the conquering force, which numbered only 7,000 troops, was the ruler of Tangier, the Muslim General Tariq ibn Ziyad.

Islamic rule in Spain lasted until 1492. Spain under Muslim rule became one of the most prosperous provinces of the Islamic Empire. The Golden Age of Islamic rule began in 756 and ended around 1030. This period is described as a time of cultural prosperity, during which educational institutions and libraries were opened, and poetry and architecture flourished. However, at the beginning of the 11th century, as a result of internal rivalries between local Muslim rulers, Muslim principalities began to emerge throughout Spain, indicating the beginning of a split within the Muslim camp. In 1085, the city of Toledo fell to Christian hands. The fall of Toledo caused the Muslims to respond by launching an African expedition force under the command of Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Tashfin's force defeated the Christians, and by 1102 most of Spain was again under Islamic rule.

With the death of Tashfin, internal rivalry sparked once more among Muslims and Muslim leaders returned "to cut off each other's heads", as one of commentator of the time put it. Since that time, Christians began to revolt and started a careful and ongoing war, which ended in 1492 when Spain returned to Christian control.

In 1502 Spain's Christian rulers ordered Muslims to convert to Christianity or be severely limited by the Christian rule. The Muslim conquest and its forceful oppression by the Spaniards created hostility between the Spanish and the Islamists that has endured until today.

In the words of Zawahiri in an audio tape released on September 20, 2007:

_O, our Muslim nation in the Maghreb [North Africa], zone of deployment for battle and jihad! The return of Andalus [today's Spain] to Muslim hands is a duty for the [Islamic] nation in general and for you in particular. You will not be able to achieve this except by purifying the Islamic Maghreb of the French and the Spanish who have once again returned, after your fathers and grandfathers had expelled them unsparingly in the way of Allah._

Bin Laden added:

_"All in all, we request of Allah...that the Islamic] nation should regain its honor and prestige, should raise again the unique flag of Allah on all stolen Islamic land, from Palestine to Andalus, as well as Islamic lands that were lost because of the treachery of leaders and the helplessness of the Muslims "._[ 307

In contemporary times, Muslims began immigrating to Spain in the 1970s and 1980s, and were initially involved in construction, tourism and various other industries. Muslim immigration reached a peak in 1986, when Spain joined and the EU. Spain's economy flourished as a result of its decision to become part of the EU, and as a result the country needed a larger workforce, which it obtained from its Muslim immigrants. Many Muslims came to Spain from Morocco, and Spain's Muslim community grew considerably when immigrants' family members began to join them, legally or illegally. Despite Spain's past, its government is tolerant towards Islam, permits Islamic Studies in schools and acknowledges Muslim holidays. Today the Muslim community in Spain numbers one million, which constitute 2.3% of the population.

Since the mid-1990s, Spain and especially Madrid, served as an important center for Al Qaeda in Europe. In November 2001, immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks of and the subsequent wealth of information flowing to Western intelligence agencies, the Spanish authorities uncovered a large Al Qaeda cell in Madrid. This cell mainly focused on logistics and infrastructure developments, such as funding and recruitment of operatives for operations in Europe. Following the cell's exposure, the Spanish police carried out widespread arrests of Al Qaeda cell members, who were apparently in contact with the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks.

In this wave of arrests, the head of the Madrid cell, a Syrian-born Spaniard named Imad Eddin Barakat Yarbas, also known as Abu Dahdah, was captured. By eavesdropping on Abu Dahdah's telephone conversations, the authorities learned that he kept close in contact with Muhammad Haidar and Mahmoud Drcazni, two activists from the al - Qaeda Hamburg cell. The information revealed that the Madrid cell served as the logistical "back office" for the cell in Germany.

It seems that Abu Dahdah received information from Al Qaeda from all across Europe. The Spanish police, for example, managed listen in to a telephone call on August 27, 2001 from the U.K. between a man called Shakor and Abu Dahdah. During this conversation, two weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Shakor said that he was "giving lessons" and that they had "entered the aviation phase and will cut the eagle's throat," a phrase that appears to be a clear reference to the U.S.. It is assumed that "Shakor" is Farid Khalil, who was suspected of aiding the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

After prosecuting the Madrid cell operatives, the authorities had the impression that they had completely eradicated Al Qaeda's presence in Spain. However, despite the severe blow inflicted on the cell, it nevertheless managed to reorganize and rebuild itself. The vast majority of new cell operatives in Madrid were Moroccan immigrants who came to Europe to find work. Most seem initially to "Westernize", abandoning the principles of the Islamic religion, including the prohibition on drinking alcohol, drug abuse and spending time with women outside of wedlock. However, for some of these immigrants at least the "Westernization" was only skin deep, and in their hearts they still maintained solidarity with Islamic, and even radical Salafi – jihadi, values.

The new Al Qaeda cell operatives worked from apartments and mosques in the heart of Madrid. The imam of the mosque in Villaverde near Madrid, 'Abd al-Qadir al-Farsawi (the police informant known as "Cartagena"), witnessed the activity of the Madrid cell members. According to him, the members of the group, Sirhan ibn 'Abd al-Majid Fakhit, Saeed Raja, Mustafa al-Maymuni; and 'Uthman al-Ghanawi,

, were involved in planning terrorist attacks in Spain and Morocco during their stay in the mosque. Cartagena said he had already reported to Spanish police in October 2003 that he had heard Fakhit was "looking for martyrs". The wife of another cell member named Muhannad al-Mallah testified that he was friendly with Fakhit and that for a certain period they even shared the same apartment. She claimed that she saw her husband open packages containing books and videos about Osama Bin Laden, and that since November 2002 she had witnessed meetings at their home between her husband and Fakhit, often discussing a planned attack. She said that during the meetings they often mentioned Bin Laden, who was regarded as "the Emir". Farsawi gave the group's phone numbers to the Spanish police, who had them placed under surveillance, but despite this the cell members slipped away unnoticed by Spanish forces.

The height of Al Qaeda's activity in Madrid was a murderous terror attack, the like of which Europe had never seen before. On March 10, 2004 more than a dozen terrorists gathered at the Chinchon Farm, 45 kilometers southeast of Madrid. There, the Muslims of Arab \- Moroccan descent, made deadly bombs, each containing ten kilograms of Goma-2 ECO plastic explosives. The bombs, together with detonators, were planted in sporting equipment bags. Each explosive bag was stuffed with nails and screws to increase injuries, and the bombs' detonators were operated by cellphones.

The night of the operation was a sleepless one. The gang talked about their mission throughout the night. When they were not talking, they prayed. In the morning they loaded the bags into three cars and drove to the train station to board the train to Madrid. Each terrorist carried one bag. They boarded four different trains and put the bags near the entrance to their carriage. Once the bags were in place, the terrorists stepped off the trains.

On 11 March 2004, a series of explosions terrified Madrid. At around 8:00 AM, during the morning rush hour, ten bombs exploded on four commuter trains en route to Madrid. The explosions killed 191 people and injured 2,000 more. The train bombs exploded almost simultaneously, the first at 07:39 AM, and the rest within a few minutes,, causing destruction and death. The bombs exploded near Madrid's main train station, Atocha, and it was estimated that if the explosions occurred just slightly closer to the station, the explosions would have likely destroyed the station building and the number of victims would have reached thousands.

The terrorist attack occurred three days before Spain's general election, held on March 14, 2004. The leader of the ruling party at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, was quick to accuse ETA, the Basque separatist group from northern Spain of perpetrating this attack.  Most citizens treated Aznar's accusations with skepticism and disbelief, as ETA avoids targeting the working class. Moreover, ETA activists would send telephone warnings before their attacks, which was very far from the modus operandi of the current attack.

Despite circumstantial and direct evidence, the authorities and courts in Spain avoided declaring Al Qaeda as responsible for the terrorist attack, but I think there is sufficient evidence to determine that Muslim extremists operating in behalf of this organization carried out the attack. The first hint that this was not an ETA attack is that cassette tapes of Quran verses in Arabic were discovered in a Renault Kangoo that had been abandoned near a train station. Another hint was found in a tape obtained by police, with a recording explicitly stating that Al Qaeda took revenge on Spain for its support of U.S. President George W. Bush's war in Iraq. The message on the tape was given in Moroccan-Arabic dialect by a man who introduced himself as the military spokesman of Al Qaeda in Europe. He identified himself as Abu Dujan al Afghani and said, among other things, that:

_"We take responsibility for what happened in Madrid exactly two and half years after the attacks in New York and Washington. This is a response for the cooperation with the criminal Bush and his allies_ ".

The spokesperson addressed the authorities of Spain and warned them:

_"If you do not stop your injustice, more blood will be spilled. These attacks are still small compared to what could happen"._ 321

The tape was found by the police in a dumpster in the outskirts of Madrid, after an Arabic-speaking man with a Moroccan dialect called a local television station and reported its whereabouts.

On the day of the attack, an unexploded bomb in a bag was found in the ruins of one of the cars. Among the bomb components was a cell phone, which turned out to be the clue that resulted in the exposure of the terrorist network responsible for the attacks. When police tracked the numbers on the cellphone's SIM card, they found that most belonged to Muslim immigrants, some of whom were known to the police. The SIM card was sold at an electronic store in Lavapiés, Madrid, to a man named Jamal Zogam, who was arrested immediately.

On March 14, Spain held its general election in the shadow of the deadly terrorist attack. The elections ended with a defeat for the ruling party, the conservative People's Party (in Spanish: Partido Popular, or PP) led by Aznar, who prior to the terrorist attack had enjoyed a small but steady gain in the polls.

The Conservative Party held a small Spanish military force in Iraq and the outcome of the election meant that Spanish solders would return home from Iraq. The election, which had a 77% voter turnout, showed voters' determination to bring down the Conservative government. Indeed, as Al Qaeda had hoped, the chosen candidate - Jose Luis Zapatero - declared his intention to immediately withdraw Spanish forces from Iraq.

On April 2, 2004, two weeks after the terrorist attack, a railway company employee discovered a plastic bag on the tracks between Madrid and Seville. Footprints found on the scene led police to a safe house in Leganés near Madrid. Inside the apartment, police found seven terrorists who took part in the March 11 attack and who were determined not to fall into the hands of the Spanish authorities. When they realized that the Spanish police had discovered their hideout, the gang decided to commit suicide. Police tried to start negotiations, but the terrorists refused to answer. Instead, they shouted at police: "We want to kill ourselves", and began to telephone their relatives in Morocco and informed them of their wish to become "martyrs". They also tried to call Abu Qatada, who was incarcerated in England, in order to find a fatwa that would allow them to become martyrs, since suicide is forbidden in Islam. Spanish police prepared to break into the house, but as they stormed through the doors the cell members triggered their explosive vests. This collective suicide and the phone call to Abu Qatada is another clear sign of Al Qaeda's involvement.

To investigate the events of the Madrid terrorist attacks, Judge Juan Del Olmo was appointed to the case. He concluded that radical Islamists carried out the attack and dismissed any suspicions of ETA involvement. Investigation also revealed that some of the suspects had been under surveillance and were previously been identified as radical Muslim activists engaged in terrorist activity. Moreover, during the investigation it became clear that some of the suspects were Spanish police informants who reported to the police about impending terrorist activities, without mentioning those they were taking part in themselves. The numerous arrested suspects were brought to trial and some were found guilty. Nevertheless, the court refrained from ruling explicitly that Al Qaeda was behind the terrorist attack.

Following the attack, a researcher from a Norwegian institute pointed to a document that was published on an Islamist website in December 2003, almost a year before the attack. The document, which had been co-written by several unidentified strategists apparently from Al Qaeda, analyzed the situation in U. S. occupied Iraq and suggested possible strategies to get the U.S. out of the country. The document discussed U.S. allies in Iraq, including Spain, and suggested the following:

_"We say that to force the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq, the resistance Al Moqawama] must increase its attacks on Spanish troops and accompany them with a worldwide propaganda campaign to explain its goals. We must benefit the most from the upcoming elections in Spain next year. We believe that the Spanish government currently cannot carry more than two or three blows [terrorist attacks] before it would have to withdraw due to public pressure. If Spanish forces remain after such a blow, the victory of the Socialist Party in upcoming elections is guaranteed, and so the next government will withdraw the forces. Finally, it is important to emphasize that an Italian or Spanish withdrawal will have a tremendous pressure on the British presence in Iraq, a pressure that Tony Blair would not be able to stand. They will all fall in a domino effect but the problem is the fall of the first stone"._[ 326

The trails of most captured terrorists led back to Al Qaeda and the most obvious among them belongs to an Islamist named Jamal Zougam, a Spanish citizen born in Morocco and who had an electronic shop in Madrid. Zougam's name has previously been associated with the Al Qaeda cell leader Abu Dahdah, who was serving a prison sentence in Spain. Zougam had piqued the interest of Spanish intelligence since 2000. Abu Dahdah traveled several times to London to meet with other Al Qaeda leaders, and Zougam accompanied him on at least one of these trips. During that trip, Zougam was introduced to Abu Qatada as a talented and dedicated follower. In June 2001, a French researcher warned Spanish intelligence that Zougam is a dangerous activist who must be stopped, but nothing was done. After the Casablanca bombings in 2003, suspicions arose that Zougam was involved in the attacks, but this suspicion did not prompt Spanish authorities to arrest him, probably due to lack of resources.

A new senior Al Qaeda cell operative in Madrid was Sirhan ibn 'Abd al-Majid Fakhit, who was known as "the Tunisian". Spanish police began listening to his phone calls in 2000 and quickly determined that he was an unimportant activist. Spanish police later found out that they had been wrong. Fakhit was a real estate agent who had lived in Madrid for eight years. His employers praised him as "an exemplary salesman", who held his branch's sales record. An intelligence report noted that a Spanish translator, Lina Kalag'i, repeatedly warned Spanish intelligence about Fakhit saying that he was a very dangerous man capable of many kinds of violent actions. A few months later, when she was told the wiretap of Fakhit's phone would be stopped, she expressed her objection to this decision. At some point Fakhit became shut up in his radical-Islamist world. For many nights he would watch videos about the fighting in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq, together with other activists including Basel Ghalyoun, one of the Madrid train bombers.

Another key activist was Jamal Ahmidan that was - until he became a terrorist - a common criminal. Jamal Ahmidan, known as "the Chinese" due to his slanting eyes, was known to the police as a criminal, and it did not occur to anyone in the Spanish police force or intelligence services that he was actually a determined and dangerous Jihadi - Salafi terrorist. As a criminal, Ahmidan moved around Europe using a number of false identities. He loved marijuana, alcohol, women and reckless driving on powerful motorcycles. Ostensibly, he was not in required spiritual state to become a fanatic suicide bomber, but in prison he underwent a process of conversion to Salafism.

Members of Ahmidan's family who agreed to be interviewed told a BBC reporter that there had been a significant change in him after he returned home from his incarceration in Morocco. They said that since his return he avoided alcohol, smoking, drugs and women. However, likely because of some guidance he received, Ahmidan concealed his transformation process, when he returned to Europe he continued to act as a "Westernized" criminal. As a criminal, it was easy for Ahmidan to obtain drugs and sell them for explosives, and at the same time he was expert at avoiding police scrutiny.

Ahmidan was known to Moroccan Intelligence services, who believed he had been be recruited by Al Qaeda back in 2002. Spanish intelligence admitted that it had been mistaken in its evaluations of Ahmidan. They had focused their scope on terrorists such as those who carried out the September 11 suicide attacks - in other words, Islamic extremists or students with a systematic ideology. In the Spanish case, the profile of those involved was that of criminals, traffickers and fans of the legendary football team Real Madrid. What misled Spanish intelligence was the way that Al Qaeda's operatives in Europe had behaved, specifically their facade of "Westernization". One member of Morocco's intelligence services said that when a member of a terrorist organization starts to act like a Westerner, it is a sign of an imminent attack.

The order to act as a European, contrary to Islamic norms, is called " _Taqiyyah_ ". _Taqiyyah_ , meaning literally "to dissimulate", originates from a survival tactic used by Shias, who presented themselves as Sunnis when persecuted while maintaining loyalty to their Shia faith. However, the Sunnis soon adopted _taqiyyah_ , and used it whenever faced with threats to their way of life. The Tafsir al Hijra organization, which operated in cooperation with Al Qaeda in Europe, turned _taqiyyah_ to its strategy and way of life and ordered his men to assimilate in their communities in order not to arouse suspicion. Therefore, an Islamist who shaved his beard, smoked cigarettes, and used drugs or went out with women was called a "Tafsiri".

Strong hints of Al Qaeda's involvement in the Madrid terrorist attack were found in the attacks in Casablanca, 2003, which carried out by a terrorist organization called Salafiya Jihad. This two terrorist attacks had similar characteristics, and one can imagine that if Spanish intelligence had examined the operational characteristics of the attack in Casablanca, including the activists behind it, the latter attack might have been prevented. It turned out that the terrorist cells in Casablanca and Madrid had close ties and that there was collaboration between them and England through Abu Qatada. Any terrorist activity carried out these cells was supervised by Al Qaeda officials that reported back to Zawahiri, the organization's deputy commander.

On May 17, 2003 a Moroccan terrorist group in Casablanca carried out several attacks simultaneously. Around 50 people died, including ten suicide bombers. During the attack, five explosions went off in Casablanca within half an hour, in an operational behavior characteristic unique to Al Qaeda and Zawahiri. Even the targeted sites were typical of Al Qaeda. One of the attacks was directed against a Spanish club, Casa de Espa, which was holding a bingo night. Another attack took place at the Moroccan Jewish Community Cultural Center, Cercal d'Alliance, next to Hotel Farah in Casablanca, which hosted about 30 Israeli tourists. The Cultural Center suffered only damage to property, since it was the Jewish Sabbath and it was empty. There were also no Israeli casualties in the Farah Hotel. . Three car bombs exploded outside the Belgian consulate, which was severely damaged, but no staff members were killed except the two policemen guarding the consulate. The Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the attack was apparently aimed at an Italian restaurant owned by Jews and located near the consulate. The restaurant was completely destroyed. Another explosion took place at the old Jewish cemetery in the city.

The Moroccan group was closely connected to Al Qaeda. According to a document published in Morocco, a member of the Moroccan group told police that the group asked Al Qaeda for assistance and that Zawahiri agreed to provide that help, and met with a senior member of the group. Al Qaeda and the Moroccan group shared the same ideology- that of Salafist Jihad. The group's purpose was to strive for the establishment of an Islamic state under Sharia law and its members opposed the rule of the Moroccan monarchy. The group's links to Al Qaeda were very tight and it supported all the organization's goals to such an extent that some argued they were members of both organizations at the same time. The members of the Moroccan group trained in Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and we can say that the group and Al Qaeda were allies.

The Casablanca bombers were from the slum of Sidi Moumen. The slum, controlled by Afghanistan veterans, is a remote place. The organizers of the terrorist attacks promised the suicide bombers admission to paradise in the afterlife, since all hope for a reasonable life in this world had completely disappeared. The head of Morocco's homeland security said that a member of the organization arrested and questioned told his interrogators that the suicide attackers in Casablanca asked for approval from the highest authority as to whether the act of suicide is indeed right and proper. They contacted Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, on the Internet and he gave them his permission, as "Commander of the Faithful", to carry out the attack. The referral to Mullah Omar, Bin Laden's friend and partner, indicates the group members' orientation and their support for Bin Laden and everything he represents.

The Moroccan group's relationship with Al Qaeda is reflected in the persona of Muhammad Fzazi. Fzazi was a mentor whose weekly sermons in Hamburg's Al Quds mosque were attended by the senior September 11 terrorist attackers, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan el-Shehi, Ziad Jarrah and Ramzi Bin Al Shibh. Fzazi functioned as the spiritual leader of the Moroccan group, and it was under his spiritual guidance that the Casablanca attacks were carried out. Fzazi fled to Morocco two weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks in fear of arrest and became the spiritual authority of the Moroccan group.

Following the bombing in Casablanca, Fzazi was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.. He was likely inspired by the central leadership of Al Qaeda, or at least supported by the Madrid cell. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the French and Moroccan intelligence services followed Jamal Zougam and likely reported to their Spanish counterparts that Zougam had met with Fzazi several times before the attack in Madrid and had offered him money to support him and his team. Moreover, Fzazi also met with Abu Qatada in London and it is likely that the inspiration for the attack came from him directly.

The connections between the Moroccan group and the new Madrid cell were made mainly by Omar Aziz, nicknamed Othman al Andalusi, and by the Bin Yaish brothers. Amer Azizi was born in 1968 in Morocco. He fought in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and in Bosnia in 1996. During the late 1990s Omar Azizi lived in Spain and had contacts with the head of the Al Qaeda Madrid cell, Abu Dahdah. On 16 July 2001, Omar Azizi helped Abu Dahdah arange a meeting in Tarragona in Spain, attended by the most dangerous terrorists of the September 11 terror attack and the March 11 Madrid attack. Omar Azizi also had connections with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who planned the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Spanish police issued a warrant for Azizi's arrest but he managed to escape.

Throughout 2002 and 2003, Azizi was apparently involved in preparations for the Madrid terrorist attack, during which time he met with Sirhan Farkhit, Rabei Osman (aka "Mohamed the Egyptian") and with Almlah.

After the Madrid attack, Azizi's phone number was found in Jamal Zougam's apartment and in the ruins of the apartment in Leganés, and he was therefore suspected of being connected to the attack. Azizi's role appeared to be as a sort of liaison between the various terrorist cells operating in Europe and Al Qaeda's headquarters in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Aziz's connection to Al Qaeda headquarters became more tangible when the Pakistani Army found a passport belonging to Aziz's wife, Raquel Burgos, in a Taliban headquarters in Waziristan, and discovered that she had close ties with the core leadership of Al Qaeda.

Another key figure in the attacks who managed to escape the clutches of Spanish law enforcement is Rabei Osman, an Egyptian-born terrorist and a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization controlled by Zawahiri, with whom he had close relationships. Osman came to Madrid around November 2001, and the Spanish authorities began to suspect that he had been sent to fill in for Abu Dahdah as the head of the Madrid cell, as soon after his arrival a group of Islamist fans gathered around him in a Madrid mosque. In December 2001, the Italian police placed Osman under surveillance and wiretapped his phone calls. Through the wiretaps, they discovered that Osman was the man behind the Madrid terrorist attacks. In telephone conversations recorded by Italian police, Osman was recorded as admitting: "I was the leader of Madrid" and "the bombings in Madrid were my project, and those who died as martyrs were my friends".

In 2006, an Italian court sentenced Osman to ten years in prison for his involvement in the attacks. However, when Spanish prosecutors indicted Osman for the same attacks, the wiretaps were ruled inadmissible as evidence and in October 2007 a Spanish court acquitted Osman of involvement in the Madrid attacks. However, about a week after the acquittal, an Italian appeals court sentenced Osman to eight years, and did not criticize the translation of the wiretapped conversations.

When analyzing the information regarding the attacks in Madrid and Casablanca, we can assume that the two groups were working together and presumably were backed by the central leadership of Al Qaeda. When we say "central leadership", we primarily mean Zawahiri and Zarqawi who also worked on the European front. We summarize this chapter by arguing that Spain gave in to the terror of Al Qaeda.

# Chapter 11: Terror in London

The second prominent case of Islamic terrorism in Europe is the July 2005 suicide attacks in London. All four of the suicide bombers were young British men who had been born and raised in the UK. They were educated in British schools and universities but denounced British, as well as elementary human, values. What drove them to blow themselves up in the British subway system was the Islamic ideology they were fed, not only in _madrassas_ in Pakistan, but also in the streets and universities of Leeds and Bradford.

Britain is home to over two million Muslims, less than 3% of the population, but that number is growing rapidly due to rapid birth rate, migration and conversion. Traveling around London, one can see how one neighborhood after another have come Muslim enclaves. This is not typical only for London, but is also true of cities like Bradford, Birmingham and Oldham. In some areas of these cities, the concentration of mosques and Muslim stores is so high that it seemed to an outsider that he is visiting in the Middle East and not in England.

For the last 20 years or so, Britain has been an important center for terrorist activity in Europe. Britain's lenient approach toward radical Islam is noticeable even in comparison to similar concessionary policies in other European countries. Right under the nose of the British government, London has become "Londonistan", a derogatory name adopted by Western intelligence agencies to compare the British capital to countries where terrorism is rife, like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Britain has treated radical Islamic activists, including from Al Qaeda, with greater tolerance than given to them in their home countries. Bin Laden visited London in 1994 for several months, at a time when he was wanted by the U.S. intelligence services. While living in Wembley, Bin Lade established a press office. Even Abu Musab al Syria, one of Al Qaeda's prominent activists, lived for three years in London, and testified that he used to publish his writings in radical Islamic journals there. Another Al Qaeda activist, Abu Hamza, was arrested in 2006 for murder and incitement. British citizens were probably surprised to learn that Abu Hamza was allowed to work at his mosque in London, despite being a key terrorist figure. Not only did he preach in support of murder and racial hatred, for years he also illegally held a weapons cache near the mosque.

The number of hate books published in London is unmatched. London's bookstores sell Hitler's _Mein Kampf_ as well as _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ , alongside thousands of books glorifying radical Islam. The radical Islamic Press in London flourishes. Among other publications, the British capital prints the official Hamas newspaper _Palestine al Muslama_ ,347 the _Al Sunna Journal_ , which encourages frequent suicide attacks against American targets, and the _Risalat Al Ikhwan_ newspaper, which calls for Muslims to resist the "occupation" and to take any possible measures against it. London became an economic and intellectual nexus of Islamic thought, which concerns itself not only with ideology, but also raises footsoldiers and money for the goals of radical Islam. London is the main home for Islamists, now that the "production line" in Afghanistan had been stopped. One can even say that most of the fatwas issued by Bin Laden were first published in London.

For terrorists and Jihadi ideologues, London of the 1980s and 1990s was the best place to stay. Whether they had been expelled from their countries of origin or oppressed there, they poured into London in their thousands because London was perceived as a place of refuge. In those years, the UK immigration process was simple and civil. According to U.S. intelligence officials, information obtained from interrogating detainees in Guantanamo Bay showed that London was a terror center for Al Qaeda. Information shows that of those detained in Guantanamo, 36 were recruited in the UK before being sent to fight in Afghanistan – in other words, the UK recruited more people than any other Western country. Of the 36 detainees, 18 of them did not originate from the UK but from other countries and, more alarmingly, 17 were British citizens or those who received political asylum in Britain before being sent to Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Britain has also found itself supporting terrorists with large sums of money through an unwise welfare policy.

Recruitment of youth to Al Qaeda and similar organizations in the UK and throughout Europe was conducted against a background of the Islamist worldview of struggle against non - Muslim countries until those countries were subdued. In an interview by _Al Sharq Al Awsat_ reporter Muhammad al – Shafi with Omar Bakri, an Islamist who lives in the UK, the principles of the Islamic fundamentalist doctrine were clear. Bakri "advised" Muslim youth in the UK who did not fit into British _Jahiliyyah_ ("barbaric") society, , urging that those teenagers to "obey Allah and stay away from the infidels and polytheists, away from their customs, traditions, and their laws and adhere to the Quran and Sunna according to teaching of the early believers from the time of Muhammad ". When asked whether "in your perspective, Londonistan closed up its doors", Bakri replied that "what is now called Lonodonistan is actually Kufaristan", that is, the Dar Al Kufar ("land of heresy"). According to Bakri, the Muslims in Britain will one day achieve Islamistan, Dar Al Islam ("The Land of Islam"), like the early Muslims in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Then, Bakri said, the great Islamic dream will come true and the flag of Islam will fly from Big Ben and the British Parliament."

