Individual Post Archive
« Cong dismisses Mitrokhin papers as 'rubbish |
Main
| Europe demands answers on CIA and the secret terror jails »
By Reuven Paz
PRISM Series of Global Jihad, No. 1
This is the first of a new series of articles that translate and analyze articles, reports, and religious decrees, written in Arabic by Islamist scholars, clerics, or intellectuals.
Al-Qa`idah’s Interpreters
One of the interesting phenomena related to Al-Qa`idah and the culture of global Jihad since the September 11th attacks and the global war against Islamist terrorism led by the United States, is the emergence of a group of interpreters of Usama bin Ladin, Tanzim Qa`idat al-Jihad, and of the nature of the war between radical Islam and the West. These interpreters, primarily Saudi, Yemeni, and Egyptian scholars and intellectuals, have published throughout the past year, dozens of articles in Islamist web sites and on-line magazines. Their articles are widely distributed and circulated on numerous Islamist Internet forums. The numerous responses to them prove their popularity. Some of them opened in recent months their own web sites. Amongst the more famous of these scholars are Abu Ayman al-Hilali, Abu Sa`ad al-`Ameli, Lewis Atiyyat Allah, and Abu `Ubayd al-Qurashi.
These popular scholars are part of a bigger group of well-known clerics, primarily Saudis from the Saudi Islamist opposition known in Arabic `Ulama’ al-sahwah (Clerics of the resurgence), who serve as the backbone of the support for the ideology and doctrines of the culture of global Jihad and Al-Qa`idah. But, if the contribution of the clerics lies in supporting and developing these doctrines, the importance of the “interpreters” lies in spreading the political messages of the global Jihad in the Arab and Muslim world, and in promoting the expectations of the radical Muslim youth for further struggle and more anti-Western and anti-Jewish sentiments. Part of their articles could be viewed in the West as disinformation or psychological warfare. Yet, a profound research of the phenomenon of the global Jihad and their radical Jihadi Salafist doctrines, as well as Al-Qa`idah’s policies, should not ignore them.
Another example for such “interpretations” are several dozens of unsigned articles published in the past year by the Center for Islamic Study and Research (Markaz al-Dirasat wal-Buhuth al-Islamiyyah). The center is regarded by many observers and intelligence communities as one of the official means of propaganda for al-Qa`idah, which accurately reflects the Jihadi-Salafist doctrines of the culture of global Jihad. The fact that many of the reports and articles published by the center are unsigned, gives them the image of the authentic views of the organization or front of al-Qa`idah, and not just individual views of its supporters.
This phenomenon is interesting and serves the group and its supporters and adherents very well. A good example for such interpretations that might have practical implications, was an article published by the center in August 2002, about future scenarios of the conflict between al-Qa`idah and the United States.(1) The article talks among different scenarios about: “A series of events in various sensitive places over the world, either planned by Al-Qa`idah or not, prior to the attack against the United States.” One might conclude that the series of terrorist attacks in October-November 2002 – Bali, Kuwait, the French oil tanker in the Yemen, Mombassa, and the theatre in Moscow, in addition to arrests of suspects in London and Germany, are according to this scenario, an introduction to another major attack on American soil.
One of the more popular interpreters of al-Qa`idah is Lewis Atiyyat Allah, who is well known in the circles of the supporters of the culture of global Jihad in the Arab and Muslim world, and has his own web site as well –
THE NEW WORLD ORDER OF BIN LADIN
In November 30th 2002, Atiyyat Allah published an interesting article, which was circulated in several Islamist web sites, including his own, titled: “The New World Order as written by Usama bin Ladin.”(3) This is an attempt to review the development of Al-Qa`idah and the culture of global Jihad and mainly their future, as if bin Ladin himself was sketching his lines of thinking. The article that was written in the first person, is unusual in its attempt to enter bin Ladin’s mind in such a direct manner. Yet, it might really reflect the future plans and policies of Al-Qa`idah and its front groups.
“Bin Ladin” the author, describes in the first part of the article how the idea of global Jihad developed in his mind, and there is nothing new. The development of the ideas in bin Ladin’s mind is presented in a very well organized and rational manner. Yet, there is the guidance of Allah, almost in the same manner he did with the Prophet.
The author plants in its readers an image that could easily turn bin Ladin in young Muslim minds into a kind of a “new Muhammad.” The admiration for bin ladin by Muslim youth, which is constantly growing, becomes here a personification of the best of the Prophet and the stages he experienced during the divine revelation to him. bin Ladin’s immigration—Hijrah—is to Afghanistan, and his worst period of ignorance—Jahiliyyah—is the American “invasion” of Arabia in 1990-91: “the most sinful crime in the history of Arabia…. And the biggest high treason in Islamic history…. Which was blessed by an unanimous categorical Islamic Fatwah that said that these forces came for the defense of the purity of Islam, and whoever fights them is a fighter against Allah.”
