Role and Sources of Funding of Al Qaeda Terrorist Group - Essay Example

?Introduction Al Qaeda simply means the base. Atwan (2008) revealed that Al Qaeda was established in 1988 by Osama bin laden with an intention of consolidating an international network which he had established earlier during the Afghan war. It is described as a federations comprising of various Islamic groups who are devoted to cause havoc against the west, the Christian community, the Jews and the Muslim authorities that do not adopt the group’s ideas. The group is made up of cells terrorists with several supporters and sympathizers, most of who are driven by Al-Qaeda judgments best known as fatwas towards the terrorist’s deeds. Their obligation is to provide financial support, publicity, shelter and facilities used in conducting recruitment. Al-Qaeda became popular in the United States after the terror attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. The attack shook internal security of the world’s super power to its core. The attack was well planned in order to coincide with the anniversary of the Caliphate abolition which was done in 1922 by Kemal Ataturk. Greenberg (2005) ascertained that the terrorists group has a political philosophy which is mainly radical Islamism. According to this doctrine, force has to be used on governments to compel the leaders to adjust to the Islamic law. Al-Qaeda is known to believe in Holy War which is referred to as Jihad. This is a strategy that they intend to use to eliminate the influence of the west from the Muslim territories, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Palestine. The work of Sayyid Qutb, Sayed Abul Ala Mawdudi and partly that of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani forms the basis for the activist beliefs of Islamism fundamentalism. In addition to this, Osama Bin Laden made some twists, and emphasis. Al-Qaida group may unite together with other Muslim fundamentalists and draw members from them (Sultan 2005). However there are no ideological ties between al-Qaida and other terrorist groups such as Wahhabi of Saudi Arabia or the Shi'ite Islamist government in Iran. Even though al-Qaida recruited majority of its activists in Saudi Arabia, there is no adequate evidence of organizational associations in that country. Al Qaeda affiliate groups are; Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf Group, The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), Al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam, Ansar al-Sunna, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Osama Bin Laden is founder and leader of Al-Qaeda. He plays key roles in nurturing, inspiring and spreading Al-Qaeda terrorist activities. Osama provide finances, logistics, planning, recruitment and implementation of terrorist activities within Al-Qaeda. First, Osama finances Al-Qaeda activities. Osama is rich and money is earned from a number of businesses that he has established in most parts of the world. He is believed to have helped set up Islamist bank and import-export firms in Sudan and owns a construction firm. Furthermore, Osama has invested in peanuts, wheat, fruit and sunflower industries. He also funds Islamic Jihad which is part of Al-Qaeda network and Mujahideen. Secondly, he plans and masterminds terrorist attacks across the globe. In 2002, he masterminded September 11, attacks against American soil, Establishes terrorist training camps and recruit terrorists. Osama set up Arab Military force between 1986 and 1987 as well as military-style terrorist training camps in Aceh. He also set up Maktab al-Khidimat that has recruited many terrorists. While in Sudan, Osama assisted National Islamic Front to set up terrorist groups. According to Zambelis (2008), Osama bin Laden is a strategic planner and thinker. This is evident by his move to destabilize United States economy through terrorist attacks. He claimed that Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on September 11 attacks. However attacks caused United States over $500 billion. In addition, he established that devastating oil infrastructure will help to destabilize major economies especially the United States. Strategies and goals There is nothing that infuriates fundamentalist Islamist’s terrorist groups more than American ideologies and ways of living. To them, Americans are bad, thieves (steal their oil), immoral and chest thumbing. Long term goal of Al Qaeda is to eliminate the influence of the west, specifically America from all the Muslim territories. These areas are Iraq, Saudi Arabia and North Africa. The group perceives the influence and power of America to be the major obstacle to the formation of a pan-Islamic nation. Burke (2003) opined that Al Qaeda’s strategy to overpower ideologies of the United States of America from the Muslim territories is to engage in an extensive and devastating campaign of terror. This will result in significant physical, political and economic damage hence, forcing America to withdraw its team from the region. However, Al Qaeda’s leadership is not in a position to conduct this war on its own. They mainly rely on their own local affiliates and allies to attack the United States and other western interests. Ibrahim et al (2007) said that the Al Qaeda leaders believe that the elimination of the western power and the United States will greatly undermine the apostate rulers. Through this, a power vacuum will be created for the terrorist group and its affiliates to occupy and set their agenda. The group strategy is not limited to the attacks on the United States interests within the region rather; it is worldwide attack inclusive of the United States itself. Sageman (2004) and Bruce (2004) said that Al Qaeda also attack the apostate rulers with the aim to undermine them and provoke Islamic revolution. Al Qaeda seeks to form an Islamic rule after the achievement of the short-term goals and the defeat of the local leaders. With the fact that they will not overcome all the regimes at once, the group recommends the fallen regimes to be substituted with a religious autocracy. Al Qaeda local affiliates and other local leaders who will join the group will form the governments. These governments will then provide the appropriate basis for the extension of jihadi influence and rule in whole region. The final goal of Al Qaeda is to bring together the various Islamic governments through