AQ Epitomizes the "New Terrorism"/ Local vs. Global Jihad

Questions
1. AQ Eiptiomises the "new terrorism"
  1. Assumptions, Definitions, Clarifications
    1. Terrorism
      1. In 80s they were supported by US - "freedom fighters"
2. How does AQ differ in its structure, aims and methods with previous insurgent groups?
AQ Origins and Dynamics
1. Why did this arise in the 90s? one of the great debates - is it something new? Most rebel orgs tend to be territorialized - be concerned about state capture, territory, nationality
2. AQ origins
  1. Afghanistan: the "Blowback thesis":
    1. Cold war context - soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 80s sparks US covert action: aid mujahideen to create 'soviet vietnam' (brizinski)
      1. Role of CIA, pakistan ISI (logistics conduit), and saudi arabia (funding, osama) -Triangulation
        Wstern 'information war' - legitimacy/freedom fighters/jihad chic- no one was calling them terrorists in the 90s
        Embassy bombings in 93/ 98 = threat
        Roy: Pakistan further the agenda, Zia ul-Haq used Afghan war to make pakistan a close ally of US and regional vanguard of sunni Islam
        Roy - after Cold War, no reason for US to still focus on Islam but Pakistan and SA have reasons to maintain ties with Islamic networks (tools of legitimacy and influence)
        91 - Islamic networks supported by SA and Pakistan turn openly anti-western - part of change in strategic landscape - fall of USSR jihad success - now turn to West
    2. Creation of capacity for jihad in Afghanistan, international networks, information war and technology, soviet defeat = high morale,
      1. Training turf for thousands, unintended global platform for Jihad
        Arab Afghans - some radicalized like Zawahiri, OBL, while some volunteered just for war
        Gulf War - OBL offers for Ms to fight for SA - but SA instead turns to US - loses credibility, angers OBL and others
        Turns to SA antagonist: SUDAN, until US/UK force Sudan to expel him: goes to Yemen/Afghanistan
        Assasination of Azzam - OBL takes over - thinks provoking US in Afghanistan will lead to a 'jihadist revival' against invasion - is incorrect
        Although many go to afghanistan to learn to 'wage jihad at home' this is an exaggeration; number of foreign fighters in actual war exaggerated (most fighting done by Afghanis) and few return home = preference for foreign fighting
        Zawahiri goes to Egypt, is disappointed by MB (see Gerges arg)
  2. "single narrative - global/local tension - how many of these conflicts are still about the local when there is a global AQ imposed on them or are they still networked?
    1. Old islamist causes - algeria, egypt, palestine, kashmir, SE asia, et all
      1. lots of foreign fighters, FIS looking to win elections in algeria then civil war, = massacres of muslims - main grievance of AQ - Muslims massacred by Christians - west doesn't do anything about it
      2. New Muslim causes - Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia etc. "massacres of Muslims"
      3. Was Jihad a cause or fallout of Islamic movements?
    2. Radicalization doesn't follow a single path
  3. AQ as a moral critique (Devi, Wiktorowicz et al): Islam is demystified and fragmented into multiple "landscapes", pracices are 'ethical rather than political'
Goals: Ideology and demands
1. What is motivating/driving ideology? Does it have a coherent ideology and well elaborated demands? Are its demands negotiable?What do we know about its intentions?
  1. Exploit modernity- paradoxes of radicalism
    1. radical vision of islamic society , literal and Medieval interpretations of the Qur'an, puritanical, need for purification (holy sites), disillusionment with the 'people" exploit islam as a social force, leninist idea of a revolutionary 'vanguard', armed struggle: jihad as a historic 'city', what kind of ummah? manage modernity for radical goals
  2. First period: focus on near, Palestine, Islamic countries- corrupt regimes, expel polytheists
    1. Purify the regime in SA (radical, protect muslims from massacres, attack jews, destroy israel, palestinian state
  3. Second period - shift to the far enemy: more global focus, declaration of jihad against the west in 1996 (judeo-crusader alliance)
    1. Attack 'crusaders' end US intervention in Islamic countries, protect Islam's oil wealth
    2. Revitalise ummah/restore Islamic values in Muslim countries, caliphate later development
    3. OBL declaration of Jihad 1996
  4. Third period: Afghanistan/Iraq
    1. US 2011 declaration of GWOT: polarization into black and white groups with no grey areas. Anti American protests erupt: Kuala Lumpur, Africa etc.
