Al Qaeda Terrorist Group

Al Qaeda Terrorist Group

Paul Leclair

University of Phoenix

CJA/300

William Barnes

December 8, 2005

Abstract

Al Qaeda is arguably the most well-known and most dangerous Islamic terrorist organization in the world. It was established around 1990 by a Saudi millionaire, Osama Bin Laden, to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion. The goal of the organization is to reestablish the Muslim state throughout the world. Al Qaeda works with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic" and remove Westerners from Muslin countries. Groups affiliated with Al Qaeda have conducted numerous bombings and other violent attacks throughout the world that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. In 1996, Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States, and two years later, he vowed to attack Americans and their allies, wherever they are.

Al Qaeda is the leading multi-national Islamic terrorist network. It was founded and is still led by Osama Bin Laden, a multimillionaire from Saudi Arabia who became an active Islamist in 1979, when he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. Though Al Qaeda financially and operationally supports Islamist terror groups around the globe, its core remains Bin Laden and the Arabs who fought alongside him during the 1980's. This paper will talk about the history and structure of Al Qaeda, along with some of the operations and activities Al Qaeda has carried out in the past and the participants before and after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The origins of Al Qaeda are rooted in the Afghanistan resistance to the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1989. Believing that the war with the Soviet Union was a holy battle between Islam and the infidel, Osama Bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi contractor, traveled to Afghanistan to aid in the fight. At the time of the war, Afghanistan lacked both the infrastructure and manpower for a long-drawn-out war. Osama Bin Laden joined forces with Sheikh Dr. Abdullah Azzam, leader of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, to establish the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or the Afghan Services Bureau. The goal of the Afghan Services Bureau or MAK was to recruit Muslim fighters from around the world to fight in Afghanistan. Bin Laden paid for the Muslin fighters transportation and training, while Afghan locals provided land and resources. In 1988, Bin Laden broke ties with Abdullah Azzam and formed Al Qaeda (The Base) and declared his own jihad on a worldwide scale. Ironically, Azzam died in a car bombing in 1989, apparently carried out by his rivals in Afghanistan.

After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to combat what he saw as an infidel Saudi government. Bin Laden, further angered by the United States presence in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, became even more outspoken. Bin Laden, along with his immediate family and his loyal band of followers moved to Sudan. In 1994, the Saudi government revoked Bin Laden's citizenship for his opposition to the Saudi government. While in Sudan, Bin Laden established businesses, paved roads, built an airport, and created training camps to supply out of work mujahedin or holy warrior with jobs.

As the Sudanese relations with the United Stated improved in 1996, the government of Sudan asked Bin Laden to leave the country. Enraged, Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan where he established his ties with the Taliban movement. In Afghanistan, Bin Laden established numerous training camps and a terrorist infrastructure. This infrastructure supported a number of plots against the United States and its citizens. These plots included the bombings of the African Embassies in 1998 and the September 11, 2001 attacks. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks against America, American-led forces toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Approximately half of the senior Al Qaeda leadership was captured during the American-led campaign, along with crippling the group's communication network.

The exact size of Al Qaeda is unknown, but the group likely has several thousand fighters. The estimated numbers of people who trained in camps or fought in Afghanistan ranges from 20,000 to 60,000 but these are not all Al Qaeda members. Al Qaeda serves as an umbrella organization that carries out its own terrorist acts as well as a focal point for other extremist groups. Some experts believe that Al Qaeda is an organization in transition. The losses of many of the group's leaders