Al Qaeda secretly recruits middle class Muslim students at universities and colleges in the UK, mainly young people with technical capabilities, especially students of Engineering and Computer Science. According to the British Home Office, by 2005 some 3,000 British-born Muslims were trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and the number of Al Qaeda supporters in Britain is measured in the thousands. British intelligence estimates that the number of British Muslims actively involved in terrorism, in the UK or overseas, is estimated at less than 1% of the Muslim population, so the numbers of those who are willing to carry out terrorist attacks amounts to just several hundreds.

Most recruits come from North Africa and the Middle East, as well as second or third generation immigrants from Pakistan or Kashmir. In recent years, there are a growing number of Al Qaeda recruits who are British, Indian or Christian young people who converted to Islam at a later age.

The attacks of July 7, 2005 - a series of explosions in London's public transport - were the culmination of terrorist activity in Britain. . The bombs were carried on the bodies of the four terrorists- three young British men, the children of immigrants from Pakistan, and a young man from Jamaica. The terrorists said that they acted in response to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. At 8:50 AM on July 7, 2005, three bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each other on the London Underground. A fourth bomb exploded an hour later, at 09:47, in a bus at Tavistock Square. The terrorist attacks killed 56 people, including the terrorists.

The terrorists were captured on a closed-circuit TV camera at Luton train station at 07:21 on July 7, 2005. Their names - Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - indicated they were all Muslims. Two of the terrorists had criminal records prior to the attacks, while the other two were known to police. On the day of the attack, all four traveled to Luton by car. From Luton they traveled to London by train. At 08:30 the group was caught on closed-circuit TV cameras at King's Cross station. Two of the attackers filmed video of themselves before leaving for the suicide attack, where they referred to themselves as "soldiers". The videos were broadcast on Al Jazeera on September 1, 2005. One of them showed the leader of this attack, Mohammad Sidique Khan, a 30-year-old married man with a baby.

That Sidique Khan was behind the attack surprised many who knew him. He was born in Leeds on October 20, 1974 to Pakistani parents who had received British citizenship. The youngest of six brothers, he was raised in Beeston, an ethnically mixed area, attended local schools and was considered a studious and quiet student who never got into trouble with the law. His childhood friends described him as a young "Westernized" teenager, who insisted he be called "Sid", short for Sidique, apparently to make his Muslim name sound British. As a teen, Sidique was quite secular and drank alcohol and occasionally took drugs. However, his social life during high school revolved around mosques and various Islamic groups in Leeds, Huddersfield and Dewsbury. These activities included volunteer work with Muslim youth including organizing social activities. Sidique Khan was had a way with teenagers, who tended to identify with him. It could be that Sidique Khan was the person who recruited the other young members of the group, such as 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer and 18- year-old Hasib Hussain.

After graduating from high school, Sidique Khan enrolled at the Leeds Metropolitan University in his hometown, for a degree in Business Administration. During his studies, he met a Muslim student of Indian descent and proposed to her shortly after. Even though their families disapproved of their engagement, they got married and had a daughter in May 2004. After graduating, Sidique Khan began to work in a primary school for children with behavioral problems. His work was greatly appreciated by the children and their parents. After he started his work in 2001, he became a devout Muslim and would pray regularly at the school where he worked and in the mosque on Friday. Sidki's promising career in education ended with his dismissal at the end of 2004, after a long period of absence from work, later explained by his mental and physical preparation for the planned attack. For that reason, in early 2003 Sidique Khan went with his wife on _Hajj –_ the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. On July 2003, he went to a training camp in Pakistan with his fellow attacker, Tanweer. Between November 2004 and February 2005, he visited Pakistan again with Tanweer.. It is not clear if the two received special training in Pakistan, but during their stay in Pakistan they apparently contacted two Al Qaeda activists. Mohammad Sidique Khan's message to the public was expressed in the recorded statement he made before his death, which was broadcast after the attacks on Al-Jazeera:

"I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God and following the footsteps of the final prophet messenger. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation."

Tanweer, whose recording was edited to include a lecture from Zawahiri said:

"What _have you witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq. And until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel_ ".

Tanweer argued that non-Muslims in Britain deserved such attacks, because they voted for a government that supported the continued oppression of "our brothers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya".

Official reports leaked to the British press suggest that in the assessment of British intelligence, Britain's involvement in the war in Iraq was the motive behind the terrorist acts against the United Kingdom. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was also warned that British involvement in the war in Iraq had accelerated recruitment to Al Qaeda.

British intelligence had predicted well in advance that public transport could be a target for a terror attack. In 2004 the British intelligence service warned that sometime in the next five years, the country could expect to deal with home-grown terrorism. The 2004 Madrid train bombings contributed to the formulation of this assessment, showing that "soft" targets, such as the train and subway system in London, were a clear and present danger.

The British have distinguished three different types of activists working for Al Qaeda: the first is operated directly by Al Qaeda, the second maintains loose connections with Al Qaeda, and the third has no connection to Al Qaeda, except for ideological and inspirational ties. In May 2005, British intelligence estimated that the London bombings should be classified as the third type, according to which the terrorists had been inspired via the internet and that Al Qaeda was not behind the attacks.

I believe that Al Qaeda was the organization behind the London bombings. My conclusion relies on three arguments: first, Al Qaeda took responsibility for those attacks; second, enough evidence had gathered to point at connections between the group's leader, Sidique Khan, and his fellow terrorist Tanweer with Al Qaeda terrorists; and third, traces of an intermediary named Haroon Rashid Aswat, an Al Qaeda terrorist who apparently recruited and operated the British group until his escape from Britain just hours before the attacks.

The first indication that there were links between the British terrorists and Al Qaeda are their video statements, broadcast in the media after their deaths alongside Al Qaeda's September 1, 2005 statement taking official responsibility for the London attacks. The delivery of these recordings to Al Qaeda explains the terrorists' motives and is a clear sign that Al Qaeda operated these British Islamists. Following terrorist attacks by Palestinian terror groups, for example, the groups involved would give statements and claim responsibility for the acts. In many cases, this behavior was sufficient to indicate that the group had carried out this attack. This, in my opinion, is also a valid presumption regarding Al Qaeda's involvement in the London attacks, as attested by the facts below.

In 2001, long before the terrorist attack, Sidique Khan was observed as part of a group of 40 people training in a paramilitary training camp in West Yorkshire, organized by two known Islamic radicals. British police claimed that it paid no mind to Sidique Khan because he was of Pakistani origin, and in 2001 British intelligence believed that the possibility of British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent committing a terrorist attack was low. However, Sidique Khan's training testifies to the contrary.

Further evidence linking Sidique Khan to terrorism was given by a Manchester businessman who claimed that Sidique Khan had visited him in summer 2001, accompanied by two men - Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif. The three told him that they intended to travel to Muslim countries like Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to strengthen their Islamic beliefs. Sidique Khan's teaming with Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif link him to terrorism, as both men participated in the attack on the "Mike's Place" Bar in Tel Aviv in 2003. One hypothesis is that Al Qaeda was behind that attack. It should be added that Sidique Khan was involved in the Tel Aviv attack, or so we can conclude from a brief visit he made to the Israeli city, which perhaps was part of an intelligence-gathering operation.

There was also a connection between Sidique Khan and the notorious Finsbury Park mosque in London. The mosque was administered by the radical imam Abu Hamza Al Masri and is considered one of the strongholds of Islamic radicalism in London. Sidique Khan used to visit the mosque and sometimes slept in its basement. The first time he came he had with him a letter of recommendation written by Aswat, a senior assistant to Abu Hamza, who is considered to be the mastermind behind the July 7 attacks.

Another sign that the terrorists were linked to Al Qaeda is Tanweer's and Sidique Khan's visit to the training camps in Pakistan. According to British officials, the two terrorists traveled together to Pakistan between November 2004 and February 2005. No one knows for certain what they did during their stay there, but it is plausible that during this time they filmed the videos in which they took responsibility for the attack and revealed their motives.

Pakistani intelligence sources believe the two met with Zawahiri in the mountainous region of Pakistan in January 2005. This meeting was probably decisive and final, during which which last instructions were given, since soon after their return, Sidique Khan and Tanweer began to take operational steps in preparation for the attack. Both rented a place in which they could assemble the bombs, and for the remaining three months they kept in touch with people in Pakistan who gave them instructions regarding the attack. Presumably, these people were from Al Qaeda.

Another indication of the relationship between Sidique Khan and Al Qaeda is a meeting he and Tanweer had with a man named Omar Khayyam, the head of a terrorist cell that operated in the UK between 2001-2004. Khayyam's cell planned to attack nightclubs, shopping centers and the British public transportation system in response to Britain's support of the United States after the September 11 attack. The cell tried to produce bombs from 600 pounds of chemical fertilizer \- an amount that was sure to cause a large amount of casualties if exploded in crowded shopping centers. The cell members were under surveillance by British intelligence and were brought to trial. Their verdict stated they had been inspired by Al Qaeda, and most were sentenced to life in prison. During the surveillance it was discovered that Khayyam had connections with Tanweer, whom he was seen meeting several times. On February 2, 2004 Khayyam was seen traveling in the same car with Sidique Khan and Tanweer, parking the car next to Sidique Khan's house. The car was identified as belonging to Sidique Khan and was registered under his wife's name. In June 2004, MI5 checked the registry again and found it was registered under "H. Sidique".

Based on British intelligence surveillance, on 21 February 2004 Sidique Khan's car was seen parked near Khayyam's house. The two had met inside the house for five hours. That meeting was not documented but it seems to have been of great importance. Although it is not clear what was it about, during the conversation Sidique Khan asked Khayyam: "Are you really a terrorist? Are they working with us?" Sidique Khan also asked "Who are they? Is there no one above you?" Later in the conversation Khayyam said to Sidique Khan that he did not live in Crawley anymore and that the next month he was planning a nationwide raid on UK police stations, a raid that actually took place and during which Khayyam was arrested. Sidique Khan and Khayyam talked about people in training camps in Pakistan. Sidique Khan asked "How long do you have to stay in these training camps?" and Khayyam replied, "If you go to the camps in the mountains, you stay with [local] families, with our Arab brothers, or the Chechens, and they will tell you about our operation."

On April 10, 2004, Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American member of Al Qaeda, was arrested by federal agents in Long Island, New York. Babar had come to the United States from Britain four days earlier after all of his cell members had been arrested in the UK. Babar cooperated with the authorities, and admitted his connection with the terrorist cell and with Al Qaeda, including his participation in a meeting of senior Al Qaeda leaders near the Pakistan- Afghanistan border region; purchasing weapons and equipment for Al Qaeda; and establishing a training camp in Pakistan. Babar was tried and sentenced to 70 years in prison, but it was agreed that his sentence would be reduced if he testified against other Al Qaeda members. Babar testified that he trained in a training camp in Pakistan in 2000, under the auspices of the Pakistani secret service. He admitted to receiving weapons training, including how to fire rockets, use grenade launchers and general marksmanship. Baber said that he met Sadique Khan in June 2003, who told him he was planning an attack in the UK. Babar's testimony and his relationships with members of Al Qaeda prove that Al Qaeda was indeed behind the terrorist attacks in London.

If this is not enough, according to my best estimations, an intermediary named Haroon Rashid Aswat was behind the London bombings in 2005. Aswat received instructions from Al Qaeda headquarters and relayed them to the terrorists themselves.

Aswat is a radical Islamist of Indian descent who was born and raised in the UK. In 1995, when he was 21, he left Britain and attended training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There he apparently served as a bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden. At the end of 1990, Aswat returned to Britain and became a senior aide of radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Aswat was spotted by Reda Hussein, an informant of various intelligence services, as he tried to persuade young men from the Finsbury Park mosque to join Al Qaeda. Aswat spoke with these teenagers about life after death and the duty of every Muslim to wage jihad against the infidels. He encouraged them to devote their lives to the killing of "infidels, in order to get to heaven and receive 72 virgins". According to the description, Aswat showed potential recruits videos of fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya, and tried to convince them to join the Jihad. Aswat was always dressed in Afghan clothes, which added a special touch to his words. In the evenings, Aswat would offer tea to recruits and invite them to sit with him and listen to tales of the mujahideen's heroic actions in Afghanistan, until they surrendered to his "brainwashing" tactics and joined Al Qaeda. The British probably did not realize how dangerous a man like Aswat can be, since it is assumed the British intelligence service knew about the activities of Aswat but did not take any action to stop him.

Aswat was the assistant of Abu Hamza Al Masri, considered an extremist character with ties to Al Qaeda. After a long investigation, Abu Hamza was convicted by a London court of several offenses, including several counts of incitement to murder, and is currently serving a prison term. Abu Hamza, aged 50, was convicted for inciting terrorism and murder during his sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque. Among those who worshipped at the mosque was the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who tried in 2001 to blow up an airliner using explosives concealed in his shoes, and "the twentieth hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui, who confessed to his involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Abu Hamza gained combat experience during the late 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan war, where he lost both of his hands and the sight in one of his eyes. He came to Britain in 1979 and worked as a guard at a nightclub until he met a British woman, married her and became a British citizen. Five years later they divorced. Aswat, who worked with Abu Hamza, had direct contact with the London bombers, with whom he was spotted talking in February 2004. A British Intelligence specialist,John Loftus, raised a claim that Aswat served as an agent of the British intelligence agency, MI6, and that is the reason why he has not been arrest or extradited.

In the first two weeks after the London bombings British intelligence services noticed that Aswat had been in continuous contact with the attackers, especially with Sadique Khan and Tanweer, with their last conversation taking place just hours before the attacks. Aswat's phone was wire tapped by the American CREA agency. They determined that the phone calls to the bombers had been made from Aswat's phone, while British intelligence has raised a different possibility. They claimed that the phone calls were made by Aswat but not through his phone. Either way, the terrorists' cell phones, though severely damaged during the attacks, were restored and their outgoing and incoming calls mapped the social circles surrounding the attacks. These calls can testify that the attackers did not act on their own and that they were not cut off from the world as the British intelligence agencies have tried to claim.

Aswat recruited young people through the Finsbury Park mosque in London and urged them to join Al Qaeda. To his chosen candidates he showed videos depicting what he said was the bloody massacre and suffering experienced by Muslims all over the world. Three of the London bombers - Sidique Khan, Tanweer and Lindsay - also participated in Abu Hamza's meetings.

# Part 3: Ideology
# Chapter 1: Ideological inspirations

Al Qaeda's ideology is a fluid creation that continually reinvents itself through a broad and diverse line of thinkers. The first tier of writers includes the organization's senior leaders: Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri. These figures attached so much importance to their writings that, even as they were pursued and in poor physical condition, they continued to write, be photographed and to give press interviews to disseminate their principles.

There are several reasons why Al Qaeda's leaders attached so much importance to ideological writing. First and foremost, it seems that these figures saw themselves as part of the history of Islam and sought to make their mark on Islam's development. The second reason stems from a will to explain the organization's motives, for Al Qaeda's activities often aroused strong inner dispute. The third reason can be explained by the need to recruit new volunteers to the organization and to persuade these activists to go to battle or on suicide missions. The fourth reason relates to the psychological warfare Al Qaeda's leaders waged against the West, knowing that much of what they said was also being listened to in Western democracies.

The second tier of writers included the so-called "Elders of The Awakening" (شيوخ الصحوة) whose impact on Al Qaeda's ideology is substantial. These elders publish books and fatwas, mainly through affiliated Islamic websites. Among the more prominent ideologues supporting Al Qaeda are Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi, a Jordanian thinker of Palestinian origin who was deeply influenced Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.

Bin Laden named the Saudi elders whose philosophy affected him the most: Ali bin Abd Al Rahman, Dr. Safer Al Juali, Dr. Salman Al Auda, Yahya Al Yahya, Sheikh Ibrahim and Sheikh Bishar Al Bishar. The Islamic Awakening movement numbers dozens of clerics and ideologues, whose common denominator is their Salafist belief. They are united by their desire to reach and understand the essence of Islam, while relying on Islamic sources, such as the Quran and Sunna.

Zawahiri made his first public ideological speech spontaneously in 1981 in an Egyptian courtroom, while detained for his involvement in the assassination of President Anwar El Sadat. Zawahiri, who was sent to speak on the behalf of the other detainees, began shouting his philosophy in basic English: "Who are we?" Zawahiri then replied to his own question: "We are Muslims who believe in our religion in a broad sense, both as an ideology and as a way of life. We announce that our will is to establish an Islamic state and Islamic society". Even though many years have passed since that speech, this basic idea remains the essence of Zawahiri teachings and the guiding spirit of Al Qaeda.

Zawahiri admits that he established his first underground network immediately after Sayyid Qutb was hanged. Indeed, Zawahiri should be seen as Qutb's intellectual successor, who saw the confrontation between the West and Islam as a clash between different worldviews. On the one side, there is Islamic ideology, in which political leaders are also the heads of the religious community and where the law is the law of God. Against this, there is Christian ideology, which holds that religion should be separate from the state, and where the law is the law of men. Under the influence of Qutb, Al Qaeda sees ideology as a key issue. It focuses on the ideas, principles, doctrines, myths and symbols of Muslim society in general and Arab society in particular, and tries to explain how Muslim Arab society should look according to its ideal political philosophy.

In many ways, Al Qaeda's ideology is a part of a broader Salafi ideology, which we will discuss in this chapter. We will then survey the thinkers influenced by Salafism, the earliest of which is 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, whose writings greatly influenced Salafism. Ibn Taymiyyah's work also influenced Sayyid Qutb in 20th century Egypt, as well as the 18th century Salafi scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who instituted the Wahhabi ideological movement dominant in Saudi Arabia today.

(A) Salafism

Al Qaeda states in an official document that it belongs to _As Salaf As Salah_. As Salaf, or Salafism, is an intellectual stream in Islam, which calls for a renewal of religion through a return to Islam's roots, which will end its degeneration and cultural decline. The term As Salaf As Salah means: "the pious predecessors". From the perspective of Salafism, the early days of Islam are considered the religion's Golden Age, and so Salafists aim to imitate the ways of the first Muslims, - those who lived during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the two generations that followed. In a _hadith_ attributed to Muhammad, the Muslim Prophet is quoted as saying:

"The best of people is my generation [al Taba], then those who come after them (al Tabi'un), then those who come after them (Taba al Tabi'un) (i.e. the first three generations of Muslims)".

Salafists believe that Islam has lost its luster, as a result of foreign influence seeping into its culture at the end of the early Islamic period. They believe that, if Islam is purged of foreign influences and if it re-establishes itself to follow the ways of the first three generations of Muslims, there will be an Islamic revival that will bring people back to the Islamic faith and the belief in one God ( _Tawhid_ ).

At the top of the Salafi agenda is Islamic law, Sharia, which is the main test for the degree of legitimacy of a political regime. According to the Salafi world view, if a regime applies Sharia law, it should be treated as a legitimate Islamic State. If – God forbid – a regime, even a Muslim one, has introduced any foreign law that is not purely Islamic, it loses its legitimacy. The issue of the full implementation of Sharia Law by the ruler of a state became – thanks Ibn Taymiyyah and the interpretations of Sayyid Qutb - the most obvious criterion by which to determine whether a government is Islamic or whether it has been tainted by foreign elements and should be rebelled against.

Salafism developed during the late 19th century as a countermeasure for Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, who witnessed the decline of their culture and the strengthening of European powers. Salafism combines two ideological movements: radical Islam and liberalism. The liberal movement in the Arab world is best represented by Muhammad Abduh (1905-1849)  and Jamal Ad Din Al Afghani (1897-1839).  These two reformers experienced Western occupation and Western superiority and saw the need for an Islamic Renaissance. They urged Islamic nations to come together and stand united against the West. This call for Islamic unity stems from an examination of the past, for in the early days of Islam there were no nation states or any other geographic boundaries separating Muslim believers. There was only one nation, in which Islam was the common thread.

In 1928, Egypt's radical movement gave rise to the Muslim Brotherhood. This movement was founded by Hassan al-Banna and has become the origin of all radical Sunni Islamic movements. The secret of the Muslim Brotherhood's success lies in its translation of radical Salafist ideas into a strong social and political power. On the other hand, within the liberal movement, new approaches developed that were seen as agnostic by the radical wing. Members of the liberal movement indulged in ideas like the separation of religion and state, and called for Egyptian laws to be adapted to a more modern legal system, the way the eminent jurist Sanhuri did.

While Al Qaeda condemned Abduh and Al Afghani, it accepted the Muslim Brotherhood's radical Salafism, and adopted most of the teachings of Sayyid Qutb. The Muslim Brotherhood began life in Egypt, but later spread to the entire Arab world. Saudi Arabia, in particular, was sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and became a refuge for thousands of Brotherhood activists deported from Egypt. These activists established themselves around two universities: the Islamic University in Medina and King Abdul Aziz University, where Bin Laden studied. This was where Bin Laden learned of the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood and met Abdullah Azzam, his mentor and ideological guide.

One of the great scholars whose work influenced Salafism - and later Al Qaeda - is Ibn Taymiyyah, also known as Sheikh Al Islam. Taqi AdDin Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah was born in 1263 in Syria's Houran region, near the border with what is now Turkey. Ibn Taymiyyah lived all his life in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria, and was influenced by the presence of the Mongols, who for many years had landed severe blows on Islamic countries, destroying entire cities, massacring their inhabitants and causing local people to flee. Ibn Taymiyyah acquired his education in Damascus, primarily by self-study, but also from teachers from the school founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, which espouses a strict and conservative interpretation of Islam and emphasizes adherence to the Quran and the Sunna. As a follower of the Hanbali School, Ibn Taymiyyah emphasized that the ultimate purpose of God's work will be achieved by adhering to Sharia Law. Meticulous and strict, Ibn Taymiyyah opposed permissive judges who abolished Islamic principles to please their rulers. Ibn Taymiyyah called for Islam to return to its former glory, by purifying itself of foreign influence and adhering to a strict, meticulous implementation of Sharia Law in Muslims' everyday lives.

Just as contemporary Al Qaeda thinkers are concerned by the new Crusade, Ibn Taymiyyah was troubled by the superiority of the Mongols, who proved easily able to defeat Islam and take over its treasures. Ibn Taymiyyah devoted much thought to the Mongols and the state of Islam, concluding that if Islam was showing signs of weakness, then measures must be taken to restore its power.

When Ibn Taymiyyah grew up, the Mongols presented him with another logical challenge. There were no clear enemies of Islam, as there had been in the middle of the 13th century, for Muslim lands east of Syria had all been conquered, the Abbasid Caliphate had ended, and the Mongols had accepted Sunni Islam. So the _Ulema_ [educated Muslim elite] of Egypt and Syria, and Ibn Taymiyyah, faced a difficult dilemma: should a war with the Mongols be considered Jihad, or a struggle between two Sunni kingdoms?

The dilemma stemmed from the fact that orthodox Islam prohibits a rebellion against a ruler. This is a legacy of the severe trauma left by the outbreak of civil war among Muslims immediately after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Out of anxiety and fear of political instability, the _Ulema_ supported the notion that a bad ruler is better than anarchy. Ibn Taymiyyah, who had been concerned by the Mongol threat since his childhood, issued a _fatwa_ [religious decree] declaring that, if a person is Sunni Muslim, but does not follow Sharia Law and violates its fundamental principles, he should be considered an enemy, and it is permitted for Muslims to declare Jihad on him. In Ibn Taymiyyah's opinion, some rulers only pretended to have converted to Islam, and were not worthy of obedience at all. Against those rulers it was permitted to rebel.

Ibn Kathir, Ibn Taymiyyah's disciple and successor, issued a _fatwa_ stating that the Mongols' conversion to Islam should not be regarded as a true conversion if they do not abide by Sharia Law, for their law "is just a collection of laws, some of which are taken from Jewish, Christian and Muslim legal traditions and some amended according to the whim of the Mongol rulers". With this ruling, Ibn Kathir created a touchstone for assessing whether a Muslim rule is legitimate. According to him, the level of adherence to Sharia Law determines whether a Muslim ruler is a legitimate one or not. In his book, Ibn Taymiyyah explicitly claims that whoever abandons the laws of Allah, must be fought against.

Another field in which Ibn Taymiyyah influenced radical Islam was his hate-filled treatment of Christianity and Judaism. Ibn Taymiyyah referred to Christians and Jews as one group without distinction, just as we have seen Bin Laden and Zawahiri do in our times. Unlike the classical conception, which sees Jews and Christians as _dhimmi_ [non-Muslim citizens of an Islamic state], Ibn Taymiyyah saw them as heretics. In one of his writings he argues that Jews and Christians are not God's allies:

_"O believers, do not take Jews and Christians as allies. They are allied with each other. Every Muslim who keeps loyalty to them is certainly one of them"._ 396

(B) Wahhabism

The Islamic thinker influenced the most by Ibn Taymiyya was Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1792-1703), the founder of the Wahhabist school, who lived in Najd in the Arabian Peninsula. This Islamic thinker, just like his predecessor Ibn Taymiyyah, claimed that external influences were absorbed into Islam after the first generations (Salaf), which corrupted Islam and distorted its ways. For Islam to return to its glory days, Muslims must return to these old ways. Among the theological arguments introduced by Abd al Wahhab are: an objection to the worshiping of Islamic saints; a prohibition on growing beards; the abolition of celebrating birthdays, including the Prophet's birthday; and the destruction of dangerous artifacts. Wahhabists opposed divisiveness in Islam and therefore it is understandable why they object to the name "Wahhabists", and prefer the term "Salafis". For example, in an interview Fawaz Alturki, the former Saudi intelligence chief, he made it clear he prefers to call himself "Salafi" and not "Wahhabi". In general, some Saudis prefer the nickname "Muwahideen", which means: those who believe in the uniqueness of God, and that He has no partners.

Wahhabi history is inextricably bound to the origins of modern Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud, the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia, has close ties with Wahhabism. These ties go back to the early days of the kingdom, when the House of Saud ceased power and the Wahhabis contributed the religious legitimacy that was needed. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Wahhabis tried, along with House of Saud, to spread their faith in Hejaz, Yemen and southern Iraq, while declaring jihad on their opponents and forcing them to convert. The most brutal military campaign was directed against Shias in Karbala, Iraq, when an army of 12,000 Wahhabis massacred 4,000 Shias and destroyed Shia shrines, including the tomb of Hussein Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet. However, the Ottoman Empire acted firmly against the Wahhabis, and in 1818 succeeded - with the help of Muhammad Ali – to subdue the revolt.

In 1902, the House of Saud rose again, after Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi army, the Akhwan conquered Riyadh. After re-conquering the Najd in 1922, Hijaz in 1925 and Asir in 1933, Ibn Saud proclaimed Wahhabism as the official religion of the new state: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The vast wealth Saudi Arabia accumulated during the 20th century, thanks to its oil resources, allowed Wahhabis to spread their views in many Muslim countries in Africa and Asia by building mosques, religious institutions, educational institutions and charitable organizations. Similar institutions were established in the Arabian Peninsula. Outside Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabis are mainly concentrated in Qatar and in several emirates in the Persian Gulf.

The main doctrine of Wahhabi is _Tawhid_ , meaning the uniqueness of God, from the Quran's declaration that "There is no God but Allah". Abd al Wahhab was influenced by scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah, and opposed medieval interpretations of Islam, preferring to rely on the Quran and the Hadith. Abd al Wahhab preached against the moral decline that had brought political weakness to the Arabian Peninsula. He strongly objected to idolatry, the worship of saints, and their shrines.

In his preaching, Abd al Wahhab claimed that absolute monotheism exists only in Islam. He argued that other religions, including Christianity and Judaism, are not fully monotheistic, because they are too liberal when it comes to the matter of God's uniqueness. This view gave rise to Wahhabi hatred toward Judaism and Christianity, and even toward other factions in Islam. The Wahhabis rejected Christianity for its belief in the Holy Trinity, which they considered inconsistent with the idea of a single God.

