al-Qaeda: From Global Network to Local Franchise

158 Pages·2011·1.4 MB·English

by  Christina Hellmich

R
EBELS
REBELS is an exciting and innovative new series looking at contemporary rebel
groups and their place in global politics. Written by leading experts, and
published in conjunction with the Department of Peace Studies at the University
of Bradford, the books serve as definitive introductions to the individual
organizations, whilst seeking to place them within a broader geographical and
political framework. They examine the origins, ideology and future direction of
each group, whilst posting such questions as ‘When does a “rebel” political
movement become a “terrorist” organization?’ and ‘What are the social-
economic drivers behind political violence?’ Provocative and original, the series
is essential reading for anyone interested in how rebel groups operate today.
The Department of Peace Studies is a world-class centre which since 1973 has
developed a unique interdisciplinary research culture. Its mission is to engage in
empirical, theoretical and applied research in order to prevent and resolve
conflicts and develop peaceful societies; and to provide an enabling environment
for international research excellence involving diverse and critical approaches.
The editors of Rebels are Nana K. Poku and Anna Mdee. already published
ALREADY PUBLISHED
Alex Khasnabish, Zapatistas: Rebellion from the Grassroots to the Global Garry
Leech, The FARC: The Longest Insurgency FORTHCOMING
Ram Manikkalingam, Tamil Tigers: Dialogue, Terrorism and Nationalism
About the Author
CHRISTINA HELLMICH is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of
Reading, UK, and co-author of Knowing Al-Qaeda: The Epistemology of
Terrorism (2011).
AL-QAEDA
From Global Network to Local Franchise
CHRISTINA HELLMICH
Al-Qaeda: From Global Network to Local Franchise was first published in 2011 by Zed Books Ltd, 7
Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
Copyright © Christina Hellmich 2011
The right of Christina Hellmich to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
Designed and typeset in 11 on 14 Monotype Bulmer by illuminati, Grosmont, www.illuminatibooks.co.uk
Index: Rohan Bolton, [email protected] Cover designed by www.alice-marwick.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the
prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in
Publication Data available
ISBN 978 1 84813 911 4 (Zed Books)
Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ONE 9/11 and the anxious search for answers
TWO What is al-Qaeda? From Afghanistan to 9/11
THREE Hypocrites, Wahhabis and Salafi jihadis: post-9/11 explanations of al-Qaeda’s
ideology
FOUR Reclaiming the umma: the ideology of al-Qaeda in the context of the pan-
Islamic tradition
FIVE Al-Qaeda post-9/11: destroyed, weakened or re-emergent?
SIX The future of al-Qaeda

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of countless conversations about al-Qaeda and the
generous support of the Leverhulme Trust through the University of Reading’s
Liberal Way of War Programme. The former forced me to make sense of
conflicting narratives; the latter enabled me to commit my thoughts to paper. It is
due to Andreas Behnke that I ended the search for the ‘truth’ and began to
appreciate the value of ‘yet another story’ – even the ‘bad’ ones. I am indebted to
James Piscatori, Nelly Lahoud and Ali Parchami for our ongoing discussion of
Muslim politics, their detailed comments on draft chapters (often at short notice)
and for being living proof that metrics fall short of measuring ‘impact’ in a
meaningful manner. My proofreader extraordinaire, Jeremy Legg, and my editor
at Zed, Ken Barlow, went out of their way to keep me focused during the busiest
times. My husband Andrew made sure I remain grounded in reality: ‘Al-Qaeda,
one might conclude, has much in common with cardiac tumours: the associated
symptoms are undeniable proof of their existence, even if we cannot see them.’
O
NE
9/11 and the anxious search for answers
On 23 February 1998, Osama bin Ladin and his associates issued a religious
ruling (fatwa) that called on every Muslim to kill Americans, both civilians and
military personnel, in every country in which it was possible to do so, in order to
liberate al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Mosque and to drive the US armies out of
all the lands of Islam, to the point where they would be defeated and unable to
threaten any Muslim. Three and a half years later, on the morning of 11
September 2001, al-Qaeda demonstrated the magnitude of its threat and the
sophistication of its methods by organizing and perpetrating the world’s greatest
terrorist outrage: for the first time in history, transnational teams, united in their
belief that they were defending Islam, hijacked four planes to use as flying
suicide bombs. Two were directed into the iconic Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center, New York, one into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed outside
Pittsburgh after its passengers attempted to regain control of the plane. What
happened next is, as they say, history.
Al-Qaeda, the first global terrorist group of the twenty-first century, embodies
the enigmatic new face of global terrorism. Since perpetrating the most
destructive act of terrorism to date on 11 September 2001, it has dominated
discussion of national and international security in the media as well as in
academic and policymaking circles. Who would do such a thing, and why? Ten
years into the global war against terrorism, one would expect to find clear
answers to these basic, though critically important, questions. Yet, despite the
fact that few issues have generated more substantial debate than the task of
explaining the rationale and appeal of spectacular mass murder in the name of
Islam, speculation about the strength and extent of the group continues to run
rife. Bewildering descriptions – eagerly seized upon and broadcast by the mass
media – of a shadowy network and undercover terrorist cells, televised reports of
new arrests of suspected terrorists and urgent warnings of imminent dangers
continue to create alarm but bring little by way of clarity, whilst heightened
security threat levels and hitherto unheard-of restrictions endured by the
travelling public have become an accepted feature of life in the post-9/11 world.
That the threat of so-called ‘Islamic’ terrorism dominates the collective
consciousness of the Western world is plain to see: a quick Internet search of the
term ‘al-Qaeda’ on Google generates over 12 million links to articles, interviews,
books and commentaries in a wide variety of languages. Yet a closer look at the
extant literature on the subject generates more questions than answers. Is al-
Qaeda a rigidly structured organization, a global network of semi-independent
cells, a franchise, or simply an idea whose time has come? Was Osama bin Ladin
an engineer, a business-school graduate, a playboy or a university dropout? What
is meant by talk of the ‘global Salafi jihad’ that is confronting the West? On
closer examination, ‘facts’ about the nature of the terrorist group which
permanently branded its name into the Manhattan skyline begin to sink all too
quickly in a proverbial sea of assertions and unsubstantiated truth claims.
Why is this so? How can a subject of such importance be so riven by
uncertainties? A first attempt to explain the ambiguity surrounding the most
notorious terrorist organization to date necessarily begins with a closer look at
the state of the information that was available prior to September 11 and the
rapid development of the literature that followed immediately thereafter. In the
1990s, only a handful of people were conducting research on what was to
become one of the most widely discussed security issues in the years ahead. As
surprising as it may seem with the benefit of hindsight, the spectacular
destruction of the Twin Towers against a bright blue September sky took the
Western world by surprise: terrorism experts, security specialists and academics
alike had failed to predict an attack of such magnitude.1 As Magnus Ranstorp
aptly pointed out in his extensive review of the terrorism studies literature, ‘there
was extraordinarily limited research on al-Qaeda related topics before 11
September 2001.’2
Naturally, then, the events of September 11, at once the most spectacular case
of propaganda ever carried out, instantly launched a rollercoaster of uncertainty,
fear and speculation as the most obvious and pressing of questions begged to be
answered: Who would do such a thing and why? Meaningful answers, however,
were nowhere to be found. Indeed, a striking feature of the early days following
the attacks was the circulation and recirculation of spectacular images of
destruction that engrained the reality of what had literally come out of the blue
into the consciousness of all those who could not escape the reach of the media.