A HUNDRED OSAMAS:

ISLAMIST THREATS 

AND THE FUTURE OF COUNTERINSURGENCY

Sherifa Zuhur

December 2005

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The author would like to thank Professor Leonard Binder; Dr. W. Andrew 

Terrill; Dr. Sami Hajjar; Dr. Antulio Echevarria II; Dr. Steve Metz; Dr. Gabriel 

Marcella; Mr. Marshall Smith; Colonel William Braun; and other academic, 

military, and professional readers whose names cannot be enlisted here for their 

comments, suggestions or reactions to the material in this monograph. As I taught 

for many years on the subject of Islamist movements, extremist and otherwise, I 

would also like to thank my students, colleagues, and professors, in particular, 

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Segments of this monograph were adapted from my 

manuscript on Islamic movements, and a presentation delivered at “America’s 

Irregular Enemies: Securing Interests in an Era of Persistent Conflict,” U.S. Army 

War College Strategy Conference, April 13, 2005.

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FOREWORD

 The future of the Global War on Terror is now, and may continue 

indefinitely to be, a key concern for U.S. military and policymakers. 

Islamist terror has not arisen from a vacuum, but has evolved over 

decades and requires more calibrated coordination and a different 

type of strategic planning than other types of conflicts. The author 

of this monograph, Dr. Sherifa Zuhur, examines the intensity and 

diversification of extremist efforts and outlines their “new jihad” 

and its relationship to the regeneration of extremist leadership. She 

reviews “lessons learned” with regard to Islamist extremist tactics, 

recruitment, and their relationship to a broader Islamic awakening 

which must be factored into the U.S. desire for democratization 

of the Middle East and the broader Islamic world. 

 The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph 

as a contribution to the national security debate on this important 

topic.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

 Dr. Sherifa Zuhur is Visiting Professor of National Security 

Affairs at SSI. She has lectured widely and held faculty positions at 

many universities including MIT, University of California, Berkeley, 

the American University in Cairo, and Ben Gurion University of the 

Negev. Dr. Zuhur’s research includes Islamic movements, war and 

peace in the Middle East, modern Middle Eastern politics, topics in 

Islamic studies and social and cultural developments. Dr. Zuhur has 

published military and political studies on Islamic warfare and the 

new jihad, the security situation in a changing Saudi Arabia, political 

identity and the insurgency in Iraq, democratization, security and 

nationalism in the Middle East. She has intensively studied Islamist 

movements and interviewed their membership and leaders since 

1980 when she was a graduate student in Egypt and this work 

formed the basis of her first book. She is a published author of seven 

books, the most recent of which is The Middle East, and more than 

46 monographs, journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Zuhur holds 

B.A. degrees in Political Science and Arabic and Arabic literature, a 

Master’s in Islamic Studies, and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History, 

all from UCLA. She also completed the Master’s level coursework in 

political science at American University in Cairo.
v

SUMMARY

 If America’s pursuit of a Global War on Terror is strategically 

and politically well-grounded, then why are Islamist insurgencies 

and extremist movements continuing to operate, generating parallel 

cells that terrify the world with violent attacks from Iraq to London? 

While analysts debate the intensity and longevity of the latest 

round of terrorist attacks,1

 we would do well to consider whether 

U.S. long-term goals in the war on terror—namely diminishing 

their presence and denying terrorists the ability to operate, while 

also altering conditions that terrorists exploit—are being met. If we 

are not pursuing the proper strategy or its implementation is not 

decreasing support for terrorists, then we should adapt accordingly. 

This monograph addresses these questions and examines the 

efficacy of proposed or operative strategies in light of the evolution 

of Islamist jihadist leaders, ideas, and foot-soldiers. Jihadist strategy 

has emerged in a polymorphous pattern over the last 30 years, but 

many Americans only became aware of the intensity of this problem 

post-September 11, 2001 (9/11), and through observation of the 2003-

05 insurgency in Iraq. 

The author proposes that extremist (jihadist) Islamist groups are 

not identical to any other terrorist group. Islamist discourse, and 

extremist discourse within it, must be clearly understood. Given 

the fiscal challenges of the Global War on Terror, the fact that its 

coordination may be at odds with great power competition,2

 and 

certainly contests the interests of other smaller states (like Iran), why 

are we aiming at eradication, rather than containment, and is eradication possible? Differentiating a “true Islam” from the false and 

destructive aims of such groups is an important response. Each 

region-based administration has so crafted its anti-terrorist rhetoric, 

and Muslims, in general, are not willing to view their religion as 

a destructive, anachronistic entity, so this unfortunately difficult task 

of ideological differentiation is an acceptable theme. But it is insufficient as a strategy because Islamist insurgencies have arisen in 

the context of a much broader, polychromatic religious and political 

“Islamic awakening” that shows no signs of receding. That broader 
vi

movement informs Muslim sentiment today from Indonesia to 

Mauritania, and Nigeria to London. Official statements will not 

diminish recruitment; deeds, not words, are needed. Finally, 

eradication may be impossible, but containment is philosophically unattractive. A combination of eradication (denial) and cooptation, as we have seen in the Muslim world thus far, probably 

makes sense. Certain assumptions that underlie U.S. strategies of 

denying and diminishing the terrorism of Islamist extremists therefore need to be reconsidered. 

 Among the recommendations made in this monograph are: 

1. Revise strategies that too narrowly or too broadly define 

extremist networks and their operational modes. 

2. Acknowledge the evolution and change of Islamist extremist 

leadership and develop strategies to contain it. Utilize those 

who know the extremist bases of operations well and speak the 

appropriate languages instead of relegating this enormously 

difficult task to those who have no deep understanding of 

the area, ideological issues, or delicacy of the issues.

3. Focus on antiterrorist as well as counterterrorist principles.

4. Understand and respond to the increasing sophistication of 

Islamist tactical and strategic efforts. 

5. Carefully consider the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the 

Middle East and in other areas of the Muslim world on the 

stated aims of the Global War on Terror. 

6. Continue working with local governments in their counterterrorist and counterinsurgency efforts. 

7. Establish centers for international counterterrorist operations 

to specifically address Islamist extremists (rather than all 

global forms of terrorism). 

8. Avoid the use of physical and psychological torture and 

extralegal measures. 

9. Encourage local governments to normalize relations with 

Islamist groups, and utilize dialogue programs or amnesty 

efforts in order to return supporters of jihad to society. 

10. Recognize the potential of moderate Islamist groups and 

actors to participate in political processes. This does not mean 
vii

that moderate or “progressive” Islamists as defined in urban 

American settings can serve as mediators or spokespersons 

for counterparts in the region.

11. Extra-governmental diplomacy should be used to achieve 

mutual understanding on the relevant issues or obstacles to 

a more “global” pursuit of the Global War on Terror.

12. Establish a multi-country, full media (Web, television, radio, 

and print) program to discuss and debate Islamist and other 

forms of religious extremism. 

13. Stay the course in promoting democratization of the Middle 

East and the Muslim world. 

14. Provide advanced training to military, intelligence, and 

political leaders on the history, evolution, and tactics of 

Islamist extremists.

ENDNOTES - SUMMARY

 1. Dexter Filkins and David Cloud argue that insurgents in Iraq are stronger, 

more sophisticated, and being quickly replaced. See “Defying U.S. Efforts, 

Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen,” New York Times, July 24, 2005. On the 

other hand, George Friedman claims that al-Qaeda’s global counteroffensive is a 

weak last-ditch effort. See “Al Qaeda’s Global Campaign: Tet Offensive or Battle 

of the Bulge? Stratfor, July 26, 2005, at http://www.strafor.biz/Story. Nora Bensahel 

of RAND explains that charting short-term trends in insurgent violence can be 

very misleading, hence we should measure progress against them with different 

yardsticks. See Commentary, “Gauging Counterinsurgency,” Baltimore Sun, 

August 9, 2005, at http//www.rand.org/commentary. 

2. Stephen D. Biddle, American Grand Strategy After 9/11: An Assessment, 

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, April 2005, pp. 16-21. What is of interest to 

me are Biddle’s astute perceptions about the nature of international competition 

and the costs of a transformational policy like the Global War on Terrorism. In the 

next section of the monograph, Biddle suggests that only radical political reform 

will address terrorism in the Middle East, but I do not see the end of terrorism as 

the only possible, or most likely, result of such reform, nor has such reform really 

begun. Rather, states and elites are resisting these processes, and the Iraqi and 

Afghani cases illustrate the difficulties of simultaneously building states, reforming 

preexisting structures and behaviors, and fighting extremism and terrorism. Lack 

of space prohibits a full exploration of these issues in this monograph. 

1

A HUNDRED OSAMAS:

ISLAMIST THREATS 

AND THE FUTURE OF COUNTERINSURGENCY

NEW CONFLICT, OUTDATED STRATEGY?

The U.S. Government launched Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the Global War on Terror 

(GWOT) in response to the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), and 

in alliance with various nations. Many other nations objected to the 

U.S. invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussayn’s region 

did not, in their views, pose a credible Weapons of Mass Destruction 

(WMD) threat as was claimed at the time, and because they believed 

that American dismantlement and occupation of Iraq would surely 

be interpreted as neocolonialist interventionism. Indeed, Islamist 

extremists labeled these as Crusader campaigns, capitalizing on the 

preexisting understanding of neocolonialism and fear of Western 

antipathy to Islam. In March 2003, President Hosni Mubarak of 

Egypt predicted that the American-led war on Iraq would create 

“one hundred new bin Ladens.”1

 The mushrooming of Islamist-extremist movements predates the 

U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, emerging from the late 1970s through the 

early 1990s. Prior to 9/11, certain academic and security experts from 

within the region predicted continuing Islamist threats and further 

development of the broad-based Islamic resurgence in the Middle 

East, and beyond, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. 

However, local security services, police, and the military in Muslim 

and Middle Eastern states, including Israel, had been engaged in 

the containment of Islamist radicals. Their governments pursued 

two basic strategies, including mass arrests and judicial processes, 

assassinations, and repression on the one hand, or co-optation and 

political bargains on the other. 

Islamist extremism predated 9/11. The United States had 

developed policies against terrorist groups, including Islamist 

extremist organizations earlier, but 9/11 created an impetus and 

urgency for a more successful strategy of opposition to these groups. 
2

One could argue that America has not met its most important goals 

in the GWOT, as it has been defined since 9/11, in terms of denying 

sanctuary to terrorists, preventing further violence, and diminishing 

the growth of extremists. One might further argue that constraining 

factors are U.S. dependence on allied paramilitaries and militaries 

that carry primary responsibility in counterterrorist activities, for 

instance, in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other nations; and that the 

irregular nature of the combatants stymies our own military approach, 

or it is unsuited to what is essentially a police/security services issue. 

But the problem is deeper because of certain assumptions that fund 

various efforts the United States has made in the hopes of destroying 

or diminishing violent extremism. 

Certain miscalculations, preventable or not, are now part of the 

calculus of battle with insurgents in Iraq. Here the U.S. understanding of extremist leadership and strategic communications of the 

Islamists may indicate the nature of battles to come. There is some 

disagreement about how badly the effort is going, and many hope 

that the establishment of democratic institutions in Iraq, along with 

the will of the majority of the Iraqi people, will help turn the tide 

against the insurgents. At the time of this writing, a high price has 

been paid. In 2005, the U.S. military launched counterinsurgent 

operations in Najaf, Fallujah, Mosul, Qaim, and Karabila near the 

Syrian border, but the frequency of insurgent attacks, particularly 

suicide bombings, increased from 69 in April to 90 in May 2005, and 

even more in June (killing more than 1,350 from April 28 to the end 

of June). Coalition deaths were 52 for April, 88 for May, and 83 for 

June, while 199 Iraqi military and police died in April, 270 in May, 

296 in June, and 125 by mid-July. By October 25, 2005, 2,000 American 

troops had been killed in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared a war 

on Iraqi Shi`a in August and September of 2005. No one really knows 

how many Iraqi civilians have died since the initial invasion; the 

Iraq Body Count and Oxford Research Group reported 25,000 Iraqi 

deaths since March 2003 in a dossier released in July 2005, but the 

Iraqi government disputed some aspects of the report. We do know 

that, due to the insurgency, about 12,000 Iraqi civilians have perished 

over the 18 months up to July 2005, a rate of about 20 people per day. 

According to data provided by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, this 
3

amounts to about 800 Iraqi civilians, military, and police deaths per 

month, not counting deaths during U.S. military operations or those 

in the Kurdish areas.2 Previous data indicate that the largest number 

of victims have been Shi`i Iraqis,3 and more Shi’i mosques or clerics 

were reportedly attacked than others, but Kameran Qaradaghi, a 

spokesperson for the Iraqi president, commented that the interior 

ministry’s data show that civilians of all types and ages are targets, 

and he denigrated the notion of “honest resistance.”4

 This exceeds the frequency of attacks carried out by Palestinians 

in the tense 2001-03 period of the al-Aqsa intifadha. In addition, 

recent attacks in Iraq have featured larger bombs, which have 

been increasingly lethal.5

 Although some officials depicted the 

insurgency as waning, June, July, and August featured many brutal 

attacks. General Richard B. Meyers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, stated on July 21, 2005, that the attacks on U.S. troops were 

increasingly lethal and that assassinations of Iraqi officials had 

mounted.6 Attacks on Iraqi civilians are polarizing because they 

exacerbate sectarianism, and those on police and military recruits 

constrain U.S. efforts to speedily build up Iraqi military and police 

capacity. It is important to note that the insurgency, in both Islamist 

and nationalist aspects, is not an isolated phenomenon restricted 

to Iraq; it is part of a trend. We can call this a bi- or tri-regional, 

or even a global, insurgency. Even if one would not go that far, 

suicide attacks in Egypt in October 2004, and April and July 2005 

are certainly ominous; as are continuing attacks in Afghanistan; the 

bombings in London on July 7, 2005, and the attempted bombings 

on July 21, 2005; multiple bombings in Bangladesh; and many other 

incidents. 

Both the “local” and the global nature of the threat should alarm 

the United States and its allies in the GWOT. Consider just a few of 

the major attacks launched since 2001: 

• a suicide attack in April 2002 at a Tunisian synagogue killed 

19 people.

• the bombing of a Bali nightclub packed with foreigners in 

October 2002. On October 1, 2005, three suicide bombers 

attacked three restaurants, killing 20.

• five suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003.
4

 • bombings in front of two Turkish synagogues in November 

2003 that killed 20 and wounded 300.

• Al-Qa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula (QAP)’s violent attacks 

and bombings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 2003 

through 2004 including a beheading, and one attack launched 

on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah.

• a bombing at the Australian embassy in Djakarta in 2004.

 • violence and bombings from January 2004 through May 2005 

in southern Thailand.

• attacks on Shi`a mosques and Ashura celebrations in Iraq and 

Pakistan.

• bombing of early-morning commuter trains in Madrid on 

March 11, 2004.

• the October 2004 hotel bombing at Taba, close to Eilat in the 

Sinai.

• bombings in December of 2004 in General Santos and February 

2005 bombings in Manila by Abu Sayyaf.

• a March 2005 car-bombing in Doha, Qatar, in Yemen.

 • the Shabab al-Mu’minun’s (an Islamist extremist group) 

clashes with the Yemeni government through 2004 and again 

from March to May 2005. Also Yemeni al-Qa’ida members 

who surfaced elsewhere in the Peninsula. Yemen had already 

faced a strong challenge from insurgent cleric Shaykh alHouthi and killed him, but in the spring of 2005 followers of 

al-Houthi’s father, Badr al-Din al-Houthi, mounted attacks.

• British-born Muslims from Leeds attack the London underground and a bus killing 37 and injuring more than 700 on 

July 7, 2005. These were followed by foiled attacks on July 21 

in London by a different set of terrorists.

• 3 bombs in Sharm al-Shaykh are set off also in July 2005 at a 

resort town in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula which killed more than 

88 people and injured more than 200.

• Just a few of the many attacks in Iraq included a bombing 

near a propane fuel tanker on July 16, 2005, south of Baghdad 

that resulted in a huge explosion, killing more than 60 and 
5

wounding more than 100; a fuel truck bomb on July 17, killed 

98 people south of Baghdad, just as car bombs were also 

detonated in the Iraqi capital; insurgents killed Iraqi soldiers 

guarding a water plant north of Baghdad, as well as Algerian 

diplomatic staff members on July 27, and then attacked a train 

oil tanker. A suicide bomb attack was followed by the killing 

of new recruits to the Iraqi Army on July 29, and the next day 

two British private security agents were killed after an attack 

on a convoy in Basra; journalist Steve Vincent, who had been 

reporting on Basra police involvement in assassinations there, 

was kidnapped and assassinated on August 2; the next day a 

powerful improvised explosive device (IED) made out of three 

bombs put together killed 14 Marines and their translator in 

an amphibious assault vehicle near Haditha; Arab diplomats 

and embassy staff were kidnapped and assassinated, and alQaeda announced it would try victims in an Islamic court; 

182 people were killed in a series of attacks in Baghdad in 

September 2005.

• 200 homemade bombs exploded at government buildings, 

courts, and in the streets in at least 60 different towns and 

cities of Bangladesh following Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s 

departure on August 17, 2005, for China.

• 62 people died and more than 200 were injured in a triple 

bombing in Delhi, India, on October 29, 2005. Islamic militants 

are suspected.

• Three Christian teenage girls were beheaded in Central 

Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their bodies were discovered on October 

29, 2005.

During the same post-9/11 time frame, Islamist suicide bombers 

were less active in Israel in response to a changing political situation 

and uneasy truce, but inter-Palestinian conflict increased the public’s 

trust in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah as compared to the 

Palestinian Authority (PA). In the tumultuous period prior to the 

2005 Gazan disengagement, the “secular” al-Aqsa Brigade fighters 

somewhat paradoxically claimed they would go to Iraq as mujahidin 

if only they could, since they are being repressed by the Authority.7
6

 The Iraqi insurgents increasing use of car bombs, suicide attacks, 

kidnappings, and beheadings, and the fact that they have begun 

targeting foreign diplomats and diplomatic staff points to their efforts 

to heighten jihad before Iraqi stabilization can dismantle their latest 

sanctuary. There are a large number of extremist groups, and each 

has gone through transitions over the last 2 years. The significance 

of Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi’s group’s Jama`at al-Jihad wa al-Tawhid (the 

Group of Jihad and Unicity8

) adoption of a new name, Tanzim Qa’ida 

Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Qa’ida Organization of Jihad in the Land of 

the Two Rivers) was that Zarqawi swore loyalty (the bay`a) to Usama 

bin Ladin. Bin Ladin constructed a unique oath as follows: 

I recall the commitment to God, in order to listen to and obey my 

superiors, who are accomplishing this task with energy, difficulty, and 

giving of self, and in order that God may protect us so God’s words are 

the highest and his region victorious.9

Zarqawi then entered a second tier of bin Ladin’s lieutenants. By 

this linkage of Iraqi groups to bin Ladin, Islamist extremists were 

proclaiming to the world that the United States might have driven the 

Taliban into the Afghan hinterland and dismantled the government 

of Saddam Husayn, but they would wage jihad wherever possible. 

And they will do so until their deaths and beyond. 

It goes without saying that we should distinguish those groups 

and individuals who have perverted Islamic principles from 

ordinary Muslims. On the other hand, it will not aid us to apply 

a universal strategy to all extremists and insurgents, or to forgo 

critical assessments of outcomes over time. And there is no unified 

or universal goal for all extremists, whereas Islamist extremists do 

assert similar aims. For instance, we commonly hear experts state 

that the goal of terrorism is to terrify. But Islamist extremists aim 

for much more: withdrawal of Western forces and even businesses 

from Iraq, Palestine, and the “land of Muhammad,” meaning Saudi 

Arabia; the dissolution of secular governments in the Muslim world, 

and transformation of Muslim societies, cleansing them of doctrinal 

innovation. All of this is to occur through the waging of jihad. 

Young fighters, in particular, exhibit certain individual and 

organizational characteristics found in gang cultures. But can we 
7

apply the same anti-gang tactics developed elsewhere in the world 

by penetrating schools, neighborhoods, and families? These young 

men, for the most part, will accept no pay-off. Co-optation aimed 

at the leadership level might be a temporary solution. However, 

jihadist leaders often compete with moderate groups who believe that 

building a broad popular base is the first order of business and work 

with secularist governments if they need to. Extremists have usually 

avoided cooperation with secularist governments, fearing they will 

taint their jihadist image. These fighters use the term al-qa’idin (the 

sedentary folk) to ridicule and condemn those who will not adopt 

jihad. They recruit and are recruited through a belief in a recentlydefined Islamic mission, or da`wa, and the glorification of jihad and 

martyrdom. We must not discount their ideological motivation, 

their recruiting talents, and ability to sustain morale, or we will not 

defeat them. While we have spoken often of encouraging the forces 

of moderate, conservative, or even liberal Islam to compete with the 

extremists, we need to remember that previous efforts of this sort 

on the part of Arab and Muslim governments did take place. Those 

efforts established a tension between authoritarian, Big Brother-like 

states and mobilization efforts by ordinary members of society. 

