AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
A CLAUSEWITZIAN ATTACK ON JIHADI COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
BY
CARSTEN BOCKSTETTE, LIEUTENANT COLONEL DEU AIR FORCE
A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF
THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIR AND SPACE STUDIES
FOR COMPLETION OF GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIR AND SPACE STUDIES
AIR UNIVERSITY
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA
DISTRIBUTION A. Approved for public release: distribution unlimited.
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
APPROVAL
The undersigned certify that this thesis meets master’s-level
standards of research, argumentation, and expression.
Dr. JAMES KIRAS
Date
Dr. EVERETT C. DOLMAN
Date
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
DISCLAIMER
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author.
They do not reflect the official position of the German or US governments, the Ministry
of Defence, the Department of Defense, the German Air Force, the United States Air
Force, or the Air University. In accordance with Air Force Instruction 51-303, it is not
copyrighted, but is the property of the United States government.
u
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lieutenant Colonel Carsten Bockstette joined the German Air Force in July 1993
and began his officer training in Furstenfeldbruck near Munich. Thereafter, he attended
the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. From 1998 until 2000 he served as the
Tactical Control Officer for the PATRIOT Weapon System at Eydelstedt and then served
as the Tactical Control Director of SAM Battalion 25 in Eydelstedt. After this
assignment, he became Aide de Camp to Lieutenant General Walter Jertz, Commander
German Air Force Command in Cologne, serving there until May 2005. From May 2005
to December 2007 he served as Squadron Commander of the 2./FlaRakGrp 21 PATRIOT
NRF-Squadron in Sanitz. From January 2008 to August 2010, he worked at the George
C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in the J5-Strategic Plans and Analysis
Group. As of September 2010 Lieutenant Bockstette has been working in the Concepts,
Doctrine & Development Division of the German Air Force Command. Lieutenant
Colonel Bockstette earned a doctorate in the field of political sciences in January 2003.
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work described in this thesis would not have been possible without the
dedicated help and invaluable assistance of many of the faculty and staff members at the
School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. It has been an honor to work with such a
distinguished faculty. First and foremost, I would like to thank my extraordinaire thesis
advisor and mentor, Dr. James Kiras. Dr. Kiras’ inspiration, his trust, knowledge,
creativity, and dedication are exemplary. His ability to motivate me to deepen my
understanding of the field of irregular warfare was magnificent. Dr. James Kiras taught
me the finer points of al-Qaeda in the realm of irregular warfare in an outstanding
manner. I am thankful for the intellectual and administrative support he has provided me.
Special thanks to my thesis reader and distinguished political scientist, Dr. Everett
Dolman. His ideas, guidance, and suggestions are greatly appreciated. I cherish the
professionals Sheila McKitt and Kelly Rhodes for their excellent support in all
administrative needs. I thank all fellow learning group mates for their motivation and
encouragement and for all their proofreading. Their vast experience and knowledge
represent one of my most valuable assets and provided considerable amounts of
intellectual gold dust. Importantly, I am grateful to all my friends and loved ones who
are always a constant source of support. Especially my wonderful wife, the sacrifices she
made for me will never be forgotten. She has helped me to become the person I am
today.
IV
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ABSTRACT
Informed by an empirical analytical framework based on Clausewitz’s theory of
war, this study investigates al-Qaeda's strategy to highlight potentially targetable
vulnerabilities along the critical links of ends, ways and means. The thesis depicts the
points of vulnerability with the greatest potential to sever the critical nodes between al-
Qaeda' s ideology, actions, messages, and audience. The examination begins with a brief
survey of theory, applied methodology, and key definitions. This is followed by a review
of the history and origin of jihadi terrorism. Based on this foundation, the author
investigates al-Qaeda' s strategy. Based on this inquiry, al-Qaedas communication
strategy is dissected. The analysis of the implications and thereof derived
recommendations completes the exploration. The author concludes that al-Qaeda’s
strategy and its interlocked communication strategy, primarily motivated by fear, honor
and interest, are inherently flawed, ideologically extremely restricted, and ineffective as a
political coercive strategy. Given time, the malfunctioning and limited terroristic strategy
will ensure al-Qaeda 's demise.
v
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
CONTENTS
DISCLAIMER ii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv
ABSTRACT v
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1 - THEORY AND METHODOLOGY 6
CHAPTER 2 - AL-QAEDA’S ORIGINS 20
CHAPTER 3 - STRATEGY 37
CHAPTER 4 - JIHADI COMMUNICATION STRATEGY 49
CHAPTER 5 - SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSION 68
ACRONYMS 80
BIBLIOGRAPHY 81
APPENDICES
A. ABU MUS’AB AL-SURI PROTRACTED GUERRILLA STRATEGY.87
B. MASTER NARRATIVE: “WAR ON ISLAM”.88
C. MASTER NARRATIVE: “AGENTS OF THE WEST”.88
D. MASTER NARRATIVE: “THE NAKBA”.89
E. MASTER NARRATIVE: “VIOLENT JIHAD”.89
F. MASTER NARRATIVE: “BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS”.89
G. MASTER NARRATIVE: “RESTORING THE CALIPHATE”.90
vi
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ILLUSTRATIONS
Tables
Table 1. ANALYTICAL ACTOR MODEL.11
Table 2. FIRST HALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN.48
Table 3 AL-QAEDA 'S MASTER NARRATIVES SUMMARIZED.54
Table 4. SECOND HALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN.67
Figures
Figure 1 VISUALIZATION OF THEORY OF WAR.8
Figure 2. Al-QAEDA’S STRATEGY COIN.36
Figure 3. CLAUSEWITZIAN ATTACK ON AL-QAEDA'S STRATEGY.78
vii
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
INTRODUCTION
In remarks on the Middle East and North Africa at the State Department on May
19, 2011, US President Obama said that even before the death of Osama bin Laden, al-
Qaeda 1 was becoming irrelevant.
Bin Laden and his murderous vision won some adherents. But even
before his death, al-Qaeda 2 was losing its struggle for relevance, as the
overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did
not answer their cries for a better life. By the time we found bin Laden,
al-Qaeda 's agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region
as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had
taken their future into their own hands. That story of self-determination
began six months ago in Tunisia. On Dec. 17, a young vendor named
Mohammed Bouazizi was devastated when a police officer confiscated his
cart. This was not unique. It’s the same kind of humiliation that takes
place every day in many parts of the world—the relentless tyranny of
governments that deny their citizens dignity. Only this time, something
different happened. After local officials refused to hear his complaints,
this young man, who had never been particularly active in politics, went to
the headquarters of the provincial government, doused himself in fuel, and
lit himself on fire. 3
Even though al-Qaeda 's relevance is seemingly in decline, the movement is far
from perishing in the near future. January 2012 confirmed that a revolution’s elections
did not follow from its causes. Commenting on the election successes of the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB), the political scientist John M. Owen IV argued in a New York Times
article, “Rather than bringing secular revolutionaries to power, the Arab Spring is
producing flowers of a decidedly Islamist hue. More unsettling to many, Islamists are
winning fairly: religious parties are placing first in free, open elections in Tunisia,
Morocco and Egypt. ... Political Islam, especially the strict version practiced by
1 Due to transcript translations, the spelling of al-Qaeda varies in the literature. It is also spelled al-Qaida
and al-Qa’ida. In this essay, I will use al-Qaeda since this English pronunciation comes closest to the
Arabic original al-qa idah (pronunciation: al-ky-dd).
2 To ensure continuity in direct quotations and within this essay, all Arabic terms have been italicized and
differences in spelling harmonized.
3 Barak Obama, “Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa” The White House Office
of the Press Secretary, May 19, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011 /05/19/remarks-
president-middle-east-and-north-africa (accessed 24 January 2012).
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Salafists 4 in Egypt, is thriving largely because it is tapping into ideological roots that
were laid down long before the revolts began.” 5 The MB and political Islam existed well
before al-Qaeda and political Islam should not be conflated with al-Qaeda. Further, as
Tim Listener, an executive editor for CNN explains, “Even if the uprisings from Yemen
to Tunisia were inspired by young pro-democracy pro Qutbtesters, al-Qaeda clearly
wants to co-opt them-and sees opportunities in the instability they have caused.” 6 At the
end of 2011, the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam 7 , an Islamist militant group affiliated with
al-Qaeda, claimed that fighters from al-Qaeda had provided the spark for the Arab
spring. 8
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current al-Qaeda leader, has recently stated his support
for the Syrian resistance, urging the opposition not to count on the West or the Arab
League for assistance. 9 As Walid Phares, an adviser to the anti-terrorism caucus in the
US House of Representatives, explains, “Washington doesn't believe that al-Qaeda is
leading [the revolt in Syria], but believes that al-Qaeda is trying to take advantage of the
long-term crisis that exists today in Syria.” 10 Osama bin Laden and other key ideologues
may be dead, but their ideas live on. Even as they are being combated, al-Qaeda has
found new sanctuary in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas and affiliated and
associated groups rise in power. Moreover, the continued resonance of al-Qaeda’’ s
messages and its ability to ensure a flow of financial and human resources aids its
4 See “1.4 Origin Jihadi Terrorism” for a deeper discussion of Salafist ideology as interpreted by al-Qaeda.
5 John M. Owen IV, “Why Islamism Is Winning,” New York Times, 6 January 2012
http://www.nvtimes.com/2012/01 /07/oninion/whv-islamism-is-winning.html (accessed 24 January 2012).
6 Tim Listner, “New al-Qaeda message reinforces focus on Arab Spring, ” httv://security,blogs, cnnxom , 13
September 2011, http://securitv.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/new-al-qaeda-message-reinforces-focus-on-
arab-spring/ .
7 Dr. Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was a Jordanian Palestinian. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood during his
studies in Egypt and developed a radical Islamic ideology. He was one of the first Arabs to volunteer
during the 1980s to join the Afghan jihad against Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, “The Abdullah Azzam Brigades,”
Terrorism-info.org, 1 September 2010. http://www.terrorism-
info.org.il/malam multimedia/English/eng n/html/lebanon e005.htm . (accessed 24 January 2012).
8 Listner, “New al-Qaeda message reinforces focus on Arab Spring,” 13 September 2011.
9 BBC News Middle East, “Syria uprising: Al-Qaeda's al-Zawahiri lends support,” BBC.co.uk, 12 February
2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17002573 .
10 A1 Jazeera, “Is Syria's uprising being hijacked?” aljazeera.com, 19 February 2012,
http://www.aliazeera.com/programmes/insidesvria/2012/02/20122196123573363.html .
2
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
survival. 11 Clearly, al-Qaeda remains relevant and seeks to expand on that relevance,
and despite the fact that the al-Qaeda threat is well known; a coherent response to the
threat has yet to be devised. This essay will trace the roots of al-Qaeda and its
communication strategy using multiple sources discussed in detail below.
The US Government's Open Source Center (OSC) is a prominent provider of
foreign open source intelligence. They provide open source information and analysis
primarily for US government employees beyond the usual media. The Combating
Terrorism Center (CTC) is a further excellent source of primary data and secondary
information. The CTC is an independent, privately funded, research and educational
institution located at the United States Military Academy, West Point. Their Harmony
Project Report, Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?, was released 3 May 2012
and is of great importance to the researcher of al-Qaeda. It is a first analysis of 17
declassified documents that were captured during the US raid in May 2011 that killed
Osama bin Laden. 12 An additional key primary source for professional-level reference is
the IntelCenter. The US based IntelCenter is privately owned company established in
1989. The specialized on providing raw data and finished analysis of counterterrorism
intelligence services.
The number of academic and popular literature written about terrorism and
especially al-Qaeda has dramatically increased since 2001. Some of the more relevant
and current academic publications include: Fawaz A. Gerges, The Rise and Fall of Al-
Qaeda, Oxford University Press 2011; Lorenzo Vidin, The New Muslim Brotherhood in
the West, Columbia University Press 2010; Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad,
Columbia University Press 2008.
For the thematic nexus of terrorism and communication strategy, the following
works are of heightened relevance for this essay: Open Source Center, Master Narratives
Special Report: Al-Qaeda; Al-Qaeda Master Narratives and Affiliate Case Studies: Open
11 Bruce Hoffman, “Foreword,” in James J. F. Forest ed., Influence Warfare-How Terrorists and
Governments Fight to Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security
International 2009), vii.
12 Nelly Lahoud et al., Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? CTC Harmony Program Report,
(West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center 3 May 2012), Foreword.
3
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Source Center 2011; Jeffry R. Halverson, H.L. Goodall, Jr., and Steven R. Corman,
Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism, Palgrave Macmillan 2011; David Aaron, In
Their Own Words-Voices of Jihad: Compilation and Commentary RAND 2008; James J.
F. Forest, Influence Warfare, Praeger Security International 2008; Steven R. Corman ed.
et al., Weapons of Mass Persuasion, Strategic Communication to Combat Violent
Extremism.
While resources are plentiful and a great deal of independent, academic, and
government-sponsored research is being conducted to collect and collate data dealing
with international terrorism and al-Qaeda, this empirical research is largely ad hoc and
uninformed by a unified and coherent understanding of al-Qaeda’s overarching coercive
1 O
strategy. Furthermore, no serious study of jihadi terrorist communication strategies has
been conducted using as its analytical framework the theories of the great Prussian
theorist of war, Carl von Clausewitz.
An empirical analytical framework based on Clausewitz’s theory of war can
potentially inform a rigorous investigation of terrorist strategy and its interlocked
communication strategy to highlight potentially targetable vulnerabilities. That is, an
attack against their strategy communications strategy is not an attack against an
intermediate element of their strategy; it is much more. It is an attack against the central
element of their strategy. As Master Sun Tzu 14 stressed: “What is of supreme importance
in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” 15 The points of vulnerability are likely found
along the critical links of ends, ways, and means. This thesis seeks to not only identify
vulnerabilities in jihadi communication strategy but also to determine which of those
vulnerabilities has the greatest potential to sever the critical links between al-Qaeda' s
ideology, actions, messages, and audience. To properly address the salient points of the
aforementioned, I trace and explore relevant aspects in a normative methodology.
13 Max Abrahms, “The Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 151.
14 If Sun Tzu ( f\'~ f) was an actual person or a composite is not known.
Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War: The Definitive English Translation, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York,
NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 17-21.
15 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 115.
4
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
I begin the examination with a brief survey of theory, applied methodology, and
key definitions in chapter one. This is followed by a review of the history and origin of
jihadi terrorism. Based on this foundation, I then investigate al-Qaeda’s strategy in
chapter three utilizing Clausewitz’s theory as basis for an analytical framework. From
this analysis, the communication strategy of jihadi terrorism will be dissected in chapter
four. The analysis of the implications in chapter five completes the exploration.
5
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
CHAPTER 1 - THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
It is a trait of human nature to yearn for understanding of the world in which we live.
- Harold R. Winton
1.1 Theory
A social science theory is a simplified view of a portion of reality based on
assumptions. As the Yale political scientist Stathis N. Kalyvas eloquently states, “Its
simplicity constitutes its great strength.” 16 It generally contains descriptive and causal
(explanatory) statements on the portion of reality under investigation. Based on this
descriptive and causal model, one anticipates the course events will follow and is thereby
able to derive recommendations for action. Centuries ago, Sun Tzu advised, “If you
know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” 17
A key function for theory is to explain phenomena and to articulate, for example, the
relationship between “self’ and “enemy” and thus enable victory. The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) political scientist Stephen Van Evera emphasizes that any
1 O
good theory must have significant explanatory power. As the historian Harold Winton
asserts, “Explanation is the soul of theory.” 19
As an abstract, conceptual model, theory can help analyze the ramifications or the
salient aspects of a matter under investigation. One of the most notable theorists in the
military realm was the philosopher and strategist General Carl von Clausewitz.
Clausewitz believed that theory serves to educate. He taught, “Theory will have fulfilled
its main task when it is used to analyze the constituent elements of war, to distinguish
precisely what at first seems fused, to explain in full the properties of the means
employed and to show their probable effects, to define clearly the nature of the ends in
view, and to illuminate all phases of war through critical inquiry. It is meant to educate
16 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press,
2009), 207.
17 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 125.
18 Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1997), 17.
19 Harold Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” in Charles D. Lutes and Peter L. Hays, eds., Toward
a Theory of Spacepower ( Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 2011), 19-35, 21.
20 Frans P.B. Osinga, Science, Strategy and War-The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (New York, NY:
Rutledge 2007), 11-12.
6
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
the mind of the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-
education, not accompany him to the battlefield.” 21
Reflecting upon Clausewitz, the political scientist and professor of comparative
military studies, Everett C. Dolman professes, “Theory is always necessary when
beginning a search for meaning or truth, as there can be no sense made of the world
without it. It is the filter through which it organizes thoughts.” 22 As Harold Winton
explains, theory has multiple functions. It defines, categorizes, connects, anticipates, and
it explains based upon its simplified view of a portion of reality. Winton claims,
“Theory’s first task is to define the field of study under investigation. ... In visual terms,
this defining act draws a circle and declares that everything inside the circle is
encompassed by the theory, while everything outside is not.” After introducing the
limiting factor of rationality to his theory of war, Clausewitz implicitly draws his circle
around those elements encompassed by his theory of war as depicted the following
Figure \, 24 when he says, “War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument,
a continuation of political activity with other means.”
21 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Indexed Edition, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 141.
22 Everett C. Dolman, Pure Strategy: Power and Principle in the Space and Information Age (London:
Frank Cass, 2005), 12.
23 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 19.
24 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 19.
Source of picture: http://infoportal-schwaben.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/generalleutnant-gerhard-
von-schamhorst-1813 .jpg
25 Clausewitz, On War , 87.
7
AU/SAASS/B0CKSTETTE/AY12
THEORY VISUALIZED
Figure 1 VISUALIZATION OF THEORY OF WAR
Source Harold Winton, On the Nature of Military Theory
The second task of theory is to dissect the field of study into its constituent parts
and categorize them in some useful taxonomy. What Winton is advocating, in a sense, is
the perfect reductionism of Descartes and Newton. The reductionism by theory provides
the foundation to illuminate the essence of sought knowledge in an interactively complex
social system like warfare. 26 If one understands the pieces, one understands the whole. 27
To illustrate, Clausewitz taught to divide war into its dynamic, temporal phases-planning
and conduct-and its two levels-tactics and strategy. Additionally, theory connects the
area under investigation to associated fields of study. Furthermore, theory in the realm of
social sciences anticipates, always leaving uncertainties due to the complexities of human
interaction. 29 However, the most important function is to explain. Emphasizing this
26 Complexity theory says precisely the opposite; reductionism in interactively complex (as opposed to
structurally complex) social systems cannot reveal the nature of the system since behaviors emerge from
the interaction between elements rather than from the characteristics of the individual elements. For a
deeper discussion on complexity theory see:
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (New York,
NY: Simon & Schuster 1992).
27 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 19-35.
28 Clausewitz, On War, 231.
28 Clausewitz, On War, 128.
29 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 19-22.
8
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
significance, Winton states, “Theory without explanatory value is like salt without
savor—it is worthy only of the dung heap.” 30
The real world is far too complex to contemplate all variables. Therefore, no
O 1
theory can completely reproduce reality. Consequently, any theory will deviate from
reality in some way, leaving room for evolution of theory. As Harold Winton states,
“Theories tend to evolve in response to two stimuli: either new explanations are offered
and subsequently verified that more accurately explain an existing reality, or the field of
study itself changes, requiring either new explanations or new categories.” In
awareness of these limitations, Clausewitz’s theory of war will serve for this
investigation as methodological foundation.
1.2 Methodology
Using Clausewitz’s theory of war, discussed below, as a basis for an analytical
framework, this paper conducts a comprehensive study of al-Qaeda terrorist strategy.
Clausewitz expressed, “It is precisely that inquiry which is the most essential part of any
theory ... It is an analytical investigation leading to a close acquaintance with the
subject.” The reductionist analytical model of this thesis, based on the foundations of
Winton, Newton, and Descartes, enables dissecting terrorist strategies into smaller
elements. Descartes, who in his Discourse on Method resolved “to divide all the
difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as many as [are]
required to solve them in the best way” and to begin investigations “with the simplest and
most easily understood objects, and gradually ascending, as it were step by step, to the
knowledge of the most complex” 34 guides this investigation. This allows the analyst to
more effectively detect inconsistencies and contradictions between political ends, violent
ways, and terrorist means by reductionism. Clausewitz left room at the epicenter of his
theory of war for multiple forms of political violence such as terrorism in his concept of
30 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 21.
31 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 22.
32 Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 20.
33 Clausewitz, On War, 231.
34 Rene Descartes, A Discourse on Method, trans. Ian Maclean (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,
2006), 17.
9
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
the paradoxical trinity. It is composed of means of primordial violence, hatred, and
enmity acting on each other in multifarious ways leveraging fear to achieve political
interests. 35
Clausewitz's wide-ranging military theory begins with a general definition of war.
As a basic starting point, he created a highly abstract model of war by drastically
reducing its complexity in his characterization. The war progresses predictably in the
direction of uncontrolled escalation of violence. This type of war, absolute war, has no
restrictions and no historical precedent. It identifies tendencies that are present in any
potential real war. He then increases the complexity of his theoretical model of war by
gradually relaxing the original assumptions and abstractions; he thus brings his theory
closer to a more realistic vision he calls real war. Clausewitz concludes his analysis not
with a new definition of war, but with a complex theory: “War is not merely an act of
policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on
with other means.” 36
I will use a reductive approach informed by a Clausewitzian theory of conflict and
war to design conceptual building blocks for an empirical model of jihadi terroristic
strategies and their corresponding communication strategy. This model divides terrorist
strategies and the corresponding communication strategies into smaller elements.
Thereby, I can systematically detect inconsistencies and contradictions between political
ends, violent ways, and terrorist means.
35
36
Clausewitz, On War, 89; Winton, “On the Nature of Military Theory,” 26.
Clausewitz. On War, 87.
10
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ACTOR
LEVEL
ENDS
WAYS
MEANS
(Goals/Objects)
(Concepts/ldeology)
(Tools/Resources)
Grand Strategy
Strategy
—V— ~
Tactic/Action
->
Table 1. ANALYTICAL ACTOR MO
DEL
Source: Rasmus Beckmann
A schematic description of this analytic approach is shown above in Table 1:
Analytic Actor Model. 37 The model can be used for strategic design of ends, ways and
means (left to right) and for systematically analyzing and drawing conclusions regarding
tactical action, tracing those actions back to grand strategy. That is, the reductionism
employed is assumed to operate in both directions. Grand strategy disaggregates into a
collection of coherently connected tactical actions, and actions aggregate into an
instrumental attempt to achieve grand strategic means. 38 The ways and means of the
higher level serve as the end for the lower level. The interests based ends (goals,
objectives) at each level describe what is to be accomplished. The ways
(concepts/ideology) explain how the ends are to be reached. The means (tools/resources)
describe the logistical and support modalities that are designated for the pursuing the
strategic concept. For example, al-Qaeda’s end is a global caliphate, which it aims to
reach by the way of uniting the global Muslim population through the means of terror.
