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TERRORIST IDEOLOGY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

OF THE

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate

(II)

SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

[Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.]

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER BOND, Missouri, Vice Chairman

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

RON WYDEN, Oregon

EVAN BAYH, Indiana

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BILL NELSON, Florida

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island

JOHN WARNER, Virginia

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

HARRY REID, Nevada, Ex Officio

MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio

CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Ex Officio

JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Ex Officio

ANDREW W. JOHNSON, Staff Director

LOUIS B. TUCKER, Minority Staff Director

KATHLEEN P. MCGHEE, Chief Clerk

(III)

CONTENTS

JUNE 12, 2007

OPENING STATEMENTS

Rockefeller, Hon. John D. IV, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from West Virginia ... 1

Bond, Hon. Christopher S., Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Missouri ....... 4

WITNESSES

Ulph, Stephen, senior fellow, the Jamestown Foundation and research associate, Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy, West Point ....... 6

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8

Cragin, Kim, international policy analyst, the Rand Corporation ...................... 11

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13

Kimmage, Daniel, regional analyst, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 18

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20

(1)

TERRORIST IDEOLOGY

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007

U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m., in room

SH–216, Hart Senate Office Building, the Honorable Jay Rockefeller (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Rockefeller, Bayh, Feingold, Nelson of Florida,

Whitehouse, Bond, Warner, Chambliss, Hatch, and Snowe.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV,

CHAIRMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. The Committee will come to order.

Today the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence meets in one

of our rare open hearings—and they are fairly rare—to discuss violent religious extremism. I am very pleased to look out and see that

there are so many people here, particularly young people, because

this is an unbelievably deep, complicated, and powerful subject.

We’re going to discuss the radicalization process that enables individuals to commit horrible acts against innocent men, women,

and children. What is it that fuels them? What is it that holds

them back, if it does?

Because of the sensitive and classified nature of our oversight,

our Committee conducts virtually all of our hearings in private and

in great secrecy, so that we’re mostly out of view. That’s the way

we often tend to prefer it, and there is some distinction as to how

people feel about that. At those times, we review and evaluate very

sensitive intelligence, including efforts to thwart terrorism, both

here and abroad. But occasionally there are aspects associated with

the U.S. intelligence community’s mission that I believe can and in

this case, the Vice Chairman and I feel, must be discussed in public.

Unlike most other meetings of the Committee, we will not be receiving any hearing from the intelligence community. Rather, we’re

going to be hearing from a panel of experts outside of Government—I’ll introduce them in time—who study and analyze violent

Islamic extremism and the tenets of the terrorist ideology.

Defeating terrorism is America’s top national security priority.

The intelligence community devotes considerable manpower and resources to tracking terrorists and disrupting their plots. But, as we

carry out these efforts, we cannot ignore the larger issue of

radicalization. A successful counterterrorism strategy must include

steps for preventing the spread of the violent extremism that atVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Apr 22, 2008 Jkt 040579 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\40579.TXT DianeA PsN: DianeA
2

tempts to legitimize violence directed at civilians and fuels terrorist

recruitment.

Nearly 6 years after the attack of 9/11, I am personally not convinced that the United States has a comprehensive and effective

strategy in place to reverse the troubling spread of terrorist

jihadism among Muslim and Arab communities around the world—

not all, obviously. I’m deeply concerned that the progress that the

United States and its allies have achieved in identifying, capturing,

and killing terrorists has been eroded, if not offset, by our inability

to deprive terrorists of the ideological inroads that they need to

survive and to carry out their murderous attacks.

The terrorist threat has metastasized since America’s invasion of

Afghanistan, but have our efforts to combat its transformation

evolved as well? In the past 6 weeks, two important reports were

released that provide valuable snapshots—one global and one domestic. The first report is the State Department’s annual country

report on terrorism that was completed in conjunction with the National Counterterrorism Center and released on April 30 of this

year. The second report is the first-ever nationwide survey of Muslim-Americans that was conducted by the Pew Research Center for

People and the Press, and that was released on May 22.

The State Department report gets to the question regarding

whether or not we are capturing, killing, deterring and dissuading

more terrorists than are being recruited, than are being

radicalized, that are being trained and deployed. Are we doing

these things, but the net effect is in fact net-negative and increases

all of this? Sadly, the answer to this question is as indisputable

today as it was nearly 4 years ago, when it was raised by then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in a memo to General Pace and other

Administration officials.

According to the State Department, in 2006 there were more

than 14,000 terrorist attacks worldwide that resulted in more than

20,000 deaths. This represents a 25 percent increase in attacks and

a 40 percent rise in deaths from 2005, 1 year previous. Why? The

report warns of ‘‘a steadfast al-Qa’ida that is planning attacks in

northwest Pakistan as well as expanding its propaganda campaign

to invigorate supporters, win converts, and gain recruits.’’ They

seem to be doing it.

The State Department report also reaffirms that achieving an

end to mass casualty terrorist attacks will require more than eliminating terrorist safehavens and incarceration or killing terrorist

leaders. On this point, it states that the underlying grievances and

conflicts provide the fuel that powers the process of radicalization.

The sobering assessment offered by the State Department report

is tempered somewhat by the Pew report, which, as I indicated,

was the domestic side of this. It was a survey of Muslim-Americans. That study found a diverse Muslim-American community that

is decidedly American in their outlook, values, and attitudes. In

comparison to Muslim communities in Europe, Muslim-Americans

are found to be mostly assimilated into American society, happy

with their lives, and moderate with respect to so many of the

issues that have divided Muslims and westerners around the rest

of the world.

3

The fact that Muslim-Americans are generally happy with their

lives, assimilated and successful in America is not surprising to

me. We are a country of immigrants, with a rich history of welcoming people of different faces and cultures, which is one of the

reasons that many of the people come from around the world and

seek to make America their home.

Nonetheless, even in the Pew Center’s mostly positive report

there are areas of concern. Although the study found that MuslimAmericans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than Muslims in western European countries, the study suggests there are

certain segments of the U.S. Muslim public that are more accepting

of violent Islamic extremism than others. For example, while 80

percent of Muslim-Americans say that suicide bombings of civilians

to defend Islam cannot be justified, 13 percent of Muslim-Americans say that it can be justified, at least rarely. This sentiment is

strongest—and this is important—amongst those who are 30 or

below. That’s called the future.

Additionally, a majority of Muslim-Americans, 53 percent, say it

has been more difficult to be a Muslim in the United States since

the September 11 terrorist attack, and they believe that the U.S.

Government singles out Muslims for increased surveillance and

monitoring. Most worrisome, only 1 in 4 Muslim-Americans were

found to believe that the U.S.-led war on terror is a sincere effort

to reduce terrorism, and only 40 percent said that they believed

that Arab men were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Do we understand the reasons for these sentiments and views?

Are they early indications of susceptibility in Muslim-American

communities to the terrorist message of hate and violence? To what

extent has the invasion of Iraq and our prolonged military presence

there shaped how Muslims view American efforts to combat terrorism?

Now, the Committee’s report last month on intelligence assessments prior to the Iraq war—that is, what did intelligence predict

before the war about what would happen after—revealed that the

intelligence community accurately warned that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that would be exploited

by al-Qa’ida and other terrorists and lead to a worsening theat of

anti-American extremism around the world.

The intelligence community’s warnings that al-Qa’ida probably

would try to reestablish its presence in Afghanistan while the

United States was diverted with concerns in post-war Iraq has

proven out as well. In my view, the Administration’s unwillingness

to heed these intelligence warnings or plan for those outcomes has

further compounded the challenge before us.

So our Nation must act aggressively to counter terrorist plots

such as those uncovered at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, and JFK Airport

in New York, but to be effective, we must bring all forces and all

expertise to bear, and all thinking to bear, which includes gaining

a greater understanding of what triggers individuals to believe that

taking the lives of innocent men, women, and children will somehow address their perceived grievances. We have to understand

that.

We will look to our distinguished witnesses to provide us with

their insights as to the scope and root causes of the radicalization

4

dynamic and what steps they would recommend taking to combat

its spread.

Before introducing our witnesses, I now recognize Vice Chairman

Bond for any comments that he might wish to make.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, VICE

CHAIRMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM MISSOURI

Vice Chairman BOND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing, because we

both believe this is an extremely important topic, and I appreciate

our willingness to hold this hearing to look into this issue.

I think we all know that the global war on terror is about 20 percent kinetic and about 80 percent ideological, with the ruthless,

bloodthirsty terrorists who are totally committed to killing Americans. When they rear their heads, we should whack them. We’re

really good at whacking them, but as my friend the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee has said, if all we do

is whack people, then we end up playing a game of ‘‘whack-a-mole.’’

And while we are whacking those who are already committed to

suicide attacks and devastating assaults against us, we first must

need to make sure that we’re getting out the right message of what

we’re doing. I was deeply disturbed when our office received an email from one of our military men in Iraq, who outlined what had

happened the previous weekend—two very successful operations,

one setting up an embed operation with Iraqi police and the army,

another taking down a suicide vehicle entity, which were done with

killing some terrorists, but no Iraqi civilians. Yet when I got back

to check the e-mails and the news wires, the American media was

saying that 25 Iraqi police killed by suicide bomber, 50 civilians injured by U.S. actions. It was a total distortion of what they had

done.

And he went on to say something that I believe: ‘‘Make no mistake; the one area in which we are absolutely, positively and without a doubt losing this war is in information operations. We’re getting demolished, both by nefarious enemy media outlets, moles and

reporters, either on insurgent payrolls or known sympathies with

insurgent organizations, and by a collective western media that either fails to realize or fails to care that they are often being manipulated by enemy elements. What incredible economy of effort the

enemy is afforded when U.S. media is their megaphone? Why

spend precious resources on developing your own propaganda machine when you can make your opponent’s own news outlets scream

your message louder than you could ever have hoped to do it independently?’’

Well, that’s one part of it—getting the message out of what’s

happening. We are failing, and we are failing that badly. But we

also must focus the weight of our effort on the ideological front,

where we have to reach would-be terrorists. We have to reach the

much broader Muslim community, whether it’s in the Middle East,

southeast Asia, or the United States, to let them know, through either what we would call public diplomacy or strategic influence,

that we have good intentions toward them, and we need to back

those intentions up with specifics—building schools and hospitals.

5

What we’re doing in the southern Philippines, for example, is working very well. Unfortunately, we’re not doing enough of it.

But we also need, in fighting the 80 percent of the war that’s ideological effectively, to have a better understanding of the ideology

we’re confronting. And we need to have a much better way of understanding the role that ideology plays in motivating, radicalizing,

and legitimizing violent extremism. We hear a great deal about the

subject. Some of it, I fear, is wrong, and some of it is confusing.

But I look forward to the witnesses today to help us straighten

it all out. Really, the subject of terror ideology needs further exploration and understanding. In so doing, we have to consult the best

minds we find, and for this reason it’s very helpful, I think, not

only to us but I hope to our colleagues in having an open hearing

where we will be able to establish a record that will be available

to all of us.

All three of today’s witnesses have conducted original research

on the topic, and I can assure my colleagues that a careful study

of their works is worth the time and effort. They have spent extensive time in the Arab and Muslims regions of the world. Two are

fluent in Arabic and other relevant languages.

Stephen Ulph’s work at the Jamestown Foundation has been an

excellent source of insightful analysis for us. Kim Cragin of the

RAND Corporation has done some very thoughtful monographs.

Having not read all of them, but having read some, I commend

them to my colleagues. And Mr. Daniel Kimmage of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has worked to complete a major study of the

Iraq insurgency—I guess it’s not shameful to put in a plug—called

‘‘Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas’’ that will be

released later this month.

But given the present situation in Iraq, it should be clear to all

of us that we have a very long way to go before we become competitive in the conflict of ideas, and I am convinced that we do have

a lot way to go.

That being said, I expect we will learn a great deal today from

the witnesses before us. I join with the Chair and the rest of the

Committee in welcoming our witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. You’ve

done my work. You’ve introduced the panel, and very well.

I’ll just add this personal note before we turn it over to them. I

will confess to you that I spend, as does Senator Bond and Senator

Warner and Senator Bayh, Senator Nelson, an enormous amount

of time on intelligence. And we read what’s going on all over the

world. A lot of it we can’t talk about, but so what. What haunts

me, what absolutely haunts me, is that we may be prosecuting the

mission of suppressing terrorism in its most obvious embodiment

and missing the whole point on what it is that makes people into

terrorists who are willing to do these things.

It’s a haunting thought, around the world and in this country,

and that’s why our witnesses are here.

Mr. Stephen Ulph, will you please lead off.

6

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN ULPH, SENIOR FELLOW, THE

JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION, AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATE,

COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER, U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY,

WEST POINT

Mr. ULPH. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, Members of the

Committee, I’d like to thank you——

Senator WARNER. Could you tell us about the Jamestown Foundation? Is that related to the Jamestown in Virginia and all of the

things we’re doing down there?

Mr. ULPH. I don’t believe so. I hope not.

Senator WARNER. Well, your Queen was down there.

Mr. ULPH. I think you’ve hopefully recovered from that.

I would just like to thank you for inviting me to participate in

today’s hearing. On behalf of the Jamestown Foundation—not that

one—we greatly appreciate this opportunity to be here today and

address the Committee.

My research endeavor is entirely focused on an act of cartography—that is, to map out the range, the nature, and the purposes

of the jihadist ideology from primary sources. The aim of this research ultimately is to provide a textbook, a textbook which is

being supported and funded by the United States Institute of

Peace. This textbook will be for future study and analysis—that is,

one which will categorize and evaluate the enormous and, unfortunately, growing body of ideological works that is freely distributed

on the Internet.

Just gauging the effort that the jihadis are putting into this endeavor, it becomes fairly clear pretty early on that the ideological

struggle is where the center of gravity for the jihad lies. The point

was very succinctly made by a sympathizer, writing in autumn of

2005 on a jihadi Internet forum. He argued, under an interesting

title, ‘‘The al-Qa’ida organization is now finished,’’ and went on to

explain that the jihad is now entering on an interesting new phase

‘‘which the infidels are unaware of or do not wish to believe.’’

And it turns out that the infidels among us apparently are ‘‘still

fixated on fighting individuals, oblivious to the fact that they are

actually fighting an idea, one that has spread across the globe like

fire and which is embraced even by those whose faith is a mustard

seed.’’

Now it’s true, the Internet is at present widely and freely distributing books on doctrine and culture for purposes specific to the

jihad. None of this is being intercepted. In terms of quality and

quantity, they amount to what is frankly an entire educational program. It’s a curriculum of jihad, if you wish. And this curriculum

shows us the sophistication of the process of radicalization.

They show how the Mujahidin attract the uncommitted broad

armchair sympathizer, detach him from his social environment, undermine his self image hitherto as an observant Muslim, and centralize jihad as his true Islamic identity. Now here, in short, is an

entire cultural engineering project. It’s taking place in front of us

on the Internet. We can see it daily. And few of us, if any, are

choosing to look at this.

Please let me emphasize the study of these works is not some obscure academic exercise. These works have immediate relevance to

strategy and tactical operations, since we have to keep in mind

7

that, whatever the jihadis do, in each case the argument has to be

made doctrinally. This is something which not many people realize,

not many people are aware of. The doctrinal propriety of jihadi activity must be maintained. Without this, they risk losing the propaganda war.

Now the study of these ideological works allows us to understand

the priorities—and this is important—the priorities as perceived by

the Mujahidin themselves, and it ensures that we don’t rely on our

own starting points—that is, what we think those priorities are.

And, if nothing else, knowledge of the ideology teaches us not to

underestimate the jihadis intellectually.

For it becomes clear fairly soon by even a cursory reading of the

materials that the jihadis have painstakingly constructed over decades, a serious, cogently argued, doctrinally coherent intellectual

infrastructure for the war—an intellectual infrastructure. They are

engaged, as I said, in a massive education project. While our gaze,

unfortunately, is fixed on other things, they are going about this

unopposed, which begs the question. If they are investing in this

ideological war so heavily, why aren’t we? Aren’t we involved in

some way? It must be clear to everyone that there are direct implications for the United States on the domestic front, for there is a

dimension of jihadist ideology whose threat is not so explicit where

the threat is not to the physical structure of our nation states but

to the horizontal infrastructure of our democracies—that is, those

entirely uncodified, unenforceable relations—those habits, obligations and disciplines that underpin the interactions between citizens.

You could list them, obvious things that you and I would take

for granted—respect for personal privacy, the open nature of society, multiformity, other ethical and ideological orientations, or the

active will to promote social cohesion. These relations the jihadist

ideology is painstakingly and explicitly attempting to destroy. And

here is where they have located our Achilles heel. For the fact is,

we lack understanding of the nature, causes and position of this

jihadist culture within the broader Islamic tradition.

Because we lack this self-confidence, we have a reluctance to

challenge the threat. But if we continue to overlook it, we are going

to find ourselves, sooner or later, wrestling with an entire generation brought up in an alternative mental universe, different from

our own and educated into a radicalized, aggressive form of religious absolutism.

In case you might feel that this still may be an obscure issue,

this ideology—you can see it on the Internet—is now so prolific

that a sympathizer can live an entire lifetime without ever having

to stray from its cultural curriculum.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Can I just ask—I can hear you perfectly, but you are speaking fairly quickly and I just want to know

that everybody in here can hear. You might move the microphone

closer and maybe slow down just a little bit, because every word

you are saying is important.

Mr. ULPH. Is that better? OK.