Around the time that most Egyptian Islamists crafted a deal 

with their government forswearing violence in the wake of the 

1997 Luxor attack on tourists, many academics were emphasizing 

the moderate potential of Islamism. Co-optation seemed a strategy 

preferable to repression. Certain French experts claimed that radical 

and political Islam had decreased, although it would be more true to 

say that despite ongoing Islamization (in places like Pakistan, Egypt, 

Lebanon, Nigeria, and the Kelantan province of Malaysia), Islamists 

had not achieved their political goals. A host of “Islamic Republics” 

like Iran had not emerged. One could point to Afghanistan or Sudan, 

but certainly no caliphate. 

How could these individuals support a thesis of “post-Islamism” 

after 9/11? Giles Kepel, a French specialist on Islamist extremism in 

this camp, argues that 9/11 was merely an end-stage paroxysm, part 

of the death throes of radicalism.10 This may be similar to current 

American claims that Iraqi insurgents are in their last throes of 

violence, for if jihad is transported from Iraq to other locations, the 
8

GWOT will continue. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director 

Porter Goss pointed out that “Al-Qaida is only one facet of the threat 

from a broader Sunni jihadist movement” and that “the Iraq conflict, 

while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists” 

and that economic development there has proceeded more slowly 

than hoped because of the insurgency.11

 In the last 4 years, nonregionalists primarily responsible for the 

remapping of counterterrorism moved the discussion of Islamist 

threats away from regionalist oversight. This meant that more 

individuals with little in-depth knowledge of the area’s complex 

religio-political, ideological, or cultural history were in charge 

of developing strategies toward it. They brought in experts, or 

individuals from the region, but had no ability to discriminate between 

the different suggestions made or views proffered. Other difficulties 

arose because of the contradictions between the strategies of nationand democracy-building and the need to destroy or contain Islamist 

cells and organizations that may directly threaten Americans and as 

American interests in the region, as well as allied governments. 

Current U.S. grand strategy toward terror is hampered by

disagreements about the definitions of global “terror” and the failure 

to address the specific nature of Islamist-extremist terror in that 

strategy. In other words, our analysis of the conflict and the definitions of the enemy are unclear and remain so. This is true of many

governmental agencies, and the media as well. In the wake of the 

London bombings, Fox News correspondents blasted the BBC for 

removing the term “terrorist” from their coverage. Others are still 

debating the conversion of the term “terror” to “insurgency.” Next 

came a disagreement about converting the phrase “war on terror” 

to the “struggle with extremism.”12 To some degree, the urgent need 

for a response to a continuing threat is clouding our vision and 

statements. Al-Qa’ida’s 2001 attacks were vivid declarations of a state 

of warfare, just like the attack on the USS Cole, unfortunately misread 

by some. But they were also the logical progression of jihadist efforts 

underway for nearly 3 decades. Since regional governments tried 

various tactics which we now mirror (from expulsion to combat, 

and incarceration to amnesties), we need to review their failures, 

understand where we may be reinventing the wheel, and build a 

strategy should we be unable to contain extremist Islamism. 
9

 The lessons of regional strategies are confusing precisely because 

the proponents of the carrot or stick tend to abide by their preferred 

method despite the incomplete success or outright failure of both 

strategies. And other political processes and Islamization were 

affecting these nations simultaneously. Middle Eastern and Muslim 

governments often tried to contain Islamists simultaneously while 

some elements in the military apparently colluded with or made 

little effort to capture militant Islamists, as in Western Pakistan. 

Elsewhere (for instance, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) one could observe 

security and governmental agents simultaneously torturing, 

excluding, and radicalizing some Islamists, while being influenced 

by other Islamists who had become part of the government structure. 

Another strategy is to recognize certain Islamist parties or groups as 

legitimate political actors (Lebanon, Iraq). Or governments (like Saudi 

Arabia’s) alienated and eliminated radicals but communicated with 

neo-salafists who forswore violence and cooperated with the state. 

Nonetheless, no effort was made to transform their core values, which 

are not much different from the radical extremists (Saudi Arabia). Or 

militaries and intelligence services like the Israelis targeted political 

leaders since military apparatuses of the radical groups were less 

vulnerable. They have discounted the possibility of negotiating with 

Islamist moderates to promote a transition of Palestinian Islamists 

from opposition to moderate political actors. In Iraq, our military 

has targeted particular locations in wipe-out mode, while seeking 

throughout the country to limit sanctuary. But in fact, the militants’ 

strategy has been so successful that Americans and foreigners cannot 

venture anywhere without being in a position of strength or without 

protection. 

A NEW JIHAD

Why has Islamist extremism been so pervasive, so easily 

franchised, and so difficult to extinguish? A new Islamist discourse, 

produced by the Islamic awakening (sahwa Islamiyya) since the 

1970s, has influenced and been influenced by a “new jihad,” which 

has coalesced and evolved since the mid-1980s and 1990s. The new 

jihad, in turn, qualitatively has affected the capabilities of extremist 

leaders and the behavior of combatants. 
10

What’s New about the New Jihad? 

 It posits a World Islamic Front, promoting and aggrandizing 

battle against Western nations and local “apostate” governments, 

without sparing civilians. Members of this Front may appear at 

will, as they did in carrying out the London bombings. No-one need 

carry a card, or provide the authorities with recordings of cellular 

telephone calls to Afghanistan or Pakistan; instead, as one longtime 

resident of the bombers Leeds’ neighborhood stated, “they need to 

understand, al-Qa’ida is inside [in the heart].” 

It is malleable and opportunistic, utilizing new types of alliances. 

Groups who aim at the “far enemy” (the United States, other Western 

nations, and Israel) may ally with groups seeking local autonomy, or 

with moderates.

It is not anti-modern. Such a large body of literature may now 

be cited to support this claim that it would be impossible to discuss 

or enlist all of the sources.13 On the sociological and psychological 

levels, Farida Adelkhah has described “the new Islamic man,” and I 

have written about “the new Islamic woman,” which helps explain 

the internalization of the Islamist message.14 Earlier, in the wake 

of the Islamic revolution in Iran, some experts chose to emphasize 

Islamists’ echoes of pre-modern themes such as the medieval scholar, 

Ibn Taymiyya, who disliked a Muslim ruler’s cooperation with the 

Mongol conquerors.15 But Ibn Taymiyya was far more tolerant in 

many ways than those Islamists who emerged in the 1960s, like 

Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, and those of 1970s to be discussed below. We 

need to remember that analysts at that time were trying to explain 

social features that had not yet transformed under modernization 

along with anti-Westernism. Remember, too, anti-Westernism is not 

equivalent to anti-modernism. 

Other reasons for common mischaracterization of jihadis as 

barbarians with cars and Websites, throwbacks, or medieval monsters 

have to do with 1) certain non-Muslims’ (and even some Muslims’) 

difficulty in comprehending the historicity of the Islamist message 

which is also revisionist, and expressed in truly modernist language; 

2) most Westerners have defined modernity with a secularist lexicon 

as have many liberal Muslims; 3) some rely on “cultural” definitions 

of the “Other” that incorrectly posit them as purely non-Western, 
11

when most are hybrid. We can see quite clearly that today’s jihadists 

are Western trained and possess technical and analytical skills. They 

use the Internet, cellular messaging, chat rooms and e-linked faxes 

more adeptly than larger organizations with physical recruitment 

centers. The pathologizing of terrorism causes us to say that their 

minds “work differently” than ours—when the issue is really one of 

different values and disassociative techniques. In other words, the 

jihadi believes, or convinces himself, that his immoral acts of violence 

are moral, but this in no way impairs the modern logic patterns of 

his brain. 

The new jihad has broken with classical doctrines of jihad and 

“the law of nations” (siyar) as well as Muslim modernist or reformers’ 

reconstructions of jihad in the 19th and 20th centuries. The classical 

doctrines of jihad specified the most permissable form to be between 

Muslims and polytheists or unbelievers waged “in the path of God,” 

although jihad could also be conducted against apostates, Muslims 

who had rejected their faith, revolutionaries, brigands or deserters, 

and in some cases, members of other monotheistic faiths. However, 

strict rules applied to jihad; under the siyar, the Muslim “law of

nations,” it might be an individual duty as opposed to a collective duty, and was differently governed if it applied to land controlled by Muslims or non-Muslims.16 Ethics and rules of conduct 

were meant to limit brutality and the cycles of vengeance it could 

unleash, and yet we see today’s jihadis engaged in vicious kidnappings, beheadings, and wide-scale attacks on civilians that would 

be forbidden under classical understandings of jihad. 

 The modernist or reformer’s approaches to jihad were developed 

with a cognizance of the military and political upper-hand of the 

West. They sought to limit the rationale for jihad (for instance, only 

when one was prevented from carrying out the duties [or pillars] of 

Islam) or to redefine it in terms of the lesser (military) and greater 

(personal striving or goal-setting) jihad, or to provide substitutes for 

fighting such as economic support, or charity. 

 An Islamist explains: 

Muslim scholars “capitulated” to Orientalist (Western) critiques and 

falsified facts in order to say “Now, [jihad] is not obligatory anymore, 

since the cause has disappeared. We hold that jihad has no other aim 

than defense of our lives and the country we live in.”17
12

Wahhabism, the form of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia and some 

other Gulf states, decried this “demotion” of jihad’s importance, as 

did the extremist Islamists. So a central feature of the new “jihad” is 

that it is a consistent duty and was incapable of being bounded via a 

peace treaty as was true of the classical definition. 

 It is fostered through a different approach to acquired knowledge; 

tarbiyya more than ta`lim. Ta`lim means education in the sense of 

enlightenment. Tarbiyya involves training and socialization, and, for 

militants, military information, strategy, rationalizations for violence, 

and a construction and glorification of jihad and jihadi history. 

 It rejects democracy and democratic institutions because they 

promote or allow secularism, and are usually defined by Western 

sources to mean more than pluralism and representative government, 

which Islamists may not, in fact, reject. The problem with democracy 

for Islamists is that it provides an alternative to Islamic governance 

which should, ideally, be conducted via shura, or consultation. The 

fact that shura is similar to other forms of elite consultation, or to 

representative governance that advised monarchs or strong executive 

branches is the reason that many Muslims also can argue that Islam 

is not incompatible with democracy. Islamists on the other hand, 

argue that shura provides popular participation, but that pluralism 

or democracy are not innately Islamic. 

Unfortunately the conflicting messages conveyed by U.S. foreign 

policy in the Middle East and the Islamic world which include 

promotion of the GWOT, democratization, and maintenance of U.S. 

strategic goals actually has intensified the new jihad’s magnetic appeal 

to Muslims of varying backgrounds. The reasons for this stem in part 

from Muslim and Middle Eastern antipathy to foreign intervention. 

But also, in this age of instant information and interconnectivity, it 

is easy for them to see the myriad misinterpretations of their culture 

and religion, as well as the enormous hostility to Islam and Muslims 

on the part of Western commentators, whether on the worldwide 

web or in the media in nearly all reporting of events in the region, on 

the GWOT, and in discussions of security and immigration, both in 

Europe and the United States. 

Muslims may desire representative government, and some may 

even support verbal interventions that will spur their governments 
13

to reform, but they may not prefer Western-style democracies or 

other political features. Or they may truly resent U.S. support for 

Israel and the seeming lack of stronger pressure on nondemocratic 

governments like Saudi Arabia or Syria to reform. Still others may 

dislike the arrogant tone of American statements about the necessity 

of reform, as if only our nation can determine the shape that reform 

can take. 

Problems with Strategic Responses.

Many disagreements over the proper response to “al-Qa’ida 

and its affiliates” have taken place. Will they reshape the way the 

United States and other nations define irregular or asymmetric 

challenges? Certainly this shift in terminology prevailed after 

Islamist insurgents in Iraq sabotaged reconstruction efforts. U.S. 

Government spokespersons and the American media at first 

identified former Ba`thists or Iraqi nationalists as “the insurgents,” 

not mentioning or seemingly unaware of the Islamist insurgents at 

first. Cooperation between these three elements was another ominous 

feature of the situation. In devising a new strategy against terrorism, 

U.S. policymakers have prepared both too large and too restricted 

a canvas. Ignoring much of the knowledge previously acquired 

about Islamist extremists—the lessons learned in Egypt, Saudi 

Arabia, Israel/Palestine, Algeria, Pakistan, and elsewhere, officials 

worked with the definition of terrorism as a “global” phenomenon. 

This definition did not take account of features that appeal or have 

special relevance for Muslims because, according to its articulation, 

terrorism could be identified with any religion or ideology. 

 But then, the specific efforts of intelligence, fact-finding, 

and analysis sought to highlight al-Qa’ida and its “network” or 

association as Enemy No. 1. By highlighting the differences between 

al-Qa’ida and world jihad networks and other organizations with 

more limited territorial objectives, the United States could more 

easily claim a strategic victory if bin Ladin’s al-Qa’ida or any of a 

few groups thought to be directly connected to him were eliminated. 

This predominant approach is truly questionable for a number of 

reasons: 
14

 • First, all nations possess local, regional and international 

goals. The United States has, in fact, recently iterated bold new 

goals in the Muslim world which have caused Muslims to see 

a continuing and intensifying interventionism extending into 

the indefinite future. 

 For example, President Bush’s 2005 State of the Union 

message suggests that only the force of human freedom 

will “stop the rise of tyranny,” and that the United States 

must eliminate “the conditions that feed radicalism and the 

ideologies of murder.”18 In March 2005, he related this theme 

more specifically to the broader Middle East, parts of which 

have “been caught for generations in a cycle of tyranny and 

despair and radicalism” and further suppressed through 

dictatorship. So not only the defeat of extremists, but a 

transition to free nations, which incidentally require the “full 

participation of women,” “new thinking,” the encouragement 

of democracy, economic progress, political modernization, 

honest representative government, the “rule of law,” and 

patience and resolve are needed to reach these ends.19

 These are worthy goals, but they produce several question 

marks: 1) Who designated the United States as the ultimate 

authority determining the future of the broader Middle East? 

(Can we imagine a State of the Union delivered in Iran or Saudi 

Arabia that laid out specific goals for the transformation of 

America?) 2) Doesn’t this transformational strategy resemble 

the liberal and Western efforts against Arab socialism and 

nationalism, and the British as well as American approaches 

to communist influence in the broader Middle East in years 

past? 3) Where is the role of Islam in this anticipated Middle 

East? and 4) Would not democratization enlarge the role of 

Islamists in the region? 

• Second, targeting a narrow list of groups such as al-Qa’ida, 

the Zarqawi network, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, alQa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula, and possibly the Jama’at 

Islamiyya of Indonesia excludes others who also oppose 

their home governments and the United States and engage 

in violence. Actually, many other organizations with local 
15

territorial or political goals share a great deal with al-Qa’ida 

and similar groups. They recruit and derive local support 

because people identify with certain themes, for example, 

freedom and justice that may be part of governmental rhetoric 

but which do not appear to be genuine values. Violent groups 

have and may continue to interact with moderates, or those 

not directly linked to al-Qa’ida. Both types derive support 

from the much broader Muslim awakening, or renovatio20 that 

also features a new Islamic discourse.21

 • The provision of a convenient hit list, like the post-invasion 

deck of cards representing Iraqi officials, or chart of Zarqawi’s 

captured or slain amirs, or QAP’s most wanted, underscores 

the successes of counterterrorism, and enhances the political 

fortunes of the successful anti-insurgent/extremist strategists. 

Unfortunately, the scorecard against radical actors does 

not reflect their regeneration or ability to appear in a new 

guise in an entirely different region. Nor do such targeting 

methods help us understand extremist “networks,” alliances, 

or associations that may merely be temporary unions, or 

marriages of convenience.22

 The U.S. inability to properly analyze or construct effective 

strategies for the GWOT has many causes: 

• For obvious reasons, large numbers of analysts and 

contractors have been drawn from Europeanist or Soviet 

studies backgrounds or a general security focus to an Islamic 

world focus. They lack necessary regional training, language 

skills, and requisite field experience. In addition, the Foreign 

Area Officer’s typical language skills are based on 1 or 2 

years of Arabic language study and do not suffice for needed 

communications or intelligence skills. Because of geographical 

transfers and other reasons, 4-year programs may not be 

required. Even graduates of lengthier programs are not 

able to comprehend key material on the Defense Language 

examinations. Native speakers were not widely recruited, 

but when they are, it is frequently for work as contractors 

without specialized security policy knowledge; they may be 
16

drawn from any professional field. Lack of experience in the 

region outside the cocoon of the military base or embassy is 

an even greater deficit because analysts do not understand the 

worldviews shaping the actors and individuals they study.

• The United States most critically encountered the expansion 

in Islamist-terrorist capabilities in Iraq. There, the Coalition’s 

immediate needs—to rein in insurgents and pursue 

reconstruction simultaneously—left little time for deep 

reflection and careful analysis.

 • Disagreements about the nature of the threat, as described 

above, confuse and misdirect policymakers. Also many, 

including some in the Department of Defense (DoD) and 

the Department of State (DoS), fault Islam or Islamic culture 

or the Islamic lack of development or reform, rather than 

Muslim miscreants for the explosion of Islamist extremism. 

This even though the U.S. National Security Strategy declares 

that “terrorism” can be anywhere and should be disassociated 

from the practice of Islam.23 The resulting confusion reflects 

ignorance of Islam, its discourse and history, and also political 

factors and divisions between factions. Some fear alienating 

the Muslim world and others have no such sensitivities; 

some also support or doubt the potential for socio-political 

transformation in the Muslim world.

• Similarly divided ideas on the future of Islamist extremism 

tended to sideline many experts who could shed more light 

on the problem, as with the example of those writing about 

post-Islamism—a term inspired by post-modernism and 

the “end of history,”24 or those who have studied the nature 

and development of salafist and other Islamist groups. This 

is not necessarily a conscious omission but a feature of the 

compartmentalization of disciplines and lack of time to “read 

outside the box,” as well as think there.

• Western and non-Western academics agreed that salafism and 

Islamism were transforming political and religious discourse 

even though local governments successfully had fended off 

the establishment of more formal Islamic governments in 

place of nation-states.
17

 • Strategic and security studies have not truly internationalized. 

Western experts frequently have not been interested in, nor 

exposed themselves to the ideas of, their Middle Eastern or 

Muslim counterparts. As in any professional specialization, it 

seems more important to quote insiders to the policymaking 

world. Sometimes strong xenophobia results (as strong as 

anti-Americanism on the other side of the world); we hear 

“foreigners” blamed for an inefficient control over “their 

terrorists” that culminated in 9/11. Most often, though, 

specialists simply lack access to non-Anglophones and their 

ideas, which would be useful if, in fact, we hope to address 

the ideology of Islamist extremists.

• By the same token, in recommendations made in the 

policymaking community and DoD, ideas from Islamic 

ideology elicit great interest, but taken piecemeal and 

poorly understood, create a terrible goulash of ideas about 

the information war, a bewildering confusion of cultural, 

psychological, and political interpretations. One reason is that 

in following a directive to integrate more “cultural” awareness, 

“culture” is primarily defined as behavior, but sometimes, 

as ethnic, or historical, political, or sociological information, 

as well as religious concepts that are obtuse to outsiders. 

Another reason for this confusion is the understandable desire 

for the greatest possible amount of information to feed into 

data banks, but there is no sound plan for integration of that 

information into action-proposals, and no capacity to analyze 

potential negative effects of such proposals. For example, many 

suggestions have been made that Muslims must develop, or 

be taught (presumably by Westerners) a new kind of jihad. 

Some discuss ways to convert or secularize Muslims and 

whether or not a moderate form of Islam (not Islamism) exists. 

Notions that all Muslims would be attracted to a Caliphate, or 

that this is even a primary concern for Muslims, are similarly 

off target.

Understandable confusion about the nature and definitions of 

jihad come from modernist interpretations, mostly developed in the 

19th and early 20th centuries of the so-called “greater” and “lesser” 
18

jihad as is explained later on in this monograph. Americans then 

suggest that if Muslims actually teach that the greater jihad consists 

of striving for Islam in the sense of being a good Muslim, why can’t 

they engage in that instead of fighting nonbelievers? This division 

is useful in a summary version of Islam as presented in an interfaith 

dialogue, or to explain to outsiders why jihad can mean more than 

“holy war.” However, it is, at heart, a modernist interpretation that has 

not been acceptable to many Muslims, and the notion of substitution 

of “greater” for “lesser” is not expressed in the classical treatises on 

jihad. Jim Guirard of TruthSpeak defines himself as an anti-al-Qaeda 

language warrior, arguing that writers should substitute criminal 

for the word “jihad” (like some Muslim governments) or, instead, 

substitute hiraba. Muslims have also discussed hiraba as a term that 

could describe acts of terrorism against the civilian public,25 but 

there are theological, philosophical, and legal problems with these 

suggestions that Muslims should not identify terrorist actions with 

jihad. “Hiraba” is a criminal category that is detailed in the Qur’an

in “Al-Ma’idah, Surah V,” following the story of Adam’s two sons, 

Habil (Abel) and Qabil (Cain). Then after a verse (32) that is usually 

interpreted to refer to Israel’s rebellion against Allah, the punishment 

is described for a hiraba crime that combines sedition, apostasy, 

and brigandry.26 Hiraba is usually used to mean a crime that causes 

public disruption and involves theft of money or property, rape, 

or destruction of agriculture or animals. Jihad on the other hand, is 

fighting on the path of Allah. 

