Chairman King, Ranking Member Higgins, distinguished members of the subcommittee, and subcommittee staff, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Even in many Muslim countries where the Islamic State does not have a strong presence, its rise is radicalizing their populations, fomenting sectarianism, and making a troubled region worse.
The two are now competing for more than the leadership of the jihadist movement: they are competing for its soul. Who will emerge triumphant is not clear. The United States can exploit this split, both to decrease the threat and to weaken the movement as a whole. My testimony today will focus on comparing Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. I argue that Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain a threat to the U. Al Qaeda is weaker and less dynamic than the Islamic State, but the former remains more focused on attacking the United States and its Western allies.
My testimony is organized into four sections. I first offer some general background on the origins of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. I then discuss the threat profiles for each group, assessing both their strategies and tactics. The third section looks at the struggle to win over affiliate groups in the Muslim world. I conclude my testimony by discussing the policy implications and recommendations for the United States. Al Qaeda emerged out of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the s.
As the Soviets prepared to withdraw, Osama Bin Laden and a few of his close associates—high on their perceived victory over the mighty Soviet Union—decided to capitalize on the network they had built to take jihad global. By the mids, he wanted to reorient the movement as a whole, focusing it on what he saw as the bigger enemy underwriting all these corrupt local regimes: the United States.
For local jihadists, pledging allegiance to Bin Laden and adopting the Al Qaeda brand meant obtaining access to a wide range of assets: money, weapons, logistical support, expertise, and, of course, training—Al Qaeda training camps were the Ivy Leagues of jihadist education. The attacks on two U. The attacks demonstrated the power, capabilities, reach, and sheer audacity of the organization.
Over the next decade, the U. It remained a symbol of the global jihadist movement, but its inability to successfully launch another major attack against the United States meant that symbol was becoming less powerful.
The death of the charismatic Bin Laden and the ascension of the much less compelling Ayman al-Zawahiri to the top leadership position further diminished the power of the Al Qaeda brand. The Islamic State began as an Iraqi organization, and this legacy shapes the movement today. Jihadist groups proliferated in Iraq after the U. Yet even in its early days the group bickered with the Al Qaeda leadership. Zawahiri and Bin Laden pushed for a focus on U.
Zarqawi and his followers also acted with incredible brutality, making their name with gruesome beheading videos—a tactic that its successor organizations would also use to shock and generate publicity. Zarqawi also kept his focus on Iraq and its immediate environs. Hamza Bin Laden, the son of al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden, has reportedly been killed in an air strike, eight years after his father died in an attack in Pakistan by US forces.
How important was Hamza Bin Laden? And is al-Qaeda still influential? He was widely seen as the emerging leader of al-Qaeda after his father was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in In , al-Qaeda's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, introduced the year-old Hamza as a "lion from the den" of the Bin Laden network. He had been promoted as a rising star on pro-al-Qaeda websites, someone it was hoped would reinvigorate the group. But in recent years, al-Qaeda has been pursuing a strategy of quietly rebuilding and forging alliances with regional groups.
In December , Bin Laden identified the conflict in Iraq as "a golden and unique opportunity" for jihadists to engage and defeat the United States, and he characterized the insurgency in Iraq as the central battle in a "Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. On a strategic level, Bin Laden has employed well-known Quranic injunctions against failing to contribute to "the cause of God" to appeal to Muslims to support Al Qaeda and its jihadist affiliates in Iraq politically, financially, and militarily.
Subsequent statements attributed to Al Zarqawi and Ayman al Zawahiri have underscored the importance of the conflict in Iraq to the jihadist cause from Al Qaeda's perspective.
Both men vehemently denounced the successful constitutional and electoral processes that have laid the groundwork for the formation of the new Iraqi government: Al Zawahiri has repeatedly argued that the democratic reforms initiated by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan are incomplete and insincere, while Al Zarqawi adopted more sectarian rhetoric in seeking to dissuade Iraq's Sunni community from participating in the country's democratic processes and to condemn Iraq's Shiite political organizations and communities on religious grounds.
On a tactical level, statements from leading Al Qaeda figures have demonstrated a degree of differentiation in their preferred methods for opposing coalition forces in Iraq and the new Iraqi government.