For analysis, one can go in reverse order (from right to left). Did the chosen
actions, tactics, and strategies support achieving the grand strategy? The illustration
depicts the analytical framework. The boxes divide the different, interrelated levels of
37 The analytical actor model is based upon a model by Rasmus Beckmann, “Clausewitz, Terrorismus und
die NATO-Antiterrorstrategie: Ein Modell strategischen Handelns [Clausewitz, Terrorism and the NATO-
Anti Terrorism Strategy: A Strategic Acting Model],” A IP A University Cologne, March 2008, 1-24.
38 Beckmann, “Clausewitz, Terrorismus und die NATO-Antiterrorstrategie,“ 1-24.
39 Harry R. Yarger, Strategy and National Security Professional-Strategic Thinking and Strategy
Formulation in the 2 I st Century (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008), 155-156.
11
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
grand strategy, strategy and tactics/actions. The political purpose funnels through the
vertical levels and must be operationalized according to the diverse needs of these levels
(funnel depicted in Table 1). The upper level consists of the concrete ways and means to
each specific objective of the lower layer (the zigzag line depicted in Table l). 40
1.3 Definitions
Clear and consistent definitions for key terms are of fundamental importance in
any analysis. As Confucius said: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance
with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs
cannot be carried on to success.” 41 Of course, definitions occasionally prompt as many
questions as they answer and rarely enjoy general academic acceptance, but the
definitions given here will establish a solid foundation for this work and will underpin
subsequent chapters.
Since terrorism is essentially a communication strategy, the terms strategy and
strategic communication need clarification before I can define terrorism. Strategic
decision-making is concerned with purpose and processes. It strives for continuity. The
art of strategy seeks to manipulate boundaries. As Dolman eloquently characterized it,
“Strategy is confined only by the event horizon of possibilities, a horizon which expands
anew with every action. A potentially unlimited panorama of choices may be revealed
with the next moment. There is no beginning or end for the strategist: there is only more,
or less.” 42 This perspective on strategy is not far from that of the Nobel Prize winning
economist Thomas Schelling who, in his seminal work Strategy of Conflict, wrote,
“Strategy is not concerned with the efficient application of force but with the exploitation
of potential force” and with enough force, one may not even need to bargain. 43 Based
upon this characterization of strategy by Dolman and Schelling grand strategy in the
context of this paper is defined as the process by which all the means available to the
40 Beckmann, “Clausewitz, Terrorismus und die NATO-Antiterrorstrategie,“, 1-24.
41 Confucius, The Analects of Confucius, tr. James Legge (Adelaide, Australia: eBooks@Adelaide), Book
13, Verse 3, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.aU/c/confucius/c748a/ .
42 Dolman , Pure Strategy, 13.
43 Thomas C. Schelling, Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1960), 5; Thomas
C. Schelling, Arms and Influence, 2 ed ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 1.
12
AU/SAASS/B0CKSTETTE/AY12
terrorists are considered in pursuit of a continuing political influence. 44 With this
definition for grand strategy in mind, strategy is defined as a plan to provide continuing
advantage to achieve the ends of policy. 45
Based on the above, I define communication strategy as the systematic planning
and realization of information flow, communication, media development, and image care
with a long-term horizon. It plans for transmitting deliberate messages through the most
suitable media to designated audiences at the appropriate time to contribute to an
overarching grand strategy to achieve continuing advantage. It has to bring three factors
into balance: the messages, the media channels, and the local and global audience,
including both intended and unintended audiences. 46
The discipline of terrorism research is relatively young and therefore has no
generally accepted academic definition for terrorism. Its roots can be traced back at least
to the Peloponnesian War. 47 Twenty-five hundred years ago, in reflection upon the use
of force between city-states, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, 48 son of Melesias
reporting his views of Athenian political and military views wrote, "Right, as the world
goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and
44 Dolman, Pure Strategy , 26.
45 Dolman, Pure Strategy , 6.
46 Carsten Bockstette, “Terrorist Exploit Information Technologies ‘\per Concordiam Journal of European
Security and Defense Issues, vol. 1 issue 3 (October 2010), 11-12.
47 Throughout history, power has been exerted via terror. Without reaching back to prehistory, which was a
terrifying insecure state of nature, the first Mesopotamian Empire was founded on terror. Some Historians
point out that the term terror has its origins in the French revolution, but the principal as a far broader
phenomenon reaches back into the time of recorded history. The use of terroristic actions as description of
ruthless illegitimate use of violence and often with a religious dimension and political aims in human
antiquity cannot be exactly dated.
Gerard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin, The History ofTerrorism-From Antiquity to Al-Qaeda (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2007), vii-viii.
48 Thucydides also serves a point of reference to non-realist interpretations in international relations theory.
For example, Laurie M. Johnson Bagby argues that "a close reading of Thucydides will show that he does
not agree with some of the most important emphases and conclusions of classical realist” and that "although
there is some evidence to suggest that Thucydides understood the influence of international structure on the
state behavior leading up to and during the Peloponnesian War. He cannot be completely identified with
neorealism either.”
Laurie M. Johnson Bagby, "The Use and Abuse of Thucydides in International Relations,” International
Organization 48, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 131-153. In similar fashion, Richard Ned Lebow argues that
"Thucydides is a founding father of constructivism.”
Richard Ned Lebow "Thucydides the Constructivist," American Political Science Review 95, no. 3
(September 2001): 547-560.
13
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
the weak suffer what they must." 49 Motivated by “fear, honor, and interest,” inter- and
inner-state coercion 50 using violence dominated the anarchical international order. 51
Terrorism, as a tool of asymmetric conflict is fundamentally a rejection of this idea. A
terrorist (or other “weak” actor) takes the position that the strong do what they can, and
so do the weak, exploiting the vacuum of anarchy to fight their war. However, they share
fundamentally the same motivators: fear, honor and interest.
In his 1642 book De Cive, Thomas Hobbes described the state of human nature as
Bellum omnium contra omnes (A war of all against all, or a state of anarchy). Later, in
1651, he reiterated this position in Leviathan, using the English phase “war of all against
all .” 54 His books detailed a thought experiment that placed people in uncivilized
environments and asked what would happen in such circumstances. In these situations,
individuals have a natural right to freely do as they please, including the use of deadly
force to preserve their life, which is ’’solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” 55 This is
nothing more than an extreme state of individual self-help anarchy impelling the use of
brute force for survival. As the political scientist Kenneth Waltz explains, “Self-help is
necessarily the principle of action in an anarchic order.” 56 According to Hobbes, to
minimize insecurity people choose to enter a social contract, giving up some of their
freedoms in exchange for order and peace. “[E]very man ought to endeavor peace, as far
as he has hope of obtaining it.” 57 According to Hobbes, “[A] man be willing, when
49 Robert B Strassler, ed. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War.
(New York, NY: The Free Press, 1996), 352.
50 In this essay, I use Thomas C. Schelling’s understanding of the term coercion.
Schelling, Arms and Influence , x.;
Anarchical in the sense of absence of government as Hedley Bull depicts it.
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society-A Study of Order in World Politics 3 rd ed. (New York, NJ: Columbia
University Press, 2002), 49.
51 Strassler, Landmark Thucydides , 1.76, 43.
52 For a deviating view and a different focus see Stathis N. Kalyvas:
Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War.
53 Thomas Hobbes, De Cive, (London, GB: J.C. for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivie-Lane 1642), 11.
http://www.unihbrary.com/ebooks/Hobbes.yo20Thomas%20-%20De%20Cive.pdf
54 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and
Civill, (London, GB: Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon, 1651),
11. http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3113/hobbes/Leviathan.pdf
55 Hobbes, Leviathan , 78.
56 Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1979), 111.
57 Hobbes, Leviathan , 80.
14
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it
necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty
against other men as he would allow other men against himself.” Hobbes provided a
solution to his pessimistic prognosis. Through civil institutions (the instrument), as
authorized by the people through implicit and explicit social contract, governments (the
agents) establish a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Hobbes used his thought
experiment to test the legitimacy of state sovereignty as guarantor of social order. Once
established, governments mitigate the effects of the state of nature at the individual level
and enforce the mandates of the social contract. Between nations, however, no such
power exists; therefore, states have rights of self-preservation, including the use of brute
force (i.e., war). Hobbes saw emerging states confronting each other in a social and
moral vacuum. Motivated by fear, honor and interest, this vacuum establishes the
theoretical room for interstate and symmetric conflict as well as for state terror and
asymmetrical conflicts (i.e., irregular warfare and terrorism) as we understand them
today. 59
This Hobbesian understanding of the nation-state is reflected in the Peace of
Westphalia. The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May
and October 1648 in Osnabriick and Munster, Germany. These treaties solidified an
agreement regarding the rights of individual states to determine the religion of their
respective populations according to the principle cuijus region, eijus religio. 60 They also
codified the definitions of internal and external sovereignty and clarified the concept of
state autonomy, including under sovereignty the right to exert political authority over a
defined geographic space. That is, under the terms of these treaties, the state is the
ultimate authority over a given territory and all its inhabitants. The Peace of Westphalia
58 Hobbes, Leviathan, 80.
59 One could also argue that if terrorism is crime, than an act can only be considered criminal if it occurs in
an environment regulated by some social contract. Therefore, there must be a Leviathan to sit in judgment
on the act. Therefore, if terrorism is criminal, it is not the vacuum that defines it but rather the absence of
the vacuum.
60 Latin for whose realm, his religion.
15
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
therefore established the principles of raison d'etat and state sovereignty in the
seventeenth century. 61
In establishing these principles, however, the Peace of Westphalia also
inadvertently established the roots of modem terrorism. Terror as an instrument has been
used for a long time. It is a parasitic culmination of long-term human history. City-states
used it against each other in the Peloponnesian War and nation-states have used it against
their enemies and even their own populations. As the terrorism expert Audrey Kurth
Cronin states, “Over the course of recent history, terrorism has been consistently tied to
the evolving politics and identity of the state, steadily gaining in its capacity to draw
power from the Western nation-state and moving from a peripheral nuisance to a central
strategic threat.” 63
Even as the methods of terrorism have evolved over the centuries, the term itself
first appeared in the European languages in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789.
As the political scientist Adam Roberts explains, “The first meaning of the word
'terrorism', as recorded by the Academie Fran 9 aise in 1798, was 'system or rule of terror'.
... During the 19 th century, terrorism underwent a fateful transformation, coming to be
[mainly] associated, as it still is today, with non-govemmental groups.” 64 One man’s
terrorist can very well be another’s freedom fighter, especially if the nation-state utilizes
a system or rule of terror. In this case, one speaks of state-terrorism.
Founded on one of the three prime motivators enumerated by Thucydides, fear,
the word terror comes from the Latin word terrere, which means to frighten or scare-or
to “attack the mind of the enemy” as Sun Tzu elegantly states. 65 Terrorism is a type of
61 French for reason of state', Gregory Brown, “Western Civilization II: European History Since 1648,”
University of Nevada, http://facultv.unlv.edu/gbrown/westernciv/wc201 /wciv2c 10/wciv2c 101sec2.html
62 Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends-Understanding The Decline and Demise of Terrorist
Campaigns (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), 3.
63 Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism End-Understanding The Decline and Demise of Terrorist
Campaigns (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), 3.
64 Adam Roberts, “The Changing Faces of Terrorism,” BBC.co.uk, 27 August 2002),
http://www.bbc.co.uk/historv/recent/sept ll/changing faces 02,shtml,
65 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 64.
16
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
irregular warfare. 66 And as the Yale political scientist Stathis N Kalyvas suggests,
terroristic violence 67 is to a certain extent a reflection of human nature, as argued by
Thucydides and Hobbes. 68
For this essay, I define terrorism as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict
that induces fear through the destruction of combat and noncombatant targets or iconic
symbols. Such acts transmit messages—intended and unintended—to local, national, and
global audiences. The technique of terrorism is to exploit the media to achieve maximum
publicity as a force multiplier to coerce targeted audience(s) in pursuit of grand political
strategy, the terrorists’ primary interest. 69 The aim of this coercive force is to hurt and to
exploit an audience’s wants and fears: “To be coercive, violence has to be anticipated
and it has to be avoidable by accommodation ... The power to hurt is bargaining
power.” Schelling explains, “Brute force can only accomplish what requires no
collaboration.” 71
Terrorists do not primarily aim at producing maximum physical damage via brute
force. They aim for the greatest possible psychological effect. As Clausewitz wrote,
79
“For psychological forces exert a decisive influence on the elements involved in war.”
Sun Tzu’s theory is also apt. He claimed, “The first of [the five fundamental] factors is
moral influence ... by moral influence I mean that which causes the people to be in
66 Terrorism as used in this essay is a type of irregular warfare as James D. Kiras defines it: “The use of
violence by sub-state actors or groups within states for political purposes of achieving power, control and
legitimacy, using unorthodox or unconventional approaches to warfare owing to a fundamental weakness in
resources or capabilities.” For a detailed discussion of irregular warfare see:
James D. Kiras, “Irregular Warfare,” in David Jordan, James D. Kiras Understanding Modern Warfare
(Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press 2008), 224-291.
David Jordan, James D. Kiras, David J. Lonsdale, Ian Speller, Christopher Tuck, C. Dale Walton,
Understanding Modern Warfare (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press 2008), 224-291, 232.
67 1 this essay, I use Stathis N. Kalyvas understanding of the term violence: “Violence is the deliberate
infliction of harm on people.” Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War , 19.
68 Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War , 388.
69 This definition is derived of the developed strategic communication definition in:
Bockstette, “Terrorist Exploit Information Technologies 4 *, 4 and based upon Bruce Hoffman’s description
of terrorism in:
Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism-Rsv. and expanded ed. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press
2006), 40-41.
70 Schelling, Arms and Influence , 2-3.
71 Schelling, Arms and Influence , 8.
72 Clausewitz, On War , 127.
17
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
harmony with their leaders, so that they will accompany them in life and unto death
without fear of mortal peril.” 73 Terrorists seek to destroy their enemies’ harmony and
prestige, the second key motivator, while ensuring and enhancing their own in striving to
achieve their interests by instilling fear. Al-Qaeda resorts to terrorism exclusively out of
necessity because its lacks other options in exploiting the methods and means of violence
due to its inability of effectively harnessing local discontent and grievances and
transforming them to a greater range of irregular warefare capabilities. 74 As the al-
Qaeda strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri says, “Yes, we are terrorists towards God’s
Enemies. We have already struck terror in them, and we have made them tremble in their
holes, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of agents in their security agencies, praise
God, and this happened after they terrorized the countries and mankind, and even put fear
75
into the embryos in their mothers’ bellies.”
Terrorist attacks seem to adhere to the recommendations of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu,
and Jomini. Clausewitz wrote, “Only three things seem to us to produce decisive
advantages: Surprise, the benefit of terrain, and concentric attack.” Terrorists regularly
exploit the benefit of terrain and perpetrate their attack with exemplary economy of
force. 77 Terrorist attacks are usually a surprise, which Sun Tzu also advocated, noting
that, “Against those skilled in attack, an enemy does not know where to defend.” 78 They
also have a very favorable ratio of space to forces at a usually undefended point.
70
Tactically they seek to avoid battle, thereby reversing the normal practice of warfare.
Terrorists use the public as a vehicle and a communication channel to influence
political decision makers. 80 Terrorists at the opponents the political center of gravity to
73 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 91-92.
74 Kiras, “Irregular Warfare,” 271.
75 Abu Mus ’ab al-Suri quoted in Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad-The Life of al-Qaida Strategist Abu
Mus’ab al-Suri (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008), 387.
76 Clausewitz, On War , 360.
77 Economy of force in the sense described by: Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Strategy , 2 nd ed. (New York, NY:
Meridian, 1991), 322-323.
78 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 146.
79 Hart, Strategy, 365-366.
80 Angela Gendron, “Trends in Terrorism Series: Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” ITAC
Presents, vol. 2007-2 (2007), 10, http://www.itac.gc.ca/pblctns/tc_prsnts/2007-2-eng.pdf .
Bockstette, “Terrorist Exploit Information Technologies 44 , 11-12.
18
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
which, according to Clausewitz, all energy “should be directed ... Out of these
characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement,
O 1
on which everything depends.” Clausewitz continued, “The task of reducing the
sources of enemy strength to single center of gravity will depend on the distribution of
the enemy’s political power.” 82 Jomini also advised to focus on the center of gravity. He
explained, “I think the name of decisive strategic point should be given to all those which
are capable of exercising a marked influence either upon the result of the campaign or
upon a single enterprise ... All capitals are strategic points for the double reason that they
are not only centers of communications, but also the seats of power and government.” 83
Each of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Jomini, despite their many differences, impart the
same criticality to the identification of decisive points and the fundamental role of
strategy in identifying and targeting them. Further, Jomini highlights for us the criticality
of communications, emphasizing this as one significant reason for considering all capitals
as strategic points or, in the parlance of Clausewitz, as political centers of gravity. Since,
as Clausewitz tells us, war is a continuation of politics by other means, there is an implied
centrality to communications in Clausewitz’s theory as well. Just as communications are
central to the strategy of traditional warfare, so are they critical to the strategy of al-
Qaeda. To understand al-Qaeda’s strategy, one needs to be familiar with al-Qaeda’s
origin and ideological background, which will be covered in the next chapter.
81 Clausewitz, On War, 595-596.
82 Clausewitz, On War, 617.
83 Jomini, Art of War, 78-79.
19
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
CHAPTER 2 - AL-QAEDA’S ORIGINS
2.1 The Origin of Jihadi Terrorism
Al-Qaeda's origins can be traced geographically to Saudi Arabia and historically
to the eleventh century AD. Ibn Taymiyya ( Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya; 1263-
1328) was a Muslim scholar whose views in theology and fiqh 84 sought the return of
Islam to earlier literal interpretations. Ibn Taymiyyah was a member of the school
OC
founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. During his imprisonment, he laid the foundation for
today’s most fundamentalist current, the puritanical Wahhabism Islamic school of
thought. 86 Ibn Taymiyyah taught that “the first obligation (after the profession of faith) is
to repel the enemy aggressors who assault both sanctity and security ... and the
individual or community that participates in it finds itself between two blissful outcomes:
87
victory and triumph or martyrdom and Paradise.” Taymiyyah declared that Mongol
rulers were not true Muslims. He issued fatwas 88 against Mongol leaders who
incorporated tribal codes and did not dogmatically build their governance upon Sharia 19
law. 90 Establishing the roots of the takfir concept-the practice of declaring Muslim
Mongol leaders infidels-he argued that these rulers were thus legitimate targets. 91
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18 th century Islamic teacher, was inspired in
his Hanbalism by Ibn Taymiyya. The very conservative Hanbali legal tradition within
the Sunni sect is particularly dogmatic in matters of ritual. Adb al-Wahhab criticized the
84 Fiqh meaning knowledge, understanding, insight of the Islamic law is derived from the Koran and the
Sunna.
85 Trevor Stanley, “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism,” Terrorism Monitor, Volume 3
Issue 14, 15 July 2005.
http://www.iamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?txttnews%5Bttnews%5D=528&txttnews%5BbackPid
%5D=180&no_cache=l.
86 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 20.
87 Shaykh ul-Islaam Taqi ud-Deen Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, Governance According to Allaah's Law in
Reforming (Birmingham, GB: Maktabah A1 Ansaar 2004), 27,
http://www.archive.oIslamicBooksBvIbnTavmivvahMaqdisiAndAbdullahAzzamrg/stream//moral_doctrine
ofJihaddj vu.txt .
88 Fatwas : Religious decrees.
89 Sharia : Meaning the “path” or “way” is the body of Islamic moral code and law.
90 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report: Al-Qaeda; Al-Qaeda Master Narratives and
Affiliate Case Studies: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb , Master
Narratives Platform Special Report, (Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, September 2011), 35.
91 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report , 15.
20
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
superstitions that had contaminated Islam’s purity and caused, he believed, the
degeneration of the Muslim world. He advocated the eradication of pernicious foreign
influence and innovations. Al-Wahhab strove to change his society by purifying Islam
because, in his view, the society was decadent and had deteriorated in its moral values.
Al-Wahhab gave jihad a prominence in his teachings as a means and counseled the
purging of these foreign influences in an Islamic revival. 92 In the Wahhabi tradition, the
Prophet said, “Jihad is the ultimate manifestation of Islam, as the Messenger said ... It is
a furnace in which Muslims are melted out and which allows the separation of the bad
[Muslims] from the good one. It is also a pass to the Eden [Paradise] and the Eden is in
the shade of swords.” 93 Al-Wahhab’s main interest was to spread what the “messenger,”
in his understanding desired to communicate. For him, Islam had to be simple and pure
in complete devotion to one God. 94 In al-Wahhab’s reading, the original grandeur of
Islam could only be regained by strict adherence to the principles enunciated by the
Prophet Muhammad: “our way is the way of the Salaf.” 95 Not very popular in his home
region, Wahhab found refuge near Mecca. Here he formed a formal alliance with
Muhammad ibn Saud. Al-Wahhab swore allegiance to ibn Saud, and ibn Suad in turn
agreed to make al-Wahhab’s ideology that of his domain. Thereby this ideology became
the basis for ibn Saud’s quest in unifying the Arabian tribes. 96 The Wahhabi philosophy
was actively spread by financing the building of mosques as communication outlets for
selected messages from the Prophet that advanced Wahhab’s ideology. Wahhab taught,
“We must find out what true Islam is: it is above all a rejection of all gods except God, a
refusal to allow others to share in that worship which is due to God alone {shirk). Shirk is
92 Stanley, “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism.”
93 Dore Gold, Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism , Google Books,
(Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004), 25.
http://books. google. de/books?id=Ui27nwe86uYC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=dore+gold+hatred , s+k&s
0urce^4&0ts=vgabQlnhb6&sigWMfflsWEEnlqJ5cike3HYvHMbl2s&hl=de&sa=X&ei=xCMkT4GiA4X
ctgeFntz5Cg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false .
94 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 40.
95 Al-Wahhab quoted in David Aaron, In Their Own Words (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008), 50.
96 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 50.
97 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires-America f s War in Afghanistan (New York, NY: Norton &
Company, 2010), 70.
21
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
evil, no matter what the object, whether it be ‘king or prophet, saint or tree or tomb.”’ 98
To spread his view, communication of these messages served as the means to an end.
