Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Assessment of the link between external conflicts
and violent radicalisation processes
Matenia Sirseloudi
University of Augsburg, [email protected]
Study prepared for
the European Commission's Expert Group
on Violent Radicalisation
Brussels 2006
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Executive Summary
Radicalisation processes in European diaspora communities are subject to different causation
clusters. Private motivations such as the need for public attention; an identity crisis or feelings
of discrimination in the country of residence; the special role of religion in diaspora situations
and certain radical religious currents play a determining role. Special relevance can be
observed regarding political conflicts in the diaspora community countries of origin or in
countries with Muslim majorities in general. These conflicts seem to contribute to
radicalisation processes in Europe via different channels.
Until recently the dominating argument was the inverse i.e. the focus was on members of the
diaspora as a source of revenue and political support for the armed struggles within their
home countries which in turn fuels the conflict there.1 They can send money and guns,
circulate propaganda, and build virtual information exchange networks, all of which can have
incalculable consequences in the zones of their ultimate destinations. One can also not rule
out the possibility that occasionally some young man in the diaspora decides to temporarily
return to his country of origin in order to participate directly in the fight. This involvement
does not present a direct danger for the host country left behind. Nevertheless, the immediate
participation in an armed conflict regularly results in an intensification of radical tendencies if
the individual returns causing a feedback effect which is discussed here in the context of
veterans.
This study concentrates on conflicts taking place outside Europe as a pre-eminent source of
radicalisation processes within Europe, mainly within its diaspora communities, whilst
keeping in mind that feedback-processes in the above mentioned direction further contribute
to a deepening radicalisation.
After a definition of the terms “radicalisation”, “Islamism” and “conflict”, the first part of the
study consists of a short description of current and historical conflicts in the Maghreb giving
an overview of the main perpetrators and conflict lines that could be playing a major role in
diaspora radicalisation in Europe.
The strengthening of Islamist movements began in the late 1970s as a result of a crisis in
secular postcolonial development projects in Arab countries. Lack of political participation;
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
repression of the opposition; social injustice resulting in high youth unemployment and a
conflict over values between the western-oriented elite and the majority population created a
fertile ground for the rise of Islamist mass movements. External factors like the Arab defeats
in the Israeli-Arab wars; the Islamic revolution in Iran and the war in Afghanistan also
contributed to a boost in Islamist opposition.
The regimes in these countries reacted with inconsistent policies resulting in a playing off of
the Islamist perpetrators against left wing parties alternating with waves of repression which
led to them losing credibility in the eyes of the Islamists. At the beginning of the 1990s,
numerous volunteers from Afghanistan returned to their home countries. Militarily and
ideologically trained with an Islamist orientation they attempted to intensify the armed
conflict against their regimes raising the oppositional conflict potential that, for its part, was
reason enough for an increase in security systems in Arab countries. Even though the conflicts
were artificially pacified through massive repression in the late the 1990s, the underlying
constellation of contrary societal concepts has not yet been overcome.
Conflicts were triggered by groups claiming the unity of state and religion (Islam) and
pursuing the postulate “Islam is the solution” via military means. The target of these actions
was the, in their eyes, heretic state whose unIslamic and secular structures should be
overcome through an Islamic “society project”. Islamist groups have succeeded in mobilising
the socio-economic-grievances of large parts of the populations in Tunisia (since 1986),
Algeria (since 1991), Egypt (since 1992), presaged by single events such as the occupation of
the Grand Mosque in Mecca (November 1979); the revolt of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Syrian Hama (1981/82) and the armed actions of the Bouiali-group in Algeria (1984/85).
These conflicts did not only affect the countries where they took place, but they also shaped
the mindset of many (important) figures in international radical networks thus creating
political consciousness. Also, many “common” radicals, such as the interviewees of Farhad
Khosrokhavar (Khosrokhavar 2006) in French prisons had their “cognitive opening”2 during
the events in Algeria following the electoral successes of the Islamist FIS 1991. Even Osama
bin Laden, known for his international orientation with special focus on Saudi Arabia as the
heartland of Islam, and centre of gravity for Jihad, states that his attention was drawn to the
struggle of Islam by the difficult situation of oppositional Islamists in his mother’s country of
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
origin, Syria. He was already supporting them financially by the beginning of the 1980s
(Kepel and Milelli 2006:30).
It needs to be considered however that the radical thoughts motivating young Muslims today
often emerged under very special conditions. Sayyid Qutb was writing whilst in prison,
suffering torture and witnessing his friends being killed. An important element of AlZawahiri’s outlook is ascribed to his experience in prison. He left Egypt because he had been
tortured and humiliated and Egyptian experts assume that he hated the whole world after that as a
direct result of this repressive system.3
A very special case is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has dominated media coverage for
decades and which Islamist radicals all over the world refer to it as paradigmatic for the
treatment of Muslims. For many of today’s radical thinkers, the Arab-Israeli wars were the
traumatic events at the beginning of their careers as leaders of radical Islamism. This is as true
for the Palestinian, Abdullah Azzam, al Qai’dah’s former guiding voice in Afghanistan4, as
for the Palestinian, Abu Qatada, the formerly London based religious leader who was known
as the Al-Qa'idah ambassador in European radical circles. Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, founder of
Ansar al Islam5 and Al-Tawhid was born and socialised in Al-Zarqa, Jordan. He was a major
figure in campaigns against the US and its allies in Iraq and he also maintained recruitment
networks in Europe before being killed in 2006. Al-Zarqa was a stronghold for the PLO and
Palestinian refugees and it is said that Zarqawi spent a lot of time during his youth reading the
inscriptions on gravestones of the fallen Palestinian heroes in the wars against Israel (Costin
2006; Kepel and Milelli 2006:444). The international radical network Hizb ut-Tahrir, which
aims to undermine governments by spreading its message through education and non-violent
means was established in 1953 in East Jerusalem under the leadership of Taqi-al-Din alNabhani al-Filistini, a Palestinian who fought Israel and wanted to restore a pure caliphate
under a unified Islamic authority. Its original members were principally diaspora Palestinians
from Jordan, Syria, Egypt and other North African countries. Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects
democracy entirely and is known for profound anti-Semitism which reflects the experiences
of the founding members with Israel.6 Today, the group has representation all over the world
and maintains a headquarters in Europe with a large organisational base in London. It is a
popular organisation among young Muslims in Western Europe.
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As we can see, Palestinians, for example from their Jordan diaspora, continue to represent a
guiding intellectual force of transnational radical Islamism. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and the high number of Palestinian refugees all over the Muslim world enjoys special
attention in Islamist radical thought also because of its long duration. According to recent
studies, most Jihad ideologues are of either Saudi or Palestinian origin, replacing, to a large
extent, the former dominance of Egyptians (Kepel and Milelli 2006; McCants, Brachman et
al. 2006). The framing of the conflict as religiously motivated, is also reinforced by Israel’s
self-definition as a “Jewish state”, and the rise of new religiously motivated Palestinian
organisations like Hamas, evoking the idea of a Judaeo-Christian conspiracy against Muslims.
The difficult progress of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and its de facto standstill since
September 2000, with ensuing trans-Arabic consequences, has also contributed to the
conflictiveness of the whole region.7 The current developments indicate a worsening of the
situation. Israel’s heavy handed and unilateral security approach has an important impact on
radical Islamist propaganda.
In general armed conflicts directly feed the propaganda machinery in two ways: firstly, by
showing victims such as Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers inducing what
Wiktorowicz calls a “cognitive opening” rendering individuals more receptive to extreme
views (Wiktorowicz 2005). Secondly, by showing the defeat of western soldiers, their
humiliation or beheadings in order to underline the certain victory of the Jihad cause.
Conflicts where Muslims fight directly against the West, are best suited for this kind of preconstructed good-evil differentiation.
In the diaspora only a very small percentage of immigrants are directly affected by the
conflicts. Namely refugees or those persecuted in their repressive home countries on the basis
of their Islamist political opinion and activity. In liberal western societies under freedom of
speech, heated religio-political discussions that would never have been allowed to take place
in the countries of origin, increase and sometimes escalate into different kinds of
radicalisation processes. In the worst case these arguments turn against the very same country
of residence as the assumed backer of the repressive Arab regimes.
When it comes to international conflicts, e.g. conflicts between the country of origin and the
Muslim migrants’ country of residence different dynamics do evolve - as might be the case in
international interventions. A Norwegian study analysing international interventions as
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triggers for terrorist campaigns, which can be interpreted as violent culmination of
radicalisation processes8, showed a very interesting result (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al.
2003:30). The majority of the terrorist attacks reacting to international interventions such as
the Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm or the Multinational Forces in Lebanon, 1982-84, were
actually carried out by groups that had no apparent stake in the conflict. Indirectly involved
groups and individuals rather than stake-holders are mainly the radicalised ones. For many of
these groups, the interventions epitomised the imperialist oppression of defenceless Third
World states and justified a violent protest against this imperialism. It seems that global and
manichaean ideologies – in this respect “Jihad” (see under “Ideology”) and “takfir”9 (see
Annex 1) ideology exhibit great similarities - are prone to this quasi-imperialist
argumentation. Furthermore, it has to be considered that the intensity of reactive radicalisation
processes depends on the perceived political legitimacy and the use of force during the
intervention. Apart from that there is a tendency that large powers suspected of having
imperialist ambitions and/or countries that keep a high profile during the intervention are also
suspected of pursuing their own interests, whereas lesser powers participating in the effort are
often shielded.
These conflicts can be exploited by violence-prone perpetrators in their search for
legitimating their own hate campaigns without taking the risk to be drawn into the original
conflict. In this arena Islamists are taking over the dominant role that radical leftists used to
occupy in the 1970s and 1980s.
From a psychological point of view, radicalisation towards an international orientation allows
a psychologically satisfying solution for second generation diaspora members who feel
rejected by the majority society and at the same time want to distance themselves from the
culture of their parents which is shaped by the country of origin. By turning towards global
Jihad, they manage to differentiate themselves from their parents without betraying their
roots; taking revenge for own sufferings whilst fighting in the name of a higher cause by
defending brothers in faith where they appear to be threatened by western powers. In this way
conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslim parties serve to legitimise aggression against the
West in general and the country of residence in concreto.
Concerning the intellectual embedment of local conflicts, there are two kinds of
contextualisation of the broader picture of a dualistic worldview. One is the political, quasi6
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
imperialistic, the other is a purely religious though, of course, we will also find forms
straddling these two poles.10 Political manichaeism is the logical extrapolation of the fight
against corrupt regimes in a global(ised) context. Muslims of different countries become
aware of similar problems in their home countries which truly exist as a matter of regional
similarities and blame their westernised elites as well as the western powers that back them.
The common grievances give rise to a growing consciousness of a coherent exploited
“Muslim world”. In militant networks, this perception of shared fate is further deepened by
the participation in military campaigns. “Brothers in arms” are bound together through the
common war experience (Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and now Iraq) by strong bonds of
blood and sweat created in battle under the omnipresent danger of death.
Abdullah Azzam, former spiritual leader of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, was already
pursuing the goal of creating a brotherhood that would obliterate any ethnic or regional
distinctions consisting of holy Muslim warriors trained in waging military campaigns and
instructed in religion and unity.11 The continuing fight of this vanguard is necessary for the
creation as well as for the maintenance of the imagined community of a global Ummah.12 It
even creates its own martyrs who fulfil the role of quasi-saints in the new religion of takfir
and Jihad. In the absence of other satisfying alternatives in collective identities as
differentiated from the rest of society, diaspora Muslims with different national origin
developing a common identity are the most vulnerable to this kind of thought.
The purely religious framing of local conflicts legitimises the armed struggle against the West
as a personal or collective religious duty to liberate Arab lands. This can mean overcoming
current foreign repression in countries with a majority of the Muslim population (defensive),
but it can also be interpreted in a broader sense as the reconquest of all the land that ever lay
under Muslim rule such as large areas of Spain, Turkey, the Balkans and of course Jerusalem
(offensive). The most radical approach is represented by the will to subjugate the whole world
to the glory of Allah. An example of this was former Hizb ut-Tahrir member and founder of
al-Muhajiroun Omar Bakri Mohammed calling for Queen Elizabeth II to convert to Islam and
threatening that Muslims would not rest until “the black flag of Islam flies over Downing
Street”.
For all these kinds of religious duties to fight, participation in Jihad is the test for true
commitment in establishing Islam at any cost. Abdullah Azzam believed that only by
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continued armed struggle the unified strength of Muslims is brought to bear on their supposed
enemies. It is also a crude attempt to mimic the early struggles of the Prophet Mohammed,
preparing for a promised apocalyptic holy war against the excommunicated “infidel regimes”,
Jews, Hindus, and anyone else who stood in the way of creating a global Islamic empire.
The internationalised conflicts keep Jihad going and offer a fertile environment for roaming
fighters who cannot return anywhere, but who are well trained and interlinked throughout the
Muslim world. These veterans who build the impenetrable backbone of transnational radical
networks and who contribute to the perpetuation of armed struggle mainly as recruitment
authorities, are admired as heroes by young and vulnerable Muslims all over the world.13
Conclusion
Although we first assumed that domestic conflicts have a very large impact on radicalisation
processes in Europe, this is only half the truth. These conflicts – sometimes fought out in
armed struggles; sometimes suppressed by authoritarian regimes – have contributed and still
contribute to radicalisation worldwide.14 However, regarding the direct radicalisation of
Muslim diaspora communities, it seems that international interventions in countries with
Muslim majorities play a more significant role, especially because they give the opportunity
of open battle, i.e. the chance to wage an individual Jihad. Conflicts in the countries of origin
of the diaspora populations fill the reservoirs of international Jihad as most of the members of
radical transnational networks have been members of repressed radical groups in their home
countries - possibly striking back at their countries of origin via the internationalist detour.
This seems to have been the case with former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
(Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat: GSPC), now “Al-Qa'idah in Islamic Arab
Maghreb”.15 Nowadays most of the broader conflicts in North Africa have been partly
transferred to the socio-political arena (see Morocco or Egypt for example) whilst pure
repression remains the exception (e.g. in Tunisia). Of course, many individuals who left their
countries for Europe because of persecution keep their resentment. However, rather than
waging their war against their own regime alone, we observe that the ones willing to act take
more and more advantage of the synergy effects of transnational networks and in doing so
they also adopt broader enemy concepts. It also seems easier to act as a diffuse network in a
global multi perpetrator-scenario with complex conflict-lines than as a visible opposition
group of a repressive regime.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
1. Introduction
Most Muslim migrants in Europe come from very conflictive countries. These are governed
by rather authoritarian regimes challenged by an often religiously militant opposition. The
frequently repressive counter-strategy taken against radical Islamists in these countries only
shifts the problem rather than solve it. Usually repression contributes to the radicalisation of
large parts of the population, while some will drift towards extremism. These people often
evade persecution and disperse worldwide whilst maintaining social bonds which might
constitute clusters of the so called radical transnational networks (see the over-representation
of Syrians, Egyptians and Algerians in radical networks, and their Palestinian-Jordanian
ideologues).16
From a European point of view this seems to be a very short-termed and short-sighted strategy
and is reminiscent of the drain of extremists during the war in Afghanistan welcomed by
North African and Arab regimes. These extremists later, unexpectedly created an
Internationale of battle-tried returning or roaming war-veterans.
In conflict and terrorism research there is a common sense that international terrorism
frequently originates in local armed conflicts. Local insurgents might turn to international
terrorism as a substitute tactic when overwhelmed by the government’s repressive response.
They might also try to provoke an international escalation with the enemy regime’s foreign
supporters (Lia and Åshild 2001). In line with this reasoning, quantitative studies have shown
that states that interfered in local conflicts, for example, by supporting a neighbouring state in
fighting a separatist movement, were likely to experience a backlash in the form of higher
levels of terrorism domestically (Marshall 2002).
However, not only the “hard facts” on the ground play a role in radicalisation processes. In a
mass media world, the transmitted image also creates resentments and triggers hatred. Since
western cultural hegemony is losing ground to the evolution of an independent Arab mass
media system and the open accessibility of the internet, symbolism and interpretation of
conflicts and history achieve a new relevance. Terrorism is a strategy used to influence
people’s “hearts and minds”, others call it propaganda of the deed, in which the act of
violence always conveys a certain message. Therefore the ideological contextualisation of
conflicts also contributes to the radicalisation potential.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
2. Definitions
Radicalisation
“Violent radicalisation” is a phenomenon in which people embrace opinions, views and ideas
that could lead to acts of terrorism as defined in Article 1 of the Framework Decision on
Combating Terrorism.” (Commission-of-the-European-Communities 2005)
Radicalism is also well described in the legislation of the Netherlands as “the preparedness to
accept the extreme consequences of a philosophy and turn them into actions”.17 There is a
distinction between radicalisation and recruitment. Radicalisation comprises internalising a
set of beliefs, a militant mindset that embraces violent Jihad as the paramount test of one’s
conviction. It is the mental prerequisite to recruitment.
Islamism
When talking about Islamism I will refer to the definition of the International Crisis Group:
“Islamism is defined as synonymous with “Islamic activism”, the active assertion and
promotion of beliefs, prescriptions, laws, or policies that are held to be Islamic in character.
There are numerous currents of Islamism in this sense: the thing that they (all) have in
common is that they found their activism on traditions and teachings of Islam as contained in
scripture and authoritative commentaries.” (ICG 2005)
Islamic activism can either be political (accepting nation-state and its constitutional
framework while pursuing political power), missionary (Islamic missions of conversion, alda'wa; pursuing the preservation of the Muslim identity and the Islamic faith and moral order
against the forces of unbelief) or Jihadi (the Islamic armed struggle combating nominally
Muslim regimes considered impious; fighting to redeem land ruled by non-Muslims or under
occupation; or combating the West in general). In addition to nationally oriented groups who
concentrate on the political conflict in their countries of origin, transnational networks
focussing on Jihad (in the mentioned sense) or al-da’wa18 (or combining both) usually refer to
the global context.
Conflict
In the scientific community there is no standard definition for “conflict”. While most
approaches concentrate on armed conflict alone, here, the broader liberal conflict definition
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shall be applied that is more focussed on incompatible interests: “Conflict is present when two
or more parties perceive that their interests are incompatible, express hostile attitudes, or
pursue their interests through actions that damage the other parties. These parties may be
individuals, small or large groups and countries.” (Lund 1997:2) Interests can differ over: i)
access to and distribution of resources (e.g. territory, money, energy sources, food); ii) control
of power and participation in political decision-making; iii) identity, (cultural, social and
political communities); iv) status, particularly those embodied in systems of government,
religion or ideology.
This includes conflicts of very low intensity violence as represented by terrorist campaigns (as
opposed to civil wars, for example) as well as violently repressed conflicts. Most of the rather
authoritarian regimes concerned, use different forms of repressive violence to maintain their
power while oppositional forces switch over to violence to challenge the status quo. This,
however, rarely reaches the dimension of what is usually understood as an armed conflict.
This definition also pays tribute to the conflict definition used by Islamists. They refer to
crude violence such as the ethnically motivated massacre of Srebrenica, to war and counterinsurgency, as well as to repressive and authoritarian states in the Middle East.
Conflicts in the Maghreb countries
There are intra-state conflicts, conflicts between states and the third category including
elements of both (e.g. the conflict system consisting of the conflict between Israel and its
neighbours and the Israeli occupation the West Bank and the Gaza strip, countered by violent
Palestinian resistance). Most of the current conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East in
the aftermath of decolonisation are intra-state conflicts. Their outbreak was related to the
international significance of the 1979 Iranian revolution and triggered by groups claiming the
unity of state and religion (Islam) and pursuing the postulate “Islam is the solution” via
military means. The target of these actions was the, in their eyes, the heretic state whose
unIslamic and secular structures had to be overcome with an Islamic “society project”.
At the beginning of the 1990s, many regimes in the Arab world went through a phase of
stagnation. While the rest of the world liberalised, Arab regimes searched for arguments for
their anachronistic authoritarian structures. Using carrot-and-stick strategy, they tried to break
their Islamist opponents with what ended in a narrowing of the political space and the
radicalisation of the opposition. Parallel to that development, we can observe a merging of the
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Arab media, giving voice to critical opinion. Broadcasting stations like al Jazeera questioned
the regimes and expressed the common frustration of the populations, while the internet has
provided a public space to all kinds of suppressed voices. At that time numerous volunteers
from Afghanistan also returned home. Militarily and ideologically trained with an Islamist
orientation, they attempted to intensify the armed conflict against the regimes in their
countries of origin and raised the oppositional conflict potential, which, for its part, was a
reason for a clear increase in the security apparatuses in these Arab countries.
We assume that even if members of domestic radical groups leave their country and become
members of internationally acting radical networks engaged in violent campaigns through
diaspora networks or as non-aligned mujaheddin, they do not forget their local conflicts whilst
propagating global Jihad.
Al Qai’dah always incorporated local battles in its ideology, and the insurgencies against
secular and semi-secular regimes in the Middle East and North Africa have probably become
even more integrated as parts of a globally orientated Jihadi structure today, since intervention
in Afghanistan has dispersed the Jihad Internationale. This orientation was already visible in
the various, regionally defined clusters of al Qai’dah as described by Marc Sageman
(Sageman 2004:137ff.). But we can also observe it in the distinguishable goals of al Qai’dah
and Zarqawi’s “al Qai’dah in Mesopotamia”19 to be derived by the different constituencies of
the two networks. While the original al Qai’dah members came mainly from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and Algeria, Zarqawi’s network principally consists of Jordanians, Syrians, Palestinians
and Kurds.20 Zarqawi’s approach was far less ecumenical than that of bin Laden’s, when he
declared the US, the Kurds and the Shia community as his enemies (Steinberg 2005:197ff.).
He fortified this alignment with a series of attacks in Kerbala and Baghdad during the Shia
Ashura festivities, culminating the campaign in the attack on the tomb mosque in Samarra,
one of the most important Shia sanctuaries in Iraq. The explicit goal of his campaign was the
triggering of a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims in order to prolong the fight. This
was meant to create chaos, what for Zarqawi viewed as an operational base for the
implementation of his far-reaching goal - the overthrow of the existing regimes in Jordan,
Syria, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The ultimate goal was to merge these countries
under an Islamic state “Greater Syria”, a goal that can directly be derived from the ethnic
background of the main constituency of the group and its leaders (Costin 2006).21
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Conflict and Diaspora
In the West, ethnic and religious immigrant enclaves maintain relations with the populations
from which they derive. In general this takes place through financial contributions, but
occasionally some young man in the “diaspora” might decide to “temporarily” return to his
country of origin, in order to participate directly at the fight. For the host country left by the
person concerned, this involvement does not present a direct danger. Nevertheless the
immediate participation in an armed conflict regularly results in an intensification of radical
tendencies if the person returns (Waldmann, Sirseloudi et al. 2006). Conflicts in the country
of origin, however, do not always play the same role in diaspora communities (Mohamed
Tozy in (Bousetta 1997)). The tendency to refer to what is happening in the country of origin
is more pronounced among older generations, i.e. first generation migrants. Sometimes the
conflicts there are imported to the country of residence (e.g. the Kashmir issue in Britain or
the Kurdish problem in Germany). Radical Islamists from various countries often apply for
asylum because of their religious convictions in their countries of origin. London has become
notorious as the most important hub for the exponents of radical Islam, because a certain
proportion of the Middle Eastern refugee population claims asylum specifically on the basis
of their Islamist political opinion and activity.22 This phenomenon occurs especially when
regimes of the countries of origin pursue the previously mentioned repressive policies against
religious and radical religious movements, as has happened in Syria23, Algeria24 and Egypt25.
Thereby, they trigger the emergence of radical communities and subcultures whose members
then spread worldwide.26 The still inspiring success of Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s “Black Book”
describing torture under Mubarak’s regime, shows how long-lasting consequences of
repression can resonate in radical ideology (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006:11, 265).
From a diaspora position a dual strategy can be pursued. Until recently for example, Hamas
operated openly in Europe as a transnational political organisation, and openly engaging in
fundraising activities. Similarly, Kashmiri groups have engaged in both fundraising and
political lobbying of their local MPs in the United Kingdom, while simultaneously pursuing
an armed strategy in Kashmir. In this new form of “long-distance nationalism”, the immigrant
positioned in the First World, can support the insurgency in his home country. This
transnational political activity even has a measurable effect on the course of violent conflicts
around the world. A World Bank report noted a correlation between the existence of a
significant diaspora population abroad and the probability of recurrent violence in a state that
has already experienced violent conflict. While countries with no or insignificant diasporas
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experience a 6% chance of the recurrence of violent conflict, the probability of renewed
violence goes up to 36% in countries that have unusually large diasporas abroad (Collier
2000:6). This phenomenon is not limited to political projects; in many places, groups use
religiously defined categories for radicalising their constituency. In Germany, Turkish
Islamists mobilised second-generation Turks; in France, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and
other violent Islamist extremist organisations engaged in widening their support pools.
Still, the majority of the North African community in Europe, including the radicalised parts,
is divided along national lines concentrating on the politics within their home country. Many
mosques in Europe have a national flavour, with Tunisians for example attending mosques
where there is a Tunisian imam, likewise for the Algerians, Moroccans and Libyans.
Therefore the suggestion of “a transnational Islam divorced from its country of origin” does
not always apply. Even in the Afghanistan resistance, were the primary aim was to defend the
global Ummah in the name of a transnational Islam, the fighters tended to remain divided
along national lines (Sageman 2004). There have been notable exceptions at the very radical
end. The perpetrators of the Madrid bombings, for example, were Moroccans, Algerians and
Tunisians, among others. However, this does not mean that they are not still driven by the
politics of their home country.27 It seems that certain radicals have come to the conclusion
that if they cannot combat their own governments then the next best thing is to target those
governments who are supporting them. European governments are assumed to
unquestioningly back regimes in North Africa that regularly commit human rights abuses.
This perception of Europe also fits in with the anti-western sentiment that is as old as the
origins of political Islam in the Arab world (AIVD 2005).
Radical groups make use of this perception. Analysing all the written evidence of the radical
group Al-Muhajiroun28, Wiktorowicz comes to the conclusion that 40% focussed explicitly on
„the oppression of Muslims“ by non-Muslims (Wiktorowicz 2005:131). The most common
topics were US aggression (especially toward Iraq) and the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories, often presenting Palestinian suffering as ongoing genocide
(Wiktorowicz 2005:109). For groups like Al-Muhajiroun it was easy to tap into widespread
opposition to military actions in the Muslim world as part of the global war against terrorism.
Large portions of the UK’s Muslim community opposed the American/British-led invasion of
Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and root out al Qai’dah. 64% opposed taking action against
Afghanistan, and 35% believed the military strikes were a war against Islam (Wiktorowicz
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2005:109f.).29 This kind of mainstream Muslim opposition was found for Iraq as well. In a
sample of 78 Muslim organisations, affiliated with the Muslim Council of Britain polled in
September 2002 (long before Abu Ghraib), all said that the UK should not support a US
decision to attack Iraq (Wiktorowicz 2005:110).
