Al Qaeda Al Queda

Al-Qaida is a multi-national support group which funds and orchestrates the activities of Islamic militants worldwide. It grew out of the Afghan war against the Soviets, and its core members consist of Afghan war veterans from all over the Muslim world. Al-Qaida was established around 1988 by the Saudi militant Osama bin Ladin. Based in of Afghanistan, bin Ladin uses an extensive international network to maintain a loose connection between Muslim extremists in diverse countries. Working through high-tech means, such as faxes, satellite telephones, and the internet, he is in touch with an unknown number of followers all over the Arab world, as well as in Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada.

The organization's primary goal is the overthrow of what it sees as the corrupt and heretical governments of Muslim states, and their replacement with the rule of Sharia (Islamic law). Al-Qaida is intensely anti-Western, and views the United States in particular as the prime enemy of Islam. Bin Ladin has issued three "fatwahs" or religious rulings calling upon Muslims to take up arms against the United States. (see Bin Ladin’s Declaration of War).

• Attempts to radicalize existing Islamic groups and create Islamic groups where none exist.
• Advocates destruction of the United States, which is seen as the chief obstacle to reform in Muslim societies.
• Supports Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bosnia, Chechnya, Eritera, Kosova, Pakistan, Somalia, Tajikistan and Yemen.

In February 1998, bin Ladin announced the formation of an umbrella organization called “The Islamic World Front for the struggle against the Jews and the Crusaders” (Al-Jabhah al-Islamiyyah al-`Alamiyyah li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) Among the members of this organization are the Egyptian al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian al-Jihad. Both of these groups were have been active in terrorism over the past decade. (see Attacks of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad).

History

Osama bin Ladin entered on his current path of holy warrior in 1979, the year Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. He transfered his business to Afghanistan--including several hundred loyal workmen and heavy construction tools--and set out to liberate the land from the infidel invader. Recognizing at once that the Afghans were lacking both infrastructure and manpower to fight a protracted conflict, he set about solving both problems at once. The first step was to set up an organized program of conscription. Together with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdallah Azzam, he organized a recruiting office--Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK - Services Office).

MAK advertised all over the Arab world for young Muslims to come fight in Afghanistan and set up branch recruiting offices all over the world, including in the U.S. and Europe. Bin Ladin paid for the transportation of the new recurits to Afghanistan, and set up facilities to train them. The Afghan government donated land and resources, while bin Ladin brought in experts from all over the world on guerilla warfare, sabotage, and covert operations. Within a little over a year he had thousands of volunteers in training in his private bootcamps. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 fighters received training and combat experience in Afghanistan, with only a fraction coming from the native Afghan population. Nearly half of the fighting force came from bin Ladin's native Saudi Arabia. Others came from Algeria (roughly 3,000), from Egypt (2,000), with thousands more coming from other Muslim countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and the Sudan.

Superpower vs. superpower
The war in Afghanistan was the stage for one of the last major stand-offs between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Americans at that time had the same goals as bin Ladin’s mujahedin--the ousting of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In what was hailed at the time as one of its most successful covert operations, America’s Central Intelligence Agency launched a $500 million-per-year campaign to arm and train the impoverished and outgunned mujahedin guerrillas to fight the Soviet Union. The most promising guerilla leaders were sought out and “sponsored” by the CIA. U.S. official sources are understandably vague on the question of whether Osama bin Ladin was one of the CIA’s “chosen” at that time. Bin Ladin’s group was one of seven main mujahedin factions. It is estimated that a significant quantity of high tech American weapons, including “stinger” anti-aircraft missiles, made their way into his arsenal. The majority of them are reported to be still there.

The Mujahedin were wildly successful. In ten years of savage fighting they vanquished the Soviet Union. What had begun as a fragmented army of tribal warriors ended up a well-organized and equipped modern army--one capable of beating a super power. The departing Soviet troops left behind an Afghanistan with a huge arsenal of sophisticated weapons and thousands of seasoned Islamic warriors from a variety of countries.

The Afghan Veterans
Some of these veterans returned to their own countries and got on with their lives. Others returned to their own countries steeped in Islamic fundamentalism and a will to topple “western-influenced, infidel governments” in favor of Islamic regimes. They used the knowledge gleaned in the Afghan war to set up guerilla and terror cells. In Egypt and Algeria, the “Afghan Veterans,” as they came to be called, aided Islamic extremists in their fight against the secular governments. In most Arab countries, the veterans were not at all welcome, and the governments kept a close eye on their doings. However, in some countries the Afghan veterans were accorded a warm welcome. Such was the case in Sudan, where the government gave them jobs, helped them to set up training camps, and appointed some of them to government posts.