 The events of 9/11 were not the first surprise attack by extremist 

Muslims that caught experts short, and will not be the last. A similar 

moment of existential shock took place when Ayatollah Khomeini 

returned to Iran in 1979, and a barrage of hastily written literature 

about the Islamic threat, the failures of political development, and 

the future of political Islam was produced. In that case, the primary 

event was the fall of an ally, the Shah, and his replacement with a 

hostile theocracy. The Iranian revolution was a true revolution in 

the sense of a complete shift in the political order. Some have tried 

to diminish the role that Islamist ideology played in these events 

by pointing out that the Islamic Republican Party (IRP) did not 

defeat its more secular or socialist enemies immediately, but the 

fact remains that the revolution responded to Islamist ideology and 
19

organization. The secondary event, the seizure of American hostages, 

was more obviously a “terrorist” event. Analysts then documented 

the rise and spread of Islamist movements in Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, 

Lebanon, Iraq and the Gulf states; revived earlier analyses of the 

Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) founded in Egypt, or 

examined brief outbursts of violence such as the 1979 takeover of 

the Grand Mosque in Mecca. While few Islamic revolutions followed 

Iran’s (other than the coup in Sudan and the Taliban victory in 

Afghanistan, and an electoral shift in Turkey with the victory of the 

Refah [Welfare] party), Islamization and a new Islamic discourse 

have swept through the region. 

The New Islamic Discourse. 

Islamist discourse replaced or transformed Arab socialist or 

other Muslim-leftist values of mid-century all over the region, even 

in Syria, which supposedly had extinguished its Islamic movement 

with the massacre in Hama in February of 1982. Was Syria’s 

repressive strategy successful? Despite the dominance of the mass 

Ba`thi party system, any urban resident of Syria in the 1990s could 

identify Islamist groups operating quietly. But more importantly, 

Islamist groups have used Syria to plan and stage attacks elsewhere, 

and insurgents in Iraq have derived support and financial aid there.27

The Syrian government reported clashes with Tanzim Jund alSham lil-Jihad wa-al-Tawhid (Organization of the Army of Greater 

Syria for Jihad and Unicity) in Damascus.28 On the one hand, this 

demonstrates governmental efforts to control radicals, but also that 

they have indeed reemerged from, or despite the destruction of, the 

earlier Islamist uprising in Syria. 

Islamist discourse responds to an internal debate in the region 

expressed as a battle raging between `asala (authenticity, but not 

necessarily traditionalism) and mu`asara (modernity). The tenets 

of each vary according to the country and decade in question, 

but to summarize, local intellectuals hoped to retain the positive 

aspects of cultural authenticity but rid themselves of archaisms and 

backwardness. They worried about features of modernization that 

they could not control such as the breakdown of the extended family 
20

system, increasing income gaps, or partial or wholesale adoption of 

Western fads or habits that were at odds with local values. Thinkers 

engage today in this debate in the context of an era of privatization 

and more economic vulnerability to the world economy than under 

protective state economies of the past. They want to stave off a Big 

Mac/MTV/music and dance video culture, embraced by younger 

sectors of the population. They predict the breakdown of the 

family system now that many women have entered the workforce 

and obtained greater independence. Many moderates and Islamist 

extremists share the anti-materialist features of these ideas and 

other aspects of reformism, reinterpreting and renovating Islamic 

traditions and ideas. 

But politics—international, regional and local—predicated 

responses to Islamists from power elites in the various countries 

affected. Extremists, moderates who are by no means secularists, 

and conservatives outnumber liberals. And liberals—even those 

dubbed Arab democrats—have problems with the questions of 

Islamic identity, or the great divide between their views and those of 

the sha`b (ordinary citizens) as we have seen in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, 

and Egypt. Islamists have made tremendous gains whether through 

the weak democratization policies of Jordan or the Gulf, or where 

secular political movements faltered, as, for example, in the West 

Bank town of Qalqilliya. Qalqilliya was once a stronghold of the 

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the four parties 

of the PLO. Today the town is pro-Hamas and Palestinian Islamic 

Jihad (PIJ). 

Extremist leaders gain strength from elements of a new Islamic 

discourse, and they also contribute to it. At the most basic level, that 

is because their efforts to live more “Islamically” are in tandem with 

the aims of many other Muslims today, even though their efforts to 

swiftly revolutionize the social and political environment by violent 

means set them apart. The blurriness of this distinction is ignored 

somewhat by the policymaking and intelligence communities which 

have attempted to separate the “good Islam” from the “bad”—the 

extremists. One strategy (U.S. and foreign) has been to dub Islamist 

moderates with the “good” label, so long as these groups avoid or 

have forsworn violence. At the same time, they actually pathologize 

extremism without noting the relevance of certain themes in the 
21

strategies and tactics of the hundreds of Osamas now emerging to 

the broader Muslim awakening. This, along with negative reactions 

to foreign interventionism, cause some Muslims to sympathize with 

a bin Ladin, or a Zawahiri, or more often, simply fail to see them as 

“enemies.” 

Part of the new Islamic discourse is devoted to the new jihad. The 

separation of personal striving to be a better Muslim, the so-called 

greater jihad, is stated in it, along with the re-energized necessity 

of the lesser jihad, or fighting. The new Islamist discourse calls for 

implementation of shari`a, Islamic law, the enhancement of Islamic 

morality and ethics, reinterpretation of Islamic texts, pursuit of 

da`wa, Islamic mission, and also, to various degrees, the Islamization 

of existing political systems. It opposes Darwin’s theory of evolution, 

and upholds complementarity of the sexes rather than symmetrical 

equality, and insists on Islamic modest dress for women. It may 

include ideas identified as Sufi in nature, such as the progressive 

stages of personal spiritual advancement, the utility of brotherhood 

and guidance (suhba, the spiritual companionship of the group—an 

experience provided by Islamist radical associations as well). Or it 

may counter Sufi precepts by emphasizing training and guidance 

(tarbiyya) versus enlightenment, and social responsibility rather than 

the highly individual pursuit of unity with God. 

The new Islamist discourse can, and sometimes does, include 

the salafist ideal of purifying the faith from the effects of cultural 

synthesis, or “un-Islamic” innovations, but sometimes also 

incorporates suspect textual interpretations, for example, in the 

use of hadith (a secondary source for Islamic jurisprudence). Not 

all Islamists are salafis, another frequently misunderstood term in 

the current lexicon of U.S. policymakers. The word really means 

“purists”—those returning to the spirit of the early generation of 

Muslims, and today’s salafis are more and less than this term implies; 

also, not all salafis are engaged in violence. 

 European scholars had promoted the notion of post-Islamism—a 

term that, like post-modernity, posits a temporal and philosophical 

space where ideas have run dry or failed to realize their goal—in this 

case, an Islamic state. But 9/11 illustrated the ferocity of a group of 

individuals who do not believe that liberal democracy is the “end of 

history.” 
22

 Writing within the new Islamist discourse are others more 

inclusive in their perspectives. For example, Iranian `Abd al-Karim 

Soroush,29 a 60-year-old philosopher who is part of Iran’s prodemocracy movement and has challenged some of Khomeini’s ideas, 

considers the role of Islam beyond the Islamic revolution. Some 

emerge from anti-Islamist political systems, like Muhammad Sa`id 

Ramadan al-Buti of Syria who criticizes Wahhabism.30 Then, there 

is Moroccan Islamist `Abd al-Salam Yasin,31 who promotes aspects 

of mysticism. One could point to leaders of the well-established 

Muslim Brotherhood, such as the articulate `Isam al-`Aryan (Essam 

al-Eryan) of Egypt,32 or the Wasatiyun, a moderate party that broke 

away from the Brotherhood and has counterparts in Jordan, Kuwait, 

and elsewhere. On the popular, as well as the intellectual, level, 

Islamist discourse has been attracting a broad audience. 

Take, for instance, the nonintellectual popularity of Egyptian 

televangelist `Amr Khaled, who calls his mission the appeal of the 

heart. Khaled markets a new Islam to the younger generation. He is 

the antithesis of a turbaned, robed cleric, appearing in natty business 

suits, and discussing issues relevant to his younger audience 

members. One of his slogans available on T-shirts is “I am a Maker 

not a Taker,” and his goal is an Islamic renaissance (nahda). He 

promotes a 12-step program towards Islam in his show, Lifemakers 

(Sunna` al-Hayat). So seductive was Khaled that he was dubbed a 

Rasputin and banned from preaching in Egypt in 2002. He moved 

back and forth from the UK to Lebanon, and back to the UK,33 and 

his fans now comprise other Arabs and immigrants to Europe as 

well as Egyptians. 

Even Muslim modernists now express Islamism, or what some 

call neo-salafism, an updated, or more intense version of Sunni purist 

thought with political and religious aims. Some are more tolerant or 

critical than others. Fahmi Huwaydi, a journalist and Muslim thinker 

promotes pluralism and opposes the extremists because they do not.34

My point is that Muslims have new spokespersons, or heroes—and 

they are not necessarily scripturalist, or salafi, like the frequently 

described “fathers” of modern Islamism, Abu al-`Ala al-Mawdudi, 

Hasan al-Banna, or Sayyid Qutb or, on the Shi`a side, reinvigorated 

Ja`afari Islamists like Khomeini or `Ali Shari`ati. But neither are they 
23

secularists. To be a secularist today is to be considered religiously 

delinquent, and one cannot be an atheist or an agnostic in Muslim 

society as is quite possible in the West. The Arab and Muslim media 

therefore speak of liberals rather than secularists. 

If the United States continues to promote secularism, in one 

form or another as the antidote to extremist or revivalist Islam, it 

will not reach hearts and minds. These new figures are calling for 

reinvigoration of Islam and its application throughout life through an 

activist agenda. They will not sit still while their governments order 

the construction of Western-style democracies (though democratization may grant them a new political role, they do not want a replication 

of Western features of democracy or the implementation of secularist 

aims). Both they and the extremists aim at establishment of a New 

Ummah (community of Muslims); the latter, however, believe that 

only jihad and the overthrowing of impious political leaders will 

prove effective in that aim.

ISLAMIST APPEAL 

Extremist recruitment successes are due to forces that ideologically attract or repel—factors that push the public away from other 

political movements or the state, and qualities that attract them 

to Islamist extremists. President Bush’s 2004 State of the Union 

address and March 2005 speech on terrorism indicated that despair 

and tyranny are factors impelling ordinary Muslims toward such 

movements and away from other allegiances, and so democratization 

is called for.35

 While this transformational sentiment is an admirable, if unusual, 

addition to U.S. foreign and national security policy, it might be 

more accurate to assent that despair and tyranny are recipes for 

many different types of disastrous situations. Yet, they are not the 

sole, or even the major, reasons impelling Muslims toward extremist 

Islamism. Despair can emerge from economic distress, but also from 

immobility, impotence in the face of state violence, lack of access 

or wasta (influence, mediation, an intermediary who can intervene 

for one), disgust with corrupt local leadership, impermeable elites, 

or state systems. It is true that Islamist groups have been sensitive 

to socioeconomic needs of their target populations and use these 
24

to their advantage—for instance in the Ikhwan’s response to the 

1992 earthquakes in Cairo, assistance of $1000 to every homeless 

family.36 Such efforts parallel a broader rise of Islamically-oriented 

volunteerism in Egypt, and not all organizations are linked to any 

politically active group.37 Or one could note Hizbullah’s provision 

of electricity in Beirut in the early 1990s, hospitals there and in 

Ba`lbak, and private schools. Marriages are extremely expensive for 

populations with low wages; it is estimated that it takes 10 years for a 

man in Egypt to save for his wedding and all the related costs. Islamist 

groups around the region have met this social challenge actively by 

hosting group weddings and footing many of the expenses, such as 

in a recent wedding Hamas sponsored for 452 couples.38

 The Palestinian party, Hamas, and the Lebanese Hizbullah 

recently have seen higher recruitment in the Palestinian territories 

as a result of their response to the scandals concerning the collection 

of prisoners’ pensions. Even after the two token releases of political 

prisoners, some 8,000 Palestinians remain incarcerated, and their 

families depend on small pensions of about $150 per month. Their 

female relatives have been harassed, or worse, when they try to 

collect these pensions, so these Islamist organizations intervened 

to provide assistance.39 Islamists, particularly moderate and wellorganized groups like Hamas, are expected to do well at the polls 

in the West Bank. In Gaza, on the other hand, they resisted the 

Palestinian Authority (PA)’s efforts to exclude them from gains after 

the disengagement of August 14, 2005. The overall security situation 

has been plagued with infighting. The PA was unable and apparently 

unwilling to control the thuggish behavior (assaults, shakedowns, 

harassment) by some of the al-Aqsa Brigades, yet, to show its tough 

side, has imprisoned and even tortured Brigade members in Jericho.40

The future of the Brigades is uncertain; they may be absorbed into 

the PA security structure, but the PA is trying to isolate and destroy 

their more able leaders, while inciting and manipulating some of 

the above-mentioned thuggery. That causes more distrust of the PA, 

and siding with dependable or morally compelling organizations as 

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hizbullah are perceived to be. 

Israeli strategies against these groups have ranged from 

“targeted elimination,” or assassinations to put pressure on the PA 

to rein them in, or their receiving no further concessions toward 
25

peace or withdrawal. In general, insistence on security before peace 

seems both impractical and to be dividing the Israeli and Palestinian 

populations among themselves, causing despair on the part of propeace individuals on each side of the Wall.41 This may imply that 

security might not be achievable in Iraq, and that a state of low-level 

battle with insurgents is likely to continue for some time. 

The Israelis exiled members of Hamas, but that caused further 

radicalization. Hamas exiles in Lebanon were a public relations 

problem for the Israelis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad already has 

shown its ability to operate from a Damascus base. Israelis also 

launched informational campaigns about the violence preached by 

Muslims which, in light of the overall discrimination against Arabs 

and Muslims in the country, only translated into greater Israeli 

distrust, yet little transformation of discourse. Israeli authorities 

closed Hamas’ charities, and the basic effect was that support was 

withdrawn from the most miserable sectors of the camp-dwelling 

Palestinians.42 Heightening public distress has not decreased the 

Islamist groups’ popularity, and there may be other ways that it has 

channeled assistance and funds. 

In Egypt, at least two new radical cells emerged in the fall of 

2004 and the spring of 2005.43 Meanwhile, the government’s violent 

and coercive responses to an indigenous democracy movement, as 

well as Muslim Brotherhood protests in May 2005, might encourage 

people to join one of the forms of political opposition available to 

them—liberal, Islamist, or extremist. Stringent counterterrorist 

measures that involve detention and torture, and which have been 

employed in Egypt, play a role in radicalizing those already involved 

in extremist movements. These measures cause the government to 

be viewed just as the extremists depict them; as anti-Islamic, those 

who suppress sincere Muslims. 

Former Ambassador Fereydoun Hoveyda, an Iranian-American 

who grew up in the Arab world and remembered Islamist activists 

from his youth in Syria, characterizes militant Islamism as being 

“essentially a political movement, not a religious one,” that 

nonetheless will threaten the West and be “lethal to the Muslim 

world.”44 The problem is that other Muslims see Islamist insurgents 

quite differently, because religion and religious discourse can 
26

encompass political, social, and economic goals. Tony Blair, Francis 

Fukuyama, and others have made the same point—that extremists are 

not operating on a religious basis. That betrays a misunderstanding 

of Muslims’ holistic view of life; everything is religion, everything 

is Islam; financial, social, intellectual, theological, military, and 

political. 

The basic principle, “Islam is religion and state” (Islam, din wa 

dawla), has been constrained by nation-states for some time. Also, 

Muslims generally are concerned with whether or not a person, 

action, or substance is Islamic, categorizing each as “allowed,” 

“forbidden,” or “neutral.” Which looks more Islamic: a party that 

aids prisoners’ families, or secularist party officials who are known 

to torture young militia members and siphon off party funds? Which 

looks more Islamic: radicals who claim that they will restore a Muslim 

way of life to Egypt’s rapidly changing environment, or government 

officials also associated with corruption and torture? Liberals, such 

as the followers of the Kifaya (Enough) democracy movement in 

Egypt, do not favor a religious state. Factions which support the PA, 

or at least accept its leadership more thoroughly than they support 

Islamist parties in Palestine are also pro-secular. But both are very 

small groups. The larger segments of these populations so fervently 

accept the principle of an Islamic state that any effort to distinguish 

between “religious” and “political” is fraught with difficulties. Such 

distinctions aren’t a useful way to delegitimize Islamists, or extremist 

Islamists. 

ISLAMIST STRATEGIES

Martin Kramer, an Israeli-based authority on Middle Eastern 

politics, claimed that radical Islamists had an Achilles heel—their 

inability to cooperate with other actors.45 This general statement, 

made in the 1990s, is no longer accurate, if it ever was. Moderates, as 

well as extremists, formed useful alliances for themselves in Egypt, 

Lebanon, and now in Iraq. We could say that is due to the flexibility 

of their grand strategy (destroy, then rebuild a New Umma by 

whatever means are necessary). Specific factors of their historical 

experience, responses to local repression, forged their flexibility. 
27

 When Egyptian Islamists faced trial in that country, many fled, 

recruiting others to the jihad in Afghanistan and later Chechnya. 

They traversed various temporary sanctuaries: Saudi Arabia, 

Yemen, or through the Western desert to Libya. The Saudi Arabian 

government argued its inability to contain Osama bin Ladin, though 

it stripped him of his citizenship. He traveled to the Sudan where 

he could continue to build his organization. All of the above helps 

explain networking, alliances of convenience, and franchising. 

It also explains the futility of exiling extremists, as the Israelis 

tried with PIJ and Hamas. If Islamists lose ground in Iraq, some will 

melt back into society, and others will move on to Saudi Arabia, or 

Syria, or return to Egypt, the Sudan, and other points. Some already 

have tried moving back into Saudi Arabia or other Gulf states. Iraq 

has been the most important training ground to date for such fighters; 

their proficiency has increased there, although their numbers do not 

equal those of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. In other words, 

jihad leads only to more jihad. 

Islamist leaders employ various strategies that enhance their 

ideological impact and transmit it to potential recruits. Some are the 

natural consequence of their worldview, shaped by various influences 

from their milieu, for example, the inclusion of various themes of 

Third Worldist ideology or Leninist notions about the development 

of the vanguard which provides a good fit for small groups with 

international aims. Their history of opposition also affected their 

tactics and strategies. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) 

of Egypt created a secret apparatus (tanzim sirri) in the 1940s that 

carried out violent actions, including assassinations, because they 

were blocked from political advancement in other ways.46 Despite 

the MB’s evolution of a different strategy, creating a mass-base 

through education and gradual change, its secret apparatus served 

as a model for the radical Islamist groups emerging after the 1967 

war. 

Tactical decisions such as the selection of particular targets in 

preference to others, or the forging of alliances with groups not 

necessarily identical to the al-Qa’ida model, heighten groups’ 

malleability and abilities to survive. Thanks to movement, 

reconstitution, franchising, and the flexible aspects of their grand 
28

strategy, extremists replace themselves and benefit from the various 

alliances available to them. New Islamist-extremist leaders have 

been quite successful in constructing and defending their ideological 

authenticity. They have altered and elaborated certain themes, 

elevating their programs to a new level of sophistication. This 

strategic success is something of a paradox because these leaders of 

the next generation claim to be defending the “true jihad” which is, 

as are most ideas, a constantly evolving construction. 

METAMORPHOSIS OF ISLAMIST LEADERS 

Osama bin Ladin, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, and other 

contemporary figures can be seen as reincarnations or avatars of 

earlier leaders of the 1970s and 1980s like Juhayman al- `Utaybi, 

Salah Siriyya, Shukri Mustafa, Muhammad abd al-Salam Farag, and 

Shaykh `Abdullah `Azzam. That means that the public and potential 

recruits identify with themes that have remained constant in these 

leaders’ messages—for example, the corruption of the current 

political order in the Muslim world. Yet they have contributed other 

newer themes to the discourse of jihad. 

