Activity of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: Analytical Essay

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Introduction

This essay will look into how Al-Qaeda were founded, and how did the founder of this extremist movement get radicalised, what links does this group have? Do Al-Qaeda still pose a threat to the western economy.

Thesis

When was Al-Qaeda founded, and by whom, also why were they founded and what’s in store for their future?

Al Qaeda or the Arabic annunciation is Al-Qa’idah which also translates to (“The Base”) is a militant Islamist group that was founded by Osama Bin Laden and Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 1989.

The main objective of Al Qaeda in spreading Islam, to enforce the Sharia Law by establishing an Islamic state.

They want to rid the world of secularist and western influences that Non-Muslims and moderate Muslims support.

While Osama Bin laden was in his 20’s before Al-Qaeda were formed he joined a university called King Abdul Aziz university where he went to go and learn Business Administration, but he also ended up learning the ideology that would help him form the extremist Group Called “Al-Qaeda”. This is were he would meet his mentor Muhammad Qutb who is Sayyid Qutb younger Brother. (“A bit of history regarding Sayyid Qutb he was the one who created Radical Islam in the 1960’s”). While he was at the university Muhammad Qutb would be an influential role into the future of Al-Qaeda not only because of his Radical Views it would help Osama bin laden to be able to market Al-Qaeda.

“Osama bin Laden’s influences was Abdullah Azzam (“the godfather of Jihad”) while he was at the Abdul Aziz University as he teached Osama bin laden about the Pan Islamic

Although both Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Qutb are Islamist thinkers, most researchers do not recognize the importance of Muhammad Qutb’s Islamism. However, through the analysis of Muhammad Qutb’s writing and his life, this paper posits that both Qutb brothers are important Islamist thinkers. In terms of Islamism, this paper assumes that after Muhammad Qutb was influenced by Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb influenced al-Qaeda; namely, Muhammad Qutb played a mediating role between Sayyid Qutb and al-Qaeda in the intellectual history of Islamism. Thus, this paper argues that while Sayyid Qutb played an important role in constructing al-Qaeda intellectually, his younger brother Muhammad Qutb also played a significant role in building al-Qaeda because, as a teacher, he educated both bin Laden and Safar al-Hawali. In addition, as an activist there is a possibility that he personally helped Abdullah Azzam, the other teacher of bin Laden. Furthermore, as an Islamist thinker, Muhammad Qutb’s perspective of the world in which the US confronts Islam, as well as his denunciation of modern Western ideologies such as democracy and secularism, influenced al-Qaeda, and his long-term reworking of Sayyid Qutb’s Islamism prevented it from becoming obsolete and thus preserved its appeal to an audience that includes al-Qaeda”. http://www.nids.mod.go.jp/english/publication/kiyo/pdf/2015/bulletin_e2015_6.pdf(Masami Nishino*) (1)

This is Where Muslim Brotherhood would come into contact with Osama Bin Laden for the first time, as they would Radicalise Osama Bin Laden through the Teachings of Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutb was a Muslim brotherhood Militant that would help shape Al-Qaeda into what it is Today.

“In a recent video entitled ‘Days with the Imam’ in which he recalls Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri declares that the founder of al Qaeda had been a ‘member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arabian Peninsula’ before he was evicted in the 1980s. He was expelled because of his insistence on fighting alongside the mujahidin”) https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/03/osama-bin-laden-and-the-saudi-muslim-brotherhood/ (STÉPHANE LACROIX OCTOBER 3, 2012, 1:40 PM) (2)

Osama met Abdullah Azzam while they were in Afghanistan when they were seeing to the injured mujahideen that was fighting against the Soviet Occupation in Afghanistan.