As Ambassador Dore Gold, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, explained, “[Ibn
Abdul Wahhab’s] zealotry was fed by a desire to re-create the true Islam, based on what
he understood to be Islamic practice in the seventh century Arabia at the time of the
Prophet Muhammad.” 99 Gold goes on to write, “One of the central doctrines of
Wahhabism was takfir, a charge that Muslims could become infidels, or worse, by
engaging in improper religious activities. Even a person who uttered the proclamation of
Islamic faith... but still practiced polytheism should be ‘denounced as infidel and
killed.’” 100 Thereby he expanded the argument that one Muslim can declare another
Muslim an infidel, not just Mongol rulers, and thereby created a religious way of
justification for the killing of infidels. The justification of takfir is founded upon verse
4:115of the Koran, “And whoever acts hostilely to the Apostle after that guidance has
become manifest to him, and follows other than the way of the believers, we will turn
him to that to which he has turned and make him enter hell; and it is an evil resort.” 101
As the George Washington University Professor Marc Lynch explains, “The use of takfir
... is based on a stark, restrictive definition of Islam in which only the doctrinally pure
merit the name Muslim. This doctrine authorizes the most extreme brutality.” 102 A
century later, one of ibn Saud’s descendants succeeded in unifying large portions of the
i rjo
peninsula, which later became Saudi Arabia, with Wahhabism as state religion.
Within the same timeframe of the unification of the Arabian Peninsula under ibn
Saud, the MB was founded in Ismailiya, Egypt in 1928 by the Islamic scholar Hassan al-
Banna. 104 In his view, the decline of Islamic civilization occurred due to the
98 Wahhab quoted in Gold, Hatred's Kingdom, 19.
99 Gold, Hatred's Kingdom , 20.
100 Gold, Hatred's Kingdom , 23.
101 As quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words , 79.
102 Marc Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” in Self-Inflicted Wounds: Debates and Divisions Within Al-
Qa'ida and its Periphery , ed. Assaf Moghadam and Brian Fishman (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism
Center 16 December 2010), 155-182, 167.
103 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 50.
104 Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York, NY: Columbia University Press
2010), 18.
22
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
abandonment of fundamental Islamic beliefs. 105 His MB applied a modem organizational
model to communicate the messages of the nineteenth-century reformers as way and
mean to reach their end. Strongly opposed to colonial rale, they advocated Egyptian
independence. As the Harvard Professor Lorenzo Vidino explains, “While most anti-
British movements took inspiration from an array of Western-imported ideologies, from
nationalism to socialism, the Brotherhood was basing its discourse on Islam. ... Banna
saw the answer to the Western military-political-ethical-social invasion of the Muslim
world as ‘resistance to foreign domination through the exaltation of Islam.’ And no
imitation was more malign than that of Western legal systems.” 106
Officially the MB follow the “model of political activism combined with Islamic
i r\n
charity work,” and their interest is to propagate the Sunni reading of the Koran as the
“sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community
... and state.” 108 In addition to these official pacific aims, however, Hassan al-Banna also
created a paramilitary wing to speed up the exaltation of Islam. Their task was to the
fight against British rule via a bombing and assassination campaign. 109 As al-Banna
advocated, “The Islamic jihad is the noblest of endeavors” and “[w]ars are a social
necessity.” 110
After a failed attempt to assassinate President Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1954, the
MB was banned and thousands of members were imprisoned and tortured. This clash
with the authorities prompted an important shift in the ideology of the MB. The
repression forced the MB underground and into exile stimulating Sayyid Qutb’s
formulation of a much more radical Islam that finds its roots in his youth. Qutb was bom
105 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 52.
106 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 18.
107 BBC News Middle East, “Profile: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood,” BBC.co.uk, 9 February 2011,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12313405.
108 Ursula Lindsey, “Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: widening split between young and old,” The Christian
Science Monitor, December 21, 2009, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1221/Egypt-s-
Muslim-Brotherhood-widening-split-between-voung-and-old .
109 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 22-26.
110 Al-Banna as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 55.
23
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
in the same year as al-Banna and grew up in a renowned hotbed of extremism in Asyut,
Egypt. 111
Qutb’s writings, especially his 1964 work Milestones, inspired the founders of
many radical Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. Qutb's work encouraged the use of
jihad against ignorant Western and Islamic societies. 112 In Qutb’s view, the Islamization
from below was too slow in eradicating western influence, due to the intervention of local
authorities and foreign influence. He blended Islamic fundamentalism and Ibn
Taymiyyah’s philosophy with Anti-Western sentiments and jihad against apostate
regimes. 113 He saw the solution of the slow process in the concepts of takfir and jihad to
instill fear into their opponents. Thereby Qutb expanded the concept of takfir. For him,
takfir applies to Muslim rulers that have refused to implement Sharia and in effect have
abandoned Islam, not just to repel Mongol Muslim influences. 114 True Muslims are
obligated to engage in coup d'etat and kill such apostate rulers. 115 As the director of
research of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, Scott Atran, states, “Ibn
Taymiyyah’s philosophy and Sayyid Qutb’s example become the touchstones of modem
jihad.’’'' 116 Sayyid Qutb is the point of divergence between the mainstream MB and its
more radical offspring. 117
As Lorenzo Vidino explains Qutb’s goals, “A small group of tme Muslims,
vaguely resembling the revolutionary Vanguard envisioned by Lenin, should spearhead
the fight against apostate rulers.” Irregular warfare expert Dr. James Kiras adds that
Qutb saw the Vanguard concept as an essential catalyst for systemic change. 119 Qutb’s
Vanguard concept is profoundly influenced by Leninist theory. Even as he attacked
elements of Marxism, Leninism and Communism, Jason Burke, the south Asia
111 Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al-Qaeda-Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution 2008), 17.
112 Seyyid Qutb, Milestone , (USA: SIME journal, 2005), http://maialla.org/books/2005/qutb-nilestone.pdf
113 Aaron, In Their Own Words , 58.
114 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 24-25.
115 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 25.
116 Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy-Faith Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (New York,
NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010), 83.
117 Marc Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158.
118 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 25.
119 Kiras, “Irregular Warfare,” 269.
24
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
correspondent of The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, explains, “Qutb’s most
important work, Ma ’alim fi ’l-tariq (Milestones), reads in part like an Islamicized
Communist Manifesto.” Qutb copied major elements from these political schools of
thought. Sayyid Qutb also encouraged Muslims to live as the Prophet had done thousand
years before. Qutb transported and transferred the deep felt dishonor and lost security in
Egypt into his ideology to further his interest. As Marc Lynch describes, “Qutb’s more
121
extreme vision ... took root within a demoralized, angry and fiercely repressed MB.”
In 1965, the Egyptian government again cracked down on the MB and executed
Sayyid Qutb in 1966. 122 After his execution, his ideology emerged as the blueprint for
Islamic radicals. 123 Catalyzed by the aftermath of the crushing Arab defeat in the 1967
Arab-Israeli war, many Arabs, including Osama bin Laden, felt a deep attack on their
honor and security amplifying the deep resentments after Al-Nakba. As the professor
Dr. Fawaz A. Gerges explains, “The turn to Islamist militancy was a direct result of the
shattering defeat of the Arab states 1967. Manny Arabs came to realize that the secular
dominant authoritarian order could not even protect the homeland. Not only did the post¬
colonial state ... failed to deliver the goods, failed to create effective economic and social
institutions, it failed to protect the homeland. It failed to created authentic governments
based on sharia Islamic state. ... Jihadism was also a revolt against the religious
1 9 S
establishment itself... which was coopted by the secular authoritarian decadent order.”
Today, the MB is one of the largest Islamist and political movements in the Arab
world, “whose members cooperate with each other throughout the world, based on the
120 Jason Burke, “Think Again, A1 Qaeda,” Foreign Policy, 1 May 2004, 3,
http://www.foreignpolicv.corn/articles/2004/05/01/think_again_al_qaeda .
121 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158.
122 BBC News Middle East, “Profile: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, BBC.co.uk, 9 February 2011,”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12313405
123 Barbara Zoller, “Prison Talk: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Internal Struggle During Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s Persecution, 1957 to 1971,” International Journal Of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 411-433
and Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158-159.
124 Al-Nakba-mQdmng the Catastrophe: The Palestinian Arabs loss of their homes and lands to the new state
of Israel in 1948.
Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 39.
125 Fawaz A. Gerges, interview by Harry Kreisler, Conversations with History series of Institute of
International Studies of the History University of California at Berkeley, 30 November 2007,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q Ds65Rrz8c .
25
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
same religious worldview-the spread of Islam, until it rules the world.” 126 The MB is a
key source of Islamist thought and political activism and advocates peaceful political
participation. While the MB consistently denounces al-Qaeda’s ideology, rejects
extremism, takfir, and terrorist activities in Muslim States, it supports the violent
resistance against Israel. 128 Further, as Marc Lynch states, “... the Brotherhood remains
deeply committed to spreading a conservative vision of Islamic society and its cadres are
deeply hostile to Israel and to US foreign policy.” Their success is founded upon their
powerful message. It is a form of anticolonial nationalism based on common faith
instead of origin ethnic or heritage. 130
The MB’s ideology, Salafism, originated as an intellectual movement in the mid
to late 19 th Century at the al-Azhar University in Cairo. From there, Salafism was
imported into Saudi Arabia in its Qutbist reading. At that time, Wahhabism was the
dominant state religion in Saudi Arabia. As the Islamic terrorism expert Trevor Stanley
clarifies, “In terms of their respective formation, Wahhabism and Salafism were quite
distinct. Wahhabism was a pared-down Islam that rejected modem influences, while
Salafism sought to reconcile its Islam school of thought with modernism. What they had
in common is that both rejected the current understanding of tradition in favor of a
deeper/older traditional teachings on Islam in favor of direct, fundamentalist
ni
reinterpretation.” Wahhabism has its root in rejecting modernity and Salafism is a call
back to the basics. The Arabic root of the word Salafa is to return used as a call to return
to the time of the ancestors the pious forefathers. 132 These righteous Caliphs are the most
venerated religious leaders. The term Salafism 133 differentiates the creed of the first three
126 Mohammed Akef, Murshid (spiritual leader) of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood until
January 2010, quoted in Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 39.
127 Takfir is the practice of pronouncing a Muslim a non-Muslim and jihad is in this instance understood as
violent confrontation. Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood , 24-25.
128 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 155.
129 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 155.
130 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood in the West , 20.
131 Trevor Stanley, “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and SalafismT
132 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood , 17.
133 The term Salaf literally means those from history who precede, have gone before.
Muttaqun Online, “Call of those who preceded us,” http://muttaqun.com/salafiwah.htmh (accessed 24
January 2012).
26
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
generations from subsequent variations of Sunni Islamic creed and methodology
134
movements.
Trevor Stanley explains that “ Salafism and Wahhabism began as two distinct
movements, Faisal’s [Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz A1 Saud; King of Saudi Arabia 1964 -
1975] 135 embrace of Salafi pan-Islamism resulted in cross-pollination between Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab’s teachings on tawhid, shirk and bid’a and Salafi interpretations of al hadith
(the sayings of Muhammad). Some Salafis nominated Ibn Abd al-Wahhab as one of the
Salaf retrospectively, bringing Wahhabism into the fold of Salafism .” Salafism is a
literal, strict, and puritanical approach of Sunni Islamic theology.
While the exiled MB members in Saudi Arabia carried with them the new Qutbist
i 'jn
ideas, even so the MB itself reasserted a more moderate orthodoxy. Though the MB is
more moderate, they “both want to Islamicize the public domain and create Islamic states
ruled by Sharia. Both are Salafi in their approach to jurisprudence, both consider jihad
central to Islam.” 138 The mainstream MB officially rejected the core of Qutb’s ideology
with the 1969 publication of Preachers Not Judges, but Sayyid Qutb remained influential
with the MB. As Marc Lynch writes, “For Salafi jihadists , the rejection of Qutb is
where the MB went decisively astray.” 140 Thereby it was the decisive point in creating
the more radical offshoots. According to the RAND political scientist Seth G. Jones, due
to its stunning and drastic break with the status quo Qutb’s work was eagerly read by
younger generations of Muslims in the 1970s. 141 The young Osama bin Laden was one
of them.
134 Abu ’Iyad as-Salafi, “The Principles of Salafiyyah - A Brief Introduction to the Salafi Daah,”
salafipublications .com,
http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/sp.cfm?subsecID=SLF02&articleID=SLF020001&articlePages=l
(accessed 24 January 2012).
135 Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud was the king of Saudi Arabia between 1964 and 1975. He advocated the
unity of Muslims under one Islamic state (Pan-Islamism).
136 Stanley, “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism.”
137 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158.
138 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 160.
139 Barbara Zoller, “Prison Talk: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Internal Struggle During Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s Persecution, 1957 to 1971,” International Journal Of Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 411-433
and Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158-159.
140 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 159.
141 Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, 77-79.
27
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
During his study of economics at the King Abdul Azizy University in Saudi
Arabia in the late 1970s, bin Laden was exposed to the Palestinian-Jordanian Islamic
scholar Abdullah Azzam and Muhammad Qutb, the brother of Sayyid Qutb. Muhammad
Qutb inspired bin Laden to read his brother’s manifestos. 142 Azzam, formerly a member
of the MB and longtime follower of Sayyid Qutb, was instrumental in shaping bin
Laden’s ideology. He was “convinced that Palestine could only be liberated through a
unifying Islamic revolution ... [and] he was frustrated by the Arab states’ unwillingness
to fight Israel.” 143 Abdullah Azzam “elevated the duty of jihad to a central pillar of Islam
that informs Salafi Jihadism. ,,u4 By propagating his view of the Israel-Palestinian
conflict, Azzam introduced Osama bin Laden to the Palestinian narrative and he played a
pivotal role later on in the Afghan war. 145
Next to failing in providing security, the western-supported secular Muslim
governments were not able to provide the fundamental goods of everyday life and
thereby served as catalyst of the Islamist movement. The culmination of the repression
of Islamic organizations and governmental corruption and failures of postcolonial secular
Arab governments furthered extremist developments. 146 Within the same timeframe,
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad Organization developed out of a Qutbist
fragment of the Egyptian MB in the late 1970s. 147
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 enabled Saudi elements to begin an
active campaign in the region. One of the key facilitators and agitator was the former
MB member Abdullah Azzam, also known as the “Lenin of international jihad .” His
skill in political and religious agitation enabled him to attract Muslims to come to
Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invaders. Over time, the Afghan jihad brought numerous
Islamic radicals together. One key military instructor and lecturer who joined the fight,
142 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 40-41.
143 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 41.
144 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 166.
145 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 41.
146 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 3.
147 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 158.
28
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
was Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. He served in the Arab-Afghan training camps from 1987-
1992. 148
The evidence that bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1987 or 1988 is inconclusive.
It seems likely that “associates appeared to have set up al-Qaeda al-Askariza, or ‘a
training base,’ as bin Laden subsequently recalled.” 149 As Jason Burke suggests “[this
idea of the training base] that is where the name [of the group] came from.” 150 In the
realization that he shared similarities with Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Abdul Wahhab, and Sayyid
Qutb, bin Laden began to see himself in their tradition and to see in the path they
advocated his own interests. According to Seth G. Jones, the newly-formed group
“agreed that their goal would be ‘to lift the word of God, to make His religion victorious’
across the Arab world through armed jihad.” 151 As Fawaz A. Gerges argues, Al-Qaeda
was not an organization as of yet. Bin Laden’s stay in Sudan served as incubators that
breed Salafi-Jihadi fighters that was “subsequently consummated in Afghanistan.” 152
Sometime in late 1987 to early 1988, Abdullah Azzam formulated one of the
central founding documents of al-Qaeda and published it in April 1988 in the journal of
the Arab mujahedeen Al Jihad. “Every principle needs a Vanguard to carry it forward
... There is no ideology, neither earthly nor heavenly, that does not require such a
Vanguard that gives everything it possesses in order to achieve victory for this ideology.
This Vanguard constitutes Al-Qa ’idah al-Sulbah for the expected society.” 154 As Jason
Burke explains, Azzam envisaged independently acting men “who would set an example
148 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad , 1-10.
149 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 50.
150 Jason Burke, Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (London, GB: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 2.
151 Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires, 73.
152 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 53.
153 Rohan Gunaratna, Ideology in Terrorism and Counter Terrorism: Lessons from Combating Al Qaeda
and Al Jemaah Al Islamiyah in Southeast Asia (London, GB: Crisis States Research Centre, September
2005), Discussion Paper no. 05/42, 4-6, 6,
http://kmsl.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/44015/ichaptersection_singledocument/0d07f910-03a4-
4cc7-86ea-5b754a6e04fa/en/07.pdf .
154 Abdullah Azzam as translated and quoted in Reuven Paz, “Islamists and Anti-Americanism,” Middle
East Review of International Affairs , volume 7, no. 4 (December 2003). Abdullah Azzam, ”A1-Qa’ida al-
Sulbah (The Solid Base),” al-Jihad , no. 41 (April 1988): 46-49.
29
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
for the rest of the Islamic world and thus galvanize the Ummah (global community of
believers) against its oppressors.” 155
At the end of the Afghan war in 1989, none of the leading figures—bin Laden,
Azzam, or Zawahiri—advocated an armed confrontation with the West, with whom they
were “in the same trenches as the mujahedeen battling the evil empire.” 156 Within this
timeframe, bin Laden’s relationship with Azzam deteriorated. Bin Laden wished to
support terrorist action against Egypt and other Muslim secular regimes. Having lived in
Egypt, Azzam knew the price of such actions and opposed it vehemently. Azzam was
assassinated in Peshawar, Pakistan in November 1989. The ideological jihadist hardliner
Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri filled the resulting ideological vacuum. Al-Zawahiri became bin
1 rn
Laden’s doctor, ideological mentor, principal strategist, and deputy.
From their origins within the MB until the mid-1990s, the al-Qaeda jihadists
were still mainly inward looking. In their interest’s they were “obsessed with replacing
‘renegade’ secular Muslim rulers with Koran-based states or states governed by the
1 CO
Sharia .” Within this timeframe, the focus was not external Western states, the far
enemy, but the near enemy-pro-Westem Muslim leaders. 159 Besides the militant Islamist
movement known as jihadism, 160 the other MB leaders publicly eschewed fear instilling
violence against the regime and opted for nonviolent opposition, political participation
focusing on societal reform. 161 Even more, MB affiliated ideologists have developed a
1 rr\
theoretical Islamic defense of democracy.
A profound ideological shift in al-Qaeda occurred in the early 1990s. The US
military intervention during the first Gulf War, the permanent stationing of US troops in
Saudi Arabia (bin Laden’s home and the historical center of Islam), and the refusal by the
Saudi government to accept bin Laden’s offer to mobilize a mujahedeen force in lieu of
155 Burke, “Think Again, A1 Qaeda.,”
156 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 46.
157 Gunaratna, Ideology in Terrorism and Counter Terrorism , 4-6.
158 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 30.
159 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 31.
160 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 30.
161 Vidino, New Muslim Brotherhood, 25.
162 Lynch, “Jihadis and the Ikhwan,” 168.
30
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
reliance on US forces agitated bin Laden. As Seth G. Jones states, “The deployment of
US soldiers to Saudi Arabia was a shock to bin Laden and a clarion call for his
movement. ... To have non-Arabs on Saudi soil was an affront, but for the Americans to
lead the military assault was a grievous transgression” and a further blow to Arab and
Muslim honor. 163
After setbacks in Arab countries in the mid-1 990s, jihadis increasingly focused on
Western nation states. The Islamists grew increasingly frustrated by their failure to
change the status quo in their home countries. 164 This can be illustrated by the current al-
Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who stated in 2001 that the United States only knew
“the language of interests backed by brute military force. Therefore, if we wish to have a
dialog with them ... we must talk to them in the language they understand.” 165 The
language of fear was stimulated by terror. They believe that striking at the Western
sponsors of apostate regimes (i.e., at the so-called “far enemy,” as opposed to their
perceived illegitimate local governments or “near enemy”) might be the strategically
more successful approach. 166 Al-Zawahiri sought to resolve the doctrinal dispute over
the prioritization of the far and near enemy by blending the far enemy and the near enemy
into one, arguing that secular apostate Muslim leaders were puppets of their Western
masters. 167
While al-Qaeda strives to draw a direct unbroken line between Qutb and their
own ideology, however, Qutb never advocated attacking the “far enemy.” As Sayyid
Eid, a longtime prison cell mate of Qutb states, “I do not ever recall al-shahid [meaning
the one witness who is honest and trustworthy referring to Qutb] saying that we should
wage war against America or Britain; rather he wanted us to be vigilant against the
1 /TO
West’s cultural penetration of our societies.” Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden substituted
163 Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires , 74.
164 Burke, “Think Again: A1 Qaeda,” 3.
165 Excerpts from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner printed in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat
Publishes Extracts from Al-Jihad Leader Al-Zawahiri’s New Book, trans and publ. the Foreign Broadcast
information Service, Version 2, Open Source Center, OSC document GMP20020108000197 (2 December
2001 ).
166 Burke, “Think Again: Al Qaeda,” 3.
167 Aaron, In Their Own Words , 70.
168 As quoted in Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 32.
31
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
“the enemy without for the enemy within, and subsequently collapse[d] all distinctions
between the two, a testament to Qutb’s absolutist and opaque ideological categories.” 169
With this substitution al-Qaeda coupled Qutb’s anti-US narrative and his ideology to
facilitate their efforts to reclaim Qutb as the spiritual force behind the new transnational
jihad. Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden adopted useful elements and modified them to fit their
transnational agenda. 170 Zawahiri’s ideology focused on what he believed the West had
done to the Islamic world. In other words, al-Qaeda “borrowed the concept of al¬
ls lam al-haraki (a pioneering Vanguard)—which Qutb coined and popularized—and
deployed it against the religious and political establishment at home and against foreign
powers.” 172 Especially for Zawahiri, the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1919
weakened Islam’s position in the world. As the Senior Fellow in foreign policy at the
Saban Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution Bruce Riedel explains,
“Worst of all, the demise ... made possible the British Mandate that would make
Palestine a national homeland for the Jewish people.” 174 As Al-Zawahiri states, “Zionist
entity is a foothold for the Crusader invasion of the Islamic world. The Zionist entity is
the Vanguard of the US campaign to dominate the Islamic Levant.” Al-Qaeda
adapted Qutb to their needs. Al-Qaeda's anti-Western and anti-Colonial thinking
necessitated its interest in targeting a transnational enemy, requiring the adaptation of
Qutb to fit their propaganda.
