Al-Qaeda Book Review Fest

Old Ken has been reading some books on radical Islam recently. Why? Well, beyond generally educating myself, I have been interested in thinking about how social networks have come to be conceptualized in our time. While it has rightly been pointed out to me that I might have better looked at a book about Myspace or Flickr, al-Qaeda seemed to Old Ken to be a good first step. So here is what I found.

The first book I read was Abdel Bari Atwan's "The Secret History of Al-Qa’ida" (London: Abacus, 2006). The basic premise of this book is that Al Qa’ida emerged from a number of circumstances, concepts, and ideologies particular to the Muslim community. However, especially since 9/11, Al Qa’ida has become something else entirely—decentralized, heavily reliant on electronic media, and ideologically broad. Here is a good quote to this point:

"Al-Qa’ida’s new structure, whereby small independent groups that subscribe to its ideology can form locally and operate with little or no reference to the core leadership, is not a sign that the organization is wakened—as some optimistic commentators have suggested. Quite the opposite: by expanding horizontally, al-Qa’ida is rapidly becoming bigger and stronger. Its ideology and strategy are widely available on the Internet, making it very easy for any one of its branches or affiliated groups to operate strictly within its framework in any place and at time, without the need for license or approval."

That said, the author argues that al-Qa’ida does indeed have a “master plan," which he elaborates at some length in the conclusion. But, first off, what are the circumstances and concepts that make a phenomenon like al-Qa’ida possible?

Religious ideas are clearly important. One, the author argues, is the concept of the “umma” or the view of the global community of Muslims as being a singular nation or brotherhood. He quotes bin Laden as saying: “ ‘The umma is connected like an electric current.’” Another key concept is jihad. While aggressive jihad is the province of extremists, the author claims, “defensive jihad is the absolute religious duty of every able-bodied Muslim man, and if asked to participate by a ‘just and pious leader’ he must not refuse.” This qualification, Bari Atwan adds, is extremely important, as it goes some way to explaining how careful bin Laden has been in cultivating his image—in making himself appear calm, serene, pious and even beatific: “His piety and austere lifestyle have become legendary in the Muslim world.” Knowledge of Islamic history and appeals to the umma are critical to bin Laden’s proclamations and they clearly find resonance with possible recruits.



Also significant are what might be described as salient features of Muslim culture. For example, the author claims that while much is made of al-Qa’ida’s savvy use of the internet and the media, these tools rely on a much broader, simpler cultural affinity for “two areas in which the Arab world excels—cryptography and secrecy.” The target audience for al-Qa’ida’s message, Bari Atwan contends, are thus "hard-wired" to be discrete, subtle and secretive about their true interests, intentions and methods. Another such cultural characteristic is a desire for a strong leader. “An inherent part of any Islamic group,” so the author claims, “is the establishment of an emir or leader.” Searching for an inspirational model—whether online or in the local mosque—is, again, an expected cultural behavior of the target audience. And, despite what he has to say about the broader dissemination of al-Qa’ida post-9/11, Bari Atwan certainly seems to invest these personal relationships between emir and follower with substantial significance. For example, he makes much of the terms under which former leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, reserved his alliance and then finally pledged it to bin Laden in 2004. Thus, Bari Atwan claims, cultural norms of social conduct very much inform how al-Qa’ida works even in these days of its decentralization.

That said, historical/political circumstances in the Middle East are also very important. The seventeenth son of a wealthy Saudi construction baron, bin Laden sought to use his wealth and influence to combat the corruption deeply entrenched in many despotic, US-backed Gulf states, instigate shari’ah law, and wage jihad. Afghanistan in the 1980s was a place to do the latter, as bin Laden fought with many other foreign mujahedin against the Soviet army. In 1988, so Bari Atwan claims, bin laden “established an office to record the names of the mujahedin and inform the families of those who were killed. The name of this register was ‘al-Qa’ida’ (‘the base’ or ‘the foundation’), and that is how the organization got its name.” Outraged by the fact that Saudi Arabia then hosted half a million American troops as they staged the Gulf War, bin Laden came under the influence of Egyptian leader of Islamic Jihad Ayman al-Zawahiri who advocated seeing all of the regional jihad efforts—whether in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somali, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and so on—as part of a single project. Part of the idea seems to have been to raise the profile of the cause by pushing it beyond the bounds of regional dispute and, thus, reason itself. In a great line, the author quotes Saad al-Faqih as explaining: “ ‘Al-Zawahiri told bin Laden that the US would never take him seriously as long as his complaints were reasonable. Wanting to get US troops out of Saudi Arabia is something even the average American citizen can understand and might sympathize with, so this is not going to make the headlines and if it doesn’t get the exposure it’s not going to help with recruitment.’”