In addition to these facilities established in “friendly” Arab countries, the majority of the mujahedin training camps in Afghanistan continued to operate, supplying Islamic mercenaries to conflicts in a number of countries. Afghanistan was still seen as the hearth-stone of the mujahedin, from whence trained fighters could be sent out to fight wherever they were needed. Mujahedin veterans began showing up in Islamic struggles in such places as Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya.

A state unto himself
Toward the end of the war in Afghanistan, bin Ladin split with MAK co-founder Azzam in the late 1980s, and in 1988 formed al-Qaida to continue the work of the Jihad. While Azzam continued to focus on support to Muslims in Afghanistan, bin Ladin turned his attention to carrying the war to other countries. In late 1989 Abdallah Azzam died in the explosion of a car bomb, generally blamed on a rival Afghani faction. Several rumours circulating at the time blamed bin Ladin himself for the attack.

After the victory in Afghanistan, Osama bin Ladin returned to his native Saudi Arabia to take up the fight against the infidel government there. The Saudis were not disposed to tolerate his calls to insurrection, and quickly acted against him. In April 1994, his Saudi citizenship was revoked for “irresponsible behavior,” and he was expelled from the country. Together with his family and a large band of followers, Bin Ladin moved to Khartoum in Sudan. There he set up factories and farms, some of which were established solely for the purpose of supplying jobs to out-of-work mujahedin. He built roads and infrastructure for the Sudanese government and training camps for the Afghan Veterans. Among bin Ladin’s numerous Sudanese commercial interests are: a factory to process goat skins, a construction company, a bank, a sunflower plantation, and an import-export operation.

His construction company “el-Hijrah for Construction and Development Ltd.”--in partnership with the National Islamic Front and the Sudanese military--built the new airport at Port Sudan, as well as a 1200 km-long highway linking Khartoum to Port Sudan.

Another company reputed to be owned by bin Ladin is the “Wadi al-Aqiq” Company, an export-import firm.  He also runs the Taba Investment Company Ltd. and the “el-Shamal Islamic Bank” in Khartoum, a joint effort with the  NIF, in which bin Ladin is said to have  invested $50 million.

For many years, bin Ladin lived in Khartoum, in a residence guarded by the local security forces, while he was arranging for many of the “Afghan veterans” to move to Sudan.  Bin Ladin is said to be close to Sudanese  leader Omar Albashir, and to Hassan Turabi, the head of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan.

However, Sudan--long on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism--in recent years began to thaw toward the West. As a gesture toward the United States, the Sudanese government requested that bin Ladin depart. In May 1996, he moved to Afghanistan, leaving behind him in Sudan a network of Afghan Veterans and several successful factories and corporations. Several major companies in Sudan are linked to him, and are believed to be doing double-duty as logistics support for bin Ladin’s network.

The Islamic Front for the struggle against the Jews and the Crusaders
In February 1998, bin Ladin announced the formation of an umbrella organization called “The Islamic World Front for the struggle against the Jews and the Crusaders” (Al-Jabhah al-Islamiyyah al-`Alamiyyah li-Qital al-Yahud wal-Salibiyyin) Among the members of this organization are the Egyptian al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian al-Jihad. Both of these groups were have been active in terrorism over the past decade. (see Attacks of al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad). The founder members of the Front include, besides bin Ladin; Dr. Ayman al- Zawahiri, leader of the Egyptian Jihad; Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, a leader of the Islamic Group. The Islamic Group is linked with the al-Dir al-Bahri massacre in Luxor in November 1997,which claimed the lives of 58 tourists; and some leaders of extremist fundamentalist movements in Pakistan.

On May 28, 1998 the Islamabad daily, The News reported that Osama bin Ladin had announced the formation of an International Islamic Front for Jihad against America and Israel. Talking to a group of journalists who had traveled from Pakistan to meet him at his base in Khost in southern Afghanistan, he said leaders of Islamic movements in several countries, including Pakistan had evinced interest in joining the front. He stated that Dr Aiman Al-Zawahiri, leader of the Jamaat-ul-Jihad in Egypt who was present at the time, had played a crucial role in launching the front.

