Deciphering Al Qaeda’s messages to the West
A recent video message by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, gave a meaningful insight into the current mindset of the Al Qaeda leadership. It must be remembered that Al Qaeda as a movement is only a few hundred strong. It consists of highly educated individuals, especially at its leadership level, and frequently Western schooled. Their messages to the Muslim youth are multi-layered, and need parsing for analysis. While the recent video, timed around the September 11thanniversary, contained the normal hyperbole about imminent US defeat and a call for wider Jihad, there were subtle indications about the fears of the Al Qaeda leadership.
The first clue is in al-Zawahiri’s claim that the new Obama regime faces defeat, “God willing, your end will be at the hands of the Muslim nation, so that the world and history will be free of your crimes and lies”. The key words here are “the Muslim nation or Umma”. Al Qaeda believes in the creation of a transnational Muslim caliphate. Its very existence predicated on a broader and non-national concept. However, in reality there is no Muslim nation, and in the modern world would be an impractical concept. It is an ideal, however, that resonates with a recruitment pool of frustrated and disadvantaged youth in places such as Somalia and Yemen for example.
This Ummaconcept, if the pundits only knew, is a direct contradiction to the agenda of the Taliban, al-Shabab and Yemen separatists. While all are extreme Islamist groups with a predilection for violence as a means of advancing a political agenda, they differ markedly in one key dimension. Al Qaeda promotes the idea of a trans or multi-national religious caliphate, while the other movements seek control over national governance. It is in this division that the West should seek to drive a wedge and thus isolate Al Qaeda. There is evidence that this division is occurring organically, as we previously reported. There is even talk of the Taliban turning a cold shoulder on them.
“Al-Qaida has become a liability for the Taliban”, according to Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Gulf research centre in Dubai. He visited Waziristan in July. “There is a good possibility that the Pakistanis or the Americans will be able to get good intelligence on the ground and kill Bin Laden.”The death of Bin Laden, especially with hard photographic evidence would do much to put the final dagger into the Al Qaeda hierarchy, which is already slowly bleeding to death according to many commentators.
There are also ex-jihadists calling into question the legitimacy of Al Qaeda’s theological ideology. Senior leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), who recently ceased military actions, just published treatise a revising their previous understanding of jihad. The text, entitled “the Book of Correctional Studies” (kitab al-dirasat al-tashihiyya). This text adds to a rowing body of work by former militants challenging al-Qaida on theological grounds. According to Thomas Hegghammer, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and an associate at Harvard Kennedy School, the trend started with al-Gamaa al-Islamiya in Egypt, continued with Dr Fadl and now LIFG is continuing the theological barrage on Al Qaeda. Other works also refuting Al Qaeda’s legitimacy include Muhammad Haniff Hassan’s “Unlicensed to Kill”, and Ihsanic intelligence’s “The Hijacked Caravan”. The most effective means of delegitimizing Al Qaeda will be attacks from within the broader Islamic community.
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These issues are of great concern to the Al Qaeda leadership. The kicker in the last part of Al Qaeda’s 106 minute recent video highlights the key concern for the leadership. In this section, al-Zawahiri clearly criticizes what he called “the Arab nationalism movement” for being responsible for the situation in Palestine. He goes on to say that the election of Mahmoud Abbas as president of Fatah “is considered as a shameless announcement by the nationalism trend to give up its people’s rights and turn from a trend of Arab nationalism to that of the international legitimacy, or most appropriately that of the American-Zionist domination”. He closes by condemning a number of Arab countries that have agreed to normalization of relations with Israel.
Al Qaeda is terrified that national priorities will dominate over its calls for the transnational caliphate. This would mean the focus of the Ummathat Al Qaeda depends on for its foot soldiers would be more on issues of national sovereignty than supporting the broader Jihad. This, for example, in Iraq where Al Qaeda was once welcomed as a resistance movement to the US occupation, it is now ostracized widely by Iraq’s Shiite militias. Al Qaeda is under threat. Its base diminished, and its recruiting efficiency reduced by nationalist issues. If the West can pursue any policy set that assists this isolation, then this should be the strategy of choice. If one listens carefully to what Al Qaeda actually says, there are learnings and policy paths clearly available. The West’s success all depends on just how carefully it listens, and by what it decides to do as a result.