What may be learned from the experiences of earlier Islamist 

extremists? Salah Siriyya, a Palestinian agronomist who was an 

adherent of the Islamic Liberation Party originally established by 

Shaykh Nabahani in Palestine, infiltrated the Technical Military 

Academy in Egypt. His followers tried and failed to kill President 

Anwar Sadat there in 1974. His group’s effort was mirrored in a later 

successful assassination operation carried out by the Tanzim Jihad. 

Both attacks involved members of the Egyptian military, which has 

provided Egypt’s political leadership ever since the dissolution of the 

monarchy with the 1952 revolution of the Free Officers. Moreover, 

both parties continued to operate—the mother Islamic Liberation 

Party that spawned Siriyya’s Military Academy Group has gained 

strength in other areas ranging from Uzbekistan to London, where 

it could freely promote its aim of a caliphate and the cessation of the 

system of nation-states.47

 Shukri Mustafa, another charismatic personality, led his 

followers in the Egyptian group, Takfir wa-l-Higrah, underground, 

describing their flight, or higrah, from jahiliyya (barbarism like that in 
29

the pre-Islamic era) as a necessary stage in jihad akin to the Prophet 

Muhammad’s (s.a.w.s.48) journey from Mecca. In 1977, they attacked 

Egypt’s fleshpots, nightclubs along Shari`a al-Haram, a playground 

for Arab tourists, and a few months later kidnapped the moderate, 

Muhammad adh-Dhahabi, a former Minister of Awqaf (Islamic 

Endowments), and held him for ransom. More than 400 members 

were arrested, and Mustafa was executed. He had broadened the 

scope of action for future radicals by challenging the Islamic nature 

of Egyptian society,49 targeting an exemplar of moderate Islam, and 

legitimating such attacks on agents of the state. 

Juhayman al-`Utaybi, grandson of an Ikhwan warrior, challenged 

the guardianship of the Saudi royal family over Islam’s holy cities, 

Mecca and Medina—and by extension, their leadership in the Islamic 

world—when he took over the Grand Mosque at Mecca in 1979. The 

Saudis were in an even more uncomfortable position than Americans 

in Iraq who must respond to shelling from mosques, because there 

were many hostages taken, and a lengthy stand-off was only resolved 

with the aid of foreign forces. Al-`Utaybi actually did not claim 

leadership of his own movement but instead presented his followers 

with an historically-sanctioned leader, a mahdi—a guided one—his 

brother-in-law, al-Qahtani. In doing so, he provided a linkage to the 

rationale of Islamic purist movements of the past.50

 Muhammad `abd al-Salam Farag, ideologue of the Egyptian 

Tanzim al-Gihad Islami (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) whose operative 

Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambuli assassinated President Anwar Sadat 

in 1981, emphasized jihad as well, claiming that it was a sixth pillar 

of Islam, and the only acceptable means of its expression is armed 

struggle. Jihad cannot be avoided; it is an incumbent individual 

obligation like fasting during Ramadan. He employed a Trotskyesque 

concept (ironically similar to the notion of continuous revolution 

employed by the Ba`th Party both in Syria and Iraq), writing of a 

“continuous” or “perpetual struggle,” a never-ending jihad.51 He 

wrote that Muslims should wage jihad against the governments of 

all the modern Muslim states because their laws were created by 

infidels. Muslims should not work for, nor cooperate with, such 

governments nor join their armies.52

 Shaykh `Abdullah `Azzam, who taught Osama bin Ladin, 

originally came from a Palestinian village near Jenin, moved around 
30

the Middle East from Jordan to Syria where he graduated from 

the University of Damascus, went from there to Egypt where he 

attended al-Azhar University, to Saudi Arabia, and from there to 

Pakistan. He inspired disciples with his strong personality and an 

uncompromising message. In one of his key tracts, he explains: 

When a span of Muslim land is occupied, Jihad becomes individually 

obligatory (fard `ain) on the inhabitants of that piece of land. The woman 

may go out, without her husband’s permission, with a mahram, the one 

in debt without the permission of the one he owes, the child without 

his father’s permission. If the inhabitants of that area are not sufficient 

in number, fall short, or are [too] lazy [to wage jihad], the individually 

obligatory nature of jihad extends to those around them, and so on and 

so on until it covers the entire earth, being individually obligatory (fard 

`ayn) just like prayer, fasting, and the like so that nobody may abandon 

it.

The obligation of Jihad today remains fard `ayn (an individual obligation 

of a believer) until the liberation of the last piece of land which was in the 

hands of Muslims but has been occupied by the disbelievers.53

Foreign occupation or military presence on Muslim lands then 

becomes the most powerful argument for jihad, and one hinging on 

American foreign policy in the Middle East and the Muslim world. 

Azzam’s definition and prioritization of jihad is echoed by many other 

“Osamas,” such as Abu Bakar Ba’asyir who said from his Jakarta 

prison cell that martyrdom actions for jihad cannot be postponed for 

any reason, not even to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, or to visit sick 

parents—it “must be number one.”54

 Azzam bolstered the new jihad through his mobilization efforts 

and, additionally, through his insistence that jihadists should confront 

the Western enemy and use Muslims in the West with all of their 

global connections. This encouragement to fight the far enemy has a 

direct relationship to the 9/11 attacks and to attacks on Westerners 

in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Spain, the Philippines, and London. But it 

should be understood that up to that point, jihadists were, and may 

still be, pragmatic. It is not that they eschewed attacks on the “far 

enemy,” since their analysis pinpointed the U.S. role in supporting 

the local governments that were battling or containing Islamists. The 

issue was simply a gauging of response. What kind of a response 
31

would a direct attack on Americans engender? If groups aimed at 

local sovereignty, it made little sense to elicit an American response, 

for example, to attacks on American tourists. What changed in those 

like `Azzam was the conviction that a heightened jihad must take 

precedence, and direct attacks would intensify the conflict between 

the West and Islam, illustrating the inevitability of jihad and 

martyrdom both to mujahidin, and other Muslims who might join 

them instead of moderate groups calling for reform.55

 Just as al-Qa’ida capitalized on the new elements of jihad supplied 

by these leaders, current recruiters and leaders are amplifying 

them. Take, for instance, the leaders and operation planners for 

the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). PIJ believes that Israel must be 

destroyed through jihad and that its own role in such a war is as a 

revolutionary vanguard.56 PIJ has utilized its resources judiciously, 

limiting the numbers of attacks mounted against Israelis, and these 

are generally effective. It recently rejected participation in a unity 

front proposed by President Mahmoud Abbas, as did Hamas and 

the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.57 These three 

groups contested the PA’s insistence that it provide sole security 

in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal in August. Meanwhile, the Israelis 

announced that they intend to resume targeted “eliminations,” i.e., 

assassinations of PIJ figures.58

 Ramadan Abdullah Shallah of the PIJ—who speaks Arabic, 

Hebrew, English, and even a little Yiddish—attended university in 

Zagazig, Egypt, and the University of Durham in the UK, where he 

established good connections with other Arab and Muslim students, 

and subsequently appeared in Tampa at a Muslim research institute, 

World & Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), established through 

the auspices of the University of Florida. Shallah’s doctoral thesis 

had focused on Islamic economics, and his efforts to meld political 

economy with Islamist thought runs parallel to efforts of earlier 

figures like Muhammad as-Siba’i, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood 

in Syria. Shallah, who has a sharp intellect,59 actually wielded some 

influence on the academic discourse about Islamist movements as 

the editor of Qira`at Siyasiya (Political Readings), the journal of WISE. 

By demonstrating to Arabic readers that American academics, like 

Louis Cantori, Richard Bulliet, Bernard Lewis or John Esposito, were 
32

treating Islamist ideas as manifestations of a broader intellectual 

phenomenon and placing their articles in Arabic translation alongside 

Islamist writings or interviews (with figures like Hasan Turabi, the 

Sudanese Islamist leader), the image of the Islamist movement and 

the notion of its inevitability grew. It should be noted that none of 

these academic collaborators knew Shallah would later assume the 

leadership of Islamic Jihad. So, one could see Shallah as a sleeper 

jihadist who tried his hand at influence via persuasion, prior to his 

assumption of leadership in a violent struggle. 

Shallah has made claims, repeated by young jihadis, that Israel 

will never defeat human bombs, “not even by nuclear bombs,”60

emphasizing the indefatigable thirst for martyrdom, persistence, 

and inverse relationship of small operational cost to much larger 

effect that characterizes this strategy. Western analysts wrongly have 

pointed to suicide operations (jihadis insist these are martyrdom 

operations) as a mark of desperation, arguing that groups would 

only engage in such efforts when there is no other hope left to them. 

In fact, popular songs, children’s games, and public discourse shows 

that the linkage of martyrdom to suicide attacks is accepted by many 

individuals who see these actions as being “moral.” Jihadists further 

claim moral superiority when they say that their willingness to die 

expresses a type of commitment that Israelis and Americans lack. 

FROM SAUDI ARABIA TO THE WORLD 

Osama bin Ladin achieved infamy eclipsing Shallah’s through the 

attacks in the United States. He represents both the regionalization 

and, if you will, the globalization of the jihad effort. When he identified 

a key Muslim jihadist cause in Afghanistan, he created a regional 

nexus for fighters who then articulated goals in all parts of the world. 

His own avatars have now emerged, launching themselves into new 

arenas. So his capture or demise will not end the jihad. If bin Ladin 

is killed, he will remain a martyr, resistance hero, and popular icon 

forever, and the United States would do better to put him on trial—

that should ideally be an international cooperative effort—filming 

him periodically in captivity, to diminish his allure, and minimize 

his inspiration to future generations of Osamas. This is in no way 
33

meant to diminish the justice owed to the families of 9/11 and other 

victims, but an observation about the process of martyrdom that 

needs to be kept in mind. 

His distaste for Arab and Muslim governments is due to his 

idealistic pursuit of a new ummah, a purified Muslim society.61 He 

is battling for leadership of this society, and al-Qa’ida, as Michael 

Scheuer has pointed out, has been able to take advantage of U.S. 

ambitions and setbacks in the region to heighten tensions against 

the United States and the “apostate” governments.62 Unfortunately 

for the United States, many in the Muslim world admired bin Ladin 

and saw him as a sort of Robin Hood, rather than demonizing him. A 

recent survey shows that, although support for “Islamic extremism” 

generally has decreased, some in the region continue to admire bin 

Ladin.63 He stood for the defense of the Muslim world through jihad, 

creating a central cause and gathering place for mujahidin.

Now isolated somewhere in Pakistan or in rural Afghanistan, 

does he continue to attract adherents? The answer is that through his 

connections and financial wherewithal, and al-Qa’ida’s ideological 

influence over other groups, he exerts influence over other extremistIslamist groups without necessarily making decisions for them. He 

and other key members of al-Qa’ida use familiar arguments—that 

local governments were oppressive and corrupt; anti-Islamic, or that 

they suppress true Muslims. And they argue that the most holy sites 

of Islam in Saudi Arabia are corrupted by the West and the Saudi 

royal family. Iraq, with its holy cities, is now occupied as well, and 

the holy sites in Jerusalem were seized by Israel, ally of the West, in 

1967. 

In the leadership of al-Qa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula, (QAP, 

al-Qa’ida fi Jazirat al-`Arabiyya) we perceive the methodology of Salah 

Siriyya’s underground organization and the cyber-expertise of many 

of today’s groups. This group self-franchised to al-Qa’ida, and after 

a series of bombings and attempted and successful attacks since May 

2003, the Saudi security forces claimed they had crippled QAP and 

had nearly eliminated its leadership. QAP nevertheless published its 

web-magazine, Sawt al-Jihad, in 2004, and recruitment began anew. 

The web publication interviewed the late QAP leader, al-`Awfi, who 

denied that it was best to go fight in Iraq, rather than Saudi Arabia:
34

Your country, the Peninsula, is in greater need of your services. There 

are several borderlines here to protect. The enemy that you want to go 

to, those who are defaming the honors in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in 

Palestine, that enemy is here, amongst you. He is on your land, pillaging 

your religion and your treasures. It is the lawful duty of a Muslim to 

close the hole that is nearest to him. Clerics have agreed that, if an enemy 

occupies one of the Muslim countries, he needs to be pushed away from 

the nearest point, then the one after that.64

He also demeaned those neo-salafists participating in negotiations 

with the Saudi government. Since then, many Saudis have traveled 

to Iraq to fight. Israeli writer Rueven Paz contends that the largest 

portion of foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudis, but Nawaf Obaid, a 

Saudi analyst, disagrees. 

Saudi security forces contend that their antiterrorism campaign 

has diminished public support for the jihadists in their country. This 

campaign featured televised meetings in which religious officials 

spoke against extremism and huge billboards; for example, one in 

Riyadh with a depiction of bombing damage, reads poignantly, 

“My Country, Did You Do This?”65 In this conservative society, it is 

significant that a debate about Saudi Arabia’s role in inspiring acts 

of terrorism is taking place, though it is amid much discomfort about 

the incorrect labeling of Islam and Wahhabism itself. 

Saudi officials at first reported that al-`Awfi was killed at alQassim in early April 2005, his body too badly burned to identify. 

But jihadi web-postings were scornful of this news, and a Saudi 

dissident claimed that the movement’s leader, Sa’ud al-`Utaybi, was 

killed then, not al-`Awfi,66 who may have taken part in the Jedda 

attack. This kind of uncertainty probably bolsters the insurgents. As 

this dissident pointed out, a general Saudi sentiment of support for 

jihad in Iraq could aid QAP, despite its losses over the last 2 years, 

especially if they were to shift their targets to the royal family, an 

idea supported by at least one faction within QAP.67 On August 18, 

2005, Saudi authorities announced they had identified al-`Awfi as 

one of the militants they had killed in a raid on extremist hiding 

places in Medina. 

U.S. policymakers and analysts have misunderstood the 

delineation between those in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are 

fighting the far and the near enemy. It is important to note an existing 
35

overlap and ability to shift from one target to another. They would 

be ill-advised to take their eyes off of this group, al-Qa’ida in the 

Arabian Peninsula, merely on the grounds that a small group aimed 

at the near enemy will not present a global challenge. Likewise, the 

argument that al-Qa’ida or Zarqawi are running out of steam68 is 

premature. While Saudis point to the successful elimination of many 

QAP leaders, they designated a new set of leaders to be targeted, 

and, if fighters return from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, a relatively small 

number might be quite dangerous, given the vulnerability of the 

country’s oil fields and of many areas in the larger cities, including 

public buildings.

AYMAN ZAWAHIRI AND EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD 

Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose maternal grandfather was Shaykh 

Abdelwahhab Azzam, who became a dean at Cairo University 

and ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and whose father 

was deputy chair of the pharmacology department at Ain Shams 

University, also studied medicine and became a member of Islamic 

Jihad. Egyptians finally understood that, if upstanding families like 

the Azzams and Zawahiris could produce this militant leader, then 

the “enemy is within.”69 He spent 3 years in jail after Sadat’s death, 

then left for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where he met Usama bin 

Ladin. His own and the organization’s hijrah (migration) from Egypt 

to Afghanistan transformed much of Gihad Islami (as pronounced 

in Egypt) into al-Qaida. Al-Zawahiri was not the only member of 

the group to achieve importance to al-Qai’da, certainly the late 

Muhammad Atta was a key combatant as well. Some claim that 

Zawahiri and bin Ladin are too busy fleeing for their lives to be of 

any importance in global jihad, and that Islamic Jihad, like al-Qa’ida, 

may be on the verge of extinction. Yet the group’s history illustrates 

its regenerative capacity, that not many militants are needed to 

cause havoc, and factionalized groups can join forces. In this case 

(some members came from other organizations such as Shabab 

Muhammad), EIJ was actually two different organizations—one 

founded by Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj (Farag, in Egypt), and 

the other founded by Muhammad Salim al-Rahal, a student of the 

Islamic al-Azhar University. 
36

 When Rahal was expelled from Egypt, Kamal al-Sayyid Habib, 

a young economics graduate of Cairo University, became the new 

leader. The two groups merged when Habib was introduced to 

Faraj by Tariq al-Zumur, whose brother-in law, a major in army 

intelligence, was the strategist of the Farag group. Various critics of 

extremist Islamists have maintained that, like other revolutionaries, 

they lack clear platforms, institutions, or programs, yet EIJ’s structure 

and training program was well-developed early on. The group was 

headed by a majlis al-shura (literally, council of consultation) with 

subcommittees for preparation, prograganda, and finances. Its goal 

was a state with a majlis al-shura and a council of `ulama, similar to 

Iran’s—not an amorphous caliphate. The group’s initial plan for an 

Islamic revolution mimicked the 1952 revolution in that it proposed 

the seizure of the Radio and Television building. Stage one of the 

training program included first aid, knowledge of topography, vehicle 

training, defense, and physical exercises. At stage two, techniques 

of attacks and ambushes and securing strategically crucial sites 

were introduced, as were proper use of weapons and explosives. 

Simulations were carried out in the third stage, supervised by Nabil 

al-Maghrabi.70

 Islamic Jihad became widely known when Khalid al-Islambuli, 

a lieutenant in the Egyptian Army and EIJ member, assassinated 

President Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981. In fact, EIJ leadership 

was not of one mind regarding Khalid Islambuli’s plan to assassinate 

Sadat. Abbud al-Zumur felt the organization required more time 

before it could lead a popular revolution,71 which was to have 

broken out following the assassination. Another later disagreement 

concerned the subsequent role of Shaykh Abd al-Rahman, the 

supposed ideologue of the movement. 

Once in court, al-Islambuli stated that he assassinated Sadat 

because Islamic law, the shari’a, was not being applied in Egypt 

because of the peace treaty with Israel and arrests of religious clerics 

without justification.72 He and other EIJ members expressed their 

opposition to corruption, robbery, embezzlement, and bribery—it 

was common knowledge that members of the government were 

involved in such activities, and the EIJ held that the Egyptian 

government enforced or encouraged the physical display of women 

(tabarruj al-nisa’).73
37

 Many Egypt-watchers as well as analysts saw basic similarities 

between all of the Egyptian “jihad groups”—Takfir wa-l-Higrah, 

the Military Academy group, the Gama`at al-Islamiyya, and Islamic 

Jihad—in that they were militant and directly confrontational. They 

are enacting a commitment to jihad formulated by Sayyid Qutb 

and the notion of jihad as a sixth pillar. The idea that jihad was the 

absent, or neglected, requirement of Muslims was most fully iterated 

by Muhammad `Abd al-Salam Faraj. Actually, Faraj differentiates 

between the various “jihad groups” in his treatise, critiquing Takfir 

wa-l-Higrah and Gama`at Islamiyya, as well as the modernist 

rebuttal provided by then Shaykh al-Azhar, Jad al-Haqq, who wrote 

a defense of the government’s authority. Faraj’s main point is that 

jihad is obligatory. Fleeing jahillliya society in a hijra as Takfir wal-Higrah recommended, instead of taking up jihad, was religiously 

improper. But using da`wa (mission, proselytization of the correct 

Islam) to create a mass base like Gama`at al-Islamiyya and the Muslim 

Brotherhood and postponing jihad was also wrong; he argued that 

one cannot substitute “populism for jihad.”74 And furthermore, the 

nearest enemy is the Egyptian government, not Israel: only under true 

Muslims will Jerusalem be liberated. This last argument essentially 

distinguishes the Islamic Jihad from the Muslim Brotherhood as 

well. Finally, Faraj’s attack on al-Haqq, who spoke for the Egyptian 

government, basically argues that the Sword Verses—those verses 

of the Qur’an that explain jihad to be obligatory—have abrogated all 

other verses and so jihad is, as bin Ladin and Azzam also claimed, 

just like fasting.75 Al-Haqq pointed to the propriety of jihad by the 

heart and the tongue, instead of the sword, but more strongly made 

the argument that the ruler is not an apostate, because an apostate is 

only one who rejects all, not just part, of the shari`ah.76

 The Egyptian government’s response was to deny first, then 

suppress Islamic extremism. Meanwhile many members of EIJ went 

to the Gulf, Afghanistan, and later Albania, Kashmir, Chechnya, 

and finally in 1998, Zawahiri joined forces with al-Qa’ida. He was 

motivated by the fact that some leaders of al-Gama`at al-Islamiyya 

agreed to nonviolence following the Luxor attack on a large number 

of tourists, but EIJ, at least Zawahiri’s faction, swore to carry on 

jihad. 
38

 Ayman Zawahiri carried Faraj’s ideas further in his own book, 

Knights underthe Prophet’s Banner, which was serialized in the popular 

Arabic newspaper, al-Sharq al-Awsat. Here he portrays himself as an 

educator to Muslim youth. He is spreading jihad successfully, and 

the proof may be found with thousands of young men in prisons 

who have become Islamists there. He recommends a “by any 

means necessary” strategy, pointing to the damage that even small 

numbers can exact and suggests targetting the UN, multinational 

corporations, the media, and international relief groups because 

these are covers for other operations, according to him, as well as 

rulers of Arab states.77 Further, he and al-Qa’ida have now linked 

the Palestinian and Iraqi causes to jihad with the argument that the 

occupation of Muslim lands requires jihad. In an August 4 videotape, 

Zawahiri drew a parallel between Iraq and Vietnam, and threatened 

the British and Americans with more violence, saying that if they 

[their governments] did not cease “aggression against Muslims,” 

they would “see horror that will make you forget what you saw in 

Vietnam.”78

 Stringent counterterrorist measures apparently backfired in 

Egypt.79 Torture, hostage-taking, and abuse of Islamist family 

members, including sexual abuse, has been documented.80 This 

was an important lesson. Still, the Muslim Brotherhood and other 

moderates hope to overcome obstacles to political participation and 

could continue to provide an Islamist alternative to extremism. 