Having said this, it seems remarkable that in countries such as the Netherlands, the
international aspect appears to play a less prominent role in Jihadism than it does in
neighbouring countries. According to Dutch authorities, local networks in the Netherlands
prefer to focus on the domestic, i.e. Dutch, conflictive situation, while considerably more
recruits from countries such as France, the UK and Germany travelled to Iraq (AIVD
2006:27). Mohamed Tozy attributes it to local realities gaining pre-eminence from the 1980s
onwards. The logic proper to the country of settlement is increasingly determining the shape
of Islam. Those Muslim immigrant communities who developed more localised forms of
mobilisation may well be those who benefited either from political rights or from public
policies concerned to some degree with religious issues (Mohamed Tozy in: (Bousetta
1997)).30
17
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
3. Domestic conflicts in the Maghreb countries
While Algeria is often considered to be the paradigm for a fatal dynamic resulting from a
failed strategy to cope with an Islamist mass movement, Morocco’s partial inclusion of
Islamists seemed for long time to be the ideal way of handling Islamism. Tunisia has followed
the extreme path, excluding Islamists completely and trying to fully eliminate them from its
political and social arenas.
The rise of Islamist movements in the Maghreb began in the late 1970s after a crisis in secular
postcolonial development projects. All three countries displayed similar problems: low
political participation with opposition parties facing repression; social inequality resulting in
high youth unemployment and a conflict over values between the Western-orientated, mainly
francophone, elite and the majority population. Combined with external factors such as the
Arab defeats in the Israeli-Arab wars, the Islamic revolution in Iran, the war in Afghanistan,
the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt and the end of the Cold War, these problems
boosted the Islamist opposition. The new ideological state of disorientation combined with
nation-specific social value crises and economic shocks, created a fertile ground for the rise of
Islamist mass movements. Finally, the lasting Israeli occupation of, and increased settlement
on Palestinian territory, together with the two US-led international coalitions against Iraq in
1991 and 2003, also reinforced the Islamist movements (Kalpakian 2005:124; Werenfels
2005:6).
The ruling elites of the Maghreb countries did not regard Islamists as a providing and serious
opposition until the 1980s. Left-wing forces were considered far more dangerous in terms of
internal stability. Therefore, there was no clear strategy and repression alternated with cooption. Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian governments copied the Egyptian solution and
repeatedly played off the Islamist against the leftist opposition. A coherent policy only
developed in the beginning of the 1990s after the electoral successes of Islamist movements in
Algeria and Tunisia.
Algeria
Looking back at the time from the beginning of Algeria’s independence in 1962 up until
1991, we see a marked growth of the Islamist movement and its increasing acceptance among
18
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
elite circles. The political opening introduced by Chadli Benjedid in 1989, allowed Islamic
parties to participate in order to reduce tensions and act as a coalition partner against leftist
parties. But their triumphant victory in the first free general elections in Algeria in 1990
showed that this strategy had not succeeded. The radical wing of FIS made no secret of their
intention to use the democratic process in order to achieve an electoral victory and then to
dismantle the very same process. After the FIS also won the first round of the parliamentary
elections in 1991, the military stepped in to “maintain democracy”. A small portion of FIS
activists and supporters, including former Afghanistan fighters, went underground and took
up arms marking the beginning of a gruesome civil war. The military branch of the FIS, the
Armé Islamique du Salut (AIS), attacked security forces and political targets. But some
radicals were of the opinion, that without an expansion of violence against civilians and
foreigners a victory could be not achieved (ICG 2004). This was the moment that the GIA
(Groupe Islamique Armée) first appeared with many war veterans from Afghanistan
numbering among its members. These factions had already interpreted the participation of the
FIS in elections as betrayal of the ultimate goal of building an Islamic state. While violence
increased, the FIS and the GIA drifted increasingly apart. The FIS opened up to talks with the
government, GIA warned all foreigners to leave the country, because from now on they would
be attacked as legitimate targets. During its offensive campaign in 1994/1995, GIA showed no
scruples about attacking civilians.
The Algerian military responded with an unofficial strategy “terroriser le terroriste” (terrorise
the terrorist) (Werenfels 2005:9), and the escalation resulted in massive human rights
violations. More than 6000 victims of this policy are still officially regarded as missing.
In October 1997, the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), declared a ceasefire in an effort to show
that it was actually GIA that was perpetrating massacres and costing the party significant
popular support. The generals involved certain Islamist parties in the 1999 elections, and put
selected Islamists in important offices. Furthermore, President Bouteflika established the
modalities for militant Islamists to lay down their arms in law called the “Concorde Civile”.31
According to the government, 6000 Islamist rebels have surrendered their arms since this
agreement was reached, and between 300 and 400 rebels remain at large (ICG 2004).
The excluded GIA had been seriously divided by 1997. Support from foreign Islamist groups
expected to be sympathetic to their cause diminished amid accusations that the group was
19
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
either guilty of un-Islamic slaughter of innocents, or conspiracy with secularists in the
security services.32 With the encouragement of Osama bin Laden, a GIA operational
commander known as Hassan Khattab established a breakaway faction, criticising the GIA
leader Antar Zouabri for causing “the blood of innocents to flow in slaughter”.33 Until this
time, Hassan Khattab had been the leader of the GIA network in Europe.34 In August 1998,
Khattab’s followers joined the GSPC, founding not only the largest Algerian terrorist group,
but also the main group operating in Europe with al-Qa’idah links, which it had taken over
from GIA (Gunaratna 2002:124; Escobar Stemmann 2006).
The GSPC cannot be compared with its Tunisian, Moroccan and Mauritanian counterparts
since its origins lie in a brutal Islamic Group known for slaughtering and killing soldiers as
well as civilians rather indiscriminately. Its members include those who fought in Afghanistan
and Bosnia and young people belonging to poor social groups, in addition to FIS defectors. In
its heyday, the number of members was estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000 spread over
the “emirate”.35
Meanwhile, the GSPC has shifted from being a local group active within a defined area to a
regional organization whose field-of-action spans five Arab Maghreb countries, in addition to
some countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the African Sahel. It now calls itself “Al-Qa’idah in
Islamic Arab Maghreb”, a name which reflects its new strategy as well as a unitary and
emotional allegiance between the members of the new organization and the leadership of the
worldwide Al-Qa'idah organization. These links were preceded by contact with the selfproclaimed leader of Al-Qa'idah in Iraq, Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, killed in 2006.
Tunisia
Tunisian policy towards Islamists differs markedly from that of Algeria’s. Since 1990,
Tunisia has been pursuing a strategy of zero tolerance towards Islamists. Before 1980, Tunisia
also had no clear position towards the then new phenomenon of Islamism, and Islamists
enjoyed considerable support within the political establishment. At the beginning of the 80s,
hot on the heels of the Iranian revolution, the Islamists began to strive for political
participation and the majority of them organised themselves into the “Mouvement de la
Tendance Islamique” (MTI). When they began to encounter problems with trade unions, the
government reacted alternately with repression and co-option. The policy of repression
20
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
reached an initial climax in 1987 following attacks by a radical splinter group of the MTI on
tourist hotels causing some injuries. Following a coup, in which Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali
replaced the aging Bourguiba, a new era began. In the parliamentary elections of April 1989
the MTI (renamed Al-Nahda, or ‘Renaissance’) was not allowed to participate. Independent
Islamist candidates won some 30% of the votes in Tunis and other cities, together with 13%
of the vote nationwide; an electoral success that lead to a strategic change towards the policy
of zero tolerance. Tunisians reacted with violent demonstrations, and acting out of a fear that
things may develop along similar lines to those in neighbouring Algeria, the regime smashed
the Nahda infrastructure. A propaganda war against all Islamists was launched which
continues to this day. Around 8000 Nahda followers were arrested and, in many cases,
tortured. Some 500 Islamists are still imprisoned. To this day, Islamism is equated with
terrorism by Tunisian officials and moderate Islamism is considered a contradiction in terms
(Werenfels 2005:17). Consequently, Islamists completely disappeared from the public arena
for a while and it appeared as if it would be difficult for them to even clandestinely
reorganise. However, over the last few years there have been several incidents indicating that
since the Algerian GSPC has changed its name to “Al-Qa’idah in Islamic Arab Maghreb”, the
group has successfully recruited militants in Morocco and Tunisia (Kalpakian 2005:125).36
Young Tunisians have been trained by GIA in Algeria since the beginning of 1997 and a
number of Tunisian cells were arrested more than once on Algerian soil.37 Over the past two
years, there has been an increase in the number of Tunisians arrested in their country or in
European countries for their suspected voluntary involvement in the Iraqi resistance, or for
“belonging to terrorist networks”. Many of them are in prison in connection with the events of
2006/07, in which a group of Islamist militants apparently crossed into Tunisia from Algeria
with plans to attack Western diplomatic targets before being stopped by the security forces in
early January. At least twelve people were killed in the shootout after the initial clash
(Steinberg and Werenfels 2007:4). The militants, who came from Tunisia, Algeria and
Mauritania, had connections to GSPC, and trickled in from Algeria. The incident is seen as
evidence of a growing regional co-operation between Jihadists led by Algeria’s Salafist GSPC
(Steinberg and Werenfels 2007:2).38
Prior to this, no armed activity was recorded in Tunisia apart from the Jerba attack in 2002.
However, these incidents show that a militant potential exists.
Morocco
21
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
With few exceptions, not even Islamists, who negate the state, have publicly questioned the
political and religious legitimacy of the king whose family is known to be directly descended
from the prophet Mohammed (Werenfels 2005:12). In the 70s, the royal palace followed no
clear strategy for dealing with Islamists. Some were co-opted, others tolerated, while those
who were involved in violence were repressed. In view of the dramatic events in Algeria,
following the political opening,39 King Hassan II initiated a slow broadening of the
participatory base, separating loyalists who could be integrated, from oppositional Islamists
who were merely pacified by taking a largely “hands off” approach. Since the death of Hassan
II in 1999, his son Mohammed VI has continued this policy. The participation of Islamists in
Moroccan politics is carefully orchestrated by the king. Prior to the 2002 elections, the
Islamist dominated Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD) seemed set for a major
election success. However, the party decided to not compete in all electoral districts, opting
for voluntary under-representation so as not to provoke the royal palace.40 This is a direct
consequence of the FIS electoral victory and its aftermath in Algeria. Islamists who reject the
current political system in Morocco are banned, but they are tolerated as long as they distance
themselves from violence and do not publicly challenge the monarchy. The Casablanca
attacks on May 2003, have led the state to modify its strategy and a far-reaching anti-terror
law was passed by parliament resulting in the arrest of several thousand Islamists. Similarily,
the king continues to pursue the policy of integrating moderate Islamists (Werenfels 2005:14).
Olivier Roy links the growing threat in Morocco to militant Islamic radicalism in Algeria. He
believes that the Moroccan attacks were influenced by outside agitators acting in Morocco as
part of a wider international Jihad movement. Morocco represents a target-rich environment
for al Qai’dah supported groups, and many radicals view the Moroccan regime as an apostate
government, ripe for takeover by radical organizations. In May 2003, Abu Seif al-Islam, a
senior leader of the Salafi movement in Morocco, stated that the time has come to “globalize
the Jihad. (…) Morocco is at the heart of the conflict because it is impossible to target the
‘Crusaders’ in their homes and to exclude Morocco.” (Haahr-Escolano 2004).
Morocco faced domestic opposition to the US attack against Iraq launched in March 2003. On
25 February, around 100,000 Moroccans protested in downtown Rabat. When the war started,
security forces successfully contained the protests amid official and unofficial criticism of the
US. Officially, the government opposed the war, although it took no steps to jeopardise its
good relationship with the US.
22
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Although Morocco allowed some political dissent during the war, the authorities continued to
take draconian measures against media organisations deemed critical of the monarchy. The
monarchy was given a post-war popularity boost when it was announced that King
Muhammad’s wife Princess Salma had given birth to a son. The king celebrated the birth by
ordering the release of more than 9000 prisoners from Morocco’s crowded jails, one of the
biggest royal pardons in the country’s history. The holiday atmosphere was shattered when
terrorists launched synchronised suicide bombing attacks against a series of targets in
Casablanca on 16 May 2003. Over 40 were killed, including 12 suicide bombers, and around
100 injured in the attacks; most of the victims were Moroccans. The bombers were all young
Moroccans, apparently from the impoverished Karian Toma area of Casablanca (Kalpakian
2005:113).
These new Moroccan radicals belong, in one way or the other, to extremist organizations
influenced by their predecessors, who graduated from the Taliban schools and camps in
Afghanistan. Current official reports say that the majority of the extremist cells in Morocco
belong to the international trend of Salafyyia Jihadiyya, as represented by Al-Qa'idah, or the
Salafi Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) before them. They do not necessarily rely
on the Afghanistan experience, but are rather home-grown extremists reacting to the situation
inside Morocco (Kalpakian 2005). They are generally poorly educated, angry and inspired by
the Salafi Wahhabi propaganda that has been flooding Morocco for many years in contrast to
the tolerant Moroccan Sufi tradition. Their members are particularly influenced by the ideas
of Jihad in Iraq and the activities of Algerian Salafism. At the end of the 90s a series of
groups with radical Salafi leanings in the Maghreb countries grew up around Salafi preachers,
drawing their militants from the run-down districts outside the big cities rather than the
popular medinas or industrial zones (the traditional breeding grounds for Islamist
movements). This new generation of Islamists is excluded from society and lacks a sense of
national belonging. They are the product of the rift between the non-integrated population of
the suburbs and the rest of society (Balala 2004). These new Salafi groups in the Maghreb
countries share a number of common features: they have dropped the term Jihad in their
names, using instead the word “combat” (qital); they maintain close ties with their
counterparts in other Maghreb countries, which explains the presence of various Maghrebi
nationals in the cells formed in Europe; and they use former combatants from Afghanistan to
extend their influence among Muslim communities in Europe (Escobar Stemmann 2006).
23
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
It seems that Morocco is now following in the footsteps of other Maghrebi countries in taking
a short-term approach by clamping down in a heavy-handed way and arresting thousands of
suspects without clear legal foundation (Steinberg and Werenfels 2007:6). This may prevent
another Casablanca, but it will surely contribute to an increase in the spill-over-effect in
Europe. Following the Casablanca bombings, more than 2000 suspected Islamic militants
were arrested and many remained in custody without charge. Today, there are still about 1000
Moroccans in prison who are accused of having some connection with the Casablanca attacks
(Steinberg and Werenfels 2007:6). It is expected that, due to increased pressure on Salafists in
Morocco following these attacks, many will move to Spain to preach in immigrant
communities, and indeed, indicators exist that this process is already underway (Jordán and
Horsburgh 2005:187).41
The anti-terror campaign measures have violently shaken the fundamentalist armed groups
which has resulted in splitting these groups and dispersing them over a vast geographical area
spreading from North Africa and the Arab Maghreb to Europe and North America; from East
Asia to West Africa reaching down to the Horn of Africa. The positive effect of this
development is that the moderate parties, for example, the PJD and the banned Nahda-party in
Tunisia, the FIS in Algeria, and the Muslim Brothers in Libya and elsewhere now dissociate
themselve from any form of violence, especially from attacks causing civilian casualties
(Steinberg and Werenfels 2007). The same is true for the internationalisation of the GSPC,
which had the rather positive effect of dividing the Islamist spectrum in the Maghreb
countries. On the one hand we have the small minority of supporters of violence, mainly
grouped around the GSPC, on the other hand a majority of Islamists who pursue a political
agenda and who do not want to be associated with terrorists
24
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
4. Ideology
The most effective weapon of the terrorist at present is their ideology
(Omand 2006)
Ideology is an important driving force for groups and individuals, but coping with its
relevance includes dealing with a certain ambivalence.
While, for example, the takfir-ideology of the Algerian GIA allowed the group to perpetrate
acts of indiscriminate violence in the group’s home country, the use of violence in Europe
was characterised by high selectivity. The high costs involved with mounting international
operations, meant that the strategy was abandoned as soon as it was clear that it would not pay
off. Brynjar Lia emphasizes this point making clear that the real-world behaviour patterns of
radical Islamist insurgents might differ from their ideological scriptures (Lia and Åshild
2001:47f.).
The conduct of Hizb ut-Tahrir is an example of a different approach towards ideology.
Following Karagiannis, who analysed the group’s behaviour in Central Asia, we see that
although the group enjoys considerable capacity for terrorist violence (strong organizational
resources, an international reach, solid finances, and a cellular structure that makes it
relatively difficult to view by security services) and, although it might be in it’s interests, the
group restrains itself from violence because of the da’wa based ideology it pursues.42 The
ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir is primarily based upon Taqiuddin an-Nabhani’s writings, and
indeed, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s members consider their ideology so important that it would be a
mistake to discount it as if it were just pretence (Karagiannis 2006:275).
Jihad
Jihadi ideology is a broad field with different streams and a fragmented knowledge base. First
we track the origins of Jihad-ideology as related to conflicts in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia
and Afghanistan.
The resort to Jihad in the sense of the armed defence of the Ummah, was already a salient
feature of resistance to colonial conquest often assuming the explicit form of Jihad, notably in
25
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Algeria, Libya and the Sudan. It was not, however, necessarily conceived as a Jihad in the
traditional sense, even where it assumed a primarily military form. Since the provisional
resolution of the political conflict between western powers and the Muslim world at the end of
the colonial era in the 1950s and early 1960s, the revival of the Jihadi current with Sunni
Islamic activism has occurred as a complex process which has exhibited four main, if
overlapping, stages: a) the emergence of a doctrinaire Jihadi tendency in Egypt in the 1970s
and 80s based on the radical thought of Sayyid Qutb and particularly the concept of takfir; b)
the mobilisation of Jihadi energies across the Muslim world for the war in Afghanistan
against the Soviet presence and the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul (1979-1989); c) the
protracted but unsuccessful insurgencies against allegedly un-Islamic regimes, notably in
Algeria (since 1991) and Egypt (until 1997); and d) the Jihad launched by al Qai’dah against
the West in the late 1990s.
While Jihad as “Holy War” is usually bound to a certain territory, bin Laden’s “fatwa against
Jews and Crusaders” deterritorialises it and expends it to the whole universe – clearly
breaking with the classic tradition (Kepel and Milelli 2006:85ff.).43 The Jihad born out of the
Afghan experience became the core ideology of the new radical Islamism (Escobar Stemmann
2006)
The initial target of renascent Jihadi activism was the Muslim regime of Egyptian president
Anwar al-Sadat. The doctrinal basis was Sayyid Qutb's innovation of jahilia (Roberts 2003)
which cancelled the traditional Sunni injunction on Muslims to obey Muslim governments.44
Qutb was executed in 1966 before he could specify precisely how this Jihad was to be
conducted, but a violent Jihadi tendency began to manifest itself on the radical fringe of
Egyptian Islamism. In doctrinal terms, the second stage of the development of Jihadi activism,
was a simpler and arguably quite traditional affair, in that the Soviet invasion in December
1979 was naturally perceived as the conquest of a Muslim country by a non-Muslim (indeed
atheistic) power. As such it was possible for the least radical, most conservative, tendencies in
Sunni Islam to be mobilised by the call to Jihad. Al Qai’dah’s interpretation of Jihad however
includes some specific features: the recycling of the traditional Wahhabi (and latter-day
Salafi) vision of Christians and Jews as infidels to be combated, as opposed to earlier (notably
Ottoman) conceptions of them as “People of the Book” (Ahl al-Kitab) to be tolerated and
protected; the strategic reorientation of Jihad from a single, geographically limited terrain to
the global level; and the tactical reorientation (after Azzam’s shift from Qutbian tactics) from
26
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
popular-based guerrilla warfare (as notably practiced by the mujaheddin in Afghanistan) to
highly elitist urban terrorism.45
In tandem with the evolution of Salafism, Jihadi ideology gradually gained ground in
Afghanistan and eventually merged with Salafism.46 Its chief proponent was Abdullah Azzam
who was to have a decisive influence on Osama bin Laden. In his work, “The Main
Obligation of Muslims is to Defend the Land of Islam”, he writes that Jihad is a moral
obligation for all Muslims, the sixth pillar of faith (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006:41).47
Azzam rejected the strategy of revolutionary coup, as supported by Sayyid Qutb, as incapable
of seizing state power and rather promoted the concept of war and military action instead.
Beyond that, he propagated pan-Islamism as counter concept to the widespread national focus
of radical Islamist groups in the 1980s (Kepel and Milelli 2006:167). Using an epic and
mystic language, he set out a vision of a world based on strict Salafism and martyrdom,
stressing the permanent state of humiliation suffered by the Ummah, as a result of the actions
of “Crusaders and Zionists”. His work was to have a decisive influence on the Jihadi
radicalism of the 1990s. Under bin Laden the global proliferation of Jihadi Salafiyya was
further consolidated. His declaration of war on the West - backed by the creation of the
“World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders” in 199948 - caused groups that
had originally been set up to provide logistical support to al-Qa’idah, and had originally
sought to purify and punish society, to now set their sights on the West.
Concerning today’s radical thought, one has to take into account the direct availability and
connectivity of texts and thoughts in the globalised era of the internet. A Westpoint study
group has tried to relate different streams by analysing the texts and citations read and
downloaded from a representative highly frequented radical website (http://tawhed.ws.),
apparently used by al Qai’dah to host their literature (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).
According to the study, a group of Muslim scholars are the primary Salafi opinion-makers
guiding the Jihadi movement (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006). Surprisingly, the study found
that al Qai’dah leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are not highly cited in Jihadi
literature. They are not considered authorities in Islamic law or looked to as the ideological
force behind the Jihadi movement.
The common ground among the scholars cited is their rejection of Muslims living under
apostate laws and political systems governing outside what God has decreed. The required
27
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
response (to differing degrees and with differing tactics) is resistance (McCants, Brachman et
al. 2006). Within the Jihadis’ core constituency, the most influential living thinkers are alMaqdisi in Jordan, Abu Basir al-Tartusi, Abu Qatada and several Saudi clerics. These men
reflect a shift in intellectual leadership of the Jihadi movement away from laymen in Egypt
(like Sayyid Qutb) to formally trained clerics from Palestine (often living in Jordan) or Saudi
Arabia (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).49 This development was also observed by Reuven
Paz, who describes it as the fourth generation of Al-Qa’idah and Islamist terrorism (Paz
2005:41f.).50 It seems that Palestinians enjoy high credibility, or rather, in the words of a
former foreign fighter in Iraq who fought with Muslims from Western Europe, interviewed by
German journalists in Zarqa, Jordan: “If you are a Palestinian you sympathise much more
with Muslims in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq because you know how it feels to fight for
your country.” (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:148)
McCants and his team come to the conclusion that the Palestinian “Asim Tahir al-Barqawi”,
better known as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, is regarded as one of the highest living
authorities in Islam for Salafis, Jihadis and other conservative Sunni Muslims who share
elements of his program (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006). Born in Nablus, in 1959, he has
been imprisoned intermittently since the 1990s by the Jordanian authorities for his criticism of
the government and calls for Jihad. Abu Basir al-Tartusi is of Syrian origin. He is a slightly
more moderate Salafi ideologue who resides in London, more often criticizing past Jihadi
mistakes and urging caution and selective action. His tone is due in large part to the scrutiny
he was put under following the 2005 London train bombings. He has provided scholarly
arguments to back armed resistance to tyrannical rule (by employing Jihadi tactics).
Abu Qatada al-Filistini, born in 1960 in the West Bank, is another example of a Palestinianborn cleric who encourages Jihad against apostate rule in accordance with the Sharia and is
among the most frequently cited authors in the study. He is alleged to be a member of al
Qai’dah’s Fatwa Committee and was extradited from the United Kingdom to Jordan. His
writings contend that, according to the Sharia, it is every Muslim’s individual obligation to
overthrow and expel any secular government from Muslim lands by bombing, sabotage, coup,
or other means available to them that would advance the implementation of Sharia in that land
(McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).51
28
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Not surprisingly, Bin Laden also appears in the list of influential ideologues, although he
matters much less in the intellectual network than Maqdisi and others. His lieutenant,
Zawahiri seems even to be totally insignificant in the Jihadi intellectual universe. Both men
have an enormous impact on the wider Jihadi movement, but according to this study they
have had little to no impact on Jihadi ideology.
According to this study Jihadis will fight for the unity of thought (rejecting any form of
pluralism and democracy), they will fight until every country in the Middle East is ruled only
by Islamic law (the Taliban state was the only state that was closest to their vision),
contending that violence against their own people is not only necessary and religiously
sanctioned, but indirectly the fault of the West, Israel, and apostate regimes. The Jihadi cause
is best served when the conflict with local and foreign governments is portrayed as a conflict
between Islam and the West. Islam is under siege and only the Jihadis can lift it, and as
countries in the Middle East are weak; they cannot remove tyrants or reform their societies
without the help of outsiders (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).
Besides the Westpoint project offering a rather broad picture of Jihadi ideology, an in depth
analysis of some crucial strategic texts carried out by the research team around Gilles Kepel
that provides us with valuable insights about the role conflicts involving Muslims, play in the
radical ideology of Jihad leaders (Kepel and Milelli 2006).
The main focus of this analysis are the speeches of Abdullah Azzam as founder of the concept
of global Jihad and spiritual teacher of Osama bin Laden, bin Laden himself, Ayman alZawahiri, and Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi who introduced a new radical exclusionism towards
Shiites unknown until then in this intensity. Most of the writings considered are widely
circulated on the internet. As they are believed to be of special importance, I concentrate on
the biographies of these men, with regard to the local conflicts shaping them.
Jihad leaders’ biographies shaping their ideological background
Osama bin Laden (1957) is the religious son of a Syrian mother and a Yemeni entrepreneur,
who became a multi-millionaire in Saudi Arabia. He had his cognitive opening 1967 when
Syrian Muslim Brothers tried to remove president Hafis al-Assad from office. This uprising
culminated in revolts within cities at the beginning of the 1980s, by which time Osama bin
Laden had begun to support the Muslim Brothers financially. He was not promoting religious
29
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
activism politically, but the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan allowed him to repeat his
engagement, when it became the duty for well-off Saudis to support the war. At the end of the
80s, bin Laden was an honoured public person organising the Arab donations for the fight in
Afghanistan. He defines the fight against Muslims as harsh political repression of Islamist
movements as well as crude violence like ethnic massacres in Bosnia. For bin Laden, the most
important duty was, and still is to drive out US-American forces from his home country,
Saudi Arabia, an aim that is justified in oscillating between religious, national and universal
arguments (Kepel and Milelli 2006:25ff.).
