al-Qaeda (Arabic: الْقَاعِدَةُ, al-qāʿidah, "the base") is a global radical SunniIslamistjihadist multinational organization network that was founded around August 1988 and late 1989.p75 It works as a network, as a stateless army, and a radical SunniMuslim movement calling for global Jihad on all fronts. Most of the world thinks it is a terrorist organization.
Among al-Qaeda's goals is for other countries to stop influencing Muslim countries and for a new Islamic caliphate to be made. There have been reports that al-Qaeda believes that Christian and Jewish Islamophobia is trying to destroy Islam and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is religiously justified in jihad.
There have been guesses that there are currently 500–1,000 operatives in Afghanistan and around 5,000 worldwide. However, there is no official confirmation of this.
The group is diverse in its beliefs even though the group calls itself Salafi, it has many members who are Hanafi, Shafi`i, Maliki, Wahhabi, and Sufi as the founder and former leader of the organization Osama bin Laden was accepting of members as long as they were Muslims in his eyes. A few exceptions include followers of Shiism who curse and reject the companions of Muhammad (exceptions were made for those few who did not reject and curse the companions), and followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.
History
Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, many militant volunteers from around the Islamic and Arab world went there to assist the mujahideen forces fighting against the Soviet military after the Palestinian-born scholar and militant Abdullah Yusuf Azzam issued a fatwa encouraging jihad for the "defense of Muslim lands". One of these volunteers was Osama bin Laden who came from his home country of Saudi Arabia to assist the mujahideen in Afghanistan. He would later go on to lead his own personal militia of Arab volunteers fighting in Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda organization was officially founded in 1988 by the Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. The decision was made after Bin Laden decided to organise the Arab militant volunteers in Afghanistan to create an organization which would serve as a global "Islamic vanguard army" with Afghanistan being "the base" which is where the name al-Qaeda meaning the base in Arabic supposedly originates from. Following the organization's establishment, bin Laden began to establish training camps in eastern Afghanistan for jihadists all around the world to come and train in. These camps served as important centers where jihadists came from around the world to learn skills such as bomb-making, firearms trainings, and other things.
Following the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, bin Laden believed that the next main enemy to target should be the USA since he disagreed with many of their policies regarding the Middle East. This included the political, financial, and logistical support which they provided for the State of Israel which bin Laden believed was occupying the Islamic land of Palestine. There were other issues he had with the US also such as the stationing of American troops in his home country of Saudi Arabia which he considered the holy land of Islam in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War and he generally disliked America's policy of interference in the Islamic world which caused him great resentment towards them.
Due to this, bin Laden issued two main fatwas against the United States, one in 1996 and the second in 1998. On August 23, 1996, he issued his first fatwa against the USA which he titled "A Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". Issued from Afghanistan, this first message focused primarily on demanding the removal of U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia. On February 23, 1998 he issued the second fatwa and this explicit public ruling stated that it was the individual duty of all Muslims to kill Americans—including both military personnel and civilians—anywhere in the world.
Osama bin Laden made it clear that he did not distinguish between military targets and civilian targets as they were both legitimate to him. Bin Laden also believed that by launching attacks against the US forces and civilians, he would eventually force them to withdraw their forces from the Islamic countries in the Middle Eastern region. He believed that America alongside Israel was at the head of a global conspiracy by non-Muslims to subjugate and wipe out the Muslims and religion of Islam.
From May 1996 until after the September 11 attacks, bin Laden and his organization were based in Afghanistan where they enjoyed a safe haven provided by the Taliban under its leader Mullah Omar. He had previously been expelled from his home country Saudi Arabia in 1991 following his harsh criticism and condemnation of the ruling Saudi monarchy. During his time in Afghanistan, he and his organization al-Qaeda forged close ties with the Taliban providing them with fighters as well as financial and logistical support. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of the Taliban, was the only real "Islamic state" in the entire Muslim world and encouraged Muslims from all around the world to migrate to Afghanistan.
In June 2001, al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group, which had been associated with each other for many years, merged into 'Qaeda al-Jihad'.
"...the members of Islamic Jihad and its guiding figure Ayman al-Zawahiri have provided the backbone of [al-Qaeda's] leadership. According to officials in the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., Zawahiri has been responsible for much of the planning of the terrorist operations against the United States".
Death of Osama Bin Laden and current leadership
Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri was the highest-ranking surviving member of al-Qaeda's leadership after Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.
Death of Abu Yahya al-Libi
Senior al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in a drone strike on June 5, 2012. He ranked second to Ayman al-Zawahiri at the time. The strike was carried out in the northwest tribal area of Waziristan. The Pakistan Government has protested to the U.S. about the strike.
↑United States District Court, Southern District of New York (February 6, 2001). "Testimony of Jamal Ahmad Al-Fadl". United States v. Usama bin Laden. James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Archived from the original on 2001-12-14. Retrieved 2008-09-03.
↑Gunaratna 2002, pp.95–96. "al-Qaeda's global network, as we know it today, was created while it was based in Khartoum, from December 1991 till May 1996. To coordinate its overt and covert operations as al-Qaeda's ambitions and resources increased, it developed a decentralised, regional structure. [...] As a global multinational, al-Qaeda makes its constituent nationalities and ethnic groups, of which there are several dozen, responsible for a particular geographic region. Though its modus operandi is cellular, familial relationships play a key role." See also:
Naím, Moisés (January 2003). "The five wars of globalization". Foreign Policy (134): 28–37. doi:10.2307/3183519. JSTOR3183519.
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