It has been said that jihad is someone else’s intellectual civil

war. But this civil war is not being fought, to quote a phrase, ‘‘in

some faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.’’

8

It’s being fought here, just beyond the walls of this building, in a

war for the minds of Muslim youth. Do we not have the right to

take sides, to decide what form of ideological spectrum is permitted

in a society that values tolerance, diversity and the rights of the

individual?

Clearly we do. But how do we take sides? Who are the ones with

whom we should be associating? Who are our false friends? We

don’t know the answer because we haven’t provided ourselves with

the means to navigate this issue.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a difficult task. It’s not beyond the capacities of the world’s most powerful Nation, with its unparalleled

concentration of intellectual and organizational skills, to set about

the task methodically. I suppose if we have to engage in some advance work of detection, the fact is that all the raw materials are

available. They’re all open source. Part of the problem with intelligence analysis to date is the predilection for closed-source material. This is all open source.

These materials must be open source because what the jihadis

are engaged in is a massive educational program, and by nature,

an educational program must be public. It’s a huge propaganda exercise to be shouted from the rooftops. And, believe me, shout from

the rooftops they do. But so far we’ve not been listening.

It is, I think you will agree, simply unbelievable that we are now

in our 6th year after the attacks on September 11 and still without

a coherent map of the enemy and their cause. Yet we know that

having this map will enable us to protect ourselves from the slow

erosion of our commonly held values, which alone can safeguard

our peace and our freedoms. It is my firm belief that investment

in the study of this culture has been disastrously late and that we

have given those who poison the minds of Muslim youth an unacceptable head start. We must hasten to close this gap and gear ourselves up for the long struggle ahead.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ulph follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT STEPHEN ULPH, SENIOR FELLOW, THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION,RESEARCH ASSOCIATE WITH THE COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER AT THE U.S.

MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT

Mr. Chairman,

My research endeavor is entirety focused on an act of cartography. To map out

the range, nature and purposes of the Jihadist ideology, from primary sources.

The aim of this research is to provide a text book for future study and analysis,

one that will have categorized and evaluated the enormous—and growing—body of

ideological works freely distributed on the net.

I began this endeavor for the simple reason that current commentary and analysis

appeared to be re-circulating either the same limited number of source materials—

often those which the jihadis had chosen for us as an audience—or analyses of those

who had no access at all to the foundation texts, discussions and debates among the

mujahideen.

Early on I was struck by one thing—that at least 60 percent (this is a conservative estimate) of the materials circulated on jihadist chat forums and specialist

sites were not located in the sections devoted to news commentary or audio-visual

propaganda. They populated instead the ‘doctrinal’ and ‘cultural’ sections.

Just gauging the effort put into this endeavor, it becomes clear that the ideological struggle is where the center of gravity for the jihad ties. The point was succinctly made by a sympathizer writing in autumn 2005 on a jihadi internet forum.

In a posting bearing the extraordinary title: ‘‘The al-Qaeda organization is now finished’’ the writer went on to explain that the jihad is now entering on a new phase

‘‘which the infidels are unaware of, or do not wish to believe.’’ It turns out that the

infidels among us

9

‘‘are still fixated on fighting individuals, oblivious to the fact that they are actually fighting an idea, one that has spread across the globe like fire and which

is embraced even by those whose faith is a mustard seed.’’

It soon becomes obvious that these ‘doctrinal’ and ‘cultural’ works are meticulously composed and written for purposes specific to the jihad. They form its lifeblood, its intellectual infrastructure. They are also in constant circulation. They

amount to an entire educational program, a ‘‘curriculum of jihad’’ if you will, and

with great skill illustrate to us the process of radicalization. They show how the

mujahideen attract the uncommitted broad armchair sympathizer, detach him from

his social and intellectual environment, undermine his self-image hitherto as an observant Muslim, introduce what the ideologues claims is ‘real Islam’, re-script history in terms of a perennial conflict, centralize jihad as his Islamic identity, train

him not only militarily but also socially and psychologically for jihad and doctrinally

defend the behavior of the mujahideen against criticism.

For the jihad is highly sensitive to public opinion. It depends on the mujahideen

being able to maintain their claims to authenticity and the moral high ground. We

see this particularly at times of crisis, when Muslims are caught in the crossfire,

a bombing goes awry, or scholars cast doubt on the Islamic credentials of their actions. Productivity peaks at these moments. Here, in short, is an entire cultural engineering project that is taking place. And few, if any, are looking at it.

Let me emphasize: the study of these works is not an obscure academic exercise.

They not only provide the ideological bedrock for recruitment, and the political validation and moral justification for violence, but have immediate relevance to strategy

and tactical operations. From the classic strategy works such as The Management

of Barbarism and the 1600-page Call to Global Islamic Resistance to works explaining the legality of executing prisoners and Ambassadors, the killing of women and

children, and the use of human shields, the permissibility of suicide bombings, the

propriety of mutilating dead bodies of American soldiers, to the use of weapons of

mass destruction. In each case the case has to be made doctrinally if violence is not

done to the mujahideen’s claims to authenticity, and they thus start to lose the

propaganda war.

Study of these ideological works allows us to understand priorities as perceived

by the mujahideen themselves and counter our own false starting points on what

we think these priorities are. If nothing else, knowledge of the ideology teaches us

not to underestimate the jihadis intellectually, for it soon becomes clear that they

have painstakingly constructed, over decades, a serious, cogently argued, academically and ideologically coherent intellectual infrastructure to their war. They are, in

short, engaged in a massive re-education project, and they are going about this unopposed.

Which begs the question: if they are investing in this ideological war so heavily,

why aren’t we? Aren’t we involved in some way? It must be clear to everyone that

there are direct implications for the United States on the domestic front. For there

is a dimension of Jihadist ideology whose threat is not so explicit, where the threat

is not to the physical infrastructure of our nation states—which our efficient and

dedicated security services have to date proved themselves successful in defending—

but to the ’horizontal’ infrastructure of our democracies. That is, those entirely uncodified and un-enforceable relations—habits, obligations and disciplines that underpin the interactions between citizens. Disciplines such as the respect for personal

privacy, for the open nature of society, for multiformity, diverse interests and other

ethical and ideological orientations, the active will to promote social cohesion, trust

and the harmonization of interests, and the support of community-based organizations. That is, the ingredients that go to make up active citizenship.

These relations the jihadist ideology is painstakingly, explicitly attempting to destroy. The electronic library catalogue is filling up with works that deconstruct modern civic society, point for point. Here is where the jihadists have located our Achilles Heel. For standing in our way is the lack of understanding among our policymakers as to the nature, causes and position of this jihadist culture within the

broader Islamic tradition. This opacity generates not only an incapacity, but also a

reluctance, to challenge the threat. Yet if we continue to overtook Jihadism’s ideological program it will incur serious costs for the democratic system, which will find

itself wrestling with an entire generation brought up in an alternative mental universe from our own, and educated into a radicalized, aggressive form of religious absolutism. This ideology is now of such prolific productivity that a sympathizer can

live an entire lifetime without ever having to stray from its cultural ‘curriculum.’

It has been said that the jihad is someone else’s intellectual civil war. But this

civil war is not being fought—to quote a phrase—‘‘in some far-away country between

people of whom we know nothing’’, but is being fought here, just beyond the walls

of these buildings, in a war for the minds of Muslim youth. Do we not have the right

10

to take sides? To decide what form of ideological spectrum is permitted in a society

that values tolerance, diversity and the rights of the individual? Clearly we do. But

how do we take sides? Who are the ones with whom we should be associating? Who

are our potential allies and who our false friends? We don’t know the answer to

these questions, because we haven’t provided ourselves with the means to navigate.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a difficult task. It is not beyond the capacities of the

world’s most powerful nation, with its unparalleled concentration of intellectual and

organizational skills, to set about the task methodically.

And it is not as if we have to engage in some advance work of detection. The fact

is, all the raw materials are available, they are all open source. For there are no

secrets to this ideology. There can’t be, because what the jihadis are engaged in is

a massive educational program, a huge propaganda exercise. By nature, that cannot

be hidden, it must be shouted from the rooftops. And shout from the rooftops they

do. But so far we have not been listening.

More than that, we do not even have to thrash around finding out how or where

to start the task. A significant part of our work has already been done for us, by

the jihadists themselves. Just dipping into the output of jihadi scholars throws up

inward-focused analyses of the organizational and ideological problems faced by the

mujahideen. The following treatises, for instance by the London-based jihadist scholar, Abu Baseer al-Tartousi: ‘Reasons for the failure of Some Jihadist Movements in

Transformation Operations,’ This is a type of Jihad we do not want’and ‘Jihad

Groups—Between Recognition of Errors and Reconsideration of Principles’ provide

unique insights into the ideological mechanisms of the jihad and how these impact

on success on the ground. The famous al-Qaeda strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Surf has

actually made a speciality of this kind of analysis, as illustrated by works such as

‘Observations on the Jihadi experience in Syria’ and ‘What I Witnessed on the Jihad

in Algeria.’ All these works give clear and incisive diagnoses on the reasons for failure, the problems among the mujahideen and the effectiveness of counter-jihad policies, the failure to win over the scholars and preachers or communicate their ideological message. Most important of all, they lay out for us the internal points of tension between jihadism and traditional Islam—the areas where the jihadis themselves feel their weaknesses lie. We are looking here at the jihad’s soft underbelly.

To sum up, Mr. Chairman:

1. We have been confronting and intercepting fully formed jihadists, but these are

merely at the end of a long-term ideological training process that produces them;

2. We have yet to tackle this production process, which means that they will continue to replace themselves at a rate faster than we can intercept them;

3. We have underestimated the ideological training, which is of the magnitude of

an entire education and indoctrination system, and we fail to understand its purpose;

4. We have failed to take the Jihadists seriously, intellectually and culturally, and

as a result their corrosive influence is progressing unopposed.

It is, I think you will agree, simply unbelievable that we are now in our sixth

year after the attacks on September 11th and still without a coherent map of the

enemy, of their cause and their ideological methodology. And yet we know that having this proper orientation will enable us to know, in depth, our enemy, to pinpoint

and exploit internal weaknesses in their ideology, to know who are our friends are

and ally ourselves accordingly, to understand our own vulnerabilities at home and

protect ourselves from the slow erosion of our commonly held values which alone

can safeguard our peace and our freedoms.

It is my firm belief that investment in the study of this culture—on both the security and educational fronts—has been disastrously late, and that we have given

those that poison the minds of Muslim youth an unacceptable head start.

We must hasten to rectify this deficit, and gear ourselves up for the long struggle

ahead.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you very much. It is important

for everybody to hear, and this is not a symphonic hall for hearing,

so please speak strongly.

Kim Cragin, as the Vice Chairman has said, is the international

policy analyst with RAND Corporation.

11

STATEMENT OF KIM CRAGIN, INTERNATIONAL POLICY

ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION

Ms. CRAGIN. I’d like to thank the Chair and Ranking Member

and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for inviting me to testify on the subject of terrorist ideology.

My testimony today will address two basic questions—how have

al-Qa’ida leaders and other like-minded ideologues reached out to

individuals and communities and, second, how have individuals

and communities responded to this appeal? As you know, the alQa’ida world view has its roots in Maktab al-Khidamat, which was

begun in 1984 by the Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam, with financial support from Usama bin Ladin. MAK was created to support Arab fighters as they traveled to Afghanistan to evict the Soviet forces.

Beyond providing support, MAK also offered classes on political

Islam in an attempt to indoctrinate recruits in the violent Salafi

jihadi movement. Today, when people refer to terrorist ideology,

they mostly mean ideas articulated by the violent Salafi jihadists.

At the core of this movement is a rigid assertion of monotheism,

a rigid interpretation of the Qur’an, and an opposition to innovation, which often leads to a discussion of attempts to establish a

society or Caliphate built on Islamic law.

The misapplication or absence of Islamic law, in many minds, accounts for the problems in society, such as poverty, injustice, and

corruption. Of course, not all Salafis are violent. Most Salafis emphasize Dawa or revival as a means of reform, while al-Qa’ida leaders advocate violence.

During the 1990s, al-Qa’ida often combined ideological appeals

with political objectives. For example, al-Qa’ida documents captured by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and released by West

Point reveal complaints by al-Qa’ida members in Somalia that local

fighters refused to adopt al-Qa’ida’s ideology. Al-Qa’ida leaders responded that repelling U.S. forces from Somalia was a sufficient

objective in and of itself. This reply is interesting, because it demonstrates a willingness to pursue short-term political objectives. It

also demonstrates a layer of al- Qa’ida rhetoric that emerged in the

1990s—anti-Americanism.

An examination of jihadi Web sites in a post-9/11 world, as was

mentioned by my colleague, reveals some emerging trends in the

Salafi jihadi movement. A new generation of strategic thinkers has

emerged, including Abu Musab al-Suri and Abu Bakr Naji. These

thinkers appear even more willing now than in the past to make

tactical concessions to win over audiences’ hearts and minds.

In contrast, hard core al-Qa’ida leaders now evidence reticence to

make concessions. For example, in March 2006 Ayman al-Zawahiri

rebuked Hamas for its participation in democratic elections. Hamas

leaders, in turn, responded with equal venom, asserting al-Qa’ida

had wrongly used indiscriminate violence against innocents in

Amman. These two examples, Somalia in the 1990s and Palestinians today, illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of al-Qa’ida’s

ideological appeal.

Al-Qa’ida leaders have had the greatest effect in translating ideology into action when they can marry their global world view with

12

anti-Americanism and local political objectives. Fissures have occurred when this marriage goes bad.

Up to this point I have focused on the evolution of al-Qa’ida’s ideological arguments, but the most important question for U.S. national security, in my opinion, is how have audiences responded to

this appeal? To answer this question, it’s useful to explore the

radicalization processes that individuals have gone through as they

have progressed from being sympathetic to al-Qa’ida to being willing to pick up a gun.

Terrorist radicalization processes can be understood as having

three basic phases. In the first phase, termed ‘‘availability,’’ environmental factors make certain individuals susceptible to appeals

from the terrorist groups, including being brought up in a family

that articulates a violent Salafi world view, frustration with local

government policies, peer group influences, or frustration with foreign policies.

The second phase, recruitment, occurs after initial contact between individuals and the clandestine group. Recruitment often occurs in nodes, including prayer groups, sports clubs, charitable organizations, or even criminal gangs.

The third phase of the radicalization process yields a commitment to action on the part of certain individuals. This final step is

the most difficult to isolate because it seems to vary the most individual by individual. In some instances, a specific grievance appears to have acted as the final trigger. Another common factor, at

least for Diaspora communities, appears to be the participation in

a foreign jihad.

So I’m often asked, what motivates terrorism? Is it ideology, politics or poverty? And my answer is yes, all three, at least to varying

degrees. The key analytical question then becomes, what role does

ideology play in motivating terrorism, given that politics and economics also play a part? I’m not certain that we truly have the answer to that question.

Preliminary research suggests that extremist ideology shapes

how individuals and communities view problems in the world, but

political and economic grievances justify the use of violence to resolve these problems. Which brings me back to the initial question

posed in this hearing: do we have an accurate understanding of the

ideological dimensions of the global war on terrorism? I would have

to say, probably not. Yet, as we move forward, I would encourage

you not to divorce the ideological dimensions of the conflict from

the political and economic.

Thank you for your attention.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Could you do us all a favor and describe Salafism?

Ms. CRAGIN. Right. Salafism, just to give you a basic breakdown,

you have Sunnis, you have Shi’a. And within the Sunni community

you have lots of different, let’s call them denominations and strains

of political thought, one of which is Salafism. There are disagreements within the theologians in this community, just like you

would have disagreements within the Southern Baptists—I’m from

Oklahoma, so that’s what I’m familiar with—but there are some

core components to it.

13

1The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author’s alone and should

not be interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its research. This

product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND testimonies record testimony

presented by RAND associates to Federal, state, or local legislative committees; government-appointed commissions and panels; and private review and oversight bodies. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that

address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. 2This testimony is available for free download at http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/

CT283.

And these are the ones that I mentioned. The first one is this

very strong assertion of monotheism. So if you talk to them, it

means lot of different things, and I talk about it in the longer testimony that I submitted. But, for example, some of them don’t believe in a democratic parliamentary system. The reason is that parliamentarians, like yourself, enact laws. And by enacting laws, you

are putting yourself in God’s position, to improve upon the Qur’an,

which is not something that you should be doing in the Salafist

world view. So that’s one of these core components of this ideology.

Another one, as I mentioned, is an opposition to innovation,

which would be there is this opposition to new thoughts in Islamic

theology. Moderation, for example, would be one of those examples.

So these people then sometimes advocate the creation of a Caliphate that is based on this more narrow definition of the Qur’an

and will enact Shari’a law. That’s one of the manifestations of that,

although there are others.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. I thank my colleagues for their indulgence.

Vice Chairman BOND. Just one other comment. Salafists, I believe, can be political, fundamental, or radical. I’ve seen that breakdown. So not all Salafists are likely to be active jihadists.

Ms. CRAGIN. That’s right. And I did say that. Not all Salafists

are violent. And in fact, a number of them are very conservative

and their idea of reform is a notion of revival. So it would be like

a religious revival; so they work through a conversion process. And

that is definitely a very important point to make.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cragin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KIM CRAGIN,1 THE RAND CORPORATION2

I would like to thank the Chair and Ranking Member and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for inviting me to testify on the subject of terrorist ideology

and also to take this opportunity to commend the Committee for recognizing the importance of understanding terrorist ideology as part of the global war on terrorism.

