Al-Qaeda’s biggest weakness is its propensity to kill indiscriminately
Jul 17th 2008
THE mangonel was the big gun of antiquity. But this siege engine, used to catapult rocks, burning objects or dead animals into fortified cities, troubled Islamic scholars. Some early authorities disallowed it on the ground that it was an indiscriminate weapon.
From the Crusades onwards it met with greater approval. Ibn al-Nahhas al-Dumyati, a classical writer on jihad who fought the Crusaders, ruled that mangonels could be used against the enemy “even if there are women and children among them, even if there are Muslim prisoners, merchants or those who have been granted safe conduct”.
Such opinions are cited today in religious rulings defending the September 11th attacks or arguing that weapons of mass destruction may be used against America. But Jihadists of al-Qaeda’s sort disregard long-standing injunctions against wanton slaughter. Worse, they claim the right to declare takfir, or apostasy among Muslims. When combined with a puritanical religious practice known as salafism—imitating the earliest Muslims, known as the salaf, and treating later Islamic practices with contempt—this creates an especially violent and intolerant kind of Muslim.
Salafi-takfiri jihadists cannot build political alliances; they regard even Hamas and Hizbullah, Israel’s main foes, as corrupted by politics. And once they start to spill blood, they become ever more indiscriminate: first they attack the “apostate” rulers or their foreign backers, then the ministers, then the security forces, then the civil servants, then anybody who objects to the violence, and so on. Those who recoil at the carnage, or object to the religious strictures imposed at gunpoint, are treated as apostates. At some point, though, local populations turn against their supposed champions.
This cycle of escalation and rejection was demonstrated in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and, most recently, Iraq. Peter Bergen, the author of several books on Osama bin Laden, suggests that al-Qaeda, in turn, is starting to unravel. “Self-destruction is encoded in the DNA of groups like al-Qaeda,” he says.
A Pew Global Attitudes survey last year found that support for Mr bin Laden and suicide-bombings had dropped across a number of Muslim countries. More importantly, even radical ideologues have become critical. Salman al-Oadah, a Saudi sheikh once jailed by the Saudi authorities and admired by Mr bin Laden, last year made a televised appeal for the al-Qaeda leader to change his violent ways.
Another blow was delivered from an Egyptian jail by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, better known as Dr Fadl, one of al-Qaeda’s founders in 1988 and a former leader of Mr Zawahiri’s movement, al-Jihad. He had developed much of al-Qaeda’s ideology, but at the end of last year he came up with a sweeping revision. “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property,” he wrote.
Jihad had to be authorised by a qualified imam or sheikh, he said, not the “heroes of the internet”. He approved of jihad in Afghanistan and had mixed feelings about Iraq. But the September 11th attacks, he thought, were “a catastrophe for Muslims…What good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings and he destroys one of your countries?”
Perhaps in response to such criticism, al-Qaeda’s propaganda has gone into overdrive. Mr Zawahiri wrote a rebuttal of nearly 200 pages accusing Dr Fadl of seeking American-style “Islam without jihad”. The reclusive Mr bin Laden has become more active, delivering four audio speeches this year, mostly on the crowd-pleasing theme of Palestine.
Al-Qaeda may have thought that, by goading America into invading Muslim lands, it would engineer a popular jihad against the “far” enemy. In part it succeeded. But it also discovered that fighting in Muslim lands means having to deal with a growing number of “near” enemies, be they fragile new governments, rival religious sects or tribes that have become fed up with the extremists.
Do al-Qaeda’s setbacks answer Donald Rumsfeld’s question about whether America is winning or losing the “war on terror”? Not really. The best that can be said is that America has stopped losing but is not yet winning it.
The idea lives on
Al-Qaeda is both an organisation and an idea. As an organisation it is weaker than it was when it had the run of Afghanistan, but stronger than it was immediately after the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. The loss of senior figures, the hardening of international borders and better intelligence co-operation across the world have helped to contain it. But it may yet enjoy a resurgence if Pakistan’s new government gives up trying to control the country’s tribal belt.
What of al-Qaeda as an idea? Some argue that its support base nowadays is less of an ideological movement and more of a youth cult, based on anger and the desire to emulate the fighters on internet video clips. Perhaps so. It is ideology, however, that convinces young Muslim men in northern England to define themselves as Muslim rather than British, and that drives Muslims to blow themselves up in the name of God.
The backlash, particularly from former supporters, is hurting the global jihadists. But it is unlikely to put an end to their violence for the foreseeable future. Jihadists will dismiss criticism as the product of coercion or selling out to local rulers.
Al-Qaeda was never going to be a mass movement. It takes only a small cadre of dedicated terrorists to wreak havoc, particularly if havens are available. In any case, Mr bin Laden retains a sizeable core of support in several countries, and Western mistakes could easily boost that.
Perhaps the more important opinion polls are those that gauge America’s (un)popularity. The Pew survey, for instance, found that America’s standing in the Muslim world was “abysmal”; in Pakistan it was much lower than Mr bin Laden’s (see chart 3). America’s overt military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan may be necessary to avoid a vacuum, but it will feed Muslims’ sense of grievance and encourage violent extremists.
Al-Qaeda will not be defeated by America but rather by governments in the Muslim world that manage to extend their writ across its lawless areas. This will take time, Western assistance and much diplomatic skill. Until then the West will have to co-operate with other countries (sometimes holding its nose) to contain the threat—and hope that the jihadists continue to wreck their own cause
Jul 17th 2008
THE mangonel was the big gun of antiquity. But this siege engine, used to catapult rocks, burning objects or dead animals into fortified cities, troubled Islamic scholars. Some early authorities disallowed it on the ground that it was an indiscriminate weapon.