For al-Qaeda' s transnational jihadism, the Afghan jihad was pivotal in numerous
ways. It served as a catalyst in accelerating and hardening the two powerful ideological
currents into al-Qaeda' s ideological Salaji heritage. The radical Egyptian Salafi
Islamism (Egyptian Zawahiri) and the Saudi ultra-conservative Wahhabism (bin Laden)
1 7
melded the ideologies to a new militant Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir practicing ideology.
169 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 32-33.
170 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 32-34.
171 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 25.
172 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 34.
173 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 25.
174 Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 26.
175 Al-Zawahiri quoted in Riedel, Search for Al-Qaeda, 28.
176 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 34; Abu ’Iyad as-Salafi, “The Principles of Salafiyyah - A Brief
Introduction to the Salafi Daah,” salafipublications.com,
32
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Within the Salafi ideology, al-Qaeda represents with its extreme Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir
interpretations merely a fringe deviant sect, whose grievances nonetheless resonate with
many Muslims. 177
By the early 1990s, many Arabs had left Afghanistan and infiltrated other
countries in an attempt to convert domestic conflict into jihad, and by the mid-nineties,
the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan and entrusted to Osama bin Laden the control of
Arab militant groups operating in Afghanistan. In 1998 bin Laden announced the
foundation of the World Islamic Front for jihad against the Crusaders, the formal
launch of al-Qaeda as umbrella organization encompassing a broad pool of jihadist
factions. 179
According to Fawaz A. Gerges, Afghanistan was the Mecca of al-Qaeda from the
late 1990s until 11 September 2001. The Afghan war also gave al-Suri the experience
and room to develop his operative frameworks of decentralized jihadi guerilla strategy
and tactics. 180 He crafted strategic doctrines on decentralized jihad based upon guerrilla
warfare, international security, and power politics literature in the 2000-2001 timeframe,
including The War of the Flea: Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice by Robert
Taber 181 and a synthesis of ideas contained in On Protracted War by Mao Tse-Tung 182
and Che Cuevara’s Guerilla Warfare , 183 As a strategist, he was not so much focused and
firm in the finer points of religious exegesis. 184 His writings serve for many jihadi
activists as a reference point for condemning the MB and furthering their interests. As
one of the main strategists within al-Qaeda, Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s doctrines have had
http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/sp.cfm?subsecID=SLF02&articleID=SLF020001 &articlePaues=1
(accessed 24 January 2012).
177 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 4.
178 Reflecting upon the Christian Crusades of the 1 l th -l 3 th century.
179 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 55-57.
180 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 1-9.
181 Robert Taber, The War Of The Flea-Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice (London, GB: Granada
Publishing, 1970).
182 Mao Tse-Tung, On Protracted Warfare, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: NY Praeger Publishers,
1961).
183 Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1998).
184 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 9.
33
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
great influence on the al-Qaeda movement. 185 The jihadis were bound by a similar
worldview and a similar tribal loyalty on which al-Qaeda depended for the survival of its
elite Vanguard. 186
Using Afghanistan as physical base, they trained their adherents and committed
terroristic attacks, which instigated US reprisal attacks. Impressed by the US’s
technological superiority, al-Suri increasingly questioned al-Qaeda' s reliance on fixed
training camps in areas of US hegemony and threatened by US air and space dominance.
After losing their physical base in Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda altered its strategy to a
more decentralized jihadi warfare, which conceptually had already been developed by
Abu Mus’ab al-Suri in the early 1990s but was largely ignored by more influential al-
Qaeda leaders until 2001. 187
Al-Qaeda's movement since 2001 has been operating from the position of the
strategic defensive to ensure its survival and reorganize itself to take an offensive
position in the far future. As the terrorism expert David Kilcullen summarizes, al-Qaeda
is “a Vanguard of hypermodem [in its use of the internet], ... making use of all the tools
of globalization and applying a strategy to transnational guerrilla warfare, while seeking
to organize, aggregate, and exploit the local, particular, long standing grievances of
diverse-but usually tribal or traditional-Muslim social groups.” 188 This becomes also
evident in tracts obtained as part of the al-Qaeda documents and communiques seized
during the 2 May 2011 raid on Abbottabad, Pakistan. According to the CTC Report
Letters From Abbottabad , “It was only when al-Qaeda lost its sanctuary following the
US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that a trend of regional jihadi groups pledging
allegiance to al-Qaeda or acting in its name emerged. Paradoxically, this may have been
due to the fame that the 9/11 attacks generated in the jihadi world and at the same time
185 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 22.
186 Gerges, Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, 57-59.
187 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 4.
188 David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla-Fighting Small Wars In the Midst of A Big One (Oxford, NY:
Oxford University Press, 2009), xiv.
34
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
al-Qaeda’s inability to be in control of its organization after it lost its sanctuary ...
[leading] to the perception that al-Qaeda was expanding.” 189
These documents also disclose bin Laden’s global communication and “obsession
with ideological purity as he sought to manage the group’s demoralized and scattered
networks in his final years. They show him seeking to reassert control over factions of
loosely affiliated jihadists from Yemen to Somalia, as well as independent actors whom
he believed had sullied al-Qaeda’s reputation and muddied its central message.” 190
According to Bruce Riedel “He was not a recluse; he was the CEO of a global terrorist
organization. ... He was receiving communications from al-Qaeda’s operatives literally
around the world, and he was instructing them to carry out acts of terror.” 191
189 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 10-11.
190 Joby Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand: In final months, terrorist leader worried about his legacy,” The
Washington Post, 30 April 2012, 1, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-securitv/bin-ladens-
last-stand-in-final-months-terrorist-leader-worried-about-his-legacv/2012/04/30/gIQAStCisT storv.html .
191 Bruce Riedel quoted in Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 2; Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad.
35
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
2.2 Chapter Conclusion
As this chapter has shown, Clausewitz’s theory of war can serve as a
methodological foundation for an analysis of al-Qaeda 's strategy. This analysis will
proceed by investigating the interlocking elements of the grand strategic, strategic and
tactical level design of ends, ways, and means for al-Qaeda. The chapter also argues that
Thucydides’ and Hobbes’ three key motivators—fear, honor, and interest—are also those
motivating al-Qaeda 's ends, ways and means. Since al-Qaeda 's strategy is Salafi-
Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism and terrorism is mainly a communication strategy, al-Qaeda 's
strategic concept can be depicted as a coin with two sides: the strategy side and the
strategic communication side (see Figure 2 below). With al-Qaeda 's origin in ideology
depicted as baseline, their defensive strategy based on decentralized organization and the
communication strategy that developed following the loss of their physical base in
Afghanistan will be depicted in the next two chapters.
Al-Qaeda’s Strategy Coin
Figure 2. Al-QAEDA’S STRATEGY COIN
Source: Authors ’ Original Work
36
AU/SAASS/B0CKSTETTE/AY12
CHAPTER 3 - STRATEGY
Angels of mercy, escort our souls to Heaven after we fulfill
this duty of crushing the descendants of monkeys and pigs.
Dear father and mother, blessings of honor and respect to
you, while you escort me to the Maidens of Paradise as a
martyr.
- Al-Takrouri 2003
3.1 Al-Qaeda's Grand Strategy
To comprehend the rage behind and ruthlessness of al-Qaeda strategic interests
requires an understanding of the perceived humiliation felt by a number of “Muslims
over the collapse of the Islamic civilization over the past 400 years” 1 and an
understanding of the main sources of al-Qaeda 's ideological goal of restoring the
Ummah's honor, as previously described. Their current ideology is fundamentally still
based on Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s writings:
■ the organizational program of Sayyid Qutb, especially his principles of
alhakimiyyah [God’s sovereignty on earth];
■ the legal-political doctrine of Ibn Taymiyyah and the Salafiyyah school,
especially the basis of loyalty and innocence (A1 Wala’ Wal Bara’);
■ the jurisprudential and doctrinal heritage of the Wahhabite call; and
■ “some basic elements” from the MB’s ideology. 2 3
Based mainly on this ideological foundation, al-Qaeda 's policy aims at politically
uniting all countries with a Muslim majority into an Islamic realm through a monolithic
Islamic religious/social movement. The way to realize the grand strategy is to
reinvigorate the Islamic Ummah (Community). Al-Qaeda seeks to mobilize the Muslim
Ummah in a revolutionary transformation of the Muslim world population in
confrontation with the international order embodied by Western society. Al-Qaeda
seeks to put an end to the international order led by the West and terminate the influence
1 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 2.
2 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Brynjar Lia: “Jihadi Strategists and Doctrinarians,” in Assaf Moghadam,
Brian Fishman eds., Self Inflicted Wounds-Debates and Divisions within al-Qa’ida’s and its Periphery ,
CTC Harmony Project, Dec 16, 2010, 100-131,108. http://www.etc.usma.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/Self-Inflicted-Wounds.pdf.
3 Bockstette, “Terrorist Exploit Information Technologies,” 11-13.
37
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
of the West over Muslim territory. 4 According to the CTC, al-Qaeda “envisaged their
organization as an international entity, serving as a ‘wellspring for expertise in military
training and [the art of] fighting’ ... [to] serve to enable other jihadi groups around the
world, stating that ‘our relationship with sincere jihadi groups and movements is
premised on cooperation [to advance] righteousness and piety.’” 5
Abu Mus’ab al-Suri articulated how al-Qaeda can work towards its goal in the
near term: “Our new method for jihadi operations ... is a global method and call. ...
Likewise, the present military theory is also dependent upon moving on a global horizon.
This is a basic factor in the military movement, besides being a strategy, political, and
religious doctrine.” 6
Al-Qaeda's grand strategy aims at creation of Islamic Emirates as a way to create
a devout Islamic Caliphate in the long run. As Sheik Alaa Yousuf (Al-Ayerri) declares,
“Thus, Muslims can have only one goal: converting the entire humanity to Islam and
‘effacing the final traces of all other religions, creeds and ideologies.” 7 8 The
implementation of strict Sharia law to guarantee the primacy of religion in social and
O
state affairs is pivotal for al-Qaeda. Establishing Islamic Emirates where Sharia law is
the societal and governmental foundation, and uniting all Emirates to an Islamic
Caliphate with an Islamic government of Allah, is the mainstay of al-Qaeda' s grand
strategy. Abolishing the Westphalian state system on the way, this Caliphate will in turn
expand to global rule.
In essence, the ways of al-Qaeda' s strategy are Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Ideology, the
Sharia-based society, Sharia- based governance the seizure of territory, the uniting the
Ummah, and establishing an initial core Emirate from which to expand to the desired
Caliphate. Al-Zawahiri, who has had a significant influence on al-Qaeda' s grand
strategy, stated in 2001, “[Sayyid Qutb] affirmed that the issue of unification in Islam is
important... it is also a battle over to whom authority and power should belong-to God’s
4 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy.”
5 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 9.
6 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 368.
7 Al-Ayerri as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 114.
8 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 8.
38
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
course and shari ’ah, [or] to man-made laws.. .” 9 Al-Zawahiri amplified this position,
explaining, “[What] we seek is based on three foundations. The first foundation is the
rule of shari ’ah. ... The second foundation: ... the freedom of the Muslim lands and their
liberation from ... the yoke of the US and Jewish occupation. ... The third foundation:
[T]he liberation of the human being.” 10
The infamous (and now deceased) former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu
Musab-al Zarqawi, drew upon Taymiyyah and Qutb in a 2006 interview and explained
the ends of al-Qaeda’ s grand strategy in the following way, even though he was not a
member of the al-Qaeda central leadership:
As for our political agenda as some people call it, so we find it
summarized richly in the saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him), "I
have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour, until Allah
is worshipped alone". ... [W]e do not believe in politics in the way
familiar with some groups that are directed by their sect, who raise Islam
as a slogan. You find them in the parliaments, participating with the
disobeyers in engaging the seats that rule against the law of Allah.... We
fight in the way of Allah, until the law of Allah is implemented, and the
first step is to expel the enemy, then establish the Islamic state, then we set
forth to conquer the lands of Muslims to return them back to us, then after
that, we fight the kuffar [disbelievers] until they accept one of the three. "I
have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour"; this is our
political agenda. ... For after the establishment of an Islamic nation, he
started moving to spread Islam in the east and the west and the north and
the south. Our political agenda now is to expel the imposing enemy, this is
the beginning, and our agenda after it is to establish the Sharia of Allah on
earth. ... Interviewer: Did Abu Zayed exaggerate when he said "Al-Qaeda
aims in 100 years to take control over the world"? Zarqawi: This is not
hidden. We are working to spread the equality of Islam throughout the
globe, to wipe away the darkness of disbelief and the misconceptions of
the other religions. ... In this condition, jihad becomes obligatory. Sheikh
Ibn at Taymiyyah said, "No excuse can be used as an excuse for it". ...
Look at what the enemy is doing to the Muslims? How they are killing
their sons and leaving their women alive and robbing them off their honor
and taking their money? * 11
9 Al-Zawahiri as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 71-72.
10 A1 Zawahiri as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 71-72.
11 Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi interview by Abu Al-Baghdadi, “Dialogue With Sheikh Abu Musab Al-
Zarqawi,” Al-Furqan Foundation for Media Production, 20 December 2006,
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/12/20/6921 .shtml.
39
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Al-Qaeda senior leaders consider the current rulers of Islamic states to be
unbelieving apostate and agents of the West. As the al-Qaeda member Saeed Ahmad al-
Zahrani explained, “The rulers of the countries of Islam in this age are all apostate,
unbelieving tyrants who have departed in every way from Islam. Muslims who proclaim
God’s unity have no other choice than iron and fir q Jihad in the way of God, to restore
the caliphate according to the Prophet’s teachings.” 12
Along the way to achieving its goal, al-Qaeda seeks to destroy the USA, the
Western state and societal system, Israel—the far enemy—as well as the Shi ’a ideology.
In addition, the group also seeks to eliminate unbelievers and avenge the perceived
oppression off all Muslims in order to restore the Ummah’s honor. However, there is a
lack of articulated political and social ends that go beyond the establishment of the
Caliphate and the implementation of Sharia law. Details on the desired Caliphate remain
obscure but the seizure of territory to establish a base and to establish an Islamic Emirate
is an obvious end. The seizure of territory serves as a way to the end of establishing an
Emirate. In the words of al-Zawahiri, “[The] jihad is t movement needs an arena that
would act like an incubator where its seeds would grow and where it can acquire practical
experience in combat, politics and organizational matters.” 13
Al-Qaeda has a very long time horizon for establishing the desired Islamic
Caliphate. Abu-Hafs al-Masri Brigades illustrated in 2004 the time horizon for reaching
the grand strategic end: “The enemy can be patient but cannot persevere. We, with our
faith, creed, and love for meeting Allah, can persevere until the enemy collapses, even if
this takes decades or centuries.” 14 Al-Qaeda sees itself as the “inciter-in-chief’
provoking a sustained global uprising of the Ummah for decades to come in order to
further its Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism Islamic Vanguard grand strategy. 15
12 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 173.
13 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 198.
14 As quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 202.
15 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 28.
40
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
3.2 Al-Qaeda’s Strategy
Strategy is confined only by the event horizon of
possibilities, a horizon which expands anew with every action
-Everett Dolman
Al-Qaeda’s adherents believe they can achieve their grand strategic and strategic
ends only through by the way of utilizing jihadi terrorism as overarching strategy. By
creating and exploiting the fear and anxiety of a population, al-Qaeda aims to use its
terrorist strategy as a catalyst for instability. 16 As one of al-Qaeda’ s leaders the Saudi
Abu Ayman al-Hilali explained in 2002, “ Jihad and martyrdom operations are our
strategic weapon against the enemy.” 17 Its strategic way is to bleed the United States into
bankruptcy, forcing it to withdraw from Muslim lands and the collapse of its local allies
(apostate regimes). Al-Qaeda aims at exhausting their opponents by numerous, cheap,
small-scale attacks to create a strategic effect by exhausting and provoking expensive
overreactions on a global scale and exploiting safe havens. 18 Simultaneously, al-Qaeda’ s
strategy aims at provoking and alienating effects of US intervention to rally the Ummah
behind al-Qaeda and destroy the credibility of local (apostate) Muslim regimes. 19
Using Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism practicing an Islamic Vanguard concept, al-
Qaeda aims to further its strategic objective of the removal of all secular political leaders
who currently govern Muslim States and the destruction of the State of Israel. The
terrorists’ aim is to install supportive Islamic regimes and transform the current fractious
political landscape of the Muslim world into a unified community to further their grand
strategic ends. 20 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, advising al-Qaeda to use methods similar to those
outlined by Mao Tse-Tung’s in his seminal guerrilla manifesto “On Protracted War,”
wrote, 21
The jihad of individual or cell terrorism, using the methods of urban or
rual guerilla warfare, is fundamental for exhausting the enemy and causing
16 Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends: Understanding The Decline and Demise of Terrorist
Campaigns (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), 166.
17 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 200.
18 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 296.
19 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 29.
20 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 8.
21 For an excerpt of Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s strategy of a protracted guerilla, see Appendix A.
41
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
him to collaps and withdraw. God willing. The Open Front Jihad is
fundamental for seizing control over land in order to liberate it, and
establish Islamic law, with the help of God. The Individual Terrorism
Jihad and guerilla warfare conducted by small cells, paves the way for the
other kind (Open Front Jihad), aids and supports it. Without confrontation
in the field and seizure of land, however, a state will not emerge for us.
And this is the strategic goal for the Resistance project. This is a summary
of the military theory which I already developed into its final forms and
recorded into a lecture series in the summer of 2000. 22
In the face of their lack of success in removing secular Muslim regimes and
establishing an Islamic Emirate, al-Qaeda' s prioritization of strategic ends shofted to the
“far enemy” as a way to weaken the “near enemy” as well. Well aware that no apostate
leader has been removed thus far due to al-Qaeda deeds and that the sizeable, well-
trained, and capable US military and security forces cannot be defeated head-on, al-
Qaeda applies the strategy of Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism as a way of wearing down
the “far enemy” by luring it into a protracted conflict in Muslim lands. As Sabri
Mohammed Ebrahim A1 Qurashi, currently held in the United States’ Guantanamo Bay
detention camp, stated in 2002, “ Al-Qaeda follows a clear strategy. The choice to target
the United States from the beginning was a smart strategic choice for the global jihad
movement. The struggle with the United States’ hangers-on in the Islamic region has
shown that these hangers-on cannot keep their tyrannical regimes going for a single
minute without US help.” 23
One central strategic end is the elimination of the “far enemy” United States by
the way of luring it into conflict. The Center for Islamic Studies and Research, an al-
Qaeda supportive organization, explained the strategy thus, “We must also understand
that the al-Qaeda organization has adopted a strategy in its war with the Americans based
on expanding the battlefield and exhausting the enemy, who spreads his interests over the
globe, with successive and varied blows.” 24 The strategic object is causing a
disproportionate US military response to rally the Ummah behind al-Qaeda. Scott Atran
puts it thus: “That’s ... why almost no Afghans were closely associated with al-Qaeda
22 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 371.
23 Al-Qurashi quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 196.
24 Center for Islamic Studies and Research 2003 as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 200.
42
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
until after 9/11, when America bombed them into togetherness.” 25 If possible, attacks are
also to be carried out in the United States; as al-Zawahiri states, “Therefore, we must
move the battle to the enemy’s grounds to bum the hands of those who ignite fire in our
countries.”
The strategy also aims at financially draining the US as Osama bin Laden asserted
in his October 2004 address to America: “ Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the September 11
attacks, while America lost more than $500 billion at the lowest estimate, in the event
and its aftermath ... Still more serious for America was the fact that the mujahedeen
forced Bush to resort to an emergency budget in order to continue fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq. This shows the success of our plan to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy,
with God’s will.” Sheikh Abu Bakr Naji, one of al-Qaeda's leading warfare theorists,
argues in a similar fashion for a strategic plan that requires “a military strategy working
to disperse the efforts and forces of the enemy and to exhaust and drain its monetary and
military capabilities.” 28 In addition, by conducting major attacks behind the lines for the
“far enemy,” al-Qaeda put on a show of force. This not only serves terrorist strategy but
9Q
also drives in the majority of the financial donations.
As a key al-Qaeda strategic mastermind, Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s pedagogical
footprint is very evident. He argued for thorough, rational, long-term strategic use of
violence. To a certain extent, he was a critical dissident and intellectual thinker with a
hard-nosed interest based approach compared to more utopian religious dogmatic
leaders. 30 His strategy for decentralized terrorism by autonomous cells without fixed
bases or traceable organizational ties became the way for survival of al-Qaeda after
losing the physical bases in Afghanistan in 2001. Al-Qaeda's decentralized cells are
25 Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (New York,
NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010), 99.
26 Aaron, In Their Own Words , 197.
27 IntelCenter, Osama bin Laden Message Analysis & Threat Assessment, 8 November 2004.
28 Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Umma Will
Pass , trans. William McCants (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2006), 21,
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/olin/images/Management%20of%20Savagerv%20-%2005-23-2006.pdf
29 Carsten Bockstette, “Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques,”
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies , Occasional Paper Series, no. 20 (December
2008), 11.
30 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad , 371.
43
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
today mostly linked by ideology and solidarity by the means of decentralized protracted
guerilla tactics. 31 This also becomes evident in recently declassified documents, which
show that al-Qaeda affiliates “sought bin Laden’s blessing on symbolic matters, such as
declaring an Islamic state, and wanted a formal union to acquire the al-Qaeda brand.”
Even though it is an obvious contradiction of the strategic aim of luring Western
troops into Muslim lands, a further stated strategic objective is to drive those they call
kuffar (non-believers) from Muslim lands. One promising approach to achieve this end
is to attack allies of the US-led coalition that are judged the most vulnerable (e.g., those
with weak governments or poor public support for involvement to induce their
governments to withdraw their troops). The underlying strategy is to isolate the United
States by dividing and undermining its coalition, forcing the US and its allies to pull
out. 34 This strategy could well have been copied from Clausewitz who stated, “The [act]
we consider most important for the defeat of the enemy [is] the following: ... Delivery of
an effective blow against his principal ally.” 35 This sentiment is seconded by Sun Tzu
and his commentators, “When he is united, divide him. Chang Yu: Sometimes drive a
wedge between a sovereign and his ministers; on other occasions separate his allies from
him ... Then you can plot against them.” 36
The Norwegian Defense Research Establishment provides evidence of this aim in
al-Qaeda strategic thinking, quoting from an al-Qaeda planning manuscript on a radical
Islamic Web site in December 2003: “We think that the Spanish government could not
tolerate more than two, maximum three blows, after which it will have to withdraw as a
result of popular pressure. If its troops still remain in Iraq after those blows, then the
31 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 7-8.
32 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 12.
33 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 8.