Over the past twelve years, during the course of my research on terrorism and

insurgency, I have explored the topic of terrorist ideology as it relates to what motivates individuals to become terrorists, as well as what influences communities to

sympathize with terrorist groups. This research can be found in a number of RAND

publications, including Terrorism and Development, and more recently, Dissuading

Terror.

Both issues—individual motivations and community support—are important to

understanding the challenges that extremist ideologies pose to US national security.

For example, potential exists for terrorist groups to use various ideological arguments to persuade individuals to ‘pick up a gun’ or become terrorists themselves.

Potential also exists for terrorist groups to use ideological arguments to garner financial or other support from local communities. And yet, despite this potential, it

remains uncertain to what degree ideology actually influences individual motivations or community support. Indeed, our research suggests that the impact of ideology tends to vary country by country, community by community and often individual by individual.

14

3For more information on the emergence of al-Qa’ida, see Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden

I Know: An Oral History of Al-Qa’ida’s Leader (New York: Free Press, 2006); see also The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, August 2006). 4 Abdullah Anas, The Birth of the Afghani Arabs: A Biography of Abdullah Anas with Mas’oud

and Abdullah Azzam, trans. Nadia Masid (2002).

This variation, by its very nature, makes it somewhat difficult to identify overarching patterns in how terrorist ideologies might motivate individuals and sympathetic communities on a global level. Having said that, I am going to attempt to generalize the findings from our research as much as possible, while still providing examples of nuances in the messages and appeal of terrorist ideology whenever appropriate.

For the remainder of my testimony, I will address two basic questions. First, how

have al-Qa’ida leaders and other likeminded ideologues reached out to individuals

and communities? And, second, how have individuals and communities responded

to this appeal?

HOW HAVE AL-QA’IDA LEADERS AND OTHER LIKEMINDED IDEOLOGUES REACHED OUT TO

INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES?

As you know, the al-Qa’ida worldview has its roots in Maktab al-Khidamat (Office

of Services, MAK), which was begun in 1984 by the Palestinian scholar Abduallah

Azzam with financial support from Osama bin Laden. MAK was created to support

Arab fighters or mujahideen as they traveled to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet forces there.3 One aspect of this ‘support’ was the publication of al Jihad magazine. This magazine was distributed throughout the Muslim world in an effort to

raise the awareness of jihad in the minds of Muslim youth.

In the early 1980s, Abdullah Azzam also published and distributed a leaflet entitled, Defense of Muslim Lands. This leaflet argued that it was an individual religious duty (fard ayn) for Muslims, as well as the Muslim community as a whole

(fard kifaya), to support the Afghan jihad, because the Afghans were helpless in the

face of invading forces. Often referred to as an argument for defensive jihad,

Abdullah Azzam’s ideas apparently influenced numerous mujahideen to travel to Afghanistan. Indeed, one of those fighters, Abdullah Anas, subsequently wrote of his

experiences in an autobiographical book entitled Birth of the Afghani Arabs. In this

book, Abdullah Anas testified that Azzam’s religious argument played a significant

role in his own decision to travel to Afghanistan.4

Beyond providing shelter and support to the Arab fighters, MAK also offered

classes on political Islam to new recruits, essentially in an attempt to indoctrinate

them in what some refer to as the violent Salafi jihadi movement. Today, when people refer to ‘‘terrorist ideology’’ or ‘‘extremist ideology,’’ they mostly mean the ideas

articulated by violent Salafi jihadists.

At the core of this movement is a rigid assertion of monotheism, a literalist reading of the Qu’ran, and an opposition to innovation, which often yields discussion of

attempts to establish a society (or Caliphate) built on Islamic law. Too many Salafis,

this view of monotheism means a non-democratic system of government, because

legislatures enact laws, placing lawmakers in a position of improving upon God’s

laws, in their minds an impossible undertaking. Many Salafis also are critical of existing forms of government in the Arab world, arguing that leaders have succumbed

to Western, secular, influences in their application of the law. This misapplication

or absence of Shariah law, in many minds, accounts for the evident problems in society, such as poverty, injustice and corruption. Traditionally, most Salafis have eschewed nationalism in favor of a Caliphate that crosses national boundaries.

Of course, not all Salafis are violent, which is why scholars often distinguish between the wider Salafi movement and violent Salafi jihadists. The primary difference between al-Qa’ida and most Salafis is that al-Qa’ida leaders advocate the

use of violence to bring about this Caliphate and a religious revival in the Muslim

world. In this sense, al-Qa’ida and likeminded organizations hold a certain appeal,

because sympathizers see them as at least doing something to resolve society’s problems, even if they disagree with al-Qa’ida’s violent methods.

Osama bin Laden split with Abdullah Azzam in the late 1980s to join with Egyptian fighters, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden’s second in command, to form al-Qa’ida. At this point, al-Qa’ida’s attention strayed away from repelling the foreign invaders, such as in Afghanistan, toward overthrowing so-called

corrupt Arab regimes. For example, al-Zawahiri published his own leaflet, Bitter

Harvest, in 1991, in which he argued,

‘‘The Islamic movements must answer the questions: are the governments in

the Muslim countries true Muslims or are they kuffar [infidels)? These rulers

15

5 Ayman al Zawahiri, Bitter Harvest: The Muslim Brotherhood in Sixty Years, trans. Nadia

Masid, (Egypt, 1991). 6Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2005). 7Letters from bin Laden, al-Qa’ida Advice and Reform Committee, US military document

number AFGP–2002–003345, available in Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qa’ida’s Organizational Vulnerabilities, (New York: West Point Combating Terrorism Center, 2006). 8Five Letters to the Africa Corps, September 1993—May 1994, US military document number

AFGP–2002–600053, available in Harmony and Disharmony. 9 Bruce Lawrence, ed., A Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of

the Two Holy Sanctuaries, Messages to the World’’ the Statements of Osama bin Laden (New

York: Verso, 2005), 23–30.

are obviously kuffar and murtaddeen [apostates] because they rule with a law

other than that of Allah. Therefore it is a fard ayn [individual duty] to wage

jihad against them and remove them from their positions.’’ 5

In Bitter Harvest al-Zawahiri argued for an offensive jihad against what he felt

were corrupt regimes in the Muslim world, in contrast to the defensive jihad articulated by Abdullah Azzam in 1984. And, in fact, this worldview appears to have guided al-Qa’ida’s activities in Sudan during the 1990s, as they reached out to other militant groups to train and indoctrinate them on the al-Qa’ida worldview.

Indeed, during the 1990s, al-Qa’ida leaders often combined ideological appeals

with political objectives.6 For example, al-Qa’ida established the Advisory and Reformation Committee as its mouthpiece in London. This Committee issued a series

of leaflets in addressing key political issues of concern to al-Qa’ida, including the

presence of US forces in the Arabian Peninsula after the first Gulf War, the arrest

of certain religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, civil war in Yemen, and the PalestinianIsraeli conflict.7 The layering of ideological and political objectives in al-Qa’ida’s

rhetoric suggests that its leaders viewed the two as interconnected.

Internal al-Qa’ida documents reinforce this hypothesis. The Combating Terrorism

Center at West Point recently released a series of al-Qa’ida documents captured in

Afghanistan by US forces under the title Harmony and Disharmony. Amongst these

documents is a letter written in 1993 by an al-Qa’ida member in Somalia to the

leadership in Sudan. The author complained that Somali fighters were caught up

in tribal squabbles and could not be convinced to adopt the al-Qa’ida ideological

worldview; thus, the author argued, al-Qa’ida’s objective was not being achieved in

Somalia.

Al-Qa’ida leaders responded to this complaint as follows,

‘‘When you entered Somalia, the Somali arena was barren and futile. The situation changed, however, after the intervention by America and the Knights of the

Cross. You most resembled a hunter aiming his rifle at the dead branch of a

tree, with no leaves or birds on it. Suddenly, a bald eagle lands on the branch

of the tree, directly in line with the rifle. Shouldn’t the hunter pull the trigger

to kill the eagle or at least bloody it?

The American bald eagle has landed within range of our rifles. You can kill it

or leave it permanently disfigured. If you do that, you will have saved Sudan,

Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf and the waters of the

Nile. Could you want more magnificent objectives of war than those? ’’ 8

This reply is particularly interesting, because it demonstrates that al-Qa’ida leaders were willing to accept short-term political objectives at a local level. In addition,

it demonstrates another layer of al-Qa’ida rhetoric that emerged in the 1990s—antiAmericanism. Given the ascendancy of al-Qa’ida and its worldview in the 1990s, I

think it is important not to underestimate the appeal of this entire package: violent

Salafism, local political objectives and anti-Americanism. Indeed, the confluence of

all three appeals laid the foundation for al-Qa’ida’s war against ‘Jews and Crusaders,’ declared in 1998.9

In a post 9/11 world, al-Qa’ida leaders have attempted to position themselves at

the forefront of the violent Salafi jihadi movement. This approach can be seen in

statements issued over the past 6 years by Osama bin Laden and Ayman alZawahiri, as well as other ideologues. While Abdullah Azzam mobilized the youth

for jihad in the 1980s with leaflets distributed throughout the Muslim world, alQa’ida leaders and likeminded ideologues have used the internet, and to a certain

extent mainstream media, to articulate their ideas.

An examination of jihadi websites reveals some emerging trends in the Salafi

jihadi movement. For example, a new generation of strategic thinkers and

ideologues has emerged in this movement, including Abu Musab al-Surf, Abu Bakr

Naji, Yusuf al-Ayyiri, Saif al-Adl and Louis Atiyatallah. Indeed, Will McCants, from

the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, recently published a report entitled

16

10 Ayman al-Zawahiri, ‘‘Palestine is our Concern, the Concern of Every Muslim,’’ translated

by SITE Institute, 11 March 2007. 11 ‘‘Hamas Issues Statement in Response to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Accusations of Abandoning the Jihadi Resistance for Palestine,’’ translated by SITE Institute, 12 March 2007. 12General Manager of Hamas-Affiliated Forum Criticizes Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri for Comments Regarding Hamas, Prejudice Against Palestinians,’’ translated by SITE Institute, 13

March 2007. 13Kim Cragin and Scott Gerwehr, Dissuading Terror: Strategic Influence and the Struggle

Against Terrorism, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MG–184, 2005.

Militant Ideology Atlas. In this study, McCants observed that these thinkers are

cited and referred to more often in jihadi chatrooms and on websites than Osama

bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. These thinkers appear more willing now than

was evidenced in the past to make tactical concessions on the issues of local Muslim

practices, tribal politics and even nationalism to win over the ‘hearts and minds’ of

local communities.

It’s worth noting, however, that hardcore al-Qa’ida leaders, such as al-Zawahiri,

still evidence reticence to make tactical concessions. Moreover, it is possible that

they feel threatened by the legitimacy garnered by other ideologues and terrorist

groups. As an illustration of this point, al-Qa’ida leaders have criticized the leaders

of other terrorist groups in their bid to remain at the forefront of this wider ideological movement. A recent example is the ongoing debate between al-Qa’ida and

Hamas. Immediately following the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006, al-Zawahiri rebuked Hams for participating in these elections, stating,

‘‘The leadership of the Hamas movement has trampled on the rights of the Muslim ummah [community] by accepting what it calls—in a mockery of the intelligence and feelings of the Muslims—respect for international accords. It is with

regret that I confront the Muslim ummah with the truth, and tell it: my condolences to you over the loss of the leadership of Hamas, for it has sunk in the

swamp of surrender.’’ 10

Hamas leaders, in turn, have responded to al-Zawahiri’s statements quickly and

with equal venom. For example, an initial response was posted by Hamas on the

same night as al-Zawahiri’s audio-taped release this past March. In this statement,

Hamas asserted that al-Zawahiri had worked to undermine Palestinian jihadists for

over 15 years in his attempt to take control over al-Qa’ida.11 Hamas leaders continued on to argue that al-Qa’ida used indiscriminate and unjustifiable attacks against

innocents and so was not in a position to pass moral judgment on Hamas,

‘‘The [Muslim] people loved al-Qa’ida because it declared war on the American

enemy who supports the occupation of Palestine and is the occupier of Iraq and

Afghanistan; however this love was taken out of people’s chest when they hit

the innocent. The victims of the Amman wedding and their families, of who we

see and console them even today, are proof of the blind use of weapons which

tainted al-Zawahiri and his group.’’12

The two examples that I have provided—Somalia in the early 1990s and the Palestinian Territories today—illustrate the diversity within the wider Salafi jihadi

movement, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of al-Qa’ida’s ideological appeal.

Al-Qa’ida leaders have tried to harness mutual feelings of a shared ideology, antiAmericanism, and frustration with ‘corruption’ in the Muslim world in an effort to

keep these diverse groups moving in the same direction. This strategy has succeeded

to varying degrees over the years, but evidence suggests that other terrorist groups

mostly pursue their own parochial interests.

Indeed, al-Qa’ida leaders have had the greatest effect in translating their ideological appeal into action when they can marry their global worldview with anti-Americanism and local political objectives. And fissures have occurred when this marriage

goes bad.13

HOW HAVE INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES RESPONDED TO AL-QA’IDA’S APPEAL?

Up to this point, I have focused on the evolution of al-Qa’ida’s ideological arguments, as well as how it has appealed to potential recruits and sympathizers. But

the most important question for US national security, in my opinion, is how have

audiences responded to al-Qa’ida’s appeal? And, for the purposes of this hearing, to

what degree has ideology contributed to the audiences’ responses? To answer these

questions, it is useful to explore the radicalization processes that individuals and

clusters of individuals have gone through as they progressed from being sympathetic

to the al-Qa’ida worldview to being willing to ‘pick up a gun’.

17

14 Andrew Silke, ed., Terrorists, Victims, and Society: Psychological Perspectives on Terrorism

and its Consequences (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2003.) 15Kim Cragin and Peter Chalk, Terrorism and Development, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002. 16 Ami Pedahzur, ‘‘The Culture of Death: Terrorist Organizations and Suicide Bombings,’’ presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC as part of the Eisenhower Speaker

Series, 17 February 2005. 17Paul Temelty, ‘‘An In-Depth Look at the London Bombers,’’ Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 3, No.

15, July 28, 2005. 18This concept also was used by Javed All, Senior Intelligence Office, Department of Homeland Security, in his testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs entitled, ‘‘Prison Radicalization: Are Terrorist Cells Forming in US Cell Blocks?’’,

19 September 2006. 19 ‘‘White Paper: The Jemaah Islamiyya Arrests and the Threat of Terrorism,’’ Singapore Government, 7 January 2003. 20For more information on recruitment trends in diaspora communities in Europe, see Michael Taarnby, Recruitment of Islamist Terrorists in Europe: Trends and Perspectives, Denmark:

Centre for Cultural Research, January 2005; see also Petter Nesser, Jihad in Europe: A Survey

of the Motivations for Sunni Islamist Terrorism in the Post-millennium Europe, Norway: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, 2004. 21MNLF leaders negotiated a peace agreement with the Philippines as part of the Davao Accords in 1996. 22 Ibid, ‘‘White Paper;’’ for more information on recruitment trends in diaspora communities

in Europe, see Michael Taarnby, Recruitment of Islamist Terrorists in Europe: Trends and Perspectives, Denmark: Centre for Cultural Research, January 2005; see also Petter Nesser, Jihad

in Europe: A Survey of the Motivations for Sunni Islamist Terrorism in the Post-millennium Europe, Norway: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, 2004.

Note that most research suggests that one single pathway to terrorism does not

exist.14 And my comments should be taken in that context. Thus, when I discuss

‘radicalization processes’ I mean to imply multiple processes with variation along

the way.

These processes can be understood as having three separate and distinct phases.

In the first phase, termed ‘availability,’ environment factors make certain individuals susceptible to appeals from terrorist groups.15 Of course, these factors are likely to vary according to location, but they might include being brought up in a family

that articulates a violent Salafi worldview, frustration with local government policies, peer group influences, or frustration with foreign policies.

For example, in his research on suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories,

Ami Pedahzur has noted that one particular cell played soccer together prior to

their recruitment into Hamas.16 Shazhad Tanweer, one of the 7 July 2005 London

bombers, apparently had expressed frustration with UK foreign policy, particularly

the conflict in Iraq.17 Of course, that is not to say that all soccer players or individuals frustration with the conflict in Iraq are potential terrorist recruits, but rather,

at the ‘‘availability’’ stage multiple factors can make al-Qa’ida’s appeal attractive.

The second phase, termed ‘recruitment and indoctrination,’ occurs after initial

contact between individuals and the clandestine groups. In examining the recruitment phase, it is useful to focus on ‘nodes’ or gateways through which individuals

come into contact with terrorist leaders, members or recruiters.18 Some potential recruitment ‘nodes’ include prayer groups, sports clubs, charitable organizations, or

even criminal gangs. For example, in December 2001 Singaporean authorities disrupted a plot to attack Western as well as local targets in that country. According

to a White Paper released by that government, some of the arrested individuals had

been recruited through religious study groups in Singapore.19

Importantly, these nodes vary according to country and community. So it is difficult to identify a laundry list of potential recruitment nodes worldwide. If any commonalities exist in recruitment nodes, they appear to be best grouped into ‘diaspora

communities’ versus ‘majority Muslim communities.’20 But al-Qa’ida and its affiliates have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to different recruiting environments, adjusting both message and method of recruitment.

