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This chapter explores the managerial challenges inherent in terrorism by analyzing 108 memoirs written by participants in terrorist organizations that carried descriptions of individual's activities in those organizations. This approach addresses one of the key challenges in studying the internal dynamics of terrorist organizations: the relative dearth of data on what actually happens inside these inherently secretive institutions. Aside from a few highly salient examples (al-Qa'ida, Fatah, al-Qa'ida in Iraq), the internal correspondence of terrorist organizations has not been readily available to scholars and so it is hard to pinpoint the pervasiveness of hierarchy and control inside these groups. The chapter shows that agency problems are pervasive in terrorist organizations and security-reducing paperwork and bureaucracy were present in many of them.

This chapter examines one of the most prominent terrorist groups in the last twenty years, al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI), using a host of the group's internal documents to study its financial and operational management. As the AQI materials so richly demonstrate, in any organization made up of thinking human beings, the level of control terrorist leaders actually exercise depends on the specific internal dynamics of a group. Terrorist operatives have their own ideas about what to do and these ideas do not always coincide with those of their leaders. A group's solution to its fundamental dilemma depends on the outcomes of the strategic interactions between terrorist leaders and their operatives.

This chapter explores the connections between medieval and modern movements in greater detail. It investigates the transformation from medieval fundamentalism to the recent neo-jihadist ideology adopted by al-Qa'ida and similar jihadist networks. Apart from defining the concept of neo-jihadism, and its source in the literature of al-Qa'ida, the analysis focuses on the process of the transition from fundamentalism to neo-jihadism, including the factors involved, the roots of al-Qa'ida in these processes, these networks' main theological and intellectual inspirations, and their scholarly sources of information.

This chapter investigates the war in Afghanistan, the establishment of al-Qa'ida, the transformation of Usama bin Laden from an exclusively Afghan-based jihadist to an al-Qa'ida neo-jihadist, the role of the USA within the Arab-Muslim countries therein, and the Bin Laden-Taliban relationship.

This chapter investigates al-Qa'ida's neo-jihadist ideology and compares it with the notion of jihad and the qualifications to it in the Muslim consensus. It also explores the question of who declares jihad, and argues that al-Qa'ida's neo-jihadist dogma is outdated.

This chapter investigates the ongoing ideological war within al-Qa'ida. It focuses on the theo-political and ideological disputes between the main ideologues of global jihad, and looks, among other examples, at the dispute between Dr. Fadl and Ayman al-Zawahiri. This final chapter is intended to bring the ideas of these two jihadist rivals face to face in an attempt to address a number of questions, for example: When, how, and why was the Jihad organization established in Egypt? When and how did it come into contact with al-Qa'ida? When and why did Jihad leave Egypt for Afghanistan? What were they doing there? What was their relationship with 'Abdullah 'Azzam, Bin Laden, and al-Qa'ida?

This chapter introduces the research puzzle: How could the United States violate laws and norms that are so deeply internalized in its identity and practice? It then provides the argument, explains the relevance of norms on detainee treatment, provides a discussion of the norm life cycle theory, and outlines the research methods. Chapter 1 describes the contribution of this book to international relations and international legal scholarship as well as details the gaps in those disciplines.

Chapter twelve examines Qutb’s recent impact. Islamic activists used his writings to promote a campaign which today is called terrorism. This is documented in the movement’s emergence in southern Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s and its transformation from small charity groups into the violence of al-Jihad and al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya. These two exhibited important tactical and organizational distinctions that together contrasted considerably with the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood. Yet by the 1990s, the government had soundly defeated these militants. Many were jailed indefinitely while others escaped abroad. In the 1990s, the imprisoned leaders renounced violence and published the four-volume Revised Concepts. Those committed to violence moved to Afghanistan and under the leadership of Usama bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri created al-Qa’ida. Yet it is significant that even after the turn of the century, the milder Muslim Brothers continued to be accused of promoting Qutbism. The 2011 uprising did not dispel this suspicion; if anything, the rise of legitimate religious political parties streamlined the Brotherhood and purified its ranks.