Abdullah Azzam (1941-1989), a Palestinian Muslim Brother and religious scholar, is the main
thinker of Jihad Islamism and was the main organiser of Arab participation in the Afghan war
in the 1980s. He was charismatic and already a legend during his lifetime. His biography is
paradigmatic of the impact of conflict on the spread of radicalisation - in his case the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians. Born 1941 in Silat al-Harithiyya, northwest of Jenin,
during the mid 1950s he became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. During that time the
discussion about the right attitude towards repressive and impious regimes was dominating
the religious intellectual debate. 1965 he married a woman whose family had been expelled
by Israelis from their village in North Palestine. 1966 the couple returned to the West Bank
where Azzam taught in schools and preached in different villages. After the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank in 1967 they emigrated to Jordan. Like many other Palestinians they settled
in a refugee camp in al-Zarqa52, a few kilometres from Amman. In the 1970s, Azzam
participated in the guerrilla war against Israel. Later, he went to Cairo to study at Al-Azhar
University. While Nasser had persecuted the Brotherhood, Sadat abolished repressive
legislation and freed many Islamists from prison. Azzam was at the heart of the Islamist
milieu establishing ties with different religious leaders. Back in Amman he taught Islamic law
and held particularly conservative views. From there, he went to Saudi Arabia, the preferred
refuge of Islamist intellectuals at that time.53 His contacts led him to support the Afghan
resistance against the Soviet Union and he left for Islamabad in 1981 where he first worked at
the Islamic university and later led the “Afghan Bureau” (maktab al-khadamât) organising the
influx of foreign fighters.
It is not surprising that Azzam, as a Palestinian refugee having lived and worked in many
different countries, has developed a pan-Islamic point of view.
Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951)
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Zawahiri was born into a respected and strictly religious family. At the age of only fifteen, he
founded his first underground cell in 1966 with the aim ousting the Egyptian government and
replace it with an Islamic theocracy (Kepel and Milelli 2006:271ff.). This was the year of
Sayyid Qutb’s execution after years of torture, followed in 1967 by the trauma of the
Egyptian military defeat by Israel, which robbed the government of it’s remaining legitimacy
in the eyes of the Islamists. Although Sadat promoted the Islamist movement, new radical
cells emerged, uniting under the leadership of Abdessalam Faraj as the “Jihad”-groups.
Sadat’s peace agreement with Israel 1978 was the final trigger for his assassination in 1981.
During the following wave of repression most Islamist leaders were arrested, among them
Zawahiri. The three years in prison were the turning point of his life. The painful experiences
he went through in prison traumatised him but also awakened the empathy with Sayyid
Qutb’s martyrdom. He began to see the continuation of Qutb’s work as his new duty. During
his trial Zawahiri denounced the western values of human rights and democracy as a double
moral standard, in the name of which he had been tortured and mistreated. Other fellow
Islamists even had even died. This experience has continued to influence him more than
anything else.54 After his release, he left for Afghanistan where he joined bin Laden’s network
and placed many of his own followers in key positions. However, while bin Laden’s main
enemy became the distant enemy, i.e. the US and their support for the Saudi regime and
Israel, Zawahiri primarily wanted to fight the near enemy in Cairo. He is known for the
statement “Cairo is the way to Jerusalem”. (Kepel and Milelli 2006:282). It was not until 1998
and the signing of the declaration for an “Islamic front in the Holy War against Jews and
Crusaders”55 that Zawahiri also agreed with bin Laden on the prioritising of the distant
enemy. After 9/11, Zawahiri became an increasingly public figure issuing fatwas and
warnings, e.g. against the invasion of Iraq, for the overthrow of Pakistan’s President
Musharraf, attacking US President Bush and the French legislation concerning the wearing of
the veil, or warning the Arab countries not to impose US-orientated reforms. Zawahiri appeals
are made to fight democratic regimes recalling the example of the Algerian FIS who had acted
“under consideration of the political culture and tried to enter the presidential palace through
the ballot box. But (…) facing guns with French bullets they entered the gates of prisons and
concentration camps instead of entering the gates of power …” He stresses the defensive
character of what might look like offensive violence: “When the forces of repression drive us
into the battle, we have to react on the terrain we choose and fight Jews and Americans on
their own terrain.” (Kepel and Milelli 2006:363) The aggravation of his argumentation is
reached when he claims that this reactive Jihad has to be accompanied by a rather pro-active
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
strategy of carrying the war to the enemy: “The Islamist movement and its avant-garde of
Jihad-fighters have to force the main criminals – the United States, Russia and Israel - to
fight, instead of allowing them to wage proxy wars against Islamist movements through our
governments.” (Kepel and Milelli 2006:363) “.. we have to burn the hands of those who try to
set alight our countries” (Kepel and Milelli 2006:364).56
Mus’ab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006)
The second part of his name means “coming from Al-Zarqa”. Since the 1960s al Zarqa was a
hub for Islamists, among them Abdullah Azzam. 80% of the population are Palestinian
refugees from the Israeli-Arab wars of 1948 and 1967. Zarqawi, deeply influenced by the
Palestinian issues, condemned the Jordanian monarchy for its support of US military policy in
the region, directly criticizing King Abdullah for forming an alliance with Jews and
Christians, and fighting brothers for the defence of Israel. Al-Zarqawi went to fight in
Afghanistan and was arrested after his return to Jordan 1994, although freed again 1999 under
a general amnesty. He returned to Afghanistan setting up his own camp in Herat not far from
the Iranian border. The exchange with Iraqi Kurds led to the settlement of some Jihadis from
this camp in Iraqi Kurdistan after the 9/11 attacks. They founded “Jund al-Islam” and later
merged with some Kurdish groups to form “Ansar al-Islam” maintaining several training
camps. This group is known for maintaining cells in Europe, especially in Germany and Italy.
In June 2003, the group changed its name to Ansar al-Sunna, emphasizing its takfiri Sunni
orientation, and is known for never freeing prisoners in exchange for money (Costin 2006).57
Taking the biographies of these four Jihad-leaders into account, it seems that apart from the
local conflicts in Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, the crucial conflict shaping the
biographies of leading Jihadis is the protracted Israel-Palestinian conflict. However, it was
international conflicts with foreign intervention, Afghanistan and Iraq, in which they found an
opportunity to wage their Jihad.
Ideological motivation of common Islamist radicals
When looking for the motivation of more common radicals, Farhad Khosrokhavar’s study of
Islamists in French prisons provides us with an excellent model. Although he is only referring
to the French situation and the study therefore lacks representativity, certain trends can be
traced that are applicable to other European contexts, especially to immigrants from North
African countries (Khosrokhavar 2006).58
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One common trait we see in the background for Jihadi radicalisation, is the perception of the
West’s will to destroy Islam. This goes hand in hand with a feeling of guilt and responsibility
for Muslims worldwide, because members of the diaspora live in and profit from societies that
supposedly exploit Muslim countries. This is linked to extreme indifference towards the
societies of actual residence. Violence against these countries and their populations finds its
legitimisation in form of the reciprocal talion-principle for conflicts like Palestine, Bosnia and
Afghanistan (Khosrokhavar 2006:347). This kind of rejection of the imagined West has a long
tradition in Islamism (Khosrokhavar 2006:356). It is assumed that since Islam became the
culture of the dominated, Muslims’ only form of mobilisation is in the name of God against
arrogant democracies.59 The adaptation of democratic rules only invites corrupted elites and
oligarchies to reduce the people to powerlessness by violating the same democratic rules. This
is supported by the Algerian case, where FIS was ousted from power with French support.60
Western arrogance must therefore be fought with all means, bringing the war back to the
enemy’s home even when facing superior military technology.61
Altogether Khosrokhavar comes to the conclusion that Islamist radicalisation is rather a kind
of revenge on the West for denying Muslims their right to live their religion rather than a
special form of messianism. The sympathy with the humiliation of brothers in faith, be they in
Bosnia, Palestine or Chechnya, is mixed with own feelings of humiliation and victimisation.
The young “Arab” of Maghrebian origin in France or the “Paki” in Great Britain identifies
with the humiliation of the Palestinian “chebab” by the Israeli army as he sees it on TV. This
pattern has appeared in many interviews with Islamist prisoners in France, which, often
enough, leads to anti-Semitism and a generalised resentment towards the West (Khosrokhavar
2006:312f.). Jews are equated with Israel, and while the Palestinian is becoming the symbol
for suppressed Muslim, a powerful repressive Israel stands for the cruel West. This differs
from the classic anti-Semitism. This also differs from religious anti-Semitism, where Jews
and Christians are fought in reference to a radical lecture of the Quran.
Israel is considered by many Islamists as the thorn in the Arab flesh. Although not a real
threat, Israel is ment to use up forces and attention and distracts Muslims from working
towards social progress.62 Within some segments of Muslim communities in Europe, the
relation between a rising radical Muslim nationalism, based on common faith and growing
anti-Semitism, can be observed (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006). As in many other nationalist
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
movements throughout the world, the nationalist myth often has a negative character; or a
negative definition of nation, based on a “counter nation” identified with the oppressors or
long-standing enemies.63 We also see this in the new radical Muslim nationalism. For many
Muslim nationalists, the “myth” of the oppression of Muslims, best represented by the
Palestinian people, plays a key role and transforms a general anti-Israeli stance into a more
general form of anti-Semitism (AIVD 2004:29).
In the religiously loaded interpretation, the West takes the role of “evil”. Distant solidarity is
only possible via modern communication techniques creating the imaginary neo-Ummah,
which sometimes leads from a virtual construction to a concrete involvement. In this neoUmmah the heroes of the Holy War are perceived as ”saints” in a new pantheon, replacing the
saints of popular Islam (Khosrokhavar 2006:371).
Several thematic clusters, exemplified along the argumentation of some detainees recur in the
interviews as background motivation for the fight against the West.
a) a focus of political interest on country of origin, Maghreb in general or the Israel-Palestineconflict that results in claims of vengeance and the restoration of justice paired with
conspiracy theories; b) a purely religious interpretation; c) the assumption of the superiority of
Islam resulting in the expectation that the fight against the West is preordained by God, and
Islam will emerge victorious. (See Annex 2 for examples)
Conflict of the West against Islam
In 2002, prior to the Iraq war, a poll conduced by the BBC showing that 70% of British
Muslims believe that the war on terror is a war on Islam. Groups like Al-Muhajiroun play up
this fear by referring to American actions and the more general war on terror as a Christian
Crusade against Islam. Radicals were overjoyed when President Bush actually used the term
“crusade” in one of his speeches concerning the war on terror (Wiktorowicz 2005:109).64
The fight between Islam and the West is a recurring pattern of argument. For Jihadis and the
Taliban the recent “Holy War” in Afghanistan for example began with the invasion of the Red
Army in winter 1979. Foreign troops, an army of unbelievers, conquered a Muslim country in
another attack against the Ummah, the common nation of all Muslims.
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From a Jihadi point of view, the fight between civilisations began about one millennium ago
with the crusades in the middle ages. It started with Pope Urban II’s call to come to the aid of
the Christians in Jerusalem65 in 1095 and ended with the withdrawal of the crusaders from the
city of Akkon in 1291. Correctly speaking, one would have to go back to the year 632, the
year of Prophet Mohammed’s death, after which Muslims conquered wide parts of the
Byzantine Empire and subordinated the Sassanide Persians as well as Visigoths in Spain.
They conquered Al Andalus and held it for about 800 years. The Balears, Sardinia, Sicily,
Crete, Cyprus and parts of the South of Italy also came under their control. In 1389, the Turks
defeated the European armies at the Battle of Kosovo, and marched on Constantinople six
times before finally managing to seize it in 1453. In 1683, they stood at the gates of Vienna.
The era of European colonialism, beginning with Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, marked a
turning of the tables, and the Muslim world was conquered by Europeans. The Sykes-Picot
agreement of 1916, between Britain and France divided the Arab dominions of the former
Ottoman empire in the Levant. However, the two European powers failed to live up to the
promises they had made both the Jews and the Arabs. Nowadays, this is interpreted by
radicals as an early attempt to split the Arab world. It is compared with the supposed
agreement between Blair and Bush to split and divide up the Middle East breaking the unity
of the Ummah (Kepel and Milelli 2006:46).
Since then, in the view of radicals, Muslims have been waging their “reconquest”, or the
recapture of their former territory including wide parts of Spain. They follow the official Jihad
proclaimed by the penultimate Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed V. Resad, in 1914 at the beginning
of the First World War. At that time his call wasn’t heard, but that changed after the Second
World War, and especially after the foundation of Israel (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:38).
The Palestinian struggle, is the first contemporary date which underlies the apologist
worldview of Jihad. A further impulse for Islamic radicalism has doubtlessly been the conflict
against the Shah in Iran leading to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran by
Ayatollah Khomeini 1979. This was the first big victory for the common Islamic cause. A
western-oriented regime had been defeated. The ideals of the West had proven to be futile and
full of hollow promises, as social progress and prosperity did not materialise in countries
following the western or socialist way. Muslim-orthodox thinkers such as Sayyid Qutb,
evoked an Islamic revolution appealing to the youth and explaining that neither socialism nor
capitalism had benefited the Muslim societies.
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The global historical perspective that apparently binds small local Islamist movements
together, is represented by Osama bin Laden, and, thanks to his special reading of the last 50
years, he is the first to succeed in presenting himself as commando central of Jihad in the
logical continuance and culmination of the 1000 years of war between civilisations.
Concerning the regimes in the Middle East, the radical Islamist ideologists do not have a hard
time finding evidence of injustice. The countries concerned are undemocratic, suffer many
socio-economic problems and lack the means to offer some sort of hopeful future to their
populations. In their struggle against Islamist movements they seek – and often enough get –
support from “infidel” western powers. They also reproach the West for tolerating the Israeli
violence against the Palestinians (despite several UN resolutions), but, on the other hand,
interfering in the Gulf region without the approval of the majority of the people there (AIVD
2002:29). The fight against this injustice, focused mainly towards the United States, is
interpreted as the religious duty (either collective or individual) of every real Muslim. Al
Qai’dah gives tactical advice on how to wage it, playing on the leitmotif “when the powerful
elites in the US do not listen, they have to be given painful lessons.”66 In this version,
everything fits a coherent picture: the crusades, colonialism, the creation of the Israeli state,
wars in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia and Chechnya. For the Jihadis
these wars represent an imperialist campaign from East and West against the Muslim world.
Bin Laden once cynically concluded that adding up all the death caused by these wars
authorised him to kill about four million US-Americans among them two million of children,
because US-campaigns are meant to have cost that number of Muslim lives. In this context
the fight in the name of Islam appears as global defensive war against the West and as a
revolutionary movement.
Conspiracy theory
An essential characteristic of violent Jihad ideology and one of the principal causes of
extremism is the conspiracy theory. Its central tenet distinguishes the Jihad movement from
other ultra-orthodox or Salafi movements. In the perception of those who believe in violent
Jihad, Islam is constantly threatened by external hostile forces seeking to destroy it. These
hostile forces include not only Israel and the West (usually referred to by Jihadists as Jews
and Crusaders), but also renegade Muslims and corrupted Islamic regimes. According to
Jihadist ideology, the presence of these hostile forces obliges every “good” Muslim to fight
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
continuously in defence of Islam. It is an apocalyptic fight between good and evil, in which
any form of violence is permitted, anywhere in the world.
Zawahiri expresses it as follows:
“The enemies of Islam call us Islamic fundamentalists, even Russia has joined their coalition,
including the UN, the servile governments of Muslim peoples, multinational enterprises,
international communication systems and international news agencies and NGOs used to spy
out the Muslim world, do missionary work or smuggle weapons. But this coalition has to face
a fundamentalist alliance, consisting of the Jihad-movements of different countries liberated
through Jihad.”67
Driven by the perception that the world of Islam is constantly threatened from outside, and
prompted by harsh government repression within Islamic countries, the fight was
concentrated on the periphery of Islam, such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. By
attacking American embassies in East Africa, in 1998, and on the World Trade Centre in New
York, al-Qa’idah demonstrated that the powerful western enemy could also be hit in its own
territory. This opened up the entire world as a potential Jihad area. The war in Iraq at last
presented the advocates of violent Jihad with an excellent opportunity to move Jihad from the
periphery of the Islamic world to its Arab heartland. The struggle in Iraq is viewed as a
“return home” to the heart of the Arab world for Islamist fighters after years of struggle in
“exile” in places such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Central Asia.
The influence of this thought on young Muslims in Europe is evident. They closely follow
international developments in the Islamic world on Arab satellite TV stations and European
websites. Even the regular media are often quite critical in their coverage of political
developments and conflicts that affect Muslims worldwide. In addition to this, the internet
provides a constant flow of unevaluated and often very emotive reports and assessments of
the alleged oppression and abuse of Muslims in many countries. From Iraq alone, numerous
stories and videos about atrocities find their way to young Muslims in the West. As a
consequence of this, they could easily come to the conclusion, that the Muslim community
worldwide (the Ummah) is being placed under severe pressure from oppression and
persecution (AIVD 2006:33f.). Where the United States have claimed to have liberated Iraq,
many Muslims have laid great emphasis on the abuse of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison,
denouncing US policy as hypocritical. Many Muslims cite the western government support
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
for dictatorial and corrupt regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, despite the constant
western rhetoric concerning the primary importance of democracy together with their support
for Israel, as confirmation that the West applies double standards. This is a major shared
emotion among both moderate and radical Muslims regardless of their age. The developing
patterns of strife in arenas of conflict such as Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq are the subject
of intensive discussion among groups of young Muslims in Europe (Bakker 2006:2).
A British analysis of public statements related to the crisis in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion
in 2003, indicates stark similarities between the frames used by the radical al-Muhajiroun and
its moderate counterpart the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Both organisations attributed
responsibility for the crisis to the Unites States. The major difference was over whether the
pending invasion was part of a “Christian” Crusade or an American drive for global
hegemony. The MCB emphasized the latter while al-Muhajiroun focused on the former (the
radicals would argue that they are really one and the same)
Broadly speaking, as already discussed in the analysis of individual motivations, there are two
kinds of framing68 of local conflicts with Muslim participation into the broader picture of a
dualistic worldview. One is the political, quasi-imperialistic which concentrates on the
advantages given to Israel by the United States and the western attitude towards Chechnya,
Afghanistan etc. The other is a purely religious: Islam is in danger, not only from a political
point of view but also culturally (sexuality, female rights, drug abuse,…) though, of course,
we will also find forms in between these two poles.
Political manichaeism is the logical extrapolation of the fight against regimes perceived as
corrupted in a global(ised) context. Muslims of different countries become aware of similar
problems in their home countries which truly exist as a matter of regional similarities69 and
blame their Westernised elites as well as their backing Western powers. The common
grievances give rise to a growing consciousness of a coherent “Muslim world”. In militant
networks this perception of shared fate is given further credence by the participation in
military campaigns. “Brothers in arms” are bound together through the common war
experience (Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and now Iraq) and by the strong bonds of blood
and sweat created in battle under the omnipresent danger of death.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
The purely religious framing of local conflicts legitimises the armed struggle against the West
as a personal or collective religious duty to liberate Arab lands. This can mean overcoming
current repression in countries with a majority Muslim population (defensive), but it can also
be interpreted in a broader sense as the conquest of all land ever under Muslim rule such as
large areas of Spain, Turkey, the Balkans and of course Jerusalem (offensive). The most
radical approach is represented by the will to subjugate the whole world to the glory of Allah.
An example of this was former Hizb ut-Tahrir member and founder of al-Muhajiroun, Omar
Bakri Mohammed, calling for the Islamisation of Great Britain (Wiktorowicz 2005:9).
According to Muslim teaching, the Islamic worldview is that of a binary world divided
between Dar al-Islam (realm of Islam) where the Islamic community has been established and
Islam is practiced, and Dar al-Harb (realm of war) or Dar al-Kufr (realm of disbelief) where
Muslims have to fight to establish their community of believers (where only Jihad or a
temporary armistice, a Hudna, are options).70 However, this dichotomy is not absolute,
Islamic Law also speaks of “Land of Negotiated Peace” (Dar al-Sulh/Dar al-Ahd), a situation
where Muslims are not in conflict with the ”ungodly” and not openly hostile to the state and
Dar al-Aman (“Land of Safety”) where Muslims enjoy the protection of the state concerned
(Lia and Åshild 2001:14).71 When radicals in Britain talk about the “Covenant of Security”
they seem to refer to one of the two hybrid concepts. Usually they lament about the broken
“Covenant of Security” as a result of western aggression. Therefore Muslims can claim the
right to launch a defensive Jihad (Huband 2006:1).72
For the different religious duties to fight, participation in Jihad is the test of true commitment
in establishing Islam at any cost. Abdullah Azzam believed that only by continued armed
struggle the unified strength of the Muslims would be brought to bear on their supposed
enemies. It is also a crude attempt to mimic the early struggles of the Prophet Mohammed,
preparing for a promised apocalyptic holy war against the excommunicated “infidel regimes”,
Jews, Hindus, and anyone else who gets in the way of creating a global Islamic empire.
Abdullah Azzam was already pursuing the goal of creating a brotherhood that would
obliterate any ethnic or regional distinctions consisting of holy Muslim warriors trained in
waging military campaigns and instructed in religion and unity. The vanguard’s constant
battle is necessary for the creation as well as for the maintenance of the imagined community
of a global Ummah. It even creates martyrs fulfilling the role of quasi-saints of the new
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
religion of takfir and Jihad. In the absence of other satisfying alternatives in global collective
identities as differentiated from the rest of society, diaspora Muslims with different national
origins developing a common identity are most vulnerable to this kind of thought.
At the group level, the doctrine and idea of global defensive Jihad against aggressors
attacking Islam and Muslims stands out as the single most important motivational factor of
Jihadis. At the individual level, it is not that easy to reveal the motivational factors, but
generally one can say that key operatives and leaders appear to be ideologically informed and
conscious about politics (Nesser 2006).
Prioritisation of conflicts73
The focuses for a global fight involving Muslims had already been mentioned in bin Laden’s
message to the worldwide Muslim Brothers on 23 August 1996. They were: Palestine, Iraq
(already defined as a future theatre of conflict in 1996), Lebanon, Tajikistan, Burma
(Myanmar), Kashmir, Assam, Philippines, Pattani (province of Thailand), Ogaden (Ethiopia),
Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Kepel and Milelli 2006:67).
When it comes to the prioritisation of relevant conflicts, the monitoring of radical Islamist
internet websites show that the Iraq war is currently the main focus of the discourse among
Jihadists and their supporters. Here, radical Islamists in European countries discuss whether
they should travel to Iraq and join the resistance, or whether they could support their
“brothers” inside Iraq from abroad (Nesser 2006:14). Until now, Islamist radicals have
employed the internet quite effectively in winning sympathy and recruiting new fighters for
the Iraqi insurgency throughout the Arab and Muslim world, including the Muslim
communities in Europe (Paz 2005:43).
Before Iraq, international Jihad focussed primarily on Afghanistan and Chechnya. As Ayman
al-Zawahiri explained in 2001: “The highest of all duties is to support Afghanistan and
Chechnya by word, action and consultation, because these two countries are the true capital of
Islam these days.” (Kepel and Milelli 2006:364) The heart of the Muslim world was perceived
to lie at its periphery, i.e. the frontier states. The geographical shift of the centre of the
Muslim world from the Middle East to its periphery, where the Jihad takes place, was the
result of Azzam’s theory of declaring Jihad as major pillar of faith (Kepel and Milelli
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
2006:369). The special role of Afghanistan in the imagination of Islamists is also derived
from the fact that Afghanistan is one of the few Muslim countries which has never formally
been colonialised. After the British-Afghan wars in 1838 and 1878, Britain occupied the
country twice for a short time, but they were driven out very soon. In 1839, the Afghans even
destroyed a whole British army.
But the periphery of the Muslim world is not well situated for the “liberation” of the Arab
peninsula. Iraq is, therefore, seen as an attractive and welcome opportunity to bring back
Jihad into the heart of the Arab and Muslim world (Kepel and Milelli 2006:364). Although
the presence of international fighters in Iraqi insurgency is rather limited, bin Laden comes
closer to his principal aim of liberating his home country Saudi Arabia.
Never forgotten and constantly present in Islamist arguments, is the struggle of the Palestinian
people for their own state. Israel is perceived as part of the West and its foundation is an open
wound, a trauma. The centrality of this conflict also stems from the constant media coverage;
the presence of exiled Palestinian intellectuals in the Arab world; the existence of a
Palestinian diaspora educated in the West and the presence of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.
Beside current political problems, Palestine is always a current topic and one of the
fundamentals of animosity towards the West and the corrupted Muslim regimes.
Palestinian radical, Azzam argued the case in a very pragmatic manner. He considered
Afghanistan a priority over Palestine, raising doubts over the policies of Palestinian leaders
(taking into account the political context of the region in the 80s when the Palestine
Liberation Organisation (PLO) was the only leading player and a religiously motivated
Hamas had not yet arrived on the political stage). Azzam asserts that Afghanistan is closer
than Palestine to the goal of establishing an Islamic state. “Every Arab who wants to fulfil the
duty to fight for Palestine should do so, but all others should go to Afghanistan, not because
Afghanistan is more important than Palestine – Palestine is holy for Islam, the heart of
Muslim world and blessed earth. But in Afghanistan leadership lies in Muslims hands
whereas the leaders of the Palestinian fight are unbelievers trying to build a secular state.
There are also strategic reasons: the frontiers of Afghanistan are open to the mujaheddin,
while the situation in Palestine is totally different and authorities observe people coming to
fight against the Jews.” (Kepel and Milelli 2006:182) 74
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Today, the situation has changed, and Ayman Zawahiri therefore points out that “the
opportunity to lead the Ummah into Jihad in Palestine is greater than ever, because the secular
movements have recognised Israel and seek to negotiate the remaining Palestinian territory.
(…) The truth is that the Palestinian cause has fired the Ummah with enthusiasm for 50 years
now and pulls all Arabs together.”75
But conflicts do not only play an important role as parts of the Jihad ideology, they also offer
the pictures necessary for a more profane and instrumental approach of propagating and
financing the Jihad cause.
Propaganda
Armed conflicts present opportunities to produce propaganda videos; creating heroes and
presenting clear-cut friend and foe distinctions. At the same time, shootings are not only a
valuable instrument for propaganda projects necessary for radicalisation and recruitment, they
also play an important role in fundraising activities for militant groups, nurturing the conflict
and contributing indirectly to the radicalising effects. Mr. Gharib, a Kurdish militant and
Ansar media chief, commented in an interview on the value of shootings recorded on video
during battle: “These CDs were extremely important, because they were our source of
income; we sent them back up the cash chain to our donors,” “After one successful attack,
funding came in like rain ... from everywhere.” ”It's not governments, but people from rich
countries, Kuwait, Saudi, and Qatar - rich people who would not dare to take part, but who
send support to establish Islamic rule.” He goes on to explain “such donors did not pay for
Ansar to make a truce with the PUK, instead they demanded action, … they ask: 'Where is
your product? Where is the fighting?” (Peterson 2003)
Scenes of combat filmed by the mujaheddin frequently contain harsh images, in which for
example prisoners are murdered in front of the camera. Despite the crudeness of these images,
they attract sympathy and new members. Cruel videos with beheadings seem to be necessary
as a means of deterrence (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:153).76 The propaganda video, “The
Flag of Truth”, offers a typical example. It provides us with a 17 minute history lesson,
beginning with the crusades and interpreting them as victory of the mujaheddin. More and
more American soldiers fill the screen and underline the final message for the last shot “The
Victory of Islam”.77 In victim-related videos, arguments are strengthened by images
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demonstrating the military superiority of Israel, the United States, or its allies perpetrating
atrocities in contrast to the suffering of weak and innocent Muslim women and children. A
horrifying image captured by a French television crew gained particular notoriety. It showed
a young Gazan boy huddling beside his father before being shot and killed in 45 minutes of
continuous Israeli gunfire.78 The film was played continuously on Palestinian television. Most
people reading this will know about this footage, and it has been integrated in different
recruitment videos.
