Search Results

The declaration of a Caliphate in June 2014 by an al-Qaida offshoot implied a strong sense of political–religious unity, but, in reality, the announcement reflected deep division at the heart of radical Islam. This article critically assesses al-Qaida’s progress on its four main objectives over the course of the 9/11 decade, and suggests that its principal setbacks were due to the fragmentation of Islamic authority. In particular, Osama bin Laden’s inability to reverse the misguided focus, by some affiliated groups, on the ‘nearer enemy’, began to portend al-Qaida’s downfall. However, after the Arab Spring, in the chokeholds of strong states and the chaos of weak states al-Qaida found advantage. Furthermore, with the rise of groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a new pattern of radicalism emerged, in which the threat to ‘far enemy’, ‘near enemy’ and ‘nearer enemy’ were combined.

This chapter tells the story of al‐Qaeda’s first wave of expansion, the launching of branches in Saudi Arabia (2003) and Iraq (2004). Al‐Qaeda’s Saudi branch (AQAP) took the form of in‐house expansion, while in Iraq, al‐Qaeda merged with the foreign‐led al‐Tawhid wal‐Jihad (TWJ). Both expansions reflect risky and self‐defeating choices. Desperate to prove its relevance but lacking the ability to pull off another spectacular terrorist attack against the United States, al‐Qaeda launched a campaign in Saudi Arabia that backfired resoundingly. Meanwhile sensing strong need to show up to the main battlefield against the United States but lacking sufficient capabilities al‐Qaeda entered the Iraqi arena through a merger with TWJ, with even more devastating consequences.

The chapter examines a number of terrorist plots in Europe in the period 2008–10, a period in which al-Qaida’s central organization was under pressure, whereas its regional branches were on the rise. This phase was also characterized by the proliferation of jihadism in social media, and, as the chapter argues, all of these factors contributed to the rise of single-actor terrorism as a preferred tactic among European jihadis. By 2008, the publication and re-publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad had become a major theme in al-Qaida propaganda encouraging attacks by individuals in the West. This further added to the threat of “lone wolf” acts of solo-terrorism, such as the French case of Mohammed Merah and the British case of Roshonara Choudhrys.

Chapter Nine examines jihadi terrorism in Europe in the wake of the Arab Spring and the death of bin Laden. It details a situation where the threat to Europe was becoming increasingly heterogeneous, combining trends from the past with new features. The Syrian war and the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (IS) has further complicated the picture in creating a volatile and unpredictable threat situation from 2014 onwards. Chapter Nine also concludes the study by addressing the January 2015 shock attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices. By viewing these attacks from a historical perspective, the chapter ties together different phases of jihadism in Europe including GIA terrorism in the 1990s, the threat from al-Qaida throughout the 2000s and the emerging threat of IS.

This chapter provides an in-depth study of the impact that Western conceptions of stability and state failure have had on the actions of the international community, particularly those of the United States, in Yemen. It questions the usefulness of the orthodox failed states narrative from which international policy to “stabilize” Yemen largely draws its intellectual justification. It suggests that while Yemen desperately needs development, assistance that is explicitly given in the expectation of receiving political or security benefits risks not being targeted at the areas of greatest need and being perceived as self-serving. This chapter also situates Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) within narratives of state failure and stabilization, arguing that because orthodox views shy away from explicitly engaging with politics and power, they overlook key sources of resilience for militant movements.

This book chapter begins by showing how Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) speaks to local audiences at both practical and emotional levels, rather than just through religious ideology. It demonstrates how AQAP narratives resonate strongly with local tribal codes of honour and revenge, and how these can then be harnessed to serve the global agenda of militant jihad. The chapter then explores two key themes that thread through AQAP’s jihadist narratives: the celebration of death and the construction of the enemy. It shows how these themes are tuned towards local audiences and how they have developed since the “Arab spring” uprising, the emergence of Islamic State and the onset of all-out war in 2015. Lastly, the chapter looks at the relative appeals of AQAP and Islamic State in Yemen. It outlines the potential trajectories of AQAP and briefly suggests ways in which the jihadist threat in Yemen might be countered.

This chapter analyzes the constitutionality of the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen whom the executive branch believed to be a senior planner for AQAP (a regional branch of al-Qaeda), concluding that the Obama administration’s claim that the killing was lawful is correct, but that the administration’s reasoning was seriously defective. Because Congress had authorized military action against al-Qaeda but not total war, contrary to the executive, the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) was the only available source of domestic-law authority; the killing, however, was within the scope of the AUMF. The administration overlooked Supreme Court precedent showing that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments do not apply to the military use of deadly force under the AUMF. If the Fifth Amendment had applied as the administration assumed, the killing of al-Awlaki would have been a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause.

This chapters analyses the rise of al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch and underlines the importance of local narratives for the success of any movement in Yemen. In the beginning, the relationship between al-Qaeda and Yemen’s tribes used to be marked by mutual suspicion, because al-Qaeda mainly adhered to the mother organization’s global strategy and was little or not at all attuned to the local context in Yemen. Only since the late 2000s, after the merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branch of al-Qaeda into AQAP, al-Qaeda began to undergo an internal change that, together with the expansion of the Shia Ḥūthīs in Yemen’s Zaydi heartland, enormously contributed to al-Qaeda’s acceptance among the Sunni tribes of Yemen. By positioning itself as savior-defender against the Ḥūthī threat, al-Qaeda managed to successfully plug into local complaints and to develop certain “soft touches” by latching onto community problems such as conflict resolution, corruption, poverty and marginalization.