The third phase of the radicalization process yields a commitment to action on the

part of certain individuals. To be honest, this final step has been the most difficult

to isolate during the course of our research, because it seems to vary the most individual by individual. In some instances, a specific grievance appears to have acted

as a final trigger. So, for example, Galib Andang aka Commander Robot, a former

member of the now defunct Moro Nationalist Liberation Front in the Philippines,

was motivated in part by the death of his grandmother and the hands of the Filipino Army.21 Another common factor, at least for diaspora communities, appears to

be participation in a foreign jihad.22 Somehow the process of fighting overseas

seems to make individuals more willing to engage in terrorism back home as well.

18

23Philip Zimbardo and C. Hartley, ‘‘Cults Go to High School: A Theoretical and Empirical

Analysis of the Initial Stage in the Recruitment Process,’’ Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No.

1, 1985, pp. 91–147.

I should say, at this point, that my description of radicalization processes for individual terrorists and sympathizers is not particularly unique. That is, Philip

Zimbardo, who is probably best known for his Stanford prison experiment, has observed similar processes with the recruitment of high school students into cults in

the United States.23 But I find it a useful construct to understanding all the various

factors that motivate individuals to ‘pick up a gun.’

So, I am often asked, ‘what motivates terrorism? Is it ideology, politics, or poverty?’ And my answer is, ‘yes, all three, at least to varying degrees.’ The key analytical question then becomes what role does ideology play in motivating terrorism,

given that politics and poverty also play a part? I am not certain that we truly have

the answer to that question.

Preliminary research suggests that extremist ideology shapes how individuals and

communities view problems in the world that need to be resolved, be that corruption

or injustice or poor governance. But political and economic grievances justify the use

of violence to resolve these problems. That is, individuals and communities understand the problems in their world through an ideological lens. But this disgruntlement does not, on its own, motivate violence. That motivation most often emerges

in an environment of political and/or economic grievances, which then translate that

worldview into action, be it picking up a gun or providing financial and other forms

of support.

Which brings me back to the initial question posed in this hearing: do we have

an accurate understanding of the ideological dimensions of the global war on terrorism? I would have to say, ‘probably not.’ But I believe that we have come a long

way, especially as researchers have begun to account for debates within the wider

Salafi movement, as well as how those debates get translated and applied on a local

level.

As we move forward, I would encourage you not to divorce the ideological dimensions of the conflict from the political and economic. Just like it is impossible to divorce military from non-military activities in the GWOT, it is impossible to truly

divorce ideological from political and economic motivations. In fact, doing so only addresses part of the problem.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Mr. Kimmage.

STATEMENT OF DANIEL KIMMAGE, REGIONAL ANALYST,

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. KIMMAGE. If I might jump ahead of my testimony for 1 second to respond to the Salafist bait, I would just like to interject

that Salafism is a bit like liberalism. It’s a word that can mean

many things to many people. And unless it’s contextualized, it’s

hard to understand. But I think for the jihadis, we are talking

about Salafism—it comes from the term ‘‘salah fisalah.’’ It’s the

first three generations of Muslim, the righteous ancestors. And for

them, it’s the very simple idea that the solution to all of the world’s

problems can be found by returning to the model society of the first

three generations of Muslims in the early seventh century, and

that violence is the way to do that.

So, I think, that for the most violent wing, all of the complicated

debates about Salafism, in a sense, reduce to this conservative,

backward-looking utopia. That’s how I would define it in the

jihadist world view. It can mean many other things, but for the

jihadists, it’s this very simple, backward-looking ideal of a perfect

society and a violent way of getting there.

To return to my testimony, I would like to thank the Committee

Members for inviting me to appear at this hearing. I will limit my

spoken remarks for 5 minutes, but I ask the Chairman that my full

written statement be entered into the record.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. That is true with all three of you.

19

Mr. KIMMAGE. As the Vice Chairman was kind enough to note,

my colleague Kathleen Ridolfo and I recently completed a substantial study on how Sunni insurgents in Iraq and their supporters

are using the media to advance their agenda. The report is scheduled for publication on June 26. I will address the questions prepared by the Committee, with particular focus on al-Qa’ida in Iraq

and the findings of our forthcoming report.

Again, the question of how well we understand terrorist ideology.

I think at this point we have a good basic understanding. The core

elements of this ideology, as seen by the jihadis, are the division

of the world into two camps—faith and unbelief, the backwardlooking Salafist utopia I mentioned based on a religious ideal taken

from the seventh century; the legitimacy of violence to restore this

ideal—in other words, jihad seen as holy war; the license to kill opponents, whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim; and the need to

target the United States, Israel, and what they call the apostate

rulers of the Muslim world. These are the core very basic elements.

And I think that at this point there’s a good understanding, certainly among our specialists, of these elements.

Now is this a global ideology? In theory, al-Qa’ida’s ideology is

global. It divides the world into two camps—faith and unbelief—

and recognizes no other boundaries. In practice, however, the emergence of local franchises of al-Qa’ida points to the significance of regional factors. It is important to take these into account.

There are two reasons for this. First, the individual members of

regional franchises are motivated by a combination of regional and

global factors, and it’s very important to understand how these

interact. Second, the mere existence of these regional affiliates undermines the global pretensions of the group’s ideology. In sum, if

al-Qa’ida’s current mantra is to think globally/act locally, we need

to take this into account.

Now, are there fissures in al-Qa’ida’s ideology? The answer is

yes. The greatest fissure is internal. All affiliates of the group believe, as my colleague noted, that only God has ultimate authority.

The concentration of authority in the divine, however, has made it

almost impossible for al-Qa’ida’s many theorists to explain how

they would lead and legislate in the modern world. They do not

have answers to the real questions facing ordinary people in the

Arab Muslim world.

Is ideology a motivated, legitimizing or recruiting instrument? Of

course, it performs all three functions. For people at the higher levels of the various parts of the al-Qa’ida network, ideology is a motivating factor. They are more likely to have a strong commitment

to the global aspect of the struggle and think in terms of a larger

worldwide conflict. Ideology serves to legitimize violence for all levels of the network. The individuals who commit violent acts use

ideology to reassure themselves that they are doing the right

things for the right reasons.

And finally, ideology is an effective instrument in the recruiter’s

tool box. Most recruits are young men with burning questions

about the world around them. Al-Qa’ida’s ideology may not provide

real answers, but its slogans are simple, direct, and superficially

convincing.

20

Now the report that my colleague Kathleen Ridolfo and I have

just completed devotes considerable space to al-Qa’ida’s ideology in

the context of Iraq. I’d like to close with two findings that I feel

have a direct bearing on this issue.

The first is that the majority of the Sunni insurgent groups in

Iraq do not share al-Qa’ida’s ideology, but the media products that

are coming out of the insurgency are a boon to the global jihadist

media. There are two reasons for this. First, the context of the conflict in Iraq fits in with jihadist ideology, which sees a struggle between the forces of unbelief, led by the United States, and the

forces of faith, led by al-Qa’ida. Second, the images coming out of

Iraq in the form of attack videos—videos of insurgents attacking

the United States—are grist for the jihadist propaganda mill,

which thrives on the sight of American soldiers targeted in the

Arab world.

This is especially true in light of negative Muslim views on alQa’ida attacks against civilians. These evoke strong disapproval.

But Arab respondents to a recent poll supported attacks against

U.S. forces in Iraq. Thus, insurgent media would show attacks

against U.S. forces in Iraq reinforce an aspect of the jihadist message with images that are viewed positively in the Arab world.

Secondly, there is a growing rift between nationalist elements in

the Sunni insurgency and al-Qa’ida in Iraq. Ideology lies at the

root of this split. The nationalist insurgent groups limit their aims

to Iraq. Al-Qa’ida views Iraq as part of a larger global struggle.

This is a stark ideological difference and while nationalist insurgents in Iraq and global jihadists may share short-term goals, this

ideological difference will not simply go away.

So, to close by summarizing two findings from our forthcoming

report, first, the conflict in Iraq is providing the global jihadist

media network with material and images it can exploit to spread

its ideology. Second, there is, nevertheless, a split within the Sunni

insurgency between nationalist groups and al-Qa’ida in Iraq, and

ideology is an important part of this growing rift.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kimmage follows:]

DANIEL KIMMAGE, REGIONAL ANALYST, RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY,

WASHINGTON, DC

I would like to thank the Committee for inviting me to appear at his hearing. I

will limit my spoken remarks to 5 minutes, but I ask the Chairman that my full

written statement be entered into the record.

My colleague, Kathleen Ridolfo, RFE/RL’s Prague-based Iraq analyst, and I have

recently completed a detailed report on how Sunni insurgents in Iraq and their supporters worldwide are pursuing a far-reaching media campaign to advance their

agenda and influence perceptions of events in Iraq. The report, which devotes considerable space to al-Qa’ida in Iraq, is scheduled for public release on June 26, 2007.

I will address the questions prepared by the Committee with a particular focus on

al-Qa’ida in Iraq and the findings of our forthcoming report. The views expressed

here are my own and do not represent an official position of my employer, Radio

Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

HOW WELL DO WE UNDERSTAND TERRORIST IDEOLOGY?

In the years since September 11, 2001, a significant body of research has emerged

to augment previous scholarship and broaden our understanding of terrorist ideology. While there is more work to be done, we now possess a good understanding

of the overall ideology that underpins the various iterations of al-Qa’ida. AI-Qa’ida’s

21

1For more on Salafism, see Understanding Islamism, March 2, 2005, International Crisis

Group, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3301&1=1. An informed discussion of

jihadist Salafism can be found in Fu’ad Husayn, Al-Zarqawi: al-jil al-thani li-l-qa’idah [AlZarqawi: the second generation of al-Qa’ida], Dar al-Khayal, Beirut: 2005, pp. 53–59. 2The term ‘‘jihad’’ can have various meanings. For more, see ‘‘What Does Jihad Mean?’’ by

Douglas E. Streusand, Middle East Quarterly, September 1997.

theorists and ideologues, through their prolific efforts to expound and disseminate

their ideology, have provided us with abundant material to analyze.

Like other totalitarian ideologies, al-Qa’ida’s ideology is based on a simplistic

worldview that claims to offer a universally applicable and easily implemented solution to all problems. The ‘‘solution’’ is classically totalitarian in its attempt to regulate all spheres of human activity, encompassing personal life, domestic and international politics, the economy, and society.

Although the adherents of al-Qa’ida’s ideology do not themselves accept any

meaningful distinction between religion and politics, in practice their ideology focuses on what we in the West would define as religious and political issues. The

core tenets of this ideology are as follows: • A global struggle between faith (iman) and unbelief (kufr): The world is divided

into two hostile camps, and all people must choose sides. On one side are the true

believers, on the other the enemies of the faith. The opposition of faith and unbelief,

or truth (haqq) and falsehood (batil), is absolute. Reconciliation is impossible, and

the struggle will continue until faith triumphs over unbelief. • A backward-looking utopia (Salafism): The first three generations of Muslims

(al-salaf al-salih, lit., ‘‘the righteous ancestors’’) represent the model of a perfect society for al-Qa’ida, both in political organization and personal behavior. Using as primary sources a literal reading of the Qur’an and the recorded utterances of the

Prophet Muhammad, adherents of al-Qa’ida’s ideology fight for the restoration of

this order. • Faith as the struggle for ‘‘make God’s word supreme,’’ and unbelief as a capital

crime: To be a true Muslim, one must go beyond the traditional ‘‘pillars of the faith’’

as those are currently understood in the Muslim world (the profession of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage); one must actively strive to restore the society of the ‘‘righteous ancestors.’’ 1 In practice, only those who accept and advance,

all of the core tenets of the ideology are seen as true Muslims. All other so-called

Muslims have strayed, either because they were misled, in which case they may yet

return to the fold, or because they are the ‘‘stalking horses of unbelief,’’ in which

case their lives are forfeit.

• The permissibility of killing Muslims who have knowingly strayed from the

faith (takfir): Muslims who knowingly violate the rules of the faith as defined by

the ideology have committed the sin of apostasy and are no longer Muslims. The

act of pronouncing a Muslim an unbeliever is called ‘‘takfir.’’ In practice, the application of this principle gives adherents of the ideology a religious justification for killing political opponents. Al-Qa’ida in Iraq uses this principle to justify the killing of

both Sunnis and Shi’a.

• The legitimacy of violence (jihad): Jihad, which adherents of the ideology understand as ‘‘holy war,’’ is the first and foremost obligation of Muslims in a world

threatened everywhere by unbelief.2 The legitimate means of fighting jihad include

‘‘martyrdom-seeking operations,’’ or suicide attacks, against non-Muslims and Muslims alike.

• The need to target the United States, Israel and ‘‘apostate’’ rulers in the Muslim

world: The ‘‘Jews and crusaders’’—Israel and the United States—are spearheading

a charge to obliterate Muslim identity and subjugate Muslim lands to pillage their

wealth. Their allies in this nefarious conspiracy are the quisling ‘‘apostate’’ rulers

of the Muslim world. For truth to be victorious over falsehood, all of these enemies

must be defeated.

While available evidence suggests that the total number of committed adherents

of al-Qa’ida’s ideology is small, quantitative criteria are not of the essence. Al-Qa’ida

does not recognize electoral democracy as a valid political model and seeks instead

to overthrow fragile, corrupt regimes by force. Moreover, a willingness to engage in

suicide attacks against soft targets and the skillful exploitation of the media have

given al-Qa’ida undue international prominence, and the group’s ideology is exerting

an outsize influence on mainstream political discourse in the Arab-Muslim world.

Poor social and economic conditions in and of themselves do not cause terrorist

organizations to spring fully formed from a morass of societal decay. The Middle

East is not the most repressive or impoverished place on earth, yet it has witnessed

a proliferation of terrorist movements in recent decades. Fertile soil for extremism

results from the confluence of festering social and economic problems,

22

misgovernment, and an ideology that presents itself as a panacea. All three factors

are present in today’s aggrieved, undemocratic, and restive Middle East. Additionally, jihadist ideological treatises indicate that the United States has become a target in the region not because of its democratic tenets, but rather because of the perception that it supports and uses corrupt Arab regimes.

IS IT A GLOBAL IDEOLOGY?

In theory, al-Qa’ida’s ideology is global—the division of the world into camps of

faith and unbelief does not recognize other boundaries. The ultimate goal of ‘‘making

God’s word supreme’’ transcends national borders. In practice, however, the profusion of local ‘‘franchises’’ of al-Qa’ida—from al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghrib to the

so-called Islamic State of Iraq—points to the continued importance of regional factors and the implicit recognition of this fact by the ideology’s various adherents.

We can and should take into account both the division of al-Qa’ida into regional

‘‘franchises’’ and the resulting distinctions between their ideological outlooks. While

all of the ‘‘franchises’’ broadly accept the core tenets of the ideology as described

above, they are embroiled in a variety of localized struggles. As all of these groups

aim to seize power, their respective agendas are political, and their adherents are

often motivated as much by local political factors as by the allure of a global struggle.

Overt U.S. involvement appears to exert a ‘‘globalizing’’ influence on jihadist motivations. The conflict in Iraq, for example, attracts volunteers from other Arab countries who openly state that they are drawn by the opportunity to take up arms

against U.S. forces. There are no reports of equal numbers of foreign fighters traveling to participate in the struggles undertaken by the various al-Qa’ida ‘‘franchises’’

outside of Iraq.

We will not be able to reach an accommodation with any group driven by alQa’ida’s ideology, but we can and should focus on local factors in each particular

case. There are two reasons for this. First, it undermines the global pretensions of

the group’s ideology. And second, individual members of regional ‘‘franchises’’ are inevitably motivated by varying combinations of regional and global factors—the better we understand the interaction of regional and global motivations in each case,

the more appropriately tailored our response will be. If al-Qa’ida’s current mantra

is to ‘‘think globally, act locally,’’ we stand to benefit by factoring this into our efforts to counter it.

ARE THERE FISSURES IN AL-QA’IDA’S IDEOLOGY?

There are fissures in al-Qa’ida’s ideology, as well as serious differences between

the various al-Qa’ida ‘‘franchises’’ and other groups with similar agendas. This is

particularly evident in Iraq, where the al-Qa’ida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq has

clashed with other Sunni insurgent groups, both in polemics over ideology and tactics and in fighting on the ground.

The greatest fissure in al-Qa’ida’s ideology is internal, and shared by all regional

affiliates. The doctrine of ‘‘tawhid,’’ which all branches of the network accept, affirms the absolute singularity of God. The strict application of this doctrine holds

that only God has ultimate authority. The concentration of all authority in the divine, to which humankind’s only access comes through the text of the Qur’an and

the recorded utterances of the Prophet Muhammad, has severely impeded the ability of al-Qa’ida’s theorists to formulate convincing answers to modern political questions. Jihadist Salafists have written numerous books on the political implications

of tawhid, but they have proved unable to present a coherent paradigm for leadership and legislation. In practical terms, the result has been a movement that is very

clear on what it opposes but maddeningly obtuse about what it supports beyond violent opposition to the many things it condemns.

The profusion of regional affiliates reflects the crisis of temporal authority engendered by the doctrine of tawhid. A recent dispute between the Islamic Army in Iraq,

a Sunni insurgent group with a religiously inflected but nationalist outlook, and the

Islamic State of Iraq, al-Qa’ida’s latest iteration in that country, showed that alQa’ida’s opponents in the Arab world are keenly aware of the jihadist Salafists’ leadership problem.