Since the fall of Baghdad the internet propaganda has increased rapidly whilst becoming more
professional and brutalized. Executions are shown in full length and the cries of victims can
be heard in full intensity while young Muslims in Europe are incited to distrust Quraninterpretation of their parents and their local sheikhs and follow their emotions.
Abu Musab al Zarqawi multiplied the effect of his campaigns by publishing the cruel
beheadings that his group committed on the internet or sending pictures of them to
newspapers and TV-channels worldwide. Parallel to his recruitment efforts in Europe, these
images influenced radicalisation processes.79
Several radical network-clusters have used Jihad videos as a key propaganda instrument.
Some of the members of the group that executed the attacks in Madrid used to watch these
videos together (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:176f.). According to confidential security
sources Sayyid Ahmed (Mohammed the Egyptian), was “addicted to the internet”. He turned
his living room into a “virtual madrassa”. The Benyaich brothers (belonging to the group of
Lavapiés, a sub-cluster of the perpetrators of the Madrid attacks) were seen on a tape, titled
“Islamic Jihad in Daghestan”, showing the brutality of mujaheddin against Russians. Both
brothers were dressed in combat fatigues leading a group of mujaheddin in Chechnya.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
5. On Intervention
„Every war sets loose social and political forces that have a greater impact on the ultimate
outcome of the war than the actual result of combat itself. For example, Israel’s invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 led to the emergence of Hisbollah, which played a central role in Israel’s
eventual withdrawal from the country two decades later. The U. S. war to liberate Kuwait in
1991 produced a dramatic military victory, but it was followed by sanctions fatigue, the rise
of Osama bin Laden’s movement, and U. S.-Saudi tensions. Many of the coalition’s current
actions will undoubtedly lead to political and social outcomes that, while only dimly
perceptible at the moment, may have a dramatic long-term impact on Iraq and, quite
probably, the region as a whole.” (Eisenstadt, White et al. 2003)
Current or recent conflicts between country of origin and country of residence play a much
more significant role and have the potential to cause deep loyalty conflicts in the migrant
population. With international (esp. military) involvement of European countries in more and
more local conflicts, this is a constellation that will grow in significance in future.
Past evidence can be drawn from French involvement in the Algerian civil war, in which the
former colonial power’s support of Algeria in its fight against radical Islamists during the
1980s, triggered the terrorist campaigns of GIA in France, giving birth to a new radical
thinking in its Algerian diaspora community. The UK’s anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, which has radicalised certain parts of Pakistani diaspora in Britain, or the
demonstrations of radical Shiites in Germany against its support of the Israeli campaign
against Lebanese Hisbollah in summer 2006, are two other similar cases.
The expressions of outrage in the Arab world following the invasion of Iraq seem to reflect
deep-rooted feelings of dishonour and humiliation (Paz 2005:43). These references to colonial
relations play a role in the justification of current radicalisation.80 If the relationship between
country of origin and country of residence is shaped by a colonial past and historical anticolonial conflict, it can easily be used to set political, cultural or socio-economic
discrimination within a contextual frame. Former colonial powers like France or Britain evoke
radicalisation processes in particular, because of memory and colonial image, which are
repeatedly referred to by radical Islamists (Khosrokhavar 2006:347). But these former “Great
Powers” are not the only threatened by feelings of historical vengeance. Spain also stands out
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
for holding Ceuta and Melilla, the colonial enclaves in North Africa. These two autonomous
cities are breeding grounds for young North African terrorists wanting to defend Islam and
“liberate” the enclaves from “colonial” Spain (Haahr-Escolano 2004). In May 2006, a direct
threat appeared in the radical al-Ansar forum, in which the fight for the liberation of Ceuta
and Melilla was compared with those of Iraq, Chechnya and Kashmir (Jordán and Wesley
2007:3). Even more worrying was the reference to Ceuta and Melilla as occupied cities by
Ayman al-Zawahiri, in December 2006. These types of proclamations have the potential to
pressure or motivate groups acting in the Maghreb or in Spanish territory to plot new attacks
against Spanish interests. More importantly, Spain continues to represent the enemy infidel
and old Islamic territory. Although historical references to “Al Andalus” are rhetorical in
nature, it is true that the network that executed the attacks in Madrid referred to Spain as the
land of Tarek Ben Ziyad (the Arab leader who launched the conquest of Spain in 711). The
video planted after the attacks also makes reference to the crusades on the Iberian Peninsula
against the Muslims, and the Inquisition. Although not the primary motivation, these
historical arguments are part of the justification of the attacks (Jordán and Horsburgh
2005:185). Another reference to colonial responsibility was made by Muammar Ghadaffi. On
20 March 2006, newspapers reported that Libyan leader, Muammar Ghadaffi, had issued a
new warning to Italy: “Fresh riots such as those which rocked Benghazi are to be expected.”81
Ghadaffi added that “terrorist attacks could be launched on Italian soil because Rome has not
yet admitted its responsibility as a former colonial power and Libyans are furious over the
cartoons issue”. The Libyan protesters targeted the Italian Consulate for two reasons: first,
Italian politicians (in particular Roberto Calderoli of the separatist Northern League) had been
making inflammatory remarks in support of the Danish cartoons; second, as a former colonial
power, Italy is held in suspicion by Libyan nationalists and Islamists alike (Abedin and
Bordonaro 2006:2).
British polls have shown that catalysts for thinking more deeply about Islam were, apart from
a personal crisis such as death in family, international conflicts with involvement of Muslim
population (Wiktorowicz 2005:105). Respondents repeatedly indicated that international
conflicts involving Muslims are “very important” to address. Between 80 to 90 per cent of the
respondents rate (depending of the particular conflict) these conflicts as “very important” to
address (Wiktorowicz 2005:110).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
As we have already seen, groups such as al Qai’dah interpret current internationalised
conflicts (Chechnya, Palestine, Daghestan, Mindanao, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or
Afghanistan) as a black and white dualism and the global “fight against Muslims” as the
continuation of an antagonistic history
including the crusades, the inquisition and
colonialism.82
A Norwegian study (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:30) analysing international interventions
as triggers for terrorist campaigns, which can be interpreted as a violent culmination of
radicalisation processes83, provided the very interesting result that the majority of the terrorist
attacks reacting to international interventions such as the Gulf War and Operation Desert
Storm or the Multinational Forces in Lebanon, 1982-84, were actually carried out by groups
that had no apparent stake in the conflict. Indirectly involved groups and individuals rather
than stake-holders are mainly the radicalised ones. It seems that global and manichaean
ideologies84 - in this respect Jihad and takfir ideology exhibit great similarities - are prone to
this quasi-imperialist argument. Furthermore, it has to be taken into consideration that the
intensity of reactive radicalisation processes depends on the perceived political legitimacy and
the use of force during the intervention.
These conflicts evolving from international interventions are often exploited by violenceprone perpetrators in a search to legitimise their own hate campaigns without taking the risk
of being drawn into the original conflict. In this arena, Islamists are taking over the dominant
role that radical leftists used to occupy in the 1970s and 1980s.
The legitimacy of the intervention, the applied level of force85 and the aversion to military
casualties of the different allies86 played major roles in triggering terrorism. Apart from that,
the best predictor of terrorist campaigns related to military interventions was the existence of
a potential terrorist infrastructure with a stake in the conflict or a strong manicaeic panideology.87 But it should also be kept in mind that what matters to the terrorist response is not
necessarily the legitimacy of the intervention among the general population, but how it is
perceived among extremist groups with terrorist capabilities (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al.
2003:76).
A first example is the Second Gulf War with its roots in the territorial claims of Iraq over the
emirate Kuwait. It has polarised and influenced the Arab world more than any other event
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
next to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The military occupation of Kuwait by Iraqi troops, in
1990 did not only result in the deployment of an international military alliance under the
leadership of the United States, but it also split the Arab world into an anti Iraq-fraction (the
oil producing countries with small populations) and a pro-Iraq-fraction (the densely populated
countries lacking natural resources like Yemen, Sudan or Palestine). This polarisation took
also place in countries where the governments supported the intervention for foreign policy
reasons, while the majority of their populations expressed pro-Iraqi or anti-American
sentiments.
This intervention is also known to have triggered a clear split between reformist, or academic
Salafism (Salafiyyah al-ilmiyyah) and fighting, or “Jihadi” Salafism (Salafiyyah al
Jihadiyyah) in Saudi Arabia. Some Salafi scholars, until then engrossed in apolitical pietism,
turned radical and declared the fight against the non-believers (kafir) as a religious obligation.
The concept of takfir (declaring someone to be non-believer) then became the major source of
conflict among Salafis, causing a rift in the movement throughout the Arab world (Escobar
Stemmann 2006). The deployment of US troops in Saudi Arabia, was a particular catalyst for
ideological processes that led to the rise of al-Qa’idah (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:81).
For example, a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden stated that: “For over seven years the
United States has been occupying the lands of Islam its the holiest places, the Arabian
Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorising its
neighbours and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the
neighbouring Muslim peoples.” (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:28)
Special cases were the international interventions in Kosovo from 1998 to mid 2000, because
the West intervened on the Muslim side, and the mujaheddin were fighting beside the western
coalition. Until early 1999, Muslim organisations and congresses, such as the Organisation of
Islamic Conferences (OIC), were vocal in their criticism of western apathy in the face of the
atrocities being committed against Muslims in Kosovo. Moreover, these concerns were
echoed by Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamists, who frequently used the fact that the
West did not intervene on behalf of Muslims in former Yugoslavia to recruit followers.
Moreover, radical Islamists from across the Muslim world had previously participated as
warriors during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA or
UCK) thus called for, and indeed, were provided with assistance from radical Islamists in the
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
shape of training, equipment, personnel, and humanitarian aid. The conflict in Kosovo was
clearly identified as a strand in the worldwide Jihad. However, the NATO bombing
embarrassed the sympathizers, when they found themselves fighting on the same side as the
United States and their western allies (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:55f.).
The most important result concerning our subject of radicalisation in Europe is that groups
with no direct stakes, who seek to legitimise their violent acts, are the most active when it
comes to reacting violently to Western interventions. Their engagement in violence and
radicalisation efforts also depends on their capabilities. Even for radicalisation under the
violence threshold a radical infrastructure is required. While the main terrorism fears before
the interventions were associated with groups participating directly in the conflict, this
analysis shows that local ideological groups who have no apparent stake in the conflict, but
who identify themselves without mandate or responsibility with the assumed victims, carried
out the majority of the terrorist attacks (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:79). These groups,
lacking the bonds to a broader social group or stratum, showed no scruples about intensifying
the violent actions without limit, whereas terrorists bonded to ethnic and religious minorities,
with real stakes in conflicts, will show consideration for the groups, and cannot operate
completely freely (Waldmann, Sirseloudi et al. 2006).88 Such a minimum of control is
unknown in transnational terrorist networks. As they do not depend on anybody, they do not
have to account to anybody for their actions. The only principles guiding their actions are the
maxims of their ideology and the consensus of their own cell, which constitutes family,
homeland and often suicide squad in one.
Still direct spill-over might become a more serious problem for future interventions in cases
where the parties involved have developed significant terrorist capabilities in foreign
countries (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:81). A further risk is that the intervention might
stimulate ideological changes within a movement and give it a more global worldview and
strategy; as happened to Osama bin Laden in the years after the Gulf War. It remains to be
seen whether the recent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq will have similar
consequences.89
Threats against Germany, for example, increased directly after the country widened the
mandate of its involved NATO-forces in Afghanistan towards participation in the offensive
strategy in South-Afghanistan by supply of Tornado-aircrafts, instead of limiting the
contribution to active security and nation building in Kabul and North-Afghanistan.90
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
From a European point of view, the conflict in Bosnia is exemplary for radicalisation effects
of external conflicts. In the name of the protection of Muslims, it triggered profound
radicalisation processes in European countries via propaganda and support activities (BVT
2006:70). German security services for example observed a common trait among many
radicals: they all seemed to have been radicalised in the 1990s after the first Gulf War,
gaining new impulse after the Serbian massacre among Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica
(Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:54). Bosnia connected the international Jihad with Europe.
Mainly because of their geographical proximity, Germany and Italy played an important role
in the recruitment efforts. First videos showing German Muslims fighting in Bosnia followed
and propaganda material appeared constructing Serbs as representatives of Christianity and
eternal enemies. In mosques in South Germany not only financial support was organised but
also direct recruitment took place. Radicals even maintained a hospital where injured fighters
were looked after (Kohlmann 2004).91
War in Iraq
A closer look will be taken at the current war in Iraq.92 The British-American invasion of Iraq
aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein known as Operation Iraqi Freedom started on 20 March
2003. Allegations of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qa’idah
justified a pre-emptive strike against a sovereign country in the eyes of the US and their allies,
although no UN Security Council mandate could be obtained. Baghdad fell relatively quickly
and on 9 April 2003, but the United States and its allies faced immense problems pacifying
the country and have therefore kept a significant military presence in Iraq. This war did not
begin with an intervention in an existing conflict, but was unleashed as a preventive attack
initiating a new conflict (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:66f.).
Several terrorist strikes have been linked to the intervention after the end of major combat
operations. The bombing of commuter trains in Spain on 11 March 2004, for example. The
Aznar government’s handling of the attacks contributed to the outcome of the Spanish
elections, and led to the appointment of a new government, which withdrew Spanish troops
from Iraq.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
According to the Dutch AIVD, transnational networks in Europe are, at present, mainly
focussing on support to and recruitment for Jihad in Iraq and Chechnya (AIVD 2006:25).
While Iraq is the new centre of gravity for Jihad, Europe has become an important logistical
centre critical to ensuring the constancy of the fight. This war has given existing networks
new impetus and sparked an intensification in their activities. Support for the insurgency
against coalition forces in Iraq coming from Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans in Europe,
is growing in strength and sophistication.
Waging Jihad against a regime in a Muslim country is a far more ambiguous activity
ideologically than the more clear-cut concept of defensive Jihad, and hence, the conflict in
Iraq has broad appeal. The Jihad in Iraq has garnered such widespread support from Islamist
militants partially because it is perceived by them as a “defensive Jihad”. According to many
Islamist spiritual leaders, it is, therefore, Fard-ayn (a personal obligation) for every Muslim
who is able to join the fight. According to this argument, the unifying call to fight against the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan that drew Islamists together in the 1980s is now being repeated
in the struggle against the US in Iraq. “Nationality is not important because faith is the
identity card.”93 Even relative moderates, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, consider
supporting their Muslim brothers in Iraq a religious duty. The regimes of North Africa have
been publicly ambiguous in their stance on the war, with state-run media still referring to the
insurgency as a “resistance”. Some individuals travelling to Iraq from North Africa and
Europe have been radicalised by what they perceive to be the injustice of the US-led
occupation, but they are not necessarily part of any national Islamist Jihad group. Bin Laden
was already concerned about Iraq in his “Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad
against the Jews and the Crusaders”.
At the same time Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans and other parts of the North African
radical diaspora in Europe show increasing interconnectivity and cooperation. Some networks
continue to provide support for Jihadists in Algeria, coupled with the growth of the Iraq Jihad,
which has galvanised the development of a more pan-Islamist worldview (Pargeter and AlBaddawy 2006). The most important of these networks is the GSPC, which despite being
weakened in Algeria, seems to be building support among North African diaspora
communities. However, it seems that GSPC affiliation is also a label easily given to detained
members of the wider North African radical diaspora whose links to the GSPC and other
Maghrebi groups are often tangential. In fact, many of those travelling to Iraq to join the Jihad
50
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
are a new breed of young, jobless radicals who are drawn from both first- and secondgeneration immigrant communities (Pargeter and Al-Baddawy 2006).
The Jordanian Islamist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been accused of organizing the
Islamist guerrillas within Iraq, was suspected of being the most important figure for Islamist
terrorist networks in Europe (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:72). The testimonies of several
activists captured in Europe suggest that Ansar al-Islam and Al-Tawhid (both Iraqi groups
were closely connected to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi) have established a widespread cell
network all across Europe. Zarqawi’s network also connects with other organisations, such as
militant Salafist groups in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.
In Germany, three Iraqis (Ata R., Mazen H. und Rafik Y.) have been charged for their
membership in a terrorist organisation as well as for planning to kill the former Iraqi prime
minister Ijad Allawi during his state visit in Germany in December 2004; an attempt that was
prevented by German police at the last minute by intercepting the Iraqis’ phone calls. The
three men were already under surveillance for collecting money for Ansar al-Islam (Heflik
2006). Mazen H., an experienced war veteran, living in Augsburg, had already fought Saddam
Hussein side by side with the Kurdish Peshmerga. It has been proved that he finished some
training in close combat before coming illegally to Germany. Rafik Y. complained that higher
levels in Munich did not allow any violent actions when questioned by an informant about
any plans during the visit of Allawi. Attacks in Germany and France were not planned, as
these two countries had not participated in the invasion of Iraq. His decision to nevertheless
try to assassinate the prime minister was not backed at higher Ansar al-Islam levels (Cziesche
and Stark 2005).
Mohammed Lokman, another Iraqi collecting donations and recruiting volunteers for the Holy
War in Iraq, was arrested in December 2003. He was the first one to give a deeper insight into
Ansar al Islam’s European network, whose membership is estimated at about 100 in Germany
alone (Spiegel-online 2006). He disclosed that most of the Muslims donating do not even
know what the money will be used for. This indicates that diaspora communities are less
radicalised by the intervention in Iraq than the sums of money reaching the conflict region
might suggest.
It seems that one of Zarqawi's most notable activities was the careful nurturing of militant
Islamist support cells across Europe responsible for recruiting young European Muslims to
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
fight in his Jihad in Iraq. While many of these perished in suicide attacks, the risk remains that
some veterans quietly filter back into Europe with their commitment to a global Jihad
heightened by their experiences of conflict in Iraq (Standish 2006). But despite concern about
Iraq becoming “the new Afghanistan”, and the potential risk to Europe from a “blowback”
scenario created by returning Jihadists, it is likely that the numbers travelling to Iraq from
Europe remain a small percentage of the overall total of foreign fighters active there (Pargeter
and Al-Baddawy 2006).
However, the risk remains that existing groups change their ideological focus by broadening
their orientation and internationalising their aims, as happened with bin Laden’s al Qai’dah
after the first US-intervention in Iraq. A probable candidate for this kind of development are
the Algerian GSPC and formerly pure Kurdish Ansar al-Islam.
Europe
The general increased connectivity between migrants in their new host countries and other
migrants, as well as with populations in their countries of origin is a cause of worry for the
authorities because it broadens the potential population at risk. Decreasing transportation
costs and new communication technologies mean that networks of relations between migrants
in their new homes and those who have either stayed at home or migrated to yet another place
can be maintained with relative ease and at a relatively reasonable cost (Adamson 2005). This
allows migrants to maintain dense social networks that stretch across national borders that can
be used for a variety of purposes.
The fact that migrant communities are already linked by transnational social networks
facilitates the process of recruiting members from immigrant communities into transnational
organisational structures. Studies on recruitment have shown that the most important
precondition for participation in an organisation is one’s location within a given social
network, as recruitment is usually initially based on friendship, personal acquaintance or
family connections (Porta 1995; Sageman 2004).
Further on Benedict Anderson already pointed to the role that newspapers, the development of
vernacular languages, and national communication infrastructures have had on the rise of
nationalism and the development of national identities (Anderson 1983). With the new forms
of global communication technologies, enabling the instantaneous dissemination of ideas and
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
information around the world, the relationship between national cultures and territorial spaces
becomes more tenuous. Satellite dishes and the internet allow individuals access to the media
and information sources of their choice, be it BBC, al Jazeera or a local broadcasting
company. They experience a simultaneity of information that, as Anderson argues, creates
“imagined communities”. Therefore the Muslim diaspora communities in general, and the
Islamist associations in Europe in particular relate to their home countries as well as to each
other, and have acquired a marked transnational character in their organisation and outlook
(Schiffauer 1999; Lia and Åshild 2001:14).
Nevertheless the pattern predominates that the Muslim community, including the radicalised
parts, remains to a certain extent divided along national lines with a focus on the politics of
their home country. Many mosques within Europe still have a national flavour; Tunisians
attend mosques with a Tunisian imam, and the same can be said for Algerians, Moroccans and
Libyans.
While many immigrants came for economic reasons, there were also a large number of
political activists seeking refuge in Europe. Among them were members of Islamist
opposition groups ranging from moderate movements, such as the Islamic Salvation Front in
Algeria (FIS), to more extreme elements including for example the Libyan Islamic Fighting
Group (LIFG) (AIVD 2005). New immigrants arriving in Europe from North African
countries seem now to be less politicised than their predecessors in the 1990s because of the
changes that have occurred in their countries of origin. Still Dutch AIVD assumes that an
important factor behind the rise of Islamism as a significant ideology in the Muslim diaspora
was the general strengthening of links between the diaspora and the conflict-riven home
countries (AIVD 2005).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
6. European radicals
In the following chapter some patterns of Islamist violent radicalisation in relation to external
conflicts shall be scetched.
The Netherlands
By considering the modus operandi of terrorists, Petter Nesser proves that the invasion and
occupation of Iraq has not only played an important motivational role for the group of Islamist
militants in Madrid on 11 March 2004, but also for Mohammed Bouyeri, member of the Al
Qa’idah–inspired Hofstad-network, responsible for the killing of the Dutch filmmaker van
Gogh. While the Madrid bombings show great similarities with other synchronised Al
Qai’dah attacks, the killer of Theo van Gogh also displayed the “spill over-effects” of the Iraq
invasion, particularly in his modus operandi. The Dutch-Moroccan shot van Gogh several
times with an automatic pistol. Then he slit his throat and attempted to decapitate him with a
large kitchen knife. The fact that Bouyeri tried to decapitate the victim, indicates that the
method of attack has probably been influenced by the abductions and beheadings of hostages
in Iraq (Nesser 2006:323ff.).94
Mohammed Bouyeri, the van Gogh killer had grown up in the Amsterdam suburb of
Slotervaart, populated mainly by Moroccan and Turkish immigrants. Police and authorities in
the local mosques knew about the exposure of the Muslim youth, because years ago two
juveniles from there were caught at the Chechnian frontier, trying to join the Jihad against the
Russian forces (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:71ff.). Concerning the Hofstad network (the
radical group Bouyeri belonged to) three members had trained in Kashmiri Jihad camps in
Pakistan, and two of them had attended a training facility in Afghanistan after being
indoctrinated by a Syrian preacher in the Netherlands (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:76;
Nesser 2006:335). Their actions and communications suggested a significant motivational
impact from the faraway Iraq war. Bouyeri was enraged with the invasion of Iraq and
declared war on the Netherlands, while other members of the group allegedly plotted terrorist
attacks in the Netherlands and in Portugal, two European countries that had deployed troops
to Iraq.
According to the Dutch authorities, the group started to show “conspiratorial behaviour” in
2003, following the invasion of Iraq (Nesser 2006:334). Bouyeri was heard threatening that
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
“the Netherlands is now our enemy because they participate in the occupation of Iraq. We
shall not attack our neighbours, but we will attack those who are apostates and those who
behave like our enemy.” (Nesser 2006:336) It appears Bouyeri increasingly interlinked
grievances related to the treatment of Muslims in Holland with the “global war on terrorism”
and the invasion of Iraq.
Although Nesser’s analysis points out that Iraq played an important role in motivating
Bouyeri to kill the Dutch filmmaker van Gogh, the Dutch authorities believe that, while
foreign conflicts do attract people to go and participate in international conflicts, internal
radicalisation against the host society seems to have a primarily local motivation, while
international developments, like the Iraq war play a major part in triggering violent
radicalisation and terrorist attacks (Mohamed Tozy in: (Bousetta 1997)).95 Leaving the
country to fight abroad is, according to the Dutch authorities, the more probable trajectory for
Dutch radicals when motivation is not locally generated. In the months following October
2001, a few dozen Muslims left the Netherlands and went to the Afghan-Pakistani border
region to fight by the side of their Islamist brothers against the United States and other
“enemies of Islam” (AIVD 2002:8). Two, young men of Moroccan descent
living in
Eindhoven, were killed in January 2002 at the Kashmir border (AIVD 2002:5) They were
radicalised and recruited in the Netherlands for the Jihad and travelled abroad to undergo
military and ideological training and/or participate in the Islamist war.
United Kingdom
The first public Islamist activity against western values in Britain can be dated to the
publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in January 1989. Its appearance was marked
by public burnings of the book and wide demonstrations in Britain’s northern urban centres,
starting with Bradford, a city to which large numbers of Pakistanis had migrated during the
1960s (Whine 2005:50). Following the Rushdie Affair, foreign countries and organisations
increased their investment in the British Muslim community. As a result, new ideological
influences from abroad began to have significant impact on the political and religious life of
the British Muslim community.
Initially, among the early migrant communities,96 there was severe strife between the
Bangladeshi community and the Pakistani community. However, Kashmir, which is regarded
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
as an India-Pakistan territorial issue, as well as a Muslim-Hindu religious one, has provided a
major platform for Islamist campaigning unifying disparate Muslim communities of Britain.
Britain has since become a centre for fundraising for Kashmiri Islamist groups (ICG 2002:16;
Whine 2005:54).
The foreign Jihadi-centred campaigns in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya have also
provided a focus for Islamist recruitment in Britain. Conflicts in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and
Iraq have received important media coverage and Palestine provides a constant focal point for
political agitation in Britain, and although much of this campaigning has been by, and on
behalf of Palestinian secular groups, the Palestinian Islamist groups have a growing presence
(Whine 2005:54).
Today, the Jama’at-e-Islami, the main Islamist opposition movement in Pakistan is among the
most active foreign ideological influences on British Islam.97 A second stream of Islamist
ideology originates within the Muslim Brotherhood.98
As one of the many smaller groups, al-Muhajiroun has, especially since the events of 9/11,
influenced the diaspora community with high public appeal. The group is a splinter group of
another small, but globally networked radical group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was established in
Britain around 1990. It was the first group to publicly adopt a confrontational and antiWestern perspective without propagating violence (Whine 2005:56f.). (See Appendix 3 for an
example of a de-territorialized radical network).
The official report on the attacks on the London subway system on 7 July 2005, reveals that,
for the three young men in the group of suicide bombers lead by Mohammed Siddique Khan,
the crucial phase in the radicalisation process took place during their stay in Pakistan.