  5. AQ has coherent, populist aims, but are difficult to negotiate because they dramatically conflict with Western/US interests
    1. Newly refashioned ideological mutual repulsion: COS huntington - western policy, media absorb his ideas and turn antagonistic after Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan - demonization of Islam begins
    2. Cronin: AQ has no 'achievable' aims - evolved over time, variably including achievement of "caliphate", overthrow of non-Islamic regimes - we shouldn't treat it as a unified whole - potential different interests of AQ vs. past terrorist orgs
Strategy and Tactics
1. inspiation - information war: insurgency/terrorism - tapping in to existing conflicts - "affiliates", emulation - brand, lifestyle choice, homegrown jihadis - social networks (difficult now with surveillance), cyberterrorism/graphic immediacy
2. "Terrorism"
  1. AQ glorifies attacks on communities = guiding principle(OBL 02)
  2. Overriding norms of war - no discrimination in use of violence
    1. Suicide attacks - not distinctive till after 90s
    2. GIA fatwa in 97 - no one is neutral
    3. Non discrimination learned from secular states USSR, Russia/US, other Western Militaries
Organization and Structure: Local Vs. Global
1. Support and recruitment
  1. Who joins AQ? What is its social/ideological base of support? Is it a social movement? How does it recruit?
    1. Wiktorowicz & Kaltenthaler: focus on explaining individual behavior - spiritual incentives - rewards in the afterlife - outweigh high costs/high risk behavior
      1. Example Al Muhajiroun (UK) disbanded in 04, reformed in 09 - time, energy, sacrifice - appear to be engaged in irrational choice (against rational choice theory) because threatened self- interest (but spirituality?)
        But - more activist than terrorist - few tip in to violence - dozen of members thought to have become suicide bombers
    2. Social movement theory:jihad as a grievance redress & resources and mobilization theory
      1. Not sufficient to explain radicalization and brutality
    3. Recruits
      1. Now: Most common recruits: Students, second generation Muslims from the West (born or settled early) and converts
        Sageman: radicalization is a product of individual background, root causes/social conditions, in group dynamics (cult like group pressure, boding, rituals, importance of 'bottom up' emulation
        Sageman on networks: "leaderless jihad" - hard thing for security agencies to deal with, mutation of AQ - expanding towards growth of affiliates an migration of threat from outside to inside
        Hughes - an updated version on the 'individual' focus of psychology? little attention to communities. Is AQ embedded in communities?
        JH on Sageman - psychologist - government policy can intensify or interrupt process of radicalization but aside from standard techniques of intelligence and security operations- he has crudely taken the network concept and applied it to AQ
        CIA torture sessions with AQ suspects (evidence is hard to come by) - conclusion - AQ mostly characterized by 'physically unconnected networks
        Muslim experience of western societies - islamophobia, lack of cultural sensitivity or awareness, discrimination, profiling, surveillance, the "threat" - "enemy within paranoia"
        Threat posed to WOT by western democracy itself: security state, damage to moral core values, repetitional damage caused by torture, drones etc - securocrats out of control - failures of political leadership
        Cronin: closer to a social movement than terrorist org.
        Tarrow: Transnational contention: 1) Domestication 2) Global framing GF (frame dom. issues in broader terms than original claims dictate) 3) Transnational diffusion (spread of similar forms of action/claims across borders) 4) Externalization (dom. actors targeting ext. actors to defend interests) 5) Transnational coalition formation
        TSM - Islamist groups form from ME salafism in 70s/80s - inspired dom. movements that have given rise to terrorist cells that congealed into AQ using loose network org - nucleus around OBL but multiplied into number of autonomous groups in MENA and W. Europe - characterized by violence but ALSO ABILITY for variety of action including gaining adherents through mass media/interent
        Forms of TN diffusion: direct diffusion btwn individuals (relational) vs. indirect diffusion - new forms of contention or participation of existing forms through non-relational means (word of mouth or technology)
        Gerges: Jihad went global at a time of decline for nat. jihadi struggles; during period of demobilization, co-optation, incorporation and normalization of Islamist movements worldwide, with Islam losing appeal as counter-hegemonic mobilization in world politics
        GF: CW "created an environment favorable for dom. mobilization & civ. society opp. against US Bases - GF occur primarily on domestic grounds but have TN implications - 9/11 presented activists with GF necessary to accelerate pace of diffusion, scale shift, and brokerance and consolidation of trans. anti-base network
        Recruits choose to join - no connection to AQ leadership
        Loose connectedness pro-active policy: no logistical trails, no links for intelligence agencies to examine, recruitment will persist
        Communication: tools of globalization - media, internet, possible recruits and enemy governments: DUAL AUDIENCE - maintaining image of AQ, providing advice on operations and cell structure through "Enyclopedia of Jihad"
      2. Pre 9/11 - leadership nucleus selects 10-20% of recruits from thousands who come to Afghanistan
    4. Support
      1. Roy: "interconnectedness" - Salafis aim to 'delink' Islam from cultural contexts - agents of globalized Islam. Globalized jihad: must be understood as a combination of 'global and local anxieties' among Muslims, sometimes in tension with each other; deterritorialization' of Muslims through global migrations, dilemmas of living in secular Western societies, assimilation
        Global jihad - an individual duty to which broad causes have been reduced to abstractions - local struggles are stereotypes
        Devji - Divorced from collective solidarity and action based on common history, interests or ideas
      2. Post 9/11- Rely on unconventional methods of funding (not state based) - Islamic charities, diaspora and businesses owned by aq leaders
2. Vertical or horizontal? is it a network? AQ plus local affiliates? Has it mutated from a more recognizable form, say mass movement, to cell type to network - each poses different challenges. What kind of leadership
  1. Afghanistan
    1. Creation of a traditionalized force, asabiya
      1. Growth of AQ into a structured, organized Hierarchy of Sunni defenders Tends to be hierarchical - leadership, officer corp etc
        After afghanistan becomes more fluid, means of support changed, means of communication changed deteritorlialized, less hierarchical - bases destroyed, etc
        Death of Bin Laden 11 - but AQ doesn't end?