which the Islamic empire will be resurrected and nurtured. This empire best known as caliphate will govern all the muslin territories and fight for its expansion into the non-Muslim world. Thus, Al Qaeda intends to set up a new world order based on Islamic fundamentals. Tactics Al Qaeda uses several and different terrorist tactics when conducting their attacks. These include; suicide bombing, beheadings, car bombing, roadside bombing, hijackings (Napoleoni, 2005) and paramilitary operations against civilian as well as causing scares (Joyner, 2006). The attacks conducted by the group involve appropriate planning which lasts for several months or even years. The most outstanding tactic of the group is the use of suicide bombing. Suicide bombings has been used in several attacks including; the July, 2005 bombings in London and the November 2005 bombings in Amman. This kind of attack usually involves an estimate of two to five bombers who coordinate the attacks in order to hit several targeted areas at the same time. In this type of attack, the damage and causalities is extensive as compared to a single bomb and cause a lot of damage. It also creates a high degree of terror among the victims. Al Qaeda is known as being skillful in the use media to extend the group’s goals without being traced (Bevy, 2006). The attacks in most cases are announced worldwide in different news channels and the group’s taped messages are passed to several audience. In most cases, the media group strives to illegalize Al Qaeda; however, through the coverage of the group’s actions and declarations they unknowingly spread the group’s message. The terrorist group has come up with modern ways which help them to plan, conduct and inspire all the terrorists’ attacks (Blanchard, 2010). The group was forced to modify its current methods after the United States led attack of Afghanistan which took place in 2001. The attack destroyed Al Qaeda infrastructure which had already been established. The widespread group leadership then adopted the internet communication to help them reach to its members and the public at large in different countries. Corbin (2003) observed that Al-Qaeda communicates with high tech devices. Most of the terrorist’s activities were moved to cyberspace. Jenkins and Rand Corporation (2002) stated that countering al Qaeda has become difficult because they can communicate form any where. Through the internet, they were able to reestablish themselves and reaffirm their presence long after their secure base was destroyed by war in Iraq. In addition, the internet boosts the group’s communication in their various locations in relative safety and convenience. Al Qaeda also runs various publications which are based on the internet. These include; Muaskar Al Battar, which refers to the Camp of the Sword and Sawt Al Jihad which is best known as The Voice of Jihad. Through these publications, they are able to provide instructions and inspire their sympathizers to conduct different terrorist’s activities in various targets. The internet play a crucial role to the whole group as it helps them to coordinate, plan and implement their attacks. Sources of funding, Some of Al Qaeda funds have been obtain from bin laden’s personal fortune and his widespread investments and business partnerships which are known to be located worldwide (Fawaz , 2005 and Martin, 2002). Apart from the group leader’s own contribution, Al Qaeda has other several sources of funds. It includes the following; first is through donations. Donations in most cases constitutes about half of the total funds needed by terrorists (Yohannes and Menelik 2009; Yohannes and Menelik, 20091). As part of their charity obligations, Muslims worldwide donate regularly and faithfully. The regular donations are referred to as zakat and it comprises 2.5 percent of an individual’s wealth annually. A greater percentage of the donations given are hijacked by the terrorists. All the Islamic banks observe zakat in their various transactions. This implies that by design, all the Islamic banks are part of terrorism funding. According to the regulations of the Islamic banking, records have to be disposed after a short period. Hence zakat transactions remain to be almost untraceable. Secondly, according to Aubrey (2004), the group gets funds from charity. There are several charitable organizations in existence. Most of these are put in place purposely to support the terrorists groups. The United States government stepped in to bring down several charity organizations after the terrorist attack on September 11th 2001. Among these were the Al-Haramain Foundation and the Holy Land Foundation, which were alleged to have provided funds for the group. Other nations especially western countries joined hands to minimize or eradicate money laundering within their borders. Thirdly, Rabasa (2006) claimed that some funds were obtained through criminal activities. Crime is considered the biggest source of funds for terrorists. The major crimes which are common include; kidnapping for ransom. Most terrorist groups have asked for ransom in exchange of people and cargo in hijacked ships. Ransoms run into billions of dollars annually and is known to be a lucrative source of finance. Another crime is Tobacco smuggling. The terrorists’ group benefits from this through evasion of the import and the export duties. Terrorists do not believe in following the normal, legitimate outlets when buying and selling. The fourth source of funds is through drugs trafficking. The terrorist group is greatly involved the sale of various drugs worldwide (Giraldo and Trinkunas, 2007). This helps them to further their activities. The fifth source of funds is through credit card fraud, the terrorists group also considers credit card fraud to be prestigious method of getting funds. Their delight is in their potential to hack into computer networks and steal identities. However not all the terrorist group has the capability to do this. In most cases the dirty work is done by Russian, Chinese, or German hackers. The credit card theft can be done without use of computers. The sixth source of funds is from donations they get from other well established terrorists groups. The final sources of funds are the state sponsors and the revolutionary tax. According to Casenote Legal Briefs (2010) Syria has always supported Al Qaeda. The revolution tax is best understood to