Osama along with Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Sunni Islamic Scholar and mentor of bin laden, they started to work together by growing a large financial network, then at the end of the afghan-Soviet conflict in 1989, Al-Qaeda were formed to take on the future of the holy wars, this was the fight that Osama Bin Laden wanted to take globally, while Abdullah Azzam wanted to keep the fight in Afghanistan to make the government an Islamist government that would be run by the sharia law. (When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Osama Bin Laden saw the invasion as an act of aggression against Islam

He started to travel around Afghanistan with Abdullah Azzam to meet afghan resistance leaders, were he was trying to raise funds for the resistance. In 1984 he focused his attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Where he worked with Abdullah Azzam to gain Arab volunteers to organize and fight the Soviet occupation.

While he was recruiting, he enhanced his stature as a militant leader by gaining financial resources, with his reputation of religious activity also his stature of being brave in combat.

In 1988 he created a computer database listing all the names of the volunteers to fight in the afghan war that led to the formation in 1988 of the militant networks called Al Qaeda.

When the group formed in 1988, they had no clear objectives or an operational agenda for a few years. In 1989, the soviet withdraws from afghan. Were bin laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero but he soon got labelled as being a radical and a potential threat.

Were the government in 1990, denied the permission of Osama Bin Laden to use his fighters to defend Saudi Arabia against the threat of invasion by Iraq.

The rift between Osama bin laden and Saudi Arabia’s leaders kept growing where they used the US troops to help fight in the Persian Gulf war instead of using Osama’s network of fighters.

Where Osama finally left Saudi Arabia in 1991 to settle up in Sudan.

Al Qaeda founder Osama bin laden had several profit-making businesses in Sudan, including construction, manufacturing, currency trading, import – export, and agricultural enterprises that funded a campaign of violence against the United States and their allies,)

“This chapter is largely based on Al Qaeda documents, including training manuals, the full translations of which I have seen. One was recovered by police in Manchester (England) from the home of an alleged Al Qaeda member, and various versions of The Encyclopaedia of the Afghan Jihad from Al Qaeda members arrested in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Two other others were found in Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime.” GUNARATNA, R. (2002). AL QAEDA’S ORGANISATION, IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGY. In Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (pp. 54-94). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/guna12692.9 (3)

During 1989, Abdullah Azzam was in Peshawar, Pakistan on his way to a mosque when he got assassinated in a VBIED that left Osama Bin Laden as the group’s leader.

Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Zawahiri built the core al-Qaida infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990s with the protection of the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/10/al-qaida-today-18-years-after-9-11/ ( Bruce Riedel Tuesday, September 10, 2019)(4)

Al-Qaeda core leadership evolved from the veterans of the conflict with the soviet occupation in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda was commanded by Osama Bin laden and Dr Ayman AL Zawahiri.

When Al-Qaeda was founded it was founded by Osama Bin Laden, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Sayyed Imam al-Sharif, Sayed al-Masri, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim,

Even though all these members founded the group, Osama Bin Laden was the one who was in command until he got assassinated in 2011 by the American Forces after the 9/11 attacks in New York.

This is When Dr Ayman AL Zawahiri took over as commander of this terrorist Group.

Recent developments suggest that al-Qaeda’s primacy of command is not exclusive to the group’s geographical base in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In August 2013, Zawahiri appointed Nasir al-Wuhayshi, former head of AQAP, as deputy leader of al-Qaeda’s global organization. Eli Lake, “Meet al Qaeda’s New General Manager: Nasser al-Wuhayshi,” Daily Beast, August 9, 2013, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/09/meet-al-qaeda-s-new-general-manager-nasser-al-wuhayshi.html.(5)

“Ayman al-Zawahiri co-founded al-Qaeda with Osama bin Laden in 1988. He has led the group since bin Laden’s death in 2011, and expanded the number of al-Qaeda affiliates around the world”. The FBI’s Rewards for Justice program offers a reward of $25 million for information leading to Zawahiri’s capture. * “Most Wanted Terrorists: Ayman Al-Zawahiri,” FBI, accessed August 7, 2017, https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/ayman-al-zawahiri.(6)

