Al Qaeda is a global militant Islamist organization that was created by Osama Bin Laden and a few other militant men in the late 1980s. From its beginning, Al Qaeda was dedicated to opposing non-Islamic governments with force and violence. The name translates to “the Base of Operation” (Burke 18) and has been headquartered in numerous nations including Afghanistan, Sudan, and Pakistan since the early 1990s. There is some debate about a current headquarters but most intelligence personnel think the organization operates from numerous satellite locations across the Middle East and Africa. Al-Qaeda functions like a venture capital firm. It provides funding, contacts, and advice to smaller, Islamic militant groups under its umbrella (Burke 18). …show more content…
US government suspects ties with militant terrorist organizations in the Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia, and Iraq. These relationships may be only temporary and are likely to change depending on planned attacks. Although, the exact hierarchy is unknown, Al-Qaeda has a membership roster and a structure of committees to guide and oversee the organization’s tasks. These tasks include training terrorists, proposing targets, financing operations, and issuing edicts to justify Al-Qaeda actions (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2). The “Shura” is an advisory council made up of key associates and founding members of the organization. They typically make the big decisions. Underneath the Shura are multiple committees including: the Sharia—responsible for issuing edicts purported to be grounded in Islamic Law that authorizes Al-Qaeda’s acts of terror (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2), a military committee responsible for proposing targets for attacks and managing training camps, and a finance committee that is responsible for fundraising for training camps, housing costs, living expenses, and the movement of money allocated to operations (National Commission on Terrorism Attacks 2). As mentioned before, Al-Qaeda’s disjointed and widespread structure is unique because exposure or destruction of small, autonomous cells has little effect on the organization as a whole (Zimmerman
Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by the most wanted terrorist in America, Osama Bin Laden, to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Invasion. Al Qaeda works with allied Islamic extremist groups to take over regimes it deems "non-Islamic" and remove Westerners from Muslin countries. The organization first began with three members and now there are approximately 200 to 1,000 current members. Al-Qaeda began to construct and offer training camps and guesthouses to its recruits; while they also attempted to pull in U.S. citizens for financial, communication, and operation reasons for the benefit of Al-Qaeda and its other affiliations. By 1990 Al-Qaeda was providing military and intelligence training in various areas including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Sudan.
The rise of Al Qaeda is an instrumental starting point in providing context to this discussion as the group was held responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Al Qaeda’s upcoming was accelerated after 10 years of conflict (from 1978 until 1989) in Afghanistan between the Soviets and Afghan insurgent groups. The Communist Government
Before the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda’s history is packed with mostly unsuccessful attempts to fulfill its most enduring goal: the unification of other militant Islamic groups under its strategic leadership. Osama Bin Laden’s efforts to build an “Islamic Army” began in the mid-1990s when he was based in Sudan. However, his mission failed because he had no ideology around which to build unity and attract new fighters and other terrorist organizations.
(es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda) Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that led the united states and the world a great shock, as he tries to overthrow the governments that does not conform to policy opposing Islamic law then the U.S being one of the most important and can mean one of the strongest and most influential. Tries to go against them mainly violence and killing, the conflict caused by this terrorist groups affects not only when dead brings more dead but the immense cost that make organization such as the CIA which invest about 2000 million to achieve the failure of the soviet Union instead of inve3sting all that money in other things
Al Qaeda began with the recruitment of members of the Afghan army who Osama met and perceived to be obedient and loyal. The goal of the organization was to create one unified Islamic State and to spread the jihadist cause throughout the world. Al Qaeda claimed “responsibility for killing tourists in Egypt, and in 1998 they bombed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Tanzania, killing nearly 300 people in the process” (“Osama bin Laden”). However, Osama did not expect the U.S. to have their own team of specialists. Seal Team 6 was developed as “a counterterrorist team that could operate under the utmost secrecy” (Minute Help Guides 6). Hybrids between soldier and spy, Seal Team 6 is “one of the nation’s most mythologized, most secretive
A full-scale campaign was launched, using all elements of national and international power, to go after the group Al Qaeda and its affiliates and support structures. The campaign involved rallying the international community, especially law enforcement and intelligence components, to shut down all Al Qaeda cells and financial networks. A U.S. military operation was launched in
Al Qaeda is the group that started as an Islamic Army that fought against the Soviets in
Al Qaeda, the organization that the United States is in a constant, never ending battle with, the organization that has made the most impact and changed the United States forever. Al Qaeda is always making headlines with their terrorist attacks, the most known attack September 11th, 2001. This essay is about the terrorist group Al Qaeda, its history and background, Osama bin Laden, their well-known leader, and the major attacks on America.
