...In the U.S.-led “global war on terrorism,” al-Qa`ida and its militant affiliates have come to serve as both symbol and explanatory matrix for a range of disparate militant groups in the Middle East and beyond. Included among these are the Palestinian rejectionist factions and the Lebanese Hizballah, despite the fact that their roots, worldviews, and agendas are inimical to those of al-Qa`ida. This article argues that the scholarly and political effort to lump together diverse resistance groups into a homogenous “terrorist enemy,” ultimately symbolized by Osama Bin Laden, is part and parcel of neocolonial power politics whereby all “native” struggles against established power structures are placed beyond reason and dialogue. The authors contend that while the Palestinian rejectionist factions and the Lebanese Hizballah may be understood as local representations of the anticolonial “third worldist” movement, al-Qa`ida and its affiliates operate within a “neo–third worldist” framework, a dichotomy that entails tactical and strategic differences, both political and military. The article draws on an extensive series of author interviews with leaders and cadres from Hizballah and the Palestinian factions. In response to al-Qa`ida’s 11 September 2001 attacks, the United States declared war not merely against those who had set upon it, but against an open-ended range of “terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.”1 Within two weeks of the attacks, U.S. President George...
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...Al-Qaeda From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search al-Qaeda القاعدة Participant in the Persian Gulf War, the Global War on Terrorism, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and the Syrian Civil War Active 1988-present Ideology Sunni Islamism[1][2] Islamic fundamentalism[3] Takfirism[4] Pan-Islamism Worldwide Caliphate[5][6][7][8][9] Qutbism Wahhabism[10] Salafist Jihadism[11][12] Leaders Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1988-1989) Osama bin Laden (1989-2011) Ayman al-Zawahiri (2011-present) Area of operations Worldwide (predominantly in the Middle East) Strength In Afghanistan – 50–100[13] In Egypt –Unknown In Iraq – 2,500[14] In the Maghreb – 300–800 In Nigeria –Unknown In Pakistan – 300[15] In Philippines – Unknown In Saudi Arabia – Unknown In Somalia – Unknown In Syria Unknown In Thailand -Unknown In Yemen –500–600[16] Allies Taliban Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan East Turkestan Islamic Movement Al-Shabaab Islamic Courts Union (dis) Jundallah Lashkar-e-Taiba Jaish-e-Mohammed Jemaah Islamiyah Boko Haram Abu Sayyaf Iraqi insurgents Caucasus Emirate FARC[17][18] Syria (alleged)[19][20] Qatar (alleged)[21] Opponents United States of America Israel International Security Assistance Force Syria Iran Afghanistan Pakistan Turkey Yemen Egypt Algeria Colombia Al-Qaeda...
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