MUHAMMAD MAKKAWI OR SAYF AL-ADEL

Some experts say that Muhammad Makkawi, a colonel in the 

Egyptian special forces who became an Afghan Arab, was the 

victim of al-Qa’ida infighting.81 But most believe that Sayf al-Adel is 

Makkawi’s nom de guerre, and that he has headed al-Qa’ida’s military 

wing, providing much of its strategic thinking. Whether al-Adel or 

Makkawi, he is a major strategist for the group. He describes alQa’ida’s aims as going beyond Afghanistan, where they supposedly 

“sacrificed” the Taliban, moved from Iran into Iraq (as Zarqawi, in 

fact, did),82 and will also engage the United States in other areas; 

he specifies Syria, and Lebanon, as well as Iran, suggesting that 
39

the United States may attack Iran. Al-Adel credits al-Qa’ida with 

foreknowledge of U.S. attacks, and planning capabilities that may 

aggrandize the truth.83 In this way, al-Qa’ida is able to adapt to 

changing circumstances, taking responsibility for actions planned by 

independent cells, or adapting their own plans as in the videotape 

that announced that Usama bin Ladin would proceed to Iraq to 

strengthen his amir’s, al-Zarqawi’s struggle there. 

THE ROLE OF THE SPIRITUAL LEADER: 

FROM EGYPT TO INDONESIA 

Another strategy fraught with difficulties is the identification 

and punishment of those clerics who inspire or approve acts of 

violence. This strategy resembles the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) 

efforts to target political leadership of Islamist groups rather than 

their military operatives, because spiritual leaders frequently are 

disassociated from actual planning by design, as well as the need to 

focus extremist abilities. For example, many Westerners, including 

Middle East scholar, Daniel Pipes, blame the influential Shaykh Yusuf 

Qaradawi, Dean of Islamic Studies at the University of Qatar, for 

supporting jihad and linking it with martyrdom. Actually, Qaradawi 

strongly condemned the 9/11 attacks and all killings of civilians. But 

he differentiated these from attacks on Israelis because, he made the 

point, there even women are militarized, and he suggests that “acts 

of martyrdom” are authorized when a population has no way to 

counter occupation.84 His is far from a unique position on this issue; 

various Muslim clerics have pointed to the mobilization of the entire 

Israeli population, defining them as combatants. The linkage of jihad 

to martyrdom in other contexts—assassination attempts in various 

countries, operations in Iraq, or in attacks involving other than 

civilians—has not been debated sufficiently in some places. That said, 

bringing “inciters to jihad” to justice violates the customary freedom 

of speech enjoyed by spiritual leaders in Islam, which is seen to be 

a part of their religious role. Some readers may not understand that 

it is considered the duty of the religious preacher to make political 

statements and call for action when he believes Islamic rights are 

violated. Also, it may not be quite clear that martyrdom and jihad 
40

are, in fact, topics enmeshed in Islamic history and mentioned in 

numerous instances in the Qur’an and other sacred literature. Hence, 

a governmental authority cannot forbid a religious preacher to 

discuss martyrdom, which has become a populist theme of sorts in a 

perceived struggle between the East and the West. 

The difficulties in pursuing justice for those linked with more 

clearly defined terrorist actions, such as Shaykh Umar abd al-Rahman 

of Egypt or Abu Bakar Ba`syir of Indonesia, lie also in legal definitions 

of terrorism, culpability, and differences in evidentiary proceedings, 

as well as in hostile local reactions to public trials, because it seems 

to the public of these Muslim countries that Islam and Islamism, 

rather than terrorism, is on trial. This parallels public sentiment that 

there is a Global War on Islam (rather than Terror). Extradition, as 

of abd al-Rahman, is one response, which affords the West greater 

judicial leeway to prosecute. However, `abd al-Rahman’s lawyer, the 

well-known Islamist, Muntasir al-Zayyat, who incidentally wrote a 

“tell-all” about Zawahiri and then withdrew it from circulation since 

Zawahiri could not defend himself, warned that some follower of 

the Shaykh might well attack Americans or U.S. interests outside of 

Egypt in response to the “humiliation” of the shaykh.85

 Abu Bakar Ba`syir or Bashir, originally of East Java, was a 

founder of Ponodok Ngruki and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) of Indonesia. 

The JI was formed at least in part as a response to the Indonesian 

military regime’s attacks on Muslim groups,86 as has the Darul Islam 

movement more generally.87 He faced various charges and escaped 

to Malaysia. Bas’syir became the JI’s spiritual leader in 1999 when 

his co-founder died. Ba`syir was tried in connection with the Bali 

bombings and the 2003 bombing of the Jakarta Marriot hotel. He also 

was charged in connection with a foiled assassination attempt on 

President Megawati Sakarnoputri. Many Australians were outraged 

when, in contrast to the 30-months sentence Ba`syir received for 

inspiring a crime in which many of their fellow nationals were killed, 

Australian tourist Schappelle Corby was sentenced in May 2005 to 

20 years in jail for allegedly bringing four kilos of marijuana into 

Bali in her suitcase. Her trial received a good deal of publicity as 

well. Further, the Indonesian government had not outlawed JI in the 

spring of 2005, although it has imprisoned more than 150 members 
41

of the organization in the last 3 years, since doing so would give the 

impression that the West was dictating to the government. 

Much evidence in Ba`syir’s case was eliminated from consideration, including the reports of his attendance of a graduation event 

at the terrorist training Camp Hudaybiyya in the Phillipines in 2000, 

where he gave a speech promoting jihad. He was cleared of seven 

charges and convicted of treason and an immigration violation. 

He appealed his 4-year sentence, which was reduced to 18 months, 

whereupon he was recharged under Indonesia’s Anti-Terrorism 

Act, allegedly following U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom 

Ridge’s call that “Hopefully in due time . . . he will be brought to 

justice in a different way.”88 Haroon Siddiqui commented that 

America “advocates democracy but seems to pine for Indonesia’s 

old authoritarian ways.” He added, “It needs Muslim moderates, but 

alienates them.”89 Ba’syir is no moderate, advocating that the fight 

against America “is compulsory,” and that Muslims should attack 

Americans in America, and, as bin Ladin urges, that they should free 

the Arabian peninsula from occupation.90

 Two other instances of clerics’ relevance to the GWOT should 

be mentioned. First, Abu Muhammad Maqdisi, a mentor for the 

Jordanian and Iraqi group al-Tawhid wa-al-Jihad, decried attacks 

on Muslims in Iraq on al-Jazirah television and in the press, saying 

that such attacks “might distort the true jihad.”91 Subsequent web 

postings showed that this statement shocked some of his hardline 

followers. Many clerics also criticized the London July 7, 2005 (7/7), 

bombings; as they did 9/11. But in this instance, some of the clerics 

are neo-salafis who support jihad, like Syrian scholar Mustafa ‘abd 

al-Mun’im Abu Halimah, who lives in London and is known as 

Abu Basir al-Tartusi. After virulent responses to a fatwa, he issued 

another statement that basically said that Muslims must operate 

with integrity, instead of seeking equivalent degrees of revenge.92

One can see ambiguity in that clerics might provide rationales for 

extremists, but not support their actions. 

Second, clerics have been useful members of groups for national 

dialogue and debate, and in bodies that demilitarize or negotiate 

with militants. In any process which seeks to rehabilitate or include 

Islamist oppositionist groups, they are critical voices. Judge Hamoud 

al-Hitar chaired Yemen’s National Dialogue Committee, established 
42

in 2002, to conduct dialogue with detainees from groups like alHouthi’s followers, al-Qa’ida, Takfir wa-l-Hijra, Afghan veterans, 

and the Aden-Abyan Islamic army. By treating the detainees with 

respect, but firmly opposing their ideas, it persuaded some to 

relinquish violence. The clerics on the committee formulated their 

arguments by drawing on their knowledge of the Qur’an and the 

Sunnah (the way of the Prophet). The detainees argued their own 

version of jihad, which simply was not well-grounded Islamically, and 

not persuasive in the face of superior scripturally-based arguments.93

Dialogue as a means of communicating and providing a way out 

of violence also was promoted by Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin 

Ibrahim. It was tried as well in Algeria in 1994, but “eradicationists” 

and “dialogists” from within the Algerian government and military 

clashed, and it took time for the latter method to result in political 

normalization.94

ZARQAWI: BANE OF IRAQ

Abu Musab Zarqawi‘s organization’s brutal bombings and 

beheadings added a new twist to coercive measures toward local 

populations, without which his group, al-Qa’ida fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, 

QAP, and others could not operate. Zarqawi’s virulent anti-Shi`i 

attacks contrast with Osama bin Ladin’s silence on this issue. Bin 

Ladin’s salafi followers are also grounded in negative attitudes 

toward the Shi`a in general. In Iraq, salafi-jihadist objections to 

the Shi`a have much to do with perceived Shi`i cooperation with 

American “occupiers.” Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmad Fadhil 

Nazzal al-Khalayla, was born in 1966, a Jordanian from the town of 

Zarqa and a member of the Abu al-Hassan tribe. He left school early, 

apparently out of frustration when it was recommended that he 

attend a vocational rather than an academic high school, and though 

formerly a “sinner” who drank, womanized, and sported tattoos, he 

became fervently involved in Islamism. Some analysts have tried to 

make a case that al-Zarqawi became a jihadi because of poverty or 

desperation. In fact, he was not especially poor or miserable, and 

many young men are uninterested in vocational or any other form 

of education, though others become Islamists or jihadists while 
43

attending higher education. Al-Zarqawi first traveled to Afghanistan 

in his early 20s but did not then join bin Ladin’s jihad. After taking 

the 13-year-old daughter of one of his associates as a second wife, 

he operated a jihadist training camp outside of Herat near the 

Iranian border. Experts misattributed and even misidentified him 

at times and some of his contacts, such as Shaykh Abu Muhammad 

al-Maqdisi, a key icon to the Jordanian salafists along with Shaykh 

`Umar Abu `Umar, also known as Abu Qatadah. 

As with bin Ladin, some rumors circulate that Zarqawi is an 

American creation, although when he apparently was wounded in 

May 2005, rumors of his death or impending death strengthened 

an argument for his existence and mortality. Given the supposed 

weakness of his education, some question the eloquence of his 

missives. Certain statements have come from other commanders, for 

instance, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi who defined al-Qa’ida in Iraq and its 

goals in a webposting of Dhurwat Sanam al-Islam, a phrase which 

refers to jihad and means Crest of the Summit of Islam. Most political 

leaders know the value of a good speechwriter, of course, and dead, 

alive, or wounded, Zarqawi is important as a nucleus for Islamic 

resistance. Both Zarqawi and Abu Maysara explained that the killing 

of Iraqi security forces is licit, even though they are Muslims, because 

their cooperation with the infidels renders them apostates or beyond 

the pale of Islam. Zarqawi went further in enlisting the enemies of 

Islam in Iraq—these being the Shi`a (termed rafidhin, or renegades); 

Iraqi police and soldiers (because they serve the occupying force); 

the `ulama or clerics of Iraq, who he terms Sufis and hypocrites; the 

Kurds, because of their support of the U.S. occupying force; and, 

naturally, the Americans. The Iraqi mujahidin are described as being 

courageous but “uneducated and inexperienced,” while fighters 

coming from outside Iraq are still “too few in number,” and Iraqis 

welcome them [verbally] but won’t allow them to use their homes or 

land for bases.95

 Zarqawi has been opportunistic in his alliances; for example, 

with Abu Abdullah al-Shafi`i of Jund al-Islam; Mullah Kreikar, 

originally of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan and later identified 

with Ansar al-Islam and its several jihadist offshoots; the Tawhid 

group; and Kurdish Hamas. Kreikar allegedly made contact with 

Zarqawi through a Jordanian lieutenant and, while this relationship 
44

goes back to 1997, it seems to have been formalized in 2002 and was 

more fully realized in 2003-04.96 Ansar al-Islam’s primary rival was 

the Popular Union of Kurdistan (PUK), so, though its goals differ 

substantially from al-Qa’ida’s, the alliance brought Afghani-trained 

fighters into Iraq. The alliance did not particularly benefit Kreikar 

who denied it and was deposed and exiled, although he remains an 

Islamist committed to jihad. Ansar al-Sunna was officially formed 

on September 20, 2003, alongside Ansar al-Islam, and Zarqawi’s 

own Tawhid wa-al-Jihad, a force of about 1500 fighters, took shape. 

Zarqawi utilized Syrian connections to some degree, dating back to 

2002, and information about these was revealed in March 2005.97 The 

major benefit of Zarqawi’s later alliance with al-Qaida was jihadic 

legitimacy and appeal to salafists both inside and outside of Iraq.

 It should be noted as well that Zarqawi allied himself with 

al-Qa’ida, not the reverse, and characterizes himself as resisting 

pressure from the United States, in contrast with Ayatollah Sistani 

of Iraq, who Zarqawi calls “the leader of infidelity and heresy,” or 

Muqtada al-Sadr. Zarqawi accuses the Shi`a of being “the crafty evil 

scorpion, the enemy lying in wait with a poisonous bite,” who are 

intent on fighting the Sunnis, wreaking vengeance on them after the 

fall of Saddam’s Ba`thist regime, and says they want their own state 

extending from Lebanon to Iran. He enlists all of their supposed 

historical acts of treachery as well, including their “cursing of 

Sunnis” and validates his anti-Shi`a views with citations from Imam 

Malik Bukhari, Ibn Hazm, and Ibn Taymiyya, (medieval Islamic 

sources).98

 Zarqawi is not the only Islamist opponent of democracy. In 

general, Islamists have objected to democracy because it is described 

as a product of Western civilization; in the West, it has supported 

secularization and promotes the rights and representations of all 

groups in societies. In the Islamist vision, the state should be based 

on consultation, shura, but need not be democratic. Certain Islamist 

thinkers believe Islam has democratic features, or that shura can serve 

the same purpose as democratic representation, but the legal system 

in their idealized state is an Islamic one. Non-Muslims are treated 

differently under this system and must assent to the will of the 

Muslim majority. They might even be subjected to Islamic principles. 

Egypt’s Constitutional Court recently ruled that the Islamic practice of 
45

enforcing the obedience of a wife is incumbent upon a Greek Catholic 

woman, and that is under the current legal system.99 Zarqawi, his 

group, and others like it fear the democratization of society, not least 

because minorities and non-Sunnis will play a role in government 

that they would not achieve under Islamist governance. 

Zarqawi describes his movement in the language of early Islam 

when the Ansar and the Muhajirun (Emigrants from Mecca) united 

forces.100 The next stage of early Islamic history featured Uhud 

and Badr, key victorious battles for the early Muslims. We need 

to understand that to Zarqawi it does not matter how long it takes 

to reach the Badr stage, or even if his forces are eliminated in the 

process—so he said in his May 2005 tape, “We will either win or die 

trying.”101 According to Zarqawi’s thought, even the extinguishing 

of his group in battle would heighten jihad, leading to the expansion 

of the ummah and the migration and continuation of the jihad to 

other places in Iraq and the world. 

MUSTAFA SETMARIAM NASAR AKA ABU MUSAB AL-SURI 

Abu Musab al-Suri is another of the hundred Osamas. Still in 

his teens when Hafiz al-Asad cracked down on militant Islamists, 

he reappeared years later as a key trainer and jihadist idealogue, 

backing Zarqawi, and also, allegedly, al-Qa’ida-linked groups in the 

West. His real name is Mustafa Abdul-Qadir Mustafa Hussein alSheikh Ahmed al-Mazeek al-Jakiri al-Rifa`i, but his family is referred 

to as al-Sitt Maryam. He hails from Aleppo and joined the Tali`a alMuqatila, the Islamist offshoot of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, 

charged with violence against Syrian cadets and others. His 

background suggests the reemergence of jihadism in Syria, but he 

is more properly a member of the global jihad generation. After 

1982, he apparently escaped to Afghanistan, joined the mujahidin, 

and then surfaced in Spain where he became a part of al-Qaida and 

forged connections with Algerian extremists. Later he returned to 

Afghanistan and is now working in Iraq, supporting al-Zarqawi as 

far as we know. Abd al-Suri is suspected of involvement in the March 

11, 2004, Madrid attacks. This charge disturbed him sufficiently that 

he disclaimed a role in these or the 9/11 attacks in a December 2004 
46

letter to President Bush. `Abd al-Suri has influenced many of the 

100 Osamas through his book which discusses jihad and jihadist 

movements, tactics, fundraising, information warfare, and other 

topics.102

FROM IRAQ TO THE WORLD 

Experienced and younger leaders and trainers share a deep 

commitment to jihad for the forseeable future. This, along with 

the migration of jihad from Afghanistan to Iraq, bodes ill for a 

counterterrorist policy that focuses primarily on the elimination of 

leaders and second tier operatives. Hence, the slayings of Abu Khattab, 

Abu Anas al-Shami, Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, Abu-l-Harith, Abu 

Anas al-Turki, Abdel Hadi Daghlas, and Abu Muhammad Hamaza 

Hassan Ibrahim, and the capturing of high profile lieutenants like 

Abu Qutayba and at least 11 others has not really dampened the 

insurgency or thirst for jihad.103 We hope that the Iraqis, who long 

for stability and the opportunity to participate in a representative 

and democratic political life, will be successful in developing and 

enacting other types of counter and antiterrorist campaigns and 

policies. Yet, they may have to contend with a lingering or sporadic 

insurgency that may be especially troublesome when U.S. troops are 

withdrawn. 

EXTREMISTS’ STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Much is made of extremist use of the worldwide web in 

attracting recruits and promoting their organizations.104 It is worth 

understanding the jihadist effort to communicate the principles of 

their successes. First, they have explained that their aim is to embroil 

the United States in the region, where it can be fought. That may not 

rule out attacks on Western targets, of course, because, as Abu Bakr 

Naji’s Idarat al-Tawahhush (The Management of Barbarism) pointed 

out, the enemy must be exhausted and its activities disrupted, so it is 

important to vary targets and do so “in all parts of the Islamic world 

and beyond it.”105 The Western enemy is depicted as huge, unwieldy, 

hypocritical, and unjust. The entrapment of this Western Goliath also 
47

will be accomplished because of flaws or theoretical stultification in 

Western strategy. As Salim al-Makki (and another strategist) noted, 

America today is facing a huge problem with Clausewitz’s theories. 

The latter are premised on the existence of a centralized hostile power 

with a unified command. Assuredly, the mujahidin, with the al-Qa’ida 

organization in their vanguard, believe in decentralized organizations. 

Thus the enemy cannot ascertain the center of gravity, let alone aim a 

mortal blow at it. . . . Just a few hundred fighters can “drive crazy the 

mightiest, best trained, and best armed armies. With God’s help, this is 

happening.”106

We know that U.S. strategists are engaged in debate over the “new 

way of war,” and will find methods to improve approaches to such 

asymmetric threats or the problems of alienating civilians in response 

to numerous smaller attacks. And the jihadi “strategy” statement 

above may be wishful thinking. Yet, as the Islamists constantly point 

out on their PR-oriented websites, their efforts in multiple locations 

(along with our own force requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan) 

provide many targets, distract from the business of stabilization, 

and test public confidence in counterinsurgency in general. This, in 

turn, influences the “will of the people,” whether in the United States 

or Iraq, neither of which is a monolithic entity. The extremists also 

gleefully point out the multiplication effect—the huge amounts of 

money the United States has spent in the GWOT compared to their 

relatively modest financial investment. New security arrangements, 

for instance bag-checking on New York’s subways and airport 

security procedures, also cost a great deal. Cameras installed in 

the London underground are also expensive and helpful tools in 

tracking terrorists, but did not prevent their attacks. 

Various web magazines focus on the particularity of groups’ 

local enemies: the Saudi royal family in Sawt al-Jihad and Muaskar 

al-Battal; and the `Alawi regime in Syria for the Risalat al-Mujahidin, 

which began publication in 2005. Its home page features a picture 

of the Syrian Mazzeh prison, and a fallen sculptured head of late 

President Hafez al-Assad which evokes the toppling of Saddam’s 

statue. The magazine contains pieces like a call to jihad to “youths 

in Levant,” the “criminal history” of the Minister of the Interior, and 

one entitled “The Torture of Women in Syria.”107 The anti-Islamic 
48

nature of governing regimes constitutes a key component of the call 

to jihad. Some articles in other magazines, like Sawt al-Jihad, have 

justified and praised attacks on Westerners. 