From the Crusades onwards it met with greater approval. Ibn al-Nahhas al-Dumyati, a classical writer on jihad who fought the Crusaders, ruled that mangonels could be used against the enemy “even if there are women and children among them, even if there are Muslim prisoners, merchants or those who have been granted safe conduct”.
Such opinions are cited today in religious rulings defending the September 11th attacks or arguing that weapons of mass destruction may be used against America. But Jihadists of al-Qaeda’s sort disregard long-standing injunctions against wanton slaughter. Worse, they claim the right to declare takfir, or apostasy among Muslims. When combined with a puritanical religious practice known as salafism—imitating the earliest Muslims, known as the salaf, and treating later Islamic practices with contempt—this creates an especially violent and intolerant kind of Muslim.
Salafi-takfiri jihadists cannot build political alliances; they regard even Hamas and Hizbullah, Israel’s main foes, as corrupted by politics. And once they start to spill blood, they become ever more indiscriminate: first they attack the “apostate” rulers or their foreign backers, then the ministers, then the security forces, then the civil servants, then anybody who objects to the violence, and so on. Those who recoil at the carnage, or object to the religious strictures imposed at gunpoint, are treated as apostates. At some point, though, local populations turn against their supposed champions.
This cycle of escalation and rejection was demonstrated in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and, most recently, Iraq. Peter Bergen, the author of several books on Osama bin Laden, suggests that al-Qaeda, in turn, is starting to unravel. “Self-destruction is encoded in the DNA of groups like al-Qaeda,” he says.
A Pew Global Attitudes survey last year found that support for Mr bin Laden and suicide-bombings had dropped across a number of Muslim countries. More importantly, even radical ideologues have become critical. Salman al-Oadah, a Saudi sheikh once jailed by the Saudi authorities and admired by Mr bin Laden, last year made a televised appeal for the al-Qaeda leader to change his violent ways.
Another blow was delivered from an Egyptian jail by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, better known as Dr Fadl, one of al-Qaeda’s founders in 1988 and a former leader of Mr Zawahiri’s movement, al-Jihad. He had developed much of al-Qaeda’s ideology, but at the end of last year he came up with a sweeping revision. “There is nothing that invokes the anger of God and His wrath like the unwarranted spilling of blood and wrecking of property,” he wrote.
Jihad had to be authorised by a qualified imam or sheikh, he said, not the “heroes of the internet”. He approved of jihad in Afghanistan and had mixed feelings about Iraq. But the September 11th attacks, he thought, were “a catastrophe for Muslims…What good is it if you destroy one of your enemy’s buildings and he destroys one of your countries?”
Perhaps in response to such criticism, al-Qaeda’s propaganda has gone into overdrive. Mr Zawahiri wrote a rebuttal of nearly 200 pages accusing Dr Fadl of seeking American-style “Islam without jihad”. The reclusive Mr bin Laden has become more active, delivering four audio speeches this year, mostly on the crowd-pleasing theme of Palestine.
Al-Qaeda may have thought that, by goading America into invading Muslim lands, it would engineer a popular jihad against the “far” enemy. In part it succeeded. But it also discovered that fighting in Muslim lands means having to deal with a growing number of “near” enemies, be they fragile new governments, rival religious sects or tribes that have become fed up with the extremists.
Do al-Qaeda’s setbacks answer Donald Rumsfeld’s question about whether America is winning or losing the “war on terror”? Not really. The best that can be said is that America has stopped losing but is not yet winning it.
The idea lives on
Al-Qaeda is both an organisation and an idea. As an organisation it is weaker than it was when it had the run of Afghanistan, but stronger than it was immediately after the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. The loss of senior figures, the hardening of international borders and better intelligence co-operation across the world have helped to contain it. But it may yet enjoy a resurgence if Pakistan’s new government gives up trying to control the country’s tribal belt.
What of al-Qaeda as an idea? Some argue that its support base nowadays is less of an ideological movement and more of a youth cult, based on anger and the desire to emulate the fighters on internet video clips. Perhaps so. It is ideology, however, that convinces young Muslim men in northern England to define themselves as Muslim rather than British, and that drives Muslims to blow themselves up in the name of God.
The backlash, particularly from former supporters, is hurting the global jihadists. But it is unlikely to put an end to their violence for the foreseeable future. Jihadists will dismiss criticism as the product of coercion or selling out to local rulers.
Al-Qaeda was never going to be a mass movement. It takes only a small cadre of dedicated terrorists to wreak havoc, particularly if havens are available. In any case, Mr bin Laden retains a sizeable core of support in several countries, and Western mistakes could easily boost that.
Perhaps the more important opinion polls are those that gauge America’s (un)popularity. The Pew survey, for instance, found that America’s standing in the Muslim world was “abysmal”; in Pakistan it was much lower than Mr bin Laden’s (see chart 3). America’s overt military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan may be necessary to avoid a vacuum, but it will feed Muslims’ sense of grievance and encourage violent extremists.
Al-Qaeda will not be defeated by America but rather by governments in the Muslim world that manage to extend their writ across its lawless areas. This will take time, Western assistance and much diplomatic skill. Until then the West will have to co-operate with other countries (sometimes holding its nose) to contain the threat—and hope that the jihadists continue to wreck their own cause
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