“Zawahiri has maintained that al-Qaeda’s primary target is the United States and “its ally Israel, and secondly its local allies that rule our countries.” Ayman al-Zawahiri, “General Guidelines for Jihad,” As-Sahab Media, September 2013”, https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/dr-ayman-al-e1ba93awc481hirc4ab-22general-guidelines-for-the-work-of-a-jihc481dc4ab22-en.pdf.(7)

While Osama Bin Laden they started grooming Hamza Bin Laden to take over control from Osama Bin Laden as he was four decades younger than Zawahiri so he would be able to recruit the younger jihadi’s to come and join AL-Qaeda

Dr Ayman AL Zawahiri path to extremism started when he was 15 have he joined Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, While he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood he would also join Egypt Islamic jihad (EIJ), While he was there leader he would go to Afghanistan to go and treat the injured islamist fighters that were fighting the Soviet Occupation in Afghanistan. Then the two Following Islamists would Create AL Qaeda.

“In February 1998, the Zawahiri-led EIJ joined with al-Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Group, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan, and the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh to form the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Christians. The groups released a joint fatwa calling on Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military” “Jihad Against Jews and Christians,” Federation of American Scientists, February 23, 1998, https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.(8)

One of the most horrific terrorist attacks for Al Qaeda was 9/11 They struck the World Trade Centre eight years earlier on the 26th February 1993,

AL-Qaeda would attack the World Trade Centre for the first time killing six and injuring over a thousand people with a VBIED underneath the building. 26th February 1993 Al Qaeda struck the World Trade Centre, During the Bombing, six people died and 1000 people were injured in the attack.

“At 12:18 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26, 1993, 1,200 pounds of explosives were detonated inside a van parked in the B2 level garage of the World Trade Centre’s north tower. The explosion, located under the Vista Hotel, crumbled three concrete slab floors of the north tower, shook the upper floors of the two 110-story buildings and filled them with thick, black smoke. When the dust settled, six people were dead and more than 1,000 were injured.” (“Lauren Cook and Nicole Brown”) (“February 2019”) https://www.amny.com/news/world-trade-center-bombing-1993-1-16926341/ (9)

Then AL Qaeda struck again on the 11th September 2001 was their deadliest attack on the U.S, when they attacked the World Trade Centre for the second time and also struck the pentagon with four hijacked plane attacks that Killed 2986 people in the series of attacks on that day.

“The coordinated Al-Qaida hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 people, when airliners slammed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and another crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

Al-Zawahiri’s speech was recorded in a 33-minute, 28-second video produced by the group’s as-Sahab Media Foundation”. https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/09/11/al-qaida-chief-in-911-speech-calls-for-attacks-on-west/

“Al-Qaeda’s central command, which includes current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and his top aides, has traditionally been headquartered in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda has long pledged allegiance to the Afghan-based Taliban, which provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda after the United States turned its military focus on the group following the 9/11 attacks. In June 2016, Zawahiri reaffirmed al-Qaeda’s allegiance by publicly endorsing the Taliban’s new leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.” “Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri backs new Taliban chief Akhundzada,” Deutsche Welle, June 11, 2016, http://www.dw.com/en/al-qaedas-zawahiri-backs-new-taliban-chief-akhundzada/a-19323475 (11)

Many analysts describe Al-Qaeda as a brand, and its branches as franchises, while others describe it as a core group of professionals’, surrounded by new members known as “Grassroots affiliate’s”

Al-Qaeda strategy is to quietly strengthen its empire over the past five years by getting involved in highly symbolic conflicts in Kashmir.

Al-Qaeda could prove itself to be the number one global jihadist group making it a priority to recruit new members by showing the Muslim community its commitment of defending the Muslim oppression

The Future of Al-Qaeda is still going to be strong because of their ideology and their strength and persistence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, even though their leaders keep getting killed or arrested or go into hiding,

The ideology of Sayyid Qutb will live in their members and new recruits.

As they use internet propaganda and terrorist attacks to recruit new members.