Siddique Khan is now known to have visited Pakistan in 2003 and to have spent several
months there with Shazad Tanweer between November 2004 and February 2005. The British
agencies believe that some form of operational training is likely to have taken place while
Khan and Tanweer were in Pakistan. Contacts in the run-up to the attacks suggest they may
have had advice or direction from individuals there (ISC 2006:38f.).99 The radicalisation that
took place in Pakistan was directly related to UK foreign policy issues. Tanweer not only
became more religious (growing a beard and praying five times a day), his relatives also noted
that after his return from Pakistan he despaired of UK foreign policy in Kashmir, Iraq and
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Afghanistan, identifying himself with the victims of this policy (Tumelty 2005:2). The group
was joined together by religious belief. Its identity was not based on British citizenship but on
the global Muslim community. They did not believe in returning back to the country of origin
of their parents, and, as British citizens by birth, they felt no gratitude towards Britain for
letting them remain. They categorically rejected the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq as,
what they perceive to be, a war against Islam, i.e. against them as Muslims. They took the
view that they were living in “Dar al Harb”, the realm of war and surrounded by enemies in
their hometowns, Beeston and Holbeck. This made the attacks against the London subwaysystem not only valid acts, but also a necessary defence against their aggressors, thus
transferring the war into the enemies’ own habitat.100
In a video showing the assassins claiming responsibility which was broadcasted by al Jazeera
seven weeks later, Mohammed Siddique Khan announced: “Your democratically elected
governments perpetually commit cruelties against us, and your support for these governments
makes you directly responsible! We are at war and I am a soldier!” The classification of “us”
and “them” is remarkable here. He devoutly believed that he was living in an enemy country
while defending Muslim “brothers and sisters” in Iraq and Afghanistan, where British troops
are fighting alongside the US-army.
France
France has had a long experience with radicalisation and terrorism within its territory. In 1985
and 1986, the Fouad Ali Saleh group, backed by Iran, bombed some large department stores
on the Champs Elysées. The next wave of terror in France took place in the early 1990s and
was closely connected with the elections in Algeria and the following military coup France
had supported. In its wake, the GIA, with a core of veterans from the 1980s Afghan Jihad,
soon called for the departure of foreigners from Algeria and started kidnapping and killing
foreign hostages, as well as countless Algerian civilians. The conflict escalated quickly. The
GIA kidnapped several French diplomats in 1993 and France responded with “Operation
Chrysanthemum” (Shapiro and Suzan 2003:80ff.) rounding up Algerian Islamist sympathizers
in France. The GIA reacted by hijacking an Air France plane in December 1994, which was
raided by French police on the ground in Marseille. In early July 1995, the assassination of
FIS founder, Imam Abdelbaki Sahraoui, who worked at a Parisian mosque, provoked a series
of bombings targeting French civilians including the infamous 1995 bombings of the Parisian
metro stations carried out in the name of the GIA by the French-Algerian Khaled Kelkal. On
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
29 September 1995, he was killed in a shoot-out with French police (Lia and Åshild 2001:38;
Shapiro 2007:133f.).101
International Jihadists made their first appearance in France in 1996 as a violent group of
“thugs rather than terrorists” (Kohlmann 2004:192) known as the “Roubaix gang”. This group
was famous for committing armed robberies with heavy artillery. Their cell leader, former
medical student, Christophe Caze, had gained experience in Jihadist paramilitary activities
during the war in Bosnia, where he also established contacts with various radicals (Kohlmann
2004:191ff.; Shapiro 2007:158f.). They were involved in trafficking weapons displaying an
unexpectedly brutal attitude towards state authorities. Most members died during a shoot-out
with a counter-terrorist commando when their hide-out and arsenal exploded. The remaining
members either ended up in prison or escaped to Bosnia.
Still, Algerian networks remain the main suspects for terrorism in France, although, over the
past decade, numerous arrests have documented the rise of a new generation of terrorists with
an international orientation.102
In January 2005, a French cell recruiting for the Iraqi insurgency was dismantled. The leader
of the cell was 23-year-old Farid Benyattou, whose reputation had been enhanced by
association with his brother-in-law, a GSPC member arrested for the World Cup plot and
expelled to Algeria in 2004.
Another terrorist cell led by Safé Bourada103 is typical of this new phenomenon. In September
2005, Bourada and other members were arrested near Paris while planning the bombing of the
Parisian metro, the headquarters of the French security services and an airport. Algerian
officials also thought that relations had been established with GSPC in Algeria and alZarqawi’s operatives in Iraq.
France breeds bothkinds of terrorists nowadays: those who plan to perpetrate attacks in
France, and French nationals who target foreign countries (Beyler 2006:97ff.).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Spain
Prior to the 1990s, Islamist activity in Spain had been carried out by non-residents. Militant
Jihad was an imported phenomenon and Spain merely provided another location for ongoing
campaigns. Cells that found refuge in Spain were principally involved in the support of Jihad
in other countries, primarily Algeria (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:170). Over the past few
years, however, the conversion to Jihad has become an increasingly indigenous phenomenon
(Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:170). Today militant Islamist cells continue to be disrupted in
Spain on a regular basis. In 2004, Spanish Police detained almost 100 Jihadists. This trend
continued in 2005 and 2006.104
Most of the known radicals in Spain are first generation immigrants who have settled in the
country. Many had been in contact and established relationships with radical Islam before
coming to Europe. This is true of the Algerian network, the Syrians linked to the Abu Dahdah
network and some of the Moroccans connected to the Madrid bombing network. Another
obvious characteristic is the average age of Jihadists in Spain. Most are around 30–39 years of
age. This can be explained by the fact that they have probably led militant lives prior to their
arriving in Spain.105 Additionally, the members of these new networks are of increasingly
different nationalities; although they tend to come from Maghreb countries, particularly
Morocco and Algeria. When the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Salafist Group for Call
and Combat (GSPC) cells were detected in Spain in the 1990s, the cells were characterized by
their national homogeneity: all members were Algerian. The few Jihadi Moroccans in Spain
were integrated into the Syrian-dominated Abu Dahdah network (Jordán and Wesley
2006:1f.).
The dissolution of the Abu Dahdah network at the end of 2001 had the consequence of
bringing in new people, including Syrians, Tunisians, Moroccans and Algerians, to positions
of greater importance. After the attacks of 2004, similar configurations have occurred
following the subsequent disruptions of Jihadi cells. More recent detentions reveal that
Moroccans are increasingly assuming leadership roles. It seems to be no accident that this
increase coincides with the wave of repression Islamists have faced in Morocco following the
Casablanca attacks.
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Algerian Jihadist Networks
The Algerian Jihadist network was probably the first to embed itself in Spain, shortly after
civil violence broke out in Algeria in 1992. Algeria’s civil war unleashed a flood of fleeing
Islamists who travelled primarily to France, however, they also found havens in other
European countries. Initially, the network was composed of GIA members. The GIA
transferred its strategy to Western Europe where a considerable Algerian community favoured
the implantation of support networks and recruitment. Although the Algerian government’s
counter-terrorist campaign against the GIA and the GSPC has significantly diminished the
numerical strength and operational capabilities of both groups, the extreme Jihadist
orientation of the dedicated members has remained intact (Haahr-Escolano 2004:1f.).
Network of Syrian Origin (or Abu Dahdah Network)
The Syrian network was less homogenized than the Algerian one, and other nationalities, like
Moroccans, were partly integrated. In 1994, a radical group in Madrid led by the Palestinian,
Anwar Adnan Mohamed Salah, known as the “Chej Salah”, emerged. Most of its members
were of Syrian origin. Several had been part of the “Talia al-Mukatila” group (The Fighting
Vanguard), a street militia related to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in the 60s. During the
resurgence of clashes between radical Islamists and the Baath-regime in 1982, the Hafez elAssad regime harshly suppressed Islamists and many members sought refuge abroad, in
Jordan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or Europe, including several who settled in Spain.106
Although not all of them continued to be directly, active radical ideas and links to other
“brothers” worldwide remained. From November 1995, Chej Salah was the gatekeeper for
voluntary recruits sent to training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since then, a Syrian
(with Spanish nationality) known as Imad Eddin Baraliast Yarkas, alias “Abu Dahdah,” has
become head of the Syrian network.107
Abu Dahdah, who denies all charges against him, stated in an interview granted in prison:
“Those of us that left Syria over 20 years ago [under persecution by Hafez el Assad against
the Muslim Brotherhood] knew each other. One could say that we were right wing and were
much persecuted. For this reason we now help each other; hospitality is a Koranic rule. This
allows me to travel, staying at Muslim homes, with little cost but this does not mean that I had
contact with terrorists.” (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:184)
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
The Abu Dahdah network, was left severely disbanded after he was detained and his cell with
over 20 members was crushed in the aftermath of 9/11, (Díaz Sotero 2007). Approximately
two years later, a new network emerged composed partly of the former Abu Dahdah network
members who had not been arrested and some members of other networks to which it had
connections (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:183). This group were responsible for the Madrid
bombings. The planning for terrorist campaigns against Spain began under the leadership of
the Tunisian nationals, Dris Chebli and Mustafa el Maymouni, who were later arrested in
Morocco for the attack against the Casa de España in Casablanca the year before the 11
March bombings. The public prosecutor for the 11 March bombings believes that bin Laden’s
al-Jazeera broadcast on 18 October 2003108, in which he named Spain as target, finally
triggered the bombing campaign after which a precise date was chosen and a detailed strategy
worked out. The examination of the confiscated computers shows that several men had
consulted a document about the strategic value of attacks against Spain that had been
published on the internet (Lia and Hegghammer 2004).109
The members of this new network used to support each other on a personal basis. At the
weekend, families usually got together. Those who had fought in Bosnia organized
excursions, trips and weekend breaks to which Arab sympathizers were often invited.110 Apart
from friendships, sometimes parental links existed and marriages to Muslim girls were
arranged (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:177). The absence or the secondary importance of
organization names111 and simultaneous allegiance and membership to various networks
indicate the importance of personal trust compared with the loyalty inspired by a more
abstract organization (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:183).
The Madrid bombings
On 11 March 2004, horrifying bombings resulting in the death of 190 people and over 1400
wounded took place in Madrid. This was the most significant terrorist attack in the wake of
the war in Iraq.
Key group members112 referred to themselves as “the brothers of the martyrs”, expressing
their ideological bonds with other Muslims who had lost their lives in Afghanistan, Chechnya,
Palestine and Iraq (Díaz Sotero 2007).113
The public prosecutor, Olga Sánchez, as well as the judge, Del Olmo, concluded that the
Spanish government’s decision to support the USA by sending troops to Iraq had played a key
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role in determining the decision to perpetrate the attacks (Díaz Sotero 2007). The terrorists’
communiqués, the Al Qai’dah leadership, and strategic Jihadist texts published on the
Internet, also indicate that the terrorists mainly wanted to punish the Spanish government for
deploying troops to Iraq (Nesser 2006:332).
Since the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, there have been several foiled terrorist
attacks. One of the groups concerned was composed of Pakistanis who had relationships with
important members of original al Qai’dah cadres. The other networks were primarily
composed of members with familial origins in the Maghreb (Jordán and Wesley 2006:3).
What motivated the groups was: the inclusion of Spanish troops as part of the NATO presence
in Afghanistan; the repeated detention of scores of influential Jihadists since 1995; and the
continuing “occupation” (as Jihadists see it) of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North
African coast (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:180).
The apparent specialization of recruitment and indoctrination techniques by Salafist Islamists
now emphasizes a return to their home countries to continue the Jihad in the name of al
Qai’dah, creating a dangerous feedback circle, i.e. a self-enforcing process of radicalisation.
Spain seems to have become the centre for recruiting Muslims in Europe and sending them
back to their home countries to incite Jihad there as happened for the Casablanca bombings
(Haahr-Escolano 2005:3).
Italy
Italy has emerged as a hotbed of activity for militant Salafi-Jihadists in the last ten to fifteen
years. The early years were associated with the “Milan cell”, but the present day activism of
diffused Salafi-Jihadi terrorist networks now operates throughout the country.
In its early stage, the Milan cell was made up primarily of Egyptians who had fled the
Egyptian government’s crackdown of Islamists in the 1980s and early 1990s. The networks,
which were in contact with Ayman al-Zawahiri, also contained Algerians and other North
Africans. During this period, Italy had been established as a key node and Milan was
frequently used to dispatch Jihadists to fight in the conflict in Bosnia (Kohlmann
2004:15,151ff.).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Most radical cells in Italy were linked to regional organisations such as the Algerian GIA or
GSPC and the Moroccan GICM. Since 2003, and the appearance of the “new Jihadists”, we
can see the rise of new cells usually not connected to those organisations (Crespi 2006). Still,
most radicals are associated with larger terrorist groups originating in Tunisia, Morocco,
Egypt, Algeria or Kurdish Iraq.
One of the main groups maintaining a deep and wide network of cells operating throughout
Italy is the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, GSPC. It is engaged primarily
in supporting terrorist operations in Algeria by providing recruits and funds in Italy. However,
the group also places emphasis on external terrorist operations, and appears to be the most
cohesive and dangerous Salafi-Jihadi organization in Italy (Haahr-Escolano 2006). The GSPC
network operating throughout Italy is almost exclusively composed of Algerian nationals who
have emigrated to the country over the past decade (Haahr-Escolano 2006). Their interaction
with mixed Moroccan and Algerian cells in other countries, such as Spain and Norway,
illustrates that the desire for global military Jihad has overcome the historical animosity
between these two national groups.
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group GICM seems to be the fastest growing group and it
has intensified its European activity (Crespi 2006). GICM is a loosely-connected network
with a strong presence in Italy. Moroccan militants are increasingly eclipsing the Algerians as
the major North African players in the international Jihadist front. This might be related to the
more repressive policy in Morocco following the Casablanca attacks of 16 May 2003.
The primary focus of the Islamists’ activities in Italy today appears to have been recruiting
suicide bombers to conduct attacks against US-led forces in Iraq (Haahr-Escolano 2005:2f.).
According to Italian military reports, at least five militants who left Milan for Iraq died in
suicide attacks against US forces. After 9/11, the focus of the Jihadists in Milan changed.
With the disappearance of the camps in Afghanistan, organisations such as Ansar al-Islam
began recruiting people for the terrorist camps in Northern Iraq, who later fought coalition
forces. Five of the Milan cell members of GIA were detained at Guantanamo bay because
they had been captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan (Crespi 2006).
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Germany
The underlying hypothesis of this paper is that the situation of radical Islamist migrants
cannot be explained without reference to the conflict situation in their countries of origin.
Turkey as country of origin of most Muslim migrants in Germany has no humiliating colonial
history, in contrast to other North African or Asian countries. With reference to the Ottoman
Empire, Turks often describe themselves as descendants of the great Ottoman conquerors.
Colonialism and exploitation never were part of the national discourse and Turkish national
identity.114 Therefore, Turkish migrants are less vulnerable than other Muslim minorities to
radical tendencies, who have based their argument on the exploitation and suppression of
Islam by the West (Sirseloudi 2008).
Of course this does not mean that radical Islamism does not exist among Turks in Germany.
As with many other Muslim communities in the diaspora, radical thoughts were far easier to
express than in the country of origin (Schiffauer 1999). Modern Turkey was shaped by secular
Kemalism and the political environment has been dominated by the military. The Islamist
movement which produced today’s ruling AKP had many supporters in Germany during its
time in opposition and still is represented by the rather politicised Milli Görüş movement. But
apart from one assassination going back to internal rivalries in the splinter organisation
“Kaliphatstaat”, there have been no acts of violence, and the focus of political engagement is
being slowly transferred from Turkey to Germany (Schiffauer 2000).
The situation is different for radical individuals from other countries, and individuals being
recruited into transnational radical networks. In Ulm, for example the radical Islamist scene
was maintaining relations with Pakistani radical groups. The preacher of the
“Multikulturhaus”, Sheikh Abu Omar, sent his own son to the training camps of the Pakistani
militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, where he acquired strategic-tactical knowledge for waging
armed Jihad against the West. He also recruited young rootless Germans through Koran
reading and courses in Arab language, he organised pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, sent them to
Pakistan and encouraged them to recruit other unbelievers in order to get closer to paradise
(Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006:54).
Germany was also the scene for the primarily logistical support activities of Ansar al-Islam.
The alleged planned bomb attacks of this group against a German military hospital, treating
wounded US soldier from Iraq, in December 2003, however, proved to be a false alarm.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
In November 2004, members of Ansar al-Islam’s “European wing” planned to assassinate the
Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, during his visit to Berlin.
The most prominent example of foiled attacks in Germany were the so called “suitcase
bombings”: On 31 July 2006, a train conductor found a suitcase on a regional train and
handed it in to the lost property office at Dortmund's main station. It contained an improvised
explosive device consisting of a propane gas canister, bottles of flammable liquid and a
detonator. A similar device was handed in at Koblenz station. Officials later confirmed that
the bombs had failed to explode at the intended time due to a technical error.115 It is still
unclear exactly what had motivated Yousef Mohammed el-Hajdib, a 21-year-old Lebanese
student, and Jihad Hamad, a 20-year-old also from Lebanon, to plan the attack, which would
had killed hundreds of people. There was initial speculation that the attempted bombings were
somehow connected to the conflict between Hisbollah and Israel resulting in Israel’s armed
campaign against Lebanon going on at that time(Jane's Information Group 2006).
Hamad’s brother died on 17 July 2006 during the Israeli air raid against the harbour of
Tripoli. But this seems only to have been a trigger, as receipts show that the gas bottles for the
bombs had already been bought and filled on 4 July, while the Israeli campaign against
Lebanon did not begin until 13 July. His fellow students report that Hamad had justified the
violence against the blasphemers during the cartoon debate .
During the robust Israeli counter-campaign against Hisbollah’s hostage taking of two Israeli
soldiers116, sympathy rapidly increased for the Lebanese Hisbollah movement in Germany’s
Muslim communities. Several demonstrations in support of Hisbollah took place in Germany.
The sympathizers were not only to found in the Lebanese community, but also among the
Sunni diaspora despite the lack of a direct connection to the conflict. Members of the Sunni
Muslim diaspora in Germany even joined the fight on the side of Hisbollah, interpreting it as a
fight against occupiers and not a religious war (Musharbash 2006).117
In Germany the beginning of this conflict was also accompanied by a symbolic meeting: On
13 July 2006, the day Israel began the bombing of South Lebanon US President, George W.
Bush, and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, held a press conference at the Baltic coastal
resort of Stralsund. The pictures broadcasted on the evening news showed these two heads-of65
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
states united in their backing for Israel’s strategic approach against Lebanese civilian
infrastructure as legitimate defensive against the Hisbollah kidnappings. These pictures were
later used in Islamist propaganda for radicalisation efforts.
Conclusion
Since al-Qa'idah militants began to expand in the Sahara, instigating and bringing together the
extremist movements which are now active in the region, the focus of many radicals has
shifted paralleled by the emergence of more heterogeneous radical cells in Europe. Before
they pursued a violent “regime-change” in their countries, now they begin to increasingly
adopt a globalised point-of-view as represented by al Qai’dah. On one hand, it seems that
some of the North African networks in Europe are continuing to operate in the same fashion;
they consist of national groups working to support the Jihad at home, and on the other, Iraq
offers a welcome opportunity to foster bonds and wage Jihad against the United States at the
same time, gaining valuable skills which can be transferred to domestic conflicts at the same
time. A crucial galvanising role has been played by Ansar Al-Islam and GSPC, which are
becoming the main source of terrorist recruits from Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania within
Europe.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
7. Veterans
A serious type of spill over from local armed conflicts is that of war veterans who continue to
pursue violence acts outside their local theatre of war. War veterans possess fighting skills,
and usually earn a certain “reputation” among their supporters.118 Veterans from the “Afghan
Jihad” against the Soviet Union have played important roles in the formation of Al Qa’idah
and in sustaining transnational Jihadist networks. In Europe it seems that these fighters and
other Islamist radicals who came to Bosnia from various Muslim countries were crucial in the
establishment and maintenance of Jihadist networks all over the continent (Kohlmann 2004).
These transnational veterans have their roots in organisations that focused initially on
overthrowing the regime in their own country; however, during the war in Afghanistan some
adopted al Qai’dah’s globally-orientated ideology. Arab, Asian and North African
mujaheddin got to know one another and forged bonds of mutual trust in Afghan and
Pakistani training camps, or on the battlefields of Afghanistan and later Chechnya and Bosnia.
The experiences and friendships formed there bind these networks together even more closely
than their shared ideology and perception of a common enemy.
Since the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan in 1989, the outbreak of civil war
and the conquest of Kabul by the Taliban in 1992, several tens of thousands of Muslims
received paramilitary training in Afghanistan. Veterans who had fought the Soviet army and
left Afghanistan and Pakistan had difficulties readapting to civilian life and began looking for
new battle grounds. Some went back to their countries of origin and radicalised the local
Islamist scene, whilst others became nomads of Jihad.119 For the latter, having left
Afghanistan, the first opportunity for fresh battle would have been Iraq following Saddam
Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. But the Saudi regime did not support bin Laden’s troup of
(according to him) 100 000 men and asked the US for help instead. Since this “betrayal”, bin
Laden’s main enemy has become Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden chose Sudan as place of exile;
however, after a failed attempt by Gama’a Islamiyya (a gathering point for returning Afghan
veterans) to assassinate the Egyptian president, Mubarak in Addis Abeba he had to leave the
country with his entourage. He did, however, manage to pull off attacks against the USembassies in Kenya and Tanzania that took place on the eighth anniversary of the stationing
of American troops in Saudi Arabia.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
Other militants, who did not go back to their own country, also used to travel from one place
to the other, fighting a nomadic Jihad against the West. They participated in new action in
Algeria, Bosnia and Chechnya or applied for asylum in Western Europe. During this time the
alliance which originated between the mujaheddin in Afghanistan and Pakistan remained
intact.
The pro-western regimes of North Africa were happy for their nationals to take up the
challenge under the guise of humanitarian work and in doing so they turned a blind eye to the
fact that so many were leaving in order to fight. The Egyptian government even took the
opportunity to release radicals from prison on the condition that they continued their Jihad in
Afghanistan rather than at home. However, emboldened by their victory, many of the Arab
fighters decided to return home to overthrow what they viewed as their own corrupt secular
regimes. These veterans went back and set up their own national militant groups or joined
radical groups, some of them being splinter groups of the mainstream Islamist movements.
The GIA in Algeria was founded by “Afghans” (Tayyeb el Afghani, Jaffar al Afghani, and
Sharif al Gusmi), while the pro-GIA journal in London, al Ansar, was first headed by Abu
Hamza, an Egyptian who had been severely wounded in Afghanistan (Roy 1999).120
The Kashmiri radical movement, Harakat al Ansar, was also founded by former “Afghans”.
By the same token, the head of the group held responsible for the attack on a group of tourists
in Luxor in November 1997, Mehat Mohammed Abdel Rahman, had spent time in a training
camp in Afghanistan.
However, euphoria of Afghanistan turned out to be short lived, as these fighters were no
match for the sophisticated security machinery of the North African regimes. The Libyan
authorities eradicated their militant Islamists and their potential supporters in a ruthless
campaign during the mid 1990s. The Tunisian regime took a similar approach, allowing no
space for anyone with an Islamist agenda. Algeria was a rather different case, partly because
of the large number of returning Algerian Afghan veterans, but also because there was enough
popular support to sustain a civil war for over a decade. Morocco was somewhat unique, as it
seems there were less Moroccans involved in the first Afghanistan experience and the
monarchy was able to contain the Islamic movement at this time.
As a result of the continuing repression across the region, many of the veterans who had not
been killed by their own regimes either fled to Afghanistan or to Europe, where, in many
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
cases, they were granted political asylum. However, this did not deter them from continuing
to support the cause from their adopted home. Some assisted by facilitating transit for new
recruits to go and train in Afghanistan or to fight in Bosnia and other locations. More North
Africans made the journey to Afghanistan or Pakistan through European countries such as
Italy and the UK. For many of these individuals, Europe seemed to be the most obvious place
to go to next. Europe offered them the security of not being handed over to their own
governments, as well as the freedom to mix with their own communities and follow their
religious and political convictions without fear of detection. This was also true for the more
extreme elements who wished to continue the struggle and who aspired to an al Qai’dah
ideology.
The networks made of transnational militants, who often have multiple citizenship (or no
citizenship at all, like Bin Laden), do not link their fight with a precise state or nation
anymore. Even if they come from some mainstream Islamist movements, like the Muslim
Brothers, they do not identify themselves with the present strategy of these movements. They
appeal to rootless transnational militants who travel from one Jihad to the other, and identify
themselves with a sort of “imaginary Ummah” (Roy 1999).
This is also a consequence of the integration of the mainstream Islamist movements into the
domestic political scene, which left the militants with no state or nation. It is not a
coincidence that many of these militants are uprooted Palestinian refugees. They are not
involved in the main Middle Eastern conflict because the struggle is waged by an established
“Islamo-nationalist” movement like the Hamas while other militant actors strongly advocate
supra-nationalism and practise it. Many of the militants are totally rootless, and while they
have fought in “peripheral” Jihads, such as Bosnia, Kashmir, or Afghanistan, their relations
with the local population usually remained uneasy (Glück 2004; Kohlmann 2004).
For North African networks in particular, the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya proved a major
spur to settle in Europe (AIVD 2006:23). This resulted in a new generation of transnational
networks with a more fluid and autonomous character, which often represented various ethnic
origins lacking a formal leadership structure. Within these structures we see various
individually operating mujaheddin, but also members of groups like the LIFG-affiliated
Libyans, Algerians with a GSPC link and Moroccan Jihadists associated with the Groupe
Islamique Combattant Marocain (GICM).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
The fact that the Islamist terrorist activity has extended to the West is actually not just to al
Qai’dah’s “merit”; the members of the a diffused international network of mujaheddin have
also been established. They see themselves as refugees continuously faced with the “totally
perverted political-cultural aspects of the western society” surrounding them. For them this
once again confirms that the West is a real threat to Islam. From striving to found an Islamic
world caliphate primarily formed by countries that have had an Islamic majority for centuries,
as well as fighting Israel and western countries that hinder that strive, the objective is
gradually expanding to the complete destruction of all “enemies of Islam” in general and the
West in particular (AIVD 2002:27).
First, these internationally-orientated Islamist fighters, who managed to establish themselves
in Western Europe at the end of the eighties, inhabited a very isolated and marginalized
position and they were unable to identify themselves with the Muslim communities that they
found here. However, since the end of the nineties, the Islamist fighters established in the
West gradually came out of their social isolation. The number of Islamist fighters living
illegally in the parallel society kept on increasing and they made more and more contact with
the very orthodox or radical section of the established Muslim community. As a result,
fundraising in Western Europe in support of the international Jihad increased.