In his book Al Tawhid, Abd al Wahhab expresses harsh anti-Christian and anti - Jewish opinions, and claims that members of these faiths are actually worshiping the Devil. He condemns both religions for turning the shrines of their prophets into places of worship, and warns Muslims not to do the same. He claims that Christian and Jewish practices make followers of these faiths worse than polytheists. This attitude toward Christians and Jews – that they are infidels - seeped into Saudi Arabia's worldview. The following Hadith appears in textbooks in Saudi elementary schools: "the afterlife will not come before Muslims rise and kill the Jews. The trees and stones will tell Muslims: O, Muslim! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him".

The scholar Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz, the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, wrote a fatwa about infidels entitled: "a commitment to see Jews as infidels and enemies". Although Bin Baz does not mention Christians in the title, the text refers to Christians and Jews as one group. In Bin Baz's view, Jews and Christians should be seen as heretics, and he quotes a verse from the Quran, according to which they must be considered the enemy until they believe in Allah.

Wahhabis dominate Saudi Arabia even today, and they are working to spread their faith in two ways. First, they spread the principles of their religion through their education system, spreading hatred and condemning strangers, including the infidel Jews and Christians, Shia Muslims and other non-Wahhabi Muslims. The Saudi curriculum teaches that humanity is divided into two: the Wahhabis and the rest. Wahhabis believe they are superior to others, and that non-Wahhabis, including non-Wahhabi Muslims, follow false faiths. The second course of action is spreading their hate and violence-filled faith all over the Muslim world. The Wahhabis reach places like Chechnya and Bosnia and the Muslim countries of the former USSR, through _madrasas_ , which are being constructed in many places with Saudi money.

(C) Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb is considered the most important ideologue of Islamic fundamentalism. The leader of Al Qaeda, Abdullah Azzam, called him a real ideological giant (imlaq - عملاق).  Indeed, after reviewing the teachings of Qutb, one can say that Al Qaeda was not only influenced by his teachings, but that they are deeply imbedded in Al Qaeda's own teachings. One major AL Qaeda website, for example, features Qutb's writings alongside the works of senior Al Qaeda leaders. The tendency of radical Islamic thinkers and philosophers to adopt Qutb's writings is because of the theological-philosophical depth of his works, which cannot be found in their own writings. Qutb is not satisfied with merely pointing out political Islam's weaknesses. He also discusses in-depth the state of Islam and the weaknesses of the West, and offers a comprehensive strategic plan to rehabilitate Islam's degraded condition.

Qutb was born in 1906 in Musha, a small village in Upper Egypt. When he grew up, he attended a teaching seminary in Cairo, called "Dar al Aolom". Immediately after graduating Qutb was hired by the Egyptian Ministry of Education and worked as an instructor. As a reward for his work, in 1948 the Ministry of Education decided to given him a scholarship to study in the United States, at Colorado State College for Education (now the University of Northern Colorado).  These studies, which intended primarily to familiarize Qutb with the advantages of the United States, achieved the opposite result. From his writings, one can understand that Qutb's stay in the U.S. made him feel loathing toward American society. As an Egyptian patriot and a Muslim, Qutb did not care about the United States, but was appalled by the idea that Egyptian society in particular and Muslims in general would try to adopt Western culture.

After two and a half years in the U.S., Qutb returned to Egypt. In 1951, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and began to spread the movement in Egypt. Qutb described his joining the Muslim Brotherhood in 1951 as the year he was reborn. He wrote a book, _Milestones_ ( _Ma'alim fi al-Tariq_ ), that would be cited many times in his trial and which would give him immense popularity after his execution. This book has become the classic manifesto of today's fundamentalist Islamic terrorist. However, Qutb's doctrine did not end with Milestones, but continues in a series of philosophical works, among them his monumental interpretation of the Quran, _In the Shadow of the Quran_ ( _Fi Zilal al-Quran_ ), considered a work of art. Very broad in its scope, it gave Qutb the platform he needed to spread his radical Islamic teachings.

Qutb's hypothesis is that ordinary people in non-Islamic modern societies all over the world – regardless of religion, race or sex - suffer from a sustained mental crisis. This basic crisis stems from the fact that large parts of the human race tend to focus on the material side of life, and in doing so lose their humanity. This situation is particularly characteristic of modern Western societies, which has made considerable achievements on the material plane, but completely neglected the evolution of the soul. As a result, too many people in Western societies are unhappy and lonely, and some find themselves turning to a life of crime or losing their sanity. This state of crisis and unhappiness has become a chronic problem in the modern Western world. Although Qutb respected economic efficiency, he also believed that wealth does not necessarily bring happiness and that in the richest countries one can find the unhappiest people.

As a believing Muslim, Qutb argued that the difference between a civilized and an uncivilized society is whether that society is controlled by a single God and a Divine system of laws, or - God forbid – by man-made laws. Before Prophet Muhammad, Arab society was _Jahiliyyah_ , meaning ignorant of divine guidance, where people worshipped many gods. Muhammad brought the Quran, and so in the following generations (al Tabi'un) the law was that of Allah. This period, according to Qutb, was the Golden Age of Islam, since in it the reign of Allah prevailed.

Qutb's conclusion is that, for Islam to return to its glory days, it must implement Sharia Law. Since contemporary Muslim rulers have instituted a legal system that is not purely based on Sharia Law, they returned Arab society to the days of _Jahiliyyah_. Contact with the West and the desire to blindly imitate its ways is the source of evil in Islam, for the Western way of life is fundamentally wrong. Qutb believed that the origin of the West's mistake lies in its desertion of the juristic elements of Judaism, which were given by Divine right. Christianity sinned when it chose Greek philosophy over Jewish law, believing there is a separation between spiritual and physical existence. Just like Abu al Ala al Mawdudi, Qutb believed that modern civilization must be rejected, because modernity denies God's sovereignty over all aspects of life and completely eliminates the need for religion. The outcome of modernity and the denial of Islam is the revival of the _Jahiliyyah_. The greatest sin, in Qutb's opinion, lies both in Christianity and Judaism. God revealed Himself to Moses, and dictated a series of Divine laws to him. According to Qutb, due to the perverse nature of the Jews, they forgot the essence of Judaism and became a ceremonial and lifeless religion. Qutb discusses Judaism in depth in his work _In the Shadow of the Quran_ , due to the extensive emphasis given to the Jewish Banu Nathir, Banu Qurayza and Banu Qaynuqa tribes in Medina and their stand against the Prophet Muhammad. The primal sin of the Jews, Qutb believed, was their opposition to the Prophet Muhammad when he was trying to establish his status as a Prophet. The reason for the Jews' opposition to Muhammad, according to Qutb, was their envy of Muhammad and the blessings he received from God. This opposition "reflects the total lack of sensitivity shown by the Jews and their tendency to segregate themselves, as seen throughout history".

It is clear that the Qutb did not concern himself with the fate of the West, for he hated it so much, but he was deeply concerned about Islamic nations imitating the West and abandoning their faith, which meant that contemporary Islamic society must be defined as _Jahiliyya_. Qutb preached that Islamic law must guide Islamic states. He concluded that every law that is not purely Islamic and which is not based on Sharia Law must be considered heresy and must be rebelled against by declaring Jihad. Thus Qutb gave the first approval to Islamic fanatics to fight and overthrow existing Islamic regimes.

Qutb urged the Muslim Brotherhood to radicalize their views, and supported organizations such as the Islamic Group and Islamic Jihad, headed by Zawahiri. Like Ibn Taymiyyah before him, Qutb saw the implementation of Sharia Law as crucially important. He claimed that Sharia ensures "complete harmony between human life and the law of the universe", and its application in everyday life is therefore the only guarantee of achieving harmony in human life, whether physically or mentally. Islam is fooled by Western Orientalists, whom Qutb described as wily and manipulative, and who make Muslims think that Jihad is only defensive or that "Islam is a faith which imposed itself on people by force". Therefore, according to Qutb, this is why the Quran portrayed Jews as troublemakers and plotters willing to impose war to promote their narrow interests. Islam, according to Qutb, must once again lead the world for the Muslim community to return to its origins - the reign of Muhammad and the first four Caliphs. The return and renaissance of Islam's glory days must be achieved through force and violence, as the avant-garde destined to take power in Islamic countries will "do so using physical power and jihad to eliminate the organizations and authorities of _Jahiliyyah_ , which prevent their members from changing their ideas and beliefs, and force them to follow wayward ways and to prefer human governors over Allah".

Qutb loathed the West and his hatred went beyond mere resentment of imperialism or materialism. To Qutb, Europe and North America were "backward" and "... piles of worthless junk", and had, in his opinion, nothing to offer Islam. Moreover, he claimed that the West was leading a carefully planned program aimed at destroying the foundations of Islamic society, a society which - unlike the West - could justify its existence.

One of Qutb's most serious accusations against the West was a lack of morality. He charged that the West has harmed the essence of man, who is indifferent to those around him, including those closest to him. This way of life has resulted in vulgarity in the relations between the sexes. It led to the so-called "women's liberation" and unjust laws regarding family affairs, whose logic contradicts the way life should be lived.

Qutb argued that the West is imperialist, and that imperialism is what pushed the UK to take advantage of its colonies. This is true of other European powers as well, such as Spain, Portugal and France. According to Qutb, religion is the root of hostility between Islam and the West, since the West is fundamentally hostile to all religions and especially Islam. The West has openly declared its hostility towards Islam on many occasions, and seeks to eliminate Islam through a well-planned plot, which will attempt first to shake the foundations of Islamic faith and gradually destroy the structure of Muslim society.

Qutb is without a doubt the spiritual forefather of Al Qaeda, and is known to have directly influenced the teachings of Zawahiri and Bin Laden. Qutb's book _Milestones_ , his last before his execution, is considered the most influential work for Jihadists everywhere. _Milestones_ served as a spiritual reference for Egyptian Jihadi movements, such as Al Takfir Wal Hijra. To the Jihadists, Qutb was a larger-than-life figure, not only for his writing and his ideas, but for his lifestyle, which they considered a model of self-sacrifice. In their eyes, his death was like that of a hero who sacrificed his life for his ideas.

It is very important to emphasize that it was in Saudi Arabia that the ideological connection of jihad fused into a unified idea. According to Dr. Dori Gold, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood took refuge in Saudi Arabia after being expelled from Egypt, and some even received welfare support from the Saudi government. Among them was Abu Jihad, a leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who left the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip to work as a teacher in Saudi Arabia. In the 1970s, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Wahhabism were a powerful force in Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia as well as in King Faisal's international Islamic networks, established through the Association of the Islamic World.

Abu Musab al Suri aptly defined Al Qaeda's ideology and the jihadist ideological movement (al Tayyar al Jihadi) as a mixture of the "ideological foundations of the Muslim Brotherhood, the method of Martyr Sayyid Qutb, the political and legal thought of Ibn Taymiyyah, Salafism and finally the heritage of Wahhabi dawah".

Salafist- Jihadism is in fact a radical Islamic ideology, which emphasizes both Salafism and Jihad. In essence, it emphasizes cornerstone aspects of both Wahhabism and Jihad, including the uniqueness ( _Tawhid_ ) of God, i.e. the monotheistic concept of Islam; that God is the only ruler in the world ( _Hikmat Allah_ ). According to this approach, God is in control of this world and the afterlife, and therefore must be obeyed. Hence the great importance attributed to by believers to Divine law in contrast with secular law. Al Qaeda ideology is indeed a mixture of familiar ideologies, but the result of their merger is a revolutionary new ideology: Salafist -Jihadism.

# Chapter 2: Western "Wrongdoings"

This chapter deals with the question of how Al Qaeda thinkers perceive the "New Crusade" and its "wrongdoings". In their view, the West and particularly the U.S., is the "Kingdom of Evil" which bears responsibility for the harsh condition of contemporary Islam. Al Qaeda scholars often make comparisons between current Western policies and those of the Crusades to claim that the West - the "New Crusaders" – has joined forces with Zionism to wage war against Islam to subdue it.

When Al Qaeda ideologs use the term "New Crusade" (جديدة صليبية حملة) they mean that the West has waged recurring waves of crusades against the Islamic _Ummah,_ from the original Crusades a thousand years ago to the present day. They argue that the Crusades have not waned but are still occurring, although they change their appearance over time.

To this end, Bin Laden claimed that _"this war is similar to previous crusades led by Richard the Lionheart, Frederick Barbarossa] of Germany and Louis the Ninth of France. Nowadays, they have all come together under the leadership of [George W.] Bush"_[.449 This argument rests in part on the statement of then-U.S President George W. Bush, who several days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 held a press conference in which he said that:

_"But we need to be alert to the fact that these evil-doers still exist. We haven't seen this kind of barbarism in a long period of time. No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft - fly U.S. aircraft into buildings full of innocent people - and show no remorse. This is a new kind of -- a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while"._ 451

In these claims, Al Qaeda thinkers rely on the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, who skillfully managed to link the "New Crusades" to the historical Crusades. Qutb's argument assumes that Islam has suffered a series of setbacks and failures, dating back to the Mongol invasion, continuing through the Crusades and then all the way to the age of Imperialism, when Europe was at its highest point and Islam at its lowest.

According to Qutb, the European powers created imperialism, whose aim was first and foremost to destroy Islam. It was this imperialism that gave new life to the ancient Crusader heritage. The great hatred of Islam and the will to destroy it altogether, according to Qutb, were born with the Crusades and ever since has changed form many times but has never been abandoned by the West. To Qutb, imperialism is a direct continuation of the Crusades, and the words of General Allenby, immediately after he landed in the Holy Land that "The wars of the crusaders are now complete" are proof of this.

Like Qutb, Islamic Movement scholars and in particular those of Al Qaeda argue that the West is continuing with the historical Crusades. Even today, they argue, the real aggressor is the Western Christian Church, while Islam – now as in the past - is only a defender. These scholars repeatedly claim that the goal of the West is to use the strategic and economic assets of the oil-rich Middle East as a passageway between Europe, Asia and Africa.

According to Al Qaeda, for nearly 150 years from the 19th century through the mid-20th century, France and Britain led the new Crusaders. At the time, they were the leading powers and desired a global territorial and economic expansion at the expense of weaker countries, including those in the Middle East. By aspiring for world hegemony, France and Britain undermined the Ottoman Empire and caused its collapse.

The European presence has gone through several phases: the first was characterized by a commercial presence, next came conquest and control. The imperialist age in the Muslim world began with the French conquest of Algeria in 1830, the occupation of Aden in 1839 and the British conquest of Egypt in 1882. By the beginning of the 20th century, almost the entire Muslim world was occupied and dominated by four European powers: Britain, France, the Netherlands and Russia.

Zawahiri claims that when Napoleon conquered Egypt, he promised the Jews that he would help them to establish a state. The West's cunning and evil, he claimed, found their full expression when in Sykes - Picot Agreement of May 16, 1916, which divided the Middle East between Britain and France. The purpose of the agreement was to divide the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East between the superpowers; at a time when it was clear the Empire was at its end. Under the agreement, France was to control Lebanon and Syria, and Britain was to control Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Then-Palestine was supposed to be divided as follows: the Transjordan, Negev, Haifa and Galilee regions were intended to be given to the French. Other areas were intended for international control.

In an apartment belonging to member of Al Qaeda in Manchester, UK, the authorities discovered an ideological document, which can be considered an official Al Qaeda document. It states that the reason for Islam's current diminished state is the collapse of the Caliphate – in other words, the Ottoman Empire - on March 3, 1924. agreement, France was to control Lebanon and Syria, and Britain was to control Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Then-Palestine was supposed to be divided as follows: the Transjordan, Negev, Haifa and Galilee regions were intended to be given to the French. Other areas were intended for international control.

The eventful date brought a sense of emptiness and pain to many Muslims because, even if the Caliphate had experienced ups and downs, for nearly 1,300 years it had remained a powerful symbol of Muslim unity and identity. According to Al Qaeda's scholars, its loss occurred not only because of a well-planned European plot, but also because of the vicious ways of the Ottoman Empire's leaders, at their head the secular Ataturk.

Bin Laden claimed that the Crusades, the Sykes - Picot agreements and the Blair - Bush Agreement amount to the same thing: all are a Western assault on Islam to exploit it economically and to control it politically, and the main motive is religious. Western attacks on Islam occur on many fronts simultaneously: in Palestine, Chechnya, the Philippines, Kashmir and Sudan.

Zawahiri calls the United States "the Great Satan", while bin Laden calls it "the head of the serpent". Thus they march in the footsteps of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and use his terminology, even if they don't admit it. Indeed, while the reference to the United States as the "Great Satan" is not particularly original, the original and unique aspect of Al Qaeda's teachings is a willingness to see America as Islam's main enemy, and more importantly, the willingness and courage to go out in an open attack against it.

World War II shifted American interests in the Middle East. The primary U.S. interest is oil, considered the lifeline of the superpower in every perceivable aspect. The claim is that the American interest to take over the world's oil reserves led it to "conquer" Saudi Arabia. Another prominent American interest was restricting the Soviet Union's movement and power in the region. After World War II, the United States became a superpower and began to lead the West. In the Middle East it has replaced the United Kingdom and France as the leading power. And so, as American interests in the Middle East accumulated and U.S. presence in the region grew, so did Islamic hatred towards it. However, hatred towards the United States did not occur at once but built up gradually. Up until the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the United States was considered a valued state among Muslims and was certainly not hated. Thus, when U.S. President Nixon visited Egypt in 1974, he was welcomed with great sympathy.

One of Al Qaeda's harshest claims against the United States is that its policies vis-a-vis the Islamic world are dictated by the domestic "Jewish lobby",  which it terms "World Jewry" (اليهودية العالمية). They argue that a large and powerful Jewish lobby controls the United States and has influence in many areas, especially with opinion makers such as media and film. According to this claim, this lobby dictates the world's largest superpower's policies towards Israel and Islam. Driven and directed by "World Jewry", the United States is described as a "demon" with its hand in everything. According to this theory, the power-driven United States wants to isolate Muslims, assimilate its ideology throughout the Muslim world, entice the younger generation of Muslims to leave their countries and turn against their own faith, rob the Muslim world's natural resources, prevent Islamic rule and ensure a Jewish presence in the Middle East. The purpose of the United States is to conquer of Islam, to turn Muslims into Westerners and to disseminate Western ideas.

Bin Laden claims that this is why Saudi Arabia has become an American colony. When arguing against the United States, Bin Laden chooses to defend his claims by attacking his opponent. He accuses the United States of crimes, not only against Islam but against humanity. For example, he says America is the only country in the world that dared use atomic weapons, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese.

According to Al Qaeda, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, and after the colonialist age ended, traitorous and heretic rulers came to power in the Islamic world, who were even worse than Western colonialists. Local regimes are characterized by their brutality and willingness to pay any price to hold onto power. For example, these rulers did not hesitate to dispose of thousands of members of the Islamic Movement by throwing them in the bleakest prisons with cruel wardens who subjected them to sophisticated methods of torture. These young Islamists' only crime was to refuse to follow their rulers. However, this was not the only crime of the local regimes. Their governments fought Islamic tradition by denying Islamic identity, and even spread atheist views among the youth. These rulers were not satisfied with the development of these outrageous ideas and established "Crusader" centers, like Masonic lodges, Rotary Clubs and schools for foreign residents. These were not established by chance. Their aim was to destroy Muslim youth and to westernize them (تغريب) so they would emulate Western ideals in every way.

According to Zawahiri, the West has been planning to defeat Islam for a long time. Therefore, "the struggle today cannot be conducted only on a regional level, without taking into account the global hostility towards us". Zawahiri said that Arab fighters are the core of Jihad, and explained that when he referred to "Afghan Arabs" in his book _Knights Under The Prophet's Banner_ , he meant Mujahideen from all parts of the Muslim world, not only Arabs. However, he emphasized that "Arabs were a distinctive element of this group".

The problem of finding a suitable battlefield in Egypt consumed Zawahiri, and he claimed that during its initial period, a jihadi movement needs a friendly area in which to operate, which would protect it the way an incubator protects a premature baby. According to Zawahiri, a political analysis of the situation in Egypt shows that the two forces struggling for hegemony are "the official power and the people's power rooted deep in the ground and supported by the Islamic movement and particularly by jihad ". Zawahiri believed that the first force is supported by the United States, the West, Israel and most of the local rulers, and the second force depends on the mercy of God and alliances between jihadi movements throughout the Arab world, from Chechnya in the north to Somalia in the south, and from Turkmenistan in the east to Morocco in the west.

Al Qaeda thinkers believe that there is a link between the State of Israel and the Crusader's Kingdom of Jerusalem. In their view, the State of Israel is the new Crusader state. In his book _Knights Under the Prophet's Banner_ , Zawahiri writes that Israel was created by the West and was its stated goal for 200 years. Israeli presence in the Middle East - according to Zawahiri – serves Western interests by creating a buffer state between Egypt and Syria. However, Zawahiri is not content with that, and expresses the wish that Israel's fate be the same as that of the Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was defeated by the Muslims.

Another premise of Al Qaeda thinkers is that Israel was not established in its own right, but as a European conspiracy aimed at destroying the Ottoman Empire and weakening Islam by dividing up its lands into many tiny states. The term "Jewish-Crusader Alliance", often used by Al Qaeda ideologists, shows us that, in their view, there is a long-standing strategic alliance between Christianity and Judaism. During the course of this alliance, Christianity - represented today by the United States and Europe - has conspired with Judaism in order to completely eradicate Islam. The new Crusaders, the Christians, have joined the Zionist Jews to establish the State of Israel. The United States is perceived as filling the role of the Christian powers of Britain and France, and now leads the Crusader camp, while many European countries, especially France and Britain, are still considered U.S. allies, but with considerably diminished strategic importance.

For both Bin Laden and Zawahiri Israel is a dangerous enemy, and an ally of the United States. However, the two thinkers' works illustrates their different angles on this viewpoint: Bin Laden saw Israel through the strict prism of his Salafi-Wahhabist worldview, and believes that the Jews are infidels and enemies of Islam from the dawn of time. Bin Laden was likely influenced by the Wahhabist ideology in which he was educated and which has a burning hatred for Jews and Christians whom it considers heretics.

One of the main themes in Wahhabism is the perception of Jews as infidels (Mosrichon) who do not believe in one God, who murderered the prophets and who broke oaths. On that issue Allah said: "Every time they were under oath, a part of them broke that oath; most of them do not believe". Compared to Bin Laden, Zawahiri's attitude toward the Jews is strategic. To him, Islam's problem is the state of Israel rather than the Jews. In his opinion, Israel is a foreign element in the region, which functions as a Western outpost and represents a new Crusader State, which would eventually be vanquished just like the old ones.

No matter the viewpoint, most of Al Qaeda's scholars believe that the Americans' greatest asset in the Middle East is Israel. The 1973 Yom Kippur War demonstrated to the Islamists the depth of American commitment to Israel. This war, they believed, proved how important Israel really is and the extent to which Americans are willing to be involved to help Israel. Washington's apparently "one sided intervention" became a watershed moment for fanatical Islamists, who did not see the United States as neutral anymore but as siding with Israel instead of the Islamic world.

This perception among Al Qaeda scholars highlights a primordial hatred for Jews, backed by the Quran. Hatred of Jews is permissible, because they are corrupt and work in shameful occupations, such as giving loans and prostitution. According to the Quran, Allah said of the Jews: "Do they have part in the ruling power? If so, they will not give [it] up, not even a bit the size of a date seed". Jews are accused of believing they are superior to other races, and therefore all men are slaves to them, and whoever refuses to accept this is sentenced to death. Bin Laden accused the "arrogant Jews" of saying: "We should not fulfill any obligation to the ignorant [i.e. non - Jews]. They knowingly attribute a lie to Allah".

One of the most important goals of the new Crusader attack, according to Al Qaeda thinkers, is to prepare the ground for the spread of "the great State of Israel". Israel is perceived as a dangerous state that seeks to expand at the expense of Muslim countries. Bin Laden, for example, warns about an idea of a "Greater Israel" circulating in Israel. The essence of this idea is that "a desire for an all-out expansion into large parts of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, all of Palestine, and large parts of Saudi Arabia. The suffering faced by the Palestinians, whose land is occupied by Israel, will be suffered by all Muslims". Israel, according to Bin Laden, is a murderous country that kills men, women and children. It is a terrorist state that destroys the home of everyone who is in conflict with it, "numbing [them so they] wait for death, at any given moment, whether it is a missile or a shell that will destroy their homes and kill them."

According to Bin Laden, any peace agreements made between Israel and Jordan or Egypt, originate in the dream of a "Greater Israel," whose long-term strategic outcome is to make Islam surrender to the Jews. These peace agreements, according of Bin Laden, are not a strategic goal for Israel, which considers them a tactical move designed to appease its enemies through alliances and peace treaties, and when they are reconciled and pleased, Israel will continue its murderous campaign to eliminate Islam.

For this reason, any alliance with Israel and Islam must be seen as evil, and denounced. In Bin Laden's view, the denunciation of any alliance with Israel stems from several Islamic religious imperatives which say that Jews are no less than oathbreakers and murderers of the prophets. Peace with the Jews is impossible since, for Bin Laden and his allies, the war against the Jews is eternal and will only end when the Day of Judgment comes. However, as mentioned in the _hadith_ "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews". This _hadith_ also shows that the ultimate conflict with the Jews will be resolved by killing them and not with peace treaties. Notably, Saudi mosques use this _hadith_ to condemn the Jews and instill a negative opinion about them.

To Bin Laden, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was a golden opportunity for the West to "implant" the State of Israel in the Middle East as its proxy, just as the Crusader state acted in the name of the Christian civilization. This attitude, espoused by Zawahiri toward the Jews, stems from his perception of Israel as an example of Western hostility towards Islam. This hostility is about 200 years old. The Israeli presence is considered a clear and fundamental Western interest. Israel's geographical location was designed to separate Egypt and Syria, once a continuous political entity, and thus weaken the two states militarily and strategically. This was done to deny Islam its basic purpose: a political Islamic union. To date, Israel is still wedged in the heart of the Islamic world.

A large part of the hostility towards the West is due to its unreserved support for local Arab regimes. The power struggle is between the pro-Western elites and ordinary civilians who support the Islamic movement in general and the militant Islamic Jihad in particular. The pro-Western elites are mostly secular, so a major part of their agendas is the removal of the power centers of Islamic hegemony by opening the country's doors to its enemies, such as the Americans and the Jews. The Arab political elite's greatest sin, as the Islamic fanatics see it, is to sign peace treaties with Israel, as well as to give consent for the United States to rule over the Muslim world and take part in joint military exercises with Arab States. Ordinary civilians, on the other hand, support the Islamic Movement (الحركة اإلسالمية). This movement has succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of Islamic youth. Thousands of people sacrificed their lives for the Islamic Movement, which still continues its struggle. Its willingness to make sacrifices proves two important things: first that the movement has strong roots which are deeply rooted in Arab society, and second that the Islamic movement continues to be a clear threat to the survival of secular regimes.

The internal struggle in Islamic countries between the reigning elites and the Islamic movement inevitably take on international characteristics, for the West, led by the United States, is convinced that the Islamic movement poses a threat to the government. U.S. policy toward Egypt is based on the assumption and concern that if the Islamic movement takes over the country, it will turn it into an Islamic Caliphate. Such an event could make the entire Muslim world hostile to the United States, and prompt a war.

In my opinion, this shows that Al Qaeda sees the situation as an ancient, complicated, multi-dimensional conflict between the West and Islam. Its scholars and leaders have a strong political and historical awareness, and they believe – unlike the leaders of the radical Islamic groups that preceded them – that it is not enough to merely declare that Islam is the solution. They believe that the dismal political situation in which Islam has found itself is mainly a result of Islamic countries' subjugation to the West, and that to bring this to an end the Islamic world must wage an all-out war against the West.

