The origins of al Qaeda's ideology: implications for US strategy

Parameters, Spring, 2005 by Christopher Henzel

Al Qaeda Strategy Today

Zawahiri remains Bin Laden's deputy as leader of al Qaeda, and the Egyptian doctor's writings provide the best insight into the terrorist organization's current strategic thinking. In his 2001 book Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, Zawahiri identifies and prioritizes the goals of what he calls the "the revolutionary fundamentalist movement": first, achievement of ideological coherence and organization, then struggle against the existing regimes of the Muslim world, followed by the establishment of a "genuinely" Muslim state "at the heart of Arab world." (19) Zawahiri views the current stage of the jihad as one of worldwide, revolutionary struggle, to be waged by means of violence, political action, and propaganda against the secular Muslim regimes and secularized Muslim elites. (20) Zawahiri argues that because the terrain in the key Arab countries is not suitable for guerilla war, Islamists need to conduct political action among the masses, combined with an urban terrorist campaign against the secular regimes, supplemented with attacks on "the external enemy"--i.e., the United States and Israel--as a means of propaganda that will strengthen the jihad's popular support.

Zawahiri wants his Salafist readers to keep in mind that the Arab establishments are the real targets, even if "confining the battle to the domestic enemy ... will not be feasible in this stage of the battle." (21) Highly visible attacks against external enemies, and the inevitable retaliation, Zawahiri explains, will rally ordinary Muslims to the radicals' cause, strengthening the main struggle, the one against the current regimes of the Muslim world. As Zawahiri writes in Knights:

   The jihad movement must ... make room for the Muslim nation to
   participate with it in the jihad for the sake of empowerment. The
   Muslim nation will not participate with [the jihad movement] unless
   the slogans of the mujahidin are understood by the masses.... The
   one slogan that has been well understood by the nation and to which
   it has been responding for the past 50 years is the call for jihad
   against Israel. In addition to this slogan, the [Muslim] nation in
   [the 1990s] is geared against the US presence. [The Muslim nation]
   has responded favorably to the call for the jihad against the
   Americans.... [T]he jihad movement moved to the center of the
   leadership of the [Muslim] nation when it adopted the slogan of
   liberating the nation from its external enemies.... [Striking at
   the United States would force the Americans to] personally wage the
   battle against the Muslims, which means that the battle will turn
   into a clear-cut jihad against infidels. (22)

This passage shows that the revolutionary Salafists do not expect to actually defeat America or its allies (whatever al Qaeda propaganda may claim). Instead, spectacular terrorist attacks are a means toward the end of changing the character of the conflict, changing it from a campaign waged by a small faction of extremists against the regimes of Muslim world, into "a clear-cut jihad against infidels," which would, the Salafists hope, attract wide support among the Muslim masses. (23)