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Al Qaeda (Organisation of Al Qaeda Network (The Network consists of…
Al Qaeda
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AQ in Iraq
Aims
At the beginning of Saddam's regime in 1979, Iraq was one of the richest and most developed country's in the region.
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The Iraqis originally welcomed the American's in 1990 as they toppled statues of Saddam Hussein and they believed the American's would be able to topple him but he remained in power for 13 more years. People wanted to see Saddam overthrown as Iraq was going backwards
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Jbhat Al-Nusra (AQ affiliate) wanted to eliminate foreign Muslim fighters from Syria and keep it purely for Syrian Muslims. This is because foreign jihadis brought different aims and various factions which could create
Abu Musab al-Zaraqawi
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Died: Assassinated by USA in Iraq, 2006
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Planned and executed a programme to resist US occupation of Iraq waging a bloody insurgency between 2003-2006 in Sunni heartlands
Declared war on infidels and primarily targetted Shias in Iraq, inflaming sectarian tensions and killing thousands of people in the process
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People wanted to see the back of the Americans as they unleashed aerial bombings across Iraq: therefore it is easy to see why people turned to AQI.
The Republican Guard: Strongest guard of the Iraqi Army is obliterated leaving very few people who wanted to remain fighting for Iraq.
A tsunami of jihadist activity is launched against the Americans: the insurgency which started small becomes a lot bigger.
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Many historians argue that AQ lost momentum in Iraq because they launched a bloodbath against the Shias.
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From mid-2006, AQI began to be pushed out of their strongholds in rural Anbar Province by tribal leaders in open war. These tribal sheiks were given cash gifts and salaries to get their support.
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Origins
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Sayyid Qutb's ideology is at the heart of Al-Qaeda's philosophy. Qutb had argued in the 1960s and 70s that the Muslim countries aren't following sharia in the way that Arabia was during the 7th century.
In 1988, chief ideologues, Palestine Abdullah al-Azzam and Osama Bin laden meet to lay the foundations of this global franchise during the ongoing war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
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Azzam preached both defensive and offensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders. He raised funds, recruited and organised the international Islamic volunteer effort.
Belief that Islam is a way of life, different from other religions as it affects all aspects of the life of Muslims.
Abu Ubaida created a military base to train the young men to fight against the ivcious, arrogant, brutal, terrorising Soviet empire - called the base (Al-Qaeda)
Many Muslims who volunteered in Afghanistan then returned to their own country with new ideas of what 'jihad' meant, where they would then spread these ideas.
Origins of Islamic State
The Islamic State of Iraq was led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri until they were killed in a US-Iraqi operation in 2010, after which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the group's leader.
In 2011, following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, ISI delegated a mission into Syria to establish a large presence in Sunni-majority provinces, such as Aleppo.
In 2013, al-Baghdadi decreed the reunification of the Syrian al-Nusra Front with ISI to form the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Al-Baghdadi believed 2013/4 was the right time to form a caliphate in Iraq and Syria however AQ disagreed, believing it to be too early. (as the Messiah is thought to only come near the end of times, which they believed wouldn't happen soon)
AQ Grand Strategy
The Awakening
This phase was supposed to last from 2001to 2003. The goal of the phase is to provoke the United States to attack a Muslim country by executing an attack on US soil that kills many civilians
Opening Eyes
This phase was intended to last from 2003 to 2006 The goal of this phase was to recruit young men to the cause and to transform the al-Qaeda group into a movement.Iraq was supposed to become the centre of all operations with financial and military support for bases in other states.
Arising and Standing up
This phase was supposed to last from 2007 to 2010. In this phase, Al-Qaeda wanted to execute additional attacks and focus their attention on Syria.
Historiography
Rashid
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Through his alliance with the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden recieved an entire country as a base of operations and was able to gather around him thousands of Islamic extremists and extend his operations around the world
The support base in Pakistan was to prove critical to Al-Qaeda's survival after 9/11 as between 1996 and 2001, Al-Qaeda trained an estimated thirty thousand militants from around the world.
Al-Qaeda's conscription of thousands of young men to fight their wars created widespread public resentment.
Gerges
Argues that it was localism, not globalism which informed the thinking and actions of jihadis who had initially fought in Afghanistan. The extent of their international ambition was to expel the Russians from Afganistan and bring about an Islamic government there
Argues that 9/11 was a dramatic shift away from targeting the near enemy to targeting the far enemy.
Gerges arguments ignore how Bin Laden's strategy seemed much more global than just Afghanistan. Particularly in the 90s when Bin Laden declared war on the West in 1996 and then the US embassy bombings in 1998.
Argues that throughout the 1980s, the US was not very high on jihadi's lists of targets
Gerges argument that the US wasn't high on their agenda in the 1980s is correct although this is because they had to deal with the Russians in Afghanistan and US was funding them so they could not be overly critical of the US regime. Even despite this, Azzam called for international jihad in America in 1988.