Al-Qaida


Al-Qaida (also spelled al-Qaeda, al-Qa'ida, al-Quaida, The Base, Arabic for
the foundation) is a terrorist movement established by Osama Bin Laden in
1987 to expand the resistance movement against the Soviet forces in
Afghanistan into a pan-Islamic resistance movement. It evolved from an
organisation referred to as the Makhtab al-Khidamat, which initially helped
to finance, recruit, and train mujahedeen for the Afghan resistance. This
organisation was funded partly by Osama Bin Laden himself, but also by
donations from many sources in Islamic countries and the US Government.
Al-Qaida is thought currently to have several thousand members.

Although "Al-Qaeda" or "Al-Qaida" is the name of the organisation used in
popular culture, as of 2003 the group's official name had changed to
"Qaeda-al-Jihad" - the base of the jihad.

The military leader of al-Qaida is widely reported to have been Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, who was reportedly arrested in Pakistan in 2003. Its
previous military leader, Muhammed Atef, was allegedly killed in a U.S.
bombing raid on Afghanistan in late 2001.

Al-Qaida's religious inspiration has its roots in the Wahhabi sect, the
creed embraced by the current rulers of Saudi Arabia. The ultimate goal of
al-Qaida is to establish a Wahhabi Caliphate across the entire Islamic
world, by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes
it deems "non-Islamic" (ie non-Wahhabi Islamist). It sees western
governments (particularly the US Government) as interfering in the affairs
of Islamic nations in the interests of western corporations. The largest
attack for which al-Qaida is believed to have been responsible was on the
World Trade Center in New York and The Pentagon in Washington DC on
September 11th, 2001.

History of al-Qaida

Al-Qaida evolved from the Makhtab al-Khidamat (MAK) - a mujahedeen
resistance organisation fighting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the
1980s. Osama Bin Laden was a founding member of the MAK along with
Palestinian militant Abdullah Azzam. Towards the end of the Soviet
occupation, many mujahedeen wanted to expand their operations to include
Islamist struggles in other parts of the world. A number of overlapping and
interrelated organistaions were formed to further those aspirations.

One of these was al-Qaida, which was formed by Osama bin Laden in 1988. (The
name "al-Qaida" was not self-chosen; it was coined by the United States
government based on the name of a computer file of bin Laden's that listed
the names of contacts he had made at the MAK.) Bin Laden wished to extend
the conflict to non-military operations in other parts of the world; Azzam,
in contrast, wanted to remain focused on military campaigns. After Azzam was
killed in 1989, the MAK split, with a significant number joining bin Laden's
organization.

Since other parts of the world were often not in such open warfare as
Afghanistan under the Soviet occupation, the move from MAK to al-Qaida
involved more training in terrorist tactics. Other organisations were
formed, including others by Osama Bin Laden, to carry out different types of
terrorism in different countries.

After the Soviet union withdrew from Afganistan, Osama bin Laden returned to
Saudi Arabia, while al-Qaida continued training operations in Afghanistan.
He spoke against the Saudi Government during the Gulf War, and was
encouraged to leave Saudi Arabia. In 1991 he moved to Sudan, whose Islamic
government was fighting a civil war at the time. In 1996 he was expelled
from Sudan after possible participation in an attempted assassination of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan
with some of his Sudan operatives.

Al-Qaida training camps trained thousands of militant Muslims from around
the world; some of whom later applied their training in various conflicts
around the world such as Algeria, Chechnya, the Philippines, Egypt,
Indonesia, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, Kosovo and Bosnia.

In February 1998, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of Egyptian Islamic Jihad
issued a statement under banner of "the World Islamic Front for Jihad
Against the Jews and Crusaders" saying that it was the duty of all Muslims
to kill US citizens, either civilian or military, and their allies everywhere.

Al-Qaida Terrorist Actions

Al-Qaida is believed to have conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US
embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing more than
300 people and injuring more than 5,000 others. Al-Qaida also planned
attacks against US and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial
celebrations, however the Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks
and put 28 suspects on trial. They also attempted the bombing of the Los
Angeles airport during the millennium holiday although the bomber was caught
at the US-Canadian border.

They claim to have shot down US helicopters and killed US servicemen in
Somalia in 1993, and also to have carried out three bombings which were
targeted at US troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992. They are also
thought to be responsible for the October 2000 USS Cole bombing. The most
destructive terrorist act ascribed to al-Qaida was the series of attacks in
the USA on September 11th, 2001, an attack the group's spokesman Sulaiman
Abu Ghaith defended on widely-distributed videos in October 2001.

It is also sometimes suggested that they were involved in the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing and the 1996 bomb attacks on American military
personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Several attacks and attempted attacks
since September 11, 2001 have been attributed to al-Qaida include the
attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid (who proclaimed himself a follower of
Osama bin Laden), the synagogue bombing in Djerba, Tunisia and attempted
attacks in Jordan, Indonesia, Morocco, and Singapore. The network has also
been implicated of complicity in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and suspected of complicity in the October
2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia.

Al-Qaida has a worldwide reach, with cells in a number of countries and
strong ties to Sunni extremist networks. Bin Laden and his lieutenants took
shelter in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime in the 1990s. The group had
a number of terrorist training camps there, and in the late 1990s the
Taliban itself became effectively subordinate to al-Qaida. Since the
American attack, members of the group are suspected of fleeing to the tribal
areas of the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan, Pakistan.

Al-Qaida has strong links with a number of other Islamic terrorist
organisations including the Indonesian Islamic extremist group Jemaah
Islamiyah.

Organizational specialists point out al-Qaida's network structure, as
opposed to hierarchical structure is both its strength and a weakness. The
decentralized structure enables al-Qaida to have a worldwide base; however,
acts involving a high degree of organization, such as the September 11
attacks, take time and effort. American efforts to disrupt al-Qaida have
been partially successful. Attacks made by al-Qaida since then have been
simpler and involved fewer persons.

The UN Security Council, on January 16, 2002, unanimously established an
arms embargo and the freezing of assets of bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the
remaining Taliban.

Did America create al-Qaida?

Many believe that al-Qaida would not have come into being without the US
funding and training given to the Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet
invasion of 1979 to 1989. Some claim that several key US politicians, such
as George H. W. Bush, have been involved in corporations, such as the
Carlyle Group, which funded al-Qaida.

Critics of US and Western actions in the Middle East and worldwide also
claim that the actions have caused a great deal of opposition among Arab and
Islamic people, and that terrorism is the extreme end of the resulting
reactions. Such actions include the following:

   * US support of Israel, whilst activities such as the on-going occupation
     of the West Bank transpire;
   * US support of some dictators in the Middle East, including Saddam
     Hussein in Iraq before the Gulf War;
   * The mistaken US bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1997,
     followed by US enforced embargoes of essential medicines killing
     several thousand people;
   * The use of Saudi Arabian bases by allied forces attacking Iraq in 1991.
     As the birthplace of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula is seen as a Holy
     Land under Islam: thus in the eyes of some Muslims making it against
     Islam for non-believers to be physically present there; and
   * Continued bombing of Iraq by the US and the UK from 1991 to the 2003
     Iraq War which has never been explicitly mandated by the UN and many
     claim is illegal.