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"Qaida (Organization)"
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Inside the global jihad : how i infiltrated Al Qaeda and was abandoned by Western intelligence
\"Between 1994 and 2000, Omar Nasiri worked as a secret agent for Europe's top foreign intelligence services - for Britain's Secret Intelligent Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6, for the Security Service MI5, for France's DGSE (Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure) and for Germany's BvF (Bundesamtes fur Verfassungsschutz). From the Islamist cells of Belgium, to the madrasas of Pakistan, to Afghanistan's terrorist training camps and to 'Londonistan', Nasiri risked his life to counter the emerging global network that the West would come to know as Al Qaeda.\" \"Now, for the first time, Nasiri shares his story of a life in the balance - poised precariously between Islamist jihadists and the spies who pursue them. As an Arab and a Muslim, he infiltrated the rigidly-controlled training camps of Derunta and Khalden, where he encountered men who would later be among the world's most wanted terrorists: Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, Abu Zubayda and Abu Khabab al-Masri. Sent back to Europe with instructions to form a sleeper cell, Nasiri became a conduit for messages going back and forth between Al Qaeda's top recruiter in Pakistan and London's radical Muslim clerics.\"--Jacket.
BOOK
An Economic Analysis of the Financial Records of al-Qa'ida in Iraq
This monograph analyzes the finances of the militant group al-Qa'ida in Iraq in Anbar province during 2005 and 2006, at the peak of the group's power and influence. The authors draw on captured financial documents that give details on the daily financial transactions of one specific sector within Anbar province and of the financial transactions of the AQI provincial administration.
eBook
Path of blood : the story of Al Qaeda's war on the House of Saud
\"Path of Blood tells the gripping and horrifying true story of the underground army which Osama Bin Laden created in order to attack his number one target : his home country, Saudi Arabia. His aim was to conquer the land of the Two Holy Mosques, the land from where Islam had first originated and, from there, to re-establish a Muslim Empire that could take on the West and win. With the West unpopular with many Saudis at the time of the Iraq and Afghan wars, the Al Qaeda leadership lured impressionable recruits to the organisation with a mix of religious and political rhetoric as well as the promise of glory and heavenly riches. Many joined, and a murderous and highly visible campaign of kidnapping, shootings and bombings was launched across the country. Jonathan Small and Thomas Hacker use new insider evidence to expose the real story behind the Al Qaeda. Far from the image of single-minded holy warriors they presented to the world, the bands of soldiers are shown to be riven by infighting and lack of discipline. Yet the threat they posed was unquestionable. Ill-disciplined or not, these were men who killed with impunity, and who tried to acquire a nuclear bomb. Drawing on unprecedented access to Saudi government archives, interviews with top intelligence officials both in the Middle East and in the West, as well as with captured Al Qaeda militants, and with access to exclusive captured video footage from Al Qaeda cells, Path of Blood tells the full story of the terrorist campaign and the desperate and determined attempt by Saudi Arabia's internal security services to put a stop to it.\"--Publisher description.
Attacking the Leader, Missing the Mark: Why Terrorist Groups Survive Decapitation Strikes
Leadership targeting has become a key feature of counterterrorism policy. Both academics and policymakers have argued that the removal of leaders is an effective strategy in combating terrorism. Leadership decapitation is not always successful, however, and existing empirical work does not account for this variability. A theory of organizational resilience explains why decapitation results in the decline of some terrorist organizations and the survival of others. Organizational resilience is dependent on two variables: bureaucratization and communal support. Older and larger organizations tend to develop bureaucratic features, facilitating a clear succession process and increasing their stability and ability to withstand attacks on their leadership. Communal support plays an important role in providing the resources necessary for terrorist groups to function and survive. Religious and separatist groups typically enjoy a high degree of support from the communities in which they operate, and thus access to critical resources. Application of this theoretical model to the case of al-Qaida reveals that Osama bin Laden's death and the subsequent targeting of other high-level al-Qaida operatives are unlikely to produce significant organizational decline.