For Al Qaeda, Western countries, primarily the United States, are operating a new Crusade that seeks to take over local regimes in Islamic countries. They see the Middle East as the lifeline of the world, believing that whoever controls the region controls the world. It seems that Al Qaeda's strategic assumption is that if they could make Western countries relax their grip on Islamic states, they will be able, together with other radical Islamic organizations, to seize power and establish a great Islamic nation. In such a nation the rule will be of Islam and the law will be Sharia Law.

# Chapter 3: Strategizing the Struggle

Strategies are concerned with setting goals and then deciding how to achieve them. Unlike tactics, which concern solving anecdotal problems, the term "strategy" is usually used to describe a certain behavior within a larger set of actions. In a military sense, strategy is a general name for the planning and execution of a war and concerns the planning and management of military systems, the movement of military forces and ways of misleading the enemy.

The writings of Al Qaeda scholars reveal that the organization's leaders have devoted considerable efforts to formulate a military strategy against the West, which includes war goals and campaign management. The need to formulate a strategy came out of a study of past attempts. One of the conclusions drawn was that Islamic movements' past failures were a result of operations without strategic planning. For this reason, Al Qaeda's best thinkers are preoccupied by strategic planning, and the group is obviously making a serious attempt to learn from its past mistakes.

The most prominent writers engaged in phrasing a strategy are Abu Musab Al Sur,  Abu Bakr Naji and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Al Qaeda's number one strategist was Abdullah Azzam, Bin Laden's spiritual guide before Zawahiri. The importance of Azzam's contribution to strategy is in the understanding that there is a need for strategic long-term planning, which sets goals and priorities for the organization. On this topic, Azzam wrote the following:

_"We believe we should start in Afghanistan and not Palestine, not because Afghanistan is more important than Palestine... but because there are some compelling reasons to turn Afghanistan into a preferable starting point for all Muslims"_ 507 _._

Azzam worked out a long-term plan, according to which the struggle against invading forces, such as the United States and the USSR must take place before the fight against local regimes. Under this plan, Jihad needed to be a global operation, which struck against non-Muslims in Muslim territories like Chechnya and Afghanistan.

Azzam's strategy advocated the following principles: first and foremost there should be Islamic unity, hence Muslims throughout the world must unite under the banner of Islam and wage war against the infidels; next, Muslims must fight against a superpower rather than a local country, setting priorities and aspiring to locate good territory for guerilla warfare against the enemy. Azzam even determined that the fight in Afghanistan would be used as a model in future struggles to establishment an Islamic caliphate in all Muslim lands under foreign rule.

In a constitutive document, which seems to be inspired by Azzam's writing, Al Qaeda's purpose is defined as "the victory of Allah's religion, the establishment of an Islamic regime and the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate". The great dream Azzam propounded was the re-establishment of the Islamic nation founded by Prophet Muhammad, who was considered a leader as well as a prophet, who politically led and founded the young Islamic nation. In Al Qaeda's terms, the Islamic nation extends - at the very least - from Morocco to Indonesia and from Kazakhstan to Senegal. However, according to Azzam, every land that was ever under Islamic rule must be returned to Islamic dominance via Jihad "as a personal obligation" (Fardin) in which all Muslims must participate. According to Islamic law, Jihad is an obligation for the Islamic nation whenever a Muslim country is attacked. Azzam and Bin Laden claim that Islamic countries are being attacked by infidels - Christians and Jews – who try to invade Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, Jihad is an individual obligation of every Muslim, wherever he is.

While Jihad is the means, Al Qaeda's strategic goal is "to establish an Islamic Caliphate" in this generation. As we have said, Al Qaeda is a Salafist organization, which seeks to restore Islam to its glory days in two main ways: first, be building a new political community without nation states, and second, by implementing Sharia Law , in this new Islamic polity. The pressing need for Islamic unity as a source of power against the aggressor has become, in the eyes of Al Qaeda, a particularistic nationalism, worthy of condemnation. A religious solidarity, whose common thread is a belief in Islam, the uniqueness of Allah and Mohammed as his prophet, is far preferable.

Azzam hoped to build an Islamic army with tens of thousands of soldiers, who would fight wherever an intervention is required. Azzam coined the phrase: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogs", a saying that brings to mind Sayed Qutb who said that compromise is not an option for the _Jahiliyyah_ and its representatives: "We will not change our own values and concepts to make a bargain with this _jahili_ society. Never!" 

# Chapter 4: The Assumption – The West Can Be Defeated

Al Qaeda assumes that the West, the biggest stumbling block in the way of Islamic rebirth, can be defeated. Al Qaeda scholars continue to assert, perhaps out of a desire to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, that they can defeat the U.S., just as Islam defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Crusaders in the 11th century. According to Al Qaeda thinkers, the important lesson learned from the Crusades is that, if Islamic countries unite under the leadership of a worthy general, they will be able to win. Zawahiri accuses the West and warns:

_"This book has been written as a warning to the forces of evil that lie in wait for this nation. We tell them: The Islamic] nation is drawing closer every day to its victory over you and is about to inflict its rightful punishment (qasas) on you, step by step; your battle against this nation is destined to lead to inevitable defeat for yourselves, and all your efforts are no more than an attempt to delay this nation's victory, not to prevent it."_[ 517

Bin Laden, in his tactic of psychological warfare, emphasizes that the United States can be defeated. It is evident that Bin Laden is convinced that the most important barrier to be overcome is that of fear. To do so, Bin Laden backs up his words with a _hadith_ from the days of the first Muslims. The _hadith_ tells about a man named Al Muthanna Ash-Shaibani who came to Medina and asked Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab for reinforcements to fight Persia, which Bin Laden describes as a "superpower"..Caliph Umar tried to mobilize his people to fight, but in vain: the people did not want to join him. Umar ordered Al Muthanna to persuade the Muslims to fight by talking about his victories against the Persians and showing them that they can win the war. And indeed, Al Muthanna managed to persuade the people. He said: "O people, let not this force frighten you as we have humiliated the Persians and defeated them."  After the people heard his stories of heroism, they were excited and expressed their willingness to fight.

Bin Laden took his conclusion from the _hadith_ :

_"And I say imitating these great, noble people: "O people, let not this force frighten you. Let not the power of America and its army frighten you, for by Allah we have struck them multiple times and routed them again and again. They are the most cowardly of people when the armies meet. It has been made clear during our defending and fighting against the American enemy that this enemy's combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war due to its large and efficient media apparatus and of course its indiscriminate aerial bombing which hides the cowardice and lack of fighting spirit of the American soldie "._ 522

Bin Laden, who, as discussed, emphasized the psychological aspect of war, tended to belittle Americans as fighters. He repeatedly calls Americans cowards and accuses them of lacking any fighting spirit. In doing so, Bin Laden uses an ancient technique of the Bedouins in the _Jahiliyyah_ era, who would mock their enemies to terrorize them while strengthen the confidence of their own fighters.

According to Bin Laden, the defeat of the Soviet Union at the hands of the Mujahideen, and the Russians' defeat in their war in Chechnya, helps illustrate how the few can defeat the many. It seems that, with these historical examples, Bin Laden sought to prove that Al Qaeda was able to defeat the Americans. Bin Laden repeatedly talks about the 1992 terror attack by Lebanese group Hezbollah attack against U.S. Marines in Lebanon, in which over 240 soldiers were killed when the terror group drove an explosive-filled truck into the U.S. barracks in Beirut. This attack, in his opinion, caused the U.S. Marine Corps to quickly withdraw from Lebanon, and demonstrated that America is an impatient nation who cannot withstand human casualties.

Another example Bin Laden frequently used is America's failure in Somalia after the Gulf War. He argues that the United States suffered serious military blows in Somalia, which resulted in its withdrawal from the conflict:

"There is no power but that of God. Then after the Second Gulf War, America deployed her forces to Somalia and killed over thirteen thousand sons of the Muslims therein, before the lions of Islam from amongst the "Arab Afghans" and their brothers from that region pounced on her and rubbed her arrogance into the dust, killing scores of them, destroying their tanks and downing their aircraft. Thus, America and her allies fled in the darkness of the night, without disturbing the attention of anyone. Praise and gratitude be to Allah for this. "

Bin Laden often use examples to illustrate how the United States is vulnerable and with what ease it will surrender. For example, after the terrorist attack in Riyadh in 1994 and an explosion year later in Al - Khobar, the Americans were forced to move their bases from major cities to the desert. In 1997, the mujahidin publicly threatened the United States to stop its support of the Jews and withdraw from Saudi Arabia. Americans rejected the warning and the executed two painful attacks in East Africa. Afterwards, the United States was warned again, and this time the mujahidin destroyed the USS 'Cole' in Aden.

Abu Bakr Naji, an important Al Qaeda strategist, compared between the combat adaptability of the U.S. soldier and that of the Russian soldier. He said that since the Russian soldier is tougher and more capable than the American soldier, if the Russian army was defeated by Islam then it is expected that the American army will also be defeated. He said that even if Americans will suffer losses by only one-tenth the rate of losses suffered by Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya, they are likely to flee from battle and abandon the Iraqi campaign. In general, the current structure of western armies is so shaky that it cannot be expected to hold out against such difficulties. Therefore, do not expect these armies will be able to battle hard against the fighters of Al Qaeda. In conclusion, the United States is a superpower with massive military force and a strong economy, but whose strength is very flimsy. If the American army will be struck, even in only one of its weak points, the U.S. is expected to stumble and collapse.

Finally, let it be said that faith can win the West, especially the United States, for history had shown that even the most stable world powers do not last forever. Alongside this view, are today's circumstances, in which global powers are challenged by many enemies. In these modern times, the fear which paralyzed most of the world's nations, including the Muslims, is receding. This deterministic approach, which predicts the end of any power to lose its hegemony, relies on Western studies, such as that of Paul Kennedy, who predicted that the United States will lose its hegemony as a superpower.

# Chapter 5: The struggle Stages

Al Qaeda's underlying idea, as conceived by Abdullah Azzam, is concerned with global Jihad, whose goal is the withdrawal of the West from Islamic lands and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate over these liberated territories. However, since Azzam's death, more extreme figures rose to power and conceived a revolutionary plan whose goal is not only to force Western powers to withdraw from Islamic lands, but also to take over their territories and convert their populations to Islam.

Fouad Hussein is a Jordanian Islamic journalist who met Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi in 1996. Since Zarqawi and Maqdisi were in prison, Hussein could meet with them and interview them at length. In this way, Hussein learned about Al Qaeda's plans, and in2005 he published a book, _Zarqawi: the Second Generation of Al Qaeda_ 537 based on the interviews, in which he sets out Al Qaeda's grand strategy. According to Hussein, Al Qaeda's official goal is "the triumph of God's religion, namely Islam, the establishment of an Islamic regime and the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate." Al Qaeda's scope is both "global and local, according to Al Qaeda's policy." Al Qaeda has set itself a long-term work plan of 20 years, and, as it sees things, the organization is in the midst of an operational plan, which began in 2000 and will end in 2020. Al Qaeda's vision includes seven different stages, the first being the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan. The campaign would end only with the absolute victory of Islam over the West.

The first stage of Al Qaeda's grand strategy is called "The Awakening" (marhalat alifaqa), and has already started with the preparations for the September 11, 2001 terror attack. Why is it called "The Awakening"? Al Qaeda scholars believe that the Islamic nation was in "hibernation" as a result of disasters afflicted on them by the West. They believe that by successfully attacking the United States, Al Qaeda had already succeeded in embarrassing the US and causing Americans to lose their wits. This initial phase was completed in 2003, when US forces entered Iraq. According to Al Qaeda, the September 11 attacks turned the Islamic movement into a major player in the world stage. The success of the terrorist attacks was apparent in how they forced the Americans to leave their home territory and fight in the Middle East, where they are more vulnerable.

The second phase is "Opening Eyes" (Marhalat Fatah Al Uyun), and lasted from 2003 to 2006, during which time Al Qaeda was supposed to become a widespread popular movement through disseminating ideas via the so-called "online electronic jihad." Even Zawahiri defined this as a major step in Al Qaeda's work plan. According to him, the success of Al Qaeda fighters during all stages of the campaign above all depended on winning popular support.

However, Zawahiri warned that open support for Al Qaeda will draw the hostility of local regimes, who will try in every possible way to prevent their populations from backing the group. Zawahiri believed that in Islam there is a clear dichotomy: most ordinary people support the Islamic way, while the elites support the West. Therefore, Al Qaeda's duty is to draw the sympathy of the Muslim people to support it.

The third phase is called "Resisting and Enduring". This phase, incorporating a "miraculous recovery" and "steadfastness", was expected to occur between 2007 and 2010, and focus on terrorizing existing Muslim regimes. During this time, Al Qaeda was expected to concentrate its efforts in Syria and Turkey, and even wage a direct war against Israel, to gain the confidence of the Muslim community. According to Azzam, the road from Afghanistan leads to "Bayt al-Maqdis", Jerusalem.

The fourth phase was expected to occur between 2010 and 2013, during which time Al Qaeda expected that moderate regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and other Muslim countries would collapse. Islamic regimes that supported Al Qaeda were expected to rise in their place. Thus, the fourth phase - which was supposed to end in 2013 - was expected to eradicate secular Arab regimes. The neutralization of these local regimes was expected to lead to a gradual build-up of power and influence in Al Qaeda, which would continue to wear down the West via terrorist attacks against oil interests in the Middle East. Al Qaeda also expected that the U.S. will gradually lose its power, and that its decline would lead to the widening of the circle of violence. At the same time, according to the plan, Al Qaeda would complete its preparations for a full frontal attack on the U.S., by focusing primarily on crippling its economy.

If everything went according to plan, the fifth phase would have been expected to occur from 2013 to 2016, when a new world order would come into fruition, with the establishing of a new Islamic Caliphate. Along with the strengthening of Islam, it was expected that the U.S. and Israel grow weaker.

The sixth and seventh stages were expected to occur from 2016 to 2020, during which years there would be a global war between the West and Islam. Conflict would end with a "decisive victory" of the forces of Islam against the West. At this point, the grip of the West in Arab countries would break, and Israel would not be able to strike any more blows on the Arab world. The world balance of power would shift and Al Qaeda and the Islamic movement will attract new allies like China. This alliance was expected to cause Europe to break apart and cease to function as a single entity.

The sixth step would be a worldwide war between believers and non - believers. In 2020 Islam is expected to be victorious.

Zawahiri defined Al Qaeda's campaign goals, but these were more realistic than those set by Maqdisi and Zarkawi. In a letter to Zarqawi, Zawahiri specifies Qaeda's ultimate goal, which is victory over the U.S. military in Iraq:

_"Iraq is] in the heart of the Islamic world, which was formerly the field for major battles in Islam's history, and what is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era... It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established in the manner of the Prophet in the heart of the Islamic world, specifically in the Levant (Syria), Egypt, and the neighboring states of the Peninsula and Iraq ; however, the center would be in the Levant and Egypt... As for the battles that are going on in the far-flung regions of the Islamic world, such as Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Bosnia, they are just the groundwork and the vanguard for the major battles which have begun in the heart of the Islamic world"._[ 550

As stated above, Zawahiri's plan is much more limited than the previous one. It includes the three stages. In the first stage, the Americans would be driven out from Iraq; in the second stage an Islamic entity or Emirate would be established. In a later stage, this Emirate would become a Caliphate, and in the third phase, Jihad would spread to Iraq's secular neighbors. The last stage would involve a war with Israel. Here Zawahiri's plan ends, without specifying an operative timetable or considering the concept of a total war against the West.

With regard to the United States, Al Qaeda's objectives are: first, to prevent any assistance to Israel; second, to lift the American blockade against Islamic countries, including Iraq; third, to ouster the U.S. from Islamic lands, namely Saudi Arabia; and fourth, to cut off all assistance to local rulers of Islamic countries.

# Chapter 6: Courses of Action

Abu Bakr Naji, one of Al Qaeda's leading strategists, discusses the main stages of the campaign against Western armies invading Islamic lands in a publication named _Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Ummah Will Pass_ (Idarat Altawahash).  The campaign's first priority, according to Naji, is to drive out the invading Western countries from Islamic lands. The strategy holds that Al Qaeda must find countries that are politically and militarily weaker to control them with relatively little effort. Among the countries Naji mentions are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, North African countries, Pakistan, and Yemen.

According to Naji, Al Qaeda must operate with sophistication but cannot, under any circumstances, refrain from violence. Violence creates a sense of chaos in the disadvantaged countries, and terrorist attacks will later enable those countries to be taken over. Before the forces of Al Qaeda take over these weaker countries, however, they must wage a war of attrition, which will replicate the situation in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over. When these events take place, civilians will long for a day when a stable Islamic government can take political control over the country. Naji expressed his concern that complacency might weaken Al Qaeda's grasp, warns that if the organization does not prepare well for this crucial stage, it may miss the opportunity. If that occurs, it is not clear when another opportunity might present itself in the future.

The initial step is therefore to create chaos via terrorism. Naji calls this stage "insult and attrition" and it is essential to the war, during which the Jihadi fighters must exhaust the enemy's strength by targeting numerous locations simultaneously. The results will be tol force the enemy to spread his forces over a wide area, which will financially and militarily exhaust him. Naji emphasizes that Al Qaeda is not obligated to take over the entire area of the target countries. Rather, in his opinion, it is more important that Al Qaeda take over certain geographic enclaves within those countries, which would then constitute an operational base and a place from which to training troops. The purpose of this activity is to create an "accumulation of violent confrontations with the U.S. and its satellite Muslim states, the escalation of which will crumble the existing order, so as to make way for the desired regime". Abu Bakr calls on Al Qaeda to hit the West at its weakest point- its economy. Therefore, he advises Al Qaeda to select targets with a high economic value for its attacks, such as Western banks and oil facilities. The purpose of these attacks is to cause confusion in the enemy's ranks and to force it to be on the defensive at all times. Economic strain should wear the enemy down, and expose it to public scrutiny for its wasteful policies. (It seems that although Al Qaeda opposes democracy and sees it as a religion of heresy, it is not hesitant to use democracy for its own gain.)

Naji also attempts to describe how Al Qaeda would rule over the territories that fall under its control after the occupying powers withdraw. This attempt at this is unique, since the tendency of Al Qaeda scholars has been to focus on the campaign stage and not what would come after. The issue of managing any future state is usually so far from the minds of Al Qaeda's leaders that Naji quoted one of his friends as saying:

" _Imagine that we get rid of the infidel regimes. Who will run the ministries of agriculture, commerce, economy, and so on? Because, beyond the matter of building a Caliphate and the implementation of Sharia Law, the organization's leaders never seem to give their mind to what to do when such a state will suddenly arise before them."_

Personal Terrorism

Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Sitt Maryam Nasar was one of Al Qaeda's most prominent strategists, but formally retired from the ranks of the organization before being captured by the U.S.  Nasar, also known as Abu Musab Al Suri, is best known for his monumental 1,600 page tome, _The Global Islamic Resistanc_ e _Call_ _(Da'wat al-muqawamah al-islamiyyah al-'alamiyyah)_ ,563 which has become a byword among scholars of jihad including in the West, who consider it an expression of Al Qaeda's mindset. Born in Syria, where the Islamic movement suffered one of its worst defeats in 1982 Hama Massacre, Nasar became a lecturer and a guide for the Muslim Brotherhood. Later, in Afghanistan, Nasar was introduced to Abdullah Azzam became a senior member of Al Qaeda. However, in 1992, Nasar retired from Al Qaeda but remained sympathetic to its cause.

Nasar argued that the loss of the Taliban State in Afghanistan in the war against the U.S. changed the global strategic situation, and particularly that of jihad. Since then, the main problem of the global jihadi movement has been the lack of a permanent base for training and preparation for attacks. In the wake of the loss of the Taliban State Nasar concluded that the time had come to change strategy. He urged Al Qaeda to refrain from direct military conflicts and instead concentrate on terrorist attacks on quality targets. He called for the waging of war without leaders, which would take place on the enemy's homestead, while preparing the mood for a Jihad war.

Nasar's main ideas are set out in a chapter titled "Military Theories", which deals with how the campaign can be adapted to the changes that took place. In his work, Nasar emphasizes the need to abandon the secretive and covert hierarchical organizational structure of a terrorist organization, and shift to a decentralized structure of individuals (Al Jihad Al Faridi).  The advantage of the proposed decentralized method Nasar offers is that if an individual cell is compromised, the organization as a whole will not be harmed. Naser named this method: "Niẓam La Tanẓim," meaning an organization without a regulated structure. This way, operational methods would be available to anyone who decided to take part in the battle, meaning they could implement those methods whenever they chose to do so, even if there was not an organizational structure behind them.

# Chapter 7: Jihad in the Eyes of Al Qaeda

The word "jihad" is the noun gerund of the trilateral verb jahada, which means "to struggle", "make an effort". "Jihad" later came to also mean a war against the enemies of Islam. According to Islam, human beings are divided into two groups - followers of Islam who are called "believers", and non-believers, who are "infidels".

Al Qaeda is unique in that it weaves together a vision of global jihad, a willingness to make this vision a reality, and a willingness to sacrifice considerable resources for the realization of this goal. Al Qaeda's interpretation of the concept of "Jihad" is revolutionary, and is far-removed from its conventional interpretation, which is clarified below.

The first source for the term "jihad" is the Quran, which contains _surahs_ calling Muslims to fight infidels. For example, Surat 8:60 (Surat Al-'Anfāl) calls Muslims to wage war on infidels and reads as follows:

And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will be fully repaid to you, and you will not be wronged.

The "Surah of the Sword" (Surah 9:5, also known as the Surah of Repentance, Surat At-Tawbah) calls for war against the infidels at the end of the holy month in which bloodshed is forbidden and reads as follows:

When the sacred months are over slay the polytheists wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful

During its spread, Islam was referred to as _Dar Al Islam_ ("The Land of Islam"), a reference to the countries dominated by Muslims, while the rest of the world was referred to as _Dar Al Harb_ , ("The Land of War"), inferring that any country not under Muslim rule must be conquered by the sword – or, in other words, by jihad.

A constant state of jihad against the infidels fitted the early days of Islam, when Muslim armies were victorious. However, at some point the armies of Islam began to suffer defeats, which required special legal preparations that provided a solution for a situation in which Islam was unable to fight endless wars. For these times of recovery, the concept of _Hudna_ was invented (from the Arabic trilaterial root H, D, N meaning "truce"). _Hudna_ implies a written or oral agreement between Muslims and non-Muslims, stating that the parties will refrain from hostile acts towards each other. This truce was permitted for limited periods only; the shortest for just several days and the longest for ten years. However, Muslim failures on the battlefield led Islamic jurists to adopt a new concept of _hudna_ that was not limited in time.

Before the rise of radical Islam, the orthodox interpretation of jihad meant a struggle aimed at achieving religious or moral integrity. This interpretation viewed jihad as a military operation designed to spread Islam, and if required, to protect it. Under this view, war was an important collective religious obligation, not a personal endeavor. The concept of _jihad_ as a personal obligation, required of each Muslim came into being only when Islam was attempting to protect itself against invaders. In other words, if the situation at hand was not a defensive campaign for the removal of an aggressor, it is enough that there be an army that represents the community taking part in the fighting, and every Muslim is not required to join the battle. Although was constant hostility between Islam and its enemies, Islamic scholars recognized the need to make peace with enemies from time to time, even if only for a limited time.

During the 20th century, Islam became more radicalized until culminating in a clear and coherent extremist Islamic doctrine, which formed mainly around the writings of Sayyid Qutb. Relying on the teachings of Ibn Taymiyyah and influenced by Abul Ala Mawdudi, Qutb developed a new theory called _Jahiliyyah_.575 According to this theory, the phenomenon of _Jahiliyyah_ is not dependent on time or place, but applies whenever a person is under a rule of law that is not of God's creation. According to Qutb, the difference between Islam and the rest of the world is that in the Islamic world, _Dar al Islam_ , Sharia has been implemented, while the rest of the world exists under the rule of man. Since the vision of radical Islam is for Islamic law to rule everywhere, Islam must constantly declare Jihad on the non-Islamic world, _Dar al Harb_. Qutb based this theory on the work of Ibn Taymiyyah, who justified taking action against Muslim rulers if they do not govern according to Sharia Law. The inevitable result of this ideology was that, according to radical Islamists, secular local rulers in Muslim states were considered part of _Dar al Harb_ , just like Christians and Jews.

The Egyptian revolutionary and theorist Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj, who was deeply influenced by Sayyid Qutb, expanded and developed Qutb's teachings. In his book _'The neglected obligation'_ (Al Faridha Al Ghayyiba) he considers jihad as another of the pillars of Islamic law. Faraj had concluded that it is permissable to kill Muslim rulers who do not implement Sharia Law in their country. It was Faraj who taught four of the assassins responsible for the 1981 murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and was executed alongside them in 1982.

However, Sadat's assassination did not turn Egypt into an Islamic state. In fact, Egypt under the leadership of President Hosni Mubarak was opposed to radical Islamists, detaining and imprisoning many. When those radical Islamists were released from prison during the 1980s, many went Afghanistan to fight in the war against the Soviet Union. However, the ongoing failures of the Islamic movement to seize power taught radical Islamic thinkers lessons regarding their chosen course of action. Their first lesson was that local regimes are far stronger than they appeared, the second was that the Islamic movement is far weaker than it appeared and the third was that Islamic movements tended to splinter, which is the source of their weakness.

The conclusion drawn from these lessons was that Islamic movements and organizations, including Al Qaeda, must focus on their war with the West, whose great sin is the support of secular local regimes. Islamist thinkers concluded that fighting these regimes could not be done in stages, gradually and patiently. The way to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate was in one fell swoop, and the target should be the "new Crusaders", led by the U.S. - the "head of the snake".

Therefore, the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden stated that jihad is an essential duty for Islam and a personal duty of every able Muslim. He defined jihad as an integral part of the Muslim religion, and said that there was no excuse for not participating in jihad for Allah. Bin Laden even went so far as to state that jihad is the highest of all Islam's commandments, second only to faith itself. Bin Laden's political distinction is important in this context since in his view, most modern countries, including Islamic countries, are in a state of _Jahiliyyah_ and therefore are not Islamic and Muslims are obliged to fight a holy war against them.

Bin Laden's main inspiration regarding jihad was the Quran itself. Citing the Quran, Bin Laden said:

_"So fight in the cause of Allah; you are not held responsible except for yourself. And encourage the believers to join you] that perhaps Allah will restrain the [military] might of those who disbelieve. And Allah is greater in might and stronger in [exemplary] punishment"._[ 581

In Bin Laden's view, the first duty of every Muslim is to repel the aggressive enemy and fight them. This is not an attack, but rather defense of the Islamic homeland. This is an important point, and Bin Laden repeats it several times, citing Ibn Taymiyyah who said that "there is no greater duty - after belief itself – than repelling the aggressive enemy who corrupts religion and this world, and one should not determine any reservation".

According to contemporary radical Islamic thought, jihad is an individual obligation incumbent on the entire _Ummah_ , and its aim is to remove the wickedness of infidels. Every Muslim must rise to jihad for Allah in any possible way: those who are physically able to fight must fight; those who cannot must fight through faith.

# Part Four: Al Qaeda's Organizational Characteristics
# Chapter 1: The Leadership

A particular leader is able to have a decisive influence on how an organization is formed, and the same principle applies to terrorist organizations.

Often, terrorist organizations have a charismatic figure or figures behind them, who are capable of generating a large crowd of followers. Terrorist organizations identify themselves with their leaders, and often when a leader passes away, the organization dies along with him.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S. led war in Afghanistan, Western security forces seized numerous documents, whose contents revealed Al Qaeda's operational theory. Al Qaeda operatives - including senior members of the organization - were also apprehended and interrogated, which shed light on the inner workings of Al Qaeda's leadership. In this context, we must consider that the task of structuring Al Qaeda was carried out by its top leaders, who designed the organization according to the hierarchical structure they were familiar with from their days in the army and police. Therefore, our assumption is that as long as Al Qaeda continues to be run by the same individuals, it will tend to return to this same hierarchical structure.