be protection fee. It is mostly collected from the businesses. It is also used in intimidating the target population. Chronologies of events, The following are the events of Al Qaeda; On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the world trade center towers basement in New York. Those killed were six people and an estimate of a thousand people got injured. On October 3, 4 1993, a total of eighteen American soldiers were killed after an attack in Mogadishu, Somalia. Bin Laden and his followers were later charged by United States for training and equipping those who attacked. The Black Hawk Down, movie clearly describes this incident. On November 13, 1995, a car bomb exploded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During this incident those who perish were five American soldiers and two who were Indian nationals. In addition, more than sixty people got injured. On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded in the United States military base located in Khobar close to the town of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia. Nineteen people lost their lives and 386 got injured. On August 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies situated in Nairobi and Dares-Salaam in East Africa were bombed leaving 224 dead and an approximate of 5000 people injured. Majority of those who were injured during the incident were mainly Africans. On October 12, 2000, a suicide attack took place in USS Cole in Aden, and 17 United States sailors perish and 38 of them got wounded. On September 11, 2001, hijacked airliners ruined the Twin Towers in New York City and crashed into the Pentagon. This incident left approximately 3000 people dead. On April, 2002, an explosion occurred in an historic synagogue located in Djerba Island in Tunisia. This incident left 21 people dead; among them were 14 German tourists. On May, 2002, a car was exploded in Karachi Pakistan outside a hotel. Those who lost their lives were 14 people and among them were 11 French citizens. On June, 2002, a bomb was exploded in Karachi, Pakistan outside American Consulate. This incident left 12 people dead. Finally, on October 12, 2002, a bomb exploded in a Bali nightclub, leaving a total of 202 people dead (Berner, 2007). Majority of those who perish were westerners. Laing (2011) revealed that Al Qaeda is suspected for bombing Marrakesh cafe on April 28, 2011. Al Qaeda organizational structure and its leadership The above organizational structures do not portray a hierarchical chain of command in the terrorist operations. Instead, its purpose is mainly to coordinate and to provide the required material support to the various terrorist operations. After decisions are made concerning given operations it is assigned to clandestine cell which is chosen carefully. The clandestine cell is led by an operative who is superior in the group and reports in person to the group’s leader bin laden. Kepel et al (2008) opined that the structure of Al Qaeda comprises of the following; first, is the Advisory Council which is also referred to as Shura. This council is known to be Osama bin Laden's inner circle. They play a key role in directing the organization’s overall strategy. Secondly, there is a Political Committee known as Sharia. Their role is to issue Islamic studies best known as fatwas. Thirdly, there is Military Committee. Military committee’s major obligation is to conceptualize and plan the group’s operations. They are also responsible in the management of various training camps. Fifth, there is Finance Committee. Finance committee’s obligation concerns fundraising and the concealment of assets. Sixth, the group has the Foreign Purchases Committee; their main role is to acquire different supplies and foreign arms. Seventh, there is Security Committee; this group is responsible for corporal security, intelligence, and counter-intelligence. Finally, there is Information Committee; this team is responsible for spreading propaganda about Al Qaeda and other issues (Margulies, 2003). The core leadership and operatives of Al Qaeda mainly comprises of individuals who had earlier participated in war against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s. The top positions of the terrorist group are held by Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to Burke (2004), Al Qaeda has conducted its various activities through an alliance of terror organizations. This coalition is referred to as the International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders. At the formation of the group, those involved were Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, the group led by Zawahiri which is known as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and several groups who are engaged in terrorism attacks worldwide. According to Riedel (2010), Osama bin Laden is known to be the emir or the group commander. He also occupies the position of Senior Operations Chief of the group. The chief of operations as by August 6, 2010, was Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah. He came in and replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The shura council advises bin laden who is the group leader. The council comprises of the members who occupy the top positions in the terrorist group and are estimated to be around 20 to 30 individuals. The group deputy operations chief is known to be Ayman al-Zawahiri. Initially, Al Qaeda’s senior leader in Iraq was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (Library Information and Research Service, 2006), however, during a targeted killing; United States missile landed on his safe house and was killed. Bibliography Atwan, BA 2008, The secret history of al Qaeda, 2nd edn, University of California Press, California. Aubrey, MS 2004, The new dimension of international terrorism, vdf Hochschulverlag AG, Bergen, PL 2006, The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader, Simon and Schuster, New York. Berner, KB 2007, The World According to Al Qaeda, Peacock Books, New Delhi. Bevy, JL 2006, Al-Qaeda: an organization to be reckoned with, Nova Publishers, New York Blanchard, MC 2010, Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology, Diane Publishing, London. Bruce, H 2004, ‘The Changing Face of Al Qaeda and the Global War on Burke, J 2003, Al-Qaeda: casting a shadow of terror, I.B. Tauris, New York. 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