In an April 5, 2007, statement, the Islamic Army in Iraq challenged the diffuse

organizational model espoused by al-Qa’ida in its various iterations throughout the

Arab world. After criticizing the Islamic State of Iraq for a variety of excesses and

outrages in Iraq, including the murder of unarmed Muslims and attacks on soft targets, the Islamic Army in Iraq appealed directly to Usama bin Ladin:

‘‘He and his brothers in the al-Qa’ida leadership are responsible on Judgment

Day for what is happening on account of their followers. It is not enough to

23

3 Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second of the four ‘‘rightly guided’’ caliphs (634–644).

4 Roughly equivalent to present-day Lebanon, Jordan, Israel/Palestinian Territories, and

Syria. 5For a discussion of the tension between ideological purity and power politics in al-Qa’ida’s

reaction to the war between Israel and Hizballah in the summer of 2006, see Al-Qaeda Addresses The Jihad-Versus-Resistance Conflict, by Daniel Kimmage, RFE/RL, July 31, 2006, http://

www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/07/96bd70d7–07bd–4862–8751–41 f30aal4028.html.

wash one’s hands of their actions; one must also correct them. In the two collections of utterances of the Prophet by Abdallah bin Umar, the Prophet said, ‘‘Is

not each of you a shepherd, and is not each of you responsible for his flock?

The imam must look after his people, for he is responsible for them.’’ And AlFarug3 says, ‘‘If a beast of burden should stumble in the mountains of Iraq or

the Sham,4 then I feel that God would call me to account for it and ask, Why

did you not pave the road?’’

The implication of this passage is that al-Qa’ida is out of control in Iraq, its parent organization is unwilling or unable to bring it to heel, and Usama bin Ladin

is failing to live up to Islamic standards of leadership. It is a charge that the subsequent polemic, which has lasted for more than 2 months and included responses

from the Islamic State of Iraq, failed to disprove, in large part because Usama bin

Laden remained conspicuously silent throughout the debate.

IS IDEOLOGY A MOTIVATING, LEGITIMIZING, OR RECRUITING INSTRUMENT?

Ideology performs all three functions, albeit in different ways for different segments of al-Qa’ida and its affiliates. For regional leaderships and the al-Qa’ida core

that fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, ideology is a motivating

factor. Individuals who occupy higher levels in the organization(s) are more likely

to have a strong commitment to the global aspect of al-Qa’ida’s ideology and to think

in terms of a larger, worldwide struggle.

Ideology serves to legitimize acts of violence for all levels of the network. Internally, the individuals who commit violent acts can reassure themselves that they

are doing the right thing for the right reason. Externally, ideology underpins public

statements taking responsibility and expressing support for violence. Both internally

and externally, it is ideology that performs the function of proclaiming that the horrific violence perpetrated by al-Qa’ida is not terrorism, but rather legitimate warfare

undertaken in the service of a divinely sanctioned cause.

Ideology is a particularly effective instrument in the recruiter’s toolbox. While

other tools, from financial incentives to the skillful exploitation of individual psychology, have their place, only ideology can answer questions. Most recruits are

young men with burning questions about the world around them. Al-Qa’ida’s ideology provides simple, direct answers to those questions, replacing doubt with surety

and unformed striving with hardened purpose.

ARE THE COMPONENTS OF AL-QA’IDA MOTIVATED PRIMARILY BY IDEOLOGY, POWER

POLITICS, OR CRIMINALITY?

While criminality may motivate many rank-and-file members of the al-Qa’ida terrorist network, leadership cadres are caught in a quandary, with some concerned

primarily with ideological purity, and others power politics. This divergence has

been evident in views of the Shi’a, with al-Qa’ida in Iraq choosing ideological purity

while representatives of al-Qa’ida’s original leadership opted for power politics.

With the emergence of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi as the leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq,

the organization adopted a viciously anti-Shi’ite line. Al-Qa’ida’s unyielding ideology

provides ample theological justification for such a position: Nevertheless, in a 2005

letter to Al-Zarqawi from Ayman al-Zawahiri, often termed the ideological leader of

the original al-Qa’ida, the latter urged the Jordanian parvenu to soften his stance

on the Shi’a for reasons of political expediency5. Al-Zawahiri wrote that

...many of your Muslim admirers amongst the common folk are wondering

about your attacks on the Shi’a. The sharpness of this questioning increases

when the attacks are on one of their mosques, and it increases more when the

attacks are on the mausoleum of Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib, may God honor him.

My opinion is that this matter won’t be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it, and aversion to this will continue.

CONCLUSIONS

The report my colleague, Kathleen Ridolfo, and I have just completed devotes considerable space to the issue of al-Qa’ida’s ideology in the context of the ongoing

24

6See Muslim Public Opinion On US Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda, World Public

Opinion.org, http://www. worldpublicopinion. org/pipa/pdf/apr07/STARTlApr07lrpt.pdf. 7 Ibid.: ‘‘Majorities in Egypt and Morocco expressed approval for attacks on US troops in Muslim countries. Egyptians were those most likely to support such actions. Nine out of ten Egyptians approved of attacks on US military troops in Iraq (91%) and in Afghanistan (91%). Four

out of five Egyptians (83%) said they supported attacks on US forces based in Persian Gulf

states. Substantial majorities of Moroccans were also in favor of attacks on US troops in Iraq

(68%), in Afghanistan (61%) and slightly smaller majorities supported attacks on those based

in Persian Gulf states (52%).’’

struggle in Iraq. I close with two of the report’s findings that have a direct bearing

on this issue.

1. While the majority of Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq do not espouse jihadist

ideology, the media products they create are a boon to global jihadist media and advance the global jihadist ideological agenda. There are two reasons for this. First,

the general context of the conflict in Iraq fits in perfectly with jihadist ideology,

which posits a titanic struggle between the forces of unbelief, led by the United

States, and the forces of faith. Second, the images produced on a daily basis by the

insurgency in the form of attack videos are grist for the jihadist propaganda mill,

which relishes any and all depictions of ‘‘crusader’’ soldiers targeted in the Arab

world.

This is especially true in light of negative Muslim views on al-Qa’ida attacks

against civilians, which evoke strong disapproval.6 Arab respondents to a recent poll

overwhelmingly supported attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, however.7 Thus, insurgent media products showcasing attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq reinforce an

aspect of the jihadist message that is viewed positively in the Arab world. In this

light, it seems entirely logical that jihadist forums, which are ideologically closer to

Al-Qaeda than to most insurgent groups, are among the primary distribution channels for the text, audio, and video products created by virtually all insurgent groups

across the ideological spectrum.

2. There is a growing rift between nationalist elements in the Sunni insurgency

and al-Qa’ida in Iraq. Ideology lies at the root of this split, with nationalist insurgent groups limiting their aims to Iraq, while al-Qa’ida views Iraq as part of a larger, global struggle. A recent polemic between the Islamic Army in Iraq and al-Qa’ida

in Iraq highlighted these ideological differences.

Ibrahim al-Shammari, the official spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, defined

his group’s struggle in national terms in an April 11, 2007, interview with AlJazeera. Interviewer Ahmad Mansur asked, ‘‘Do your goals include causing America

to fail abroad or does your goal relate only to Iraq?’’ Al-Shammari responded, ‘‘No,

our goal is the liberation of Iraq from the occupation it is experiencing—the Iranian

occupation and the American occupation. . . .’’

By contrast, a mid-April 2007 address by Abu Umar al-Baghdad, leader of the alQa’ida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, advanced a starkly different vision. Summarizing gains and losses on the fourth anniversary of the fall of the Hussein regime,

Al-Baghdadi stated, ‘‘Let everyone know that our aim is clear: the establishment of

God’s law, and the path to that is jihad in its wider sense.’’ Earlier in the address,

Al-Baghdadi made it clear that ‘‘the outlines of the gains and losses in the past 4

years’’ indicate that ‘‘jihad has been adopted as the primary solution to drive out

the unbelievers and apostates from Muslim countries.’’

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you very much.

Just for the information of my colleagues, the order of questioning will be myself, Vice Chairman Bond, Senator Bayh, Senator

Warner and Senator Nelson, Senator Chambliss, Senator Hatch,

Senator Snowe.

Mr. Kimmage, in your testimony you state that while all of the

al-Qa’ida franchises broadly accept the al-Qa’ida ideology, there are

localized differences that can be exploited. Individual members of

the regional franchises are motivated by varying combinations of

regional and global factors. That is all very complicated very quickly. The better the U.S. Government understands the interaction of

regional and global motivations, the more appropriately tailored

our response can be. In other words, one counterterrorism policy

does not fit all groups.

25

I’d like your comment actually specifically on that. This is a long

introduction and I have a question. Specifically, you address the

growing rift between nationalist elements in the Sunni insurgency

and al-Qa’ida in Iraq. An Associated Press article from this weekend complements this analysis and identifies roughly 30 groups in

Iraq who regularly claim responsibility for attacks against U.S. and

government targets, yet 9 out of 10 times the U.S. military names

al-Qa’ida in Iraq as the group responsible.

Given your emphasis and advice on recognizing the differences

between the multiple groups engaged in attacks in Iraq, what do

you make of the fact that the U.S. military command news releases

on U.S. operational focus overwhelmingly settles on al-Qa’ida in

Iraq and not on the multitude of other groups and other sources?

Ignorance? Lack of preparation? Lack of curiosity? Honest mistakes? Please give us your honest answer.

Mr. KIMMAGE. I’m not going to speculate on the reasons for the

U.S. military citing this. What I would suggest is, in our research,

when we looked at the media face of various Iraqi insurgent

groups—meaning the press releases they issue, the statements

they make—one of the things that’s very striking is that al-Qa’ida

in Iraq has perhaps the most sophisticated media machine. In

other words, they’re very, very good at getting their message out.

They claim many, many attacks.

When you go and look at the Internet forums where insurgent

groups release statements about attacks, al-Qa’ida always figures

very prominently. So it’s possible that we may simply be reflecting

the efforts of their media machine.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. But that’s assuming that we’re just sitting back and watching television and making the assumption that

9 out of 10 are responsible. It doesn’t fit understanding a culture,

understanding tribalism, et cetera.

Mr. KIMMAGE. One of the things it might reflect is, it’s not quite

watching television, but let’s say you’re actually going through and

looking for the statements released by insurgent groups in Iraq.

The impression you would get from those statements—and in the

report we are very specific that there’s a difference between what’s

happening on the ground and the media image—when we look at

their statements we have to bear in mind this is the image that

they want to present to the world and we cannot assume that these

attacks are actually taking place on the ground.

But what happens is, when you look at their statements, you do

get the impression that al-Qa’ida is carrying out an enormous number of attacks—not the largest number of attacks but an enormous

number of attacks.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. My time is coming to an end. Why is

it, in your judgment, that we do not understand Iraq better? Sandra MacKie wrote a very good book—and my colleagues have heard

me say this before, and I apologize to them—in which she says

that—this was written before the war—that Americans are fascinated by names, particularly one-word names like Usama or Saddam. And you’ve got their full attention for at least 8 minutes. And

the longer picture, the cultural underpinnings and all of that fades

into the distance. It’s all about personalities and conflict and not

26

the subtleties of tribalism, inter-geographic marsh politics and all

the rest of it.

I understand that may be. I don’t forgive it in terms of before we

go into the war in Iraq, but I don’t understand it this much later.

I don’t understand how that could be—how we do not understand

better and what is your concept of what is being done to try to understand and, thus, lessen what you’re talking about.

Mr. KIMMAGE. I think sometimes our greatest strengthens domestically are a little bit of a handicap abroad. As a society, we’re

a marvelously successful model of overcoming difference and turning it into strength, and we’re always looking for the common elements, the things that make us all Americans despite all of our differences. This is sometimes not the right assumption or not the

most helpful assumption when dealing with splintered societies

and dealing with societies in conflict. It can make it difficult for us

abroad.

I think we are exerting a lot of efforts today. I think my colleagues and myself are trying to figure out what is happening in

the parts of Iraq and this global phenomenon that we’re looking at,

but there are limitations. There will always be limitations on our

understanding. When you have an enormously complicated and

conflict-ridden society like Iraq and when there are thousands of

Americans involved there, it’s never going to be realistic to expect

them all to have a perfect understanding of everything from tribal

dynamics to internal politics.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. I’m talking about the soldiers, I’m talking about the policymakers.

Mr. KIMMAGE. After spending the last 3 months studying the internal dynamics of the Sunni insurgency, I think I will limit my remarks to the internal dynamics there and let some of the policymakers speak for themselves.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. But they don’t.

Mr. KIMMAGE. Let’s hope.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Vice Chairman Bond.

Vice Chairman BOND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me follow up on a point you made about al-Qa’ida and the

various radical Salafist groups, insurgents, whatever you call them.

You say they get reinforcement and sustained by images from Iraq.

Most of the things that I have read suggest that this hostility has

been there since the State of Israel was created and our relationship with Israel is a major factor.

If we were not in Iraq, what would the view of the radical

Salafists be about the United States? Would they continue to grow

and recruit if, number one, we were not in Iraq and, number two,

did not take appropriate actions and strategic influence to ameliorate the harsher views?

Mr. ULPH. The United States will always be an enemy for the

radical jihadi Salafists. But you bring up an extremely relevant

point in terms of what role the U.S. presence is playing in Iraq. I

think that what they would lose is precisely this stream of images

that reinforce one of the key messages, one of the key parts of their

message.

So here you have people who are arguing that when you read

their texts—and I try to imagine sometimes how does one boil all

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of this down to an hour-long conversation in which someone is trying to convince a young man to dedicate his life to this cause. One

part of that conversation is the United States is spearheading a

drive to destroy Muslim identity and pillage the wealth of the Muslim world. And they point to the U.S. presence in Iraq, and this is

something that fits in with their message. And then this stream of

images that comes out of Iraq, showing attacks on U.S. forces acts

to reinforce the message and it shows the violence in a way that,

as unfortunately some of the poll results demonstrate, garner some

approval in the Muslim world.

Now, the question you’re asking is, what happens if that is not

there?

Vice Chairman BOND. And you’re saying that the attacks by the

insurgents, al-Qa’ida on the U.S. forces are more powerful than images of us attacking Muslims?

Mr. KIMMAGE. I think that those images of their attacks against

U.S. forces are quite powerful. One of the interesting parts of that

message is, when we looked at these groups for our report, when

you go down the line of the Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq, not all

of them are jihadis, not all of them endorse al-Qa’ida’s ideology.

They don’t want to associate themselves with al-Qa’ida’s imagery.

They don’t put pictures of Usama bin Ladin on their Web sites.

But what’s interesting is that global jihadists like al-Qa’ida can

take the images that nationalist groups produce, can take footage

from their attack videos of attacks on U.S. forces and it’s grist for

their propaganda mill. So one of my responses to your question

would be that they would potentially lose that. There are other consequences, but that’s one thing they would lose.

Vice Chairman BOND. Let me turn to Ms. Cragin for a comment

on that and then Mr. Ulph.

Ms. CRAGIN. I do think one of the central questions is, what is

the relationship between the ongoing conflict in Iraq with sort of

this wider Salafi jihadi movement and what is the relationship between the two of them? I think my inclination is to answer that

by breaking it down into different segments.

Clearly, as my colleague was saying, at the leadership and strategist level there is this concern in the Muslim world that the U.S.

strategy is an attempt to divide Muslims and turn Muslims against

each other. And if you saw the START surveys that just recently

came out, they very clearly illustrated this. So anything that the

ideologues and the strategists can point to to say, and look, here’s

an example of the United States turning Muslims against each

other, and Iraq is one of those examples, then it does only reinforce

their message.

The other example I’ve heard them use, actually, was the conflict

in Lebanon this past summer, and those are two things that they

point to.

On the other hand, when you’re looking at radicalization processes at the individual level, what motivates people to become terrorists, I think that the Iraqi issue becomes much more complicated. It’s very clear that the foreign jihadists that are traveling

from places, for example, in Europe to Iraq to fight U.S. forces

there are motivated by the conflict in Iraq. But when you start

walking back from that, does the conflict in Iraq help to motivate

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terrorists in Indonesia when they conducted the Bali bombings, for

example, when they attacked the Australian embassy in Jakarta or

the Marriott Hotel, that becomes a little bit more complicated. And

my inclination is to say, based on our research, not as much, and

it’s local or regional issues that have more of a motivating factor

at that level.

Mr. ULPH. Just something slightly counter-intuitive on this.

Whilst I agree these images are very effective and very important,

my reading of the ideology is that jihadism is a lot more robust

than that. It won’t be affected by the loss of the arena in Iraq because, after all, we can look back at the materials they are putting

out. They are still recycling materials on Bosnia. They are still recycling materials from all sorts of areas. Even in part of their ideology they can extend it to say that the United States itself was

founded specifically to outflank Islam. So they don’t really need

these images.

One of the points—and I hope I’m not being aggressive here and

this is why I don’t really focus in my work on al-Qa’ida or a specific

group—is that jihadism is a lot larger than these recent events. I

hope I’m not going to sound shocking in a sense, but if you spend

your time, like the sad person I am, reading this material from

dawn to dusk, you do get the very strong impression that we’re not

really part of their interest. Now this sounds very strange. We’ve

been the subject of attacks. We’ve had airplanes in New York and

had two trains blown up in London.

But in terms of statistics, we’re not really the main part of their

interest. The jihad is mainly organized and mainly directed against

the Muslims, because, as I mentioned, it’s a major reconfiguration

of what Islam is. I’m not sure who came up with this phrase, this

phrase that it’s somebody else’s civil war, but it’s a very, very intelligent thing, because what it explains, it explains that, whether we

like it or not, we were dragged into something and these last few

years, which are less than 10 years, when we all got worked up in

a lather about this, this ideological program and the jihad, this is

actually the tail end of a very long war, a very long ideological war

which at least you could date 30 years, and you can go back further

to the beginning of the 20th century.