Bin Laden has identified "martyrdom operations," or suicide attacks, as "the most important operations" for disrupting the activities of the United States and its allies. He has applied similar disregard for ethnic, linguistic, and ideological differences in issuing condemnations of so-called collaborators; identifying Arabs cooperating with Iraqi and coalition authorities as equally guilty parties. These differences became public in October after the publication of an intercepted letter reportedly written by Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi in which Al Zawahiri offered advice to Al Zarqawi on his campaign in Iraq.
Specifically, Al Zawahiri questioned the wisdom of pursuing a campaign against Shiite Iraqis on a sectarian basis when sectarian violence may reduce overall public support among the region's Sunni Muslim population for Al Qaeda's objectives. Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda military leader Sayf al Adl have referred to the current situation in Iraq as an opportunity for the global jihadist movement to take advantage of insecurity in the heart of the Arab world and to spread into neighboring areas.
Al Adl has speculated that the ongoing violence in Iraq may spread into Syria and Lebanon, which could give "the Islamic action a vast area of action and maneuvering" and help it to attract "tremendous human and financial resources.
Al Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for two terrorist attacks in Jordan as well as a rocket attack launched against Israel from Lebanon in December The Islamic State and its leaders share the strict anti-Shiite sectarian views of Al Zarqawi and routinely refer to Iraqi Shiites in hostile, derogatory terms while launching attacks against Sunni and Shiite government officials and civilians. In July , Al Baghdadi released an audiotape threatening to launch attacks against Iran unless the Iranian government withdraws its support for Iraqi Shiites.
The Islamic State of Iraq's insistence on enforcing their strict interpretations of religious law on Iraqi civilians and targeting members of other insurgent groups, including the religiously oriented Islamic Army of Iraq, has led to fighting that has killed insurgents and Al Qaeda operatives across western and central Iraq in recent months.
Since December , Ayman Al Zawahiri has congratulated Al Baghdadi for the establishment of the so-called Islamic State and has reiterated his plea for fighters in Iraq to overcome their differences in the aftermath of fighting between the Islamic Emirate and other Sunni insurgent groups. The operations of Al Qaeda affiliates continue to be complemented by centrally-planned ideological outreach activities. In a January 30, audiotape, for example, Ayman al Zawahiri identified "three foundations" of Al Qaeda's political ideology and applied them to events in Iraq and elsewhere.
The "three foundations," as outlined by Al Zawahiri are as follows:. Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi have applied these and other similar principles to issues of democracy, reform, and conflict in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories.
In both of his December statements, for example, Bin Laden clearly stated his view that democracies, constitutional governments, and insufficiently Islamic monarchies are equally unacceptable forms of governance for Islamic societies because they empower human rulers and man-made legal systems rather than "the law of God.
He also frequently characterized the Iraqi government as illegitimate and collaborationist, echoing to his January post-election statement that his followers in Iraq would "not accept the rule of anyone but that of God and His Prophet [Mohammed]. Bin Laden's December statements urged Muslims to oppose the creation of democratic governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories; to resist non-Islamic reform movements in other Islamic societies; and to overturn existing regimes deemed insufficiently-Islamic by Al Qaeda such as the Saudi monarchy.
Al Zawahiri also dismissed Afghan, Egyptian, and Iraqi elections as incomplete and argued that the United States and its allies would not have supported the elections if the results may have yielded Islamist governments that could oppose U. Elected Islamists also have received criticism for not living up to Al Qaeda leaders' expectations. In December , Al Zawahiri pointedly criticized the Palestinian group Hamas for failing to demand "that Palestine have an Islamic constitution before entering any elections.
Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri have based their calls for revolutionary change in Islamic societies on a stated belief in a model of governance where Muslim citizens would empowered to choose and depose their leaders according to Islamic principles and traditions of consultation, or shura.
Al Qaeda military commander Sayf al Adl concluded his May text with advice for Al Zarqawi and other affiliates that includes a detailed strategic framework for the jihadist movement.
Elements of similar strategic thinking appeared in statements issued by Al Zawahiri and Al Zarqawi from through A summary follows:. In a July statement, Al Zawahiri outlined "a near-term plan and a long-term plan" for achieving Al Qaeda objectives:.