 In sum, we may characterize extremist themes, tactical and 

strategic, as: 

Distract, Annoy, Destroy 

Takfir (Charging Muslims with Apostasy or Anti-Islamic 

Behavior)

Justifications for the New Jihad 

Enmity of Jews and Crusaders (Christians) to Islam

The Failure of Western Strategies and Counterterrorism 

David vs. Goliath 

Promotion is All 

Sow Sectarian Discord (as in Iraq) 

Alternative Timeline to Eternity 

Internet postings of visual materials promote recruitment, 

expand and document Islamist jihadists’ actions, provide details of 

encounters with Western forces, and demonstrate the zeal of young 

fighters. Zarqawi’s information group posted a video entitled “All 

Religion Will Be For Allah” on a Web page with sophisticated 

features and many links, enabling the viewer to see suicide bombers 

being trained and download a musical tune of the video onto a cell 

phone. As with a recruitment tape described below, the graphics and 

overall professional quality of the work project another message: 

You Can’t Stop Our Information War!

EXTREMISM, EDUCATION, AND INFORMATION WARFARE

Islamic madrasahs frequently are attacked as the source of jihadist 

venom. Sometimes people simply assume that Islamic education in 

general promotes war on the West, while others have no idea what 

curriculum is followed but oppose religious education on principle. 

Peter Bergen and Swati Pandev expand on this, 
49

It is one of the widespread assumptions of the war on terrorism that the 

Muslim religious schools known as madrassas, [sic] catering to families 

that are often poor, are graduating students who become terrorists. Last 

year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell denounced madrassas in Pakistan 

and several other countries as breeding grounds for “fundamentalists 

and terrorists.” A year earlier, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld 

had queried in a leaked memorandum, “Are we capturing, killing, or 

deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas 

and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against 

us?”

While madrassas may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite 

the Koran in Arabic by rote, such schools do not teach the technical or 

linguistic skills necessary to be an effective terrorist.108

Further, these authors explained that only about 1 percent of 

Pakistanis attended madrasahs, according to information from the 

World Bank. In this author’s opinion, although it is correct to associate 

the Taliban with unpalatable Islamic ideas, Westerners who call for 

the closing of all religious schools are pursuing another misguided 

strategy against Islamist terrorism. 

Recently, President Musharraf announced the expulsion of 

the 1,400 foreign students in Pakistani madrasahs.109 This measure, 

along with promises to control extreme speech in the mosques, is 

probably a good thing, but it does suggest that the underlying basis 

for terrorism is external to Pakistan. 

 Those who believe that Muslims should eschew or censor Islamic 

education need to be aware that private Islamic schools, especially 

those that offer sex-segregated facilities and well-developed 

curricula, are today more popular than the overcrowded public 

school systems operating in many countries. These contrast with the 

stereotypical Muslim kuttab or small Quranic elementary program, 

and with madrasahs which are essentially Muslim academies. To 

keep Islam viable as a holistic lifestyle, Muslims require education 

in their religion, its philosophy, and moral values. Dogmatism, 

intolerance, and narrow interpretations should be addressed, but 

there is probably no more of these problematic attitudes in Islamic 

schools than in national schools in certain country cases. 

Indeed, national educational systems, for example in Kuwait, 

Egypt, and Jordan, contain many Islamists in key positions. Moder-
50

ates exert a certain effect, and more radical aspects of the curricula, 

such as the glorification of activist jihad, can be found there as 

well. The Kuwaiti government apparently has critiqued anti-Shi`a 

sentiments in its curricula, and is very concerned with the way in 

which jihad is being promoted, as well.110

 Some Westerners mistakenly believe that the lack of modern 

education has caused the rise of Islamism and its radical 

interpretations.111 Many of today’s Osamas received modern 

educations in the sense of a nationally-determined curriculum that 

included rational sciences as well as history, language, mathematics 

or vocational skills, and ideas that bolster national (rather than 

Muslim) identity. Actually, the breakdown of the traditional system 

of Islamic education, wherein one was apprenticed to a master, 

the `alim (enlightened one), eroded the clerics’ authority. Religion, 

as taught in the national curriculum, located authority in any and 

every religious product. That made it easier for those with a lesser 

intellectual background and Islamist leanings to promote their 

views. As Gregory Starrett, a scholar who has looked closely at 

the spread of Islamist discourse in Egyptian society, pointed out, 

“who the producer is” (and he is very often one of the new Islamist 

intellectuals) is “less important than the marketability of what he 

has to say.”112 Governments are then trapped into using Islamic 

discourse to try to defeat radicals who are more adept than they at 

marketing. And at the same time, the general climate of support for 

Islamist thought and ideas has grown immensely in the last 25 years 

in every Muslim country, even Turkey, once dedicated to Islamic 

“secularism.” 

Proposed campaigns to secularize Muslims and replace 

offensive concepts with others are counterproductive avenues for 

information operations and, moreover, smack of ultra-imperialism. 

Besides, many efforts were made to secularize and “liberalize” 

Muslims earlier in the century that were internally inspired, and 

these did not stand up to the Islamic “alternative” or awakening. 

As previously mentioned, one Western expert proposed to replace 

jihad with mentions of hiraba, another crime usually translated as 

brigandry, but which has a separate legal and philosophical history. 

Many people call for a Muslim Luther (as if Islam has not had its 

own reform movements), and some suggest that reestablishment of 
51

a Caliphate could aid the West in the GWOT by forcing a centralized 

authority on Islam. Muslims are startled to hear spokespersons 

such as Irshad Manji, a feminist, lesbian Canadian Muslim, author 

of The Trouble With Islam, touted as experts on progressive Islam. 

Manji declares she has renounced her faith, which would make her 

an apostate in Islamic terms. Though she is not very familiar with 

Islamic principles, that does not prevent her from lecturing about the 

fundamental contradictions and evils of the faith. This may be why 

Muslims now feel that the War on Terror is a cultural onslaught. 

Instead, avenues of communication need to be opened and 

maintained in forums for debate and discussion in both the Muslim, 

non-Anglophone world, and in the West. A proper critique of jihad 

can be undertaken, but not on the basis of hype, missionary zeal, or 

disdain for the views of others. 

FROM EXTREMISM TO POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Can jihadists be convinced to lay down their arms under any 

circumstances? If they do so, should our strategy address them? Some 

readers will object here to my use of the label “moderate Islamist” 

for organizations like Hizbullah, Hamas, the MB, or the Wasatiyun 

(Centrists). But there is no doubt that they are more moderate than 

Zarqawi’s organization, for instance. Two other points are important: 

they have refrained from attacks on Western civilian targets. No 

targeting of the numerous American tours in Israel has occurred to 

date, nor did the MB or Wasat ever attack tourists in Egypt. Second, 

they have strongly influenced their co-citizens’ attitudes toward 

Islam and moderate Islamism. 

Hizbullah of Lebanon, whose founding nucleus came from Iraq, 

and Hamas of Palestine appear to be following a similar path. Both 

organizations call for Islamic government, but are situated where 

compromise is essential. Analysts who examine the World Islamic 

Front, or “Caliphists,” are not including Hizbullah and Hamas, 

despite various allegations that Hamas members have or had 

connections to al-Qa’ida. Similar to Palestinian Islamists, Hizbullah 

gained some strength when the reputation of its secular competitor 

in the Shi`a community, the AMAL party, was tarnished. Hizbullah 
52

emerged in a period of chaos and has international and inter-regional 

linkages. 

Hizbullah illustrates the Iraqization of Shi’ism in Lebanon, as well 

as Iranian influence in its efforts to create a rational and modernist 

version of Islamic life.113 Dating back to 1982, its primary raison d’être

was to resist the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, a military 

goal, and to represent and uplift the oppressed masses of the Shi`a, 

political and socioeconomic goals. The leadership of Hizbullah has 

demonstrated various qualities: tenacity, pragmatism, and popular 

appeal with its political leader, Hasan Nasrallah, and more erudite 

and enlightened interpretations of Islamic principles with Shams 

al-Din Fadlallah, an `alim, or religious inspiration of the movement. 

Hizbullah faced down factionalism in the Biqa` when one contingent 

of the Party led by Shaykh Tufayli rebelled against accommodation 

with the Lebanese government after the Lebanese war had ended. 

 Lebanon has a multireligious political and social base, with 18 

officially recognized confessional groups. Therefore, Hizbullah’s 

aim of an Islamic state where vilayat e-faqih (the rule of the jurist) will 

prevail is not practical as a political design for Lebanon as a whole. 

But Hizbullah’s competition with other political forces in the Shi`i 

community has been quite successful. The Party transformed itself 

from a militia/religious movement to a political party/religious 

movement with residual militant goals of opposing Israel, arguing, 

for instance, that no settlement can be made with Israel, certainly 

not without attention to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and in 

Syria. Hizbullah is not universally popular with every Lebanese or 

even every Shi`a,114 but it is respected and considered less corrupt 

than most other political actors and groups. 

Shaykh Hasan Yousef, the prominent West Bank Hamas political 

branch leader, joined the Muslim Brotherhood while a university 

student in Jordan. He used to travel from West Bank village to village 

preaching, so he retains great local credibility there, despite lengthy 

periods spent in Israeli prisons and exile in Marj al-Zuhur in southern 

Lebanon. Hamas has struggled ideologically with the PLO for the 

hearts and minds of young Palestinians. It has encountered political 

limitations on the part of the PA that returned from Tunis, in particular. 

In an interview with the International Crisis Group, Yousef recently 
53

stated that “for the first time, we feel there is a genuine potential for a 

partnership with the PA.”115 And in June, Yousef expressed his desire 

to communicate with the West to me, “to establish better relations that 

will lead to a better dialogue in the future,” though he was amused 

by the title of this monograph, asking me if he was one of my “100 

Osamas.” He is strongly troubled by the many key issues that remain 

unexplored while the Gaza disengagement proceeds, like the large 

number of political prisoners, the ill effects of the new “Wall,” the 

misery caused by the closure of Hamas charities (though “Hamas 

is willing to be the most transparent of organizations”), and Israeli 

efforts to reduce and hem in the Arab presence in East Jerusalem, 

while permitting settler establishments and house seizures there. 

He hoped that people of conscience could make the United States 

and Israel more aware of the contradictions inherent in promoting 

Middle Eastern democracy and supporting a system in which every 

movement, passage, phone call, and interaction is monitored, and 

there is “absolutely no freedom.” Yousef, who was rearrested in 

September, pointed to Hamas’ inclusion of women in its political 

leadership and list of candidates as well as Christians.116 All in all, 

Yousef’s characterization of Hamas goals casts and rationalizes them 

as the aims of all Palestinians, so that the organization appears more 

nationalist than pan-Muslim, and more pragmatic than idealistic. 

RECRUITMENT 

Viewing Islamist extremists as strategic leaders can be useful, but 

counterinsurgency should focus on two additional levels—operations 

experts and recruiters, and potential mujahidin. Some analysts believe 

there may be as many as 200,000 insurgents in Iraq, for example. In 

fact, the organizational culture of extremist movements still is not 

well-understood. Experts have applied a criminological approach, 

seeking to identify particular profiles for “deviant” behavior. The 

new jihad is so widespread and appealing, and the confusion 

between general Islamists versus extremists is so profound, that the 

criminological or pathological approach is not serving the GWOT 

well. For example, the accepted profile—a young, impoverished male 

from a rural or recent urban migrant background—no longer fits 
54

all recruits or volunteers.117 The same fuzziness in profiling suicide 

attackers should be noted. According to such profiles, women were 

not supposed to engage in “martyrdom” activities nor were mature 

men with families. In fact, women have served as mujahidat since the 

early days of Islam, playing an increasingly important role in the last 

decade.118 Likewise, a believer is not supposed to take up jihad if he 

owes money, and those with dependents were thought less likely to 

volunteer; however, men with families have carried out attacks in 

Israel, and two of the bombers in the 7/7 London attacks had young 

children. 

A “successful strategy” is one that brings what an organization 

can do (its competencies) into alignment with the needs and demands 

of its environment “. . . achieving a ‘strategic fit’.”119 Engaging the 

United States in regional hostilities certainly fits the capacities of 

many of these relatively small extremist groups more aptly than any 

sustained operations in the West. Also, extremist groups have found 

suicide attacks to be a successful strategy because they:

• are force multipliers,

 • attract media attention and increase recruitment,

 • are relatively inexpensive, and

 • are suited to the irregular nature of the organization.

Organizers for martyrs’ cells recruit, indoctrinate, provide materials 

and training, and, most importantly, construct a moral contract with 

operatives that binds them to the group and their specific mission. 

Sometimes larger entities like a sub-brigade are designated to such 

operations as in Zarqawi’s group’s June 20 announcement that it 

had formed a unit of “martyrs named al-Ansar” from the Martyr 

Brigades of al-Baraa ibn Malik.120

 Just as local governments employed both carrot and stick to deal 

with their Islamist insurgencies, new Islamist insurgents try to attract 

or terrify locals of their bases or neighborhoods. In recruitment, it is 

mostly the carrot of jihadi allure; the association of martyrdom and 

glory with jihad, along with young people’s strong desire to affect 

their environment and general inability to do so along other avenues, 

that aids recruitment. 
55

 A video made by Zarqawi’s organization and obtained in Falluja 

is a superb recruiting tool that critiques the West, documents and 

ritualizes martyrdom, demonstrates the pan-Muslim membership 

of the organization, and multiplies its impact. The video features 

religious quotations and nontraditional “religious” music, borrowing 

from the Eastern/Arab church and Western traditions, that add to 

the drama of the tape. In the very first segment, American soldiers 

kick their way into an Iraqi home and lead away a small child who 

calls for her father. This illustrates the reality of Muslims under siege, 

when jihad is compulsory for all and obviously necessary in order to 

save children and innocents. 

Young suicide-attackers from various Arab countries read their 

“wills” on the tape to satisfy the cultural and religious instructions to 

obtain permission and provide for one’s dependents. Each attacker 

appears against the background of a translucent martyr’s stairway, 

leading upwards to the light, to Paradise. Martyrs do not require the 

ritual washing of other deceased Muslims, but the video shows the 

special mourning given them, to give would-be martyrs a taste of 

what they anticipate. Muslim intellectuals have spoken and written 

about the need to separate martyrdom from these violent acts of 

jihad, but there is no mistaking the power of the call to martyrdom 

in this tape. 

The tape also illustrates subtleties of coercion. Given the cultural 

construct of Arab masculinity, what young man would retract his 

sworn, video-taped testimony? And Western news footage, maps of 

attack areas, actual bombings, and news items are cleverly embedded, 

used both as graphics and to demonstrate the power of the group. 

These mujahidin cannot explicate their leader’s methodologies, 

rather they emotionally identify with components of an organic 

philosophy. Jihadi-recruiters must convince these foot-soldiers of the 

morality of killing and the utility of dying. Timing is important so that 

they will not change their minds or consult others who may report 

them or pursuade them against such action. Islamist-extremists also 

seek out young people who can be manipulated easily. According 

to testimony from captured operatives in Saudi Arabia, some were 

coerced into committing crimes so they would not go to the police. 

However, recruiters and strategic planners must also build 

a continuing force. Here skills, experience, and group cohesion 
56

are important; and factionalism actually plagues many extremist 

organizations, which seek to differentiate themselves from moderate, 

or more pragmatic elements. 

SWIMMING IN FRIENDLY WATERS

To retain sanctuary, Islamist extremists of all functional levels 

also employ two basic strategies—carrot and stick. On the one 

hand, they appeal to the young and less powerful because they so 

emphatically oppose tyranny, injustice, and corruption. 

They also have intimidated surrounding civilians. This has been 

achieved through violence: attacks on Shi`a sites in Iraq, on police 

and contract workers, as well as the now infamous kidnappings 

and beheadings of so-called “apostates” and “infidels.” Brutal 

kidnappings and murders of civilians took place during the Lebanese 

civil war, and a huge number of people remain unaccounted for.121

Widescale coercion in the form of violence against local populations 

also took place in the GIA massacres in Algeria that peaked in 1997 

and evidenced a smaller peak in 1994. 

In Iraq, kidnappings of foreigners, or “apostates,” were used in 

efforts to force troop withdrawals, discourage international businesses and agencies, obtain ransoms, postpone the formal installation 

of diplomats, and attract the attention of sympathizers inside and 

outside of Iraq.122 Kidnappings of Iraqis coercively demonstrated 

extremist strength and also yielded ransoms and political benefits. 

 Extremists have attacked Iraqi women who were not wearing hijab

(the headscarf) or abaya (the outer robe) and barbers who shave men’s 

beards and cut their hair in modern styles. But the suicide attacks 

have been most devastating to Iraqis, causing despair, even to Grand 

Ayatollah al-Sistani who described the fighting as “genocidal.”123

Suicide attacks will likely continue, and, if tighter security measures 

are not employed, they will, no doubt, be utilized again in the West. 

Israelis adopted the most logical tactics, employing security guards 

to search bags outside of every large store and inspect passengers 

boarding public transport. 

We might like to believe that such actions illustrate the 

desperation of extremists, or that massacres and bombings by 

extremists eventually will hurt their cause. But this has not always 
57

been the case. Islamists feel they are demonstrating superior and 

morally necessary force. Moderates sometimes support extremists 

for defying the United States, or un-Islamic governments and 

local populations may be hedging their bets, playing it safe by not 

castigating those who threaten them. When the object of Islamist 

violence can be demonized as an outsider, then, of course, violence is 

perceived differently. So Hizbullah, which initially exerted coercion 

against civilians (against liquor stores and coffee houses where men 

play games like backgammon) and fought other Lebanese, eventually 

reserved its violent actions for Israelis. As a result, the organization 

is feared but also respected by the Lebanese population. Hamas, alAqsa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad rationalize their violence against 

Israelis by pointing out that every Israeli is a combatant since all serve, 

or will serve, in the armed forces. As for the effect of unpredictable 

small- or medium-scale attacks, we have seen that they do disrupt 

daily life and that negotiation may result, as, for example, in the 

response to the attacks of the al-Aqsa Intifadha. 

 Attempting to remove the jihad from the jihadi, the allure of 

the freedom-fighter, is a delicate task. Somehow this task must be 

accomplished to erode sanctuary, but it cannot be accomplished in 

the style of 19th century missionaries. To date, the widely-viewed 

television program, “In the Grip of Justice,” in Iraq has managed to 

tarnish jihadi allure in a terrorist reality show that reveals the base, 

cowardly, and Islamically unsound nature of captured insurgents. 

In select shows, two Shi`a cells of hitmen admitted that they worked 

for Zarqawi’s movement, shocking members of both sects. This is 

the flip side of recruitment videos. 

 However popular an Iraqi reality show is, the tactic of 

discreditation is a two-edged sword. How credible is the force that 

tolerated the criminal behavior at Abu Ghraib (thus far, Muslims and 

Arabs have read that a criminal process is ongoing, but that only a 

few perpetrators were charged and there were legal problems with 

their prosecution) or the “softening” tactics, lack of habeus corpus, 

and unspecified terms of confinement at Guantanamo Bay? These 

problems, while representative in the least of American intentions, 

were nevertheless very damaging to the U.S. moral position. Also, 

many Iraqis believe that the former “insurgents” have been beaten 

into their testimony; some footage from the above mentioned 
58

program, including that screened on al-`Arabiyya television, features 

sound track dubbing. Whether or not it is actually read by an actor, 

a portion of the Arab public believes this to be the case. 

 In sum, there is a disjuncture between the mujahidins’ ultimate 

goals and their present abilities. But we cannot narrowly focus on 

this chink in Islamist armor, nor merely on eliminating leadership 

or discouraging recruitment. We need to encourage Muslim and 

Middle Eastern governments to carry out these tasks simultaneously 

while establishing trust in their own political systems to provide an 

alternative for would-be jihadists of the future. Similarly, if we set 

our goals at the elimination of a few select groups that most clearly 

resemble al-Qa’ida, we will fail to comprehend the 100 Osamas 

now emerging and their likely future impact. If we discredit Islam, 

Muslim discourse, and Islamic education, we win few friends and 

foster many enemies. 

The impact of Islamist discourse is amplified further by the 

extensive reach of moderate ideas today. These convey a sense of 

commitment to Muslim ideals. So, as efforts to reform and democratize 

proceed in some parts of the Muslim world, a greater number of 

Islamists will attain political power. This is a cause for concern, and a 

careful and cautious weighing of the costs and benefits of our tactics 

in the War on Terror. A new Hundred Years War is as likely as the 

emergence of 100 Osamas. If we can encourage the transformation 

of certain of those 100 into viable political leaders, if they forswear 

violence and can compel their followers to follow suit, then we can 

narrow the scope of that future war. If we carefully consider those 

elements of our foreign policies in the Middle East and the Muslim 

world that can encourage a locally-driven democratization and 

greater trust in the U.S. stewardship of global power, that will be to 

the good. All of this can be done by remembering that all politics are 

local, and that pragmatism and idealism are not necessarily forces 

that cancel each other out. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Some recommendations follow.