By the end of the 1990s some of the migrant Jihad veterans and radical ideologists from
abroad began to approach members of the local Muslim communities. Recent migrants and
young second- and third-generation Muslims proved particularly receptive to the extremist
ideas of these Jihadists. In the Netherlands, for example, the first recruitment attempts for
violent Jihad were made around 2000 (AIVD 2006:16). New recruits from Europe were often
sent to Pakistan, taking advantage of the ongoing conflicts and providing insurgents with a
training infrastructure for Jihad or for committing attacks in the West. The attacks and
attempted attacks perpetrated in the period 2000-2002 were supervised by command-andcontrol centres in transnational networks, the members of which had spent time in training
camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.121
Estimating the number of fighters leaving Iraq is at least as difficult as it has been to count
foreign militants joining the insurgency. But early signs of an exodus are clear, and officials
in the United States and the Middle East say the potential for veterans to spread beyond the
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Iraq conflict is significant. Concerning the recruitment activities for the Iraq conflict creating
a “blowback” risk to Europe by returning Jihadists: it is likely that the numbers travelling to
Iraq from Europe remain a small percentage of the overall total of foreign fighters active there
(Pargeter and Al-Baddawy 2006).122 In February 2005, Mowafak Abboud, the Iraqi
ambassador to France, noted that those fighters who had left France were, “not really a large
number...these people used to send more people to fight in Afghanistan”. However, according
to both Spanish and French counter-terrorism sources, foreign fighters are already filtering
back into Europe from Iraq (Nesser 2006:338). Dennis Pluchinsky, a former senior
intelligence analyst at the US State Department, warned that battle-hardened militants from
Iraq posed a greater threat to the West than the extremists trained in Afghanistan, because
there are some operational parallels between the urban terrorist activity in Iraq and the urban
environments in Europe and the United States. More relevant terrorist skills are transferable
from Iraq to Europe than from Afghanistan, he went on, citing the use of safe houses,
surveillance, bomb making and mortars.
Furthermore, militants in Iraq have the opportunity to turn instructional videos, presenting
their array of techniques, from encryption to booby-trapped bombs to surface-to-air missiles.
These videos then circulate as manuals freely available on the internet (Rötzer 2007).
But still the fragmented mobilisation for Iraq is not comparable with the officially organised
mobilisation for Afghanistan, where thousands, maybe tens of thousands foreigners were
recruited by Abdullah Azzam, who gave them a strong feeling of collective identity
overcoming national, cultural and ideological differences.
Recruiters
Once established in the West, veterans play an important role as recruiters for radical
networks. Most of the recruiters in radical networks have military experience in peripheral
Jihad conflicts, i.e. a mujaheddin background. Most of them have undergone strict military
and ideological training, although only a few of them have actually participated in fighting.
For many this took place in Afghanistan and they are therefore linked in this respect to alQai’dah. There have so far been no veterans returning as suicide bombers. These men are
often capable of inspiring admiration, respect and a sense of leadership. They also tend to
have some experience in the field of religious doctrine. Recruiters arouse the interest and
admiration of potential recruits. They quickly reveal their involvement in the Islamist war
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elsewhere, by showing their knowledge of radical Islam in small circles and by acting as a
guide at summer camps for Islamic youths (AIVD 2002:16). However, recruiters have a quite
limited knowledge regarding Islamic belief. The central message they want to convey is that
Islam is being pushed into a defensive position by the enemy, by which they mean the United
States, Israel, the West and, in fact, by all non Muslims, and that, as a good Muslim, one must
fight for the just Islamic cause by means of the Jihad (AIVD 2002:18).
This new self-proclaimed elite, devoted to an aggressive radical Islam, define themselves as
heroes and the avant-garde; they have no fear of death in their fight against the West. By
doing so, they feed an apparent necessity for a simple, transparent vision. While the others are
victims of idolatry and seduction by the West, this elite invents its own truth (Khosrokhavar
2006:387). The veteran militants who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, or
radicals who have trained in Jihad-camps in Afghanistan or other scenes of global Jihad
during the 1990s, function as so called “gatekeepers” to the vulnerable young Muslims
willing to become part of radical networks. They provide knowledge about how to join
militant groups, and where to go in order to receive the necessary training to become a Holy
Warrior.
The recruiters of Muslims recruited in the West over the past few years, have been able to
enter into direct contact with radical Islamists in Afghanistan or Pakistan. In order that their
pupils receive some military training abroad, recruiters appeal to their extensive international
network. Therefore, they have been able to send recruits directly to Afghanistan or Pakistan to
undergo training there. Some recruiters have such contacts as a result of the personal network
the formed during their stay in the Afghan region, and are not a part of Al Qai’dah itself
(AIVD 2002:11f.).
There are also indications of the Al Qai’dah leadership informing recruiters in the West not to
send more recruits to Afghanistan due to safety considerations. Instead they are asked to keep
the recruits in the West and to prepare them for violent actions here. Bearing this in mind, we
may expect the role of the recruiters in the West to become more important and more
independent from Al Qai’dah in the future. Recruiters will potentially not only have a bigger
impact on the recruitment itself, but also in choosing the people who may undergo such
training (AIVD 2002:19f.).
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8. Conclusion
For long time, Islamist radicalisation in Europe had been, in many cases still is, in the hands
of people involved in conflicts in their countries of origin or in internationalised conflicts.
This took the form of either people coming from conflictive countries transferring their
conflicts to the new country of residence and providing support to the factions back in the
country of origin; or mujaheddin fleeing the battle ground where they had fought in the name
of Islam against the infidels, be they Russians, Indians or the US and its allies representing
“the West”. The biographies of some leaders of Jihad have given us hints about the conflicts
that shaped their motivation, allowing conclusions to be drawn about the enemies and final
aims pursued.
As long as political systems in the Muslim world prevail where conflict is regulated violently,
be it through violent repression or armed opposition, these conflicts will produce embittered
individuals seeking refuge in a global community, where the fight against their former
oppressors and their supporters in the form of religious Jihad becomes the ultimate purpose of
life. This trend appears to slowly weaken, as more and more Muslim countries incorporate
discursive elements to their political systems allowing for the integration of Islamists without
giving up secular principles like democracy and rule of law based on individual rights. The
credible promotion of these processes in Europe will possibly change the existing image of a
western world that backs repressive regimes in order to exploit the Muslims by fomenting
strife between different groups using classic divide and rule strategy of former colonial
powers.
However, a de-contextualised Jihad-ideology, paired with the interpretation of Jihad as an
individual duty, often appeals directly to Muslims (and not infrequently converts) in Europe.
Ideology as radicalisation vehicle is gaining ground against direct involvement, which, for its
part, often ends up leading to direct engagement. International conflicts, in which western
parties fight against Muslims are globally perceived as a defensive Jihad, and attract young
fighters from all over the world to fulfil their personal Jihadi duty; be this as frustrated
diaspora members identifying with the global Ummah, or as a people who feel betrayed and
oppressed by the regimes in their respective Muslim countries.
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Armed conflicts - in contrast to the repressed internal conflicts within the Muslim world –
give these individuals the opportunity to create cohesive networks of people who trust and
help each other in any given situation, provided that the (often un-trained) warriors survive
the fights. Fighting shoulder to shoulder against the worlds most powerful armies, in, for
example, Afghanistan, Iraq, and partially in the occupied Palestinian territories, brings the
radical militant brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam dreamt of, closer to realisation. This global
network, integrating all conflicts involving Muslims, and especially the ones in which
powerful western armies can be fought with guerrilla tactics, attrition and terrorist attacks,
will gain in importance and strength, because a pacification of the main conflicts of this genre
Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel is nowhere in sight. Furthermore, these conflicts – apart from
enjoying greater religious legitimacy as defensive Jihad, as opposed to simply fighting the
political regimes in Muslim countries – are producing pictures and myths for a selfperpetuating ideological justification of the fight. In a globalised mass media world, where
people have access to the same contents, regardless of their actual location, this strengthening
of Jihadi ideology will contribute more than anything else to the radicalisation of people
searching for faith and hold in a radical ideology; be they in Europe or anywhere else in the
world.
Annex 1
Takfir
Takfir is not so much an organization as an ideological current. The concept of “al-takfir”
means the act of denouncing someone as an “infidel” or something as “impious”. This includes
Muslims perceived to have adopted beliefs deemed antithetical to the Islamist cause,
including the Shi’a and all Muslims who willingly accept or collaborate with pro-democratic
protagonists. Subscribers to this particular ideology or mindset tend to brand Muslims who do
not convert to “pure” Islam, or Muslims, who in their eyes have lapsed, as “infidels”, against
whom the use of violence is justified. They also regard the violent Jihad as a duty for
Muslims.
Takfir Wal Hijra was originally an extremist group that emerged in Egypt in the 1960s. The
idea that the new jahiliyya was an accomplished fact and that Egyptian society as a whole had
relapsed into unbelieving underlay the group’s activities. Founded in 1971, by Shukri Mustafa
(1942-1977) under the name Jama‘at al-Muslimin (The Society of the Muslims), the
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government controlled media soon dubbed the group Al-Takfir wa’l-Hijra.123 Extremist in
doctrine, the group was apolitical and initially non-violent in behaviour. Far from going to
war with the state, Shukri believed true Muslims should denounce society as infidel (hence
Al-Takfir) but then withdraw from it as the Prophet withdrew from Mecca (hence al-Hijra).
This ambitious but non-violent project involving an Islamic “alternative society” developing
itself on in “complete separation” (mufasala kamila) from the surrounding jahili society, came
to grief when Shukri was drawn into conflict with a rival group, and then with the Egyptian
authorities. The fateful decision to take a government minister hostage, who they
subsequently killed, precipitated a crackdown; hundreds of members were arrested and
imprisoned. Shukri and four other leaders were hanged. Many former members remained
active, however, often drifting into other groups. By the end of the 1970s, the Egyptian group
disintegrated (ICG 2004:4). Having faced the state’s oppressive tactics, Al-Takfir’s objectives
shifted to using violence to overthrow the Egyptian government. Its attempts to use violence
to instil a new political order based on Sharia was essentially crushed in Egypt, however, the
Takfir doctrine was kept alive by the Takfir believers who had emigrated from the region.
Confronted with an inhospitable environment at home, many Takfiri militants left Egypt to
fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Al-Takfir wa al-Hijra's membership
swelled as the militants returned after the occupying Soviet troops withdrew in 1989. As
Afghan mujaheddin shared their experiences with younger generations, they laid the
foundation for a movement that spread through a decentralised network of believers
(Makarenko 2005:5f.). Although Mustafa's beliefs were highly respected, the vast majority of
Takfiri believers today have reverted to the doctrine that served as the premise of Mustafa's
philosophy: the “Takfir” doctrine of Sayyid Qutb.124 Todays Takfiri ideology emphasises
Qutb's notion of spiritual separation and Jihad against unbelievers, and not total separation
and delayed Jihad as Mustafa had originally suggested (Makarenko 2005:5). The Dutch AIVD
refers in this regard to ‘neo-takfiris’ (AIVD 2004). This thought has significantly altered the
so-called “red lines” of what constitutes legitimate forms of Jihad. So it has led, for example,
to widespread violence against all Muslims who willingly accept or collaborate with prodemocratic forces in Iraq (e.g. the Shi’a) by groups lead by Zarqawi (Paz 2005:43). Whereas
bin Laden thinks in a far more ecumenical way. In his view the divisions have to be overcome
in order to confront the real enemy in form of the western aggressors.
Takfiri groups are also operating in Europe. It has been alleged that the killer of Dutch
filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was linked to a Takfiri group. The Hofstadgroep is the most wellknown example of a local autonomous network driven by this particular ideology (Nesser
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2005). It seems that in many cases, those who adhere to Takfiri groups tend not to be Afghan
veterans, but appear to be angry, young men who are religiously extreme and aggressive
towards the society around them.
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Annex 2
Exemplary individual motivations for Jihad
The statements are taken directly from the interviews and represent neither the views of the
present author nor of Farhad Khosrokhavar; they rather reflect the opinions and attitudes of
the interviewees.
Political argument
France’s close relations with the Algerian government and its security apparatus is a feature
that has been frequently mentioned and often generalised as Western backing of repressive
Arab regimes (Khosrokhavar 2006:35). Moussa (Khosrokhavar 2006:46ff.), who describes
himself as interested in the whole of Maghreb and Israel, vehemently takes sides against
France for backing the Algerian regime and the USA for backing Israel. He makes the point
that until 1995, the opposition in Algeria was political, and only since 1995 it became
religious. In his home country Morocco he has seen a strong Muslim opposition emerging
over the last few years, while in Tunisia there are no remarkable Islamist movements because
of harsh (allegedly French backed) dictatorial rule. From his point of view, all Maghreb
countries should be governed in the name of Islam and not oriented towards either France or
the United States. He is sure that Algeria has no problem with the GIA and the facts have
been exaggerated by the government in order to create an atmosphere of fear. After the
elections won by the FIS, a military coup with French support, prevented the Muslims party
from legally gaining power. The strong affiliation of Moussa with Algeria125 is exemplary for
radicals approving of violence. They came to France because of the repression GIA faced in
Algeria between 1993-1994 in order to pursue their local interest in a global context.
Deeply disturbed by the military coup in Algeria in 1992, which resulted in an electoral
victory for the FIS, Ahsen (Khosrokhavar 2006:61ff.) left his home country, Algeria, in 1996
because of what he calls the dictatorship against Islam. From his point of view nothing has
changed in Algeria since 1962; the military dominates the political sphere. Since he went to
Afghanistan, he broadened his view and now criticises the US for starving Iraqi children
during the trade embargo that lasted more than ten years, as well as their backing of Israel,
without which Israel would never dare to treat the Palestinians the way they do, employing
torture and collective punishment.
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Ousman (Khosrokhavar 2006:128ff.) also had his cognitive opening in Algeria in 1992, when
– as he accurately accounts – the Islamists gained 78% of the vote. This result was followed
by the installation of a military dictatorship. He calls it a totalitarian system and holds France
responsible for helping to repress the Muslim movement, not considering that violence begets
violence. There would be an Islamist government in Algeria today but France did not allow it.
He had friends and neighbours in the “concentration camp” in Raghem where, according to
him, 50,000 people were detained. He became conscious about religion when the Algerian
army seized power and expelled FIS. From here he turned towards radical Islam –
internationalising his view. He also refers to the situation in Middle East, where he sees
“Palestinians killed like flies, while killing a Jew is treated like committing the Shoa”. At the
same time Islamists in France are imprisoned for acts that never taken place as part of a
preventive strategy. He accepts the existence of Israel as irreversible but still thinks of it as an
injustice. For him it is a question of honour to respond to violence with major violence, not
acting would be a crime (a case of failure to render assistance in an emergency). Deeply
marked by the events in Algeria in 1991-1992, Ousman was later influenced during his time
in Bosnia, Afghanistan and then Iraq, and follows the tragedy of the Palestinian people as a
continuing personal interest.
Mohammad (Khosrokhavar 2006:97ff.), who has studied in Turkey, also went to Bosnia in
order to help innocent Muslims. According to him a Muslim cannot watch other Muslims
being humiliated. He finds it unacceptable to react passively like a woman while facing
violence, and even when confronted with the strongest army – be it the Israeli or the
American – he has to act. Today he is more concerned about his brothers being bombed in
Kashmir. He emphasizes that the place to fight has to be chosen well, because if one kills
Jews, they will bomb a whole village. Therefore a better choice has to be made, although
Palestine remains in a defensive Jihad, as Israel occupies Palestinian territory. Mohammad
follows certain anti-Semitic conspirational assumptions when demanding action; he believes
that the media-world is dominated by Israelis, deriving from this the hypothesis that talking
alone does not help. The United Nations have asked Israel to retreat, but with the US backing
them, they do not. Bosnia is assumed to have been a similar case: he is sure that the West
intervened in the end because of interest-driven strategic considerations. However,
Mohammad must also confess that while hating the Unites States, the American intervention
saved the Bosnian Muslims.
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Karim (Khosrokhavar 2006:89ff.) also believes in a global plot against Islam which,
therefore, justifies Jihadi violence. He believes Jihadis have taken action and taught the
Americans a good lesson for suppressing the brothers in Palestine or Afghanistan. From his
point of view Muslims have been passive for too long. Imperialism, colonialism, and the
United States have dominated them and Muslims have not reacted. It is a case of now or never
in order to save Islam. It is not worth striving for democracy, because the West only supports
democratic efforts if they suit its interests. A good example of this kind of laicistic
dictatorship sustained by the West is Tunisia where Ben Ali, an alleged former CIA-man, is
leader on top of the state.126 Therefore Jihadis are right to declare war on the United States
and the corrupt Muslim regimes. Destroying American power by showing that they are not
invincible is certain now as a result of 9/11.
Religious argument – fighting back thesis
When detainee Moussa (Khosrokhavar 2006:46ff.) sees the Israeli army suppressing the
Palestinian people with the help of the United States on television, he wants to go and fight
the oppressors. He recognises his real home as Islam rather than a specific country as opposed
to the secularists who form an alliance with the West in order to suppress Islam. But in the
end he has no doubt the West will be Islamised and their arrogance will be punished.
Ahsen (Khosrokhavar 2006:61ff.) as many others also follows the assumption that the West is
trying to destroy the lives of Muslims, but he argues that from a religious determinist point of
view, this will destroy western life as well. In this way, fighting the West means fulfilling
divine law in order to prevent a catastrophe. Other Salafists view him as a takfiri because he
interprets the present governments in Arab countries as apostates, and he does not even
recognise Shiites as real Muslims. For him there is only one Islam, the Sunnism of the Salaf.
All the rest is nothing but deviation. Jihad is a religious duty, while the culture of death as part
of it makes him superior to his enemies who fear death. What disturbs him most is that the
corrupt West is also perverting the Muslim world by importing its lifestyle, cultural models
and its licentiousness.127 Muslim societies are trapped and the West has to be fought with all
means. While he disapproves of bin Laden’s strategical approach (of fighting too many
western countries at the same time), he has no moral objection towards it, because it is
necessary to fight mercilessly against the West and its destructive character.
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The fighting-back-thesis also includes the revitalisation of the glorious past. Muslim
civilisation is seen as a primordially warrior culture, claiming that colonialism, imperialism
and the dominating arrogant spirit of the West does not respect Islamic culture. The West has
further marked its hegemony with the creation of Israel at the centre of the Arab homelands,
serving to humiliate Arabs in the face of their glorious past (Khosrokhavar 2006:318).
Mohammad (Khosrokhavar 2006:97ff.) remembers that, over the centuries, Islam forced the
most powerful empires to their knees, be that Persia, Byzantium or Christian Spain. He
supports the widest reading of the religious argument when he describes the conflict between
Islam and the West as the old conflict between good and evil, monotheism and polytheism.
Islam as the crown of monotheism is the last religion sent by god, and there will be no other
religion afterwards. In this role, Islam has to be the religion not only of a minority or majority
but of the whole of humanity. With Islam the other religions will find their end. In addition, it
is Allah’s punishment that the weakness of Christianity opens the way for Islam. There is a
Muslim minority in every West-European country and in the Americas. They shall be the
spearhead of Islam in its triumphant global progress. “Mohammed, the prophet, waged a Holy
War. Was he a terrorist?” The crisis in the Muslim world is perceived as a matter of religion
and not of politics, and he goes on to remark: “That we have to cope with a religious war is
clear since US-president Bush spoke about a crusade.” (Khosrokhavar 2006:97ff.). Muslims
are in danger under the aggression of the dominating and hostile West. Non-violent action is
humiliating, he adds, and only legitimate in cases like Israel, when Jewish diaspora dominates
the media. Mohammad lived his principles and went to Bosnia to help fellow-Muslims.
Violence against the West is usually explained as a vengeance for all the evil it has brought to
Muslims, but some Islamists also support a far more offensive and pro-active justification of
Jihadi violence. For Moussa (Khosrokhavar 2006:46ff.), for example, the only credible actor
in Algeria and Morocco are the Islamists. He does not only dream of an instauration of an
Islamic regime in Algeria, but also of the conquest of the western world in general. When
speaking about the humiliation Muslims have suffered at the hands of the United States and
Israel, most radicals seek to legitimate vengeance by restoring the honour and dignity of the
oppressed. However, Moussa believes that if the West tries to humiliate Muslims, it is
because the Western world is scared.
Ousman (Khosrokhavar 2006:128) reminds us France has never forgotten that Muslims got
as far as Poitiers, and that they remained in Europe for eight centuries. He assumes that
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France knows Islam is spreading throughout Europe. In Ousman’s words “someone who is
feared will not be humiliated” (Khosrokhavar 2006:128), which is an argument that can be
applied to the individual as well as to the collective level. It was repeatedly mentioned that the
only way to get respect from the arrogant West is by making them fear Muslim force. The
West has to be humiliated in order to manifest the superiority of Islam (Khosrokhavar
2006:316). Bin Laden interpreted this argument very concretely when he decided to attack the
USA in order to make them leave the holy lands of Saudi Arabia - a plan that he sees as quite
successful, since the majority of American troops have already been deployed to Kuwait.
Moussa (Khosrokhavar 2006:46ff.) goes even further and recognises this fear as fully
legitimate because he is convinced that Islam will conquer the West. This is why western
infidels try to humiliate Muslims; they want to counter the inevitable Islamisation of their
countries. In his view this is a lost cause from the start and Islam will emerge victorious. His
logic is not one of hopelessness in guiding Muslim conduct towards western arrogance; he
expresses the will to defeat the West and a certitude about the inevitable victory over a
western world.128
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Annex 3
Hizb ut-Tahrir
In Europe Hizb ut-Tahrir was the first group to publicly adopt a confrontational and antiwestern perspective (Ulph 2004). The Islamist Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islamiyya)
was founded by the Palestinian Muslim Brother Taqi-al-Din al-Nabhani, a devotee of Sayyid
Qutb, and of the late Haj Amin al Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1950s (then under
Jordanian rule). Dominated by Palestinians, its original members also came from Jordan,
Syria, Egypt and other North African countries, and primarily pursued the liberation of
Palestine, from which the group derives its name (ICG 2005:4; Steinberg 2005:39f.). Similar
to other Palestinians, for example, Abdullah Azzam, they waged an unsuccessful Jihad against
Israel. Later these groups transferred the conflict to a global level by integrating members
from other Muslim countries and a broadening ideology, while never losing the reference to
Palestine. The movement quickly found supporters in most Arab countries, but since the death
of its founder the issue of Palestine has to a large extent been displaced by the concept of a
pure global caliphate, under a unified Islamic authority (Karagiannis 2006:264ff.).129
Hizb ut-Tahrir members strongly believe that Islam can and will cure all social ills in modern
society, including corruption and poverty. Theologically, its leadership seems increasingly
interested in replacing “Dar al-Harb” (the realm of the unbelievers) with “Dar al-Islam” (the
realm of Islam). The promise of imposing Islamic law is presented as an appealing prospect
for potential recruits. To date, the leadership has not called on its members to use violence as
a means of attaining their goals. Hizb ut-Tahrir officially condemns the use of violence,
however, since the 1980s it has evidently shifted its emphasis from the peaceful establishment
of a caliphate, to embracing the more radical ideas of Jihad as a literal war against nonbelievers. There is concern that some cells will reject the organisation’s non-violent stance
and conduct acts of terrorism or sabotage. The radical concept of friend-foe differentiation in
the form of Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb creates a hostile climate that might lead to Jihadi
tendencies. Additionally, the group's leadership has called for “action” against US and other
foreign forces operating in Afghanistan. Leaflets and literature found after the US-led attacks
on Afghanistan, called for war and martyrdom in the name of Islam. Hizb ut-Tahrir issued
similar materials after the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.130
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In common with extremist Salafi groups, Hizb ut-Tahrir has a belief that Islam is engaged in
a worldwide struggle with “kufr” (unbelief), but differs in believing only the legitimate caliph
can declare Jihad against the forces of “kufr”. Hizb ut-Tahrir members can participate in
violent Jihad before the advent of the caliphate, but they must do so as individuals, not party
members (Karagiannis 2006:264ff.).
Although it argues that the “liberation of Palestine” concerns all Muslims, it is fiercely
opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state. The group argues rather that only through the
establishment of a Caliphate could Palestine subsequently be liberated (Karagiannis
2006:266).131
Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in Western Europe and the United States today, although it has been
banned in most Muslim countries and lacks any significant political base within these
countries. Long years of underground existence in Arab countries have taught its leadership
valuable lessons about organisational strategies. The movement operates through a network of
underground party cells (Karagiannis 2006:267).
Substantial differences exist between the Hizb ut-Tahrir groups in Europe concerning the
grade of radicality. Propaganda and indoctrination are the main activities, although the most
extreme calls for violence have rarely been followed by real acts of violence. In Germany, for
example, the organisation has been banned because of its radical attitude towards the
legitimacy of the state of Israel. This is a constant part of its ideology, since the group’s
founders and ideologues were expelled from their Palestinian homelands by the newly
established Israel in the 1950s.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a real transnational movement with considerable support among Muslims in
Western Europe and an organisational base in London. The inner core of the network seems
to be relatively constant: a small circle of people with higher education and a middle class
background acting within university environments. Already prominent on British and other
European university campuses, the movement has recently acquired a presence in Central
Asia (ICG 2005:4; Karagiannis 2006).
The historical expulsion of the charismatic founder of the group finally resulted in a global
movement attempting to subvert secular governments worldwide.
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Annex 4
North African militant groups with a presence in Europe
During the 1990s, the most established network in Europe was the Algerian Armed Islamic
Group. The GIA (Groupe Islamique Armée) was able to tap into the networks of the more
moderate Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS (Front Isalmique du Salut) who were already present
in Algerian migrant communities (Steinberg 2005:193ff.). GIA consisted almost exclusively
of Algerians who provided financial and logistical support to insurgents fighting the Algerian
regime. Their main base was in France until, in 1995, GIA launched a series of bomb attacks.
This led Paris to clamp down on the group, pushing many militants into other European
countries. London became a key hub and also the base for the group's propaganda organ, “alAnsar” (AIVD 2004). However, by the end of the 1990s, GIA had failed to achieve its
objectives in Algeria or to gain any popular support; moreover, the rumours that it had been
infiltrated by the Algerian security services destroyed its credibility (Mellah 2004:55f.).132
This has directly affected its support within Europe that has probably ceased. After the
collapse of GIA in Algeria at the end of the 1990s, many of the former GIA supporters in
Europe shifted their allegiances to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
However, the GSPC was never able to muster the same degree of support as its predecessor,
not only because its appeal among the diaspora was weaker, but also because of tightening
security in Europe from the end of the 1990s (AIVD 2004). The group’s focus continues to be
on the situation inside Algeria, although the group has been able to widen its appeal beyond
its nationalistic aspirations and attract non-Algerians living in Europe. It is true that the GSPC
leadership (particularly one of its emirs, Abu Musab Abdelwadoud) has voiced its support for
Jihad around the world and has allegedly sent a number of its fighters to Iraq; however this
does not mean it no longer views its own struggle as a priority. There even appears to be a
clear concern among the GSPC leadership about people fighting the global Jihad in Iraq at the
expense of the home front (Pargeter and Al-Baddawy 2006:3).133
As such it seems possible that European security agencies may have found it convenient to
continue to identify North African Jihadists as being affiliated to the GSPC or other groups
such as the GICM, when in fact they might now be acting as part of a more diffuse network
altogether.
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In a similar way, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) emerged in Libya during the
mid-1990s. Its aim was to overthrow the regime of Colonel Muammar Ghadaffi and it
claimed responsibility for a number of assassination attempts on the Libyan leader in 1996
and 1998.