We can learn more about the hierarchical approach that characterized Al Qaeda from documents captured by U.S. forces, which suggest that Al Qaeda's leader - the Emir - was invested with extensive powers.

In the absence of a democratic model, a leader with extensive powers – inspired by the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad – seemed an ideal outcome. A worldview that sees its political leader as a political equivalent to the Prophet Muhammad, will necessarily invest its leader with unlimited authority; hence the many formal authoritative powers granted to Osama Bin Laden. These included the power to appoint officials , including members of the advisory council and council leadership; the power to fire any official; the power to officially represent Al Qaeda both within the organization and to the outside world; the power to decide on Al Qaeda's annual program and other important matters outside that program; the power to consider plans submitted by subordinates; the power to evaluate the capabilities of subordinates to develop their professional abilities; the power to formulate and plan the annual budget and ensure its implementation; the power to control and supervise all departments and divisions, and attend and participate in designing Al Qaeda's training programs.

Moreover, the leader must be knowledgeable about Sharia and proficient in Jihad, and believe that Jihad is the way to bring forth the change. He must speak the truth and act patiently and wisely. The leader must not covet others' possessions, and should not partake in the pleasures of this world. He must be brave and decisive.

Bin Laden had no need of formal authority to control and consolidate his leadership of Al Qaeda. His authority, built on charisma, was conferred to him by his followers. Admiration of Bin Laden was strongest amongst Al Qaeda's members, some of whom were willing to give their lives for him, or for a cause he considered noble. This admiration stemmed from the fact that Bin Laden had renounced his life of wealth, comfort and dignity. The personal concessions he made "caught the imagination of Arab Muslim youth, who resented the political and moral decline of the Arab ruling elite." Moreover, Bin Laden was perceived as being extremely courageous, an image which found expression in the stories told about his life and exploits by those closest to him. Bin Laden's bodyguard, Nasser al-Bahri, also known by his _kunya_ Abu Jandal (the killer or the powerful one), related how Bin Laden had warned that if there was ever a danger of him being captured, then he, Abu Jandal, must shoot him. Abu Jandal also testified that he loved Bin Laden more than he loved his father.

Bin Laden had a relaxed style of leadership, which caused many to describe him as more akin to the head of a Board of Directors than the leader of a terrorist organization. And indeed, Bin Laden often listened to advice from both his higher- and lower-ranking officers, from whom he was willing to hear new ideas and to implement them, while micromanaging the details. In this manner, Bin Laden managed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the high point of his leadership pf Al Qaeda.

His willingness to consult with others indicates that Bin Laden chose not to function as a "lone wolf." Indeed, throughout his life, except during his time in Abbottabad, Pakistan, he kept an aide or group of aides at his side, with whom he could consult. At first, Bin Laden consulted with Abdullah Azzam; then with Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafez Al Masri, Al Qaeda's military commander and Bin Laden's confidante until his death in aNovember 2001 U.S. bombing raid in Afghanistan.

In general, the group responsible for advising Bin Laden was the Shura Council ( _Majlis Al Shura_ ), which literally means Advisory Council. The members of the first Shura Council were Atef, Zawahiri, Abu Ibrahim Al Iraqi, Abu Faraj Al Yemeni, and Abu Fadhl al Makki. The requirement for consultation is part of Al Qaeda's operating theory, and is therefore a mandatory duty that a leader cannot ignore, unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

Al Qaeda required that new recruits pledged loyalty to the organization, over and above their loyalty to their families. Recruits usually broke away from their extended families, a move that intensified their loyalty to their leader, making their relationship with him even more meaningful. The leader then took the place of the father or older male relative, serving as an active a role model who must be obeyed.

The ceremony that strengthens the ties between Al Qaeda members and the leader was done using a _ba'yah_ (in Arabic: بَيْعَة, meaning 'Oath' or 'Claim'), in a secret ceremony. An Al Qaeda activist known as Bahri related that he had been part of a large group of people - including Muslims of Saudi and Yemeni origin - who joined Al Qaeda. Each were made to swear an oath of allegiance to Bin Laden in strictest secrecy. That way, the members of the group did not know who swore allegiance and who did not.

On May 2, 2011, a United States commando unit succeeded in assassinating Bin Laden, ending a decade-long manhunt. Before his assassination, Bin Laden managed to escape from Afghanistan and found refuge in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Until his capture, no one knew what had become of him, and the prevailing belief was that he had died. The assessment that Bin Laden was no longer alive was made on the basis of manipulated pieces of information that presumably originated from the Pakistani intelligence service. One piece of intelligence claimed that, in around the end of 2001, Bin Laden was diagnosed as suffering from a kidney disease and was forced to undertake periodic dialysis treatment in a military hospital in Peshawar, with the approval of Pakistani intelligence and Pakistani President Musharraf himself. In January 2002, the President of Pakistan said he believed Bin Laden was probably dead, since it was unlikely he had received proper health care for his kidney disease. "I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason that he is a ... kidney patient," Musharraf told CNN. According to Musharraf, Pakistan was aware that Bin Laden had taken with him to Afghanistan two dialysis machines intended for his own use.

Yet another piece of intelligence claimed that Bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in July 2001 from an American specialist named Dr. Terry Callaway at the American Hospital in Dubai, and he had accompanied by Zawahiri and several bodyguards. During his stay in the hospital, the intelligence claimed, Bin Laden had been visited by family members and high -ranking Saudi officials, including Prince Turki Al Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence.

It cannot be ruled out that Bin Laden was granted asylum by Pakistani intelligence officials who were supportive of Al Qaeda. This hypothesis is supported by the assessment of U.S. officials, who said that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) literally works as a terrorist organization. In any case, Bin Laden's agreement to live in a villa in Pakistan was an act of submission and revealed a lack of courage, since it indicated he wanted to save his life and those of his family, and for that he was willing to give up his role as a leader.

Since 2009, the official intelligence estimate from the US has been that Zawahiri succeeded Bin Laden as the operational leader of Al Qaeda, and that it is he who actually runs the organization, while Bin Laden only outlined its strategy.

Zawahiri's leadership has advantages and disadvantages for Al Qaeda. The advantages are well known: first, he has a vast experience of more than three decades in terrorist activity. Second, Zawahiri is considered an excellent tactician who helped plan many attacks, including those against U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Third, Zawahiri is the most important Islamist ideologue of the past two decades, and has great importance to the policy he outlines.

On the other hand, Zawahiri lacks Bin Laden's leadership abilities. Bin Laden was the founder of Al Qaeda, and Zawahiri joined the group only after the failure of his Egyptian Jihad organization. Moreover, Zawahiri has a tendency toward factionalism, and often creates unnecessary ideological friction. Moreover, Zawahiri has a lack of charisma, and he is not as good as Bin Laden was at recruiting volunteers for cause. In this regard, it is worth noting that Al Qaeda's last major attack was in Britain in 2005, and that since then the organization has not succeeded in bringing another such attack to fruition, despite this being Al Qaeda's very raison d'être.

Alongside Zawahiri, Al Qaeda has a command group, each of whose members may one day be appointed to lead the organization in his absence. However, some members of this group were killed in the war against the U.S. along the Afghanistan –Pakistan border area.

A central figure it that group is Saif Al Adel, also known as Saif Al Din Al Ansari and whose full name is Muhammad Makawi, an Egyptian born in 1960 or 1963. The FBI have offered a five million dollars reward for his capture.

Adel is a senior member of Al Qaeda's leadership, a member of the Shura Council and a member of Al Qaeda's military council. Adel was one of Bin Laden's closest and most loyal friends. When Bin Laden was expelled from Sudan, Adel was among the few who joined him when he fled to Afghanistan. As a Hezbollah-trained expert on terrorism and guerrilla warfare, he trained military operatives of Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and Somalia, especially in the handling of explosives. Adel was considered one of the main sources for Fouad Hussein's 2005 book on the global strategy of Al Qaeda. According to estimates, Saif Al Adel had been in hiding Iran and later moved to the Pakistan- Afghanistan border region at around the time of Bin Laden's assassination, intending to become the leader of Al Qaeda, or to help Zawahiri in running the organization.

Another important figure in Al Qaeda's command group is Abu Yahya Al Libi, a brave and a charismatic leader and one of only a handful of Al Qaeda leaders with a religious education. Unlike Bin Laden, who had a degree in business administration and engineering, and Zawahiri, who is a medical doctor, Al Libi is an _Ulem_ , a scholar of Islam who speaks several languages, including Urdu, Pashto and Arabic. Born in 1963 in Libya, Al Libi was detained without trial in the Bagram interim detention facility, a U.S.-run prison next to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan's Parwan Province. Al Libi managed to escape the facility, together with other activists, on the night of July 10, 2005. A former analyst from the Central Intelligence Agency described Al Libi as a "warrior, a poet and a competent military commander" andeven wrote that, in his opinion, Al Libi is a "brash, young, rising star", who became a clear successor to Osama Bin Laden as leader of the global jihadist movement.

One of the more prominent members of Al Qaeda's command structure was Mustafa Yazid, Al Qaeda's contact with the Taliban, also known as Sayed Al Masri. Yazid was born in Egypt in 1955 and was a member of Al Qaeda from its early days. Yazid was detained an Egyptian prison for three years, along with Zawahiri, for his part in the assassination of Egyptian President Sadat. After his release from prison in 1988, Yazid moved to Afghanistan, joined Al Qaeda and quickly became a member of its Shura Council, from which position he was given an opportunity to counsel Bin Laden for over a decade.

During Bin Laden's stay in Sudan, Yazid functioned as the organization's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), according to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, or 9/11 Committee, who defined him as such. Yazid was opposed to the terrorist September 11 terrorist attacks, because he feared that the U.S. would strike back and severely harm the Taliban infrastructure in Afghanistan. This, Yazid believed, would result in the downfall of the Taliban regime and would therefore be a fatal blow to Al Qaeda, which would risk losing its territorial grip.

Yazid, an extremist, did not rule out the use of nuclear weapons. In an interview with Al Jazeera regarding Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, he said that, "God willing, these nuclear weapons will not fall into American hands but into Muslim hands, and will be used against Americans." Yazid also said that Al Qaeda is ready for a ten-year ceasefire with the U.S.. For this to happen, however, .the U.S. would have to remove all its troops from Muslim countries, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, and cease its support of Israel and pro-Western Muslim regimes. Yazid stressed the "strong ties and ideological and strategic bond" between his organization and the Taliban in Pakistan. In late May 2007, Yazid was appointed the supervisor of Al Qaeda's operations in Afghanistan, a move that showed the importance placed by Al Qaeda on the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. In May 2010, Mustafa Yazid was killed in an aerial attack.

Prior to October 2001, Bin Laden had various committees working alongside him, and these actually led the organization. The committee structure divided the control of Al Qaeda by area, and it is estimated that this was disbanded after the beginning of the U.S. war on the Taliban.

In the past, at least, the Military Committee (اللجنة العسكرية) worked alongside Bin Laden to manage Al Qaeda's military affairs, especially recruitment, military training, and dispatching fighters to carry out terror attacks. The chief of the Military Committee was also responsible for training, promotions, nuclear weapons department, and a library. The person in this role had to be at least 30 years old and hold a university degree, preferably a military college graduate degree, since he needed to be knowledgeable in military affairs. Among Al Qaeda's previous Military Committee chiefs are Abu Ubaidah Al Binshiri and Abu Hafez, Bin Laden's close adviser and who helped facilitate the September 11 terrorist attack of 9/11. Most of the Military Commission's activities focused on operating Al Qaeda's training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda recruits were sent to these camps to undergo an indoctrination process, after which they were mentally determined, and ready to sacrifice their lives.

Al Qaeda's Political Committee is another important structure, whose role is to spread political awareness among the organization's activists and the Muslim masses, and to maintan relations with other jihadi movements around the world, including State sponsors of terror. The Committee also prepares important studies and reports. A year before the 2004 Madrid train bombings, an online report was distributed which was apparently a preliminary study regarding the implications of such a terrorist act against Spain, including influencing the country's general election and the expected withdrawal of Spain from the war in Afghanistan. Presumably, the Political Committee carried out these studies.

The Leadership Committee, which also worked alongside the Emir, was responsible for managing the internal affairs of the organization. This committee had monthly meetings to discuss Al Qaeda's current affairs. The head of the committee changes every year, but the leader of Al Qaeda may extend his term of office. Its members are selected by the leader, and their role is to give advice and deal with planning matters. It is this structure that decides on organizational goals, plans the budget and the annual program. It can elect a new leader, should its existing leader and his deputy be killed at the same time.

One of the most important committees is the Finance Committee. Since Al Qaeda's establishment, it has invested heavily in fundraising, on the understanding that it needs an annual revenue of around $20-30 million. Contrary to a common misconception, Bin Laden did not finance Al Qaeda with his personal fortune, or with businesses he established. Primary source of finance for the Islamic institutions operating in Afghanistan mainly came from government sources, in particular from regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the United States. Saudis contributed millions of dollars to the Services Office which hosted thousands of Mujahideen during the war with the Soviets. Thousands of warriors passed through Saudi Arabia on their way to Peshawar in Pakistan before they crossed the border into Afghanistan. When Bin Laden became an enemy of the Saudis, he tried to finance Al Qaeda through economic initiatives, especially during his stay in Sudan, from 1991 to 1996. These attempts ended in failure, however. When Bin Laden left Sudan, he was almost completely broke. In Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's financial position has improved mainly due to income from drug trafficking and donations. However, the U.S. War in Afghanistan greatly reduced Al Qaeda's fundraising abilities, and thus contributed to the organization's operational weakening.

# Chapter 2: Activists' profile and training

Al Qaeda's leaders meant to establish a terror organization whose members were among the most prominent in the Arab-Muslim world. This notion of quality relies on the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, who predicted in his work _Milestones_ that the fate of Islam depended on the chosen few who would lead its renewal. He envisioned that the Islamic nation would be led by a selected few, a vanguard. The elected political model to which Qutb looked was that created by the Prophet Muhammad, who led a small but determined group of people with the willingness to sacrifice their lives if they needed to. In Muslim history, this group was called "Friends of the Prophet" (الصحابة) and it is still revered today.

Qutb argued that a group that will act like the Prophet's entourage would one day lead the Islamic nation to new achievements, and establish an Islamic Caliphate. Abdullah Azzam, who was influenced by Qutb, laid Al Qaeda's ideological foundations in his article _Al Qaeda Al_ _Sulbah_ " (القاعدة الصلبة – "the solid base"), where he wrote that every principle must have a vanguard to persue it. Acording to Azzam, an idea would take shape around a charismatic person who would create this elite group, which would be the basis of Islamic society and which would confront the _jahiliyyah_ surrounding it.

Qutb's vision, via Azzam, became Bin Laden's vision. A month after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Bin Laden called the suicide terrorist attacks "a vanguard". In terms of creating a vanguard, Al Qaeda is largely the manifestation of Qutb's vision, whether or not it fulfiled the entirety of that vision.

Marc Sageman argues that Al Qaeda's activists are the "crème de la crème" of Muslim societies today, and that Al Qaeda's activists are "the best and the brightest, and come from many areas."  75% of Al Qaeda's activists are from upper middle class families, and the majority comes from normative homes. 63% of participants in Sageman's sample were university graduates, while the average rate of university graduates in the Arab world is less than 6%. Despite this analysis, Sageman insists that Al Qaeda's activists have nothing in common with each other, except their connection to jihad. He concludes that it is impossible to formulate a profile that will characterize those activists.

It seems that Sageman sampled only a small group of people who were captured or became notorious, but to draw a more accurate picture of Al Qaeda activists, it must be noted that not all activists are like those who have become known. To balance Sageman's research, I used another study, which examines Al Qaeda operatives on the Iraqi front. The conclusion from both studies is that Al Qaeda employs different operatives for different needs, so it is no surprise that their skills and backgrounds vary according to the nature of the tasks they are recruited to undertake. There is no resemblance, for example, between a young Al Qaeda activist recruited to fight in Iraq and an activist destined for one of Al Qaeda's suicide operations in Europe. It is therefore clear that when Al Qaeda recruits fighters for guerrilla warfare, its emphasis is on quantity and not on quality.

While high-quality teams are composed of professionals such as engineers, architects, doctors, people skilled in operating a computer or who can speak several languages, the group of Iraqi volunteers do not mention their profession and it seems that most of them have no profession at all. Of the 389 fighters in the sample group, 56.3% (217) of the activists defined themselves as "suicide bombers" while 41.9% (166) identified themselves as "insurgents".

The activists came from around the Arab-Muslim world and Europe, mainly from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, France, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom. The largest number of fighters is from Saudi Arabia, followed by Egypt and Libya. The significant number of Libyan civilians joining the fighting in Iraq can be attributed to the official accession of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group to Al Qaeda in 2007. The predominance of the Saudi and Egyptian groups is also reflected in Al Qaeda's leadership.

The common denominator of these people, according to Sageman, is that they are people who travel from place to place, who feel detached from the population around them. He claims that since these people are the best and brightest, many of them were sent abroad to pursue higher studies. Far from home, they developed a longing for their homeland and culture. They satisfied their need for belonging by attending mosques - not for religious purposes, but rather in the hope of finding friends that would remind them of their home and culture. This desire to belong is what brought these people to Al Qaeda. While on this topic, it should be noted that Western countries who accept overseas students, whether from altruistic motives or for financial gain, must take into account that some of Al Qaeda's most dangerous operatives were students who enrolled at Western universities, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the man behind the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Despite popular belief, a significant proportion of Al Qaeda operatives were not educated in religious institutions. Out of the 137 terrorists in Sageman's sample, only 23 or 17%, received elementary or secondary education in religious institutions, with the remaining 83% attending secular schools. Most of the terrorists who attended religious schools studied in madrassahs, for the simple reason that in some parts of the world madrassahs are the only educational institutions available.

Those drafted into the ranks of Al Qaeda are Muslim men between the ages of 15-35. Al Qaeda invests a lot of effort into outreach to student populations, especially in universities in Europe and the United States. One such student was the young Nigerian Muslim, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who planned to hijack a plane over the Atlantic. Abdulmutallab, who came from a wealthy family, was the president of the Islamic Society at London University, where he studied engineering. His mentor was Anwar Al Awlaki.

Long before Abdulmutallab tried to hijack a plane, the activities of Islamic Societies at European universities had become a matter of concern. These Islamic associations tended to concentrate on radical Islamic activities, which attracted opinionated young people. These students saw those societies as a place to find new friends, pray and eat halal food.

The training of an Al Qaeda fighter depends largely on his designated mission. A recruit sent to fight in Iraq would undergo a relatively short training process, while one recruited to participate in a terrorist attack would undergo a complex, lengthy and costly training process.

A fighter's training process is usually implemented around several "social circles": the first is the personal circle, which involves isolating the recruit, the second is that of the group, which occurs as the recruit creates new social connections within Al Qaeda; and the third is that of Al Qaeda itself.

The first stage of training involves exposing recruits to Salafi - jihadi ideology, which has a profound effect on troubled young Muslims experiencing difficulties in their lives and who are seeking simple solutions to complex problems.

The allure of Salafi - Jihadi ideology lies mainly in its reference to simple, ancient texts, which are not mediated through any later interpretation, its call for jihad, and its promises of peace and supremacy in this world as wel as eternal life in Heaven.

In the age of the internet, exposure to Salafi - jihadi ideology requires no special effort. Via various Al Qaeda websites, young people can become familiar with Salafi - jihadi literature and enrich their knowledge in this field easily, without arousing suspicion. Salafi - jihadi literature is also widely available in public libraries and bookstores, and is therefore accessible to anyone. The Internet allows those interested in jihad to connect and interact with others looking for similar experiences. This includes online conversations with friends on jihadi websites, and watching radical Islamic videos uploaded by terror groups. In this way, virtual Jihadi communities are formed online.

The assimilation of ideology is a critical step in recruiting jihadis, and something which is an ongoing part of the training of new recruits – after all, there is a fine line between preaching and ideological brainwashing. Many witnesses claim that Al Qaeda's spiritual teachers, who generally operated on an ideological level, did not hesitate to brainwash those young men who were about to be sent to the front to fight, or dispatched as suicide bombers. In any case, it must be borne in mind that one of the main objectives of Al Qaeda's ideology is to win over hearts and minds to the notion of "being killed on the altar of God."

Some argue that with the implementation of Salafi - jihadi ideology, recruits undergo an internal process of identity loss. At this stage, recruits gradually move away from their previous identity and fully adopt radical Islamic ideology.

The person responsible for the concept of being ready to sacrifice one's life in exchange for eternal glory was Abdullah Azzam. He made great efforts to establish jihad as a primary commandment in Islam, and he did so via a sophisticated method of propaganda designed to make death a way of life for young Muslims. This is the _istishhad_ ("martyrdom" or "heroic death") theory, which argued that death is the culmination of all desires. In his book "The Signs of The Merciful in the Jihad of the Afghan" Azzam wrote in praise of death and described miraculous stories about Allah and the Mujahideen, including that the bodies of martyrs did not decompose but smelled of musk and amber, and that,dogs refused to touch them.

After assimilating the main ideological principles, recruits transition from the personal circle to the group circle, where they seek and find other people with whom they can share their experiences. It is no longer enough for the recruits to chat in Internet forums. Instead, they aspire to meet other people like them. Those who wish to join Al Qaeda are presented with a variety of social opportunities to meet with Al Qaeda's recruiting agents, including through family ties, meetings in cafes, student organizations, religious study groups, non - governmental organizations, and of course various online forums. This circle is a process and not an isolated event, in which the recruit is gradually detached from his old life and connected with others like him. Within the group, religious elements are strengthened, and recruits usually give up smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and gambling. The group becomes the most important part of the recruit's life and provides the justification for suicide attacks.

The will to operate within a tight-knit group is the most prominent feature of Al Qaeda's organizational behavior, which applies also to its leaders. This is expressed in a tendency toward isolation, self-reflection and living within enclaves. In this sense, Al Qaeda is an organization that supports the enclave culture described in the work of Sivan, Almond and Appleby **'** Modern Religious Fanaticism: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism'. The term "cultural enclave" was coined by the anthropologist Mary Douglas, who used the term to describe a society with low scalability and high cohesion. Al Qaeda as an organization is not aware of the term "cultural enclave" of course, and its behavior is defined as an adaptation, even if partial, of the " _Al Tafsir Al Hijra_ " doctrine.

The concept of the enclave - the convergence of its members behind virtual or physical walls, and set apart from outside society - is appropriate for fundamentalist movements everywhere. The value of each member within the enclave is emphasized, and the dividing lines between them blurred. The isolated nature of the enclave emphasizes the immoral nature of outside society and contrasts it with its own virtues. This is done not only in self-defense but also as an offense, sometimes while declaring total war against the outside world. The level of solidarity among an enclave's members is very high, and what bonds them together is the sacred Scriptures, whose words apply at all times and places.

Al Qaeda developed into an enclave during the long years of the Afghan-Soviet war, after many of its leaders and fighters were forced out from their homesteads and ended up in Afghanistan. For many years, Al Qaeda leaders cultivated the idea of a separatist enclave whose leaders lived in caves in the wild, with a Spartan lifestyle characterized by simplicity and modesty. Al Qaeda referred to its isolation as a _Hijra_ (the migration of the Prophet Mohammad from Mecca to Medina) and predicted that, just like the Prophet, they too would end up triumphant. Bin Laden was not satisfied with merely comparing his organization and his men to the supporters of the Prophet - he also cultivated a myth to show that there were similarities between his life and that of the Prophet. The myth told how, at some point in Bin Laden's life, the Al Qaeda leader had fasted on days when the Prophet had fasted, wore modest clothing reminiscent of the garb worn by the Prophet, had eaten in the positions the Prophet himself used to eat. Above all, Bin Laden lived in a cave, which for him was his last pure refuge.

We know of two prominent cases in Europe in which extremist groups lived in enclaves. The first was the Hamburg cell, which carried out the September 11 terror attacks. This group comprised ten young Muslims who had isolated themselves fully from the German student community, and the wider German society in which they lived. The leader of this cell, Mohamed Atta, was later appointed the leader of the terrorist attack. Although Atta studied at a German university, he felt lonely and was frequently depressed. For three years, Atta lived in an apartment with a Christian student, with whom he rarely spoke. At some point a separatist group formed around Atta, setting itself apart from the rest of the world. The group lived in a single apartment, ate together and had lengthy discussions about religion, politics and everything in between.

The other enclave was that of the terrorists who carried out 2004 Madrid train bombings. Members of this group formed cut themselves off completely from the outside world in the most extreme way imaginable, and prepared for their deaths. The group members knew that the attack would result in their deaths, and so they did everything to end their lives together.

After a process of personal maturation and assimilation of extremist Islamist ideology, there comes a point when recruits are sent to learn in institutions operated by Al Qaeda – mosques and training camps run by spiritual teachers – to prepare them for the time when they will sacrifice themselves.

The mosque is one of Al Qaeda's the most important institutions, used for operational needs, such as recruiting and fundraising. In 1986, Al Qaeda's Services Office opened its first branch in the central mosque of Tucson, Arizona. Rita Katz, a terrorism researcher, defined this Islamic Center as the "first Al Qaeda cell in the United States... where it all started." The organization's journal, _Jihad_ , was distributed all over the United States. Later, the center added more branches in the United States. During the 1980s, mosques in the United States raised funds and recruited fighters in support of the war in Afghanistan. Jamal Al Fadl, a Sudanese militant who was recruited to fight in the Afghan war through the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn but later defected from Al Qaeda, stated in his court testimony that he personally witnessed the collection of donations and recruitment of fighters for the war at the mosque.  Fadl testified that the Farouq mosque was part of the support network for the Services Office in Afghanistan, which later formed into Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda did not invent the use of mosques for political purposes. Since the early days of Islam, the mosque has played a central role in Muslim society. Muslims consider the mosque not only as a place of prayer, but also as a meeting place, a forum for people to discuss military and political issues. A certain hadith says: "May Allah reward you for your kindness and generous contributions. ... even if it is as small as a bird's nest, Allah will build for him a house in Paradise." The mosque was initially intended for religious rituals and for the communion of man with God, but it soon became a social and political arena. From the beginning, mosques had a political nature, for in contrast to modern Western notions of a separation between religion and state, in Islam these are one and the same.

The clearest political expression is made through Friday Prayers (" _khutba_ "), in which the Imam blesses Allah and the Prophet, but also addresses social, economic and political matters related to everyday life. Friday Prayer leaders are often the most effective intermediaries between the government and the population to transmit political and social messages or even of ideology. In the absence of supervision over mosques, Friday Prayer leaders can be a dangerous enemy for governments, because they are able to easily transmit anti-establishment messages to their audience. While government agents often closely watch mosques in the Arab-Muslim world, in many countries in the West Imams are left to do as they please.

London's Finsbury Park Mosque, for example, long served as a center for radical activity. Built in 1990 with Saudi money to serve the large Muslim population in north London, the mosque became associated with radical Islamism in early 2000s, due to the extreme approach of its Imam, Abu Hamza Al Masri. Reda Hassaine, an Algerian who monitored the activities taking place in this mosque,reported on illegal activities conducted in it, apparently in plain sight and unhindered: "It happened all around you in the evenings and the afternoon; people selling passports, stolen credit cards and duplicate credit cards."

Hassaine noted that the UK law enforcement was weak: "there is a big problem in the law here in London. Islamists can incite to murder, and in the name of freedom of expression, these incitements continue without authorities lifting a finger... the law is very weak. In France, these people would have been in prison a long time ago".

