What is Al Qaeda?

As our mid-terms seem to have shattered any thought of American cohesiveness any time soon, our enemies are smiling, but one of those enemies is too often a phrase not well-understood by most voters. To many Americans, al Qaeda (Arabic for “the base”), is an undefined but highly organized group of Islamic terrorists, led by the elusive Osama bin Laden, that are in every Middle Eastern country with sleeper cells and terrorist sympathizers everywhere. With touches in this description being true indeed, the organization is vastly more complex and has ties to a very traditional – and Sunni – view of an Islamic government, applying Muslim Sharia law, crossing all Muslim nations and very much free of any Western influences. While the organization is “stateless” and multinational, it does not embrace all Muslims. Notwithstanding a brief attempt by Iran – which is a Shiite nation – to effect an entente with Sunni al Qaeda, al Qaeda remains squarely in the Sunni camp. Al Qaeda is waging a holy war – a jihad – to force its goals on the entire Islamic world and to battle its clearly defined Western enemies – primarily the U.S. and Israel and any Western nation that is seen as aiding these countries or hurting Islam.

Israel is seen as occupiers of Muslim lands and sacrilegious holders of some of Islam’s most holy sites. The U.S. is viewed as an oil-hungry supporter of corrupt local political leaders, the bastion of military and financial support that allow Israel to survive, and a nation willing to send its troops into battle in regions where al Qaeda thinks no Western foot should tread. Since al Qaeda is actually an affiliation of many local terrorist groups with loose coordination from bin Laden and two or three dozen of his cronies, it has been hard to pinpoint exactly what that organization is and what impact Western efforts have had in tracking down and eliminating much of the organization’s leadership. Indeed, aside from propaganda efforts and some central coordination, there is a view that control of al Qaeda’s operations has returned back primarily to local and regional control.

Wikipedia knocks down this description of al Qaeda’s highest leadership: “Osama bin Laden is the emir and was the Senior Operations Chief of al-Qaeda ... As of August 6, 2010, the chief of operations was considered to be Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah, replacing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... Bin Laden is advised by a Shura Council, which consists of senior al-Qaeda members, estimated by Western officials at about 20-30 people. Ayman al-Zawahiri is al-Qaeda's Deputy Operations Chief; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, but his safehouse was hit by U.S. missiles in a targeted killing, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri may have succeeded him.” Begun sometime at the end of the 1980s, al Qaeda’s organization has ebbed and flowed with suppression efforts by the West and regional leaders fearful of regime change and pushback from local Islamists with their own power agendas.

Al Qaeda envisions a world in which a massive caliphate is created to govern the Islamic world and protect Muslim values from the evil influences of the West. Wikipedia describes the organization’s operational goals: Al-Qaeda's network was built from scratch as a conspiratorial network that draws on leaders of all its regional nodes "as and when necessary to serve as an integral part of its high command."

• The Military Committee is responsible for training operatives, acquiring weapons, and planning attacks.
• The Money/Business Committee funds the recruitment and training of operatives through the hawala banking system. U.S-led efforts to eradicate the sources of terrorist financing were most successful in the year immediately following September 11; al-Qaeda continues to operate through unregulated banks, such as the 1,000 or so hawaladars in Pakistan, some of which can handle deals of up to $10 million. It also provides air tickets and false passports, pays al-Qaeda members, and oversees profit-driven businesses. In The 9/11 Commission Report, it was estimated that al-Qaeda required $30 million-per-year to conduct its operations.
• The Law Committee reviews Islamic law, and decides whether particular courses of action conform to the law.
• The Islamic Study/Fatwah Committee issues religious edicts, such as an edict in 1998 telling Muslims to kill Americans.
• In the late 1990s there was a publicly known Media Committee, which ran the now-defunct newspaper Nashrat al Akhbar (Newscast) and handled public relations.
• In 2005, al-Qaeda formed As-Sahab, a media production house, to supply its video and audio materials.

The problem of isolating what is or is not “al Qaeda” is complicated by local governments’ blaming al Qaeda for just about anything that goes wrong while in some cases actually employing (paying) terrorists to implement secret government policies and conduct profoundly questionable “black ops” against political opponents. As bombs headed for the United States and other Western nations have been sent from Yemen and attributed to al Qaeda (which known local al Qaeda sources readily admit was that organization’s doing), local Yemenis are prone to roll their eyes at what they consider to be the “myth” of al Qaeda. This only makes tracking down the network of perpetrators that much more difficult.

Indeed, the government is known for blaming just about anything that goes wrong in this impoverished and faction-torn nation on al Qaeda and its sympathizers, like the killing of 70 police and military personnel in recent weeks. The November 3^rd New York Times explains: “But many Yemenis seem doubtful that Al Qaeda was guilty in all or even most of those killings, which took place in the same southern parts of the country where a secessionist movement has been growing for the past three years… In a sense, there are two narratives about Al Qaeda in Yemen. One of them, presented by both the Yemeni government and Al Qaeda’s Internet postings — and echoed in the West — portrays a black-and-white struggle between the groups. The other narrative is the view from the ground in Yemen: a confusing welter of attacks by armed groups with shifting loyalties, some fighting under political or religious banners, some merely looking for money.

“The Yemeni authorities have long paid tribal leaders to fight domestic enemies, or even other tribes that were causing trouble for the government. That policy has helped foster a culture of blackmail: some tribal figures promote violence, whether through jihadists or mere criminals, and then offer to quell it in exchange for cash… Yemen’s tribes are often cast as the chief obstacle in the fight against Al Qaeda, sheltering the militants because of tribal hospitality or even ideological kinship. In fact, few tribal leaders have any sympathy for the group, and some tribes have forced Qaeda members to leave their areas in the past year.”

Al Qaeda has felt the wrath of our military, the explosive power of our drones sent on missions to eliminate the leaders, but they are also very gratified at America’s massive financial, personnel and credibility losses in Iraq, a country where the recent and steady stream of bombings (mostly in Baghdad) suggests that this “nation” is rapidly unraveling, and America’s seeming inability to create a sustainable foothold in Afghanistan while supporting one of the most corrupt regimes on earth. Our military and foreign policy missteps have served them well, even as our rain of bullets and missiles have decimated the ranks of their leadership and forced them into very deep cover.

But one confluence of the conservative backlash and desire to trim government quickly manifest in the mid-terms could indeed be implemented, ironically given the conservative elements that moved us into Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place, by pulling the U.S. out of the un-winnable war in Afghanistan and removing most of the remaining “support” troops in Iraq. Let’s see if there is indeed a willingness to reduce government in these arenas while maintaining a greater set of intelligence and clandestine military operations focused on crushing al Qaeda influence wherever it may be. We need to stop providing footage for al Qaeda’s militant recruiting efforts worldwide.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are many balls juggling in the air that we must constantly watch… and understand.