The LIFG’s activities in Europe were limited by the fact that the group was never able to
secure a strong foothold inside Libya due to the highly repressive nature of the Ghaddafi
regime. This more or less finished the organisation off inside Libya, although support for their
objectives and ideology remains. As a result of this repression, some of the group’s members
fled to Europe and particularly to the UK, home of the Libyan diaspora. LIFG members in
Europe were able to provide financial support to the Jihadists inside Libya. The support
network also provided funds for the group’s leaders, who were mostly based in Afghanistan
and continued to channel funds to the families of LIFG members after the group’s demise
(AIVD 2004). Following the Libyan regime’s rehabilitation and reintegration into the
international community, the US and British governments have been more willing to clamp
down on the LIFG, which they accuse of being affiliated with al Qai’dah. A countercampaign in March 2004 seems to have weakened the group to virtual insignificance, and
only the old networks remained unchanged (AIVD 2004; Rabasa, Chalk et al. 2006:127).
Unlike the Algerians and Libyans, Moroccan and Tunisian Jihadists were never able to wage
nationalist struggles in their home countries, and, as such, did not have the same sort of
extended support networks. In the Moroccan case, this may be related to the fact that the size
of the Moroccan contingent who left in the first wave of Afghan volunteers was extremely
small. At first, these volunteers joined the Libyan camp, and only later when the influx of
Moroccans increased did they set up their own camp. It is believed that the Moroccan Islamist
Combatant Group (GICM) was established there (Pargeter 2005:7; Steinberg 2005:88f.).
In the Tunisian case, the security forces of the Ben Ali regime were quick to prevent any real
emergence of an Islamist camp inside the country. Islamists lack the political space to develop
a significant following, as any manifestation of political Islam was tightly monitored by the
state. The government opposes radical Islam as a phenomenon of either the international
Jihadi movement or as a spill over from the Islamist insurgency in Algeria. As most Tunisian
Jihadists have been forced abroad, the suicide bombing of the synagogue on the tourist island
of Djerba in April 2002 came like a bolt from the blue for the Tunisian authorities and was
86
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
used as further justification for the hard line stance against political Islam, whether radical or
moderate in nature.
Members of the outlawed Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb el Nahda,
(Islamic Liberation Party) and the Islamic Tendency Movement, founded in 1976 with the
aim to establish an Islamist state in Tunisia, account for the overwhelming majority of
Tunisia's political prisoners, of which there are estimated to be around 1000 (Steinberg and
Werenfels 2007:6). The group's leadership has some connections with other Islamist
organisations in Sudan and Pakistan, and a few of its members may also have received
training in Afghanistan.
Since it has been outlawed in Tunisia 1991, the leadership around Rashid Ghannoushi resides
in Britain. A more militant wing has been detected in France.
The Tunisian Combatant Group is a shadowy organisation about which there is limited
information in the public domain. It is thought to have been founded in Europe around 2000
and appears to consist of a few Afghan veterans whose ultimate aim is to overthrow the Ben
Ali regime in Tunisia. Its members appear to reside in Europe, although the name may have
been simply a label given to the group by European and Tunisian authorities for convenience
(Rabasa, Chalk et al. 2006).134
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain, GICM)
is also possibly known by various names. There is a lot of debate as to whether this
organisation actually exists, or whether it is simply a convenient label used by the Moroccan
and foreign security services to identify a disparate set of groups. The group was also linked
to the Casablanca bombings. There is no clear indication that this group actually exists under
this name or guise. It has never issued a statement or declaration and there are no documents
in the public domain. All of those arrested and accused of being members deny the existence
of any such group. There are also a number of smaller groups in Morocco that have been
linked to the attacks in Casablanca and that appear to have sprung up in the shanty towns in
Morocco’s urban areas. They appear as Salafiyya Jihadiyya (SJ) a religious stream imported
by Afghanistan veterans (Marret 2005:5; Rabasa, Chalk et al. 2006:120). The 9/11 attacks
marked a motivating turning point for Moroccan radicals, as an unprecedented demonstration
of the international Jihadists power. In retaliation to the kingdom’s aggressive anti-terrorism
87
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
operations, after years of a rather moderate and selective inclusive policy towards Islamists,
some of the militants decided to broaden the war against the “crusaders” to include the
Moroccan regime (Boukhars 2005).135 Several Europe-based radical Islamists, some of
Moroccan descent, seem to have been involved in the Casablanca operation on 16 May 2003,
which has been blamed on Salafiyya Jihadiyya. The investigation into the Madrid operation
has tied one of the main suspects to the GICM (Nesser 2006:97).136 Judge Juan del Olmo goes
even further. He estimates that GICM, as major representative of the Jihadi Salafia movement
in Spain, is behind the Madrid attacks (datadiar.com 2007).137
Since the attacks on Casablanca, more than 50 terrorist cells have been uncovered and more
than 3000 people imprisoned in Morocco. Out of the seven cells uncovered in 2006, only one
was purely Moroccan. The international influence seems very high in Morocco. The origins of
the GICM can be traced back to 1982, when the first Moroccans travelled to Afghanistan to
enrol in the anti-Soviet resistance. The current structure was founded 1993 in the Peshawar
region of Pakistan by a group of veterans. The ideological principles correspond to a very
radical branch of Islamism, which rejects any compromise with governments that do not
apply the Sharia and share the same ultimate goal of establishing a caliphate. It seems that in
Spain, the organisation maintained three groups: the Madrid group, lead by Mustapha
Maymouni who was responsible for the Casablanca attacks on 10 May 2003. Several
members of this group were involved in the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2003. The second
group was formed around “the Egyptian” and all those related to the “el virgen de oro”. The
third cell is the “group of Lavapiés”, lead by the Moroccan, Zougam, who have become
primarily responsible for logistics and ideological issues following the imprisonment of the
Abu Dahdah group (Díaz Sotero 2007).
88
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
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1
“Diasporas sometimes harbour rather romanticized attachments to their group of origin and may nurse
grievances as a form of asserting continued belonging. They are much richer than the people in their country of
origin and so can afford to finance vengeance. Above all, they do not have to suffer any of the awful
consequences of renewed conflict because they do not live in the country. Hence, they are a ready market for
rebel groups touting vengeance and a source of finance for renewed conflict.” (Collier 2000:14) This support is
not necessarily made public, because diaspora populations have a status to lose in their new countries of
residence. While for example in the Palestinian territories large manifestations took place during the cartoon
debate, European sympathisers did not participate in this kind of protest.
2
Khosrokhavar calls it an archetypical event in a person’s life (Khosrokhavar 2006:384ff.). It can be a political
event with a great impact on the individual, or an event in every day life with symbolic significance where he
reaches a decision about the antagonism of West towards the Islamic world. An oft-cited trigger event to join
radical or Jihadi movements, even when the person was not particularly religious, was the 1992 military coup in
Algeria which represented violence against Islam, jeopardising Islam and the Ummah by the impious West. The
concept of “cognitive opening” as coined by Wiktorowicz can be a traumatic biographical event, but it can also
be produced intentionally. In order to attract new recruits, groups can bring about a cognitive opening through
discussions and enlightening Muslims about conflicts in places such as the Palestinian territories, Kashmir and
Bosnia (Wiktorowicz 2005:20f.). This is needed because it shakes certainty in previously accepted beliefs and
renders an individual more receptive to the possibility of alternative views and perspectives. It also generates a
sense of crisis and urgency. One common method used in bringing about a cognitive opening is the use of
„moral shock“; fostering the participation of previously unconnected, concerned citizens with similar ideologies
(Wiktorowicz 2005:21).
3
In his “Black Book” Zawahiri presents a large number of reports describing (often in the first person) acts of
torture and abuse. All of the abuse is alleged to have been committed by state police during the presidency of
Husni Mubarak, to whom Zawahiri derogatively refers to as the “Pharaoh.” Most of the victims in Egypt in the
late eighties and early nineties were Muslim men who were affiliated with one of the Islamist movements
(McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).
4
He called Jihad in Afghanistan a mere prelude to regaining the first Qibla (i.e. Jerusalem), and believed that
most mujaheddin, when asked, would claim that the path of Jihad must lead to "Bayt al-Maqdis" (i.e. the holy
site of Jerusalem) (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006:38).
5
The group was first known by its original name, Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam). In 2002 it was renamed in
Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam). In September 2003, in its inaugural declaration on the internet, the new
radical Sunni movement, Ansar al-Sunna, (Partisans of the Sunna) indicated that it was made up of veteran
Jihadists who had fought as members of Ansar al-Islam. In October 2004, Zarqawi issued an online statement
pledging allegiance to al Qai’dah and to Bin Laden, and changing the name of his organisation from Al Tawhid
wal-Jihad to Tanzim Qai'dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al Qai’dah in Mesopotamia/Iraq) (Binnie 2005).
6
As the name “Islamic Liberation Party” still testifies, the fight of Hizb ut-Tahrir was originally waged against
Israel by expelled Palestinians for the liberation of Palestine (Steinberg 2005:39f.).
7
Deaths (combatants and civilians) related to the conflict since September 2000: 4,500 Palestinians and 1,024
Israeli (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, www.btselem.org).
Territorial questions, or such concerning sovereignty or the distribution of natural resources (esp. water) are not
even on the agenda yet. The discourse remains dominated by security issues, while facts gain normativity.
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
8
Another possible trajectory of radicalisation might, for example, also lead to high scale violence such as the
Paris banlieue riots in autumn 2005.
9
The concept of “al-takfir” means the act of denouncing someone as an “infidel” or something as “impious”.
This includes Muslims perceived to have adopted beliefs deemed antithetical to the Islamist cause, including the
Shia and all Muslims who willingly accept or collaborate with pro-democratic protagonists. Subscribers to this
particular ideology or mindset tend to brand Muslims who do not convert to ‘pure’ Islam or Muslims who in
their eyes have lapsed as “infidels” against whom the use of violence is justified. They also regard the violent
Jihad as a duty for Muslims.
10
Osama Bin Laden, for example, often oscillates between a religious, a national and a universal argumentation
(Kepel and Milelli 2006:110).
11
According to the “Militant Ideology Atlas” Abdullah Azzam is still one of the most cited authors in Jihadi
ideological texts (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).
12
The term “imagined community” - here adapted to a global collective identity - was first coined and elaborated
by Benedict Anderson in his lucid analysis on the emergence of national identities in Europe (Anderson 1983).
13
More than a military contest, the Jihadist campaign is above all a missionary enterprise. Jihadist terrorist
operations are intended to attract attention, demonstrate capability, and harm the Jihadists’ enemies, although
they are also aimed at galvanizing the Muslim community and, above all, inciting and attracting recruits to the
cause. Recruiting is not merely meant to fill operational needs. It is an end in itself: It aims at creating a new
mindset (Jenkins 2007).
14
Most of the new recruits and followers or militant radical groups in the Arab world come from other Islamist
movements (Escobar Stemmann 2006:5).
15
On 11 April 2007, three al Qai’dah affiliated GSPC-suicide bombers attacked the Algerian government
building, hitting the headquarters of the prime minister and a national security station. Another example are the
Casablanca bombings, 16 May 2003, in which Moroccans radicalised in Europe or through transnational radical
networks, attacked their country of origin (Mekhennet, Sautter et al. 2006).
16
The same effect of dispersion is to be observed in al Qai’dah and to a lesser extent in the Taliban after the USled Operation Enduring Freedom that followed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 2001. It induced the organisational
change into a global terrorist network. On network organisations see (Zanini and Edwards 2001).
17
Lower House of the Dutch Parliament, 2004/05, 29754, no. 26.
18
In the international context, radicals pursuing al-da’wa usually interpret it as “re-Islamisation” of Muslim
minorities in the West. These minorities are seen as “oppressed brothers” who must be liberated from the “yoke
of western brainwashing”. These groups encourage Muslims to (covertly) develop parallel structures in society
and to take the law as far as possible into their own hands (AIVD 2004:7).
19
Jama’at al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unity and Jihad Group) until October 2004, then he swore allegiance to
Osama bin Laden and renamed his group as Tanzim Qai’dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Jihad Base
Organisation in the Land of the Two Rivers - or Al-Qai’dah in Mesopotamia for short)
20
This comes from the fact that Zarqawi had maintained his own training camp in Herat in the West of
Afghanistan close to the border with Iran, while most other camps were in the East and Southeast of the country.
Zarqawi later expanded the international Jihad movement to the North of Iraq, where a close Jordan ally of him,
founded Ansar al Islam with a sub-fraction al-Tawhid.
21
This found great approval among Syrian Islamists of the movement broken up in the 1980s; illegal Islamist
groups in Lebanese refugee camps and among frustrated rebels in Jordan camps.
22
This does not only apply to so called „Londonistan“, but also to other countries. An example is the GermanLebanese el-Masri being granted asylum in Germany 1985 because of his persecution as member of the radical
Islamist Tawhid-group. Later he was carried off by US-secret service CIA and kept in an Afghan prison for
interrogation (Spiegel-online 2006). London’s historical connections still attract all the shades of Arab and
Muslim political opinion. The city shelters most of the opposition groups in the Arab world and has become a
hub for their communication infrastructure. Their contacts with their countries of origin are made easier here
than from any other western city, with an extended air network between the Middle East and London’s four
airports. Printed publications or Islamist websites will likely show a London address, and Arab opposition
groups are located a mere bus ride away from official consulates and embassies (Ulph 2004).
23
After the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood mounted a terrorist campaign against president Hafez
Asad’s regime, Asad reacted with massive repression that culminated in the mass killings of Hama in 1982, in
which between 20 000 and 30 000 people died. Today the emergence of a particularly extreme form of Syrian
Salafism and the spread of radical individuals who play an important role in current international Jihadist
movements are interpreted as one of the long-term implications of this harsh strategy.
24
When the rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria was cut short by the military coup in January
1992, it led to the cruel and protracted Algerian civil war. When the FIS was dissolved by the Algerian
authorities, and its leaders arrested, radical activists close to the GIA became active in France.
100
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
25
After the assassination of Ansar as Sadat in 1981 by Islamist radicals, hundreds of Islamists were arrested and
the Muslim Brotherhood movement faced a splitting into a local and an international branch. This led to the
regrouping of some of its members around the now high-ranking Al Qa’idah member Ayman al-Zawahiri in
Afghanistan. Zawahiri still remains a powerful symbol for thousands of sympathisers around the world.
26
On the further elaboration of „radical substrata“ see (Waldmann 2005; Waldmann, Sirseloudi et al. 2006).
27
See Nesser’s differentiation of group versus individual motivation (Nesser 2006:325).
28
The group has apparently been replaced by al-Ghuraaba (Huband 2006:1).
29
Compared with the British as a whole; polls indicated that between 65-74% of Britons supported military
action against Afghanistan around the same time in the initial months (Wiktorowicz 2005:110).
30
A comparison of the French and the Spanish case is also illustrative. During the 1990s, various Islamic
organizations related to transnational Jihad, radicalised young and underprivileged second generation
immigrants, taking advantage of local grievances and solidarity in marginal neighbourhoods of Paris and other
French cities. In Spain, the integral members of the Jihadist networks are first-generation immigrants and rather
middle class. Although there are areas with high concentrations of Moroccan immigrants living in a
correspondingly dire socio-economic situation, there are few second-generation immigrants. The radicalisation
process differed from the French case (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:186).
31
It offered any militant not involved in murder, rape or bombings amnesty if they gave themselves up before 16
January 2000. Several thousand guerrillas, mostly former AIS fighters, had surrendered by the deadline.
32
For further reading and some evidence see (Mellah 2004).
33
The logic of “takfir”, as it was pursued by GIA led some Islamists, such as the Algerian amir Zouabri, to
declare all Algerians outside the ranks of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) to be impious and excommunicated
from the community of “true” Muslim. This was the justification for the killings of civilians regardless of their
involvement in the conflict.
34
This fact might already contribute to GSPC’s loyal networks on the continent.
35
The Saudi owned daily Al Hayat on April 12, 2007 http://www.alwatan.com.sa.
36
Many of the militants from neighbouring countries, who were repeatedly arrested in Algeria, were trained in
GSPC camps.
37
The Saudi owned daily Al Hayat on April 12, 2007 http://www.alwatan.com.sa.
38
The Saudi owned daily Al Hayat on April 12, 2007 http://www.alwatan.com.sa.
39
The Algerian democratisation process was considered to be too rapid and too far reaching. It was also
followed by an unnecessarily harsh crackdown
40
The PJD won 42 of 325 seats and is now the leading opposition force.
41
Another explanation for the rising influx of Morroccan radicals into radical networks in Europe could also be
the socio-economic depression in the country, which has lead to high unemployment-rates among the youth
(Steinberg and Werenfels 2007:6).
42
Karagiannis emphasizes that banning Hizb ut-Tahrir in Western states where it is currently legal, is likely to be
the first step toward moving the group, or its splintered remains, towards violence. For fifty years Hizb ut-Tahrir
has argued that the Islamic requirements for Jihad (the caliphate) have not been met. “Western policy makers
might aim to avoid undermining this argument.” (Karagiannis and McCauley 2006:330f.)
43
A first example for this broader reach was Khomenei’s fatwa of 1989 declaring the killing of Salman Rushdie
as a duty of all Muslims in the world.
44
It argued that nationalism, in supplanting the sovereignty of God with that of the people, is inherently antiIslamic (jahili) and that the nationalist regime established by the Free Officers in 1952 was not a form of Muslim
rule, but infidel (kufr), and therefore rebellion against it was not fitna (illicit sedition) but rather Jihad i.e. licit, if
not actually obligatory (Roberts 2003; ICG 2004:9f.).
45
It is questionable if this adjustment will persist, now that Egyptian ideologues seem to have been marginalized
by Palestinian and Saudi thinkers (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006).
46
A special impact is attributable to the US-intervention in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait; it
has triggered a split between reformist or academic Salafism (Salafiyyah al-ilmiyyah) and fighting or “Jihadi”
Salafism (Salafiyyah al Jihadiyyah) in Saudi Arabia.
47
A Muslim has to sacrifice himself for Islam if he or the Ummah are in immediate danger, this then is the case
of the objective obligation (fardh al ayn); if the Muslim community is mobilising to conquer new territories, the
obligation is less imperative. The Muslim does not need to participate personally but can contribute financially
or with other means (fardh al kefayah), while in the first case one is obliged to participate in the war and even
required to face death (Khosrokhavar 2006:321). The radical fringe of Egyptian Islamism posited in the mid1970s Jihad as an individual obligation (fardh al ayn) required of each Muslim, in contrast with the traditional
conception of it as a collective duty (fardh al kefayah). It is likely that the doctrinal innovation authorising
individual Muslims to take Jihad into their own hands arose, in part, precisely because the Egyptian state had
signalled that it was no longer in the business of conducting Jihad as a collective duty (ICG 2005).
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Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
In his treatise published in 1996, entitled Shifa’ Sudur al-Muminin (The Cure for Believer’s Hearts), Zawahiri
ranks Palestine as the primary problem, and concludes that all Arab and Muslim regimes have lost their
credibility by the mere fact that they have accepted the authority of the UN and the legitimacy of Israel. Invoking
the Palestinian issue allows these governments, especially Saudi Arabia with its close ties to the US, the main
supporter of Israel, to be defined as outside the fold of Islam. Second, he emphasizes the personal consequences
that arise in this particular political context for the individual believer with respect to the mentioned concept of
“fardh al ayn”. In essence, every Muslim who in any way supports these “un-Islamic” regimes places himself
outside the fold of Islam. It is not possible to take refuge in the claim that they merely followed orders as only
God’s orders are to be followed, which includes the acceptance of taking personal responsibility. For AlQai’dah’s internationalist struggle, this argument is expanded to Western governments. The inherent logic could
be expressed as follows: As citizens of these countries, Muslims vote, and even if they don’t vote, they pay
taxes, and therefore support “un-Islamic” governments. As such, they lose their status as innocent noncombatants according to Islamic law, rendering them legitimate targets in the case of an attack.
48
The 1998 fatwa published in al-Quds al-Arabi, was signed by Osama bin Laden (leader of al Qai’dah); Ayman
al-Zawahiri, (emir of al-Jihad in Egypt); Abu Jassir Rifai Ahmed Taha (member of the council of al-Gama’a
Islamiyya, Egypt); Munir Hamzah (secretary of organisation of the Ulema in Pakistan) and Abd al-Salam
Mohammed Chan, (emir of Harakat al-Jihad, Bangladesh). The signatories as a group were identified as the
“World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders”. This fatwa complains of American military
presence on the Arabian Peninsula, and American support for Israel. It purports to provide religious
authorization for indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews everywhere (Lewis 1998).
49
Abdullah Azzam, the influential Palestinian cleric who organized foreign Jihadis in Afghanistan in the 80s,
was an early example of this trend.
50
According to Paz, who concentrates on al Qai’dah and therefore begins with Abdullah Azzam and not Sayyid
Qutb, four influential figures represent the four successive stages: 1. Abdullah Azzam, the Palestinian who
introduced the doctrine of Jihad to the Afghan mujaheddin and their Arab supporters, and who created, along
with Osama bin Laden, the original strategy for Al-Qa’idah; 2. Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian who contributed
to the development of Al Qai’dah’s ideology in Afghanistan by introducing the principles of the Jihadi
experience in Egypt; 3. Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the Palestinian who combined the doctrines of the
Jihadi Salafiyya with the most severe principles of Saudi Wahhabism, thus creating the Tawhid wal-Jihad that
operates in Jordan and nowadays in Iraq, and has inspired several Islamist movements elsewhere. One of alMaqdisi’s most loyal disciples, Abu Anas al-Shami, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, was the leading inspiration
of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Another Palestinian partner of al-Maqdisi, Omar Abu Omar (alias Abu
Qatada) was the leading ideological figure of Al-Qa’idah in Europe; 4. Sheikh Yousef al-Ayiri, the Saudi scholar
and commander of Al-Qa’idah in Saudi Arabia, killed in June 2003. Al-Ayiri’s ascendance as the major theorist
of Jihad in Iraq represents a distinct shift in the global Jihadi ideology to Saudi hands (Paz 2005:41f.).
51
Abu Omar, alias “Abu Qatada,” (real name: Umar Mahmud Uthman, also spelt Omar Mahmoud Othman), was
one of the principal visionaries of the global Jihad in Europe. He was granted political asylum in London on the
basis that he faced persecution for his religious beliefs in 1993 (until 1989 he stayed in Jordan and then went to
Pakistan); and like Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza he preached the Jihad to hundreds of young people in nearby
mosques. Most of them became followers and later went to Afghanistan. He has maintained a distant relationship
with bin Laden and was one of the editors of “Al-Ansar”, the communicative organ of Algerian GIA in Europe.
He is also author of the infamous articles between two doctrines, a recompilation of 98 articles in which his
vision of the world is outlined. In it, Abu Qatada offers one of the clearest explanations of the global Jihad. He
criticizes moderate Islamists for accepting the rules of the political game that the apostates impose and
establishes as a key goal the elimination of these regimes. In a second phase, he calls for the re-instatement of
Islam throughout the world by means of armed struggle. The collection was available online until recently but
the website is now closed. He is also connected to Zarqawi through his alleged involvement in the failed plot to
attack tourist targets during the millennium celebrations in Jordan (millennium plot) and through the Al-Tawhidlinked arrests in Germany in 2002. In 2002, the British police arrested Abu Qatada and have recently extradited
him to Jordan.
52
In the 1990s, al-Zarqa became the centre of radical Islam in Jordan. See also radicalisation of Zarqawi,
important figure in the post-invasion Iraq scenario with a recruitment-network in Europe
53
Many Muslim Brothers who fled Egyptian and Syrian persecution at that time came to Saudi Arabia.
54
In his famous “Black Book” he describes the situation as he experienced it in Egyptian prisons. For a summary
see (McCants, Brachman et al. 2006: 265ff.).
55
On 23 February 1998, Al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic newspaper published in London, printed the full text of a
„Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders“, signed by bin Laden,
Zawahiri and three other leaders of militant radical groups. They complain about American military presence on
the Arabian Peninsula, American support for Israel and purport to provide religious authorization for
indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews everywhere.
102
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
56
See extracts of Zawahiri “Knights under the Banner of the Prophet” in: (Kepel and Milelli 2006:352ff.).
In October 2004, Zarqawi issued an online statement pledging allegiance to al Qai’dah and to Bin Laden, and
changing the name of his organisation to Tanzim Qai'dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al Qai’dah in
Mesopotamia/Iraq).
58
All interviewees of Khosrokhavar can be categorised as more or less radical in their interpretation of Islam.
They are in French prisons for being suspected to be related to Islamist terrorism in one way or the other. Most
of them come from Maghreb countries, culturally embedded in one or two countries or multicultural, and
capable of speaking several languages. Considering the plurality of characters and biographies of the
interviewees it becomes apparent that the strength of Jihadism lies in its connectivity, appealing to very different
people in different contexts (Khosrokhavar 2006:327).
59
Democracy is condemned by radicals as a heretical concept, because it is founded on the opinion of the
majority instead of following Allah’s commandments.
60
Today, the more recent example is mentioned in current discussions: the 2006 electoral victory of Palestinian
Hamas in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, which the international community refused to recognise.
61
The West is perceived as a paper tiger because “the West fears death” and can so be subjugated by Muslims
who are willing to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah (Khosrokhavar 2006:357).
62
Personal conversation with member of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
63
See, for example, the German constitution which came into being as a direct result of victory against France in
1871, or Greek national identity, in which “400 years of Ottoman oppression” play, amongst other historical
strands, an important role in creating the collective identity
64
The “Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders” begins with an
exordium quoting the more militant passages in the Quran and the speeches of the Prophet Muhammad. It
continues: “Since God laid down the Arabian peninsula, created its desert, and surrounded it with its seas, no
calamity has ever befallen it like these Crusader hosts who have spread in it like locusts, crowding its soil, eating
its fruits, and destroying its verdure.” (Lewis 1998; Kepel and Milelli 2006:85f.)
65
Turkish Seldschuks devastated the city’s Christian sites when they invaded Palestine 1071. They conquered
Jerusalem to found the sultanate of Ikonium.
66
Interview of Osama bin Laden with Peter Bergen/Peter Arnett of CNN 12th May 1997 in: (Kepel and Milelli
2006:80).
67
See extract of Zawahiri “Knights under the Banner of the Prophet” in: (Kepel and Milelli 2006:352ff.).
68
Goffman characterized frames as basic cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of
reality. In his definition they are not consciously manufactured but unconsciously adopted in the course of
communicative processes. These frames structure which parts of reality become noticed (Goffman 1974:10f.).
The concept has been adopted by the media and communication science now putting the emphasis on the active,
conscious process of framing. Going beyond the mere conscious selection of frames one could suggest that
communicators at times change frames to deceive their audiences.
69
On common deficits see for example the Arab Human Development Reports (UNDP 2002; UNDP 2003;
UNDP 2005; UNDP 2005).
70
Dar al-Harb is not found in the two most basic works of Islam, the Qur’an and the Hadith. The prophet
Mohammed used Dar al-Kufr (“house of infidels” or “realm of disbelief”) to refer to the Quraish-dominated
society of Mecca. A traditional Arabic saying attributed to Mohammed goes: "Unbelief is one community", or in
other words, "infidels are of one nation", expressing the view that distinctions between different types of nonMuslims are insignificant in relation to the overriding distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim.