Journal Article
Terrorist decision-making : a leader-centric approach
\"This book analyzes a series of decisions by leaders of three major terrorist organizations and identifies a unique 'Decision DNA' for each of them. The authors use the Applied Decision Analysis methodology to examine organizational and operational decisions made by the leaders of three major groups: al-Qaeda (Osama bin Laden), Hamas (Khaled Mashal), and Hezbollah (Hassan Nasrallah). Decisions that were of critical importance to each organization are identified and anaylzed, in order to uncover the particular criteria employed by the leader in question and to establish their 'Decision DNA'. The Decision DNA is unique to each leader and can be used to explain and predict subsequent choices. The authors demonstrate that the findings presented can be used to promote effective counter-terrorism measures, and they provide a series of policy implications that arise from their examination of each leader. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorist studies, political violence, security studies and Middle Eastern politics\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad
Why has transnational war volunteering increased so dramatically in the Muslim world since 1980? Standard explanations, which emphasize U. S.-Saudi support for the 1980s Afghan mujahideen, the growth of Islamism, or the spread of Wahhabism are insufficient. The increase in transnational war volunteering is better explained as the product of a pan-Islamic identity movement that grew strong in the 1970s Arab world from elite competition among exiled Islamists in international Islamic organizations and Muslim regimes. Seeking political relevance and increased budgets, Hijaz-based international activists propagated an alarmist discourse about external threats to the Muslim nation and established a global network of Islamic charities. This \"soft\" pan-Islamic discourse and network enabled Arabs invested in the 1980s Afghanistan war to recruit fighters in the name of inter-Muslim solidarity. The Arab-Afghan mobilization in turn produced a foreign fighter movement that still exists today, as a phenomenon partly distinct from al-Qaida. The analysis relies on a new data set on foreign fighter mobilizations, rare sources in Arabic, and interviews with former activists.
Journal Article
What Explains Counterterrorism Effectiveness?
For years, the U.S. government has been waging counterterrorism campaigns against al-Qaida and other armed groups in safe havens and weak states. What explains the effectiveness of such campaigns? The variation in effectiveness may result from differences in select tactical, organizational, and technological capabilities of the counterterrorism state and its local partner, captured by the concept of the Legibility and Speed-of-Exploitation System (L&S). Empirical studies, including novel fieldwork data, on the U.S. drone war in Pakistan’s Waziristan region from 2004 to 2014 reveal the influence of the L&S on targeted groups. From 2004 to 2007, a lack of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities aligning with the L&S allowed both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban to build their operational infrastructure, expand their bases, engage in extensive recruitment drives, and broker important local alliances. In contrast, as the United States made substantial improvements in the L&S from 2008 to 2014, the campaigns against both groups became increasingly effective. Both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban experienced sustained reductions in operational capabilities, losses of bases, and high desertion rates; they also faced growing political challenges, including from within their own organizations. These findings contrast with the view that counterterrorism offers short-term gains at best and is counterproductive at worst.
Journal Article
The Inevitable Caliphate?
While in the West 'the Caliphate\" evokes overwhelmingly negative images, throughout Islamic history it has been regarded as the ideal Islamic polity. In the wake of the \"Arab Spring\" and the removal of long-standing dictators in the Middle East, in which the dominant discourse appears to be one of the compatibility of Islam and democracy, reviving the Caliphate has continued to exercise the minds of its opponents and advocates. Reza Pankhurst's book contributes to our understanding of Islam in politics, the path of Islamic revival across the last century and how the popularity of the Caliphate in Muslim discourse waned and later re-emerged. Beginning with the abolition of the Caliphate, the ideas and discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, al-Qaeda and other smaller groups are then examined. A comparative analysis highlights the core commonalities as well as differences between the various movements and individuals, and suggests that as movements struggle to re-establish a polity which expresses the unity of the ummah (or global Islamic community), the Caliphate has alternatively been ignored, had its significance minimised or denied, reclaimed and promoted as a theory and symbol in different ways, yet still serves as a political ideal for many.
eBook