Bin Ladin justified the formation of the anti-American and anti-Israeli front by arguing that Muslims everywhere in the world were suffering at the hands of the U.S. and Israel. He said the Muslims must wage holy war against their real enemies not only to rid themselves of unpopular regimes backed by the Americans and Israelis but also protect their faith. When a reporter maintained that bin Ladin and his colleagues could not possibly take on the world's onlsuperpower, bin Ladin contended that the US was vulnerable and could be defeated in war. This would happen in the same way as the USSR suffered humiliation at the hands of the Afghan and Arab “mujahideen” in Afghanistan and was eventually dismembered

On 14 May 1998, The London Al-Quds al-'Arabi published an article to the effect that clerics in Afghanistan had issued a fatwa stipulating the necessity to move U.S. forces out of the Gulf region. Addressing Muslims the world-over, the Afghan ulema said: “The enemies of Islam are not limited to a certain group or party; all atheists are enemies of Islam, and they take one another as friends.” The Afghan ulema declared “jihad -- based on the rules of the Shari'ah -- against the United States and its followers.” They urged Islamic governments to perform the duty of “armed jihad against the enemies of Islam,” pointing out that “if Muslims are lax in their responsibility, the enemies of Islam will occupy the two holy mosques as well, just as they occupied the al- Aqsa Mosque.” They stressed, in a statement attached to the fatwa, that: “This fatwa--with the evidence and the rulings issued by early and current ulema, on which it is based--is not merely a fatwa issued by the ulema of a Muslim country, but rather a religious fatwa that every Muslim should adopt and work under.”

There are probably a few hundred Arab volunteers still living in Afghanistan. They are the leftovers of the several thousand Arabs who came to Afghanistan via Pakistan in the 1980s to take part in the “jihad” against the USSR's Red Army and the Afghan communists. Those left behind have nowhere else to go because they risk being caught should they venture to return home. No other country would be willing to accept them. In any case, present-day Afghanistan continues to be their safest hideaway. The ones who have returned to their countries have mostly joined the political and military struggle aimed at bringing an Islamic change there. Known as Arab-Afghans, these battle-hardened Islamists have come to be known as the most radical and dangerous of the fighters who have taken up arms against the Algerian and Egyptian governments.

The Paris al-Watan al-'Arabi estimated on 26 June 1998, that “the fact that bin-Ladin has shown up again in the press clearly indicates his emergence as a leader of the revolutionary council that was eventually established.” According to the newspaper, a Dutch official who closely follows developments in the new Islamic Front, in cooperation with European organs, believes that relations were actually reorganized among the organizations--which used to cooperate and coordinate with each other on the organizational and logistical levels--on a new basis that gives an organizational working configuration to past relations. This is a new and important development. According to the Dutch official, this confirms the seriousness of this event, which requires larger and more accurate coordination between the European and U.S. authorities. It also calls for cooperation by some of the Middle Eastern authorities.

The organizations whose membership in the Islamic Front was announced are the Egyptian Jihad, the Egyptian Armed Group, the Pakistan Scholars Society, the Partisans Movement in Kashmir, the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, and the Afghan military wing of the “Advice and Reform” commission led by Osama bin Ladin. All these organizations once cooperated and coordinated with one another, but without any specific configuration or mechanism for such cooperation. Moreover, each of these organizations had freedom of action, and they determined their own objectives independently. Cooperation among these organizations was only at the level of “those who carry arms,” which is one of the organizational levels of each organization. There were no means of cooperation and coordination among “the people of the call,” another of the organizational levels. This is due to the fact that Afghanistan enhanced relations among the “carriers of arms” and created a kind of interpersonal cohesion.

According to this evaluation, the threat posed by this new front is due to the fact that it combines all the organizational levels, by establishing a shura [consultative] council. According to most assessments, this council is led by Osama Bin Ladin. This increases the front's effectiveness. It can be said that the Islamic Front has now moved from the constituent and organizational phase to the operational phase.
 

On August 20, 1998, the U.S. military struck a number of facilities associated with bin Ladin's network. The targets included six training camps belonging to al-Qaida and a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan which the intelligence sources suspected of producing components of chemical weapons. The American administration has since admitted that the attack on the factory was a mistake.