        Cronin: from physical to virtual organization
        Physically unconnected networks, friends and family circles, Islam terror networks (becoming more fluid and unpredictable)
        Virtual Organization: WOT changed structure (AQ of 90s no longer) - displacement of training camps with COIN tactics - diffusion; turn to internet for recruitment/publicity
        OBL death = displacement compensated by mutation of AQ from a visible, state based org into "virtual" stateless org
        No status leadership - diffuse, cell based structure, relies on common mission statement, not operations; allied with terrorist orgs with VARIOUS MOTIVES - ethno-nationalist to moderate Sunni groups such as Ilamiyah, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, Islamic movement of Uzbekistan
        Devji - Franchises - kind of business - AQ doesn't own or control all operatives but links them through training, financing, info, contacts
        Jihad is a global movement due to failure of local struggle, inability to control global landscape of operations by Poi
        Move to Saudi, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and then back to Taliban and fold in Afghanistan
        Involvement of AQ in intl. conflicts like Chechnya, Sudan (taking over nationalist movements, painting them Islamic
        Some go to West to finance/export jihad
        Hegghammer - jihadists prefer foreign fighting
        Pre 9/11: Hierarchical, International, several Western educated recruits, no women, dependence on SA/Pak for support, funding and weapon mobilization, training, military discipline, Subcontractors, social grouping, dependence on failed/collapsing states
        Cronin - Physical organization: "visible" training camps in Afghanistan, Traditional hierarchical structure, accept 10-20% of recruits
        Nucleus of AQ formed by former Muj. fighters, OBL, Zawahiri, Azzam, Al-Adel, Zawahiri- returned to Afghanistan from Sudan after victory of Taliban in 1996
3. is it an org/structure? more like network? what are demands? how does it recruit? can we even talk about "it"? - an uncoordinated disaggregated phenomenon linked to the nebulous concept of jihad and vague notions of antiwesternism? - charting networks - tentacles: old bogeyman?
Capability and Threat
1. What do we know about its military and political capability? How big a threat is it?
  1. Growth of threat - How threat perception in the 90s, intelligence failures (9/11), weak intelligence capability (arabic speakers), sanctuaries (safe havens ISI), Western policy priorities elsewhere, Dispersion of 'Arab afghans' as seeds, cultivation of homegrown/wannabees, mobilizing role of conflicts involving muslims Lack of awareness of AQ threat until E. Africa embassy bombings in 98
    1. Sangiovanni/Jones: networks have an advantage (over conventional state warfare) due to adaptability, capacity for rapid innovation/learning and wide-scale recruitment BUT prevailing pessimism of states to combat illicit networks = premature - networks have structural disadvantages
      1. Disadvantages: information limitation & communication failure (monitoring); poor decision making & risk taking; restricted scope and structural adaptability (relies on interpersonal trust); CA problems due to coordination; security breaks; learning disabilities
      2. AQ - most successful attack under OBL hierarchy? = losing cohesion, CA capacity, AQ a 'brand name'; still dangerous but NOT attributable to strength of network itself
Theory and analysis
1. How Does AQ fit within the study of political violence, insurgency and COIN, terrorism? By studying past conflicts, other forms of insurgency and terrorism and state responses we can make any plausible arguments about the challenge posed by AQ might develop, be managed successfully?