The impact of AL-Qaeda on Afghanistan if the American forces stood down from Afghanistan they could gain there strength through the control of Afghanistan making them as deadly as they were just before the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre,

“The discovery shook two assumptions about al-Qa`ida—first, that al-Qa`ida was “decimated” in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and second, that al-Qa`ida operates only in southeastern and eastern provinces of the country.2 The discovery has led to renewed debate about the size and nature of future U.S. military engagements in Afghanistan. There are fears that if the United States continues the planned drawdown of military troops, al-Qa`ida might return to use the country as a sanctuary as it did before 2001”. (James Mackenzie and Paul Tait, “Al Qaeda Re-emerge As Challenge for U.S., NATO In Afghanistan,” Reuters, April 15, 2016.)

We deported half the number of people we do today. Our surveillance state was a fraction of its current size. And — perhaps hardest to believe — we didn’t have to take off our shoes to go through airport security. America’s involvement in the War on Terror — prompted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks — resulted in a dramatic change in our nation’s attitudes and concerns about safety, vigilance and privacy. It ushered in a new generation of policies like the USA Patriot Act, prioritizing national security and defense, often at the expense of civil liberties. https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/14066/13-years-later-four-major-lasting-impacts-of-911 (Matthew Green Sep 8, 2017)(13)

The impact of Al-Qaeda after 9/11 was that the US forces went to attack Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and took away a lot of their strong hold in Afghanistan were it ended up moving its branches to other countries to try and strengthen Al-Qaeda, as this was happening it started showing its strength in Syria by fighting the Assad regime. America came out with an act called the Patriot act 2001 that would help fight against Terrorism. “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001 US Congress – Public Law, 2001 (14)

Bibliography

http://www.nids.mod.go.jp/english/publication/kiyo/pdf/2015/bulletin_e2015_6.pdf (Masami Nishino*) (1)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/03/osama-bin-laden-and-the-saudi-muslim-brotherhood/ (STÉPHANE LACROIX OCTOBER 3, 2012, 1:40 PM) (2)
GUNARATNA, R. (2002). AL QAEDA’S ORGANISATION, IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGY. In Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (pp. 54-94). New York: Columbia University Press. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/guna12692.9 (3)
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/09/10/al-qaida-today-18-years-after-9-11/ ( Bruce Riedel Tuesday, September 10, 2019)(4)
Eli Lake, “Meet al Qaeda’s New General Manager: Nasser al-Wuhayshi,” Daily Beast, August 9, 2013, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/09/meet-al-qaeda-s-new-general-manager-nasser-al-wuhayshi.html.(5)
“Most Wanted Terrorists: Ayman Al-Zawahiri,” FBI, accessed August 7, 2017, https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/ayman-al-zawahiri.(6)
Ayman al-Zawahiri, “General Guidelines for Jihad,” As-Sahab Media, September 2013”, https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/dr-ayman-al-e1ba93awc481hirc4ab-22general-guidelines-for-the-work-of-a-jihc481dc4ab22-en.pdf. (7)
“Jihad Against Jews and Christians,” Federation of American Scientists, February 23, 1998, https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm (8)
(“Lauren Cook and Nicole Brown”) (“February 2019”) https://www.amny.com/news/world-trade-center-bombing-1993-1-16926341/ (9)
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2019/09/11/al-qaida-chief-in-911-speech-calls-for-attacks-on-west/ By: The Associated Press September 11 (10)
“Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri backs new Taliban chief Askhundzada,” Deutsche Welle, June 11, 2016, http://www.dw.com/en/al-qaedas-zawahiri-backs-new-taliban-chief-akhundzada/a-19323475 (11)
James Mackenzie and Paul Tait, “Al Qaeda Re-emerges As Challenge for U.S., NATO In Afghanistan,” Reuters, April 15, 2016.(12)
https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/14066/13-years-later-four-major-lasting-impacts-of-911 (Matthew Green Sep 8, 2017) (13)
US Congress – Public Law, 2001 (14)

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Activity of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: Analytical Essay

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