Al-Qa’ida, in that famous re-shifting of the strategy toward the

foreign enemy, ourselves, come at the end of a very large and very

broad jihadistic movement. It may be that they have, as you mentioned, the propaganda high ground, but actually in terms of real

significance they are a detail. The jihad is much longer than that.

Vice Chairman BOND. Mr. Ulph, thank you.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. You must continue on that line, but

we’ve got to stick with our time.

Senator Bayh.

Senator BAYH. Thank you all for being here. This has been a

very interesting discussion and I wish we had more time for it than

the panel is going to have time for today.

I’d like to start off with two sort of fact-specific questions. Ms.

Cragin, I’d like to start with you. If you took the Islamic world as

a whole, and Islamic youth in particular, what percentage go

through the three stages of indoctrination and actually embrace

violent jihad?

29

Mr. KIMMAGE. Clearly it’s a very small fraction.

Senator BAYH. One percent?

Mr. KIMMAGE. We just don’t know. We just don’t know.

Senator BAYH. So a small fraction could be 30 percent, 40 percent? Give us some ballpark.

Mr. KIMMAGE. I would be misleading this Committee if I said

that we have any sort of a number that I could give you. But it

is fractions of a percent.

Senator BAYH. Thank you.

Mr. Kimmage, I’d like to turn to you. I’d like to follow up on

what Senator Bond was saying and, I think, Mr. Ulph, you were

saying as well very directly. This movement existed a long time before the Iraq war. Clearly, we were attacked before the Iraq was,

and you’ve talked about its antecedents going back possibly to the

beginning of last century. Regrettably, this struggle will be with us

a long time after Iraq has decided one way or the other because

of the underlying forces you described.

And yet we have to answer for ourselves the question are our

present activities in Iraq the most intelligent way to deal with this

phenomenon. Mr. Kimmage, you described it as a boon, I think, in

terms of recruiting and that sort of thing. Can you give us your

opinion? Is our presence there creating more individuals who ultimately embrace violent jihad than we are eliminating in Iraq on

a net basis? Are we creating more terrorists by our presence there

or are we eliminating more terrorists?

Mr. KIMMAGE. The terrible quandary we face is that there’s no

simple answer, for what I think are two reasons. You have one aspect, which is of course the propaganda mileage that these movements can get out of Iraq. One of the points I brought up, I believe,

in my written testimony is that there is, if we look at the regional

franchises, as my colleagues said, you find a focus on regional

issues. A U.S. presence on the ground seems to exert a globalizing

influence. So what you see is that you don’t find many young Arabs

streaming to Indonesia to fight the jihad, but you do find them

traveling to Iraq.

So on that level you do see that our presence there is acting as

a magnet and a propaganda boon. By the same token, no one can

give a guarantee that a U.S. withdrawal and the complete descent

of Iraq into chaos would not be an even greater boon to them. This,

I think, is the quandary that goes beyond our report and some of

the research that we’ve done. But one of the things confronting us

is that we do face this terrible question. We can see some of the

propaganda dividends, but I certainly don’t have enough information about what’s exactly happening on the ground to say. So this,

I think, is the downside.

Senator BAYH. Many of us struggle with exactly that. There is

a downside to almost any course of action that we contemplate.

Mr. Ulph, maybe I could get back to you. I take my hat off to

you if your job is reading this kind of stuff 24/7. It reminds me of

a saying in the intel world: they define the word ‘‘optimist’’ as

someone who does not yet possess all the necessary facts. So you

possess a lot of facts reading this sort of material.

My question to you is, all three of you have touched upon the ideological underpinnings and the world view that animates this

30

movement. Do you have any opinion about what the most effective

countervailing world view might be, the most effective way to express our ideology to try and deter some of these individuals who

go through the three steps of radicalization? What would resonate

and we authentic within the context of the Islamic world and these

various societies? Clearly, we can’t impose our own ideology, but

what would resonate with them?

And I guess my subsidiary question to the most effective countervailing ideology would be is it possible to offer an alternative in

these countries between what too often they view as being the illegitimate or bankrupt or corrupt regimes on the one hand and the

radical Islamic view on the other? Is there some effective third way

we can encourage?

Mr. ULPH. This may actually be a bit of an irritating answer for

you, but one word which groups such as al-Qa’ida and jihad are

terrified of is simply ‘‘liberalism,’’ ‘‘civic society.’’ We may say, well,

first of all, what has that got to do with these groups. Surely

they’re way beyond that. They’re way beyond this ambit of civic society and democracy. Why should they worry about this?

But they worry about it all the time. Looking at the ideological

works dealing with jihad and the failure of jihad—this is the interesting point about a lot of the literature—a lot of the work has

been done for us by people like Abu Wasab al-Suri and shaykhs

such as al- Tartuzi in London. I’ve done a lot of analysis as to why

a jihad goes wrong. Quite handily, looking at the details, what you

find is, aside from the usual types of problems in any revolutionary

movement such as communism, is that you have bickering infights

between the purity of the ideology, the usual problems.

The one thing which they have huge trouble with is the fact that

it’s damn difficult to keep kids on message, because it’s very attractive. America is a very attractive place, and the ideology behind

America is very attractive. These things we regard as self-evident.

A lot of the problem about the analysis of jihadism is that they

think that somehow they must be immune from ‘‘we hold these

things to be self-evident.’’ They’re not. They’re very, very, very worried by this, and they’re spending overtime, they’re burning the

midnight oil and writing tomes trying to aggressively undermine

that basic position.

It’s a painful point for them. And if you look at where they’re

putting most of their efforts, we should put most of our efforts into

watching it. It’s the problem of trying to isolate and trying to take

out this natural human instinct toward individual freedom.

Jihadism, in a nutshell, is a pre-enlightenment ideology.

Senator BAYH. My time is up, but I would condense your answer

into individual freedom.

Mr. ULPH. Yes.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Senator Warner.

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I’d like to thank the Chair and Ranking Member. This is

an excellent hearing. I loved your phrase, Mr. Ulph, ‘‘we are starting this study too late and we’re trying to rush to close the gap.’’

Unfortunately, I and my colleagues don’t have from dawn to dusk

to do the serious study that you’re doing, and therefore we are

grateful you are doing it.

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My first question follows on my colleague from Indiana. He posed

it about what percentage of the Muslim world could be in this

group that’s so antagonistic. Ms. Cragin handled it. I’d like to have

the answer from each of the others. Can we quantify?

Mr. ULPH. To be honest, when you think of a figure, the obvious

word you can come up with is we know that this is not a majority

interest in the Muslim world. That is our sense of hope.

But, to extend that, we discussed very early about the meaning

of Salafism, Salafi jihadism and why this is the nub of the question. The nub of the question is that one of the problems of this

corner aspect of Islamic culture of Islamic culture called Salafism

is that it is a leap-frogging back over centuries to where the model

is a pristine Islamic community, as my colleague suggested.

The problem about where we quantify how many people are involved in jihadism is that, unfortunately, there is a rather fuzzy

gray area borderline between Salafi jihadists and Salafis.

Senator WARNER. My time is going to disappear. So you don’t

have a figure that you can give us?

Mr. ULPH. I don’t have a figure, but if I had a figure for jihadis

I would then, in the next sentence, have to say oh, but that’s not

really the point, because there’s a whole area of which they form

a part which is important.

Senator WARNER. Mr. Kimmage.

Mr. KIMMAGE. If we assume, which I think is relatively accurate,

that it’s some fraction of 1 percent, let me try to put it in a very

short, concise answer why I don’t think that is the key point. I

don’t think that quantitative criteria here are of the essence. AlQa’ida doesn’t recognize and jihadists don’t recognize electoral democracies. So this would be an electorally insignificant group.

But that doesn’t matter, for two reasons. Number one, they don’t

recognize that as a model for coming to power. If they want to come

to power, they’re going to seize it through force of arms.

Senator WARNER. I’ve got to keep going or I won’t finish what I

want to ask. What puzzles me is, assuming that some relatively

small fraction to the totality, why isn’t the balance of that Muslim

world trying to help put down this fighting, where you see Muslim

killing Muslim in Iraq. That makes no sense. Why aren’t they coming forward with a more constructive framework of suggestions to

the free world, be it the United States or the other coalition partners? Can anybody try that one?

Mr. ULPH. Could I just very briefly say that the Muslim communities, much as ourselves, suffer from conceptual insecurity. That

is because the Salafists—and I’m extending the jihadists to the

broader Salafist community—are very adept at claiming authenticity. The key word is ‘‘authenticity.’’ We are more authentic than

thou.

And if you press this authenticity button everybody recoils back

in fear. That’s how they do it. They have the arguments—very simplistic, very simple, and very easy to express arguments. It’s very

difficult to oppose that with broad post-enlightenment rather less

easily expressed or encapsulated arguments. It’s simply because it’s

easier to use the sloganic approach than the broader approach.

Senator WARNER. Let me try another question. I visited England.

I frequently go over and do some lecturing myself. The Ditchley

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Foundation—I don’t know whether you’ve ever been to the Ditchley

Foundation or not, but it’s a wonderful group coming together from

all over the world to discuss the problem in Iraq and how best to

address it.

At the end we had our symposium studies and a number of persons from Great Britain came up to the American delegation—I

guess I was the titular leader of it—and they said you’ve got to

stop using this term ‘‘global war on terrorism,’’ which we have freely used here today, because it is inciting and injuring any possibility we have of hoping to get the Muslim world which is not in

the jihadist business to help us.

Can you help me with that? Is that a term we should not use?

Over in the House of Representatives, Mr. Chairman, the House

Armed Services Committee has decided to take out any reference

using that term in their reports.

Ms. CRAGIN. I’ll answer that in this way. I think that I don’t

want to leave the impression that there aren’t Muslim activists

that are out there that are fighting against this ideology, because

there are those who are out there and who are writing. But we are

making their lives more difficult because it is so persuasive for alQa’ida to get people on board in their anti-Americanism rhetoric.

So if one of the things that we choose to do to try and make the

theologians who are out there combating al-Qa’ida on an ideological

level, we can make their lives easier. If not using the term GWOT

is one of those things that can accomplish that, then I think we

should be doing that.

Senator WARNER. Should we try and perhaps select another terminology or continue to use it? Yes or no.

Mr. KIMMAGE. We should select another terminology. I think that

the battle here in the Muslim world, there are many alternatives

and many debates. One of the problems we’re going to have is some

of the most committed opponents of al-Qa’ida are not going to automatically be friends of the United States. They’re going to be antiAmerican, they’re going to be unfamiliar. But they are committed

opponents of al-Qa’ida. They do exist, and that’s part of the debate

as well.

Senator WARNER. My last point—and I’ll conclude, Mr. Chairman—in the annals of military history the suicide bomber is a relatively rare use of weaponry. We saw it at the concluding phases

of World War II. We saw it in the Israeli conflict with its neighbors

from time to time. But now we see it as a very effective use of

weaponry.

What are the parameters of growth of that weaponry in this

struggle we’re now witnessing in Iraq and, to some extent, in Afghanistan?

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. And answer briefly, please.

Senator WARNER. It is so lethal that there is no defense against

it.

Ms. CRAGIN. Suicide bombing, the reason why it’s being used increasingly well is because it’s effective. Actually, if you read the

documents and interviews with these leaders, this is what they’ll

say. We don’t have F–16s. We don’t have helicopters. So we use

suicide bombings to get at the target we need to. And it’s a very

effective tactic. That’s why terrorist leaders are using them.

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So as long as they can get recruits, I can’t imagine that they

would divert from that particular line.

Senator WARNER. The pool of recruits, is it unlimited? Is it going

to grow? This is an important question.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. They’re all important, Senator Warner.

Senator WARNER. All right. I’ll stop.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Senator Nelson.

Senator NELSON. Mr. Ulph, you have mentioned that there was

a turnaround in the United Kingdom’s approach to terrorism after

the bombing in 2005. What lessons did the United Kingdom learn

that we can learn, and is a part of that among the imams telling

what the truth is about the Qur’an and its teachings instead of this

bastardization that is being used by the extremists?

Mr. ULPH. I think you’re referring to engaging with the Islamic

World Group Foreign Office initiative. I was discussing this with

them not long ago. One of the issues that they have got with this—

what it is, it’s a radical middle way program, using the word ‘‘radical’’ for the youth, as it were. What they are doing is to have a

scholars road show. They go around the United Kingdom telling it

as it is theologically, which is very, very, very valuable.

But who’s going to go to this road show? The only people who are

going to go to it are the converted anyway. So, in other words,

there isn’t much.

The answer to your question is, I wish that the United Kingdom

could demonstrate that they had made amazing strides in their attitudes and in their interpretations, but I’m afraid they haven’t.

There are still a lot of question marks. It has confused the United

Kingdom greatly because of this problem, and here it comes down

to this point again. The problem is, how does somebody brought up

in the United Kingdom, with all the privileges and freedoms of the

United Kingdom, how do they end up becoming a jihadi terrorist.

Senator NELSON. Is there a huge difference between the United

Kingdom and the United States in that the Muslim community

here is more assimilated as opposed to the situation in Europe?

Mr. ULPH. I think that is definitely the case. This was brought

home to me once when an American visitor came to London and

said, there’s a lot of people wearing hijabs in London. And I didn’t

notice that. I said, well, it must be the same in the United States.

And she said, no, I don’t often see it.

Senator NELSON. Let me just stop you and go on. To what degree, in all of your opinions, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict utilized? I heard the testimony of all of you, saying that it is primarily

utilization of the fact that the United States is attacking Muslims.

What about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Mr. ULPH. Well, they would simply assume that the Israeli approach to this is simply an extension of the United States. Again,

on the issue——

Senator NELSON. So that’s the assumption. It’s used interchangeably.

Mr. ULPH. They have a word for it. It’s called (Arabic), ‘‘Zionist

crusadism.’’ In their view, their spectacles, it’s simply another manifestation of the ancient struggle.

If, behind that question is to say, if this issue were cleared up,

would the jihadism go away? Well, clearly not.

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Senator NELSON. OK. I was recently in Algeria and a group

called the GSPC has morphed into a group called AQIM—al- Qa’ida

in the Islamic Magreb. They broke through the barriers and got

next to the prime minister’s palace and fired rockets into the palace. This local version of al-Qa’ida in North Africa, does it differ

in other versions? What are we seeing as this transitions out of

Arabia into Africa?

Mr. KIMMAGE. One of the things we’re seeing is, you have Algerian veterans of a conflict that’s been going on there for a long time

buying into and adopting the symbolism of the global struggle. So

clearly they think it’s a winning brand, if you want to put it that

way. They see it as positive to affiliate themselves with it.

This is relatively new in the last few years, that these regional

franchises have begun springing up, and we should get a sense, I

think, relatively soon are they just brand names where it’s really

being driven from the regional level, being driven by regional conflict, or is there any central coordination. My impression from the

research I’ve done, particularly on Iraq, is that there is not a lot

of central coordination. It seems to be more regionally driven.

Senator NELSON. What about our foreign language illiteracy? Is

that of a significance hindrance?

Mr. ULPH. Well, it can’t help. I read a figure—and it may be out

of date—that out of 12,000 FBI there were 33 that were able to

read in Arabic. That can’t help. It certainly does make a problem

because it means you’re dependent upon the type of material that

groups such as al-Qa’ida would be happy for us to read.

There’s a lot of material that they circulate amongst themselves

which perhaps puts a different complexion on their broader jihadist

ideology than the materials which they do for a western audience.

Yes, it does affect things.

Senator NELSON. So, back to the United Kingdom, how does a

Muslim raised in the United Kingdom with all the privileges thereto appertaining, how do they become a jihadist?

Mr. ULPH. I think it’s a self-generating and highly rich culture,

because one of the problems that underlies these questions—and I

tend to get a little bit exasperated about it—is that we’re all the

time fixated. What is it that’s pushing these guys into becoming

jihadis? Why don’t we rephrase that question? What’s pulling them

into it? Because by pushing them into it we are getting into this

old chestnut that it’s their economic conditions or sociological conditions and maybe these groups are not integrated into society in the

United Kingdom or France, and that somehow it’s our fault.

Whereas I don’t see any reflection of that in the jihadist literary

material. All I see is stuff which is about themselves. Could I just

in a nutshell point out where the problem is? This is to do with

western narcissism. We assume that everything that happens, not

only physically, militarily but ideologically, must have something to

do with us. Whatever happens around the world, we are responsible.

The fact is, we’re going to have to get used to the fact that these

guys have a very, very low literary intellectual tradition of their

own, which takes no pointers from us and which glories in the fact

that it deliberately does not follow our intellectual growth and tradition. So the sooner we understand that the starting point is their

35

own, self-generated, we’ll stop this, to put it politely, this merrygo-round of trying to scratch our heads and find out where we went

wrong.

They’re not interested in us. Their focus isn’t about us. They’ve

got their own self-generating ideological starting points.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Senator Hatch.

Senator HATCH. Well, I certainly want to thank you for being

here, all three of you, and for the enlightenment that you’re giving

to us. But let me just ask a question that any of you can answer.

In what parts of the world is al-Qa’ida’s ideological message

strongest and what parts is it weakest, and why?

Mr. ULPH. Anecdotally, the phrase that comes up is Indonesia

being weakest. The indication there is that if you have a highly diverse society with highly diverse intellectual currents, this is a protection against jihadism. Jihadism, again, it’s basic feature is that

it wants to re- fence Islamic culture into a certain direction. If you

have a society where it still remains too diverse to do that, then

you’re going to have jihadism at a very weak state.