 1. Revise strategies that narrowly define extremist networks and their 

modus operandi. The five groups with ascertainable ties to al-Qa’ida 
59

may relatively soon (within a few years) be neutralized, but by that 

time, 10 to 15 or more different groups may be exerting pressure 

elsewhere. 

2. Revise approaches that too broadly define terrorism and extremism 

and our responses to them. Regional, ideological, and country specificity 

is essential. 

3. Acknowledge the evolution and change of Islamist extremist 

leadership and develop strategies to contain it. Co-optation and 

elimination are, in essence, no more than methods to contain 

these movements. No centralized Islamic authority exists that can 

excommunicate renegade leaders who are, in any case, regarded 

more as popular heroes, members of a resistance—insurgents, rather 

than terrorists. Yet, ideological, political, and intelligence methods 

must be employed against them. Broaden counterterrorist responses 

to go beyond leadership to the lower levels of organizations and 

their sympathizers. Utilize those who know the operating bases 

well and speak the appropriate languages, instead of relegating this 

enormously difficult task to those who have no deep understanding 

of the area, the issues, or their delicacy.

4. Focus on antiterrorist as well as counterterrorist principles.

Denying friendly waters or sanctuary can take place only where 

citizens perceive the benefits of their participation in any given 

social or political system. That is why democratization, or at least the 

establishment of just, representative, and effective political systems in 

the region, is key. Beyond that, we need to foster the concept of “world 

citizens” who band together against new challenges, and attempt to 

break down the xenophobias that divide us. That said, antiterrorist 

campaigns must go beyond propaganda, advertisement, and empty 

promises to protect the public, and address the ideological themes of 

insurgency, terrorism, and specifically, extremist Islamism. 

 5. Understand and respond to the increasing sophistication of Islamist 

tactical and strategic efforts. In this monograph, I have outlined the 

progress of radical Islamist thought at the leadership level. Theories 

of cultural superiority always are treacherous. We should not imagine 

that, because Western militaries have been more effective than those 

in Muslim countries, leadership cannot be cultivated or represent 
60

any kind of challenge to a technologically superior force. Extremist 

Muslims could penetrate armed forces in the region. In fact, the 

Egyptian and Saudi governments have been concerned about the 

presence of jihadists in their armed forces or police and rightly so, 

if we remember al-`Awfi, al-Islambuli, and others. Extremists will 

certainly further challenge the new Iraqi military and security forces 

if the United States withdraws from the country. But these forces, 

along with local political leadership, are going to be the point at 

which the war against terror is won or lost. We should then support 

them through all possible avenues. 

6. Carefully consider the impact of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East 

and in other areas of the Muslim world on the stated aims of the Global War 

on Terror. The Palestinian issue is of paramount importance to many 

of the Muslim Middle Eastern countries and has become important 

even to Muslim countries outside the Middle East. Clear public 

statements about America’s relationship with Israel and long-term 

interests in Iraq and Afghanistan all require open communication 

and some modifications and resolution, or they will continue to be 

used as evidence of pervasive American hypocrisy. 

7. Continue working with local governments in their counterterrorist 

efforts. This, in turn, requires careful attention to the lessons learned 

by local leadership, and representatives of civil society. But we 

should condemn the use of inhumane practices and help local forces 

resist infiltration by Islamist extremist forces into security, military, 

or police forces, wherever possible. 

8. Establish centers for international counterterrorist operations 

to specifically address the threat posed by Islamist extremists. These 

should make use of international resources and knowledge of these 

groups and go far beyond name-sharing. Building on the February 

2005 proposal of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and some recent 

suggestions of Australian governmental representatives, these 

centers might be set up with Saudi, Australian (for Southeast Asia), 

South and Central Asian, and North African/European focuses. 

While Islam should not be singled out as the only religion to have 

produced violent, purist, or separatist movements, these centers 

would do well to focus on this particular manifestation of violent 

extremism, rather than diluting their programs to fit all possible 

global circumstances. 
61

 9. Continue making legitimate efforts to obtain and coordinate 

information concerning the interaction, travel, and whereabouts of 

Islamist extremists. The use of physical and psychological torture 

and extralegal procedures is counterproductive to the moral terrain 

necessary for the establishment of a terror-free world. 

10. Encourage local governments to normalize relations with certain 

Islamist groups, and utilize dialogue programs or amnesty efforts, where 

appropriate, in order to return supporters of jihad to society. Rehabilitation 

and the forswearing of violence can be monitored. We should 

encourage local authorities to provide alternatives to fighting that 

include a wage and possibly a commitment to social welfare. 

11. Recognize the potential of moderate Islamist groups and actors to 

participate in the political process. As with the legitimization of Islamist 

parties in Iraq, such parties have a role to play elsewhere in the 

region, where they would express the popular will in open and free 

elections. While the author is concerned about the rights of women 

and minorities and freedom of expression and religion, compromises 

with such moderate groups are far more likely than with their 

extremist counterparts, and they can, if they are motivated to do 

so, help to constrain indiscriminate acts of violence. Policymakers 

should acknowledge that Islamist moderates, or even governmentlinked conservatives, will not see eye-to-eye with Americans on 

a variety of issues related to the GWOT. That does not mean that 

we go our way and they go theirs. But we should not behave as 

neocolonialists, dictating judicial practice in legal systems other than 

our own, or requiring popular amnesia of the political wounds dealt 

by authoritarian governments. 

12. Energetic diplomacy should be utilized to achieve mutual 

understanding on the relevant issues or obstacles to a more “global” pursuit 

of the Global War on Terror. This should be carried out by professional 

diplomats, but also by articulate citizens, businessmen and women, 

and members of the military and other professions. 

13. Establish a multi-country full media (Web, television, radio, and 

print) program to discuss and debate Islamist and other forms of religious 

extremism. It is particularly important that such communications 

be made in the local languages, and at a fairly sophisticated level 
62

that will not insult the intelligence of viewers and readers in the 

Muslim world, and which also will serve the purpose of educating 

the Western public about the complexity of the issues. Discussion 

of other “extremist” ideas ranging from Muslim questions about 

Christian efforts to proselytize and convert Muslims, to the role of 

other religious nationalisms (Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian) 

is important here, if indeed, Islamic extremism is not being treated as 

a unique phenomenon. 

14. Stay the course in promoting democratization of the region. This 

monograph lacked space to explain the difficulties of promoting 

democracy while battling extremism. The 100 Osamas are, by and 

large, opposed to democratization, as was mentioned above, because 

such movements compete with their own and encourage other 

values, like pluralism, personal freedoms, and populism. While 

local allies have and will continue to object to the destabilization that 

democratic transformation may carry, blind authoritarianism has 

no more future in the Muslim world than in the Christian one. The 

democratization process will be slow and painful, but the building 

of stakeholders, those with an investment in their society’s future, is 

more essential to the future of counterinsurgency than any stockpiling 

of armored vehicles or antimortar weaponry. One point made in 

this monograph is that it may not diminish the thirst for an Islamic 

lifestyle, and the role of moderate Islamism in democratization needs 

to be considered. 

15. Provide advanced training to military, intelligence, and political 

leaders on the history, evolution, and tactics of Islamist extremists that 

goes far beyond the current typical single-session briefings or 

conference-style meetings based on discussion models in which 

expert information is occluded by interpretation, political opinions, 

and misunderstandings of basic features of Islam. 
63

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

`Alim: Muslim cleric, literally means enlightened one. `Ulama is the plural 

form. 

`Asala: Cultural authenticity.

Bay`a: A Muslim oath of allegiance sworn to the Caliph. A symbolic 

demonstration of the Caliph’s political and religious legitimacy. 

Confessional group. Officially recognized religious sect in Lebanon, often 

described as a polity moving toward a confessional democracy. Also means 

a religious sect in other countries.

Da`wah: Islamic mission. In the contemporary period, refers to 

proselytization, awakening “born but unconscious” Muslims, urging them 

to adopt an Islamist agenda, or merely to more faithfully adhere to their 

religious duties. 

Dhurwat Sanam al-Islam: Crest of the Summit of Islam. A term meaning 

jihad, and also the title of a recent web-publication. 

Fard `Ayn: Obligatory in Islamic terms. 

Fatwa: A juridical response to a question about Islamic law, usually couched 

in terms of the Islamically-permitted nature of any given item or practice. 

Hadith: A secondary source for Islamic jurisprudence, for producing 

juridical opinions (fatawa or responsa) grounded in Islamic law. A hadith 

is a short text concerning the opinions, words, or practice of the Prophet 

Muhammad, or sometimes his Companions, or those close to him. It is 

preceded by a chain of transmittors called an isnad. In Sunni Islam, the 

first source to be consulted is the Qur’an, and then those hadith collections 

considered to be authoritative. Consensus and analogy are other approved 

sources for jurisprudence. 

Al-Haras al-Watani: The pagan guard, as the mujahidin of Iraq term the 

U.S.-trained Iraqi forces.

Hijra (Higra in Egyptian dialect): The emigration of the first Muslims from 

Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. 
64

Hiraba: A crime in Islamic law, taking or destroying the property of others, 

brigandry. Also rape is classified by some in this category. 

Intifadha: Uprising. Literally means a “shaking off.” 

Islamic Republican Party (IRP) of Iran: Clerics who were followers and former 

students of Ayatollah Khomeini established this party in February 1979. It 

became the dominant force in the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Ja`fari: Of the Shi`i legal school known as the Ja`fariyya; Twelve Shiites, as 

in Iran, Lebanon, and Pakistan. 

Jahiliyya: The time of ignorance and barbarism, before Islam. Islamist 

extremists charge contemporary society of being in a state of jahiliyya 

today. 

Kuttab: Qur’anic school, or class at the elementary level.

Madrasa: General term for a school, public or private, secular or religious. 

Refers as well to a college or academy of Islamic thought and sciences. 

Majlis al-shura: A council of consultation, a methodology for governance 

which Islamists prefer to Western-style democracy. This same term also 

stands for the Parliaments or councils of various governments. 

Mu`asara: Modernity. 

Nahda: Rennaisance. Also the name of the Arabic literary revival. 

Neo-Salafist: A category of extremists who have more recently gained 

popularity. To be distinguished from “early” or original salafists or purists. 

For example, certain neo-salafists became more popular in Saudi Arabia 

since the Gulf War of 1991. 

Qa’idin: Those who sit and simply talk or reflect on jihad but who will not 

join the armed struggle. 

Al-Qa’ida fi al-Jazirat al-`Arabiyya: al-Qa’ida on the Arabian Peninsula 

(QAP), the Islamist extremist movement in Saudi Arabia. 

Rafidhin; Renegades, those guilty of sedition. Zarqawi’s term for the Iraqi 

Shi`a.
65

Sahwa Islamiyya: Islamic awakening; sometimes referred to as tayar Islami 

(Islamic trend).

Sha`b or `Amma: Ordinary people, common folk, or the “Arab street.” 

Siyar: The Muslim “law of nations” or international law. 

Suhba: Guidance, the spiritual companionship of the group—an experience 

provided by Sufi brotherhoods, Muslim educational systems, and Islamist 

radical associations.

Tabarruj al-nisa’: The illicit display of women’s bodies in Western fashion, 

according to those who support Islamic modest dress. 

Takfir: To call someone an unbeliever, to charge a Muslim of being sinful or 

even with apostasy (rejecting his/her faith). 

Ta`lim: Education, enlightenment. 

Tarbiyya: Guidance in the sense of training and proper upbringing or 

vocational knowledge versus enlightenment, and social responsibility 

rather than the highly individual pursuit of union with God. 

Tawhid: Oneness, or unicity of God. 

Wasta: Mediation, or intercession, or an intermediary who can provide 

access. Similar to the Farsi term, parti. 

Vilayat e-faqih: Governance by an Islamic jurist. Khomeini elaborated on 

this theory in a book on Islamic governance. 

67

ENDNOTES

 1. Husni Mubarak, Televised Speech, Egyptian Television, March 31, 2003; and 

“Egypt’s Mubarak Warns ‘100 Bin Ladens’,” CBS News, March 31, 2003, http://www.cbsnews.

com/stories/2003/03/31/world/main547033.shtml.

2. Michael Howard, “Civilians Bear Brunt of Iraqi Insurgency.” The Guardian, July 15, 

2005; Sabrina Tavernese, “Data Shows Rising Toll of Iraqis From Insurgency,” New York 

Times, July 14, 2005. 

3. Ellen Knickmeyer, “Iraq Puts Civilian Toll at 12,000,” Washington Post Foreign Service, 

June 3, 2005, p. A1. 

4. New York Times, July 14, 2005.

5. Dan Murphy, “US Strategy in Iraq: Is It Working?” Christian Science Monitor, June 21, 

2005. 

6. Dawn Internet Edition, August 9, 2005, at http://www.dawn.com/2005/08/09/int9.htm.

7. Personal interviews with al-Aqsa brigade commander and fighters, June 27, 2004. 

 8. Tawhid, a key principle in Islam means the oneness, universality, and omnipresence 

of Allah. It is often translated as “unity” and misinterpreted in the media and by the general 

public as “uniformity.” Tawhid has particular implications for Wahhabi, neo-salafi, Druze 

(who call themselves muwahhidun), and other Muslim groups. 

9. Brisard cites U.S. v. Enaam Arnaout, 02CR892, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern 

Division, January 29, 2003; Jean-Charles Brisard with Damien Martinez, Zarqawi: The New 

Face of Al-Qaeda, New York: Other Press, from Zarkaoui, le nouveu visage d’AlQaida, Paris: 

Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2005, p. 68. 

10. Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Carol Volk, trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Press, 1994; Giles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Anthony F. Roberts, 

trans., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. It should be noted that strong 

critics of political Islam like Dan Pipes ridiculed this European thesis of post-Islamism. 

11. Porter J. Goss, “Global Intelligence Challenges 2005: Meeting Long-Term Challenges 

with a Long-Term Strategy,” Testimony of Director of Central Intelligence Before the Senate 

Select Committee on Intelligence, February 16, 2005.

12. While some welcomed this change in terminology, see Kim Holmes, “What’s in 

a Name? ‘War on Terror’ Out, ‘Struggle Against Extremism’ In,” Heritage Foundation 

WebMemo #805, July 26, 2005, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/wm805.

cfm205. The U.S. administration did not, after all, abandon “war on terror.” 

13. Juan Cole and Nikki Keddie, eds., Shi’ism and Social Protest, New Haven, CT: Yale 

University, 1986; Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon, 

Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1986; W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, New 

York: Routledge, 1988; Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups,” 

International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1980; Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Egypt’s 

Islamic Activism in the 1980s,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, April 1988, and other 

country cases in that same issue; Richard Tapper, Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics 

and Literature in a Secular State, London: I. B. Tauris, 1991; Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, 

translation and introduction, Abdullahi al-Naim; The Second Message of Islam, Syracuse, NY: 

Syracuse University Press, 1987; Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism, Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1988; Ahmad Moussalli, Sayyid Qutb: Radical Islamic Fundamentalism, Beirut: 
68

American University of Beirut, 1992; and idem, Moderate and Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: 

The Quest for Modernity, Legitimacy and the Islamic State, Gainesville: University of Florida 

Press, 1999; Ziad Abu Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim 

Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994; Hisham Ahmad, 

Hamas: From Religious Salvation to Political Trransformation: The Rise of Hamas in Palestinian 

Society, Jerusalem, Israel: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International 

Affairs, 1994; Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam, New York: Routledge, 1991; Seyyed Vali Nasr, 

The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan, Berkeley: University of 

California Press, 1994; François Burgat, L’Islamisme en Face, Paris: La Découverte, 1995, trans. 

as Face to Face With Political Islam, I. B. Tauris, 2003; John Esposito, ed., Islam in Asia: Religion, 

Politics and Society, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; and idem, The Islamic Threat: 

Myth or Reality? New York: Oxford, 1992; James Piscatori, ed., Islamic Fundamentalisms and 

the Gulf Crisis, Chicago: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991; Denis Sullivan and 

Sana Abed Kotob, Islam in Contemporary Egypt, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 

1999; Abdulaziz Sachedina, “Activist Shi’ism in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon,” Mumtaz Ahmad, 

“The Jamaat-i-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat,” John Voll, “Fundamentalism in the Sunni 

Arab World: Egypt and Sudan,” and Manning Nash, “Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia and 

Indonesia,” all in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed, 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991; and see the other books in this series such as 

Fundamentalisms and Society; Hussin Mutalib and Taj ul-Islam Hashmi, Islam, Muslims and 

the Modern State: Case-Studies of Muslims in Thirteen Countries, London: Macmillan, 1994; 

Armando Salvatore, Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity, Reading, UK: Ithaca Books, 

1997; and among the newer books, Armando Salvatore and Dale Eickelman, eds., Public 

Islam and the Common Good, Leiden, Holland: Brill, 2004; Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why 

Jihad Went Global, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; and for more journalistic 

sources, Dilip Hiro, War Without End: The Rise of Islamist Terrorism and Global Response, 

London: Routledge, 2002; Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on 

Terror, Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2004; and Caryle Murphy, Passion for Islam: Shaping 

the Modern Middle East, The Egyptian Experience, New York: Scribner, 2002. Arabic sources 

reflect different debates, for example, the strong one between secularists and Islamists in 

Syria. See, Khalid al-`Abbud, ed., Hiwar `ala `ard muhayyida: Wajhan li-wajh (Dialogue on a 

Neutral Ground: Face to Face), Damascus: al-Ahali, 1997; or `Abd al-Wahid, `Alwani, al-Islam 

wa-l`asr. Tahdiyyat wa afaq (Islam and Modernity: Challenges and Horizons), Damascus: Dar 

al-Fikr, 1998.

14. Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, Jonathan Derrick, trans., New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2000; Sherifa Zuhur, Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology 

in Contemporary Egypt, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. As with endnote 

16, space precludes inclusion of the many sources that discuss these themes. 

15. Gilles Kepel, Le Prophète et Pharaon: Aux sources des mouvements islamistes, Paris: 

La Découverte, 1984, and in translation by University of California Press, 1985; Emmanuel 

Sivan, Radical Islam, Medieval Theology, and Modern Politics, New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 1985.

16. Sherifa Zuhur and Youssef Aboul-Enein, Islamic Rulings on Warfare, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 2004; `Umar Ibn Ibrahim al-Awasi al-Ansari, Tafrij al-qurub fi 

tadbir al-hurub, George T. Scanlon, ed. and trans., Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 

1961; Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani’s Siyar (Kitab al-siyar al-kabir) Majid Khadduri, trans., 

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966; Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, 

Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996. 
69

 17. Kamal Salama al-Daqs, Ayat al-jihad fi al-Qur’an al-karim (Verses of Jihad in the 

Qur’an), Kuwait: Dar al-Bayan, 1972, p. 105.

18. State of the Union (2005) Address at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/0

2/20050202-11.html.

19. “President Discusses War on Terror,” National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. 

McNair, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/03. 

20. Michael Vlahos, “The Muslim Renovatio and U.S. Strategy,” at http://www.

techcentralstation.com/042704D.html. 

21. Sherifa Zuhur, “What’s New in the New Islamic Discourse?” presented at the 

Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies, University of Melbourne, July 29, 

2004.

22. Like a zawaj al-mut`a, a Shi’i form of contract marriage, a perceptive analogy from 

Nimrod Raphaeli. 

23. This is implied elsewhere, as well, in the responses of Muslim governments that 

Islam has been “hijacked”; or in the subtitle to John Esposito’s book, “Terror in the Name of 

Islam,” Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, New York: Oxford University, 2000. 

24. The phrase, the “end of history,” is identified with Francis Fukuyama, who, in 

a seminal article of that title, argued that liberal democracy might be the “end point of 

mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government.” Shortly 

thereafter, the Soviet Union collapsed. He then wrote The End of History and the Last Man, 

New York: Penguin, 1992. See Fukuyama, “The End of History,” The National Interest, 

Summer, 1989; Henry Allen, “The End. Or Is It?” Washington Post, September 27, 1989. He 

was questioned about the role of Islamism because his ideas do not suggest it as a political 

alternative in a public appearance. He denied any existential appeal of Islamism, claiming 

that political Islam is “political and not religious.” See http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/

articles/2005/02/12/end_of_history_schol.php.

25. One example can be found at http://www.muhajabah.com/reallysays.htm. 

26. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and 

strive with might and main for mischief through the land is execution or crucifixion, or 

the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land, Qur’an, V:33. 