But then, after the Gulf war, there was a split over the issue of the Islamic priorities:
Some of our Mujahidin brothers decided that there was the time to spread the Jihadi messages in order to defeat the Western made regimes, what led to clashes with the Egyptian and Algerian government. During our study of those efforts, we noticed that the international planning center for burying every Jihadi liberating project in the Islamic nation is found in the United States, the center of evil… The ultimate conclusion was therefore, that no project for the liberation of the Islamic nation from Western dominancy could succeed as long as the United States was there…. Then we concluded that the equator of the Islamic world is composed from two sections:
a. There is no chance in changing the situation of the Islamic world unless the role of the United States is singled out.
b. The United States could not be defeated by an army or by any traditional military confrontation.
From here originated the globalization of the war against the United States, “starting in Somalia, where we killed over 200 American soldiers…. And started studying from close the nature of the American soldier, the lines of the American military doctrine, and the nature of the American retaliation.”
Then, Al-Qa`idah decided to provoke the United States by operations that “imposed on them the distribution of our Jihadi doctrines on the international level, and pushed Clinton to declare us the first enemy of the United States. The flames were the two operations in Nairobi and Dar as-Salam:
It was in fact what the Americans wanted according to their studies. They were looking for a while for an enemy that would grant them a justification to live. One of their scholars stated that there was no meaning to the United States if there is no Soviet Union to hate. We granted them what they wished for and turned into that enemy. But, unfortunately for them we were not the traditional enemy they expected, and hence we managed to turn their life into hell.
Then came the September 11th attacks on American soil, and according to “bin Ladin” they managed to embark, in Afghanistan, on another kind of a war, a traditional guerrilla warfare in an area which was better known to the Islamists than to the Americans.
But, the more important outcome of the September 11th attacks was according to this analysis, the American attempt to impose upon the Arab government a coalition against the Islamists. The Arab response uncovered the high treason of these governments to their publics and the fact that their first mission was actually the protection of the West. It enabled al-Qa`idah to act against the United States from within societies that hate their own governments as well as the Americans.
Another important consequence was in “bin Ladin’s” eyes, the success of the Islamists to acknowledge the globalization of Islam and their ability to stand above the nationalist dimension. It enabled them to be released from all the limits of the regional perceptions that paralyzed many of the other Islamic groups.
WHAT NEXT
The present conflict between the Islamist radicals and the West is perceived by the author as the first stage, yet there are three other stages. The next phase and first priority of the global Jihad for the near future as presented in this analysis, is to defeat the Arab governments. They should achieve that goal by:
Imposing upon the American administration the direct cooperation with us. The United States itself will remove the legitimacy of the [Arab] cartoon states. The American direct involvement in the affairs of the Muslim world by limiting the power of their rulers or by encouraging them to behave according to the American dictates is the ideal situation we wish for a long time. When the direct confrontation between the Americans and us comes, there would be no importance to the agent Arab and Islamic governments.
The third stage is called the “stage of isolation,” in which the Islamists would seek to isolate the American administration from its own citizens on one hand, and from its allies, on the other. “At first, we did not know how we could arrive at this stage due to the war against us. But, the American political stupidity of the Bush administration gave us the answer, when it started recruiting the world towards the war against Iraq.”
The author gives special importance to the tapes bin Ladin sent and keeps sending to the Western and Muslim people:
These two messages were meant to target two audiences:
a. To give the Muslim peoples the confidence that the Mujahidin are the only element capable of destructing the Western hegemony.
b. To remind the Western people that the revenge against them would be tremendous, and the destruction of the Bush administration and its allied governments would bring up on them… They could never uproot the new Islamic powers and therefore, they should press upon their governments to start isolating themselves from the United States. Otherwise, they would be hit like the Americans would.
This issue of the tapes is interesting, since it might reflect the way of thinking of Al-Qa`idah’s leadership. The Modus Operandi of sending audiotapes through the Al-Jazirah TV station became in the past year a kind of a ritual by bin Ladin, like the few articles and books that his deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri has published through the Saudi London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat. It seems that bin Ladin and his aides are closely following the effect of their tapes or announcements in the West, and deliberately sending them every few months and not more often. This is probably part of the attempt to keep their whereabouts vague and secure and leave a fog of mystery surrounding them. The same as bin Ladin or his spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghayth can record voice messages, so too they can probably send their messages by video as well. Yet, the mystery of their whereabouts seems to be a deliberate act.