When you have areas, in certain areas of the Middle East, where

there isn’t a lot of alternative cultural patterns, then you find it

stronger.

Senator HATCH. Mr. Ulph, in your testimony you state that

‘‘jihad is highly sensitive to public opinion and depends upon the

mujahidin being able to maintain their claims to authenticity and

the moral high ground.’’ What are examples of where they have

lost the moral high ground in the eyes of their supporters—killing

innocents, killing Shi’a?

Mr. ULPH. Very much so. They are so paranoid about this issue—

and this is, by the way, our opportunity—they are so paranoid

about the idea of losing the moral high ground that they are spending their time putting up on the Internet something which I didn’t

know existed before—a thing called an e-book. Apparently what

this is, this is a constantly expanded encyclopedia, and it’s an encyclopedia—we’re used to hearing an encyclopedia of jihad, but this

is an encyclopedia of doctrine.

What they’re doing is, every time there is a problem, such as the

killing of Muslims in Saudi Arabia in bomb attacks, the Amman

bombings, when there is a PR disaster, they get the scholars to refence the whole issue and to explain away why the jihadis, why the

mujahidin were doing what they did. But they don’t simply content

themselves with answering a problem that occurred. This is something that should be a lesson for us. They actually predict future

problems.

So this e-book actually now has chapters on theoretical problems

which might occur in the future due to the behavior of the

mujahidin, and how we can answer those questions. It would be

not a bad idea to have that entire thing translated just to look at

their methodology, because all we’d have to do is concentrate on

the area where they are getting more lathered about it—the largest

chapters—and say, well, that’s a painful point, but let’s look into

that more carefully.

Senator HATCH. Mr. Kimmage, in your open source studies, what

fissures exist in al-Qa’ida’s ideological support for the various Iraqi

36

Sunni insurgencies? Are the fissures significant in comparison to

the tactical alliances?

Mr. KIMMAGE. I think the fissures are significant. There is a

large and widening fissure between al-Qa’ida in Iraq and the other

Sunni insurgent groups, and in April of this year one of the major

Sunni insurgent nationalist groups, the Islamic Army in Iraq, on

April 5 released a 4,500-word statement criticizing al-Qa’ida in

Iraq. And the two groups a few days ago signed, I believe, a makeup, a sort of temporary truce or something, but this polemic has

gone on now for months.

It is substantial. There were many statements, allegations,

counter-charges, and what emerged from this is that there are significant fissures between the Sunni insurgent groups that are more

nationalist in their outlook and between al-Qa’ida. And there was

a formation of a group called the Front for Jihad and Reform which

brings together three groups that are basically against al-Qa’ida. I

think when we look at this polemic over the last few months, we

see significant fissures.

They are ideological fissures. The most basic one is that these

nationalist groups say our fight is in Iraq. For al-Qa’ida, it is part

of a larger global struggle. That’s a very significant ideological fissure.

Senator HATCH. For all three of you, how involved is al-Qa’ida in

the current Lebanese conflict, if you know?

Mr. KIMMAGE. Without hazarding a guess on how operationally

involved it is, one of the interesting things we are seeing is that

this is increasingly a part of political discourse in the Arab world.

This is one of the areas where you see a worrisome sign, in that

people watching al-Jazeera or reading the newspapers, this might

be a very small group of fighters, but what you’re seeing now is the

association of al-Qa’ida ideology and Lebanon. It’s new.

Senator HATCH. One other part of that I’d like you to just continue with is, is there an effort being made to obliterate the Christian community in Lebanon. Do you think that’s part of it?

Mr. ULPH. Obliterate the Christian community in Lebanon? I

would think that would be a bit of an ambitious task, but if you

were to ask——

Senator HATCH. I don’t see why.

Mr. ULPH. On the grounds of its magnitude. But if you were to

ask what is the ideology of al-Qa’ida and jihad generally on the

subject, then it certainly wouldn’t be counted to their general purpose. But in Lebanon, I’ve not seen evidence that this is part of

their program.

I think also one of their main preoccupations—and this is a constant fact, by the way, if you look at history—one thing that’s

worse than an infidel is a heretic. So al-Qa’ida, when it comes to

Lebanon, is probably much more worked up about Hizballah than

it is about Christians. Christians are just the end of the limit; they

don’t know any better. But Shi’a, these people should know better

because they’re Muslims and therefore they are worse than the infidel.

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Senator Feingold.

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Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank

Senator Whitehouse very much for his courtesy.

I welcome this hearing and appreciate the participation of the

witnesses. Obviously terrorism is brutal, inhuman and inexcusable,

but it is largely a tactic employed by individuals and groups and

movements with a broad range of nationalist, ethnic, sectarian, economic as well as religious motivation. I think our national interests

are best served when we seek to understand the differences between al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and the communities in which

they seek to operate and then develop policies accordingly.

Al-Qa’ida may have an ideology and we need to address it, as we

are today. But I think there’s been far too much talk of Islamo-fascism, as well as other suggestions that are facing a global, monolithic enemy. We heard this before the war in Iraq, when a secular

Muslim dictator, Saddam Hussein, was equated with al-Qa’ida. We

hear this now whenever the sectarian nature of the conflict in Iraq,

confirmed by the declassified assessments of our own intelligence

community, is ignored. And we hear it whenever our Government

fails to recognize and address the unique grievances of a particular

region or country, the resolution of which could determine whether

or not al-Qa’ida actually finds a safe haven there.

Last year I traveled to several such regions. In Aceh, the tsunami provided the impetus to resolve a longstanding civil conflict,

but to its credit, the international community was able to broker

a peace agreement in part because it resisted the temptation to see

a Muslim separatist movement as necessarily an extension of alQa’ida. In southern Thailand the jury is still out. There have been

horrible acts of terrorism, and the perpetrators must be brought to

justice, but we have an opportunity to address the local grievances

fueling the violence before al-Qa’ida is able to capitalize on them.

I also visited the Horn of Africa last year—Senator Nelson was

talking a little bit about the broader region there—where al-Qa’ida

operatives, including those who attacked our embassies in Kenya

and Tanzania, do enjoy safe haven. But my concern with regard to

Somalia is that we have failed to adequately recognize that while

al-Qa’ida may operate in the context of the civil conflict, its motives

and agendas are not necessarily those of the local population. But

that’s not the way people talk about it.

The result has been broad-brush oversimplified assertions about

the spread of what is called extremism and far too little understanding of the clan-based conflict that is also central to the conflict, not to mention the economic and other factors that contribute

to the general instability and vulnerability of Somalia.

I tell you, this is such an important hearing, Mr. Chairman, because after 6 years after 9/11, we are still oversimplifying things

in this way, to the detriment of the national security of the American people.

Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned about al-Qa’ida’s operations in recent years. The recent terrorist attack in Algeria and

the emergence of al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb indicate that

our enemy has found new ways to threaten us and our interests

around the world. We need more focus, more attention, and more

resources directed at this threat, and we need to understand that

fighting al-Qa’ida requires separating the terrorists from popuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Apr 22, 2008 Jkt 040579 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\40579.TXT DianeA PsN: DianeA
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lations whose grievances are often local and whose loyalties are

still fluid.

Ms. Cragin, in your testimony you describe a letter written in

1993 by an al-Qa’ida member in Somalia in which he complained

that Somali fighters were caught up in tribal squabbles and could

not be convinced to adopt the al-Qa’ida ideological world view. You

then describe how al-Qa’ida seeks to take advantage of local grievances and politics in countries like Somalia while exploiting antiAmericanism.

How, in your view, can the United States and the international

community move a country like Somalia back to a place where, to

quote that same letter, Somalia is a ‘‘barren and futile’’ arena for

al-Qa’ida. What kinds of diplomatic initiatives, foreign assistance

and other policies might help us achieve that goal?

Ms. CRAGIN. I think that your assumption going in is in fact correct, and that you have this somewhat simplistic al-Qa’ida rhetoric

that comes out. But then the question of how it is applied at a local

level by groups and in local insurgencies, or in local conflicts then

changes, and that’s where the complication and the nuance comes.

So the first inclination is, should we decide that it’s national security interest to be engaged in a conflict like Somalia, or, for example, as was mentioned earlier, in the southern Philippines, the

first step is to understand those nuances—how much the global appeal is trickling down at a local level and how much it’s not. And

that’s definitely the first step in confronting that sort of complex

situation.

Senator FEINGOLD. What does the current situation in Somalia,

with the unresolved clan disputes and the extended Ethiopian presence, mean for al-Qa’ida, in your view?

Ms. CRAGIN. Well, I think that a number of people have written

and have talked about this, but you have the attractiveness of a

potential safehaven in an area where it could move its operatives

in and out. That is the potential threat that Somalia posed in the

nineties to a certain extent, and that’s what it’s posing now.

What you can do about the small fractions of people that we’ve

been talking about moving in and out is a very complex intelligence

problem and a complex operational problem. That’s the problem of

terrorism. So whether massive reforms in Somalia will be able to

resolve the problem in the short or medium or long term is a much

more complex policy question.

Senator FEINGOLD. So the Ethiopian invasion by itself did not

take out Somalia as a potential al-Qa’ida safehaven, did it?

Ms. CRAGIN. The problem with East Africa and the Horn of Africa is you have massive amounts of spaces of relatively ungoverned

territories. And when you’re dealing with small numbers of

operatives, that just poses a problem.

Senator FEINGOLD. How can the United States and its allies seek

to exploit cultural and other differences between people in places

like Somalia and an al-Qa’ida ideology that is ultimately a foreign

concept for a country like that? How can public diplomacy, backed

up with diplomatic and economic outreach serve this purpose?

Ms. CRAGIN. I’m going to be a little bit controversial and say that

my inclination, based on my research, is not to ask what can we

do, but what should we do. There is a lot we can do that could sufVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Apr 22, 2008 Jkt 040579 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\40579.TXT DianeA PsN: DianeA
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fer backlash, and I think that has been alluded to by some of my

colleagues earlier. So when you start to talk about public diplomacy

or strategic influence type efforts, there is a broader context.

Again, when I mentioned before this impression that the United

States is trying and seeking to divide the Muslim world is something that we need to just be a little bit cautious about.

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, my thanks

to Senator Whitehouse.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Senator Feingold.

Senator Whitehouse.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’d like to follow up on Senator Warner’s question from a moment

ago on the utility of the phrase ‘‘global war on terror’’ and, Ms.

Cragin, your description of that, as a phrase, that is making their

lives more difficult for those who are resisting al-Qa’ida’s rhetoric.

In that context, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning ill-advised and 10 meaning wise and prudent, where on that scale would

you put the Administration’s use of the word ‘‘crusade?’’

Ms. CRAGIN. Wow. That’s just one of those buzzwords that’s probably ill-advised.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Somewhere down around 1, then. And the

use of the phrase ‘‘global war on terror,’’ how charged would that

be by comparison on that same 1 to 10 scale?

Ms. CRAGIN. I think just to not want to do 1 to 10 because I’m

a researcher and we generally tend not to like to do that, with the

term ‘‘terrorism’’ and the reason why it’s problematic is most of

these groups and their sympathizers, in particular, don’t see the

fighters as terrorists. They are resistance fighters. So that’s the

problem with that sort of term.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I have a friend who is a former undercover

FBI counterterrorism agent who has written that language is crucial to a terrorist movement and concluded that the term ‘‘global

war on terrorism’’ gives ‘‘jihadists the warrior status they crave.’’

Is that accurate?

Mr. KIMMAGE. I think that one of the things we do when we use

that terminology is we play into some of their self-aggrandizing

dreams. They want to see themselves as fighting this global struggle. They embrace the idea of a clash of civilizations and a war. We

don’t have to give that to them.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. But we do.

Mr. KIMMAGE. We don’t have to.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. In that context, nobody gets into the highest levels of the Executive branch or to our side of this table without having had some experience framing issues in order to assist

public debate, if you will. Setting aside the sort of Karl Rove effort

to frame this debate for sale to the American public, where in the

Executive branch is an ongoing effort to frame this issue in a way

that is effective for our soldiers and our national security located?

Ms. CRAGIN. I’m just going to answer that in this way. There’s

one thing about doing public diplomacy which clearly resides in the

Department of State, but there’s another thing about making sure

that the behaviors and the actions, as the Vice Chairman reflected

in his statements, match what we’re saying. And both of those

40

work in tandem. You can’t do one without the other. It just doesn’t

make any sense.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Are you aware of any place in the Executive branch of government where strategizing, the framing of this

issue in a way that is helpful to our soldiers and to our national

security and to our effort is being done? Is there a central place

where they say—we know that Karl Rove is at the central place on

the political side; are you aware of a central place in the Executive

branch on the substantive or international side?

Mr. ULPH. Sorry to be slightly counter on this, but if I can pick

up this global war on terrorism issue problem, once again, this is

an example of unease of western commentators about a word such

as ‘‘terrorism,’’ because that might give a bad impression.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Actually, my unease is about the word

‘‘war.’’

Mr. ULPH. Oh, I see. The point I was going to make about

terrorism——

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Calling them terrorists and criminals actually probably helps. Calling them warriors I think is probably

what feeds into their ethos, if you will.

Mr. ULPH. Very much so. In terms of the loaded word ‘‘terrorism,’’ which is morally loaded for us, it depends what constituency you’re worried about. If it’s people who may sympathize with

the acts of the mujahidin, yes, that is an issue. If you’re talking

about the mujahidin themselves, don’t worry about them, because

nothing you do or say or think will be of an interest to them. In

fact, they quite happily pick up words that we use, like terrorism,

and they run with them because they are proud of the word.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Let me try to pop in one more question in

my 25 seconds. As a prosecutor, I prosecuted people who called

themselves the Latin Kings—terrible people, multiple murders, extremely dangerous. But if you had gone to Chicago or to Los Angeles and found real Latin Kings and asked them about that crowd

in Providence, nobody would have ever heard of them. It was a

local initiative that had popped up and had used that phraseology

in order to give itself more status and cast a little cloud of fear

around its activities and so forth.

To what extent, by emphasizing the phrase ‘‘al-Qa’ida,’’ ‘‘alQa’ida,’’ ‘‘al-Qa’ida,’’ which seems to have internal political dynamics and rewards as well, are we creating a similar kind of atmosphere in which people who are simply generally terrorists or antithetical to the local power structure, of a view, for one reason or

another, to blow things up, as people have since back before World

War I, that they would then latch onto the al-Qa’ida phrase because we’ve empowered it? And is there a way to deal with that

without compromising the underlying effort to get rid of the folks

who are engaged in the actual acts of terror that we want to root

out and punish?

Mr. KIMMAGE. We have to maintain a global perspective, but a

local focus, so that we don’t feed into what you’re talking about, we

don’t give them a brand; we don’t give them a banner to run their

crusade under. So we have to maintain a local focus on what may

be simply bands of criminals running around and they want to put

41

a statement on the Internet. We don’t have to make them feel as

though they are warriors in this just cause.

At the same time, we do have to, I think, maintain a global perspective, because that’s the world we live in and we have to keep

that. But I think you’re right. We can gain from framing these

things in a local way, precisely, using words like ‘‘criminal,’’ et

cetera.

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.

Now Senator Chambliss.

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Cragin, if I understood what you were talking about earlier,

you were talking about these different denominations within

Salafists. It’s my understanding that Wahhabism fits in here somehow. Can all of you just address how the ideology of Wahhabism

plays into this overall issue of violence among Islamists, particularly Salafists?

Mr. ULPH. In a nutshell, if we were to state the spectrum of Islamic belief, you will have, obviously, at one end moderates. Down

at the other end you could split it up into three broad areas. You

could say Islamism, of which a part you could say Salafism. And

inside that you can say jihadi Salafists. Unfortunately, they are

like concentric circles.

The Islamists are not specifically automatically a problem because it depends on whether the Islamic agenda is about going

back and trying to reintroduce Islamic elements in the vertical

structure, in the social structures. There’s no problem with this.

Where you have a problem—and this is where I don’t think the

problem is just the Salafi jihadists—the problem is with Salafism.

Wahhabism is, if you like, a state Salafism. It’s a Salafism which

goes back a bit earlier. It’s had a long foundation and it underpins

the Saudi ideology. No one can really honestly say, well, the Saudis

are working mischief in the United States. That’s not true.

The point is, they have an ideology, they believe in it, and it’s

second nature to them. That’s fine. Nobody would dispute that. The

problem is that if you have a support of a Salafist mindset in a

western context, then it comes up against a different context,

which is our own political culture. So to support Salafism, such as

the Wahhabis do throughout the Muslim world, you may or may

not agree with whether they should be doing this, but you can have

a standpoint on whether, if what they’re doing is educating

Salafists—Salafists educating Muslims in the West, whether that

causes greater isolation of the Muslim community in the West.

That is the problem where the Wahhabist influence has to be

looked at carefully. It may be, and it’s entirely reasonable to suggest, that their focus is not really on causing trouble; we focus is

on simply a pietistic focus upon improving, in their view, the Islamic behavior of Muslims.

The other side of this is whether in fact—the flip side of it is

whether that is going to conflict with a different conception of citizenship, which underpins the United States and western countries.

This is the problem.