The near-term plan consists of targeting Crusader-Jewish interests, as everyone who attacks the Muslim Ummah must pay the price, in our country and theirs, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Somalia, and everywhere we are able to strike their interests And the long-term plan is divided into two halves: The first half consists of earnest, diligent work, to change these corrupt and corruptive regimes As for the second half of the long-term plan, it consists of hurrying to the fields of jihad like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, for jihad preparation and training.
Thus, it is a must to hurry to the fields of jihad for two reasons: The first is to defeat the enemies of the Ummah and repel the Zionist Crusade, and the second is for jihadi preparation and training to prepare for the next stage of the jihad. The "next stage" remains largely undefined in available statements from Al Qaeda leaders, and efforts to define long term goals are likely to prove divisive in light of evident differences in Iraq and other conflict zones over short term strategy and tactics.
Variations in the intensity and prominence of Al Qaeda leaders' anti-Israeli rhetoric have fueled suggestions that Al Qaeda's commitment to the Palestinian cause waxes and wanes depending on the network's need for support—becoming more pronounced during periods when Al Qaeda's actions have alienated supporters or as part of a more outright ideological appeal.
Bin Laden has addressed these charges personally and argued that support for the Palestinians and all Muslims is and will remain essential to Al Qaeda's cause, which is the mobilization of the entire Muslim world in resistance to perceived U. Other Al Qaeda figures have alluded to the desirability of attacks on and eventual conflict with Israel.
In January , Al Zarqawi claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on northern Israel, which he claimed was personally ordered by Osama Bin Laden.
He described the attack as "the beginning of a blessed action to strike the Zionist enemy at the heart of its existence.
Al Qaeda leaders' statements reveal sophisticated consideration of the economic and military vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies, particularly with regard to the role of Middle Eastern oil as "the basis of industry" in the global economy. In an interview reportedly conducted on or around the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Al Zawahiri urged "mujahidin to concentrate their campaigns on the Muslims' stolen oil" and to "not allow the thieves ruling [Muslim] countries to control this oil.
Statements by Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri urging attacks on oil infrastructure and military supply lines could indicate a shift in Al Qaeda's strategic and tactical planning in favor of a more protracted attritional conflict characterized by disruptive attacks on economic and critical energy production infrastructure. A string of attempted attacks on oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia and Yemen since early have been heralded by some jihadist media outlets as operations conforming to Al Qaeda leaders' calls for economic warfare against the United States and its regional allies.
The Saudi Arabian government has sought to discredit Al Qaeda affiliates by portraying their attempted attacks on oil facilities as a threat to the economic lifeblood of the Saudi population.
Statements from Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, the late Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Sayf al Adl, and Al Qaeda affiliates in Iraq display the uncompromising commitment of Al Qaeda's leaders and operational affiliates to a consistent ideological agenda focused on two sequential goals: the expulsion of foreign forces and influences from Islamic societies and, ultimately, the creation of an Islamic state ruled by sharia law.
The political prescriptions outlined in the statements are rooted in the Islamic principle known as tawhid , or the principle of the absolute unity of God, and an identification of Islam as an all-encompassing religious, political, and social system.
Throughout their statements, Al Qaeda founders and affiliates characterize as "infidels" those who do not share these beliefs, those who oppose the creation of an Islamic state on the terms they describe, and those supporting existing governments and coalition activities in the Islamic world. Al Qaeda's diverse statements contain calculated variations in tone and content that address or appeal to various target audiences. United States. Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade.
Al Jazeera. Laub, Zachary and Jonathan Masters. Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 3 Feb. Accessed 7 Dec. He supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the s, then began to target the U. He was killed by U. Navy Seals in May Mustafa Abu al-Yazid , also known as Sheikh Saeed al-Masri unknown-May 22, : Yazid was a founder and financial chief of AQ and was also believed to be third in command of the group behind Zawahiri and bin Laden.
He played a vital role in the planning of operations, especially attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan. Yazid was killed in May by a U. He was killed by a U. He was reportedly second to Zawahiri when he was killed in a U. S drone strike in North Waziristan. Hamza bin Laden unknown-present : The something son of Osama bin Laden, Hamza is believed to operate in AQ leadership in some capacity.
The group is reportedly preparing him to take over from Zawahiri. Hoffman, Bruce. Officials Say. Airstrike in Yemen. The name "Al Qaeda" comes from the name for one of the mujahedeen training camps established during the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet invasion in the s.