34 Carsten Bockstette, “Taliban and Jihadist Use of Strategic Communication,” Connections-The Quarterly
Journal, vol. VIII, no. 3, (Summer 2009): 1-24, 6-7.
Chapter two and three are based on and contain elements of by the author previously published essays:
Carsten Bockstette, “Terrorist Exploit Information T echnologies", per Concordiam Journal of European
Security and Defense Issues, vol. 1 issue 3, (October 2010); Bockstette, “Taliban and Jihadist Use of
Strategic Communication;” Bockstette, “Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management
Techniques.”
35 Clausewitz, On War, 596.
36 Sun Tzu, Illustrated Art of War, 100.
44
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces
will be on its electoral program.” 37 The tract called to exploit the March 2004 elections
in Spain. The last Spanish troops left Iraq in May 2004. Al-Qaeda's attacks were
aimed to serve both coercive and deterrent ends. Stathis N. Kalyvas explains how
violence can serve both purposes at once: “Coercive violence [terrorism] may be strategic
and tactical at the same time. Targeting a person to eliminate a particular risk is tactical,
but using this act of violence so as to deter others from engaging in similar behavior is
strategic.” 40
Al-Qaeda , aiming to be the leader of a coalition of Salafi-Jihadi-Takfiri
Terroristic groups, 41 seeks to build a mass consciousness of the Ummah via its terroristic
strategy using its regional affiliates ( al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Sayyaf Group, etc.) to co-opt and
aggregate the effects of multiple, diverse local actors around the globe and point them
towards the goals of its grand strategy. Al-Qaeda provides these entities, to a greater or
lesser extent, with strategic direction, technical and logistical assistance, and
propaganda. 42
In awareness of al-Qaeda’s losses in 2010 in Waziristan and the ruthless conduct
of al-Qaeda’s jihadi affiliates compelled bin Laden to reassess al-Qaeda’s strategy. He
came to the conclusion to “ensure the safety and security of the remaining brothers” was
of strategic importance, even if this would mean a slower pace of operations and it
reiterated his understanding of the importance of reestablishing centralized control. 43
3.3 Tactical Goals
Al-Qaeda' s tactics and techniques for assessing and attacking targets underscore
their fanatic ideological conviction. At the tactical level, al-Qaeda aims to provoke,
37 Media Committee for the Victory of the Iraqi People 2003 quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 238.
38 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 195.
39 BBC News, “Last Spanish troops leave Iraq,” BBC.co.uk, 21 May 2004,
http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/3734751 .stm,
40 Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War, 27.
41 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla, 28.
42 Kilcullen , Accidental Guerrilla, 14.
43 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 16-17.
45
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
intimidate, protract, and exhaust. Al-Qaeda provokes via atrocities, prompting their
enemies to (over-)react in ways that harm their opponent’s interests and alienate the
Muslim population, allowing al-Qaeda to further exploit the created instability as David
Kilcullen so eloquently describes in his work The Accidental Guerrilla , 44 Secondly, al-
Qaeda aims at preventing cooperation with apostate governments, coercing the local
populace by killing those who collaborate. 45 Following lines of reasoning similar to
those used by Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevara, the group also seeks to protract the
conflict in order to deplete their enemies’ resources, erode their political will, and gain
support of the Ummah while at the same time avoiding losses. Additionally, al-Qaeda
aims to impose costs on their opponents in lives, resources, and political capital to coerce
their enemies and further higher strategic goals. 46
Many al-Qaeda statements sanction killing infidels and collateral damage. This
includes the exceptional killing of Muslims in order to be able to kill heretics and
apostates. Al-Zarqawi in 2005 justified this position, stating, “We cannot kill infidels
without killing some Muslims. It is unavoidable ... killing of infidels by any method ...
has been sanctified by many scholars even if it meant killing innocent Muslims.” 47 The
focus is on maximizing the number of victims by exploiting the lethal power of the
material and attack objects used. Suicide bombers are usually the weapon of choice.
Their operatives go well beyond basic description of a potential target. Al-Qaeda' s
preparation usually includes sophisticated analysis of target vulnerabilities including
building construction and examination of the emergency response systems. Especially al-
Suri’s works on training, preparation, weapons, and explosive manuals are widely
referenced and applied. For example, al-Suri writes that for “shooting practices this
must be done by creating necessary areas and suitable conditions in caves ... and
uninhabited mountains ... vast forests ... deserts ... etc., taking great security
44 Kilcullen .Accidental Guerrilla, 14-32.
45 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla , 30.
46 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla , 32.
47 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 104.
48 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 23.
46
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
precautions.” 49 Al-Suri’s strategy for a protracted war propagates the more tactical first
stage of guerrilla warfare thus:
The first stage: It is called the stage of exhaustion. It is the stage of small
guerrillas and limited terrorist warfare, where the guerillas, which are
small in number, rely upon the methods of assassination, small raids and
ambushes, and selective bomb attacks to confuse the enemy, regardless of
whether the enemy is a colonial power or a despotic regime. The aim is to
reach a state of security exhaustion, political confusion, and economic
failure. ... [The] Weapons of the first stage: Are primitive weapons and
personal one-man weapons, such as revolvers and light and medium
machine guns at the most, light anti-tank weapons such as the R.P.G. and
its equivalents, hand grenades, as well as home-made and military
explosives. 50
49 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 478.
50 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 471-472.
For a complete overview of al-Suri’s stages of Guerrilla warfare, see Appendix A.
47
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
3.4 Chapter Conclusion
As Table 2 illustrates below, al-Qaeda has strategic and grand strategic ends that
have been translated down to the tactical level. Terrorist attacks utilizing Jihad-Martyr-
Takfir tactics have caused much damage death and suffering. However, these limited
military successes have achieved significant success in neither their strategic nor grand
strategic goals, aside from luring the US and its allies into conflict in Muslim lands in a
limited way. The sole focus in jihadi terrorism as overarching strategy seems, at least
with a short time perspective, to be a failing military strategy.
FIRST HALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN --
Al-Qaeda’s Strategy
Level
ENDS
(Goals/Objects)
WAYS
(Concepts/ldeology)
MEANS
(T ools/Resources)
Grand
Strategy
• Global Caliphate
• Islamic Emirates
• In Sharia fused society and
governance
• United Ummah
• Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir ideology
• Sharia based society
• Sharia based governance
• Seizure of territory
• Uniting the Ummah
• Establishing a first core
Emirate
• Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir T errorism
practicing a Islamic Vanguard
concept
• Strategic Communication
Strategy
• 1. Al-Qaeda Survival
• 2. Free Muslim lands
• 3. Establish Sharia rule
• 4. Eliminate the “near
enemy”
• 5. Eliminate the “far enemy”
• 6. Eliminate Israel.
• Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir
Terrorism practicing a
Islamic Vanguard concept
to intimidate, protract and
to exhaust the enemy
• Jihad-Martyr-Takfir terroristic
attacks
• Decentralized protracted
guerilla Jihad-Martyr-Takfir
tactics
• Economic and financial
bleeding of opponents
Tactics
• Successful Jihad-Martyr-
Takfir terroristic attacks
• Decentralized protracted
guerilla tactics to intimidate,
protract and to exhaust the
enemy
• Recruit, train, and radicalize
adherents
• Deception
• Psychological operations
• Operations security
• Physical destruction
• Military deception
• Jihad-Martyr-Takfir terroristic
attacks
Table 2. FIRST H
1ALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN
Source: Authors ’ Original Work
However, the purpose is not to win a symmetric military confrontation at this
time. The primary aim of the attacks is to function as an inciter to catalyze the population
to act as a communication channel in order to intimidate, coerce and propagate aimed at
furthering al-Qaeda 's grand political and strategic agenda. Thus, the tactical attacks are
mainly aimed at helping in communicating messages-as will be depicted in the next
chapter.
48
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
CHAPTER 4 - JIHADI COMMUNICATION STRATEGY
We are in a battle, and that more than half of this
battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.
-Ayman Al-Zawahiri 2005
4.1 Grand Communication Strategy
Al-Qaeda's grand strategic communication ends are inseparable from its grand
political strategy. The ends of the group’s grand communications strategy are the support
for the grand strategic and strategic ends, ways, and means and their credibility and
legitimacy executing its Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism strategy as the Ummah ’ s
Vanguard. Al-Qaeda aims to further this by the way of instilling and gaining adherence
to Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Ideology, ^aria-based society and governance, and uniting the
Ummah behind their cause. Al-Suri’s significance to al-Qaeda' s communication grand
strategy is paramount. 1 He designed the unofficial blueprint for al-Qaeda' s
communication strategy’s ends, ways, and means, as is evident in his epic 1,600 page
work The Military Theory of the Global Islamic Resistance Call :
These [political] factors include the presence of a cause in which the local
inhabitants can believe, in a way that is sufficient for making them fight a
jihad for its sake. Also, that cause must be able to mobilize the Islamic
Nation behind it, so that the nation will help this people succeed, and fight
a jihad with them, with their spirit and money... and other kinds of
support. The most suitable cause among the causes that instigate
resistance is foreign aggression and an abundance of religious, political
economic and social reasons for revolution and jihad. This is called
‘revolutionary climate’ in books about guerilla warfare, and in our
literature, we will term it jihadi climate.’ 2
Thanks to communication technology, al-Qaeda is theoretically able to reach any
conceivable international desired audience. This communication technology as a means
1 The Syrian al-Suri, as a potent political and ideological figure is and at the same time is not a key al-
Qaeda strategic mastermind. He trained a generation of jihadist at al-Qaeda’s Afghan camps and helped in
establishing al-Qaeda s vast European networks. He crafted practical ways to implement jihadi guerrilla
warfare including withering critiques of the jihadi movement after assessing terrorist campaigns. As a
dissident and critic, he never became part of the central al-Qaeda leadership, but his influence as
charismatic and prophetic strategist ensured is political impact on al-Qaeda’s strategy, especially after
2001.
2 Abu Mus ’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 375.
49
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
enables them to attack governments via terrorist attacks that are far beyond its operational
territory by influencing populations and using them as a communication channel. 3 As
Abu Bakr Naji stated, “[W]e want to communicate our Sharia, military, and political
positions to the people clearly and justify them rationally and through the Sharia and
(show that) they are in the (best) interest of the Ummah." 4 The communication strategy
serves to reach the desired end state of establishing a global devout Caliphate with a
STtaria-based Islamic government.
Since terrorism is essentially a communication strategy, the focus of al-Qaeda is
therefore heavy on the communicative vs. the guerrilla aspect within the scope of
irregular warfare. Ayman Al-Zawahiri put it thus: “I say to you: that we are in a battle,
and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And
that we are in a.. .race for the hearts and minds of our [Muslim nation]. And that
however far our [military] capabilities reach, they will never be equal to one thousandth
of the capabilities of the kingdom of Satan that is waging war on us.” 5
The utopian elements of al-Qaeda' s grand strategy and the eschatological
worldview of its ideology serve a significant purpose: utopia is not only the goal of al-
Qaeda' s violence, but also serves as al-Qaeda' s moral and religious justification in the
application of terrorism as a legitimate strategic way and tactical mean. 6 Al-Qaeda's,
primary long-term grand communication strategy aims at the enlargement of their
movement. Uniting the Ummah behind al-Qaeda, as a grand strategy way, is of the
utmost importance for the group’s ultimate success. The grand strategic ways also serve
to propagate the Sharia based society and governance as well as seeking to justify Salafi-
Jihadi-Takfir Ideology. Abu Bakr Naji explains the ways and means thus, “Developing
3 John Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago-From Mao to bin Laden (New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2009), 79.
4 Naji, Management of Savagery, 96.
5 Open Source Center, “ Report: Complete Text of Al-Zawahiri 9 July 2005 Letter to Al-Zarqawi,”
(Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, 11 October 2005), OSC document FEA20061002028254).
6 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy;,” Steven R. Corman and Jill S. Schiefelbein,
“Communication and Media Strategy in the Islamist War of Ideas,” in Weapons of Mass Persuasion-
Strategic Communication To Combat Violent Extremism ed. Steven R. Corman and Angela Trethewey and
H.L. Goodall, Jr. (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing 2008); Bockstette, “Taliban and Jihadist Use of
Strategic Communication,” 13.
50
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
the media strategy such that it reaches and targets the heart of the middle leadership of
the armies of apostasy in order to push them to join the jihad. ... Establishing a media
plan which seeks, in each of these stages, rational and Sharia justification for the
operations, especially [targeting] the masses. [It must be a plan] which escapes the
captivity of targeting individuals of the other Islamic groups, who already understand
everything!” 7
Creating and maintaining al-Qaeda' s social and religious viability while engaging
in terroristic acts requires a continuous communication effort. This reinforces the image
of communications as a central means of al-Qaeda' s grand strategy. Al-Qaeda's violent
methods and the killing of innocent people inevitably contradict many of the teachings of
Islam and tend to undermine the legitimacy of their ends. Al-Qaeda aims to mitigate this
inherent limitation of their legitimacy through an unceasing communication campaign.
Therefore, efforts to secure legitimacy through ostensible demonstration of compliance
with Islamic law are prominent in the group’s grand communication strategy. 8 Al-
Qaeda's grand strategic communication mean is their credibility and legitimacy in
executing its Salafi-Jihadi Takfir Terrorism strategy as the Ummah ’s Vanguard. Without
significant believe in its credibility and legitimacy by the Ummah, their strategy in total
becomes powerless.
4.2 Communication Strategy
Based on their grand communication strategy, al-Qaeda aims to develop a
communication strategy to further the above. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, as an al-Qaeda realist
and critical thinker who was acutely aware of the importance of communication strategy,
advised, “It is ... among the strategic principles of the Global Islamic Resistance Call to
use arguments, explanations and legal and political evidence, and logical realism not
weapons and swords to confront this heretic group of propagandists for Satan and the
7 Naji, Management of Savagery, 21.
8 Bockstette, “Taliban and Jihadist Use of Strategic Communication,” 13.
51
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Sultan’s clerics, who call people to the ports of Hell.” 9 Al-Zawahiri promulgated al-
Qaeda's communication strategy and its ways and means thus:
The media war against the regime is no less important than the military
war, especially as the regime is thoroughly embroiled in all manner of
corruption—ideologically, ethically, politically and financially—leaving it
vulnerable on these grounds to media assaults. Thus it is necessary that
the mujahedeen operations have a media orientation toward issues of
concern to the people. The effects of the operations in this regard must
therefore be carefully studied before they are carried out... Finally, it is
necessary to emphasize that the Islamist movements must adopt the
confrontation with Israel and America, so that they attract the masses to
the fight and to the critical strike against the regime. 10 This also includes
analyzing the enemy’s media communications, as Abu Bakr Naji
explained, “Therefore, understanding the media politics of the adversaries
and dealing with them is very important in winning the military and political
battle. * 11
Based on their ideology and strategy, al-Qaeda is knowingly or unknowingly
using master narratives 12 as a means to propagate its message and further its agenda. Al-
Qaeda aims to exploit deep-seated belief systems founded in ethnic, religious, and
1 'J
cultural identities to muster support for their grand strategic aims. This includes the
attack of high-profile symbolic targets that have the potential of provoking enemy
governments to over-react, harming their own long-term interests, so that al-Qaeda can
strategically profit. 14 The master narratives and the vision they propagate serve as
resources for the strategic rhetorical efforts toward desired audiences to align their views
9 Abu Mus ’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad , 409.
10 Al-Zawahiri quoted in Assaf Moghadam and Brian Fishman, Self-Inflicted Wounds Debates and
Divisions within al-Qa’ida and its Periphery (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2010),
Harmony Project, 87.
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Self-Inflicted-Wounds.pdf
11 Naji, Management of Savagery, 95.
12 Master narratives are historically based stories that reflect a community’s identity and experiences. They
communicate the community’s concerns, aspirations and hopes. In addition, such narratives assist in
guiding members connect with who they are and where they come from. Finally, master narratives are
useful to individuals in understanding unfolding developments around them.
Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report , 6.
13 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla , 296.
14 Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla , 296.
52
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
in ways that serve al-Qaeda' s ends. 15 The intimidation and coercion of the “near enemy”
and “far enemy” by instilling fear is an essential element for these communication
stratagems. The strategic narratives depicted in Table 3 below were distilled by the
author out of Open Source Center Master Narratives Report, the Master Narratives of
Islamist Extremism and out of al-Qaeda documents: 16
15 Jeffry R. Halverson and H. L. Goodall, Jr., and Steven R. Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist
Extremism (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan 2010), 179.
16 The narratives have been categorized and synthetized by the author. For a complete list of the master
narratives as developed by OSC, see Appendix B-G. For a more broad discussion of Islamist extremism
master narratives see:
Halverson and Goodall and Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism.
53
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Reasoning
Ends
Ways
Means
Master
Narrative
Messages
Concrete ^ Abstract
Goal
Ends
Restoring
the
Caliphate
The creation of a rightly-guided Islamic Caliphate by God united all Muslims in
Islam and Sharia and freed the Ummah of Jahiliyyah (Ignorance of God’s guidance).
The Prophet Mohammed and Islam united the desert tribes to true monist Muslims.
The Caliphate spread Islam and was designed to maintain the unity. The once proud
Caliphate was destroyed by Western influence and deeds. Muslims have deviated
from Sharia by abandoning the Caliphate and embracing Western thoughts. Western
scheming and attacks divided the Ummah into a multitude of pieces. The Ummah
needs a Vanguard to find out way back to Sharia and this correction to the path
begins by removing Western influence from our land and then leading the Ummah
back to the right path. Apostate traitorous Muslim rulers allowed the Caliphates
demise. In keeping with the examples of Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed the
Prophet Mohamed, Muslims must rebuild the Caliphate with violent jihad , restore
the Ummah to its former glory and magnificence and end Muslim the injustices and
suffering.
Why
Ways
War on
Islam
From the earliest days of Islam, infidels have conspired against Muslims. The
Ummah is threatened from all around by foreign infidel troops endangering the
Ummah’s security. The enemies propagate falsehoods of a “moderate” Islam to
weaken true Islam and pacify and humiliate the Ummah in face of global oppression.
All Muslims, therefore, must adhere to the call of jihad and join their fellow
mujahedeen .
Why
Ways
Agents of
the West
All Muslim states have fallen from the path of true Islam. Islam’s original leaders
were distinguished by their passion for Sharia , rejection of excess, and their love for
jihad. Today, apostate rulers betray the legacy of these model leaders. They are
agents of Western masters and not adhering to sharia. They behave in ways that do
not follow the example of the Prophet Mohammad and contravene the core tenets of
the true Muslim faith. These apostate leaders exploit Muslim’s wealth and further
idleness. The Ummah must awaken from its slumber and free itself from corruption,
humiliation and oppression.
Why
Means
The
Nakba
Al-Nakba, or catastrophe, when Palestinians loss of their homes and lands during the
creation of Israel in 1948, is an abomination on Muslim holy lands. Al-Nakba
persists to this day, and a holocaust in Gaza is being covered up by false peace
treaties and secularist apostate Arab leaders, incapable and unwilling to ensure the
security of the Ummah. Muslims everywhere must rectify this injustice and
humiliation. The blessed holy land must be returned to its rightful owners.
How
Ways
&
Means
Violent
Jihad
The Prophet and his successors never neglected their duty to fight the enemies of the
Ummah. Over time, the Muslims abandoned their obligation to jihad , allowing
suffering and humiliation to come upon them. The apostate Muslim leaders
neglected their religious obligations and put money and stability before Allah.
Therefore, Muslims must rise to the defense of the Ummah instilling fear with
violent Jihad to defeat the enemy, and avenge our Muslim brothers.
How
Ways
&
Means
Blood of
the
Martyrs
During the time of the Prophet Mohamed, mujahedeen fearlessly and willingly
charged into battle against the enemies. Over time, the Ummah ignored the fact that
sacrifices are needed on the road to victory and to ensure the security of the Ummah.
Muslims must reawaken their willingness to self-sacrifice against the Ummah’s
enemies and participate in defensive Jihad. Each martyr (mean) is a step towards
victory in the global war.
Tab!
le 3 AL-QAEDa
I’S MASTER NARRATIVES SUMMARIZED
Source: Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report
All publications and statements by the al-Qaeda leadership can be assessed in the
light of this subset of Islamist Extremism narratives appealing to the basic notions of fear,
1 7
honor, and interest. At the core, these narratives consist of three broad strategic
objectives that all narratives support. These objectives are: resist invaders; rebuke
17 For a more brought discussion of Islamist extremism master narratives see: Halverson and Goodall and
Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism.
54
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
oppressive apostate Muslim leaders; and, renew Islam by reversing the decline of the
Muslim civilization via reestablishing the ^aria-based Caliphate. The narratives aim at
being persuasive through cultural consciousness. They attempt to link al-Qaeda 's
cultural eschatological ideological narrative with local narratives and traditions, thereby
creating vertical integration from the grand strategic level to the tactical, local level. 18
This communication technique can be “effective because the audience already
understands and subscribes to the master narrative, making the argument seem natural
and the request reasonable (not to mention the implied threat of consequences for doing
otherwise). Collective memories of the dire consequences of invasion contained in the
rhetorical vision also produce an emotional (fear) appeal.” 19
Al-Qaeda's narratives provide their audiences a structured, easy to comprehend
argument. Based on history as al-Qaeda interprets it, the group portrays a problem,
identifies a course of required action, and offers rewards to those who follow and execute
the required action and show what happens if not. 20 Al-Qaeda aims to legitimate their
movement by establishing “its social and religious viability while engaging in violent acts
21
that on their face seem to violate the norms of civilized society and the tenets of Islam.”
The group also propagates their ends by communicating their messages to desired
audiences. By the same mean, they intimidate opponents including Muslims who might
turn against al-Qaeda. At the same time, they are flexible enough to adapt to changing
circumstances. For example, after troop withdrawals, al-Qaeda communications replace
new military fronts in their communications, to keep their stratagems relevant. 23 If the
desired audience, the Ummah, accepts these master narratives, “they are apt to believe
that as bad as things are now, they can only get worse in the future. This promotes the
belief that going back to the past will solve all problems and provides a built-in logic for
rejecting anything in the present associated with the decline. Orienting to this idealized
18 Halverson and Goodall and Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism, 180.
19 Halverson and Goodall and Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism, 183.
20 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 14.
21 Corman and Schiefelbein, “Communication and Media Strategy,” 69.
22 Corman and Schiefelbein, “Communication and Media Strategy,” 69-70.
23 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 14.