Beside this criminal activity, "terrorist talent spotters" at the Finsbury Park mosque also conducted terrorist-related activities, including persuading and recruiting worshippers to carry out terror acts in the UK and abroad.  Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian jailed for ten years in 2003 for plotting to attack US targets including the Kleine Brogel base in Belgium, said he underwent brainwashing in the Finsbury Park mosque. Nazar was recruited as a terrorist by a man named Jamal Baal, who was active in the mosque and kept an eye open for potential recruits. Baal would talk with enthusiastic youth who came to the mosque, and when he discovered anyone willing to sacrifice his life, he recruited them. It was Baal who recruited the "shoe bomber", British Muslim convert Richard Reid, to fly to Afghanistan and train at an Al Qaeda training camp in 1999 and 2000.

The UK is not the only European country to have extremist Islamic centers. Milan in Italy also has its own radical Islamic mosque involved in recruiting terrorist agents. In late 1993, the FBI discovered that Ramzi Yousef, one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, used a mosque in Milan known as the Islamic Cultural Institute as his logistic base. The Italian government began investigating the mosque's activities and discovered that it was a European offshoot of the Egyptian Jamaa Islamiya (Islamic Group). The mosque was run by Anwar Shaaban, a senior Jamaa Islamiya leader with close ties with the "blind Sheikh" Omar Abel Rahman, who is now imprisoned in the United States for his involvement in 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Activists in the mosque in Milan also helped smuggle fighters, money and weapons to Bosnia and Iraq.

In Hamburg, Germany, the Al Quds mosque served as a meeting place for Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the September 11 attacks who served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, and his terrorist cell. After Atta became religious, he began giving religion lessons at the mosque, where he preached to his listeners to avoid Western fashions, such as wearing gold chains and a ponytail hairstyle, and listening to devilish music. Atta's co-conspirator, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, a Yemeni detained in Guantanamo Bay for being a "key facilitator" of the September 11 attacks, also gave lessons at the mosque.

The most effective way of disseminating Salafi- jihadi ideology and recruiting activists was emotional - religious persuasion, carried out by influential, charismatic personalities - Individuals such as Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza Al Masri (in London), Muhammad Haider Zamar (in Germany) and Suleiman Al Alwan (in Saudi Arabia). Sometimes, the mentor figure was not a spiritual teacher, but someone who acted as a guide and personal teacher to a younger friend. Such a guide is sometimes referred to as an Emir, a term is used as a general name for a leader.

One of Al Qaeda's most prominent spiritual teachers and "talent recruiters" was Anwar Al Awlaki, who managed to affect many people, both directly and via the Internet. An American and Yemeni imam, Awlaki functioned as a spiritual teacher who played an active role in Al Qaeda's efforts to recruit Muslims, especially Americans, to commit terrorist attacks. Awlaki was born in New Mexico, United States, in 1971 to a Yemeni father who had traveled to the U.S. to attend college. After his father's graduation, Awlaki and his family returned to Yemen, where Awlaki remained until 1991, when he returned to the U.S. to study Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado. Awlaki later continued to a graduate degree in Education at the University of San Diego. In 2001, Awlaki entered a Ph.D. program in Human Resource Development at George Washington University. In 2002, however, Awlaki he left the U.S. and moved to London.

Awlaki used the Internet for his needs, creating a website where he posted all of his lectures, so they could be be accessible to anyone who wanted to read them. In January 2009, he published on his website an article, _44 Ways to Support Jihad_ , in which he claimed that the obligation to wage jihad applies to all Muslims \- whether physically, via funding jihadi activities, or through writing about jihadi concepts and activities. Awlaki issued a call for Muslims to be physically fit and ensure they were skilled in the use of weapons, so that they would be ready to fight on the battlefield. Awlaki was considered the spiritual teacher of Khalid Al Midhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi, who became the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77. Midhar and Hazmi visited Awlaki in the San Diego mosque before the terrorist attack of 9/11. Awlaki was also the spiritual teacher of Nidal Malik Hassan, a former U.S. Army Medical Corps officer, who fatally shot thirteen of his comrades in the November 5, 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian student and so-called "underwear bomber", who tried to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009. At one point Awlaki fled to Yemen and joined Al Qaeda. After Bin Laden's death, Awlaki's name was mentioned as a candidate for Al Qaeda's leadership.

Other methods Al Qaeda used to influence its recruits its training camps in the Afghanistan - Pakistan border region. These training camps are valuable assets, since it is here that Al Qaeda's core members transformed and trained new recruits as terrorists and insurgent fighters willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause. Al Qaeda sees these training camps as multipurpose centers that can handle many different tasks. Jamal Al Fadl, a Sudanese militant recruited to the Afghan mujahideen, said that at the training camp in Pakistan where he trained in the 1980s, he practiced firing pistols and Kalashnikov rifles, and launching RPG launchers at tanks. According to him, his training period lasted 45 days.

When it comes to training senior activists, however, Al Qaeda does not use just one training camp, but requires that activists undergo training in several camps. In most cases, preparing a group for a terrorist attack involves the use of training camps from different regions, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Somalia.

Only a select few of Al Qaeda's activists are selected to carry out suicide attacks. Before an attack, Al Qaeda forms an extensive training program, tailored to the selected target, which usually includes all the steps mentioned above, only in a far more intense manner.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, three copies of a handwritten manuscript in Arabic were found, detailing behavioral guidelines for the evening before a terror attack though a kidnapping. The main aim of the text is to persuade the terrorists that they are the modern incarnation of the Prophet's companions (Sahaba - صَحِبَ).

Another important stage was the introduction of the concept of _Istishhad_ , meaning martyrdom, and the ideology that suicide is not necessarily the end of life but a beginning of a new one in paradise, in which 72 virgins will become the suicide bomber's companions. The actions in the final hours before the attack are specified meticulously. It seems that Al Qaeda's handlers demanded absolute obedience from recruits, and left no room for imagination, fearing that those selected to carry out an attack could change their mind beforehand.

This theoretical structure cannot be understood without an illustration of a specific case. It is instructive to look at the example of one potential suicide bomber, Tawfik Hamid, who found the courage to write down all the things he was going through, in his work _The Development of a Jihadist's Mind._

Tawfik was born in Cairo to a secular Muslim family. His father was an orthopedist and his mother was a French teacher with a liberal worldview. Despite his secular background, the environment he grew up in was religious, and religion was very important in everyday life. For example, even as a boy Tawfik was taught to believe that if one does good deeds, one will go to Heaven. An early age, he was exposed to the concept of martyrdom and could quote by heart the following verse from the Quran:

"And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision,"

_"Rejoicing in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty, and they receive good tidings about those to be martyred] after them who have not yet joined them - that there will be no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve"._[ 615

Like many other members of Islamist organizations, Tawfik was an excellent student with high grades, and was accepted by Cairo University's medical school in the late 1970s. While at university, he joined the Jamaah Islamiyah (Islamic Group). He was recruited in a mosque he used to visit, run by Jamaah Islamiyah. Along with lectures on Islam, the mosque preached Jamaah Islamiyah's ideology, including that of _Istishhad_ , the essence of which is that "life in this world is insignificant compared to life in the 'real' afterlife". Another important concept was that individual thought is obscene and compliance is mandatory. His mentor told him that thinking is forbidden: "Your mind is just like a donkey [a symbol of inferiority in Arab culture] that can only bring you to the gates of the royal palace [of Allah]. To enter the palace, you will have to leave the donkey outside." Using this parable, Tawfik's mentor really wanted to say that a devout Muslim does not think, but blindly follows the tenets of Islam.

The need for blind obedience is a psychological process, in which some leaders are able to take control over an activist and turn him into their pawn. Tawfik recalled that during his training he underwent three psychological stages: a hatred of non-Muslims or Muslims who opposed his ways; the suppression of his conscience; and the acceptance of violence in service of Allah. The training process included Salafi lectures and reading, which were embedded with these ideas. The result was a change in personality:

"After a few months of listening to Jamaah's belligerent religious sermons and reading the materials they recommended, my personality was utterly transformed. I started to grow my beard. I stopped smiling and telling jokes. I adopted a serious look at all times and became very judgmental toward others. Bitter debates with my family ensued. My behavioral and intellectual transformation greatly alarmed my father. My mother was also concerned; she said that the Quran should be understood in a more moderate manner and advised me to stop reading Salafi materials."

Tawfik's personal mentor was none other than Zawahiri, and when he met with him Zawahiri affectionately greeted the young Egyptian, saying: "Young Muslims like you are the hope for the future return of the Caliphate" The emotion caused by such an encounter was overwhelming. Tawfik felt gratitude and honored. The result was a desire to please his mentor by contributing to his "noble" cause.

The ultimate purpose of training a jihad fighter is to mentally prepare him for death. The recruit gradually needs to feel more and more comfortable with the concept of death, to see every option proposed by jihad as more appealing than any other – to defeat the infidels and enjoy paradise in the afterlife. Therefore, jihad against non-Muslims is explained to be a battle that a Muslim cannot lose. ,Tawfik rationalized the desire for the promised 72 heavenly virgins by explaining that Salafist scriptures prohibit the realization of one's sexual desire. They forbid men to touch, or even look at, a woman. It is also forbidden for men to speak to a woman directly. However, while relationships with women are strictly forbidden, the erotic aspects in Salafist writings arouse powerful sexual desires in male students. In this way, Al Qaeda leaders turned death in the name of Allah as the only way for recruits to relieve their sexual desires.

After becoming a member of the organization, Tawfik was invited to travel to Afghanistan and join other young Muslims like him for training. But Tawfik, unlike many others, changed his mind, left the organization - and therefore survived.

Tawfik's story sheds light onto a very distinct profile which sets Al Qaeda's activists and leadership apart as the crème de la crème of Arab-Muslim society. Sageman defined this phenomenon correctly when he said: "[they are] the best and brightest from where they came from, in many ways." Al Qaeda's leaders, with their political awareness and strategic vision, select only the young and restless, and make them go through a well-planned and calculated training process, designed to turn these young Muslims into controlled peons who are willing to give their lives for the cause.

# Chapter 3: Command and Control

The secret of Al Qaeda's power lies in its flexibility, and in its ability to adapt its activities to its target. It would be wrong to point out only modus operandi and to conclude that that this is characteristic of Al Qaeda. Those who want to understand Al Qaeda must take into consideration that the organization's strategy is flexible and open to change.

Many scholars have argued that before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda had a very clear structure. It was a hierarchical organization led by a charismatic leader - Osama Bin Laden. The organization had a central leadership, branches, and communication and financing methods. The organization operated in Afghanistan, and under the auspices of the Taliban, became quite powerful. After the war, however, the organization changed completely and became mainly an ideological movement.

I think otherwise. While it is logical to assume that Al Qaeda's hierarchical structure was dealt a severe blow during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and as a result became less hierarchical in nature, one cannot ignore the fact that the organization was able to relocate itself to new safe havens and restore some of its power. Moreover, given the fact that the Al Qaeda's leadership still consists of individuals who developed within hierarchical structures, I assume that the organization still operates on hierarchical principles.

Even if Al Qaeda's leadership was weakened after October 2001, when it lost many of its key members, they have not lost its ability to control their organization and dictate its policy. Moreover, since 2001 Al Qaeda has gradually regained its strength and restored an important part of its operational capabilities, including the ability to control some of its forces in the field. In any case, Al Qaeda has shown that it is a flexible organization that can survive even in harsh conditions, and that it is able to adapt itself to prevailing conditions.

In the years following the U.S war in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's leadership settled in the Pakista-Afghanistan border area under the protection of the Taliban. I assume the core leadership included several dozen activists surrounded by a total of around 500 fighters. I believe the number of Al Qaeda fighters in the Pakistan- Afghanistan border area was not significant, as since its inception Al Qaeda has relied on quality and not quantity.

It has occasionally been argued that Al Qaeda is controlled exclusively via the Internet and that it is willing to maintain this state of affairs. I myself believe that the organization is attempting to maintain its leadership in geographical areas that are not controlled by any state, so that it can remain sovereign and capable of active command, something not possible using only the internet.

Contrary to claims that Zawahiri and Bin Laden were not in control of the organization after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, accumulated evidence show that both men continued to dominate the organization. Proof of Zawahiri's direct control could be found in his famous letter to Abu Musab Zarqawi. In this letter, Zawahiri gives Zarqawi a strategic order, an order from a supreme commander to one of his high-ranking officers in charge of commanding the Iraqi front. After the assassination of Bin Laden, it was discovered that he had controlled Al Qaeda from his home by a messenger, who relayed his messages through the Internet or other media outlets.

The organization's operational ability has been struck hard since late 2001, because many of its senior commanders have been killed or arrested. The capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, had a disastrous impact on the organization. First, it is assumed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealed Al Qaeda's practices, but - and more importantly - Mohammed was the driving force behind the organization's heaviest attacks. His detention, and the fact that he was prevented from planning and carrying out attacks, is a blow that, in my opinion, Al Qaeda has never recovered from. Unlike with other aspects of the organization, the operational field includes people who cannot be replaced, and Mohammed is one of those. In my opinion, the surviving leaders are very capable, but lack the sophistication and diabolical cunning that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had.

After 9/11, Al Qaeda's core leadership instructed all its fighters to return to their countries of origin, and continue waging jihad from there. The aim of this was to minimize the need for the leadership to directly supervise fighters, while simultaneously enhancing the internal operational fitness of Al Qaeda's various branches. In DATE, the Director of Morocco's Internal Security Services, Gen Hamidou Laangri, told the BBC that the 2004 Madrid train bombings were directly related to 9/11 attacks and subsequent events. He added that, "this was when Al Qaeda turned from an organization into a movement." According to him, the process occurred following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, eight months after 9/11, when U.S. forces destroyed Al Qaeda's infrastructure. The only way to save the organization was to empower its various branches at the expense of minimizing the role of the leadership.

Former U.S Army General John Abizaid, a former Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), also claimed that Al Qaeda's modus operandi has changed, and that at present the organization has mostly franchised itself out as a brand name. Al Qaeda relies on initiatives being presented to its leadership and its role is to approve or reject these how it sees fit. This is in addition to Al Qaeda's fostering of its ideological issues. I argue that it is true that Al Qaeda's central command is tirelessly engaged in formulating ideology and indoctrination, but it should not be assumed that the current leadership is content with only spreading ideology, for there is no point in maintaining the existence of a movement whose only purpose is the distribution of Salafist ideology and global Jihad.

Along the way, Al Qaeda adopted several courses of action that helped it adapt to the complex situations with which it had to deal. My central hypothesis is that in 2010, while writing these words, Al Qaeda controls its operatives mainly through trusted intermediaries. The main means of control for Al Qaeda is a network of affiliated activists, who are scattered around the world. I assume that beside the core leadership of Al Qaeda, there is a second tier of intermediaries who help relay orders between Al Qaeda's decision makers and its field operatives. These are very experienced people who gained the trust of Al Qaeda's leadership. Communication is carried out through various means, including telephone, letter carriers and of course the Internet. The Internet, one of the prominent technological innovations of the West, has become an almost exclusive tool via which Al Qaeda can control its organization.

Al Qaeda began rebuilding its ability to carry out attacks in 2002, when .representatives of radical terrorist groups from Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria attended a highly important terror summit in Istanbul alongside representatives from Al Qaeda and Abu Musab Zarqawi's organization. It seems that Zarqawi had organized this meeting, which was fully backed by Al Qaeda. Spanish intelligence managed to intercept the minutes of the meeting, which indicated that Al Qaeda's leadership had given the order to begin jihad in Europe and North Africa. Three months earlier, Bin Laden had warned via a message on Al Jazeera that terror attacks would be committed in 23 countries, including Morocco, Spain and Turkey, whose aims were to replace these countries' secular regimes with an Islamic regime based on Sharia Law. The 2004 Madrid terrorist attacks showed that Al Qaeda's central leadership had not disappeared but that local cells were probably behind the bombings. The exposure of events leading up to the Madrid attack revealed that Al Qaeda has a complex network traversing Europe, North Africa, East Asia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia..

A striking example of the guidance given by Al Qaeda to operatives in the field was revealed when the U.S. captured a senior operative of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Khaled Al Mashhadani, in Mosul, on July 4, 2007. Mashhadani gave up valuable information regarding the relationship between Al Qaeda's leadership and its operatives, while admitting that he served as a mediator between Al Qaeda's senior leaders in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region and Iraq. Mashhadani is a relative of Abu Ayyub Al Masri, Al Qaeda's commander in Iraq, and served as a mediator between Al Masri and Al Qaeda's central command, including Zawahiri. Mashhadani said that communication between Al Qaeda's leadership in Iraq and its central command was relayed exclusively through him. The relations between the two groups has been the subject of controversy, but a U.S. military spokesman claimed that Mashhadani informed his interrogators that Al Qaeda's leaders outside Iraq "continued to give instructions, continued to focus on operational issues and continued to provide combatants to the battlefield".

East Asia also had a mediator named Omar Al Farouk, who was captured and investigated by the Americans in 2002. He said that he had been operated by Al Qaeda's leaders, Abu Ubaidah and Ibn Al Shaykh Al Libi, who guided him to organize large-scale terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia. He said he served as the senior representative of Al Qaeda in East Asia, and was subordinate only to Al Qaeda's central command. He claimed that a plan was made to launch booby-trapped trucks at U.S. embassies in Southeast Asia on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but the plans went awry and eventually was cancelled.

Omar Al Farouq was an ideal activist. He was socially connected, competent and equipped with a tendency to wreak havoc. Born in Kuwait on May 24, 1971, Farouq was exposed to Al Qaeda for the first time in 1990, when he trained in Al Qaeda's base in Khalden, Afghanistan. He spent three years in the camp, where he became an associate of the camp leader, Muira Al Jazahiri. In 1995, following a suggestion by Abu Zubyadah, he obtained a fake passport and traveled with Muira to the Philippines, where he trained at Abu Bakar training camp, which was operated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) .

According to Farouq, Al Qaeda raises considerable funds through the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, which is closely linked to the Saudi government. The nature of Al Qaeda's relationship with the South-East Asia terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is linked to MILF, involved the transfer of large sums of money (around $74,000) to the group's spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, to purchase explosives from the Indonesian military for the Bali and JW Marriott Hotel bombings.

I have already examined in-depth how Al Qaeda operates local groups via intermediaries was discussed in the sections above discussing the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London. This technique was also used in other places including in the 2002 Bali bombings. This type of action is characteristic of Al Qaeda in recent years, but is only one of several courses of action currently preferred by the group.

Operating through intermediaries was not always the preferred method of action for Al Qaeda. Prior to October 2001, attacks were carried out directly by the group's operatives. This method of direct attacks led to the organization's reputation as daring, cruel and accurate. At that time, Al Qaeda functioned as a hierarchical terrorist organization that planned and executed terror attacks itself, without intermediaries. The group recruited high quality activists and Al Qaeda focused solely on executing the attacks. Once selected for a specific task, recruits were made to undergo the highest possible level of training program that had been tailor-made especially for them.

Al Qaeda carried out two attacks characterized by this method of operation on August 7, 1998. Al Qaeda simultaneously attacked two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands of others.

A small terror cell of just six people carried out the attack in Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 213 people, mostly Kenyans. The initial planning for this attack began in 1993 and involved Bin Laden and his deputy chief Abu Hafez. Activists Anas al-Liby and Ali Muhammad were responsible for gathering intelligence about the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The second phase began two months before the attack and was carried out under Bin Laden's orders, after he had openly threatened to carry out attacks against American targets.

Alongside the Nairobi bombing, Al Qaeda carried out another attack against the U.S. embassy in Tanzania, which killed 11 and wounded 90 Tanzanian civilians. This attack also used a car to carry out the bombing. The suicide bomber gained access to the Embassy compound by driving into it behind a water tanker which entered the Embassy gates. The suicide bomber then detonated his vehicle.

In August 1998, the U.S. retaliated with Operation Infinite Reach, launching missiles at targets that were considered Bin Laden's training bases in Sudan and Afghanistan. Missiles were also launched at the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which the Americans said was used to manufacture chemical weapons. This attack, which took place during the last years of President Bill Clinton's administration, destroyed a pharmaceutical plant but failed to eliminate Al Qaeda's leadership, who left the scene a few hours before the missiles hit.

On 12 October 2000, Al Qaeda attacked again,, this time targeting the USS Cole, anchored in the Gulf of Aden in Yemeni waters. A fishing boat hit the Cole, killing 17 crewmembers and injuring dozens more. Abu Jandal Al Azdi, Bin Laden's bodyguard, said the attack occurred under the principle of "centralized decision-making and decentralized execution". This principle was applied in such way that the responsibility for the attack on USS Cole was attributed to Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

# Chapter 4: Communication and Internet

Since its inception, Al Qaeda was aware of the importance of the media in spreading its messages. The media allowed Al Qaeda to reach out to its target audience, both in the Arab-Muslim world and in Europe. Besides being crucial for disseminating messages to Al Qaeda's natural target audience, the media also transmitted the terror organization's messages to its enemies, for purposes of deterrence and also to increase the resonance of terrorist acts. The importance Al Qaeda gave to media was expressed eloquently by Zawahiri, in a letter to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq, "we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our _Ummah_."

Before the Internet became Al Qaeda's main media tool, the organization used other, simpler but extremely effective, media outlets to disseminate its propaganda. Initially, Al Qaeda used was the fax machine, circulating communications all over the world, especially to supportive newspapers. Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Centre, said that terrorist organizations began their journey into the information and technology era with fax machines, through which they could transmit messages prepared by their leaders. This notion bred a new concept, the so-called"Fax War". However, while fax machines were useful for distributing written messages, they were not as effective for sharing images.

Videos have far stronger resonance than fax messages. Via video clips, Al Qaeda could deliver effective messages, which were especially good for the recruitment of enthusiastic youth to the ranks of the organization. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Al Qaeda produced videos that showcased the so-called "heroic actions" of jihadi heroes in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia. These videos were sent to TV stations all over the world. After many television channels around the world broadcast these videos, Al Qaeda realized how effective the media had become as an organizational tool. On the flip side, the effectiveness of Al Qaeda's video broadcasting caused world leaders, both from the West and Arab countries, to pressure media stations to refrain from broadcasting them, on the grounds that they encouraged terrorism.

When this pressure bore fruit, and most media outlets stopped airing video messages by Al Qaeda, the organization began to use the Internet as its main medium. Al Qaeda's successful use of the Internet, which continues to this day, led to this medium replacing Arabic satellite channels as a conduit of information and communication. Professor Gabriel Weimann, who researches how Islamist terror groups use the Internet, said that when he began his research there were only 12 sites in existence that were used by various terrorist organizations, while at the end of his research, these had mushroomed to over 5,500. Today, every known terror organization sets up at least one website, usually in multiple languages.

Al Qaeda began using the Internet after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Since that time, Al Qaeda has spent considerable efforts on developing its audio and video broadcasting capabilities. Al Qaeda's first broadcast appeared on October 7, 2001. From late 1980s to early 2000s, Bin Laden focused on directing his messages to the Western, rather than the Arab, media. During this period Bin Laden was interviewed ten times by Western media outlets, while his presence in the Arab press was minimal. Al Qaeda's strategy, therefore, must be credited to Bin Laden, since it was he who showed great determination to spread the group's ideology in any way possible.

To broadcast its messages online, Al Qaeda employs the services of professional media bodies: the first and most important is As Sahab. Another outlet working in Iraq is named Al Fourqan, and a third one, Al Jannah Al Alamiah runs North Africa. Al Qaeda also published several online journals, the most notable among them being Sawt Al Jihad. Al Sahab uses its advanced technical capabilities to produce various types of media. It is hard to accurately assess the extent of Al Qaeda's financial investment in Al Sahab, but it is estimated that it is funded heavily. When it started its operation, Al Sahab's work amounted to sending videos to TV stations such as Al Jazeera. In 2005, following technological developments in film editing, Al Sahab began to produce its own videos, which were broadcast in different languages, using 3D technology. As time went by, Al Sahab grew more daring, until it began to broadcast videos directly from the battlefield. Al Sahab claims that its distribution encompasses about 1,600 different forums and that some of its videos get as many as 60,000 views. Al Sahab produced hundreds of documents, including videos from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Since the beginning of 2007, Al Sahab has released a new video every three days.

Broadcasting videos online is fairly easy. An Al Qaeda activist can easily to to an internet cafe and upload the video online in just a few minutes. After uploading the video for the first time, it is distributed via many different sites. The operational advantage of this method is that it is very hard go capture the distributors. Al Qaeda activists in Iraq for example are able to shoot a video with a simple video camera, showing a suicide attack against a U.S. military vehicle. That video is then sent to the UK via the Internet, mere seconds after it was shot. In the UK it is crudely edited, with the addition of a voice –over reading verses from the Quran. Then, a young activist goes into an internet-cafe and anonymously distributes the video. Within 48 hours, the video can be downloaded and viewed all over the world. Video distribution, even of videos supporting the terror activities of Al Qaeda, is not considered an illegal act in many Western countries, and so it is done openly without any fear of repercussions. For example, a man named Dahiya Al Maqdisi said that in every city in Iraq there is a small office used for making Jihadi videos.

Such sites exist in many different countries. One such site, which stimulates much interest is Tajdeed (Arabic: تجديد, renewal) in London, run by Dr. Muhammad Al Masri, a Saudi physicist who opposes the Saudi regime. He plays an active role in the distribution of Al Qaeda videos but admits no responsibility, saying that he does not prepare the videos for broadcast, he simply distributes them.

The internet has numerous advantages for terrorist organizations. It allows easy access both for consumers and distributors of information; it is a space with minimal legislation and enforcement, and in some countries none at all; it allows users to remain anonymous should they choose; it allows sharing of information; it is cheap to use, and finally, it allows the distribution of multimedia, in other words, the internet allows terror groups to distribute messages that combine text, graphics, audio and video so to better capture the attention of viewers. The Internet, unlike print media, is very fast: within a few minutes one can write a blog post and distribute it. The same applies to videos. Al Qaeda adapted fast to recent technological developments, and therefore its next logical step was to make wide use of global social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as forums and video sharing sites. Al Qaeda's Leaders regularly appear in videos, preaching their messages to Westerns and Muslims alike.

Al Qaeda uses the Internet as its virtual library. Spanish law enforcement authorities found about 50 books of Islamic ideology, supportive of Al Qaeda's objectives, on the computers of the terrorists who committed the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The books had been downloaded from Islamic sites and were a source of inspiration source for the Madrid terrorists.

Another important arena on the Internet is jihadist forums, where political and religious discussions between different supporters take place. The most important forums are Al Qal'ah (Arabic: القلعة, the castle, also known as Al Qal3ah) Al Sahat (Arabic: الساحة the arena) and Al Asalah (Arabic: الإصلاح, the reform). These sites function as information hubs, where all the latest information about Al Qaeda could be found, including new texts and statements. Online forums allow participants with shared ideological beliefs to be a part of a social network. For this reason, the sites attract large numbers of Muslim teenagers. Those who participate in these forums are exposed to their content, and as a result become radicalized.

Al Qaeda uses the forums to recruit new activists from around the world including via videos describing terror attacks in Iraq. These videos are often shot by the terrorists themselves, with much enthusiasm, something that increases the enthusiasm of the teenagers who watch the videos. For example, in one low quality video, an Al Qaeda terrorist is shown singing before going out to commit a suicide attack against an American military target. The number of suicide bombers in Iraq suggests that the internet is an effective tool for recruiting volunteers.