71
Originally invented during the Ottoman Empire, the status of Dar as-Sulh (land of peace treaty), referred to its
Christian tributary states. Today the term refers to those non-Muslim governments with an armistice or peace
agreement with Muslim governments.
72
In order to counter the argument that Muslims could not give allegiance to a state, Al-Muhajiroun repeatedly
referred to the concept of the covenant in an attempt to reassure an often-dubious British population that its
members did not pose a risk to national security. Al-Muhajiroun asserted that it was abnormal and undesirable to
live among the kuffar. However, in the contemporary context, where Muslim rulers were identified as oppressors
and apostates operating in a post-Caliphate world, Al-Muhajiroun accepted the necessity of Muslims residing in
the West. The covenant is dissolved when an individual is obliged to leave the nation of residence (denied
permanent residency, extradited or expelled), if an individual has voluntarily left the country, or, most
importantly, if the individual is betrayed by the state with whom the covenant is held. This final clause is the
most problematic as, in this understanding, Muslims who are arrested within their nation of residence are
potentially released from the covenant. Speaking at an Islamic conference in London in January 2005, Bakri
declared that as a result of the post-September 11 legislation “the covenant of security under which Muslims
previously lived in Britain has been broken, Muslims must now consider themselves at war” (Connor
2005:126f.).
57
103
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
73
An analysis of the publications of the radical group al-Muhajiroun found that 40% focussed explicitly on “the
oppression of Muslims” by non-Muslims. The most common topics were US aggression (especially towards
Iraq) and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories (Wiktorowicz 2005:108f.). The movement uses
language, phrasing, and pictures for the advertisements that would even suggest an ongoing genocide against
Muslims. This appeal to concerns about “oppression” is likely to play to a broad cross section of the Muslim
community. In the control survey, 93.9% indicated that the “oppression of Muslims” is a very important issue to
address.
74
See Abdullah Azzam: “Defending Muslim Lands is Among the Most Important of an Individual's Duties”
(McCants, Brachman et al. 2006:42)
75
See extract of Zawahiri “Knights under the Banner of the Prophet” in: (Kepel and Milelli 2006:352ff.).
76
Examples are the beheading of the American hostage, Nicholas Berg, or the video “Heroes of Falludsha”,
where a road bomb attack is shown from its preparation to the explosion of an American vehicle.
www.siteinstitute.org.
77
This film, the first of “As-Sahab-Media”, Al Qa’idah’s production company, addresses Muslims worldwide in
English and Arabic. Analyses of Jihad-videos can be found at SITE-Institute www.siteinstitute.org.
78
This special incident took place after violence had erupted on 28 September 2000, following a visit by Israeli
right-wing Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Angry Palestinians confronted Israeli police, who responded with live ammunition and rubber-coated bullets,
killing five demonstrators.
79
One significant incident that Zarqawi is believed to have orchestrated is the beheading of American citizen,
Nicholas Berg, a civilian who was abducted in Iraq in April 2004. A video showing Berg's beheading was
released and the speaker on the tape, wielding the knife is rumoured to be him. He may have also been directly
involved in the kidnap and beheading of British contractor Kenneth Bigley later the same year (Costin 2006).
80
Ending British influence was one of the main reasons given for the funding of the Muslim Brotherhood in
Egypt. Many of its concepts are still in use and spread via different channels throughout the Muslim diaspora.
81
The row over the cartoons ridiculing Prophet Mohammed reached a climax in late February with the assault on
the Italian Consulate in Benghazi, which claimed at least nine lives.
82
People identifying themselves with the global Ummah might be attracted by this ideologies and drawn into
radicalisation processes against their western countries of residence. Instead of being personally experienced by
direct involvement, these conflicts are communicated in an idealistic highly reductive manner with a clear
delineation of victims, who have to be defended, and perpetrators who have to be fought with all means as a
matter of religious duty.
83
Another possible trajectory of radicalisation might for example also lead to high scale violence like the
banlieue riots of Paris in autumn 2005.
84
In the study they are mentioned as pan-ideologies, i.e. ideologies (political or religious) that are global in their
worldview, and see world events as the result of a struggle between the “forces of good” and the “forces of evil”.
They have been a very important factor in mobilising local groups around the world toward violence in the name
of distant conflicts. Moreover, international interventions tend to involve economically and militarily strong
western powers that become engaged in conflicts in the less developed world, and are therefore likely to be
perceived by adherents to pan-ideologies as a result of imperialism. The degree to which an intervention will be
interpreted as aggression is largely inherent to the ideologies themselves.
85
There are great differences in the counter-insurgency strategy and the applied level of force. Van Creveld
describes them along a continuum between the two poles of UK strategy in Northern Ireland (the “Principle of
Minimum Force”) and the Syrian strategy of massive deterrence, clearly speaking out in favour of the second
instead of supporting the British approach which is based on high vulnerability (Creveld 2006). Comparing US
strategy with the British one, the US forces’ reliance on force protection, their more menacing attitude, and their
failure to get close to the civilian population is seen as “entirely the opposite of what is required to defeat
insurgency” from the viewpoint of a British expert (Thornton 2005). The US’ “shock and awe” philosophy –
comparable with Israel’s retaliatory deterrence – is, following Thornton, characterised by a seeming lack of
“nuance and sensitivity” and of “subtlety and lateral thinking” (Thornton 2005). The British Army’s philosophy
of minimum force was crucial, in that the British realised that the best way to maintain control in the empire was
to get native populations on their side. Consent made places easier to rule and the use of violence would, as often
as not, lose that consent. Fundamentally, minimum force emerged as a means of separating the insurgent from
his support (Thornton 2005). It seems that the new US-strategy in Iraq under Petraeus takes some of these points
into account.
86
See the analysis of radical Islamists about the expected success of terrorist attacks comparing the Polish and
Spanish casualty aversion (Lia and Hegghammer 2004). The author of the Arabic document “The Jihadi Iraq –
Hopes and Dangers”, which seems to be a strategy document for Islamist terrorist groups, states that it is not
worthwhile attacking Poland, as “it will not be vulnerable to human casualties, to which it does not attach much
value”. He suggests that terrorists should rather focus on Spain instead. Perceived casualty aversion might thus
104
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
be a factor in determining what countries will be targeted, when their adversaries have already chosen to use
terrorism as a strategy (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:77).
87
However, the relationship between an insurgent group, its diaspora and the host country is a complex one, and
there are strong reasons to suggest why diaspora support communities are averse to antagonising the host state.
To an insurgent group, a large European-based diaspora community, sympathetic to their cause, is a most
valuable asset, providing crucial political and material support to the fight “at home”. Terrorist acts in Europe
might jeopardise this essential support.
88
See the typology differentiating between transnational networks and territorially bound radical communities
(Waldmann, Sirseloudi et al. 2006).
89
An often neglected effect of radicalisation as a consequence of armed intervention abroad is the one
concerning soldiers participating in the intervention. They might be severely affected by their experiences in the
war, which might bring about psychological damage inducing them to turn toward terrorism or other forms of
violence. For instance, Timothy Mc Veigh, who killed 168 people by bombing the Federal building in Oklahoma
City, seems to have been at least partially motivated by his experiences as a US soldier during Operation Desert
Storm. He stated in an interview that he first became disillusioned with the US government during his service in
the Gulf War. Moreover, he wrote an essay from his prison cell called “Essay on Hypocrisy”, which was
obsessed with the perceived injustice of the US war on Iraq. Another instance of violence committed by an
American veteran of the Gulf War, which may have been triggered by the war experience, was the sniper attacks
that occurred in October 2002, mainly in the Washington DC area, killing 10 people. John Allen Muhammed,
who was convicted of the attacks, had served as a marksman in that war (Kjøk, Hegghammer et al. 2003:29).
90
“The distances to heavily threatened countries like the United States, Britain and Israel has decreased” states
Jörg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency. He assumes that this is related to the
German military mission in Afghanistan. One day after the parliamentary decision to send Tornadoreconnaissance planes to support the US troops in the South, a video appeared at a highly frequented Islamist
website, threatening Germany because of the cooperation with the US troops in Afghanistan (Spiegel-online
2007).
91
In Bosnia, the international Islamic fighters were only a small group of 500 to 1000. Most of them settled in
Zenica. Still, they were feared by the other warring parties, the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croatians likewise,
because of their ruthlessness. A group of 300 “Afghan Arabs” formed a guerrilla force that fought together with
the Third Bosnian Army corps. They came from all over the world, and once they left, they continued their fight
in Kosovo or Chechnya, contributing to the veteran problem (Kohlmann 2004). When, in 1995, after the Dayton
agreement, the aim of the fighting mujaheddin to establish an Islamist state vanished, groups like Aktivna
lslamiska Omladina (AIO) were founded by veteran mujaheddin in order to continue campaigning for this
project. While the organisation enjoys only little sympathy in Bosnia, western European second generation
youths are vulnerable to the propaganda campaign and the humanitarian projects (BVT 2006). This “reIslamisation” was followed by the conflict in Chechnya, socialising the next generation of Islamists in Germany
and elsewhere. Today these conflicts have been widely replaced by Iraq.
92
According to non-governmental organisations (www.iraqbodycount.org) documented civilian deaths from
violence range between 72,596 and 79,187. US-fatalities, according to US Department of Defense, constitute
3781 of the 4079 coalition fatalities (http://icasualties.org).
93
A former foreign fighter in Iraq in an interview with German journalists in Zarqa, Jordan (Mekhennet, Sautter
et al. 2006:149).
94
Friends of the killer remember him being angry and frustrated because of political issues such as the conflict in
Palestine. He supported Hamas, and studied their suicide operations in detail (Nesser 2005:11; Mekhennet,
Sautter et al. 2006).
95
In addition, the fight in Chechnya and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continuously fuel Jihadist propaganda,
which influences the development of Islamist terrorism worldwide (AIVD 2006:56). On different logical and
causal determining factors of terrorist campaigns and radicalisation processes see (Sirseloudi 2005).
96
In the UK, the majority of Muslims are of Pakistani (43%), Bangladeshi (17%) or Indian (8%) decent (Buijs
and Rath 2002; Wiktorowicz 2005:89).
97
Jamaat-e-Islami is the vanguard of modern Islam in Pakistan It is the most organised and politically active
religious party in the country. Its chief ideologue was Abu ‘Ala al-Mawdoodi (ICG 2002:31). Its militant wing,
Hizb-ul Mujahideen, presents a threat within Indian-administered Kashmir through random bombing and other
attacks, although its organisation and infrastructure are being eroded by Indian security forces. In the late 1990s,
the relations between the government and Jamaat Islami worsened because of President Musharraf’s growing
distrust of extremists, which followed at least three attempts on his life (Jane's-Information-Group 2006). The
roots of the militancy lie in the 1980s during the agitation in Kashmir by Muslim groups seeking independence
for the region or accession to Pakistan. Following the unsatisfactory election outcome in 1987, tensions rose, and
overt rebellion began. The original separatist movement was fomented by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front (JKLF) which was formed in 1965. In 1988 and 1989 the JKLF was the only organisation involved in the
105
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
insurgency. After Indian security forces took brutal action in order to put down the rebellion, however, a number
of other groups emerged, and during the mid 90s it appeared that a full scale counter-insurgency war was in
progress. With considerable evidence to back its assertions, India claims that Pakistan has actively fostered these
organisations, which included (and include) the Hizb-ul Mujahideen (militant wing of the Islamic organisation
Jamaat-e-Islami), Harakat-ul-Ansar and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. Unlike the JKLF, which favoured independence for
the state and was essentially nationalistic, these groups are more religiously motivated and seek to impose
Islamic rule throughout the entire sub-continent and even wider afield (Jane's-Information-Group 2006).
98
These streams of Islamist ideology have deeply penetrated the traditionalist and heretofore moderate Muslim
communities of Britain, Deobandi and Barelwi from India, and are expressed in recruitment and fundraising
activities for foreign Islamist projects (Whine 2005:52f.).
99
The role of Pakistani madrasas (religious schools) in the radicalisation process is difficult to assess (ICG
2002). Many foreign Muslims with extremist views visiting Pakistan prefer to stay in the hostels and the guest
houses of the madrasas because boarding and lodging are free and they are not subject to police surveillance. Just
because a foreign Muslim visits a madrasa or stays in its hostel, it does not necessarily mean that he is
undergoing a military training course there (Raman 2005).
100
As elaborated whilst discussing the Netherlands, a projection of the situation in Palestine or Iraq on to the
Dutch context may give rise to the perception that the Islamic minority in the Netherlands is surrounded and
oppressed by a hostile, secularised society. Taking this reasoning one step further, it leads to the perception that
the West is not only waging a war against Muslims in Palestine or Iraq, but against Islam in its midst as well
(AIVD 2006:35).
101
Critical voices remain claiming that the campaign was engineered by Algerian secret services in order to get
France on the side of the military regime in Algeria (Mellah 2004:62).
102
In 1998, Algerian radicals were discovered to be planning an attack on the eve of the World Cup. In 2000,
another Algerian cell calling itself the “Non-Aligned mujaheddin” with close links to al-Qai’dah was dismantled
in Frankfurt for planning to bomb Notre Dame Cathedral in Strassbourg and randomly shoot people in the
nearby Christmas market (Nesser 2004:42ff.). A year later, six men linked to al-Qai’dah, including their FrenchAlgerian leader Djamel Beghal, were arrested while planning a suicide car-bombing directed towards the
American embassy in Paris and ordered by the senior al-Qai’dah leader Abu Zubaydah.
103
After being released from prison 1995 (where he had been incarcerated for his involvement in the metro
bombings) Bourada recruited Khaled Kelkal, the main perpetrator of the metro attacks and pledged his
allegiance to Abdelmalek Droukdal, the new emir of the GSPC who had embraced Zarqawi and the Jihad in Iraq
(ICG 2004).
104
See (Reinares 2006) on imprisoned Jihadis in Spain.
105
For more quantitative data see also (Reinares 2006).
106
For a short introduction in the history of political and militant Islam in Syria see (Moubayed 2005). For more
recent developments see (ICG 2004).
107
Abu Dahdah also maintained relationships with members of the Moroccan Jihadist groups in Spain; among
them, Mustafa El Maymouni, one of the leaders of the networks in Spain who was arrested in Morocco for his
involvement in the Casablanca attack in 2003. Several detainees involved with the attacks on Madrid have links
to Salafia Jihadia, such as the Moroccan Jamal Zougam, who was also in contact with Abu Dahdah.
108
Other authors mentioning bin Laden’s “A Message to the Spanish People” attacking the then Spanish Prime
Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, as a “war criminal”, place it on different dates in either November or December
2003 (Lia and Hegghammer 2004; Jordán and Horsburgh 2005:175).
109
The main thesis proposed in the document is that America cannot be coerced to leave Iraq by militarypolitical means alone, but the Islamist resistance can succeed if it makes the occupation of Iraq as economically
costly for the United States as possible (Lia and Hegghammer 2004).
110
During the 1990s, the Abu Dahdah network managed to recruit at least 20 Maghreb youths as new members;
they were later sent to training camps in Bosnia and particularly in Afghanistan (Jordán and Horsburgh
2005:179).
111
In the network of Syrian origin, it seems that its first name was Alianza Islámica (Islamic Alliance) and then
Los Soldados de Alá (The Soldiers of Allah). In the case of the network that carried out the attacks on Madrid,
the name of the group used in a film found by police in Leganés was “Al Mufti and Ansar Al Qai’dah Brigades.”
However, in a note written by Serhane and sent by fax to a Spanish newspaper a few days before committing
collective suicide, the terrorists called themselves “The Death Battalion.” The name of the group was temporal
because they had decided on death in the forthcoming attacks. Similarly, the Algerian network detained in
October 2004 called itself “Martyrs for Morocco” but in a communiqué sent by members of that group to a
newspaper in Almeria, they called themselves “Suicide Brigades of Andalusia.” Naming is thus of little
importance to members; the wider organization, al Qai’dah is rather an abstract entity (Jordán and Horsburgh
2005:183).
106
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
112
The inner circle of those responsible for the Atocha-attacks, a commando group inspired by al Qai’dah
committed collective suicide three weeks after the attacks on 3 April 2003, when Spanish police encircled their
hide-out in the Madrid suburb of Leganés. Moroccan Jamal Ahmidam (“el Chino”) had been responsible for
logistics and Serhane Ben Abdelmajid for religious ideology. Ben Abdelmajid, “The Tunisian” was a close
friend of Abu Dahdah and the brother-in-law of Mustapha Maymouni (imprisoned in Morocco in connection to
the Casablanca attacks of May 2003).
113
They were part of the sub-cluster of ideologues and initiators in the Madrid group with contacts to radical
cells in various Muslim countries, and to Jamal Zougam, the successor of Abu Dahdah (Díaz Sotero 2007). The
other sub-cluster formed around Jamal Ahmidan, “El Chino”, and consisted of common delinquents of
Moroccan origin, who were easily influenced by radical Islam. The last cluster consisted of the Spanish support
network that obtained the explosives. More than half of the people involved were of Moroccan origin; from
cities that formerly belonged to the Spanish protectorate (Tetuán, Tánger, Nador), where Spanish is still spoken
as second language (Díaz Sotero 2007).
114
Even though 19th century Turkey has been described as the plaything of the European powers in Islamist
discourse, secularisation, as a consequence of the declining Ottoman Empire was an independent development.
115
The attempt to bomb Germany’s rail system did not however demonstrate the kind of ruthlessness commonly
associated with Al-Qai’dah’s suicide attacks. According to Rolf Tophoven, the director of the Essen-based
Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy, the bombs were intended to explode between stations, well
outside rush hour and in trains that were unlikely to be carrying many passengers.
116
Triggered by Hizbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers on 12 July 2006, Israel waged a fierce war against the
movement that came to an abrupt halt on 14 August. According to government and UN data, during the conflict in
Lebanon, 1,191 people (civilians, as well as armed fighters) were killed and several thousand injured; up to one
million were displaced; infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and runways at Beirut’s international airport, were
damaged or destroyed; some 15,000 homes and 900 factories, markets, farms, shops and other commercial
buildings were wrecked. Vast, but unknown, quantities of unexploded munitions still litter the south, including
cluster sub-munitions doubling as anti-personnel landmines. In Israel, 43 civilians were killed, and tens of thousands
were displaced; many others spent time in bomb shelters (ICG 2006).
117
Occupation, or the perception of occupation, triggers the emergence of radical communities, characterised by
strong cohesiveness and dense interpersonal networks and alliances, which can even survive over long distances
(Waldmann 2005).
118
Sometimes it simply enough to be related to someone to get some of this aura; see the cell-leader Farid
Benyattou, who benefited from the reputation of his brother-in-law, a GSPC member who was arrested in the
World Cup plot and expelled to Algeria in 2004 (Jordán and Horsburgh 2005).
119
They found themselves unable to return to their home country to fight the struggle they dreamt of fighting in
the first place. Financial support from Saudi Arabia had begun to decrease, and backing from the Sudanese
government had weakened under international pressure. More importantly, the security services in their countries
of origin were now seeking them out in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It seemed that their heroic status had faded
away and as one Algerian fighter described it, they began feeling like "fugitive criminals on the run".
120
Later he was replaced by Abu Qatada.
121
Examples are the attempted attacks on the Christmas Fair in Strasbourg (December 2000); the American
embassy in Paris (September 2001) and the British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar (May 2002).
122
Following Rabasa or Paz, who uses exactly the same figures, the majority of killed Jihadists come from
neighbouring countries: more than 60% come from Saudi Arabia, about 10% from Syria and Iraq respectively
and the rest from Jordan, Lebanon or North African countries (Paz 2005:2; Rabasa, Chalk et al. 2006:71). A
study conducted by NBC news in 2005 based on website postings suggested that 55% came from Saudi Arabia,
13 per cent from Syria, nine per cent from North Africa and only three per cent from Europe. In May 2004, a list
of foreign fighters in Abu Ghraib prison listed 22 Syrians, 11 Egyptians and 10 Jordanians among those being
held. There were no fighters from Europe included on the list.
123
Its members reject the name, although many of the regimes in North Africa and elsewhere have tended to
label their Islamist opponents as “Takfir wa’l Hijra” as a means of smearing their reputation.
124
The core of Qutb’s revolution in doctrine was the combination of two concepts, the sovereignty of God –
hakimiyyat Allah – and the new jahiliyya (Qutb did not invent the new jahiliyya-concept. He found it in the
writings of Abu ‘Ala al-Mawdoodi (1903-1979). ‘Ala al-Mawdoodi had developed the perspective of founding
a separate state for India’s Muslims - a project realised with the partition of India and the founding of Pakistan
(Roberts 2003:16)). Qutb argued that a Muslim society recognised the sovereignty of God alone. Moreover, a
nominally Muslim society, although no longer truly Muslim, was relapsing or had already relapsed into the
condition of barbarous ignorance (jahiliyya) of God. In developing this latter element of his vision, Qutb was
using the term jahiliyya in a new way. Previously, nearly all Islamic thinkers had used it exclusively to refer to
the pre-Islamic past. The notion of a new jahiliyya was a radical innovation and an extremely disturbing one.
The doctrinaire insistence on the sovereignty of God provided a new and powerful rationale for Islamist
107
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
opposition to nationalism. Qutb attacked nationalism over the issue of sovereignty, arguing that, because
nationalism asserts the sovereignty of the nation and thus of the people, it denies and usurps that of God. This
denial and usurpation of God’s sovereignty ensures that nationalism functions as the vector of Western secular
and materialist values and thus of the neo-jahiliyya. The product of the sum of these two theses was a third
precept: that societies claiming to be Muslim but actually in thrall to nationalism and the neo-jahiliyya were not
really Muslim, and that it was the duty of true Muslims to denounce them as such. The act of denouncing
someone or something as ‘not Muslim’ or ‘un-Islamic’ is called takfir (from kafir, infidel). Thus Qutb’s thought
led directly to the necessity of takfir. As such, Qutb’s revolution in Islamist doctrine had momentous
implications:
- it legitimated rebellion against a Muslim ruler by denying his Muslim credentials;
- it legitimated Jihad against fellow-Muslims by denying the quality of their faith;
- it accordingly legitimated what Muslims would otherwise condemn as fitna – dissension within the community
of believers – by redefining it as Jihad – defence of the Ummah against infidels (Roberts 2003:16f.).
125
He first followed FIS, then enrolled for GIA after the elections and the military coup, and in France the
affiliation with al Qai’dah is imaginable.
126
This could be interpreted as the paradigm for a conspiracy theory, and it therefore seems useful to study the
biography of Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. He was born near Sousse on 3 September 1936. As a
student he played an active role in Tunisia's struggle for independence from France, liasing with the NeoDestour party and the French. Subsequently he was educated as a specialist in electronics and at the Saint-Cyr
Military Academy (France), Chalons-sur-Marne School of Artillery (France), and the Special School of
Intelligence and Security in the US. He was head of military security between 1964 and 1974, and minister of the
interior between 1986 and 1987. When President Habib Bourguiba was declared unfit to rule in 1987, he became
president, a position that he has held ever since. (2005 Jane's Information Group)
127
This argument has repeatedly been produced since the Ottoman empire had to cope with its enlightened
European neighbours several centuries ago.
128
After all between 1979 and 1992 two “foreign” regimes, the US-backed Shah and the Soviet-backed Afghan
government were subjected to Islamic resistance. Both encouraged the Islamists view of waging a victorious
fight. The Iranian revolution radiated throughout the whole Muslim world and boosted Wahhabism in SaudiArabia as a Sunni alternative in its radical interpretation of the Quran.
129
Abd-al-Qadir Zalum, a Palestinian from Beirut, succeeded Taqi-al-Din al-Nabhani as the group's leader in
1977. Zalum died in 2003, and Hizb ut-Tahrir is now thought to be led by a group of individuals based in
London, although some reports place the leadership in the Middle East (Jane's-Information-Group 2006).
130
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s consistency is associated with a dogmatic and consistent implementation of its ideology,
which envisions a peaceful overthrow of the existing regimes in Muslim countries (Karagiannis and McCauley
2006:318): Hizb ut-Tahrir teaches that only the Caliph can declare Jihad and as a result the current group
leadership cannot decide to adopt violent methods as a tool for political struggle. In order for Hizb ut-Tahrir to
adopt violent methods, the group must abandon or reinterpret its ideology. Although such a development cannot
be excluded, Hizb ut-Tahrir is unlikely to risk its ideological credibility for the sake of uncertain political gains.
It is important to note, however, that the group recognizes that “Islam permits Muslims to resist the occupation
of their land” a reference to the resistance movements in Afghanistan and Iraq. In other words, Hizb ut-Tahrir
differentiates between Jihad sanctioned by the Caliph and resistance against foreign invaders (Karagiannis and
McCauley 2006:325).
131
Similar problems are faced by Al-Muhajiroun. Its focus on the return of the Caliphate dictated that AlMuhajiroun had to renounce statehood as a form of resolution. Indeed, Al-Muhajiroun rejected all forms of
Palestinian nationalism. Instead, Al-Muhajiroun understood the conflict, and more problematically its resolution,
solely through the lens of Islam: ‘our aim is not for the recognition of a Palestinian state, but that of an Islamic
state - Al Khilaafah’. Essentially, this stance allowed Al-Muhajiroun, to offer the Palestinian cause inflammatory
rhetoric but little real assistance (Connor 2005:131).
132
GIA made extensive use of the European communication infrastructure. Testimonials appeared on websites
from GIA members exhorting fellow Muslims to join the mujaheddin. Copies of Al-Ansar were also given away
outside mosques in Europe; radical clerics supporting the group distributed tapes, faxes and videos in a bid to
spread the message.
133
In November 2004, for example, former media spokesman Abd al-Birr made it clear in an interview posted on
the Jihadist website Minbar Al-Tawhed wa Jihad that for Algerians, the first priority should be fighting Jihad at
home against the Algerian regime (Pargeter and Al-Baddawy 2006).
134
Other Tunisians arrested in Europe may be linked to this group. These include Sami Ben Khemais, who was
convicted in Milan in 2002 on terrorist-related charges and accused of being linked to Al-Qai’dah, and former
Tunisian footballer Nizar Trabelsi who was convicted to 10 years in prison in Belgium on charges of being part
of plot to bomb a US base.
108
Matenia Sirseloudi, “External conflicts and violent radicalisation processes”
135
Moroccan Islamism defines itself in opposition to the religious legitimacy of the institution of the king
(Marret 2005:1f.).
136
In May 2003, a series of multiple car bombings struck several foreign interests in Casablanca—including a
Spanish social club, a Jewish community centre and a hotel and restaurant frequented by Israeli tourists. The
attacks left over 40 people dead and 65 injured.
137
According to Spanish authorities GICM maintained three groups in Spain. The Madrid group, organized by
Mustapha Maymouni, who later orchestrated the Casablanca attacks; the second Madrid group linked to “the
Egyptian”, and the third cell called “Group of de Lavapiés”, probably lead by Zougam (datadiar.com 2007).
109