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– AL QAEDA

Published March 1, 2007

 

A – The Seeds.

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In the last years of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union ( Russia ) in 08/1988 Osama Bin Laden , a son of a Saudi wealthy family, the Palestinian Dr’ Abdullah Azzam, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim and Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri established an organization, Maktab al-khidamat , to help Arab volunteers. The purpose was to facilitate travel to the war in Afghanistan, to take care of their needs and to give them a shelter and a place to rest between the battles, a base – in Arabic Al-Qaeda .  After the war in 1989 Osama Bin Laden went back home to Saudi Arabia, Dr’ Abdullah Azzam was killed in a mysterious explosion near Peshawar, Pakistan and Al-Qaeda ceased to exist.  

 

B – The Incubation.

Before and during the first Gulf War in January 1991 against Iraq Osama bin Laden sharply criticized the Saudi authority for permitting USA troops to use the holy Muslim country, Saudi Arabia, as their bases, to fight other Muslims in Iraq. Osama bin Laden instead offered his Afghan veterans to lunch a guerrilla campaign against the Iraqi Army in Kuwait.  Under the Saudi authority pressure Osama bin Laden moved in 1991 to Khartoum, Sudan.

In Sudan Osama bin Laden did millions as a contractor working with the government of Sudan but his main occupation was to build from the foundation a new Al  Qaeda as an international Muslim terror network.

In Sudan Osama Bin Laden met hundreds of delegations from all over the Muslim world, Afghan war veterans, EGYPTIAN Islamic Jihad fleeing from Egypt and other frustrated Muslim. Osama bin Laden renewed his contacts from Afghanistan specially with figures like Ayman Al Zawahiri or Mohammed Atef .

During his time in Sudan Osama bin Laden managed to deploy a world wide network of thousands devoted Muslims – the infrastructure of Al-Qaeda. A network that detected young frustrated Muslims in the Mosques all over the world, recruited them to the Global  Jihad, transported them from all over the world, trained them, provided them with documents and assigned them to deadly terror missions. At that period of time Al-Qaeda did not commit yet any terror attack.

On 06/25/1996 an USA military compound, the Khobar Towers , near Dahran in east Saudi Arabia, was attacked with truck bomb by a group affiliated to Hizbullah in Lebanon that even called itself Hizballah Al Hijaz. Osama bin Laden hurried to praise the event and in 09/02/1996 issued a public declaration of war in the ‘ Al Islam ‘ newspaper in London, of Jihad against the United States military in the Middle East, and against USA collaborators – the Saudi Arabian regime.

 Under the pressure of Saudi Arabia and USA Osama bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan and in the end of 1996 he left Sudan in a well planned and executed operation with all his staff and family members to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, under the sponsorship of the Taliban and in fact the Pakistani Military Intelligence – ISI . The time for action began. 

 

C- The Activity.  

In 1996 the civil war in Afghanistan between the fractions that fought the Soviets was in its’ peak. Osama Bin Laden helped the Taliban with money and with the support of the Pakistani Military intelligence – ISI the Taliban took control of 80% of the country by the end 0f 1998. As a reward Osama bin Laden got permission to open his own four training camps in eastern Afghanistan.

 

 

      1.       Al Farook, near Kandahar, in southeast Afghanistan. 
      2.       Khalden camp, about 75 km south to the Capital Kabul.

      3.       Dernuta near Jalalabad east to Kabul 

      4.       Tarnak farm north of Kandahar. 

  

 The Al-Qaeda network, already established in Sudan, began to work in full gear. Thousands of volunteers came for training and briefing in the camps under the full protection of the Taliban regime and the supervision of ISI.  From thousands ” Mujahidin ” – Islamic warriors, hundreds went back to the Western World.

 On 02/23/1998 Osama bin Laden and his deputee Ayman al Zawahiri, along with Rifaai Taha,  Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Sheikh Mir Hamza, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan, issued a Fatwah (an Islamic religious statement) under the title ” The World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders ” through the Al Quds Al Arabi news paper in London. The Fatwah was a war declaration against the West, the Jews and against all those who fight true Muslims in the world.  The Fatwah became the Al-Qaeda manifest.

 Al-Qaeda, as a hierarchic organization, carry out a limited number of attacks but each one of them very painful and very effective to create an atmosphere of panic and fear all over the world.


  1. The attack on USA embassy in Kenya and Tanzania on 08/07/1998.
  2. The suicide attack on USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen on the 10/12/2000.
  3. The 9/11 suicide attack on USA 09/11/2001.
  4. The failed attack on flight 63 by Richard Reid on 12/22/2001.
  5. The suicide attack on Jerba Attack in Tunisia on 04/11/2002 .
  6. The suicide Limburg Attack in the port of Aden, Yemen, on the 10/06/2002.
  7. The Bali ‘02 Bombings suicide attack in  Indonesia on 10/12/2002 .
  8. The suicide attack on an ISRAELIi hotel and aircraft in Mombasa Paradise, Kenya, on 11/28/2002
  9. The Riyadh Suicide Attacks in Saudi Arabia on 05/12/2003.
All other Muslim terror attacks were inspired by the idea of Al-Qaeda and implemented by local Islamic organizations. Some times they were connected indirectly to Al-Qaeda.

 After The 9/11 the USA invaded Afghanistan in Operation “Absolute Justice” on 11/2001. Senior operatives of Al-Qaeda were killed or captured, others were on the run.    Security services began to hunt, arrest and dismantle Al-Qaeda cells in the West, based on the information found in Al-Qaedas’ camps in Afghanistan. Although Osama bin Laden and his deputee Ayman al Zawahiri managed to escape, Al-Qaeda as a hierarchic organization ceased to exist and became an Idea and an inspiration to the next stage in the Global  Jihad.

 D- Epilogue 

 Today (07/2007) Al-Qaeda is an idea, a trade mark and, at the same time, reconsolidates in the FATA tribal region, on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a long lasting influence and inspiration for the Global  Jihad. Al-Qaeda has expanding ties to the war in Iraq against USA. 

 Osama Bin Laden broadcasts, rarely, an audiotape or a low quality videotape . Ayman Al Zawahiri, much more frequently, is referring to actual events by well edited videotapes broadcasted every few weeks, which indicate that he is now the active head of Al-Qaeda. 

 The most active, influential and operational tool of Al-Qaeda in the recent years became the As-Sahab media branch, used to distribute the organization’s point of views, to promote the Global-Jihad, to encourage young Muslims to identify themselves with the cause, to communicate with them and to glorify Al-Qaeda.  

 A new generation of leaders in the Global-Jihad all over the world praise themselves as Al-Qaeda – such as Abu Musab al Zarqawi (killed 06/07/2006) in Iraq, the Amir (commander) of Al-Qaeda in Iraq  or Abu Musab Abdul-Wadud, the founder of MAGHREB al-Qaeda – Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM.

 A new future Al-Qaeda  style network – is now (07/2007) immerging and consolidating in the Iraq War. That new Al-Qaeda  will be one of the major worries for the Western Democracies in the next decade. The word “Al-Qaeda” become the common synonym to Global Jihad .

* Related topics –
–

2006 – STATUS  REPORT
 2008 – NATURE OF ISLAMIC TERROR CHANGES
 PROFILE – NIZAMUDDIN SHAMZAI 

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