Al Qaeda uses the Internet to wage psychological warfare against the West. The messages it puts out are intended to sow fear and demoralize the Western population. For a certain period, Al Qaeda's uploaded videos showing its activists decapitating prisoners it had charged with treason, including Western journalists. However, in the wake of criticism, these videos stopped. Al Qaeda also used other psychological warfare tactics such as spreading rumors online about an impending terror attack, without any real intention of carrying it out. These unfulfilled warnings caused considerable damage, especially economically, as well as weariness among security agencies. Another aim of Al Qaeda's media campaign was to persuade the Western public to pressure its governments to stop their involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda uses the internet as an operational tool to pass instructions between its leadership and field operatives. These instructions can be sent online via audio chat, with seemingly innocent messages. Al Qaeda has also used email to transfer messages, and has started to encrypt its messages.

Al Saker explained that using technology, Al Qaeda is not only able to survive but also stay operationally and ideologically active, even though its leaders are being targeted by Western security forces. Al Qaeda can also use the Internet as a tool for gathering information, since most of the organization's targets are public locations, and there is considerable information available about these online. Intelligence can easily be gathered about targets using free Google services such as Google Maps.

The internet has also become a virtual training camp. A magazine called Muaskar al-Battar ("Camp of the Sword") is published online. This magazine was used as a virtual handbook that explained how to conduct kidnappings and poisonings, and how to murder hostages. This publication and others like it include online tutorials that teach how to use weapons, such as assault rifles, Uzis, sniper rifles, and pistols, as well as bombs, mines, mortars and missiles.

Al Qaeda also uses the internet to research academic or commercial information, as well as new developmental ideas. The use of cellphones is a good example of Al Qaeda's technological capabilities. Saud Kateb, a Professor of Technology at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, said that Al Qaeda's media operations in 2009 were far more important than its military operations, especially in light of the technical capabilities available on the internet, which made it possible for the organization to broadcast its messages worldwide. The development and distribution of third generation cellphones, and the possibility of broadcasting webcasts to anyone, anywhere greatly increased Al Qaeda's interpersonal communication abilities, especially with its recruited volunteers. The true danger of mobile phones is that they allow Al Qaeda to contact its activists directly, relay its messages personally and convince those who have yet to join its ranks to volunteer.

The internet has turned into a battlefield between Al Qaeda operatives, who constantly open new websites, and Western countries, whose intelligence agents close these sites down. The deputy head of the Al Haram Institute for Strategic Studies, said that a video broadcast of Bin Laden designated to be aired on September 11, 2001, was postponed to September 14 only because Western intelligence services were determined not to let Al Qaeda put out their message on the date that they wanted to. This expert noted that the reason intelligence agencies don't take down all jihadi websites is to allow their agents to track these organizations.

Ideologically, online forums allow participants to be a part of social networks that revolve around the idea of global And so, to quote Matti Steinberg, former senior adviser to the heads of the General Security Services in Israel, "The internet fits Al Qaeda's worldview like a glove." This is because it is an excellent tool for pan-Islamic participation, which does not stop at state borders. The internet connects activists and leaders from across the globe.  Thanks to the worldwide web, cross-border relationships are created, and the concept of global jihad is realized in practice.

# Conclusions

Political violence is enacted on two main levels, the rational and the social. According to Martha Crenshaw, a pioneering researcher in terrorism studies who has investigated the rational approach, terrorism is the use of extreme political violence, the aim of which is political change. According to Crenshaw, terrorism is the use of force through which individuals or organizations intend to replace existing political regimes, or achieve some political goal, which cannot be achieved by other, non-violent, means. Crenshaw claims that terrorism can be understood as "a form of political strategy".

A different analysis holds that it is not possible to consider every human phenomenon, terrorism especially, as stemming from rational motives, since humans do not necessarily think rationally when trying to maximize their gains. This approach relies on the work of anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who believed that human beings do not merely act to maximize profits. Instead, Geertz sees man as also seeking purpose. In Geertz's view, people are born into an engulfing cultural pattern, which shapes their identity and behavior. Religion is one of the most basic cultural systems created by human society, through which man turns chaos into cosmos. According to this approach, the definition of religion is "a set of sacred symbols that come to support an ethos of a nation and its outlook."

Al Qaeda is a meeting place of people and desires, and has both cultural and rational aspects. In my assessment, Al Qaeda's leadership is driven by a rational desire to end Western power over Islamic and Arabic states, and is carrying out that goal by means of political violence. Ending Western power over the Arab-Islamic world is Al Qaeda's goal and the willingness to harm the United States is just a means to achieve this goal.

Why was Al Qaeda created? Al Qaeda's leadership and members share the feeling that they are victims of a socioeconomic reality caused by existing political elites, who retain all benefits for themselves without sharing them with others. These elites just sit and watch as the sociopolitical status of Arab and Muslim states goes from bad to worse. The situation for these states is among the worst in the world, and there appears to be no opportunity for peaceful change. Al Qaeda's leaders are devout Muslims, and therefore their feeling of bitterness is far greater than that of a secular person. These leaders have a broad and rich knowledge of history, especially about the glory days of the Islamic Empire that they want to rebuild and modernize.

Unlike Samuel Huntington about "Clash of Civilizations" I argue that rational analysis is what led Al Qaeda's leaders to believe that the West, led by the United States, has uncontested control over the Islamic world, by manipulating that world's elites. In Al Qaeda's worldview, the West is determined not to lose control over the Islamic world, mainly because of the West's growing dependence on oil. In conclusion, this analysis led Al Qaeda to declare war on the West and to fight it by any means possible, including with weapons of mass destruction, if necessary.

Al Qaeda is not the first organization to seek a political solution, under the guise of religion, to the problems of the Arab-Muslim world. Long before Al Qaeda came into existence, the Islamic solution was posed as the ultimate political answer by anyone who fought against local regimes in the Arab-Muslim world, but all those who tried to impose such a solution encountered an uncompromising backlash from local leaders -, such as the Assad regime's violent crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982, leading to the Hama Massacre.

The crushing defeat of Islamist organizations and their failure to take root pushed their followers to fight on the battlefields of Afghanistan, during its war with the Soviet Union. Absurdly enough, war-torn Afghanistan became a safe haven for Islamists who were forced to leave their home countries, and who were dubbed "Afghan Arabs". Despite their marginal contribution to the war against the Soviets, their presence in Afghanistan led Abdullah Azzam and Osama Bin Laden to recruit these Afghan Arabs to help them establish an international terrorist organization, whose aim was to advance political goals. This organization was called Al Qaeda, meaning "the base", and was essentially revolutionary since the establishment of an international terrorist organization whose members came from across the Arab-Muslim world was unprecedented. The organization's revolutionary approach was not only reflected in the composition of its fighters, but also in the goal it set for itself- a full frontal war against the West and the world's only superpower, the United States.

Al Qaeda became infamous mostly due to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, which greatly influenced both the United States and Al Qaeda itself. For Al Qaeda, the attack was the realization of its main strategy, which was to expel the Americans from the Middle East. As yet, the Americans have yet to retreat, but there is no doubt that the attack was an important factor among many that prompted the United States to re-think its role on the world stage and in the Middle East in particular. Despite this monumental achievement, the attack was disastrous for Al Qaeda. First, it led Al Qaeda to lose the only stable territorial base it had; and second, it resulted in the imprisonment and death of its most talented fighters. While Al Qaeda managed to partially restore its territorial bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it as yet has not succeeded in restoring its number of quality fighters.

Despite the blows it received, from an operational perspective the war in Afghanistan did not completely eliminate Al Qaeda. Instead, it caused its battle to spill over into several areas: the Iraqi front, the European front, and the Afghani front. The Iraqi front was a failure for Al Qaeda. Initially, the organization's leaders expected a great victory over the world's number one power, but they were unsuccessful. In the end, Al Qaeda in Iraq could not replicate its successes in Afghanistan. Because of Iraq's geopolitical and demographic situation, the predominantly Shia ruling elite was replaced by a Sunni elite. Al Qaeda in Iraq was, and remains, a marginal phenomenon, which causes destruction and great damage, but not on a large enough scale to win the war. The planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq will not change this assessment, since the new regime is expected to be mostly Shia and is expected to continue fight Al Qaeda in a much more rigid manner than the Americans.

In Europe, Al Qaeda has built a dangerous infrastructure, which the European authorities have failed to root out. The European branch of Al Qaeda relies on millions of Muslim immigrants who, due to circumstances, have become socially and economically marginalized. And yet, despite the large population, the number of European Muslims involved with Al Qaeda amounts to just a few hundred people, and its support base does not exceed a few thousand. There are two reasons for Al Qaeda's prosperity in Europe: firstly, the presence of frustrated Muslim immigrants is a fertile ground for Al Qaeda; second, its Salafi - jihadi ideology has been well received among young Muslims, second or third generation immigrants who developed hostility towards the West and its values.

The two deadly terrorist attacks on European targets must be seen as the tip of the iceberg. For many years, Al Qaeda's network in Europe has provided logistical support for terrorist activities around the world, supplying them with money, documents, weapons and trained activists. It is no coincidence that most of the planning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred in Germany and Spain. Without a radical change in Europe's immigration policy and attitude toward Islamists, a bleak future is foreseen for that continent.

Al Qaeda's third front is the uncontrolled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda today operates in a low profile under the auspices of the Taliban. U.S. withdrawal from these areas will give the Taliban a military advantage. Therefore, there is a danger that the group will completely dominate these areas. For Al Qaeda, a U.S. withdrawal could save the organization and give it time to regain its former strength.

As a terrorist organization with political objectives, Al Qaeda attributes much importance to ideology. Examining the roots of this ideology shows that its hostility towards Christians and Jews has solid historical roots. Long before Al Qaeda, in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Wahhabi philosophy, and Egypt, the birthplace of Sayyid Qutb, Christianity and Judaism have long been presented as heretic and aggressive religions and Islam as defensive in nature. The argument was that the historical Crusades occurred because of the aggressive nature of the Christian church and its hatred of Islam, while Islam merely defended itself against the Crusaders. Al Qaeda's ideology is a rare combination of the teachings of Sayyid Qutb and radical Wahhabism. Its synthesis is Salafi - jihadi ideology, which fosters the violent movements of Islam and rejects modernism, seeking to return Islam back 1,400 years in the past, in the hope that Islam will regain its former glory.

Al Qaeda is not a Western phenomenon, but has its origins in the Arab Muslim space, from where it has spread to the rest of the world. Unlike other thinkers, including Francis Fukuyama, who hypothesized that the source of Islamic fundamentalism was in Western Europe, I believe that the birthplace of Al Qaeda was in the Middle East, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It was here that Salafi- jihadi ideology crystalized, as a result of the special conditions in which these countries found themselves. From there, it spread to the rest of the world, including to Western countries.

And yet, Al Qaeda's war is not only rational in nature. The organization's leadership benefits from converting the accumulation of anger and feelings of revenge among its activists into a destructive energy. Its leaders achieve that goal by tugging on the heart-strings of young Muslims who seek direction and meaning, most of them teenagers with extreme religious beliefs who are willing to give their lives for the sake of their faith and religious culture. This way, Al Qaeda has created a pact based on mutual interests between its leadership and its activists. Through this pact, Al Qaeda's leadership has taken advantage of frustrated young people, such as Mohammed Atta and his companions, to realize its political goals.

Thus, Al Qaeda sees two enemies before it: a local enemy –Arab - Muslim regimes, and the distant enemy - the West, led by the United States of America. Al Qaeda's ambition is to seize power over local regimes by repeatedly striking at Western countries, primarily the United States, which is perceived as Al Qaeda's main enemy who must be defeated so it will loosen its grip and allow Al Qaeda to rise to power.

Al Qaeda believes that there is a bitter struggle between Islam and the United States. It believes that the U.S. and the West aim to rob the Islamic world of its natural resources, redraw the map of the Middle East, and ensure Jewish interests in the region. Al Qaeda saw three reasons to embark on an all-out war with the United States. First, the U.S. changed its policy and began to show direct involvement in the Arab-Muslim world, the outcome of which was a prolonged U.S. military presence on Islamic lands. This was most obvious with American involvement and presence in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1991-1990 and in the later the war in Iraq in 2003. Second, Al Qaeda believed there was an unwritten pact between the West and Islamic elites to eliminate the Islamic movement and weaken it, which so far has been quite successful. These are the reasons for Al Qaeda's willingness to go to war against the United States. Al Qaeda sees the leaders of local regimes as its main enemy and defines them as its targets. Western countries, primarily the United States, are perceived as the major hurdle that needs to be overcome before Al Qaeda can takeover Islam and establish an Islamic Caliphate. This is why Jihad was declared on the United States, to drive it out of the lands of Islam.

Where is Al Qaeda going? When examining a conflict, we must first and foremost examine the contrast between the goals of the two opposing sides. The term "goal" is itself complex, and carries different meanings, from the level of grand design level to that of policy. What is an actor's desired conclusion (even if it is not clear how this can be obtained), in comparison to what he perceives as a possible and obtainable outcome? Yehoshaphat Harkabi, Israel's former military intelligence chief, assumed for example that the Soviet Union's grand design was to destroy the West - but this was not Moscow's stated policy.

Analysis of Al Qaeda's strategy leads one to conclude that the organization's grand design is to conquer the West and destroy it. Some of the organization's mid-level leaders and activists did not conceal Al Qaeda's intention to focus its energy on destroying the West, in a gradual program that would last 20 years. At times, even Bin Laden and Zawahiri were delusional in their beliefs that they could conquer and subdue the West, an intention reflected in their calls that the West convert to Islam. It is evident that Al Qaeda's leaders, however, are realistic and are aware that this grand design is impossible in practice, and that they must accept more realistic aims. Therefore, Al Qaeda's conclusion is that it must establish an Islamic Caliphate in various Arab countries, including Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Israel, which the organization calls Palestine. There are two ways to do so. The first way is to take over weaker countries, such as occupied Iraq. The second way, led by Abu Musab, is via a program of personal terrorism, which led to a new phase of attacks in European cities, including Madrid and London.

Many commentators believed that when Al Qaeda crashed of U.S, airplanes into the Twin Towers, this represented the fulfillment of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" model, but this is not the case. Al Qaeda's clash with the West, especially with the United States, originates in the political goal that Al Qaeda has set for itself – that is, to drive out the West and its influence from the Arab- Muslim world.

Unlike the argument that holds that Islam is the root of all evil, and that it "lives by the sword", I believe the phenomenon of Al Qaeda needs to be explained from a universal approach, one not bound only by Islamic perceptions. Less than a century ago, Vilfredo Pareto described a theory in which societies can be distinguished from one another, with each constructed according to the skills of its members. According to this theory, at the base of every society there is a political group of selected individuals, with rare interpersonal and psychological skills, and outstanding ability. This elite plays an active role in the socio – political sphere, while the masses play a passive role, and are subject to manipulations from above. The elite remains in power because it has control over the population, resulting from a combination of creativity and cunning; and its monopoly over the use of physical force. When the elite operates these three elements of power in harmony, its chances of remaining in power are good. However, when the balance between these three components is disturbed, and the ruling elite weakens, a counter-elite rises to challenge the ruling one. Pareto argues that "history is a graveyard of elites." Elites come and go, but someone always remains in power.

Applying the terminology of Pareto's theory, I conclude that Al Qaeda is a counter-elite, which seeks to replace extant political regimes in the Arab-Muslim world. These regimes have been in power for quite a long time, and brought the peoples under their control to a severely deteriorated social, economic and political state. In the main, these are dictatorial regimes, which drain most of their countries' sources of wealth, abolishing freedom and freedom of speech. They particularly excel in their willingness to use violence in order to stay in power. If all of this is not enough, local Arab regimes ensure that the justice system is not independent, and therefore has no power to criticize to ruling regime. This is done in addition to State monopoly over public offices, which ensures a docile population. These regimes prefer to govern their people by force, and their military and security forces are always ready to administer the violence necessary to maintain the dictatorship. What renders violence inevitable is the resistance of Arab regimes to political change and the refusal to adopt any kind of reform.

Al Qaeda is a politically-oriented terrorist organization, which seeks to overthrow totalitarian regimes in the Arab- Muslim world, take over these countries, and establish a unified Islamic state that operates under Sharia Law. Its objective, for now, is to wage war against Western powers led by the United States. Its goal is to drive the West out from the Middle East, and to prevent it from influencing the region politically. Indeed, Al Qaeda's grand scheme is to take over the world, but its leaders are aware that this goal is unrealistic in the foreseeable future.

# About the Author

The Author Ben Simon is a former major at the Israeli intelligence corps, where he served for 12 years. Ben Simon has three decades of experience in terrorism issues related to Middle East and Europe. Ben Simon holds MA in Middle Eastern Studies, MA in Conflict Resolution and LLM from Tel Aviv University in Cooperation with the University of California, Berkeley, all of which he graduated with honors. Since 2001, Ben Simon is a lawyer in the public service, including 7 years at the Supreme Court of Israel. Part of his book dealing with ideology won prize of excellence in writing from inbar Fund which operates under the auspices of Israel Intelligence Heritage center. Al-qaeda is his first book.

# Footnotes

. Hereinafter this event will be called 11/9.

. Rohan Gunaratna **,** An Assessment of the Threat From Al Qaeda in 2003, available at:  http://www.gothamgazette.com/article//20030324/200/323.

. Uyayri yusuf, Haqiqat al-harb al-salibiyya al-jadida.

. Alquds alarabi, 23.8.96.

. "I met Bin Laden - Who Is Bin Laden", Video About Bin Ladin Life, available at: https://archive.org/details/IMetOsamaBinLadin.

. Samuel Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

. Gilles kepel, The war for Muslim Minds 289 (2004).

. Arab Human Development Report 2002, available at: http://www.arab-hdr.org/contents/index.asp?rid=4

. Lewis Bernard, The Roots of Muslim Rage, 266 The Atlantic Monthly 47-60 (1990)

. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, The 9/11 commission Report : Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (hereinafter 11/9 report).

. Fouad Ajami, The Arab predicament : Arab political thought and practice since 1967, Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1981.

. Hans L. Zetterberg, Introduction to The Rise and Fall of the Elites by Vilfredo Pareto 2-3 (1991).

. Ibid

. Vilfredo Pareto, The Rise and Fall of the Elite (1991(.

. Ibid.

. Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (1986).

. Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda: jihad.com Panorama, BBC, 25.7.2005.

. Ibn Taymiyya, Ila man yasil ilayh min al-mu'minin.

. See for example: http://www.tawhed.ws/i

. al-Ḥaṣād al-murr : al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn fī sittīn ʻāman.

. Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, http://jihadology.net/

. For example in alquds alarabi and Aljazeera.

. Tahrid al-Mujahideen al-Abtal A'al Ihiya'a Sunnat al-Ightyal is available at: www.tawhed.ws/

. Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery (2006): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_of_Savagery

. Pipes, Daniel, In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power, New York: Basic Books, 1983

. Sadiq Jalal al-Azm ,"Time Out of Joint: Western dominance, Islamist terror, and the Arab imagination," Boston Review, November/December 2004.

. Arab Human Development Report 2002, available at: http://www.arab-hdr.org/contents/index.asp?rid=4

. shimon shamir, available at: http://lib.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=7630

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Hourani, Albert, History of the Arab peoples, 1992.

. http://muslim-canada.org/muslimstats.html, accessed

. Shimon shamir, horientazia

. Ayman al Zawahiri, "Fursan Tahat Rayah al Nabi", **Al-Sharq el-Awsat** , December 2001.

. Abir, Mordechai, Saudi Arabia: government, society, and the Gulf crisis, London: Routledge, 1993.

. http://joshuateitelbaum.com/, medina-neeveket-al-nafsha, P. 14.

. Ibid.

. Harnold Hottinger, Does Saudi Arabia Face Revolution The New York Review Of Books, 28.6.1979

. `Abd Allah b. Nasir al-Rashid, Hashim al-taraju`at: waqafat ma`a muraja`at al-Fahd wa'l-Khadir wa'l-Khalidi, Minbar al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad, available in.

. Robert Baer, The Fall of the House of Saud, The Atlantic magazine (2003),  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/05/the-fall-of-the-house-of-saud/304215/

. Ibid

. Shimon shamir, "a re orientzia shel mizraim laver arzot abrit –dinamica shel kablat haclatot" (1980).

. Fouad ajami, armonot hakhol shel aaravim, p. 185-186(2003).

. Ibid, p. 383.

. Aljazeera, 4.1.2004.

. Ibid.

. Aljazeera, 4.1.2004

. Ibid.

. Jonathan Simon, Christopher Riley, The Oxford illustrated history of the Crusades (1995(.

. Sivan, Emmanuel, hmizrakh –hatikon bzman masahey hazlav,

. Ibid.

. Napoleon's Campaign In Egypt,  www.123helpme.com/napoleons-campaign-in-egypt-view.asp?id=157407.

. Newman E. W. Polson, Great Britain in Egypt (London, 1928).

. Betts Raymond F. Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890-1914 (2005).

. Michael Crowder, Indirect Rule: French and British Style, 34(3) Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 197-205 (1964).

. William Easterly, The White Man's Burden, Kindle Edition – Feb. 1, (2007).

. Mathew Burrows, Mission civilisatrice: French Cultural Policy in the Middle East, 1860-1914, The Historical Journal, (1) 29, 109-135 (1986).

. Alan Greenspan, The Age Of Turbulence: Adventures In A New World (2007).

. Ayman al Zawahiri, "Fursan Tahat Rayah al Nabi", Al-Sharq el-Awsat, December 2001,  http://www.scribd.com/doc/6759609/Knights-Under-the-Prophet-Banner

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Arab Human Development Report 2002 available at: http://www.arab-hdr.org/contents/index.asp?rid=4

. alquds alarabi, 21-22.5.2005.

. Memri, 6.12.2005, available in:  http://www.memri.org.il/cgi-webaxy/sal/sal.pl?ID=107345_memri&lang=he&dbid=articles&act=show3&dataid=962

. Mitchell, Richard, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (1969).

. Ibid.

. Fouad ajami, milkud aravim iarviut meaz 1967, p.65(

. Huntignton, p.79.

. Ron yuval, available in http://www.e-mago.co.il/Editor/defense-991.htm

. Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of Muslim Brothers, 1-58 (1993).

. Amy Zalman, Muslim Brotherhood - Oldest International Islamist Organization,  http://terrorism.about.com/od/politicalislamterrorism/a/MuslimBrothers.htm

. Ted Thornton, Nasser Assassination Attempt, October 26, 1954: available at  http://www.nmhtthornton.com/mehistorydatabase/nasser_assassination_attempt.php

. Wright, Looming Tower, (2006).

. Virginia Murr, The Power of Ideas: Sayyid Qutb and Islamism. See: http://www.stephenhicks.org/2004/09/08/murr-on-qutb/

. Sageman Marc, Understanding Terror Networks, 134 (2004).

. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy 58 (2005).

. Muhammad Abd Al-Salam Faraj: http://www.pwhce.org/faraj.html

. Muhammad 'Abdus Salam Faraj, Jihad: The Absent Obligation, 166.

. Ibid, p.168.

. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks 63 (2004(

. USA v. Usama bin Laden, jamal alfadil.

. http://eur-lex.europa.eu

. Carmon, Y. Feldner, & D. Lav, The Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya Cessation 95 of Violence: An Ideological Reversal, MEMRI - inquiry and Analysis. No. 309, available at:  http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report-htm?report=1802&param=IDTA

. aftaa zfuya, p.73.

. Ibid, p.87.

. Nahman tal, imut mbayit (1999).

. Ibid.

. Yozmat apius shel irgun aljamaa almizria, memri, helek alef, 2.9.03.

. Carmon Y. Feldner, & D. Lav, The Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya Cessation of Violence: An Ideological Reversal, MEMRI - inquiry and Analysis. No. 309, available at:  http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report-htm?report=1802&param=IDTA.

. Ibid.

. Patrick Seale, asad amavak al amizrah atichon, 316-317 (1993).

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. What Are Hama Rules?, available in:  middleeast.about.com/od/syria/f/hama-rules.htm

. Thomas L. Friedman, Hama Rules, New York Times, 21.9.2001,  http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/opinion/21FRIE.html%20

. Ibid.

. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy, 58.

. Alahali, 7.11.01.

. Aljazeera, 7.11.01

. Ibid.

. Esquire, February 1, 1999.

. http://www.robert-fisk.com

. Interview with Hamid Mir: Bin Laden Biographer -  http://www.sergionazzaro.com/interview-with-hamid-mir-osama-bin-ladens-biographer/

. Anonymous, Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America, Washington, DC:, 2002.

.  http://www.answers.com/topic/hadhramaut-1 Hadhramaut

. The Shafi'i school of thought is one of the schools of jurisprudence within the Sunni branch of Islam, adhering to the teachings of the Muslim Arab scholar of jurisprudence, Al-Shafi'i of the prestigious Quraysh tribe.

. A biography of Osama Bin Laden, PBS, available at:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html

. Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden - The Man who Declared War on 124 America 4 (2001).

. Osama Bin Laden - Influences on Osama bin Laden, available at.125  http://terrorism.about.com/od/groupsleader1/a/binLadenContext.htm

. bin laden in interview to Aljazeera: 10.6.99

. Lawrence Wright , The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, kindle edition.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Haaretz, 18.12.02.

. About Bin Laden Family, available at:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/family.html

. Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: an Arabian family in the American century (2008).

. Bin Laden Half-Brother Breaks Silence, nsnbc, 10.7.2004.

. For short biography in Arabic see: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/

. Youssef Aboul-Enein, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, A Mythic Figure or Fringe Leader within the Islamist Political Movement: Highlighting the 2006 Writings of Egyptian Journalist Gamal Abdal-Rahim, available at http://ctc.usma.edu/

. New Yorker Story about Al-Zawahiri, 16.9.2002.

. The Observer, 15.1.2006.

. New Yorker Story about Al-Zawahiri, 16.9.2002.

. Ibid.

. Nimrod Raphaeli, Ayman Muhammad Rabi' Al-Zawahiri: The Making of an Arch Terrorist, memri 3.2003, available at.  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Zawahiri.html.

. Ibid.

. Asaf malih, mkabul leyrusalyyim, p.22.

. Chris Suellentrop, Abdullah Azzam The Godfather of Jihad,16.4.2002. available at:  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2002/04/abdullah_azzam.html

. malih, p.23.

. Defence of Muslim Land133. s, available at:  http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_2_intro.htm

. Ibid.

. http://www.pwhce.org/azzam.html

. Malih, p.27-28.

. The Meccan Rebellion: The Story of Juhayman al-'Utaybi Revisited,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qysx_ku3plk&list=TL7vtg8CWg8h1HlsvwCVL3FLdUU_1Dzf8Z

. http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Abdallah-Azzam/155205824

. Abd Allah `Azzam , Ayat al-rahman fi jihad al-Afghan.

. Youtube, "Abdullah Azzam visit to Oklahoma in 1988", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1h41D_s9UY

. Bin Laden's will.

. http://www.ctc.usma.edu/

. Al-aslah newspaper,

. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/

. Wright, Looming Tower 79 (2006).

. Bergen Peter, Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden 64-66 (2001).

. Abdullah Azzam, Defence of the Muslim Lands, available at:  http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_2_intro.htm

. Azzam, ahyat alrhaman fi jihad alafgan, 2.

. Guardian, 20.9.2003.

.  http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/afghanistan-war.html.

.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/8487348/Osama-bin-Laden.html

. Rose al-Yūsuf, 7.9.96.

. USA v. Usama Bin Laden - Trial Transcript Day 2 available at: http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-02.htm

. USA v. Usama Bin Laden - Trial Transcript Day 2 available at: http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-02.htm

. 11/9 report, p. 59.

. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/

. Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, September 16, 2002.

. Transcript of Bin Laden's October Interview, February 5, 2002 available at:  http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf south/02/05/binladen transcript/index html

. Rashwan Diaa, After Mombassa, January 2 – 8, 2003, Issue No. 619 Al-Ahram ; Al-Zawahiri: Egyptian Militant Group Joins Al Qaeda C N N , August 5, 2006

. Ibid.