For commentary, see `Abdullah Yusuf `Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an, Beltsville, Md: 

Amana, 1999, 2001, p. 257. 

27. Sherifa Zuhur, “Syria: A Terrorist Haven?” Terrorism Focus, Vol. II, Issue 14, August 

13, 2005.

28. Stephen Ulph, “New Jihadist Group Emerges in Syria,” Terrorism Focus, Vol. II, 

Issue 12, June 24, 2005. 

29. Soroush’s website is at http://www.drsoroush.com/Persian.htm (or in English at the 

same URL), or see Abdolkarim Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam, Mahmoud 

Sadri and Ahmad Sadri, trans., London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 

30. Muhammad Sa`id Ramadan al-Buti, al-Salafiyya: Marhala zamaniyya mubaraka la 

madhhab Islami, Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1998. 

31. `Abd al-Salam Yasin, al-Ihsan, Casablanca: Matbu`at al-Ufuq, 1998; Yasin, al-Islam 

bayna al-da`wa wa al-dawla: al-Minhaj al-nabawi li-taghyir al-insan, Casablanca: Matba`at alNajah, 1972; or al-Islam ghadan: al`Amal al-Islami wa harakiyya al-minhaj al-nabawi fi zaman 

al-fitna, Casablanca: Matba`at al-Najah, 1973. 
70

 32. Personal interview with `Isam al-`Aryan, Cairo 1988. Also see Murphy, Passion for 

Islam, pp. 115-123, 128-130. 

33. Gihan Shahine, “A Preacher’s Journey,” Al-Ahram Weekly, June 5-11, 2003, at 

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/641/eg11.htm; Gihan Shahine, “Preacher on the Run,” AlAhram Weekly, December 12-18, 2002; Lindsay Wise, “‘Words from the Heart’: New Forms 

of Islamic Preaching in Egypt,” M.Phil. Thesis, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, 

2003. 

34. Fahmi Huwaydi, Al-Islam wa al-Dimuqratiyya, Cairo: Markaz al-Ahram li al-Tarjuma 

wa al-Nashr, 1993.

35. “As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny and despair and anger, 

it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and 

our friends. So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle 

East,” State of the Union Address, released January 20, 2004; also see the President’s March 

8, 2005, speech on terrorism delivered at the National Defense University, http:/www.cnn.

com/2005/allpolitics/03108/bush.trancript.

36. John Walsh, “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood,” Harvard International Review, Vol. 24, 

No. 4, Winter 2003, at http://hir.harvard.edu/articles/1048/2/.

37. Tatawwa`iyya is volunteerism, an aspect of private philanthropy and charitable 

activities. See, for example, Denis Sullivan, “Islam and Development in Egypt: Civil Society 

and the State,” Mutalib and Hashmi, eds., Islam, Muslims and the Modern State, pp. 211-231. 

38. Khaled Abu Toameh, “Hamas Mass Wedding: Check the Bride at the Door,” 

Jerusalem Post, July 29, 2005. 

39. Personal interviews conducted in Jerusalem, May 22-23, 2005. 

 40. Personal interview with Abdullah al-Qarawi, June 28, 2005. Al-Qarawi, leader of 

the Jericho Brigade, had turned over weapons to the Palestinian Authority, whose security 

forces then turned on his brigade. He escaped, but his men were seized. Reports that his 

men were being tortured were received from an inside source at the military detention 

center. Palestinians consider Al-Qarawi and Zakariya Zbayda in Jenin to be effective 

commanders. 

41. Gershon Baskin, “Fragmented Beyond Repair?” Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2005; 

Khaled Duzdar, “Moving Backwards,” IPCRI News Service, July 23, 2005. Israelis carried 

their opposition to the Gaza withdrawal into the streets, with orange banners and clothing, 

while the pro-withdrawal side wore blue. The Palestinians worry that no meaningful 

Israeli-Palistinian negotiations will follow disengagement. 

42. Personal interview with Shaykh Hasan Yousef of Hamas, June 28, 2005. 

 43. Scott Wilson and Molly Moore, “Egypt Inquiry Slowed by Lack of Evidence; 

Homegrown Cell Inspired by Al Qaeda is Suspected in Attacks on Red Sea Resorts,” 

Washington Post, October 23, 2004; Sherifa Zuhur, “A New Phase for Jihad in Egypt,” 

Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 3, Issue 10, May 19 2005, at http://www.jamestown.org.

44. Fereydoun Hoveyda, The Broken Crescent: The “Threat” of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism, New York: National Committee on American Foreign Policy, 1998, 2002, p. 199.

45. “They cannot tolerate those who differ with them, certainly not long enough to 

obtain power. Impatient for that power, they begin to purge society even before they rule, 

with disastrous results for themselves.” Martin Kramer, “The Mismeasure of Political 

Islam,” M. Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate, Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv 

University, 1997, p. 170.
71

 46. Tariq al-Bishri, Al-Haraka al-Siyasiyya fi Misr, 1945–52, Cairo: n.p., 1972.

47. The Islamic Liberation Party operated in the United Kingdom and, although it was 

banned in 2005, ran a small hotel in the area off Edgeware Road/Marble Arches which has 

a large Muslim population. 

48. S.a.w.s. stands for salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, or peace be upon him, and is included 

after the mention of the Prophet Muhammad. 

49. Dilip Hiro, War Without End: The Rise of Islamist Terrorism and Global Response, pp. 

71-73.

50. Sherifa Zuhur, Saudi Arabia: Islamic Threat, Political Reform, and the Global War on 

Terror, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005, pp. 21-22; 

Joshua Teitelbaum, Holier Than Thou: Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Opposition, Washington Institute 

Policy Paper, 2000. 

51. Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj, al-Farida al-gha`iba. (pamphlet) n.p., n.d.; see also 

G. H. Jansen, The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the 

Middle East, New York: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 163-164. 

52. Also see Roberto Marin-Guzman, “Fanaticism: A Major Obstacle in the MuslimChristian Dialogue. The Case of Twentieth Century Islamic Fundamentalism,” Arab Studies 

Quarterly, Vol. 25, Issue 3, Summer 2003. 

53. Abdullah Azzam, Join the Caravan. London: Azzam Publications, 2nd edition, 

2001. 

54. Scott Atran with Taufiq Andrie, “The Emir: An Interview with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, 

Alleged Leader of the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah Organization,” conducted August 

13 and 15, 2005. Received from Jamestown Foundation Broadcast, September 15, 2005. 

55. One could contrast this more radical approach with the more moderate aims of 

the Muslim Brotherhood, as in Jamal al-Banna, al-Farida al-Ghaiba: Jihad al-nafs am Jihad alsaif? Cairo: Dar al-Thabit, 1984. Babar Ahmad, now fighting extradition from the United 

Kingdom to the United States for his role in a network of websites promoting Islamist 

extremism, established a site in 1996 called azzam.com, in honor of bin Ladin’s mentor. 

56. Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza, p. 120.

57. “Militants Shun Abbas Unity Offer,” BBC News, July 8, 2005.

58. Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005. 

59. Personal conversations with Shallah in his capacity as editor of Qira’at Siyasiyah.

60. Quoted in Ehud Sprinzak, “Rational Fanatics,” Foreign Policy, September/October 

200, p. 68.

61. Sherifa Zuhur, Saudi Arabia, pp. 22-23; Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama bin 

Laden: Global Terrorism & the Bin Laden Brotherhood, Durham: Duke University, 2002. 

62. Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, 

Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2004.

63. “CIA Agents Told To Deliver bin Laden’s Head on Ice,” May 4, 2005; The Pew Global 

Attitudes Survey, July 14, 2005, entitled “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim 

and Western Publics Support for Terror Wanes Among Muslim Publics.” Some indicators 

show that support for extremism has waned, but the report reveals very unfavorable views 

of Jewish and Christian minorities, and that support for suicide bombings in Jordan has 
72

grown and remained constant in Turkey. Moreover, Pakistani and Jordanian support for 

bin Ladin grew. 

64. To those mujahidin who wanted to travel to Iraq to wage jihad. Posted June 25, 

2004, and is available on http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1169117/posts, last visited 

4/12/05.

65. Personal observation, Riyadh, March 2005. 

 66. “Al-Qaeda: In Decline or Preparing for the Next Attack? An Interview with Saad alFaqih,” Spotlight on Terror, Jamestown Foundation, Vol. III, Issue 5, June 15, 2005, Interview 

with Mahan Abedin. 

67. “Al-Qaeda in Decline.” 

 68. Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global, Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 2005. Gerges makes the point that many groups did not join up with alQa’ida, and that Egyptian Islamic Jihad was damaged by doing so, see pp. 175, 176; that alQa’ida faces war on two fronts as well, with the West and its own disputing factions; and he 

concludes that the group has lost the war for Muslim minds, p. 270. This sounds to me like 

wishful thinking, although Gerges calls for us to rein in the GWOT since Islamic moderates 

have a role in the region, and that resembles my argument. 

69. Samir Rafaat, “Ayman al-Zawahri The World’s Second Most Wanted Man,” 

November 1, 2001, at http://www.egy.com/people. Zawahiri’s family history was misreported 

by a number of sources. 

70. Nemat Guenena, “The ‘Jihad’: An ‘Islamic Alternative’ in Egypt,” Cairo Papers in 

Social Science, Vol. 9, Monograph 2, Summer, 1986, p. 67. 

71. Guenena, The Jihad, p. 55. 

72. Fawaz A. Gerges, “The End of the Islamist Insurgency in Egypt?: Cost and 

Prospects,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 53/54, No. 4, Fall 2000.

73. Guenena, The Jihad, p. 43, 44. 

74. See al-Ahrar, December 14, 1981; or as included in al-Fatawa al-Islamiyya min Dar 

al-Ifta al-Misriyya, Cairo: 1983, pp. 3762-3792.

75. Ibid, and for a discussion of the Sword Verses, see Aboul–Enein and Zuhur, Islamic 

Rulings on Warfare, p. 7, 8, 10-12. 

76. Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, pp. 161-167. 

77. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Fursan tahta rayat al-nabi, Cairo: al-Maktabah al-Islamiyyah, 

2002, published in al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 2-12, 2001. For those who cannot read 

Arabic, a brief book review may be helpful. See Youssef Aboul-Enein, “Ayman AlZawahiri’s Knights under the Prophet’s Banner: The al-Qaeda Manifesto,” Military Review, 

Vol. 85, Issue 1, January/February 2005. 

78. Al-Jazeera, August 4, 2005; English text, BBC News, August 4, 2005, at http://news.

bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4746157.stm.

79. John Voll, “Fundamentalism in the Arab World: Egypt and the Sudan,” 

Fundamentalisms Observed, Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., p. 389; Andrew 

Hammond, “Between the Ballot and the Bullet: Egypt’s War on Terrorism,” World Press 

Review Online, November 15, 2001, at http://www.worldpress.org/mideast/1114web_egypt.htm; 

Neil MacFarquhar, “Islamic Jihad, Forged in Egypt, Is Seen as bin Laden’s Backbone,” New 

York Times, October 4, 2001; Caryle Murphy, Passion for Islam.
73

 80. “The Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt,” Human Rights Watch, 

May 2005, at http://hrw.org/reports/2005/egypt0505/; “Hostage Taking and Abuse of Female 

Detainees,” Human Rights Watch, at http://www.hrw.org/about/projects/womrep/General-108.

htm.

81. Juan Cole, a Middle East expert at the University of Michigan, is one of those 

supporting this view.

82. Bassam al-Baddarin, “Al-Qaeda Has Drawn Up a Working Strategy lasting until 

2020,” al-Quds al-Arabi, March 11, 2005; Stephen Ulph, “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy Until 2020,” 

Insurgency and Jihad, Jamestown Foundation, April 11, 2005. 

83. Ibid. 

84. “Yusuf al-Qaradawi Tells BBC Newsnight that Islam Justifies Suicide Bombings,” 

BBC Press Office, July 7, 2004, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/07_

july/07/newsnight.shtml.

85. Al-Hayat, April 25, 2001. 

86. Greg Barton, Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, Sydney: 

University of New South Wales Press, 2004. Also see C. Watson who argues that Indonesian 

Muslims have responded in three ways to state repression of their interests over the last 

century: retreating or turning inward; engaging in public protest; and using the political 

system to increase their own power within it. C. W. Watson, “Muslims and the State in 

Indonesia,” in Hussin Mutalib and Taj ul-Islam Hashmi, eds., Islam, Muslims and the Modern 

State.

87. International Crisis Group, “Recycling Militants in Indonesia: Darul Islam and 

the Australian Embassy Bombing,” Asia Report No. 92, Singapore/Brussels, February 22, 

2005. 

88. ABC/Radio Australia, Thursday, March 11, 2004; and al-Jazeera Net, March 11, 

2004. 

89. Haroon Siddiqui, “Americans Alienate Indonesia,” Toronto Star, April 7, 2005. 

The future of tighter policies to promote the GWOT in Indonesia now confronts public 

sentiment against agents of Indonesia’s National Intelligence Agency who were allegedly 

involved in murdering human rights activist Munir Said Thalib. Munir charged that special 

forces had kidnapped civil rights activists in 1997-98, who were then executed by the army. 

“Indonesia’s Security Agency Probed,” Jane’s Intelligence Digest, July 15, 2005. 

90. Atran and Andrie, “The Emir: An Interview with Abu Bakar Ba’asyir.” 

 91. http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres?...F5DDB7D23C2.htm, broadcast on July 3, 2005; 

and http://www.alghad.jo/index.php broadcast on July 5, 2005. 

92. Reuven Paz, “Islamic Legitimacy for the London Bombings,” Project for the 

Research of Islamist Movements, Vol. 3, No. 4, July 2005.

93. Peter Willems, “The Dialogue Committee is Known Internationally,” Yemen Times, 

July 18, 2005; Michael Taarnby, “Yemen’s Committee for Dialogue: Can Jihadists Return to 

Society?” Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 3, Issue 4, July 15, 2005. 

94. Statement by Leslie Campbell, Senior Associate and Regional Director for the 

Middle East and North Africa, National Democratic Institute for Democratic Affairs, 

Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Non-Proliferation, U.S. 

House of Representatives, held March 3, 2005. 
74

 95. Letter seized by U.S. forces, on January 23, 2004; included in Appendices, Brisard, 

Zarqawi, pp. 233-251. 

96. Kreikar disavowed this information which nonetheless appears in various sources. 

See Dilip Hiro, Secrets and Lies: Operation “Iraqi Freedom” and After, New York: Nation Books, 

2004, p. 124. 

97. Al-Bayyinah, March 5, 2005. 

98. Letter, January 23, 2004; included in Appendices, Brisard, Zarqawi, pp. 235-241.

99. Ruling issued in Case No. 127/24 (Constitutional) filed by Nadia Eskandar Michael 

against the President of the Republic, Speaker of People’s Assembly, Prime Minister, and 

Phillips Zacharia Mina, on June 2, 2005. 

100. “A Message from a Soldier to a Commander,” Zarqawi’s tape to Usama bin 

Ladin. 

101. Ibid.

102. His book is Da’wat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya. Murad al-Shishani, “Abu Mus`ab 

al-Suri and the Third Generation of Salafi-Jihadists,” Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 3, Issue 16, 

August 11, 2005. 

103. See, for example, General John Abizaid’s June testimony to Congress, in which he 

noted the increased presence of foreign fighters and that the insurgency was as strong as it 

had been 6 months previously. “Abizaid: Insurgency Still Strong,” Christian Science Monitor, 

June 24, 2005, at http://csmonitor.com/2005/0624/dailyUpdate.html; and New York Times, July 

24, 2005.

104. See, for instance, Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser, “Jihadists Turn the Web into 

Base of Operations,” The Washington Post, August 7, 2005; and idem, “The Web as Weapon,” 

The Washington Post, August 9, 2005; Dan Murphy, “Iraq, Internet Fuel Growth of Global 

Jihad,” Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2005 edition; numerous articles in Terrorism Focus

2004-05; “The New Al-Qaeda: jihad.com” BBC News, July 20, 2005, at http://www.bbc.co.uk, 

which describes Part 1 of Peter Taylor’s The New Al-Qaeda, aired on BBC 2; Jack Kelley, 

“Militants Wire Web with Links to Jihad,” USA Today, July 10, 2002; Reuven Paz, “Qa’idat 

al-Jihad: A New Name on the Road to Palestine,” May 7, 2002, at http://www.ict.org.il/articles/

articledet.cfm?articleid=436.

105. Posted at http://ekhlas.com/forum. See Stephen Ulph, “New Online Book Lays Out 

al-Qaeda’s Military Strategy,” Terrorism Monitor, April 11, 2005. 

106. Salim al-Makki, ““Believers Exact Sweet Revenge,” formerly posted at Alneda.com, 

October 14, 2002; Abu Ubayd al-Quarashi, “A Lesson of War,” at www.al-Ansar, December 

19, 2002; and Sayf al-Din al-Ansari, “The Washington and New York Raid,” at jihad.net; then 

quoted collectively in Michael Scheuer, “Coalition Warfare: How al-Qa’ida Uses the World 

Islamic Front Against Crusaders and Jews,” Part 1, Terrorism Focus, Vol. II, Issue 7, March 

31, 2005. 

107. http://www.nnuu.org, last visited July 11, 2005.

108. Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey, “The Madrasa Myth,” New York Times, June 14, 

2005. 

109. BBC News, July 29, 2005. 

110. “Seismic Shock in Kuwait,” Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Jane’s Security News 

Briefs, July 1, 2005.
75

 111. For example, here mosque reform is combined with a call for modern education, 

as if it does not already exist in the region. “U.S. Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11,” 

Rand Project Air Force Research Brief, 2004. Whether in DoD, universities, or other public 

lectures, I frequently respond to audience members who think modern education has not 

yet been established in the Muslim world. 

112. Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious 

Transformation in Egypt, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, p. 233.

113. Personal interviews in Beirut, the South, and the Biqa carried out in the 1980s, 1999, 

2000, and 2001. Chartouni-Dubarry, “Hizballah: From Militia to Political Party,” and Giles 

Trendle, “Hizballah: Pragmatism and Popular Standing,” in Rosemary Hollis and Nadim 

Shehadi, eds, Lebanon on Hold, Oxford: Centre of Lebanese Studies, 1996; Nizar A. Hamzeh, 

“Lebanon’s Hizbullah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary Accommodation,” Third 

World Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1993, pp. 321-337; Augustus Richard Norton, “Lebanon: The 

Internal Conflict and the Iranian Connection,” in John Esposito, ed., The Iranian Revolution: 

Its Global Impact, Miami, FL: International University Press, 1990; Augustus Richard Norton, 

Hizballah of Lebanon: Extremist Ideals and Mundane Politics, Washington DC: Council on 

Foreign Relations, 2000; Sami G. Hajjar, Hizballah: Terrorism, National Liberation or Menace?

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, August 2002. 

114. Based on personal interviews carried out in Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the 

Biqa` since 1999. 

115. International Crisis Group, “Mr. Abbas Goes to Washington. Can He Still 

Succeed?” Middle East Briefing No. 17, Amman/Brussels, May 24, 2005. 

 116. Personal interview with Shaykh Hasan Yousef, June 28, 2005, Ramallah, West 

Bank. 

117. Assaf Moghadam, “Suicide Bombings in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” May 

2002; Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 26, No. 2, March/April 2003. This profile may 

never have been helpful, but outside of Moghadam’s comments about Palestinians, it 

appears in the only detailed criminological/sociological study of Egyptian Islamists. See 

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Islamic Groups,” International Journal 

of Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1980, which surveyed a small number of prisoners. 

His findings were repeated in many studies of Islamism. When much of the population 

immigrates from villages to the cities, as in Egypt, and is of a lower middle class social 

and economic background, the sample reflects the broader population. If such a sample 

produced Islamists, then, scholars reasoned, it must be related to social anomie and the stress 

of modernization and urbanization. But when the urbanized and educated adopted and 

promoted Islamism, this sample no longer reflects the social background of all adherents.

 118. Miriam Cooke, “Women’s Jihad Before and After September 11,” S. Zuhur, ed.,

Women and Gender in the Middle East and the Muslim World Today, in review; Barbara Victor, 

Shahidas: Femmes Kamikazes de Palestines, Montreal: Flammarion Quebec, 2002. 

119. Mary Jo Hatch, Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic, and Post-Modern Perspectives, 

New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 102-103. 

120. See http://www.islammemo.cc, last visited July 11, 2005. 

121. The Lebanese government estimates 17,415 missing, among whom 13,968 were 

classified as “kidnapped and presumed dead.” “Lebanon,” Human Rights Developments, 

Human Rights Watch Organization, at http://www.hrp.org. 
76

 122. Ibrahim al-Marashi, “Iraq’s Hostage Crisis: Kidnappings, Mass Media, and the 

Iraqi Insurgency,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 4, December 2004. 

123. James Hider, “Ayatollah’s Despair at ‘Genocide’ of Suicide Bombings,” London 

Times, July 19, 2005.