55
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
past simultaneously helps solidify identity, creates a sense of legitimacy, and sets an
unambiguous path ahead.” 24
As a strategic communication means, master narratives depict the (re-)
establishment of a Caliphate as al-Qaeda’s main objective/interest (Goal-Narrative:
Restoring the Caliphate). The master narratives portray the external dangers that al-
Qaeda aims to communicate as threatening the security of the Ummah (Why-Narrative:
War on Islam). Drawing upon contemporary and historical grievances, the narratives
paint the Ummah as being unsecure and under siege (Why-Narrative: War on Islam &
The Nakba) and propagate the desired Muslim response (How-Narrative: Violent Jihad &
Blood of the Martyrs). These strategic storylines exploit shared feelings of honor,
humiliation, insecurity, fear, injustice, and social grievances (Why-Narrative: War on
Islam & Agents of the West). As the authors of the OSC Special Report explain,
The narratives emphasize themes of shared humiliation, injustice, faithful
duty, and the promise of reestablishing a golden age. Further, they draw
on a robust set of historical evidence—from the earliest days of Islam to
today’s hot zones—applicable to diverse audiences and geographies,
giving al-Qaeda communicators the flexibility they need to use these
master narratives across varied strategic and communications fronts.
Historical depth and geographic breadth makes these stories enduring,
dramatic, and highly resilient. This resilience is likely to impact the
success of counter-massaging efforts designed to directly combat or
undermine these master narratives. 26
The narratives strive to capitalize on local economic and governmental grievances
in Muslim countries. The perceived endemic Muslim poverty and political
marginalization by the West is a key theme (Why-Narrative: War on Islam). Al-Qaeda is
animated by the perceived Arab dishonor at the power imbalance of the West. Angela
Gendron, a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies,
explains, “[tjhis deep-seated and festering sore lies at the heart of al-Qaeda’ s ideology,
97
although it is couched in religious terms.”
24 Corman and Schiefelbein, “Communication and Media Strategy,” 91.
25 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 15.
26 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 9.
27 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 7.
56
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
By depicting Muslim leaders as apostate Western agents (a strategic
communications strategic mean), al-Qaeda leaders and propagandists bridge the “far
enemy” and the “near enemies” by blaming the Muslim suffering on corrupt Muslim
governments who exploit natural resources to enrich themselves and their Western
masters (Why-Narrative: Agents of the West). 28 This becomes evident in a 2009 Al-
Sahab video that states, “.. .the Crusader West aligned itself with the tyrants of the
Islamic world, those that have carried out their roles by bringing forth an array of
scholars, academics, media personalities, and artists to aid in the spread of defeatist ideas
to promote inaction, spread atheisms, tinker with the Shari’ah, and spread the roots of
laziness and idleness among the ranks of the Muslims.” 29 These videos often show
Muslim and Western leaders together, to provide evidence of the collaboration.
Moreover, Al-Qaeda 's leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri explained in a 2011 audio statement
that:
Every free and honest person must be aware of the crimes of these corrupt
regimes, which repress our Ummah and fight its creed, prevent its
daughters from wearing the hijab, squander its wealth, and encourage
immorality, profligacy, and moral and social degeneration. These regimes
are an inseparable part of a global system that aims to fight Islam and
Muslims, led by the United States. These regimes are proxies for the
global powers. They aid them and implement their policies represented in
fighting Islam and the hijab, changing the education curricula, normalizing
relations with Israel, preventing the Islamic Shari’ah from ruling the
people, and usurping the Muslims’ resources. Thus, these global powers
extend their support to these local regimes and overlook their crimes,
oppression, repression, deception, rigging, and looting. 30
The aim of connecting local, especially young audiences to al-Qaeda 's global
objectives can persist indefinitely by the allegations of Muslim rulers acting as agents of
the West. A key audience for al-Qaeda is the growing young Muslim generation as Abu
28 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 15.
29 Open Source Center, “Al-Sahab Video Discusses Economic Crisis, Arab ‘Corruption,’ Torture, Part 1 of
2,” Jihadist Websites (Al-Sahab Media Establishment), (Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, 22
September 2009, OSC document FEA20091113975044.
30 Open Source Center, “Al-Sahab Releases Al-Zawahiri Audio Message to People in Egypt, Part 3,” Ansar
Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyah (Al-Sahab Establishment for Media Production), (Washington, D.C.: Open
Source Center, 28 February 2011), OSC document GMP20110228086002.
57
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Mus’ab al-Suri suggests: “We must open the minds and hearts of the Islamic Nation’s
youth, so that they feel commitment to the Islamic Nation as a whole. This is a
fundament in the religion and the faith, as well as in the politics and the strategic military
concept.” 31
Al-Suri’s writings have a widening appeal to new audiences. These include
especially young, well-educated Muslims in Western Societies. As Norwegian historian
Brynjar Lia explains, “Westernized Muslims ... seem to be motivated more by a mixture
of leftist radicalism and militant pan-Islamic nationalism than by religiosity. Just as
Marxism’s alleged scientific basis appealed to young European students, so al-Suri’s
works-with their explicit emphasis on rationality, scientific research, self-criticism and
learning form past mistakes-might have some of the same impact on young Muslims.”
Al-Qaeda uses Western troops and their military action in the Muslim world as a
powerful visual to reinforce a crucial master narrative in its communications strategy.
The presence of Western troops, and edited footage of their actions taken out of context
and spliced together with quotations or exhortations, produce the desired graphic footage
of Western occupation of Islamic nations that furthers their media-centered strategy
(Why-Narrative: War on Islam). The strategy thrives on images and words about every
civilian killed. Building on this, the terrorists call for the end of foreign influence in
Muslim countries and perceived Muslim territory such as that occupied by Israel (i.e.,
IT
Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock).
Consequently, Ayman Al-Zawahiri repeatedly invokes the Nakba narrative
depicted in Table 3 (Why-Narrative: The Nakba) since “the slogan which the masses of
the Muslim Ummah have understood and responded to well for 50 years is the slogan of
calling for jihad against Israel.” 34 Despite this narrative, however, al-Qaeda is itself not
actively fighting the state of Israel. This creates a communication strategy disconnect.
As a communication-channel and a vital means to the strategy, al-Qaeda
expanded the use of the Internet considerably after 2001 and continuing advances in
31 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri quoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 370.
32 Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 8-9.
33 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 8.
34 Al-Zawahiri as cited in Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 18.
58
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
communication technology greatly simplified this media exploitation. The
communication revolution has enabled al-Qaeda to evolve into a global movement. The
movement is, in the words of John Mackinlay, a Teaching Fellow in the War Studies
Department, King's College London, “de-territorialized and globally connected.” This
provides al-Qaeda with a robust public relations capability to communicate its narratives.
Additionally, the group uses the internet for a variety of other purposes including
financing, recruiting, logistics support, a means to conduct debate, provide training, and
even resolve disputes. 36
One of those reoccurring disputes is on the killing of innocent Muslims. As The
Washington Post reported in 2012, a few months before bin Laden’s death in 2011, “Web
sites linked to al-Qaeda ran excited commentary about a proposed new killing machine
dubbed the ‘human lawn mower.’ The idea was to attach rotating blades to the front of a
pickup truck and drive the contraption into crowds.” According to a former U.S.
intelligence official who viewed the seized documents from bin Laden’s former hideout
in Abbottabad “[Bin Laden] was upset about it. ... He felt it conflicted with his vision for
'jn
what he wanted al-Qaeda to be.” In a letter attributed bin Laden, bin Laden advised,
that “jihadis should devote their energy not to jihad but to I’dad, or ‘preparing for jihad,'
and ... that the longer regime’[s] cling[s] to power and fails the people, the more time
'JO
jihadis have for Vdad and to win the sympathy of the public.”
Al-Qaeda also uses the internet for internal secure communication using 128-byte
advanced encryption software with high profile algorithms. 39 User-generated content
through means such as blogs are frequently used as they have become very popular
throughout the Muslim world. 40 Online games are exploited for al-Qaeda conference
35 Mackinlay, Insurgent Archipelago, 5.
36 Dell Dailey quoted in Forest, Influence Warfare 2.
37 Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 1.
38 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 32.
39 Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike-The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against
Al Qaeda (New York, NY: Times Books, 2011), 146.
40 Aidan Kirby Winn and Vera L. Zakem, “Jihad.com 2.0-The New Social Media and the Changing
Dynamics of Mass Persuasion,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 33.
59
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
calls and some analysts have suggested the group uses steganography 41 to hide
operational and guidance documents. 42 Al-Qaeda transcended into a “new form of
existence” by giving up the conventional network structure of their hierarchy. 43 Steve
Coll and Susan Glasser explained the new hierarchical structure thus, “ Al-Qaeda has
become the first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to
cyberspace. With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet
cafes, young code-writi ngjihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication,
planning, and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations
on the Internet.” 44 Embedded messages can have an insidious impact on the user, as they
may alter values, ideas and attitudes. 45 Consequently, the Libyan religious scholar and
frequent spokesperson of al-Qaeda, Abu Yahya al-Libi praised the “mujahedeen on the
information frontline” stating, “May Allah bless you lions of the front, for by Allah, the
fruits of your combined efforts-sound, video and text-are more severe for the infidels and
their lackeys than the falling of rockets and missiles on their heads.” 46
Al-Qaeda does not have the bureaucratic constraints of state actors, enabling them
to have a flexible, innovative and fast decision cycle. 47 According to the US State
Department’s counterterrorism chief and former special operator, Dell Dailey, “ Al-Qaeda
and other terrorists’ center of gravity lies in the information domain, and it is there that
we must engage it.” Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman affirms, “Virtually every terrorist
group in the world today has its own Internet website and, in many instances, multiple
41 Steganography is the art and science of miniaturizing and hiding information within empty spaces or
unused bits in digital formats.
42 Schmitt and Shanker, Counter strike, 150-151.
43 Sebastian Gorka and David Kilcullen, “Who’s Winning the Battle for Narrative? Al-Qaeda versus the
United States and Its Allies,” in Forest, Influence Warfare , 235.
44 Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser, “e-Qaida from Afghanistan to the Internet: Terrorists Turn to the Web
as Base of Operations,” Washington Post , August 7, 2005.
45 Aidan Kirby Winn and Vera L. Zakem, “Jihad.com 2.0-The New Social Media and the Changing
Dynamics of Mass Persuasion,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 37.
46 Abu Yahya al-Libi, “Al-Sahab Issues Video Statement by Abu-Yahya al-Libi, English Translation,”
(Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, 28 March 2007), OSC document GMP20070328031003001.pdf.
47 Forest Influence Warfare, xvii.
48 Bruce Hoffman, “Foreword,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, vii.
60
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
sites in different languages with different messages tailored to specific audiences.” 49
Dailey continues this line, noting, “The art of terrorist communication has evolved to a
point where the terrorists themselves can new control the entire production process:
determining the content, context and medium over which their message is projected; and
towards precisely the audience they seek to reach.” 50 The ubiquity of the Internet as
communication channel provides al-Qaeda with something close to its own media entity.
Al-Qaeda does not have to rely on third party TV stations to record and distribute their
messages. 51 By arguing that the West is intrinsically hostile to the Muslim World, al-
Qaeda aims at strategically justifying its terrorist jihad strategy as defensive resistance
“to halt the Western juggernaut.” 52 This communication strategy is intended to transcend
the justification of terroristic attacks al-Qaeda 's only means to further their grand
strategic goals-down to the tactical level. However, the decentralization inherently
comes with the price of decreased message control for the al-Qaeda leadership. 53
4.3 Communication Tactics
The tactic of committing terroristic attacks is supposed to serve numerous
purposes in order to advance strategic ends and thereby reach the grand strategic goal.
Next to producing training materials and graphic footage for education and gaining
experience, these attacks aim mainly at sending messages to multiple audiences. These
tactics also include the marketing of al-Qaeda 's brand and their ideology via commercial
products in local stores offering paraphernalia such as DVDs and t-shirts with logos such
as “Giants of Jihad" and “Waiting for the Destruction of Israel.” 54 Abu Bakr Naji
advised the active exploitation of media access, stating, “In this case, it is possible to use
a quantity of explosives which not only destroys the building or even levels it to the
49 Bruce Hoffman, “The Use of the Internet by Islamic Extremists,” Testimony presented to the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (May 4, 2006), 18, http://rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT262-l .
50 Hoffman, “The Use of the Internet by Islamic Extremists.”
51 Simon O’Rourke, “Online Recruitment, Radicalization, and Reconnaissance-Challenges for Law
Enforcement,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 222.
52 Sammy Salama and Joe-Ryan Bergoch, “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy for Influencing Perceptions in the Muslim
World,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 301.
53 Sammy Salama and Joe-Ryan Bergoch, “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy for Influencing Perceptions in the Muslim
World,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 305.
54 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 154.
61
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
earth; it makes the earth completely swallow it up. By doing so, the amount of the
enemy’s fear is multiplied and good media goals are achieved, the most prominent of
which is the enemy's inability to conceal its losses. Similar operations have to be
repeated over and over and a number of good results will be achieved as a
consequence.” 55 The revolution in communication technologies provides the potential to
mobilize dispersed and disaffected Muslims on a global scale. 56 As John Mackinlay
explains, “The news value of an act of violence now outweighed its tactical value.” 57
The open public availability of al-Qaeda 's training and radicalization material and
decentralized network structure have dumbed down the sophistication and scale of their
attacks to a usually tactical significance. 58 Large scale attacks with imitate strategic
implications are no longer the norm. The tactical guidance often starts with
communicating statements before an attack in order to increase its impact. As Abu Bakr
Naji points out,
Statements through audio or visual media prepare everyone for the
operations before they are undertaken—without specification, naturally—
and they are justified afterwards through a powerful, rational, sharia-
based justification, which the addressed class heeds. These statements
should be communicated to all of the people, not just to the elite. Most of
the statements should include our general goals which are acceptable to
the people, even if they are not stated explicitly: We fight in order to get
rid of the enemies of the Umma and their agents who have destroyed the
beliefs of the countries and plundered their wealth and made us into their
servants. As everyone can see, they are clearly destroying everything.
They are even extracting the cost of their murder and destruction from
us. 59
However, due to the ruthlessness and indiscriminate attacks and the contradiction
to Islam, al-Qaeda has to over-proportionally invest in explaining their deeds, especially
the killing of innocent Muslims. Consequently, less than ten percent of their internet
communications address topics of operational significance. The vast majority is
propaganda or of a religious nature, aimed at both justifying their actions as defensive in
55 Naji, Management of Savagery, 69.
56 Mackinlay, Insurgent Archipelago, 58.
57 Mackinlay, Insurgent Archipelago, 59.
58 Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, 150.
59 Naji, Management of Savagery, 110.
62
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
nature and furthering their ideology. 60 Al-Qaeda aims at tactically achieving
justification, legitimatization, and propagation via communication of the master
narratives through the most appropriate communication channels addressing the desired
audiences. Al-Zarqawi attempted to communicate the master narratives in 2005 (How-
Narrative: Violent Jihad & Blood of the Martyrs) as depicted in above Table 3 thus, “The
shedding of Muslim blood ... is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting
jihad.” 61 Bin Laden even attempted to pronounce that there is such a thing as good
terrorism (How-Narrative: Violent Jihad & Blood of the Martyrs): “Not all terrorism is
cursed ... We practice the good terrorism which stops them from killing our children in
Palestine and elsewhere.” 62 Thereby he also alluded to the Nakba narrative (Why-
Narrative: The Nakba). Arguing along a similar line, Al-Zawahiri stated in 2005,
“Reform can only take place through Jihad for the sake of Allah, and any call for reform
that is not through Jihad is doomed to death and failure.” 63 Al-Qaeda uses one verse
from the Koran in particular to lend legitimacy to their violent ways: “Kill the idolaters
(polytheists) wherever you find them ... lie in wait for them at every place of ambush...”
purposely neglecting the tempering part “but if they turn [to God] ... let them go their
way.” 64
Al-Qaeda is forced to constantly defend their terrorist tactics. In a 2001
interview, Osama bin Laden attempted to justify the killing of innocents (How-Narrative:
Violent Jihad & Blood of the Martyrs), saying,
“They say that the killing of innocents is wrong and invalid, and for proof,
they say that the Prophet forbade the killing of children and women, and
that is true ... but this forbidding of killing children and innocents is not
set in stone, and there are other writings that uphold it. God’s saying: And
if you punish [your enemy] ... then punish them with the like of that with
which you were afflicted ... Ibn Tamiyyah ... and many others ... say that
if the disbelievers were to kill our children and women, then we should not
60 Sammy Salama and Joe-Ryan Bergoch, “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy for Influencing Perceptions in the Muslim
World,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 293.
61 Aaron, In Their Own Words, 103.
62 Bin Laden as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 87.
63 Al-Zawahiri as quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 81.
64 Qur’an 9:5 quoted in Aaron, In Their Own Words, 38.
63
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
feel ashamed to do the same to them, mainly to deter them from trying to
kill our children and women again.” 65
Similarly, Al-Zawahiri was well aware of the counter-productive implications for
al-Qaida’s strategic and grand strategic ends created by Al-Zarqawi’s indiscriminate
violence against Muslims. Therefore, Al-Zawahiri tried to guide al-Zarqawi to a less
ruthless path. In his 2005 Letter to Al-Zarqawi, he wrote: “Therefore, our planning must
strive to involve the Muslim masses in the battle, and to bring the [ jihadist ] movement to
the masses and not conduct the struggle far from them.” 66 Moreover, the movement
“must avoid any action that the masses do not understand or approve...” Al-Zawahiri
was well aware that al-Qaeda needed to gain and not lose support from the Ummah and
Al-Zarqawi’s tactical and strategical communication failures were a major blow to that
strategy not only in Iraq but on a global scale. Al-Zarqawi’s tactical and strategic
blunders fundamentally endangered strategic and grand strategic aims as the US Director
of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, stated in 2008, “The brutal attacks against
Muslim civilians unleashed by [ al-Qaeda] and the conflicting demands of the various
extremist agendas are tarnishing al-Qaeda' s self-styled image as the extremist Vanguard.
Over the past years, a number of religious leaders and fellow extremists who once had
significant influence with al-Qaeda have publicly criticized it and its affiliates for the use
/TO
of violent tactics.” Consequently, al-Qaeda' s name in Iraq was changed following
Zarqawi’s death in 2006 in an attempt to mitigate the local and global public relations
damage caused by Zarqawi’s-even by al-Qaeda' s standards-gruesome conduct of jihad
in Iraq. 69
The killing of innocent Muslims and the public relations damage nonetheless
continued throughout al-Qaida s global network. Al-Qaeda’s affiliates “either did not
65 Osama bin Laden unreleased Interview by Tayseer Allouni, 21 October 2001,
http://www.terrorisme.net/doc/qaida/001_ubl_interview_c.htm .
66 Open Source Center, “Report: Complete Text of Al-Zawahiri 9 July 2005 Letter to Al-Zarqawi,”
(Washington, DC: Open Source Center, October 2005.), OSC document FEA2006100202825411, 11.
67 Open Source Center, “Report: Complete Text of Al-Zawahiri.”
68 Mike McConnell as quoted in Forest, Influence Warfare, 3.
69 Sammy Salama and Joe-Ryan Bergoch, “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy for Influencing Perceptions in the Muslim
World,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 307.
64
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
consult with Bin Laden or were not prepared to follow his directives. ... Bin Laden [was]
alarmed by the ‘increased mistakes’ committed by the ‘brothers’ who are spread over
‘many regions,’ sought to bring regional jihadi groups in line with al-Qaeda’s vision and
code of conduct.” As the Middle East, diplomacy and national security journalist of
The Washington Post and Pulitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick stated on April 30, 2012,
bin Laden’s young new Lieutenant Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, in awareness of bin Laden’s
aversion to the ‘human lawn mower’, “began trying to codify rules of behavior for al-
Qaeda and its affiliates, warning that killings of innocent Muslims would hurt the
organization and probably violate Sharia, or Islamic law. The killing of Americans—
including noncombatants—would meanwhile remain permissible, even obligatory.” 71
Bin Laden was until his death very concerned, that the unnecessary death of
Muslim civilians was unacceptable collateral damage, endangering his grand strategy.
As the letters form bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad show, “Bin Laden was concerned
that regional jihadi groups had expanded the meaning of a classical legal concept [ takfir ]
meant to be applied in rare circumstances and turned it from an exception into the norm.
As a result, the jihadis, he worried, have lost considerable sympathy from the Muslim
public; this loss was compounded when ‘the mistakes of the jihadis were exploited by the
enemy, [further] distorting the image of the jihadis in the eyes of the Ummah's general
public and separating them form their popular bases.’” Bin Laden was not controlling
his al-Qaeda affiliate movements to the extent he desired.
Consequently, bin Laden drafted a memorandum of broad guidelines for al-
Qaeda ’.s' global affiliates. It included guidelines for conducting military activities and
equally about media releases. The goal was, “not violate our words with some of our
practices.” Indiscriminate and unnecessary Muslim killings were to be avoided and all
media releases ought to be centralized. As the CTC Report Letters from Abbottabad
states, “The importance of having a sophisticated and coherent media strategy was
70 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 12.
71 Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 2.
72 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 13.
73 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 14.
65
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
critical for Bin Laden, believing it to be ‘a principal element of the battle.’” 74 The
memorandum never came to fruition.
4.4 Chapter Conclusion
Al-Qaeda' s communication strategy is the central element of their strategic Salafi-
Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism Islamic Vanguard grand strategy. The depicted obvious
contradiction of the violation of civilized norms and the tenets of Islam while propagating
the ‘true’ Islam is at the core of their grand strategy. It forces al-Qaeda to permanently
focus on explaining the violation of civilized norms and the tenets of Islam. Providing
for their social and religious viability while executing Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir terror seems
nearly impossible, however. Utilizing master narratives as a mean to further their
agenda, al-Qaeda aims to fuse its irregular warfare strategy with its communication
strategy and mitigate these obvious shortcomings and achieve their grand strategic ends.
As depicted in the below Table 4, solely relying on Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir attacks as
a communication channel as a singular approach to raise awareness of its master
narratives is insufficient. This tactical approach does not further the communication
strategy nor, more importantly, al-Qaeda' s strategy and grand strategy. Al-Qaeda's
communication strategy does not flow from means to ends and does not transcend
strategic levels.
Gaining viability as the Ummah's Vanguard while indiscrimitly killing Muslim
members of the Ummah is not a convincing communication strategy. Gaining credibility
and legitimacy by executing a Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Terrorism strategy that is killing
Muslims is an obvious communication disconnect that is incapable of promoting al-
Qaeda as the Ummah ’ s Vanguard and the current al-Qaeda leadership is incapable or
unwilling of preventing it. Al-Qaeda’s central leadership is aware of the fact that
indiscriminate killing of Muslims is harming its strategic ends, but the influence on its
affiliates is limited and attempts to increase central control failed thus far.