. The Osama Bin Laden I Know, pp. 74–88

.  http://islamfuture.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/the-signs-of-ar-rahman-in-the-jihad-of-afghanistan/

. Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy 58 (2005).

. Ibid.

. Ibid, p.142-143.

. Interview with Bin Laden, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, March 9, 1994

. The 9/11 Commission Report, pg. 57

. A letter by Bin Laden, available: http://ctc.usma.edu/

. Testimony of Jamal al-Fadl

. Newsweek, September 12, 1999.

. New York Times, September 1st, 1998

. Rose al-Yousef, July 17, 1996

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p.5

. Testimony of Jamal al-Fadl

. Testimony of Jamal al-Fadl

. Rose al-Yousef, July 17, 1996

. Lawrence Wright, pg. 212

. Ibid.

. The 9/11 Commission Report

. Rose al-Yousef, September 17, 1996

. Al-Quds Al-Arabi, August 23rd, 1996

. In a video recording, Bin Laden preached to Muslims to adhere to the historical example of Muhammad regarding the Hijra. He claimed that a group of several hundred followers changed the course of history by succeeding to overcome the super powers of their time. In the same breath, he calls for the support of the Taliban state. Available at:  http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbr00/video/excerpts/reel2.html?m

. Al-Quds Al-Arabi, August 23rd, 1996

. Shaul Shay, pg. 67

. "Madrassas" are schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan that were established primarily for Islamic study.

. Shay, Shaul. The endless Jihad: the Mujahidin, the Taliban and Bin Laden. Herzliya, Israel: International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisiplinary Center Herzliya, 2002

. Dori Gold, above, pg. 132

. US News & World Report, 3.6.1995

. Shaul Shay,

. BBC, 18.9.2001, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550419.stm

. Filkins, Dexter. The forever war. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

. Dori Gold

. Ibid.

. Ibid

. BBC, 18.9.2001, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550419.stm

. Dori Gold, pg. 134

. Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2001

. Sunday Times, August 25, 2002

. Declaration of Jihad against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places

. Reuters, Febuary 20, 1996

. Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Febuary 23, 1998

. Video, Jihad: The Men Behind Al Qaeda 4-6

. Bin Laden, video broadcast, Al Jazeera, February 11

. The 9/11 Commission Report, pg. 285-291

. Ibid. 285-311

. "Unraveling 9-11 Was in the Bags." SecurityInfoWatch.com.  http://www.securityinfowatch.com/news/10555883/unraveling-9-11-was-in-the-bags (accessed April 28, 2014).

. Hughes, A. W. The country of Baluchistan: its geography, topography, ethnology, and history. Quetta: Gosha-e-Adab, 1977.

. Military." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ksm.htm (accessed April 28, 2014).

. Playboy, January, 6, 2005

. "Military." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ksm.htm (accessed April 28, 2014).

. Yoram Schweitzer, http://d26e8pvoto2x3r.cloudfront.net/

. Ibid.

. Ibid, p.36.

. The meaning of the world "bojinka" in Serbo-Croatian is: bombing. See Schweitzer, pg. 164

. New York Times, March 3, 1995

. BBC, September 12, 2003

. The 9/11 Commission Report, pg. 148

. Ibid. 241

. BBC, September 12, 2003

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p 149

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p 154

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p 155

. Ibid

. Ibid

. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/

. Boston Globe, March 2, 2002

. Observer, September 23, 2001

. SAUDI INFORMATION AGENCY, September 11

. Ibid

. Ibid

. The 9/11 Commission Report, 232-233

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 156

. Ibid, p.57

. Ibid

. Reuven Paz, "Programmed Terrorists: An Analysis of the Letter left behind by the September 11", from:  http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=419Revor Stanley, The Quest for Caliphate: Islamist Innovation from Qutb to al-Qaeda, 2003.

. Ibid, p.140

. Washington Post, 22.9.2001; Observer, 23.9.2001; Newsweek, 31.12.2001

. Observer, 23.9.2001

. Ibid

. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 161

. PBS FROTLINE, 1/2000

. Ibid.

. New York Times, 13 11 2009

. Los Angeles Times, 15 9 2002

. New York Times, 14 9 2002

. WASHINGTON POST, 11.9.02

. Lorezo vidinio, Elqaeda in Europe, 2006, kindle edition

. Los Angeles Times, 11 9 2002

. FBI Summary about Alleged Flight 93 Hijacker Ziad Jarrah  http://www.scribd.com/doc/13120683/FBI-Summary-about-Alleged-Flight-93-Hijacker-Ziad-Jarrah#fullscreen:on

. War Casualties Pass 9/11 Death Toll

. Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 3.8.2004

. The Washington Post 9 3 08

. http://fas.org/

. Emirate under commander called amir

. http://www.kivunim.org.il/article.asp?id=156

. George Tenet Interview Pt. 1, 60 Minutes, available at:  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2739654n&tag=related;photovideo

. Jamie Glazov, Symposium: The Saddam-Osama Connection: Part II: FrontPageMagazine.com, February 11, 2005, available at:  http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=9604

. Bush on Iraq: We're Not Leaving So Long As I'm The President available at: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-not-leaving

. Understanding Iraq's Ethnic and Religious Divisions, Time, 24.2.2006

. Ibid

. Ibn Saud, Wahhabis, and Oil, to 1945, http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch17arab.html

. Ibid

. Long Path to Iraq's Sectarian Split, BBC., available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4750320.stm

. Ibid

. Islam and Muslims in Europe Today Some Key Issues

. CIA Factbook, Available at:  www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

. Daniel pipes, muslim Europe, available at: http://www.danielpipes.org/1796/muslim-europe

. Ibid

. ynet,  http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3759041,00.html

. Makor Rishon, 26.5.2006, "Europe's Demographic Suicide".

. Al-Quds Al-Arabi 8.8.1994

. London evening standard, 1.03.10

. Why Muslim women wear the veil, bbc, 5.10.06, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5411320.stm

. Alfais, 17 6 07

. A Pentagon estimation:  http://www.deccanherald.com/content/156969/pentagon-lists-mosques-al-qaeda.html

. Londonistan, pp. 19

. Lorezo vidinio Elqaeda in Europe, 2006, kindle edition

. Fundamentalist Profiles (1) Abu-Hamza Al-Maseri, 8.10.01.

. Abu-Hamza Al-Maseri

. Telegraph, 29.1.07, Young, British Muslims 'getting more radical

. Homegrown terrorism remains a threat across Europe, 7.7.10

. Times of India, 29.3.04

. Sivan E., "Islamic Zealots", pp. 97

. Bruce livesey, the salafist movement,  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html

. For example, the 9/11 terror attack was mostly organized on European soil

. Bin Laden's Striker: The case of Nizar Trabelsi,

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/cron.html

. Ibid.

. CNN, 23.01.02, Thwarting terror cells in Europe  http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/26/inv.thwarting.cells

. Guardian, 3 10 01

. Islam in the Netherlands

. According to wikileaks, Daily Telegraph, 25.4.11

. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 07.5.16. Internet:  http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/Hebrew/hebn/html/islam_troops.html

. Ibid.

. BBC, 23.3.04

. Chicago tribune, 22.10.01

. Makor Rishon, 26.5.2006 "Europe's Demographic Suicide".

. Haaretz, 18.11.05

. Bruce Lawrence (Ed.), Messages to the World, The Statements of Osama bin Laden 14 (2005)

. BBC, 4.09.09

. Ibid

. Toledo, available at; http://www.answers.com/topic/toledo

. Ibid

. Jonathan Dachuch-Halevi, Al-Quaida: the next target, liberation of spain from the infidels.  http://www.jcpa.org.il/Templates/showpage.asp?FID=402&DBID=1&LNGID=2&TMID=99&IID=8419

. Ibid

. BBC, 23.12.2005

. El Agujero: Espania Invadida Por La Yihad 2005

. Stern, 13.08.03

. Bin Laden's Terror Networks in Europe, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/867403/posts

. Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda. Panorama, BBC, 25.7.2005

. Elmundo, 18.10.04

. Elmundo, 28.07.05

. Ibid

. Ibid

. Madrid train attacks,  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457031/html/

. The worst Islamist attack in European history, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/31/spain

. Police search for Madrid bombers,  articles.cnn.com/2004-03-11 world/spain.blasts_1_qaeda-abu-hafs-al-masri-eta?_s=PM:WORLD

. New York times, 12 04 04

. Ibid.

. Spain PM orders Iraq troops home, BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3637523.stm ,18 4 04

. Suicide in Leganes, 13.4.07,  http://www.opendemocracy.net/terrorism/articles/11mtrial130407

. Daily Telegraph, 25.4.11 (According to Wikileaks).

. FFI explains al-Qaida document, 19.3.04,  http://www.mil.no/felles/ffi/start/article.jhtml?articleID=71589

. Arak Al-Jihad Aml Wa-Achtar

. Agence FRANCE-Presse, 17.03.04

. New York Times, 17.03.04

. Elmundo, 29.5.2007

. Lawrence Wright, The Terror Web, The New Yorker, 24.2.2004

. Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda. Panorama, BBC. 25.7.2005

. Ibid.

. The heads of the Moroccan intelligence services was interviewed by the BBC and told all these in detail. See: Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda: Panorama. BBC, 25.7.2005

. Ibid.

. Guy Bechor, "Lebanese Icarus and Shi'ite Messianism",  http://www.gplanet.co.il/prodetailsamewin.asp?pro_id=61

. Jamal Al-Fadel's testimony.

. Haaretz, 18.5.03

. Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda: Panorama, BBC, 25.7.2005

. Vidinio, Kindle edition.

. New York times, 16.03.04

.  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-of-the-official-account-of-the-bombings-in-london-on-7th-july-2005

. LONDONISTAN (2005) 2 MELANIE PHILLIPS

. Daily Telegraph, 25.4.11 (According to Wikileaks).

. Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden: Global Terrorism and the Bin Laden.Brotherhood 67 (2002).

. Interview with the wife of Abu Mus'ab al-Suri, http://freedetainees. org/10182

. Londonistan, pp.3

. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center: http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/

. Londonistan, pp.3

. Fundamentalist Profiles (2): Sheikh Omar Bakri, London.  http://www.memri.org.il/cgi-webaxy/sal/sal.pl?lang=he&act=show&ID=107345_memri&dbid=articles&dataid=465

. Ibid.

. Times, 10.7.05

. BBC, 30.04.07

. Guardian, 6.7.06

. Official Admission: Iraq War Provoked 7/7 Mail Online:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-381824/Offical-admission Iraq-war-provoked-7-7.html

. Walla, 25.9.06, Internet: http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//980348

. BBC, 6.7.06

.  http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3393766,00.html

. BBC, 30.4.07

. Sunday times, 31.7.05

. Ibid.

. Fox News, 29.07.05

. American National Security Agency- the American intelligence agency responsible for wiretaps around the world

. Sunday times, 31.7.05

. Bin Laden's philosophy is reflected in many fatwas issued by him and dozens of interviews he gave, especially in Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, farsan tacht raaya al-nabiya (Morocco, Casablanca, Dar al-Njaa al-Jadida).

. Alhawali's website is: http://www.alhawali.com/en

. Al Aslach, 2.9.1996

. Al-Quds al-Arabi, 23.5.1998

. Mati Steinberg, "Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad's Theology and Strategy", Keshet Hadasha (2005), issue 12, pp. 65-81.

. Video,"Jihad: The Men Behind Al Qaeda

. Gills Kepel, The War for Muslim Mind 79 (1994)

. New York Times, 23.3.2003

. Latham, J.D., Salaf, Encyclopedia of Islam. (Edited by P Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill).

. Sivan, E., "A Clash within Islam", pp. 29.

. Why the word Salafee? http://www.calltoislam.com/all_articles

. Bukhari Volume 5, Book 57, Number 2.

. The Salafist Movement:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/special/sala.html

. Sivan, E.," Islamic Zealots", pp. 106 (1986)

. Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Siasa al-Shariya 145 (English Translation, Beirut, 1966), as presented by Emanuel Sivan in his book . "Islamic Zealots", pp. 107.

. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World 7 (Macmillan Reference, 2004)

. R. Keddie, Sayyid Jamal ad-Din, "Al-Afghani: A Political Biography (1972)

. Albert Habib Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (1983), pp. 130-161.

. Ibrahim, Saad Eddin. The New Arab Social Order: A Study of the Social Impact of Oil Wealth 20-24 (1982)

. Guy Bechor, "In Search of Social Order: Sanhuri and the Birth of Modern Arab Civil Law (Interdisciplinary Center, Herzeliya, 2004).

. Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn Amad Ibn Taymiyya, Encyclopaedia of Islam

. Lewis Bernard, "Islam in History 168 (1973)"; in Sivan E.," Islamic Zealots", pp. 104

. http://www.abc.se/~m9783/n/itay_e.html#1 : Ahmad ibn Taymiyya Haddad , (661-728)

. Sivan E.," Islamic Zealots", pp. 105

. Nechemya Le-Ben-Zion, Dafna Efrat, Daniella Talmon-Heller, "Islam - Introduction to the History of Religion 46" (Open University, 2003).

. Sivan, E., Ibid., pp. 105-107

. The Qur'an, 59:4

. Sivan, E., Ibid., pp. 100

. Ibn Ta394. ymiyya, Fatwa (Cairo, 1909), pp. 280-281; from Sivan, E., "Islamic Zelots", pp. 106.

. Ibn Taymiyya, Al-siasa al-Sharia 145 (English translation, Beirut, 1966); from Sivan, E., Ibid., pp. 107.

. Ibn Taimia, The Criteion )Translated by Salim Abdallah Ibn Morgan, http://www.java-man.com/Pages/Books/criterion.html

. Qur'an, 5:51-56

. Wahhabism, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Macmillan Reference USA, (2004), p.727.

. Laoust H., Ibn Abd al-Wahhāb , Muammad b. Abd al-Wahhāb Encyclopaedia of Islam

. Wright Lawrence, The looming tower 63 (2006)

. Ibid.

. Meaning, the ones who prefer the idea of monotheistic faith.

. Bernard Lewis, "the Crisis of Islam", pp. 135-140 (2006).

. Gold, pp. 34

. Bernard Lewis, pp. 136.

. Wahhabism , Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World 727, Macmillan Reference, (2004).

. Esposito John, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam 333 OUP (2003)

. Muhammad Ibn Abed al-Waahab, Kitab al-Tuchid, available at:  https://archive.org/stream/AnExplanationOfMuhammadIbnAbdalWahabsKitabAl-tawhid.pdf/AnExplanationOfMuhammadIbnAbdalWahabsKitabAl-tawhid#page/n1/mode/2up

. Ibid.

. Available at:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/etc/textbooks.html

. Abdullah Azam Amlak al-Facher al-Islami, Al-Shahid Sayyid Qutb. Available at:???

. For instance, the writings of Sayyid Qutb are available in an Al-Qaeda affiliated website. Available at:  http://www.alsunnah.info/c?i=95&PHPSESSID=a5c71c7b164725c9f3b73bd9116381c, last viewed on 29.4.2008

. Is This the Man Who Inspired Bin Laden?, Guardian, November 1, 2001, Robert Irwin.

. Paul Berman, The Philosopher of Islamic Terror, New York Times Magazine (March 23, 2003),  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/the-philosopher-of-islamic-terror.html

. Jansen, J J G , Sayyid Qutb, Encyclopaedia of Islam

. Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt 40-41 (1986)

. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror 63 (2002)

. In the Shade of the Qur'an (Translated by M.A. Salahi and A A. Shamis), Vol. I Markfield, Leicester, and Nairobi, Kenya: The Islamic oundation.

. Paul Berman, The Philosopher of Islamic Terror, New York Times Magazine (March 23, 2003),  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/magazine/the-philosopher-of-islamic-terror.html

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. See, for instance, his book: Syed Abul 'Ala Maududi, "Let us be Muslim", http://www.teachislam.com

. In the shadow of the Qur'an, pp. 56-98.

. Ibid., pp. 90.

. Ibid., pp. 91.

. Syed Qutb, "Milestone" (hereafter: Milestone).

. Milestone

. Milestone

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. "The Distant Enemy", pp.22.

. Dori Gold, pp. 93.

. Ibid.

. Dori Gold, pp. 92.

. Dawa al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, pp. 595.

. Ibid. 697.

. Sivan E., as above, pp. 57-65.

. Ibid.

. Al-Quds al-Arabi, 22-23.8.1998

. Al-Jazeera, 4.1.2004

. Bin-Laden claims there is no difference between Sykes&Picot and Blair&Bush.

. The Sunday Times, 19.5.04

. Bin-Laden notes this saying by President Bush. See: Al-Jazeera 4.1.04

. President Bush's speech to the Whitehouse, available at:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010916-2.html

. `Uyayri(al-), Yusuf, Haqiqat al-harb al-salibiyya al-jadida, Minbar al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad.

. Bin-Laden, in an interview to Al-Jazeera, 20.9.01

. Tzalach al-Haldi, "Al-Harb al-Americiyya min Manchur said Q'utb (Manbar al-Tuhid wa al-Jihad).

. Ibid, pp. 8.

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, available at:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/6759609/Knights-Under-the-Prophet-Banner

. Ibid.

. Bernard Lewis, "The Crisis of Islam", pp. 81.

. Ibid., pp. 83.

. Ibid.

. A translated Al-Qaeda document, available at:  http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jihadintro2.html

. Ibid.

. Bernard Lewis, pp. 19-20

. Bin-Laden, in an interview to Al-Atzlach, 2.9.1996.

. Dawwa al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, pp. 59

. Bernard Reich, "American Interests in the Middle East", in Itamar Rabinovich and Haim Shaked, "The Middle East and the United States"(1980), pp. 67-69

. Ibid. pp. 428

. Bernard Reich, pp. 78

. The Egyptian Orientation, pp. 272.

. Karachi Ummat in Urdu (translated into English) 28.9.2001

. Ibid.

. Bin-Laden's speech, Al-Jazeera, 1.10.2007

. A translated Al-Qaeda document, available at:  http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/jihadintro9.html

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Farsan Tacht Raaya Alnabi. Available at: https://azelin.files.wordpress.com

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, available at:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/6759609/Knights-Under-the-Prophet-Banner

. Ibid.

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, available at:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/6759609/Knights-Under-the-Prophet-Banner

. Ibid.

. Bin-Laden, in an interview to Time Magazine, 11.1.1999.

. Al-Tzalach, 2.9.1996

. Jihad Online News Network, 21.10.2001

. Service of the Independent French Press Agency, Agence France-Presse, 6.1.1999

. See "Saudi Mosque Sermons Review" (part D) (Memri Institute).

. Bin Laden's Will (translated by Memri Institute).

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, above.

. Ibid.

. Bin Laden's Will, above.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. "Saudi Mosque Sermons Review" (part D) (Memri Institute).

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, above.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Joseph Alaiiri, "Altog'od Alamryaki fi Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiya Hakiktuhu wa Ahadafu".

. Regimes at the head of the Islamic countries are hereinafter referred to local governments.

. Shmuel Bar, "Al-Zawahiri's Letter and Al-Qaeda's Strategy", in "Kivunim".

. Encyclopedia Britanica (2007) "Strategy"

. Abu Masab Alsori, "Mlah't'at kul Altg'riva Alg'ihadih fi Syria".

. Abu Masab Alsori, " Da'wa Almkoamh Alislamiya Al-Alam".

. Brynjar Lia, The al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus'ab al-Suri: A Profile Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)

. Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Umma Will Pass (Translated by William McCants).

. Shmuel Bar, "Al-Zawahiri's Letter and Al-Qaeda's Strategy", in "Kivunim".

. Sivan E., pp. 13.

. Al Qaeda Jama'a Islamiya Sbilha Alg'ihad, available at: https://www.ctc.usma.edu/

. Defence of the Muslim land First Obligation after Iman Azzam. Available at:  http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_1_table.htm

. Ibid.

. Menachem Milson, "Jihad Today".

. Al-Zawahiri's letter to Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi (Arabic). Available at: https://www.ctc.usma.edu/publications/sentinel

. Alloaih Aldoahilih (An Internal document of Al – Qaeda). Available at: http://ctc.usma.edu/

. Bin Laden's sermon on the internet (now removed)

. Qutb, Sayyid, Milestones 21 (The Mother Mosque Foundation, 1981)

. Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Knights under the Prophet's Banner The al-Qaeda Manifesto. Available at:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/6759609/Knights-Under-the-Prophet-Banner

. Bin-Laden's Will.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Bin-Laden's Will.

. Ibid.

. Nehemiah Lev Zion "sects in Islam," in Hava Lazarus –Yafa "Chapters in the History of the Arabs and Islam 86 (1981).

. Almg'lh, 27.10.02

. Ibid.

. Rose Al-Yusuf, 17.6.96

. Bin-Laden's Will.

. Ibid.

. BBC,12.9.2001

. Sarah zabel, The Military Strategy Of Global Jihad, October 2007.

. "Managing Chaos", paragraph 8.

. Ibid.

. Ibid., paragraph 7.

. Defence of Muslim Lands

. Lawrence Wright, pp. 130

. Yassin Musharbash, The Future Of Terrorism What al-Qaida Really Wants, Spiegel online, 12.8.2005. Available at:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,369448,00.html

. This book was published serially in Al-Quds al-Arabi, in London.

. Al-Quds al-Arabi, 28-29.5.2005

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Al-Quds al-Arabi, 30.5.2005.

. Ibid.

. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner.

. Abdullah Azzam, Ayyat l-Rahman fi Jihad Alafahan 3 (Manbar Altohid and Alg'ihad, 1984)

. Yassin Musharbash, The Future Of Terrorism What al-Qaida Really Wants, Spiegel online, 12.8.2005. Available at:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,369448,00.html

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Al-Zawahiri's letter to Al-Zarqawi.

. Ibid.

. Izwa, Sep 11, Kitab Alansar 5

. Abu Bakr Naji, Adara Altohs Ah'tr Mrachala Stamar Biha Alluma 1-6 (Manber Altohid wa Aljihad)

. Abu Bakr Naji, "Managing Chaos", paragraph 15.

. Ibid, paragraph 31.

. Ibid, paragraph 11.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Abu Bakr Naji, "Managing Chaos", paragraph 19.

. Ibid, paragraph 34.

. Ibid, paragraph 63.

. Abu Musab al-Suri and his Plan for the Destruction of America, 11.7.05.

. Abu Musab al-Suri, Dawa al-Muqawama al-Islamia al-Almaya.

. Ibid.

. Abu Musab al-Suri and his Plan for the Destruction of America, 11.7.05

. Al-Dawa, pp. 134-135.

. Al-Dawa, pp. 1353-1354

. Al-Dawa, pp. 1363

. Al-Dawa, pp. 1395

. Lia, Brynja, Al-Suri's Doctrines for Decentralized Jihadi Training Volume 5, 11 (January 18, 2007).

. Menachem Milton, "Jihad Today".

. Ibid.

. Lewis, B., pp. 59.

. Sivan E., "A Clash Within Islam", pp. 43.

. Milestone.

. Ibid.

. Sivan E., "Islamic Zealots", pp. 100-102.

. Ibid, pp. 106.

. Abu Qatada al-Filistini, Limadha al-jihad?, Minbar al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad .

. "Distant Enemy", pp. 17.

. Qur'an, 4:84.

. Bin-Laden's Will.

. Waqfat ma` al-duktur al-Buti fi kitabihi `an al-jihad' `Abd al-Akhir Hammad al-Ghunaymi

. BBC, 26.4.11, (according to Wikileaks).

. Milestone. The first chapter deals with "The Chosen Qur'an Generation".

. Malich, pp. 222.

. Times York New, 8.10.01

. Marlena Telvick, frontline: al qaeda's new front: al qaeda today | PBS. Available in:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/today.html

. Marc Sageman, "Understanding Terror Networks", 1.11.04.

. Ibid.

. Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. The economist, 7.1.10

. Malich, pp. 67.

. Emanuel Sivan, Gabriel Almond & Scott Appleby, "Moder Religious Fanaticism" (Tel-Aviv, 2004), pp. 29-45.

. "A Clash within Islam", pp. 182.

. Ibid.

. Lawrence Wright, pp. 247.

. Ibid, pp. 247.

. New York Times, 19.6.02

. Testimony of Jamal al - Fadel

. Ibid.

. "The Use of Mosques for Military and Political Purposes", Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Intelligence Heritage Center, 1.03.09.

. Ibid.

. O'Neill and McGrory,"The Suicide Factory" 2006, PP. 84-85

. Daily Telegraph, 25.4.11 (according to wikileaks).

. O'Neill and McGrory,The Suicide Factory 2006, PP. 84-85

. A Pentagon estimation:  http://www.deccanherald.com/content/156969/pentagon-lists-mosques-al-qaeda.html

. John R. Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, 2007, p. 163-164

. Testimony of Jamal al - Fadel

. New York times, 4.8.10

. Until it was closed down, alawlaki's website used this address: www.anwar-alawlaki. com

. Washington post, 16.11.09

. Qur'an, Surah 3: "House of Amram", verses 170-169

. Qur'an, Surah 11, "Hood", verses 16-15

. AFGP-2002-000078, "Continuation of AFGP-2002-000080" "This document sets forth the goals and structure of the Military Committee, Political Committee, Information Committee, and the Administrative and Financial Committee. Available in: https://www.ctc.usma.edu

. Derek Reveron, "Tuned to Fear," National Review Online, Jan. 13, 2005

. Letter of Attia

. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi, Is Al-Qaeda's Central Leadership Still Relevant?, Middle East QuarterlySpring 2008, pp. 27-36. Available at:  www.meforum.org/1875/is-al-qaedas-central-leadership-still-relevant#_ftn1

. Video: Peter Taylor, The New Al-Qaeda. Panorama, BBC, 25.7.2005

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. Ibid.

. U.S.A Tooday, 18.07.07

. Ibid.

. 9/11 Report, pp. 68-70.

. "An Expected Surprise", pp. 127-128.

. C.N.N., 21.8.1998; Statement of William S. Cohen to The National Commission On Terrorist attacks Upon the United States 9 (March 23, 2004)

. Ibid.

. Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), 3.8.04

. Al-Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi, July 2005

. Al-Sharq Alausat 21.9.05

. Ibid.

. Bin Laden's Media Campaign Analysis, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center 21.08.08

. Amir Bohbot, "The Secret of the Al - Qaeda: Internet activity," Ma'ariv, 11.7.08

. Gabriel Weimann, "Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges".  https://bookstore.usip.org/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=134280

. Gabriel Weimann, "How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet", The Journal of International Affairs, no.8, (spring 2005). Available at:  http://www.usip.org/publications/wwwterrornet-how-modern-terrorism-uses-the-internet

. "Terrorism and the Internet: Al - Qaeda and global jihad continue to recruit Palestinians via the Internet."

. "Jihad T.V", YES documentary. Available at: http://www.yes.co.il/?w=2/7802/1279865

. Bin Laden's Media Campaign Analysis, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center 21.08.08

. The Battar Training Camp (Mu'askar Al-Battar), March 2004.

. http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1052174/posts

. Islamist Internet forums guides the Mujahidin how to produce and use wepons, 27.5.2008.

. Matti Steinberg, "Theology and Strategy of Al - Qaeda and Global Jihad", 12.2005, p.69 (2005)

. Ibid.

. The Logic of Terrorism: Terrorism as the Product of Strategic Choice," in Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies Theologies, States of Mind, Walter Reich ed., (1990).

. Clifford Geertz, "Interpretations of Cultures", 91 (1990).

. Francis Fukuyama, Wall Street Journal, 2.11.05

. Jehoshaphat Harkabi "Critical Decisions", 11 (1986).