The atmosphere of the forthcoming attack against Iraq, perceived by Islamist radicals as part of the war against Islam, increases the expectations of the supporters of al-Qa`idah and a great part of the Anti-American Muslim world, for a major retaliation by al-Qa`idah. Moreover, on the background of this event there is a growing atmosphere in an historical sense that arouses apocalyptic visions among Muslim, as occurred in 1991. Wishful thinking of the forthcoming appearance of the Mahdi and the Black Flags (4) (Al-rayat al-sud) started to be popular recently. We can find signs of that sense in Islamist forums, as well as in the web site of the Center for Islamic Study and Research. In an article published in late January 2003, by the center, they attempted to cool down the enthusiasm of those who started waiting for the Mahdi, and even wished to view Usamah bin Ladin as the expected one.(5)
It seems that the method of distributing these tapes infrequently, as used by al-Qa`idah, has its effect on large parts of Muslim publics.
THE FINAL CONFRONTATION WITH THE UNITED STATES
The third stage is linked to the forth: the final direct confrontation with the United States in order to “pure the world from the American power…. By destroying the United States and defeating it on its soil. Defeating the United States means the defeat of the West, what would lead to the shift of the international center of gravity back to the Islamic world.”
And then what? Do these radical Islamists possess a real political vision? Not necessarily. As other Islamic groups that have no political vision of a modern Islamic state, it seems that al-Qa`idah is not different. The author, speaking on behalf of bin Ladin, claims that “we have our perceptions of how the Islamic world would look like after the forth stage, and we have already planned it in details, yet, what we really look for is the awakening of the nation….Until that day we must do our best in fighting the enemies of Allah, through the sword, the pen, and the word in order to chain their hands and deport them from the Islamic world, and stop their support for the Jews in Palestine.”
Where are those political plans for the future Islamic world? Are they not important for the motivation and recruitment of the Muslims? There is no answer, but a utopian vision of a world that “would be more just, purer, cleaner, and nicer, without the United States. We act for the day in which we would wake up and there is no America.”
CONCLUSION
This vision of the future of the conflict of the Islamic world with the United States and the West, whether it reflects the environment of al-Qa`idah and Usamah bin Ladin, or just the wishful thinking of the author, is far beyond the limited targets of deporting the American military forces from Arabia, the Middle East, or the Muslim world. This is a vision of megalomaniacs, as the late Prof. Ehud Sprinzak defined them, which are fed by doctrines of hatred. They are not motivated by positive and constructive political ideas, but by the demonization of an eternal enemy. They cannot supply their audience a clear political vision for the stage that would follow their victory, as if the Jihad as an endless struggle is actually the primary and even the only goal. Furthermore, the globalization of the Islamist struggle instead of dividing it in the various Arab countries might help them in gaining support of wider Islamic publics. Yet, it leaves the final political targets vague and more difficult to achieve.
It seems that the success of the leaders of al-Qa`idah to survive the war against them, reorganize their forces in Afghanistan, initiate terrorist attacks in various places throughout the world, and frequently alert the Western world even through threats and recorded messages, gave them in the past year more self confidence to widen their declared targets to the maximum and to the widest vision of the global conflict. Even if their final targets are vague, their view of the struggle through global terrorism is vivid and their persistence is clear.
The article, which was published in November 2002, should be carefully read not only in the United States but also in Europe. The disputes over the attack against Iraq in February 2003 might look on the background of this article, as part of the bin Ladin vision and plan.
NOTES
1. Qira’ah li-mustaqbal al-ma`rakah bayna farouq al-`asr Usamah bin Ladin wa-Amrika (Reading the future war between bin Ladin and the United States), 17 August 2002. See on-line in:
2. Ha’ulaa yala`anahum Allah, wayal`anahum al-la`inun. See on-line in:
3. Al-nizam al-duwali al-jadid – written by Usama bin Ladin. See on-line in
4. The Black Flags, the Mahdi, as well as the false Messiah (al-Masih al-Dajjal), are part of Islamic theories on the end of the world. They are partly based upon sayings of the Prophet in the accepted Hadith, and partly on popular beliefs and sayings in the weak and controversial parts of the Hadith. These theories were very popular in the first Gulf War in 1991, as well the distribution of literature about al-Masih al-Dajjal.
5. Nahnu Ummah lam yukallifna Allah bi-ma`rifat shakhs al-mahdi qabla khurujihi (Allah did not assign our nation to know the personality of the Mahdi prior to his appearance), The Center for Islamic Study and Research, January 2003. See on-line in:
Dr. Reuven Paz is a Senior Fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and director of its Project for the Research of Islamist Movements.
November 29, 2005 at 12:10 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home