74 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 14.
66
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
SECOND HALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN ---
Al-Qaeda’s Communication Strategy
Level
ENDS
(Goals/Objects)
WAYS
(Concepts/Ideology)
MEANS
(T ools/Resources)
Grand
Communication
Strategy
Adherence to and belief of
the Ummah in:
• Global Caliphate
• Islamic Emirates
• In Sharia fused
governance and society
• United Ummah
Instilling and gaining adherence
to:
• Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir Ideology
• Sharia based society
• Sharia based governance
• Uniting the Ummah
• Support for the Grand
Strategic and Strategic Ends,
Ways and Means
• Credibility and legitimacy
executing its Salafi-Jihadi-
Takfir Terrorism strategy as
the Ummah’s Vanguard
Communication
Strategy
• Support for the Grand
Strategic and Strategic
Ends, Ways and Means
• Credibility and legitimacy
executing its Salafi-
Jihadi-Takfir T errorism
strategy as the Ummah’
s Vanguard
• Gain credibility as the Ummah’
s Vanguard
• Gain legitimacy as the
Ummah’s Vanguard
• Communicate Grand Strategic
and Strategic Ends
• Master Narratives
• Communication Technology
• Jihad-Martyr-Takfir terroristic
attacks
Communication
Tactics
• Successful
communication of
Master Narratives
• Propagate Master Narratives
via the way of using
appropriate communication
channels to intended
Audiences
• Jihad-Martyr-Takfir terroristic
attacks
• Information technology,
video equipment, media
software
• Internet videos, blogs,
forums, pages, games, etc.
• TV
• DVDs, propagandistic
publications, night letters,
etc.
Table 4. SECOND]
HALF OF THE STRATEGY COIN
Source: Authors ’ Original Work
61
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
CHAPTER 5 - SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSION
What is of supreme importance in war is to
attack the enemy's strategy
-Sun Tzu
5.1 Synthesis of Findings
Strategic success is heavily influenced by ideology and culture. The two elements
act as a catalyst in the making and execution of strategy in a number of ways. Al-Qaeda
is constrained in their approach to shaping, designing, and executing their strategy by
ideological and cultural blinders and by their strategic preferences based on fear, honor,
and interest. Al-Qaeda 's worldview is deterministically influenced which limits their
strategic approaches. 1 2 Al-Qaeda's grand strategic demands are incorrigible and
2
implacable. They are “so extreme, that they fall outside the realm of consideration.”
Islam, just as other religions, has repeatedly been disrupted and wracked by radical
undercurrents. As Scott Atran explains, “One constant is that faith in a divine or
historically transcendent purpose is often cause enough to excuse even the murdering of
innocents.” 3
Al-Qaeda's unresolved strategic disconnects between ends, ways, and means are
largely unfathomable within their limited ideological worldview. This dramatically
reduces the scope of possible strategic choices for applying ways and means to achieve
their ends. Limited military successes have achieved neither significant strategic nor
grand strategic ends. The sole focus in jihadi terrorism as overarching strategy seems,
besides its short-term benefits and successes in areas such as publicity and recruiting, to
be a failing military strategy. Besides waging jihad, al-Qaeda does not seem to have a
profound interest in governance. 4 In other words, constant struggle has become an end in
and of itself.
1 Yarger, Strategy and the National Security Professional, 46.
2 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” 161.
3 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 92.
4 Aaron, In Their Own Words-Voices of Jihad, 109.
68
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
More than a decade since its triumphant attacks against the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, al-Qaeda is no more than a tiny minority among a collection of loosely
connected, self-associated groups around the globe. These groups use the al-Qaeda
brand and rhetoric but usually have local political aims. 5 According to the CTC Report
Letters from Abbottabad, Al-Qaeda’s affiliates “appear to have ... more differences than
commonalities.” 6 7 8 The affiliates do not aim primarily at achieving al-Qaeda' s grand
strategic aims, they lack substantial military means, and they remain stuck at the infant
stage of irregular warfare.
As with all irregular warfare strategies in their infant stage, however, the aim is
not to win a military confrontation exclusively with military means. The primary aim of
attack is to incite the population; the population then acts as a communication channel
allowing the intimidation and coercion of an adversary government and the propagation
of the group’s ideals and ideology. In this way, al-Qaeda seeks to advance their grand
political and strategic ends and reach the next stage of irregular warfare. Al-Qaeda' s
communication strategy is the vital means to achieving their grand strategic ends. Since
governments depends to a great degree on the consent of the governed, 7 al-Qaeda can
only come closer to its strategic ends if it is able to separate governments from their
means of control over the population. Instilling fear and uncertainty through threats
transmitted and amplified via Internet, television, and social media is one of al-Qaeda' s
O
ways to achieve their strategic objectives. Al-Qaeda's terrorist strategy is aimed at
communicating the cost of noncompliance to target audiences by attacking the civilian
populace. 9 Al-Qaeda's communication strategy strives to polarize the populace by
reinterpreting history, religion, and culture, distorting the associated narratives to suit al-
Qaeda' s ends. This polarization stimulates and amplifies the grievances articulated via
5 Sebastian Gorka and David Kilcullen, “Who’s Winning the Battle for Narrative? Al-Qaeda versus the
United States and Its Allies,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 235.
6 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 20.
7 Peter Ackermann and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful-A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, (New York,
NY: Palgrave, 2000), 7-9.
8 Forest, Influence Warfare, viii.
9 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” 164.
69
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
the master narratives, aiming to connect and exploit local narratives and local grievances
common in target Muslim populations. 10
Al-Qaeda’s actions in support of its strategy create a number of contradictions and
paradoxes. For example, the contradictions inherent in its violation of civilized norms, as
well as the basic eschatological tenets of Islam, in conducting suicide bombing attacks
and killing other Muslims forces al-Qaeda to endlessly defend their actions. Legitimate
social and religious viability for al-Qaeda, obtained through the use of master narratives,
may be perfectly incompatible with al-Qaeda' s tactical and strategic use of terrorism,
thereby providing a point of cleavage for attack with potential to sever the critical nodes
between al-Qaeda' s ideology, actions, messages, and audience.
One can conclude that al-Qaeda’s reliance on Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir attacks as a
communication channel as essentially singular tactical approach to raise the attention to
its master narratives is insufficient for the group to achieve their strategic ends. This
singular tactical approach does not advance their communication strategy. More
importantly, it does not advance their strategic and grand strategic ends. Al-Qaeda' s
communication strategy does not allow means to achieve ends nor does it transfer across
strategic levels. As depicted in Chapters One and Two, indiscriminate terrorist attacks
alienate the Muslim population. In the words of Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Coercion fails if it
merely destroys the subject whose compliance is sought.” * 11 As Zawahiri’s intercepted
and translated letter to Zarqawi suggests, Al-Qaeda' s current leadership is well aware that
its political message is being undermined by the excessive brutality of some terrorist
attacks carried out in the group’s name. These attacks may rally extremists but they may
also increasingly alienate the Ummah. As Che Guevara advised, “Assaults and
1 O
terrorism in indiscriminate form should not be employed” for previously these reasons.
The previous chapters have shown, and like Angela Gendron eloquently
expressed in her essay Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy, the utopian elements
and eschatological worldview of al-Qaeda are unattractive for the vast majority of the
10 Mackinlay, Insurgent Archipelago, 22: Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 9.
11 Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War, 27.
12 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” 164.
13 Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 91.
70
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Muslim population. Gendron points out that the establishment of a global Caliphate is a
lofty aspiration that does not connect to local grievances. 14 The notion of the global
Caliphate even has the potential to clash with local values and customs. Establishing
strict Sharia might cause tension with local tribal authorities. The obvious divide
between the strategic means of Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir terrorism, and the associated vision
for an Islamic Vanguard and al-Qaeda’ s communication strategy utilizing master
narratives propagated via Jihad-Martyr--Takfir tactics, impedes progress toward their
grand strategic ends.
As the last two chapters have shown, there is no effective cohesion between al-
Qaeda’’ s grand communication strategy, its functional communication strategy, and the
associated communication tactics. Al-Qaeda’s communication strategy has been largely
ineffective in gaining support from major portions of the Ummah specifically towards the
latter’s conversion or adherence to the Salafi-Jihadi-Takfir ideology. Similarly, al-Qaeda
has been unsuccessful in instilling a broad-based desire for or acceptance of Sharia-based
society and governance and in uniting the Ummah behind al-Qaeda’ s cause in general.
Al-Qaeda’s revisionist interpretation of history and world politics is not attractive for the
vast majority of Muslims. 15 As Angela Gendron notes, “[al-Qaeda] is promoting a 14 th
century ideology holds little appeal for the majority of Muslims, who have no wish to live
under a repressive theocratic dictatorship of the kind [ al-Qaeda ] espouses.” 16
The questionable legitimacy of the group’s tactics and targeting are contradicting
Islam and counteracting al-Qaeda’ s desire to increase the number of adherents within the
Ummah. Al-Qaeda’s terrorist tactics and strategy are neither cogent nor convincing to
many Muslims. Al-Qaeda’s terrorist attacks do not amplify their political grand strategic
messages as desired and have an inherent strategic influence deficit. In realization of
the failing strategy, the Libyan-born al-Qaida member and young bin Laden Lieutenant,
Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, “possessed a firmer grasp of the power of the Internet and an
14 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 2.
15 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy;” Corman and Schiefelbein, “Communication and
Media Strategy.”
16 Gendron, “Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy,” 19.
17 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism;” Forest, Influence Warfare, 164.
71
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ambition to modernize al-Qaeda' s message ... emerged in bin Laden’s final year as a key
advocate for reining in al-Qaeda- inspired carnage in Iraq and other Middle Eastern lands.
... The two found common cause in their drive to break the group’s affiliates of their use
of high-casualty attacks on Muslim civilians. In March 2011, less than two months
before bin Laden’s death, Atiyah warned jihadists against bombing marketplaces,
mosques, playgrounds and other sites where innocent Muslims were likely to be killed.” 18
As the CTC report has shown, al-Qaeda’s former leader, bin Laden, was greatly
frustrated “with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over
their actions and public statements. ... [Bin Laden [was] not in sync on the operational
level with its so-called ’affiliates.’” 19 Due to the fading influence of al-Qaeda’s central
leadership, the killings continue and Atiyah was killed in August 2011 allegedly by a US
Central Intelligence Agency drone strike a few months after bin Laden. The
fundamental divide between what al-Qaeda senior leaders want and propagate, versus the
desires and interests of local operatives, prohibits al-Qaeda from furthering its strategic
goals.
Terrorist movements rarely achieve their political goals, due to the poor success
rate inherent to the strategy of terrorism. 21 As James J. F. Forest states, “Contrary to the
prevailing view that terrorism is an effective means of political coercion, [Max Adams]
research suggests that, first, contemporary terrorists groups rarely achieve their policy
22
objectives, and second, the poor success rate is inherent to the tactic of terrorism itself.”
The indiscriminate violence miscommunicates their political objectives for mainly two
reasons. Instead of amplifying their demands, the targeted governments are likely to
focus on the terrorist acts rather than their rationale. Also, the terrorist’s message for the
public often gets lost in the noise of the indiscriminate terrorist violence. Al-Qaeda is
18 Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 2.
19 Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 1.
20 Mark Mazzetti, “C.I.A. Drone Is Said to Kill A1 Qaeda’s No. 2,” New York Times Online , 27 August
2011, http://www.nytimes.com/201 l/08/28/world/asia/28qaeda.html .
21 Robert Pape and Kurth Cronin offer a different view: Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends; Robert Pape,
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York, NY: Random House, 2005).
22 Forest, Influence Warfare, xiii-xiv; Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism.”
23 Forest, Influence Warfare, xiv.
72
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
incapable of bringing their messages, the communication channels, and their desired
audiences into balance.
Al-Qaeda’s desire to gain viability with the Ummah as its vanguard, at the same
time as it kills its members, is fundamentally counterproductive to the group’s
communication strategy. Gaining credibility and legitimacy via ruthless killing of
Ummah members does not promote al-Qaeda' s ends. As the Stanford University’s
political scientist Max Abrahms suggests, “Terrorism is an extremely ineffective coercive
instrument precisely because terrorism is an extremely ineffective communication
strategy. ... Terrorist organizations seldom achieve their political objectives because
terrorist acts miscommunicate them to the target country.” 24
Al-Qaeda's inability to achieve their strategic goals of toppling Muslim
governments and implementing Sharia on state level prompted the alternating focus
between the “near” and “far” enemies. As the presence of western troops in Muslim
countries decreases, al-Qaeda ’s message theme of “occupation” as a means of recruiting
new adherents becomes less palpable; nonetheless, the removal of Western influence is a
strategic goal. The Arab Spring shows that popular movements can lead to political or
social change without referring primarily to violence. The argument that the West
manipulates local Muslim governments, particularly as Muslim populations take to the
streets to decide their own fates, is fading. Muslim leaders are increasingly denouncing
terrorist attacks and numerous surveys and polling data in Muslim countries show that al-
Qaeda' s support is ebbing. 25 Osama bin Laden complained shortly before his death
about the “negative effects” to al-Qaeda' s image, and that Jihadists were under suspicion
in parts of the world for “reneging on oaths, and perfidy.” Furthermore, according to
excerpts released from documents obtained during the 2 May 2011 raid that killed bin
Laden revealed him to be “a chief executive fully engaged in the group’s myriad crises,
[was] grappling with financial problems, recruitment, rebellious field managers and
sudden staff vacancies resulting from the unrelenting U.S. drone campaign. In some
24 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” 151.
25 Abrahms, “Strategic Influence Deficit of Terrorism,” 164.
26 Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 2.
73
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
memos [bin Laden] worried about his own security, and in others he fretted about
missing a huge potential marketing opportunity: the Arab Spring, with its millions of
street revolutionaries looking to reshape politics in the Middle East.” Bin Laden
wanted to incite “people who have not yet revolted and exhort them to rebel against the
rulers.” 28
5.2 Recommendations
Western and other countries combating terrorism must exploit disputes and
disagreements within al-Qaeda 's constrained mindset with its peculiar ideological
interpretation of the drivers of strategy: calculations based on fear, honor, and interest.
As Gabriel Weimann puts it, “The analysis of the online controversies, disputes and
debates may tell us a lot about the mindsets of terrorists, their motivations and their
doubts and fears.” Moving from a reactive to a proactive state is essential. Western
security and counterterrorism institutions must have or develop the capacity to recognize
and anticipate changes in al-Qaeda 's future modus operandi, recruitment, and targeting. 30
One example includes efforts within the United States Special Operations Command, the
unified command responsible for military responses to terrorism, to integrate behavioral
influence analysis into its planning processes.
The key of further undermining al-Qaeda’s strength and influence, in order to
speed its decline, is by delegitimizing, marginalizing, and painting al-Qaeda in the worst
possible light. Such an approach would attack the group’s fundamental goal of achieving
honor, legitimacy, and viability as the Vanguard of the Ummah. Perhaps most
importantly, nations combating al-Qaeda must resist the urge to overreact to inevitable
O 1
acts of terrorism and this should become the policy watchword for all of them. Instead,
a more productive approach for countries is to aggravate existing tensions within and
27 Warrick, “Bin Laden’s last stand,” 2.
28 Bin Laden as quoted in Lahoud, Letters from Abbottabad, 49.
29 Gabriel Weimann, “When Fatwas Clash Online-Terrorist Debates on the Internet,” in Forest, Influence
Warfare, 33.
30 Bruce Hoffman, “Foreword,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, ix.
31 Schmitt and Shanker, Counter strike, 275.
74
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
between groups, further encouraging infighting and fractionalization within the al-Qaeda
movement.
Another approach that countries should exploit further, to undermine al-Qaeda’s
communication strategy, is to downplay al-Qaeda' s actions. This approach would make
the group’s actions much less sensational and it has the potential to reduce their fame and
honor. 32 Attacks on al-Qaeda member’s personal reputations, denying them desired
glory and publicity, could deter others from seeking glory in their communities through
terrorism. Equally important is denying their family members the benefits obtained as a
result of attacks, such as receiving material assets as a token of appreciation as a result of
their kin dying as a martyr. 33 Nations must communicate via credible Muslim
communication channels that suicide attackers will not enjoy heavenly rewards as
promised by al-Qaida and that their families will be dishonored through their actions
instead. This approach will aid in decreasing al-Qaeda’s influence. 34
Al-Qaeda’s leadership can no longer effectively control its affiliates and disparate
followers. The divergence between the central al-Qaeda leadership and its affiliates must
be expanded. One central element in countering al-Qaeda’s strategy is to keep up the
pressure on al-Qaeda’s central leadership in order to continue preventing effective
centralized control. The key is to advance the disparity between what the leadership
desires and what local recruits and followers actually do. If al-Qaeda’s central leadership
cannot control its affiliates, its grand strategy is doomed.
To achieve this, understanding how al-Qaeda uses the Internet and other media to
conduct ideological debates, resolve disputes, and bridge gaps is fundamental to
combating al-Qaeda. This includes the reduction of online postings, since this portion
of the communications strategy has influence on the number of foreign fighters and
donations. If potential al-Qaeda supporters cannot see the effectiveness of al-Qaeda,
32 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 484.
33 Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, 53.
34 Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, 58.
35 Forest, Influence Warfare, xii.
75
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
they do not give their lives or provide financial donations, thereby reducing al-Qaeda’s
flow of financial and human resources. 36
There are limits to what Westerners and outsiders can do directly against al-
Qaeda in the realm of communications. One indirect means to be exploited is
countermessaging through Muslim authorities who are credible in the eyes of the
majority of the Ummah after the killing of innocent civilians. 37 The most credible and
therefore powerful communicator in discrediting violent ideologies and denouncing
'J O
radical interpretations of Islam must come from Muslim religious leaders. As James J.
F. Forest rightfully notes, “ Al-Qaeda and fellow jihadists fear fatwas more than bullets.
... [they] can undermine and refute the Salafi-jihadis ideology.” 39 The West, especially
the US is to a certain extend a discredited messenger and has therefore only a limited
ability of persuading Muslim audiences. 40
Nations, particularly Western ones, will find it unproductive to contest master
narratives and their rhetorical vision that they weave. Elements of the historically-grown
narratives are deeply culturally embedded. The narratives must be combated at the
bottom end of the vertical hierarchy, where they aim to connect to the personal narratives
and cultural values of the audience. 41 As Scott Atran advises, “Radicalization itself,
engages mainly from the bottom up, not from the top down. This, of course, is not how
you stop terrorism today, but how you do it for tomorrow.” 42
Radical Islamic religious movements have peaceful and militant strands. The MB
offers Muslims an opportunity to channel their grievances and frustrations in a nonviolent
manner. This observation is also supported by James J.F. Forest, who notes, “Because
the Brotherhood draws on many of the same sources of intellectual inspiration and
religious justification as the jihadists, it is viewed by al-Qaeda as one of the primary
36 Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, 149-150.
37 Corman and Schiefelbein, “Communication and Media Strategy,” 90.
38 Aidan Kirby Winn and Vera L. Zakem, “Jihad.com 2.0-The New Social Media and the Changing
Dynamics of Mass Persuasion,” in Forest, Influence Warfare, 44.
39 Forest, Influence Warfare, 18.
40 Forest, Influence Warfare, 19.
41 Halverson and Goodall and Corman, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism, 195-196.
42 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 291.
76
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
threats to its long-term viability.” 43 Consequently, but unsuccessfully,///??^// terrorists’
have been claiming a role in the Arab spring to gain the population for their aims. 44 No
matter how suspicious national leaders, and particularly Arab leaders are of the MB’s
goals and motivation, they nevertheless should support this organization in its attempts to
offer a credible and legitimate democratic alternative addressing grievances and offering
viable political solutions. Real change through the MB could further disaggregate the
Ummah and stand in stark contrast to lofty, utopian, and ultimately unachievable
aspirations through violence advocated by al-Qaeda.
5.3 Conclusion
The empirical analytical framework based on Clausewitz’s theory of war
informed this investigation of al-Qaeda 's strategy and debunked potentially targetable
vulnerabilities at the core of their strategy. The vulnerable points have been identified
along with the critical links of ends, ways, and means that transcend across the levels of
strategy. The investigation in this thesis has brought to light numerous disconnects and
contradictions between al-Qaeda’s military and communication strategy and its
organizational control further enabling nations fighting the group to sever the critical
links between its ideology, actions, messages, and audience. Clausewitz’s theory of war
aided in determining how best to attack al-Qaeda 's strategy as depicted in Figure 3.
43 Forest, Influence Warfare, 18.
44 Rania Abouzeid, “How the Arab Spring Made Bin Laden an Afterthought”, Time World, 2 May 2011,
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,206893 l,00.html#ixzzlV6Zy4Ryp.
77
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Clausewitzia in Attack on Al-Qaeda’s Strategy
Figure 3. CLAUSEWITZIAN ATTACK ON AL-QAEDA'S STRATEGY
Source: Authors ’ Original Work
Al-Qaeda must have some degree of strategic progress before it can make history
by achieving grand strategic ends. 45 Thus far, al-Qaeda' s line of reasoning and
approach, which are identifiable through its master narratives, have not come to fruition.
The al-Qaeda leadership has no effective control over its affiliates. Jihadi terrorist
attacks have not brought al-Qaeda any significant strategic successes, nor have they
helped in reestablishing an Islamic Emirate let alone the much-desired historical
Caliphate. The group’s grand strategy does not effectively translate to its actions at the
strategic and tactical level. At times even the most spectacular tactical successes have
thus far not resulted in achieving any of the group’s significant strategic or grand
strategic aims. Even more, due to the lag of control of the tactical attacks in conjunction
with the media work, the indiscriminate killings of Muslims are alienating the Ummah in
a devastating manner in terms of al-Qaeda’s grand strategic ends. Lagging effective
central control to strategically readjust or mitigate its affiliate’s blunders, al-Qaeda is
becoming slowly irrelevant.
The findings of this thesis show that al-Qaeda ’s terroristic strategy and its
interlocked communication strategy is inherently flawed, limited, and ineffective as a
coercive strategy designed to achieve political aims. However, it is impossible to totally
45 Ackermann and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, 496.
78
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
eradicate al-Qaeda by military means alone. It is not possible to silence all and forever
the voices of misguided minorities, nor find 100 per cent of all terror cells. 46 However,
without publicity and organizational control, which is the oxygen of terrorism as well as
the backbone of its communication strategy, al-Qaeda will eventually be its own biggest
enemy and fade in the timeless horizon of history. Our goal must be to assist al-Qaeda in
speeding up their own demise by effectively exploiting and attacking their legitimacy,
credibility, and viability by exploiting the prime motivators of al-Qaeda 's strategic ends,
ways, and means: its 14 th century based ideology. Its ideology resonates only with a
small minority of the Muslim population, but is founded upon the abuse of the Islamic
bedrock of honor, fear, and interest of all Muslims. As Scott Atran eloquently stated,
"[Al-Qaeda] ... will likely extinguish itself altogether, doused by its own cold raw truth:
It has no life to offer. This path to glory leads only to ashes and rot.” 47
46 Schmitt and Shanker, Counterstrike, 272.
47 Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 484.