Now one final issue about the spectrum. To ask any Salafist

scholar, he’ll answer very candidly and truthfully that he’s not inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:47 Apr 22, 2008 Jkt 040579 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\40579.TXT DianeA PsN: DianeA
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terested in violence. He’s not interested in causing trouble. The

problem is, because of the paradigm for what constitutes authenticity and real Islam is a pristine community of the early Muslims,

because of that paradigm, they don’t stand a chance against the

jihadis, because all the jihadis have to say is, well, you believe that

a true Muslim society should be a society modeled on that of the

Prophet and we agree with you. And guess what? What were they

doing? They are fighting jihad. They haven’t got an argument

against that.

Most Salafist scholars are entirely genuine in their opposition to

violence, but they don’t have an ideological argument to stop this

seepage from Salafism into jihadi Salafism. That is the tragedy of

it all.

Senator CHAMBLISS. So, do Salafists versus jihadist Salafists believe that it’s OK, that the Qur’an says it’s OK to kill somebody?

Mr. ULPH. Their starting point is, shall we say—I don’t want to

keep on using this phrase—their starting point is pre-enlightenment, and they are happy about this. In other words, they will take

their model for what constitutes morality from obviously internal

to the Islamic tradition. We, since the enlightenment, have questioned even our own Christian morality on the grounds that—the

idea that very few Christians now believe that outside the church

there is no salvation, and therefore, you should not worry about

these people.

The problem is, in a pre-enlightenment culture they are at home

with this culture. They are at home with the idea that that which

adds to the interest of the Islamic state is, as such, moral and that

which detracts from it is immoral. That is the fundamental difference.

It should be no problem in a pluralistic society like ourselves

until it has the effect of increasing isolationism amongst the Muslim community, until it has the effect of making them feel that

they are under siege. Unfortunately, this is very much the by-product of Salafist education.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. I’m

going to be a little bit like Ms. Cragin and offer up something controversial.

What you’ve all been discussing is the enormous variety of cultures, counter-cultures, different points of view, not just with respect to Iraq, but with respect to the entire world. That was a deal,

wasn’t it, between the Saud family and Saudi Arabia. This is my

point. What you’re calling for, it seems to me—and I was actually

rather surprised by your tepid response to the question about language; I just go berserk over a lack of language, and you only went

semi-berserk.

Our whole approach in the Government and our whole approach

since 9/11 has been to do—I’m positing and you will enlighten me,

all of you, hopefully, that in fact this is all about America, and

therefore we have arranged ourselves, as indeed we already had,

through our intelligence system, through our military, through our

policymaking, through the nature of our hearings—both public and

private—to take this on as a problem that has a solution. We went

to considerable lengths to create a Director of National Intelligence

so that we could take 18 intelligence agencies, some of which, like

43

the INR, DOE and some others, were giving us very different intelligence, and then bring them all together by having a Director of

National Intelligence and then another Director of National Intelligence, who is very good.

The military speaks for itself. There is no dissent. We understand now that there are a lot of retired generals who are coming

out with a much more subtle approach, and what we talk about but

don’t necessarily speak about is there are a lot of in-service senior

folks who do exactly the same thing.

Now, my question to you is, are we answering what you have all

raised, and that is the multiple difficult of this, that is it not necessarily all based upon us, but jihadists trying to go after each

other and everything else that you said, and doing just about the

worst job of trying to counter it by treating it as one problem?

Mr. ULPH. In a nutshell, one of the problems and one of the irritating aspects of the problem that lies before us is that we have

to get to grips with the fact that there isn’t, shall we say, a strategy, a quick-fix strategy. We’re talking about, really, we’re going to

have to reconfigure. We’re going to have to understand an entire

educational process, because what we really risk, as I mentioned

earlier, is an entire generation of Muslim youth who are being educated in an alternative universe.

As soon as we get to that understanding, the sooner we’ll begin

to start to impact upon it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a map. Ask

anybody in the Administration. I’m sure they’ll say the same in the

United Kingdom. Very few people will have or will have even

thought that it would be important to have an idea about the nature, the richness and the sophistication of the ideology.

As soon as that is understood and as soon as we start publishing

furiously on the nature of the ideology and understanding it, the

sooner we can actually do something, which may sound very dull

and may sound very undramatic. But we will then have to start an

entire new reeducation process.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Could I have the advantage of one

more at least?

Ms. CRAGIN. I was just going to add onto that. It’s not just

there’s not just one solution at an ideological level. There’s not one

solution at the grassroots level where we’re having a second generation of recruits coming in as well.

Mr. KIMMAGE. I’d like to add a slightly contradictory note to that,

which is that I think as we develop specialists with the language

skills to look at the open sources—to say something heretical before

the intelligence committee, most of this is out in the open. As we

look at it, I’d like to slightly disagree with my colleague that this

ideology is not quite so rich, not quite so deep, and not quite so

powerful. It’s actually secured very few adherents. They’ve garnered a lot of attention through use of media and violence.

But as we become more familiar with the debates in that part

of the world, we’ll be better able to understand and encourage the

people who ridicule it in that part of the world, because it is not

terribly rich or intelligent or insightful and does not have answers.

I think that’s one of the things we’ll learn.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Are any of the three of you or your institutions looking at this question of a change in approach? I’m not

44

saying it could be done. The United States Government turns very

slowly. But the truth is the truth, or as close to the truth is as

close to the truth as you can get. Are any of you working on this

or are your institutions?

Mr. ULPH. At the risk of sort of banging on my own particular

bee in the bonnet, I’m working on a book which is going to be, shall

we say, a curriculum, a full curriculum of the literature, almost

like a literary guide to jihad, as it were. The idea of this is the

map—the map issue. If we know what we’re dealing with, we know

the breadth of what we’re dealing with; then we know to go on

from there.

And I’m also working on a project on bringing a curriculum the

other way around—that is, to try to establish within the American

educational system a curriculum which will introduce the jihad culture as part of, for instance, political studies or Arabic studies.

One of the problems is, in a nutshell again, that it is quite odd—

this would not have occurred during the cold war—that there is a

dearth of instruction and educational programs on the subject of

jihadist Islam, possibly because of a natural tendency for scholars

to want to flag out the positive aspects of a culture, and therefore

not to wish to flag up something which may cast a negative pall

upon it.

So yes, one is the curriculum work. The other one is the educational programs.

Ms. CRAGIN. I’ll just speak for RAND and say, absolutely. At a

strategic level we’re doing a lot of reassessing, rethinking our strategic approach to the global war on terrorism that people seem to

have decided is not necessarily the right term, but also, at a micro

level and at a grassroots level in different communities, targeting

how our policy is impacting different communities, just, even just

different countries. And that’s something that we would be more

than happy to share with your staffers any time you are interested

in it.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Thank you very much.

Vice Chairman Bond.

Vice Chairman BOND. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. A couple of

thoughts. Number one, you were talking about the admiration they

have for the United States. A good friend of mine with whom I’m

working is a journalist who was in Indonesia and managed to

worm himself in or get himself into Abu Bukar Bashir’s

Passandran, the heart of the most violent radical jihadist movement. And he listened to Abu Bukar Bashir make his pronouncements and had a round table and addressed the students there.

They all committed to jihad and they have been recruited. They

were in training.

And at end of it he said, no, if I gave you the opportunity, how

many of you would like to go to America. And every single one of

them held up his hands and said we would love to do it.

Now we are trying to figure out a way to get through this, and

I know it’s very complicated and sometimes we seek simple answers. There’s no simple answer. We’ve got to find a better term.

I think everybody can agree ‘‘Islamofascism’’ was a disastrous term.

I don’t know whether we call them radical vermin or something

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that’s not flattering. There has to be some way to determine who

we need to fight.

On the other hand, there’s a broad uma that we have to influence positively, and we mentioned what was going on in the Philippines. That’s foreign aid combined with effective kinetic force.

I’ve heard from Muslims in that region that they want more educational exchanges; they want more U.S. visitors there. We ought

to be putting more volunteers there, whether it’s Peace Corps or

the volunteers in Asia.

I believe that we are missing out because we have downgraded

and taken resources away from the Voice of America/Radio Free

Asia, Mr. Kimmage’s area. The broadcast medium that we have on

doesn’t seem to be doing much of a job in putting out our story.

We don’t want to get involved, as I guess Ms. Cragin said, in trying

to pit Muslims against each other. But there are fissures.

What I would like for you all to give me just in a minute is, what

are the things that we can be doing to appeal to the broad Muslim

world to show that we are not the ogres that that narrow groups

seeks to paint us as?

Mr. KIMMAGE. One thing we can do, I think all of us as researchers can do, is as we learn more about this and transmit our knowledge within our society, is we can reveal the poverty of jihadist ideology and we can have a dialog with people in the Arab and Muslim world, who also feel that it’s impoverished. I think that’s one

very important thing we can do as researchers.

To answer the Chairman’s question, my colleague Kathleen

Ridolfo and I at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—which also includes Radio Free Iraq, incidently—we just finished this study look

at jihadist and insurgent media in Iraq, and we’re very eager to do

similar research in the future.

Mr. ULPH. Quite simply, the first argument is, well, why would

we be doing anything, because it would be the kiss of death or

something, like involving ourselves in an ideology, because we

wouldn’t be qualified. But there’s a very simple answer to that. We

simply fund, we promote the moderates and let them do the argument for us. There’s plenty of people out there. The problem is, unlike the radicals, they don’t have the funding, and they don’t have

the networking.

The United States, particularly, is a very experienced country in

networking and networking moderates. It happened in the cold

war. There’s no reason why we can’t do this again.

Vice Chairman BOND. But if we are funding them, do they not

become our lackeys?

Mr. ULPH. Well, there’s two answers to that. One is, already as

regards to the jihadis, we’re zero anyway, so anybody who supports

that United States type of culture, if he’s a moderate, he’s zero; so

the moderates themselves, they’re not going to bother to try and

dissociate themselves from liberalism because they believe it.

The other thing is, if it comes to funding a group, you can do exactly what we did in the cold war. We maintained a distance. We

allowed people to join these groups even if they disagreed with U.S.

policy. In other words, it gains it credibility. In other words, it’s

more than the United States; it’s more than the policy of the

United States in the Middle East. It’s about ideas.

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We simply fund, we promote, we invite, we up the profile and the

visibility of the considerably and very brave moderate Muslim intellectuals who at the moment are cowed because, again, of the

lack of funding and the lack of networking and the lack of our support.

Vice Chairman BOND. Ms. Cragin.

Ms. CRAGIN. Based on our research—and I’ll separate the hard

core jihadis, which I agree with my colleague that you’re really not

going to get at—focusing on the people who are potentially sympathetic to the al-Qa’ida ideology.

You can confront them on an ideological level by funding these

sorts of groups, but I’d also like to see us talking more and more

about political decisions that we can make on a more political level

and, of course, as you mentioned, there are things that can be done

at an economic level too. I’m just going to refer you to a report

called ‘‘Terrorism Development’’ that talks about what we can do

in development at the political, social and economic level to try and

mitigate or erode some of this support for these groups.

Vice Chairman BOND. Would be published by the RAND Corporation, by any chance?

Ms. CRAGIN. I’ll hold it up here.

Vice Chairman BOND. That’s one I hadn’t read.

Ms. CRAGIN. I’m happy to provide you with this copy.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Actually, you have two copies, I think.

Ms. CRAGIN. Yes, I do. I have multiple copies here.

Vice Chairman BOND. Mr. Chairman, this has been a very informative hearing. I think we’ve all learned a lot. I was just going

to say I think there are several questions for the record. I don’t

want to continue. I want to be able to turn to our friend from Indiana and ask if I may submit some questions for the record.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. Of course.

Senator Bayh.

Senator BAYH. I just had two very brief final questions. One of

you had previously mentioned that there were voices in the Islamic

world that spoke out against the violence against other Muslims,

the use of suicide bombers and that kind of thing. So you said you

didn’t want us to think they weren’t out there. But then you made

the comment that we weren’t making things any easier on them.

What did you mean by that, and what could we do to make it easier on the voices of moderation in the Islamic world that are speaking out against these kinds of activities?

Ms. CRAGIN. That would be me. I do think that, like he was saying, there are people who are out there speaking against the use

of whether it be suicide bombings, whether it be the use of violence

against civilians. The problem is the anti-Americanism aspect

that’s out there. And if you believe the public opinion polls that

have been taken in the Muslim world, this view that the United

States—as I’ve been saying, is trying to divide the Muslim world—

is so prevalent that it’s hard for the moderates to put their voices

out there in favor of anything that might be pro-U.S.

So it’s really easy for the jihadist ideologues——

Senator BAYH. They can’t even speak about their own interpretation of the Qur’an?

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Ms. CRAGIN. Some of them can and some of them can’t. Anything

that sort of bleeds into being sympathetic to the global war on terrorism they get criticized so harshly that sometimes it’s very hard

for them. They get personally threatened in many cases, and this

is very difficult.

I just want to make one other somewhat controversial statement

which I said a little bit earlier, which is that Hamas has been very

vocal against al-Qa’ida. Now we might consider them as radical,

but they have a lot of credibility in the Muslim world and yet they

have been vocally criticizing al-Qa’ida. So there are other options

out there besides just the moderates as well for us to take into account.

Mr. KIMMAGE. I think we really need to grapple with the issue

that some of the most credible, vocal and authoritative critics of alQa’ida and suicide bombing are also very anti-American. This is an

issue we’re going to have to come to terms with. We might want

to find people who are going to say I’m against al-Qa’ida and your

friend, but in the real world we’re going to have to look at this. I

think we have to confront this.

Senator BAYH. They don’t need to love us, as long as they do

what they can to try and stop violence directed at us or anybody

else.

Mr. KIMMAGE. Fair enough.

Senator BAYH. So that’s my first question.

I apologize; I had to step out to make a phone call, but I did overhear one of you saying that if there’s one thing that they hated

more than an infidel it was a heretic. I’d like to ask you why there

have not been—now, of course, it’s taking place in Iraq today, but

before that there really wasn’t much violence, I don’t believe, by

the Sunnis directed at the Shia. Why not, and what are the implications going forward of this split between Sunni and Shia that you

read about possibly gathering some momentum?

Mr. KIMMAGE. In Iraq one of the things we found in doing the

research for our report is that there is agreement across the board

right now in the Sunni insurgent groups that Iran is up to something terribly nefarious in Iraq. So what you find is the nationalist

groups say that Iraq is under two occupations—an American and

an Iranian one.

Senator BAYH. More nefarious than what they think we’re up to?

Mr. KIMMAGE. More nefarious. They even say Iran is a more dangerous enemy than the United States, yes. I can show you the

quotes.

They, however, do not have the same view as al-Qa’ida, which is

the Shiites are heretics and one must go out and simply slaughter

them. That is a view that, speaking regionally in Iraq, became

prevalent with Zarqawi’s assent, and there was disagreement between Zarqawi and the people from the old central al-Qa’ida leadership about how expedient or wise this was.

It’s one of the things that illustrates, I think, the differences

within the organization, the ideological fissures, if you will. It’s an

element that has metastasized, unfortunately, in Iraq in the conditions of the conflict there, but it’s very, very prevalent.

Senator BAYH. Do you think it has the potential to spread more

widely? There are some—I take back my previous statement—some

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instances of attacks in Pakistan, I believe, Sunni-Shia and so forth.

Does this have the potential to spread more widely across the Islamic world?

Mr. KIMMAGE. It certainly has the potential where there are Shiite minorities, and some of them are close to Iraq, that conflict continues to metastasize, then yes, it could. Right now, though, the

focus of this in the Arab world is certainly in Iraq. One of the

things that we found in the media, the insurgent media, is a rising

level of Sunni-Shiite hate speech. And this media is not contained

within the borders; it goes through the Internet everywhere. So the

danger is definitely there.

Senator BAYH. I’d like to thank you all. And, Mr. Chairman, I’d

like to thank you and just follow up on something that Senator

Bond was saying. You can’t beat something with nothing, and

we’ve got to try and figure out what the most effective countervailing ideological positioning is and come up with effective ways

to deliver that.

Mr. Ulph, I think you mentioned that individual freedom isn’t a

bad place to begin. Apparently they feel threatened by that. So in

ways that are authentic and indigenous to these cultures, we have

to come up with mechanisms to promote that.

I’m very grateful to you, Mr. Chairman. This was a very significant hearing today.

Chairman ROCKEFELLER. I agree. Just a final point, not for you

to answer, but you didn’t answer it when I asked it before. That

is, we can fret about languages. We can fret about people under

30—Muslim Americans—what they might be thinking, how many

of them felt there were no Arabs involved in 9/11 and all the rest

of it. And you talked about education and starting at the bottom.

It was a very grassroots answer, I thought. My question was

more or less the role of Government. Now it is absurd for me to

sit here and ask you to postulate on the role of Government in all

this. My point was that it strikes me, through our elimination of

stovepipes, which I can defend with thirty different reasons, and

sort of the consolidation of effort as you look out over the coming

generations with some 60 countries with al-Qa’ida presence, homeland security.

We have galvanized ourselves more than I’ve ever seen into a

one coherent effort of Government, effectively. I’m not saying that’s

wrong, but I’m also not saying it’s the answer to what you think

needs to be done. I don’t ask for an answer now, but I want to

know that you’re thinking about it, because it’s the impossible

equation. Nobody can reform Government. We have and there’s

never been a greater urgency than this.

Having said that, I, along with the Vice Chairman, completely

thank you, all of you, for your honesty, your intellect, your willingness to talk. These are the kinds of hearings which we so desperately need, where you get people actually from outside of Government who are willing to comment and are therefore freer to do

so and who have an obligation to do so. It’s been one of the better

hearings that I can remember.

So I thank all of you very much, and this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:44 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]

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