February 5, Originally archived on December 6, Accessed August 2, The organization has an extremely tight-knit core leadership group and mostly utilizes operatives from allied affiliate groups to carry out attacks. Estimates of core membership are generally less than 1,, though second-tier membership lies in the thousands to tens of thousands and outer-shell support could be up to , September 9, July 5, Accessed July 30, A core group of fundraisers reportedly collected both from donors who knew the eventual destination of their money and those who did not, primarily in the Gulf States.
Additionally, corrupt employees at charitable organizations siphoned money to AQ. AQ has also obtained funding by holding hostages for ransom. While the U. It Needs an Audit. Disclaimer : This is a partial list of where the militant organization has bases and where it operates. This does not include information on where the group conducts major attacks or has external influences.
Al Qaeda aims to rid the Muslim world of Western influence, to destroy Israel, and to create an Islamic caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia that imposes strict Sunni interpretation of Shariah law. Some consider Shiite Muslims to be apostates, while others do not. This disagreement has caused rifts between AQ and its affiliates — for example, when AQI targeted Shiites in Iraq against the instructions of bin Laden.
Core Al Qaeda has never engaged in the political process on any level. Bin Laden personally advocated for followers to focus on education and persuading others to join their cause, rather than political engagement with Islamic political parties. May 4, Al Qaeda uses a wide variety of tactics to achieve their goals. AQ and its affiliates employ suicide bombings, IEDs, rocket and small arms attacks, grenades, kidnapping and hostage-taking, ransoms, hijackings, and propaganda to further these goals against a number of different countries, both in the Middle East and around the globe.
Al Qaeda also has reportedly sought nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the group attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium as early as AQ and its affiliates have attempted and carried out a number of assassinations.
It assassinated Ahman Shah Massoud, a powerful anti-Taliban military and political leader in Afghanistan, on September 9, AQ and its affiliates target U. AQ affiliates rarely attempt to attack the U. Others claim that AQ is not currently planning larger attacks because it is no longer capable and instead is willing to rely on smaller, more achievable attacks.
Bergen, Peter. Cable News Network, 28 Dec. Disclaimer : These are some selected major attacks in the militant organization's history.
It is not a comprehensive listing but captures some of the most famous attacks or turning points during the campaign. August 7, : Two truck bombs detonated outside the U. The significant majority of casualties occurred in Nairobi. The bombings took place on the eighth anniversary of U. Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Cole naval ship, detonating a large bomb stored on the watercraft upon impact. September 11, : In the most destructive attack ever attributed to Al Qaeda, operatives hijacked four U.
The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, probably en route to an additional target. Following the attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan to find and prosecute those responsible for the attacks, driving bin Laden and his organization to flee to remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
November 15, : Carried out over two days November 15 and November 20, , four truck bombs ran into 2 Jewish synagogues, a bank, and the British Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
The bombing at the British Consulate may have been coordinated with U. The militants took 41 hostages, reportedly questioning and releasing only Muslim hostages prior to their standoff with police.
Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, the leader of AQAP from , claimed responsibility for the attacks in an audio tape. A Spanish government investigation report found that AQ may have inspired the attacks, but that AQ had no involvement in the planning or operation of the bombings. Intelligence gathered after the investigation suggests that AQ may have facilitated and supervised the attack.
July 7, : Four British men detonated 3 bombs on the London Underground and one on a double-decker bus during morning rush hour in London. Al Qaeda claimed the bombings, but there is no direct evidence that shows that AQ directed the attack. November 23, : Al Qaeda in Iraq detonated a series of car bombs and carried out mortar attacks in Sadr City, Iraq. It was the deadliest sectarian attack since the beginning of the U.
December 27, : Al Qaeda spokesman Mustafa Abu al-Yazid claimed that AQ was responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, in advance of upcoming elections. September 20, : A truck bomb exploded at the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad. Intelligence officials suspected AQ, although the attack was never claimed.
No casualties [12]. The bombs were discovered before the planes left for the U. No casualties [13]. January 7, : Two gunmen attacked the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. AQAP claimed the attack, though there is evidence that at least one of the gunmen traveled to Yemen, participated in AQ training, and receiving funding for an attack.
Reinares, Fernando.
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