  1. Cronin: traditional COIT techniques may not applicable (AQ end will be different than past TOs
    1. Killing/capturing leader effective against hierarchical structure - AQ will not end, will deal blow to C&C, rid AQ of expertise, give moral boost to
    2. Prevent "second generation" - AQ successful in transferring message to youth - but can illuminate differences within AQ; give concessions to local groups to rid AQ of sub members
      1. Cronin: US objective must be to enlarge the movement's internal consistencies and differences, reduce popular support both active and passive
    3. Reduce public support? Bush democratization thesis failed: but can reduce ability for AQ to use internet through enhanced monitoring, capitalize on AQ means via CT multimedia response focusing on human rights
    4. Military Repression: - "can't bomb an idea" - some tactical success but evolution/fluidity makes superficial
    5. Short Term COIT Necessary but not Sufficient
      1. Cronin and others: focus on short term COIT measures - need a macro perspective exploring way debate is framed and deducing long-term strategies
      2. Framing: disagreggate the problem
        Islam as the Problem
        A Problem within Islam = radical Salafism/outer Jihad
        =Propagate Sunni counter-narrative
        Schweitzer: Solution must come from within Islam
        Rashid: Gulf states, Pakistan (wahhabism/deobandism) must stop omni-balancing using faith
        Qiyas: Authoritative voice, led by SA must cultivate traditional tenets of Islam (tolerance, protection of 'people of the book'
        Khatib: West Must promote this strategy
        Yes - Qutbism, jahiliyya, "far jihad"; radical salafism; christians and jews "unbelievers; Muslim takfiri; AQ/affiliate leaders exclusively Salafist, 30% of members hail from 12 militant Salafist Mosques (Sageman); Self-sacrifice (Schweitzer)
        No 1.2b Muslims, vast majority not violent
        US FP as Problem
        US FP counter-productive = interventionist policy, draconian COIT
        = Change US FP
        Away from unilateralism/regime change; shut down Bush symbols, WOT; Soft power (Nye); towards cyber-warfare (counter websites, monitoring)
        Yes - Invasion of Iraq/ evangelicalism/reliance on hard power/COIT/bad framing; emphasis on traditional COIT/COIN creates deep grievances, sustains AQ narrative (cycle
        No - AQ grievance not based on FP
2. Government Policy - focus on causes of radicalization from WITHIN islam and or muslim communities - rarely mention role of government policy or state behavior in causing radicalization (illegal wars, foreign occupation, support for corrupt tyrants, etc
  1. Stress importance of radicalization of the 98% support base - too much attention paid to radicalized 1-2%, lack of sophistication in thinking about, let alone managing radicalization. No clarity about what extremism is, what violent extremism is, what radicalization is, what our "core values are" what Western (illegal) foreign policy adventures do
    1. Contradictions - uk supports overthrow of syrian government, arms rebels, but crimilalizeds as "terrorists" young britishmuslims who go out to fight the syrian government - shift from 80s when jihadis were freedom fighters
AQ Intellectual Origins
1. Reaction to Westernization/modernization
  1. reaction against western control and influence despite decolonization (oil politics)
    1. Rise of Israel, humiliating defeat of 67- corrupt "modernizing" and "islamic" regimes (Saudi/Gulf states, Arab nationalists/tyrants), western "presence"/military bases and political and economic influence(oil)
  2. Ikhwan vs. Arab Secular Nationalism - Nasser repression, Sayyid Qutb, use of internment, torture, execution (culture of martyrdom) = Qutub's anti-americanism and anti-semitism
    1. Dual nature of Ikhwan - revolutionary but peaceful organizational means?
      1. State within a state - Grassroots, bottom up revolution (Da'wa and social services) moderation
        institutions - religious, social, economic,political
      2. Also militant
        Literal interpretations of Qur'an (salafism)/jihadists (note the role of Zawahiri on Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 70s - assassination of Sadatin 81
        Azzam, Zawahiri/Bin Laden in Afghanistan late 80s - AQ forms out of that
        Qutb - modern world is corrupt, needs to be transcended, Divisions between islam - Shia and Sunni- division into Salafism (Saudi origins) - ummah must return to fundamentals of prophet Mohammed(religious doctrines that emerged during first three generations of leaders after the prophet
        Paradox: AQ intellectual origins - rooted in Salafi tradition- use of oil wealth to spread this form of Islam through funding (Qutb borrows idea of a vanguard of secret organization fro of professional activists from Lenninism) - mirror of westernization
  3. Developmental problems: Backwardness, democratic youth bulge 65% of population under 25, elite-mass division, urbanization
    1. Giles Kepel: Structural and contingent dimensions
      1. Structure - 1950s new forms of authoritarianism, corruption, inequality, urbanization - Islamists mobilize as a social movement to mitigate some of the negative aspects of modernization- the challenge is to unify different social interests: urban poor, youth, pious but disgruntled middle class - intelligentsia 'thinking muslims
      2. Contingent: arab nationalism, oil crisis, rise of Sadat, peace with Israel, Iranian revolution (successful even if on wrong side- how to reconcile sharia with modernity? BUT many "leaders" from upper class
AQ Affiliates (IR461)

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AQ Epitomizes the "New Terrorism"/ Local vs. Global Jihad

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	Created by Rachel Gabriel almost 9 years ago