Al Qaeda Ideologies

[Elgin Carmona]

AlQaeda leaders and affiliates have conducted sophisticated public relations and media campaigns since the mid-1990s. Terrorism analysts believe that these campaigns have been designed to elicit psychological reactions and communicate complex political messages to a global audience as well as to specific sub-populations in the Islamic world, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some officials and analysts believe that Al Qaeda's messages contain signals that inform and instruct operatives to prepare for and carry out new attacks. Bin Laden and other leading Al Qaeda figures have referred to their public statements as important primary sources for parties seeking to understand Al Qaeda's ideology and political demands. Global counterterrorism operations since 2001 appear to have limited Bin Laden's ability to provide command and control leadership to Al Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups. Other Al Qaeda leaders and affiliates continue to release statements that encourage and provide guidance for terrorist operations. Iraq has become a focal point for jihadist rhetoric, underscoring Al Qaeda leaders' interest in Iraq and support for the ongoing insurgency.

Statements released by Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri since late 2004 have rekindled public debate in Europe and the United States surrounding Al Qaeda's ideology, motives, and future plans for attacks. Statements released following the July 2005 Al Qaeda-linked suicide bombing attacks on the London transit system have characterized those attacks and Al Qaeda's ongoing terrorist campaign as a response to British and American military operations in Iraq. In January 2006, Bin Laden stated that Al Qaeda "does not object to a long-term truce" with the United States "on the basis of fair conditions" but alluded to nearly complete preparations to carry out attacks inside the United States.

The ideological content and political tone of recent Al Qaeda statements have led some terrorism analysts to speculate that the messages may signal an on effort by Al Qaeda founders to reaffirm their leadership roles and the role of the Al Qaeda organization as the vanguard of an emerging, loosely organized international jihadist movement. Others have argued that the presently limited operational capabilities of Al Qaeda's founders have inspired them to focus on ideological outreach activities and efforts to influence public opinion in the United States and Europe. Many observers believe that the group's primary goal remains to inspire, plan, and carry out attacks against the United States and its allies around the world, with particular emphasis on targeting economic and energy infrastructure and fomenting unrest in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf states, and countries neighboring Israel.

This report reviews Al Qaeda's use of public statements from the mid-1990s to the present and analyzes the evolving ideological and political content of those statements. The report focuses primarily on statements made by Osama Bin Laden, but also considers: statements made by Ayman al Zawahiri, the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Iraq-based Al Qaeda affiliates, and Al Qaeda military leader Sayf al Adl. The report will be updated periodically. For background on Al Qaeda, see CRS Report RL33038, Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment, by [author name scrubbed].

Al Qaeda leaders and affiliates have conducted sophisticated public relations and media campaigns since the mid-1990s using a series of faxed statements, audio recordings, video appearances, and Internet postings.1 Terrorism analysts believe that these campaigns have been designed to elicit psychological reactions and communicate complex political messages to a global audience as well as to specific sub-populations in the Islamic world, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Bin Laden and his deputies have personally stated their belief in the importance of harnessing the power of international and regional media for Al Qaeda's benefit, and Al Qaeda's central leadership structure has featured a dedicated media and communications committee tasked with issuing reports and statements in support of the group's operations.2 Some officials and analysts believe that Al Qaeda's messages contain signals that inform and instruct operatives to prepare for and carry out new attacks.

Bin Laden has referred to his public statements as important primary sources for parties seeking to understand Al Qaeda's ideology and political demands.3 Through his public statements over the last ten years, Bin Laden has portrayed himself both as the leader of a consistent ideological movement and a strategic commander willing to tailor his violent messages and acts to respond to specific political circumstances and to influence specific audiences and events. Surveys of jihadist literature suggest that such a leadership role may remain elusive for Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri, particularly among ideologues and religious scholars who otherwise support jihadist activities and goals. A study completed by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in November 2006 concluded that "both men have had an enormous impact on the wider Jihadi Movement, but our data shows that they have had little to no impact on Jihadi thinkers."4

Global counterterrorism operations in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks appear to have limited Bin Laden's ability to provide command and control leadership to Al Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups. Bin Laden's last confirmed messages were released in June and July 2006, mourning the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and calling on Muslims to support the Islamists in Somalia. In a January 2006 message, he proposed a temporary truce with the United States in exchange for a series of U.S. concessions. It is unlikely, however, that Bin Laden could ensure a wholesale cessation of hostilities or that Al Qaeda supporters would abandon the strategic priorities reflected in their statements that have sanctioned, encouraged, and provided guidance for terrorist operations.

In the early 1990s, Bin Laden emphasized his desire to secure the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Saudi Arabia at all costs. Bin Laden criticized the Saudi royal family publicly and alleged that their invitation of foreign troops to the Arabian peninsula constituted an affront to the sanctity of the birthplace of Islam and a betrayal of the global Islamic community.7 Finding his rhetoric and efforts rebuffed by Saudi leaders, Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia and his ire increasingly focused on the United States. Following a period of exile in Sudan and Afghanistan in which his radical views sharpened, Bin Laden issued a "declaration of jihad" against the United States in 1996 that signaled his emergence as an internationally recognizable figure and offered a full account of his main critiques of an enemy he described as the "alliance of Jews, Christians, and their agents."8 Adopting the sensitive historical and religious imagery of Islamic resistance to the European Crusades, Bin Laden condemned the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, criticized the international sanctions regime on Iraq, and voiced his opposition to U.S. support for Israel.9 The declaration also cited "massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, the Philippines, Fatani [as transliterated], Ogaden, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, and Bosnia-Herzegovina" as examples of a growing war on Islam for which the United States should be punished (Bin Laden did not recognize the humanitarian aspects of U.S. efforts in Bosnia and Somalia explicitly).10

Following his declaration of jihad on the United States, Bin Laden released a series of statements that expanded the vision and scope of his self-declared conflict with the United States and specified his political prescriptions for the reformation of Islamic societies. Echoing U.S. academic Samuel Huntington's theory on the impending clash of civilizations,11 Bin Laden repeated his characterization of a so-called "new crusade led by America against the Islamic nations," and emphasized his belief that an emerging conflict between Islam and the West would be fought "between the Islamic world and the Americans and their allies."12 Bin Laden argued that the Islamic world should see itself as one seamless community, or umma, and that Muslims were obliged to unite and defend themselves. Turning his focus to the internal politics of the Islamic world, Bin Laden urged Muslims to find a leader to unite them and establish a "pious caliphate" that would be governed by Islamic law and follow Islamic principles of finance and social conduct.13 Bin Laden repeatedly argued that Afghanistan had become a model Islamic state under his Taliban hosts and used religious rhetoric to solicit support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.14

Although he possesses no traditional Islamic religious credentials or authority, Bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1998 that claimed that the United States had made "a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims"15 through its policies in the Islamic world. The fatwa made use of the principle of defensive jihad to argue that U.S. aggression made armed resistance and the targeting of American civilians and military personnel incumbent upon all Muslims. The statement also announced the formation of "The World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders," which consisted of a tacit alliance between Bin Laden, his supporters, and a number of regional Islamic militant groups. Following Al Qaeda's bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998) and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen(2000), Bin Laden refused to take direct responsibility for the attacks, but claimed that he approved of the strikes and shared the motivations of the individuals who had carried them out. Bin Laden argued that the bombings should be seen by Americans and the world as retribution for U.S. policy and compared them to alleged "massacres" of Palestinians in historic cases familiar to many Muslims and Arabs.16

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