Before 2001, al-Qaeda, an Islamist militant organization founded by Osama bin Laden, had proven itself a security menace to both the West and the Muslim world. Achieving its height of power in 2001, the group and its Taliban allies were on the verge of taking over Afghanistan (Longest, 7). Then the group made a central mistake: It choose to wage an offensive jihad attack against the United States on American soil. For a time after 9/11, al-Qaeda appeared largely victorious from the devastation left behind of their ruthless exploit; but instead, the craven act would prove to be the beginning of the terrorist organization’s demise.
Many have wondered exactly who Al Qaeda is, how they began as group. What they believe and what locations and countries are they prominent in throughout the world? It has also been pondered why Al Qaeda choose to focus their attacks on the United States, which other groups may be affiliated with Al Qaeda
Pre-9/11 operation of al-Qaeda followed an informal, loose, horizontal structure, which comprised of many terrorist organisations and cells, as well as a more formal vertical, hierarchical structure with Bin Laden the leader and below him the consultative council of the majlis al shura. The vertical leadership structure provides the direction and tactical support to the horizontal network of compartmentalised cells and terrorist organisations associated with al-Qaeda (Gunaratna 2002: 55). Directly below the majlis al shura are the four operational committees that were dedicated to military, finance, Islamic study, and media. In this way the al-Qaeda organisation operates in a way that is reflective of how a multinational corporation would be run (Smith, 2002: 34). Hoffman (2002) has further expanded on the notion of al-Qaeda as a multinational corporation, in which he names bin Laden as being the CEO that defines the specific goal and aims of the organisation and issues orders to the different committees and appointing members of the majlis al shura to oversee and ensure their implementation. Hoffman goes on further to break down the operational styles of al-Qaeda into four different levels:
There were many failures experienced by al Qaeda. Some of these failures were caused by the leadership. However, there were also some failures that the leadership could not control.
Al Qaeda believes in this thing called “The Oppressors” Meaning “The one who oppresses others should fear Allah and beware of transgression, because it will be counted as multiples of transgressions on the Day of Resurrection: one for him disobeying Allah, another for him oppressing his fellow Muslim, and a third for initiating and opening the gate of transgression and oppression for others to imitate. The wronged person could even eventually die as a result of the oppression, and the transgressor would bear the consequences of this.” (IslamWeb, Apr 2013, Ph.1) Al Qaeda basically believes if you are not with them, then you are against them meaning you support the oppressor. Al Qaeda has been and always will continue to attempt to create a revolution of the uprising of the oppressed through the masses of messages and threats. Religion is Al Qaeda’s main go to for any reasoning behind their violence. Goals and Objectives always seem to be based on the currently leader of Al Qaeda. Like mentioned previously, Osama Bin Laden was Al Qaeda’s last known leader and he was killed on May 22, 2011 in Pakistan. After being a huge wanted target for the United States of America for nearly a decade long, it has almost been about 5 years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated him during a night-raid on a compound in Pakistan. “President Barack Obama, who monitored the raid in real
There are several terrorist groups throughout the world today. All the terrorist groups have one common goal and that is to rid the world of Americans and western influence from the Muslim world. There is one organization that has ties to most of all the terrorist groups in the world and is the most infamous group in the world today and that is the group called Al-Qaeda The word Al-Qaeda means “the base” in Muslim. As an international terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. The group seeks to rid Muslim countries of western influence and replace them with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Al-Qaeda grew out of the of the ashes of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1988, after it helped expel the Soviet
453). A prime example of an Islamic Fundamentalist movement is al-Qaeda which was a new militant Islamic group when it emerged in 1988. It followed on from the spread of strong religious beliefs and codes that was common in Africa and the Middle- East (Garner, Ferdinand and Lawson, 2007, p. 150). Al-Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, its goal when established was to spread the word of God and to make his religion to most triumphant religion of all. A main characteristic of Islamic Fundamentalism is to create a theocracy which is a regime based on religious principles (Garner, Ferdinand and Lawson, 2007, p. 150). Al-Qaeda is most known for its attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the USA in 2001, whom they openly claimed responsibility for and motivated the USA's war on terror (Goodwin, 2007, p. 432).