79
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
ACRONYMS
CTC-Combating Terrorism Center
MB-Muslim Brotherhood
MIT-Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OSC-Open Source Center
80
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Articles
Abouzeid, Rania. “How the Arab Spring Made Bin Laden an Afterthought.” Time World,
2 May 2011.
http://www.time.eom/time/world/article/0.8599.2068931.00.html#ixzzlV6Zy4Rv
E-
Abu 'Iyad as-Salafi. “The Principles of Salafiyyah - A Brief Introduction to the Salafi
Daah,” salafipublications.com.
http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/sp.cfm?subsecID=SLF02&articleID=SLF0
20001&articlePages=l (accessed 24 January 2012).
A1 Jazeera. “Is Syria's uprising being hijacked?” aljazeera.com, 19 February 2012.
http://www.aliazeera.com/programmes/insidesvria/2012/02/20122196123573363.
html.
Azzam, Abdullah. "Al-Qa'ida al-Sulbah (The Solid Base),” al-Jihad, no. 41 (April 1988):
46-49.
BBC News Middle East. “Profile: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.” BBC.co.uk, 9 February
2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12313405
-. “Syria Uprising: Al-Qaeda's al-Zawahiri Lends Support.” BBC.co.uk, 12
February 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17002573 .
BBC News. “Last Spanish troops leave Iraq.” BBC.co.uk, 21 May 2004.
http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/3734751 .stm
Beckmann, Rasmus. “Clausewitz, Terrorismus und die NATO-Antiterrorstrategie: Ein
Modell strategischen Handelns [Clausewitz, Terrorism and the NATO- Anti
Terrorism Strategy: A Strategic Acting Modell.” AIPA University Cologne,
(March 2008): 20-21.
Bockstette, Carsten. “Taliban and Jihadist Use of Strategic Communication.”
Connections-The Quarterly Journal, vol. VIII, no. 3, (Summer 2009): 1-24.
-. “Terrorist Exploit Information Technologies.” Concordiam Journal of
European Security and Defense Issues, vol. 1 issue 3 (October 2010): 11-19.
Burke, Jason. “Think Again, A1 Qaeda.” Foreign Policy, 1 May 2004.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2004/05/01/think again al qaeda .
Coll, Steve and Susan B. Glasser. “e-Qaida from Afghanistan to the Internet: Terrorists
Turn to the Web as Base of Operations,” Washington Post, 7August, 2005.
Gendron, Angela. “Trends in Terrorism Series: Al-Qaeda: Propaganda and Media
Strategy,” ITAC Presents, vol. 2007-2, 2007.
http://www.itac.gc.ca/pblctns/tc prsnts/2007-2-eng.pdf .
Hoffman. Bruce. “The Use of the Internet by Islamic Extremists.” Testimony presented to
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 4 May 2006.
http://rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT262-1 .
Johnson Bagby, Laurie M. "The Use and Abuse of Thucydides in International
Relations." International Organization 48, no. 1 (Winter 1994).
Lindsey, Ursula. “Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: widening split between young and old,”
The Christian Science Monitor, 21 December 2009.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1221/Egypt-s-Muslim-
Brotherhood-widening-split-between-young-and-old .
81
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Listner, Tim. “New al-Qaeda message reinforces focus on Arab Spring.”
htty://security.blogs.cnn.com, 13 September 2011.
http://securitv.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/13/new-al-qaeda-message-reinforces-
focus-on-arab-spring/ .
Mazzetti, Mark. “C.I.A. Drone Is Said to Kill A1 Qaeda’s No. 2.” New York Times
Online, 27 August 2011.
http://www.nvtimes.com/2011/08/28/world/asia/28qaeda.html .
Muttaqun Online. “Call of those who preceded us.” http://muttaqun.com/salafiwah.htmk
(accessed 24 January 2012).
Ned Lebow, Richard. "Thucydides the Constructivist," American Political Science
Review 95, no. 3 (September 2001): 547-560.
Owen IV, John M. “Why Islamism Is Winning.” New York Times, 6 January 2012.
http://www.nvtimes.com/2012/01/07/opinion/why-islamism-is-winning.html
(accessed 24 January 2012).
Paz, Reuven. “Islamists and Anti-Americanism.” Middle East Review of International
Affairs, volume 7, no. 4, (December 2003).
Roberts, Adam. “The Changing Faces of Terrorism,” BBC Online, 27 August 2002.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/sept ll/changing faces 02.shtml.
Stanley, Trevor. “Understanding the Origins of Wahhabism and Salafism.” Terrorism
Monitor, Volume 3 Issue 14, 15 July 2005.
http://www.iamestown.org/programs/gta/single/7tx ttnews%5Btt news%5D=528
&tx ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=180&no cache=l
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. “The Abdullah Azzam
Brigades.” Terrorism-info.org, 1 September 2010. http://www.terrorism-
info.org.il/malam multimedia/English/eng n/html/lebanon e005.htm. (accessed
24 January 2012).
Warrick, Joby. “Bin Laden’s last stand: In final months, terrorist leader worried about his
legacy.” The Washington Post, 30 April 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-securitv/bin-ladens-last-stand-in-
final-months-terrorist-leader-worried-about-his-
legacv/2012/04/30/gIQAStCisT story.html .
Zoller, Barbara. “Prison Talk: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Internal Struggle During
Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Persecution, 1957 to 1971.” International Journal Of
Middle Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 411-433.
Monographs, Books
Aaron, David. In Their Own Words. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008.
Ackermann, Peter and Jack Duvall. A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent
Conflict. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000.
Atran, Scott. Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of
Terrorists. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Bockstette, Carsten. Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management
Techniques. Occasional Paper Series, no. 20, George C. Marshall European
Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, December 2008.
82
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Bull, Hedley. The Anarchical Society-A Study of Order in World Politics 3 rd ed. New
York, NJ: Columbia University Press, 2002.
Burke, Jason. Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. London, GB: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
Chaliand, Gerard and Amaud Blin. The History of Terrorism-From Antiquity to Al-
Qaeda. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Indexed Edition, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter
Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Confucius. The Analects of Confucius, Translated by James Legge. Adelaide, Australia:
eBooks@Adelaide, Book 13, Verse 3.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.aU/c/confucius/c748a/ .
Corman, Steven R. and Angela Trethewey and H.L. Goodall, Jr. ed. Weapons of Mass
Persuasion-Strategic Communication To Combat Violent Extremism. New York,
NY: Peter Lang Publishing 2008.
Cronin, Audrey Kurth. How Terrorism Ends: Understanding The Decline and Demise of
Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009.
Descartes, Rene. A Discourse on Method, Translated by Ian Maclean. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Dolman, Everett. C. Pure Strategy: Power and Principle in the Space and Information
Age. London: Frank Cass, 2005.
Forest, James J. F., ed. Influence Warfare-How Terrorists and Governments Fight to
Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security
International 2009.
Gold, Dore. Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.
Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004.
http://books.google.de/books?id=Ui27nwe86uYC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=
dore+gold+hatred's+k&source=bl&ots=vgab01nhb6&sig=VMfHsWEEnlqJ5cike
3HYvHMbl2s&hl=de&sa=X&ei=xCMkT4GiA4XctgeFntz5Cg&ved=0CCMO6A
EwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Guevara, Che. Guerrilla Warfare. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press,
1998.
Gunaratna, Rohan. Ideology in Terrorism and Counter Terrorism: Lessons from
combating Al Qaeda and Al Jemaah Al Islamiyah in Southeast Asia. Discussion
Paper no. 05/42, Crisis States Research Centre, London, September 2005.
Halverson, Jeffry R. and H. L. Goodall, Jr., and Steven R. Corman. Master Narratives of
Islamist Extremism. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan 2010.
Hobbes, Thomas. De Cive. London, GB: J.C. for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivie-Lane
1642, http://www.unilibrary.com/ebooks/Hobbes.%20Thomas%20-
%20De%20Cive.pdf .
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth
Ecclesiasticall and Civil. London, GB: Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon,
1651.
Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. Rev. and expanded ed. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 2006.
Jones, Seth G. In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. New York,
NY: Norton & Company, 2010.
83
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Jordan, David, James D. Kiras, David J. Lonsdale, Ian Speller, Christopher Tuck, and C.
Dale Walton. Understanding Modern Warfare. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press 2008.
Kalyvas, Stathis N. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
Kilcullen, David. The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars In the Midst of A Big
One. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Lia, Brynjar. Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus ’ab al-
Suri. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Liddell Hart, Basil Henry. Strategy. 2 nd ed. New York, NY: Meridian, 1991.
Lutes, Charles D. and Peter L. Hays, ed. Toward a Theory of Spacepower. Washington,
D.C.:NDU Press, 2011.
Mackinlay, John. The Insurgent Archipelago: From Mao to bin Laden. New York, NY:
Columbia University Press, 2009.
Moghadam, Assaf and Brian Fishman, eds. Self-Inflicted Wounds: Debates and Divisions
Within Al-Qa ’ida and its Periphery. West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism
Center 16 December 2010.
Naji, Abu Bakr. The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which
the Umma Will Pass. Translated by William McCants. West Point, NY:
Combating Terrorism Center, 2006.
http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/olin/images/Management%20oP/o20Savagery%20-
%2005-23-2006.pdf .
Osinga, Frans P.B. Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd. New
York, NY: Rutledge 2007.
Pape, Robert. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York, NY:
Random House, 2005.
Qutb, Seyyid. Milestones. USA: SIME journal, 2005. http://maialla.org/books/2005/qutb-
nilestone.pdf .
Riedel, Bruce. The Search for Al-Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institution 2008.
Schelling, Thomas C. Arms and Influence. 2 ed ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2008.
Schelling, Thomas C. Strategy of Conflict. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA,
1960.
Schmitt, Eric and Thom Shanker. Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret
Campaign Against Al Qaeda. New York, NY: Times Books, 2011.
Strassler, Robert B., ed. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the
Peloponnesian War. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1996.
Sun Tzu. Illustrated Art of War: The Definitive English Translation. Translated by
Samuel B. Griffith. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Taber, Robert. The War Of The Flea: Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice. London,
GB: Granada Publishing, 1970.
Taymiyyah, Shaykh ul-Islaam Taqi ud-Deen Ahmad ibn. Governance According to
Allaah's Law in Reforming. Birmingham, GB: Maktabah Al Ansaar 2004.
http://www.archive.oIslamicBooksBvIbnTavmiwahMaqdisiAndAbdullahAzzamr
g/stream//moral doctrine of Jihad djvu.txt .
84
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Tse-Tung, Mao. On Protracted Warfare. Translated by Samuel B. Griffith. New York:
NY Praeger Publishers, 1961.
Van Evera, Stephen. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1997.
Vidino, Lorenzo. The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press 2010.
Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and
Chaos. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. Boston: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1979.
Yarger, Harry R. Strategy and National Security Professional: Strategic Thinking and
Strategy Formulation in the 21 st Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008.
Reports
Lahoud, Nelly, Stuart Caudill, Liam Collins, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Don Rassler,
Muhammad al’Ubaydi, Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? CTC
Harmony Program Report, West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 3 May
2012 .
IntelCenter. Osama bin Laden Message Analysis & Threat Assessment. 8 November
2004.
Open Source Center. Al-Sahab Video Discusses Economic Crisis, Arab ‘Corruption, ’
Torture, Part 1 of 2. Jihadist Websites (Al-Sahab Media Establishment), Open
Source Center FEA2009111397504422, September 2009.
Open Source Center. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Publishes Extracts from Al-Jihad Leader Al-
Zawahiri's New Book. Trans, and publ. the Foreign Broadcast information
Service, Version 2, Open Source Center GMP20020108000197, 2 December
2001.
Open Source Center. “Master Narratives Special Report: Al-Qaeda; Al-Qaeda Master
Narratives and Affiliate Case Studies: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.” Master Narratives Platform Special Report.
Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, September 2011.
Open Source Center. “Report: Complete Text of Al-Zawahiri 9 July 2005 Letter to
Al-Zarqawi,” Washington, D.C.: Open Source Center, FEA20061002028254, 11
October 2005.
Speeches and Interviews
Abu al-Libi, Yahya, “Al-Sahab Issues Video Statement by Abu-Yahya al-Libi.” Al-
Sahab. Translated by Open Source Center. Open Source Center
GMP20070328031003001.pdf, 28 March 2007.
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. “Dialogue With Sheikh Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.” Interview
with Abu Al-Baghdadi of Al-Furqan Foundation for Media Production, 20
December 2006.
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/12/20/6921 .shtml.
85
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
Al-Zawahiri, Ayman. “Al-Sahab Releases Al-Zawahiri Audio Message to People in
Egypt, Part 3.” Ansar Dawlat al-Iraq al-Islamiyah (Al-Sahab Establishment for
Media Production), 28 February 2011. Open Source Center
GMP20110228086002.
Gerges, Fawaz A. “Conversations with History series of Institute of International Studies
of the History University of California at Berkeley.” Interview with Harry
Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies of the History University of
California at Berkeley, 30 November 2007.
http://www.voutube.com/watch?v=Q Ds65Rrz8c .
Obama, Barak. “Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa” Speech.
The White House Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, DC, 19 May 2011.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/19/remarks-president-
middle-east-and-north-africa (accessed 24 January 2012).
Osama bin Laden. “The Unreleased Interview with Usamah Bin Laden.” Interview with
Tayseer Allouni, 21 October 2001.
http://www.terrorisme.net/doc/qaida/001 ubl interview c.htm .
Memos/Messages
Brown, Gregory. “Western Civilization II: European History Since 1648.” University of
Nevada.
htt p://faculty.unlv.edu/ gbrown/westemciv/wc201 /wciv2c 10/wciv2c 101sec2 .html .
86
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
APPENDICES
A. ABU MUS’AB AL-SURI PROTRACTED GUERRILLA STRATEGY
Abu Mus’ab al-Suri developed his strategy for a protracted war based upon Mao
Tse-Tung’s “On Protracted Warfare.” Al-Suri outlines the conduct of guerrilla warfare in
the following way:
The first stage: It is called the stage of exhaustion. It is the stage of
small guerrillas and limited terrorist warfare, where the guerillas, which
are small in number, rely upon the methods of assassination, small raids
and ambushes, and selective bomb attacks to confuse the enemy,
regardless of whether the enemy is a colonial power or a despotic regime.
The aim is to reach a state of security exhaustion, political confusion, and
economic failure.
The second stage: It is called the stage of equilibrium. In this stage, the
guerrillas move to a stage of large, strategic attacks, and the regular forces
are compelled to enter decisive battles which might lead to the
disbandment of some of their units, and that part of their cadre, officers
and soldiers join the guerrilla forces. A state of open confrontation is not
yet reached, however, and the raids and the ambushes are the basis for
guerrilla operations, even if they expand. At this stage, the guerrillas will
carry out operations in which they will temporarily control some areas, in
order to achieve important military, media-related, or political goals. They
do not consolidate their positions, however.
The Third stage: It is called the end stage or the liberation stage. At
this stage, the guerrillas enter operations that are semi-regular and others
that are regular, and they control some areas from which they launch
operations to liberate the rest of the country. This happens after units from
the regular army may have joined the revolutionaries or the guerrilla
fighters, and after they have attained the tactical capability and sufficient
level of armament to enter into open battles. Here small guerrilla units
play an important role in carrying out operations behind enemy lines, to
confuse the enemy forces by using guerrilla tactics. 48
48 Abu Mus’ab al-Suri citedquoted in Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 471-472.
87
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
B. MASTER NARRATIVE: “WAR ON ISLAM”
With divine guidance and inspiration, Islam spread across vast lands and
peoples like no other religion before it. From the earliest days after the
Prophet’s revelations, however, infidels have conspired against Muslims
through nefarious machinations and deceit. Today, the umma is
surrounded by enemies on all sides: murtadd (apostate) agents of the West
plunder Muslim resources while allowing infidel troops in the land of the
Two Holy Mosques (Saudi Arabia), Zionists slaughter Palestinian brothers
and sisters while stealing their homes and livelihood, and American
infidels drop bombs from the sky on Muslim women and children.
Together, these enemies attack the umma not only with violence, but also
with lies designed to weaken and demobilize Islam through cultural
manipulation and media propaganda. They yearn to create a “moderate”
Islam that is a diluted, secularized, and demilitarized shadow of the
umma’s former greatness. In the face of these enemies, Muslims must take
up arms alongside their fellow mujahedeen and prepare themselves for the
inevitable call to jihad. Only if Muslims heed this obligation will Islam
deliver a crushing defeat against the forces that have conspired against the
umma for centuries. 49
C. MASTER NARRATIVE: “AGENTS OF THE WEST”
The umma was once led by the Righteous Caliphs, who preserved the true
traditions of the Prophet and laid the seed for Islam’s global dominance.
This great generation of leaders distinguished themselves through their
passion for Sharia, rejection of worldly excesses, and love for jihad.
Muslims continued these traditions for centuries until traitors like Anwar
al-Sadat betrayed the umma and initiated a tragic pattern of contemporary
leaders putting greed before God, and the West before their own people.
Today’s hypocrite rulers knowingly betrayed the examples set by these
model leaders and instead have chosen to follow the wishes of their
Western masters, who order them to rape the wealth of their own
countries, ignore the mandate to implement Sharia, and pacify Muslims by
spreading the roots of laziness and idleness. These murtadd (apostate)
tyrants are the hands, eyes, and feet of the West, which pollutes the faith
with its falsehoods, steals Muslim oil while women and children starve,
and humiliates Muslims for the benefit of the crusader cause. These
corrupt apostates remain in power only thanks to their infidel supporters
and the Muslims who neglect the call to jihad. The umma must awaken
from its slumber and assume its obligation to wage jihad against these
regimes. Only then will Muslim lands be rid of corruption, suffering, and
the evil influence of the West. 50
49 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 12.
50 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 15.
88
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
D. MASTER NARRATIVE: “THE NAKBA”
Palestine has always been an integral part of Muslim territory. However,
the Zionists conspired with Christian crusaders to forge an abomination
state on Muslim holy land, the great Nakba (catastrophe) and a humiliating
blight on holy soil. To this day, crusaders and Jews humiliate Muslims in
the interest of Israel, supporting a holocaust in Gaza and orchestrating
Muslim surrender at Oslo (Accords, 1993) and Camp David (Accords,
1978). Worse still, the secularist Palestinian apostates reject Sharia and
care only for their own personal interests and those of their Zionist and
American masters. These Zionist Arab defeatists willingly participate in a
peace process that yields only suffering for Muslim brothers. Muslims
everywhere must stand up to rectify this humiliation and restore the
Blessed Land to its rightful people. Violent resistance to this great atrocity
is the only way to stop the suffering of Palestinian brothers and sisters, and
to show the oppressors that they should not dream of peace until Palestine
is a Muslim land once again. Through this struggle, Muslims will ensure
retribution for this great injustice perpetrated against the umma. 51
E. MASTER NARRATIVE: “VIOLENT JIHAD”
Islam has always been a religion that embraces peace and shared
prosperity. Despite this, the Prophet and his successors never shirked their
duty to fight for the umma in a world filled with enemies and infidelity. As
time passed, however, Muslims abandoned their duty to jihad and have
invited suffering upon the umma. Muslims today need only look to the
atrocities being committed against Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan,
Kashmir, Somalia, Chechnya, and China to see that the umma is under
attack. In the face of great enemies, the umma’s sheiks have failed them
when they are needed most as Muslims have put money before God and
the facade of stability before the duty to their religion. If they continue to
concede to evil, Muslims will have only themselves to blame as the
crusader empire spreads across more Muslims lands. The umma’s women,
homes, and mosques must be defended against the crusaders’ rampage—
Muslims must rise to this call by taking up arms against Islam’s enemies.
Muslims are faced with a choice: let the house of Islam bum to the ground
or rise up to defend it. 52
F. MASTER NARRATIVE: “BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS”
During the time of the Prophet, mujahedeen readily plunged headlong into
battle against the enemies of Islam and stood steadfast when selected for
martyrdom by God, fortified by the knowledge that victory is only
possible through sacrifice. Over time, however, the umma lost this fervor
despite the relentless threat of its enemies, forgetting that the path to
51 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 18.
52 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 21.
89
AU/S AAS S/BOCKSTETTE/A Y12
victory is paved with the blood of martyrs. Instead, the umma traded cour¬
age and faith for money and temptation. Today, Muslims ignore the path
to martyrdom and fail to realize that embracing the desires of this world
leads only to humiliation, loss, and dishonor for the umma. The time has
come for Muslims everywhere to rekindle the fervor of their forbearers, to
steadfastly embrace battle, death, and self-sacrifice against Islam’s
enemies, to fearlessly speak truth to tyrants, and to recognize that the
happy one is he who God receives as a martyr. Those chosen for this path
are touched by the divine and are rewarded for eternity. And with each
new martyr, the umma moves one step closer to victory. 53
G. MASTER NARRATIVE: “RESTORING THE CALIPHATE”
God established the rightly-guided Caliphate by uniting Muslims under
the banner of Islam and Sharia, freeing the world from the jahaliyyah
(“ignorance” predating Islam). This unification transformed lost desert
tribes into leaders and scholars of monotheism. The Ummayad (661-750
A.D.) and Abbasid (750-1258 A.D.) states continued this noble work
despite crusaders conspiring to destroy the Caliphate. After centuries,
however, a Western scheme divided the umma into a multitude of tom
pieces. The infidels took advantage of the umma’s weakened and fragile
state: crusaders marched toward Jerusalem, infidels conspired to divide
Muslim lands in the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), and Zionists colluded
to steal Palestinian land in the Balfour Declaration (1917). Muslim rulers
allied with the West to stab the Ottoman Caliphate, allowing the godless
Ataturk to destroy the last vestiges of the Caliphate for his Zionist masters.
Today, apostate rulers continue to ally with the infidels to pollute Muslim
minds with calls for nationalism and secularism. Muslims must join the
fight toward the great goal of uniting the umma and establishing a
Caliphate under Sharia from Morocco to Indonesia. Gradually and
patiently, Muslims can rebuild the Caliphate brick by brick, putting an end
to injustice and suffering, and restoring the umma to its magnificent
glory. 54
53 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report, 24.
54 Open Source Center, Master Narratives Special Report , 27.
90