This leads us to al-Qa’ida’s famous use of technology, which is probably the strongest point of Bari Atwan's book. Despite the fact that bin Laden and his close associates have largely rejected the modern, Western world and taken to the distant hills of Afghanistan, the author repeatedly discusses how they are keyed in to the news and electronic messages, which are printed out for them and brought to their rural hide-outs by messengers. To this point: “Bin Laden had a huge archive containing data saved in both hard-copy form and computer disks. The archive also included cuttings from the Arab and foreign press. Bin Laden always receives the latest news either by daily wire services from London or the Gulf or newspapers.” Other Islamist affiliates, however, are extremely sophisticated, using all kinds of cyber attacks, cryptograhic techniques and methods of appropriating communication technology. The internet, then, is a great boon for a group like al-Qa’ida whose problem, the author observes, “is not finding trained fighters […] but the central coordination and deployment of these troops-in-waiting.” While pro-Western governments continually try to shut Islamist websites down, they are leery of imposing too much censorship on the internet because they fear compromising the medium’s burgeoning commercial and economic potential—no doubt, in the author’s mind, a policy driven by the interests of multi-national corporations.

Again, though, for all of their technical sophistication, the author makes clear that personal attachments and contacts were fundamental to al-Qa’ida’s history and, perhaps (as with the case of al-Zarqawi noted above) present operation: “Many key al-Qa’ida-linked figures took up residence in Europe during or before the 1990s, while maintaining their contacts with the central leadership. This migration of first-generation global jihadis was the basis for what is now an extremely elaborate and complex network of jihad cells throughout Europe.” So, on the one hand, the author can reiterate his claim that al-Qa’ida is a broad, umbrella concept that embraces many different radical Islamist goals: “Having transformed itself into an ideology, physical and geographical restrictions no longer apply. It has become a global umbrella for groups and individuals who share its agenda.” Yet, the author argues, this complex set of relations between overarching, globally-circulating ideology, fugitive leadership, and diverse partisan field commanders is a practical novelty in history:

"Al-Qa’ida is unique in organizational terms: with a central leadership functioning as figurehead and inspiration, the day-to-day logistics have become the domain of field commanders in more than forty countries around the world. Again, this is possible because of the Internet, which provides, maintains and updates the ideological and strategic framework within which these commanders—and indeed, any group or individual—can operate."

Independent of Bin Laden’s say-so, anyone can become an emir and start up their own “al-Qa’ida franchise." And yet, the author claims, “ ‘consultation’ [with the big players] does take place regarding major operations which require ‘permission.’ The plan for the Madrid bombing was arrived at through consultation and coordination. In keeping with the new shape of al-Qa’ida, the actual attacks were carried out by the local cells independently.” So, in the end, the reality of al-Qa’ida, as we get it from Bari Atwan, is somewhere between the smaller, intersecting networks of sympathetic extremists and the “pure,” disembodied ideology—a Republic of Terror.



In "Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam" (London: Penguin, 2004), Jason Burke has little time for the “personalist” view of radical Islam as centering upon a single, charismatic figure like Osama bin Laden. Written in 2004, Burke's book aimed to debunk the available “notion of al-Qaeda as an ‘Evil Empire’ with an evil mastermind at its head. Such an idea was undoubtedly comforting—destroy the man and his henchmen and the problem goes away—but it was clearly misguided.” Instead, the book is devoted to surveying an Islamic Middle East that is profoundly shot through with religious divisions between Sunni and Shia, Wahhabi and other sects; still smoldering with resentment at its nationalized subdivision by the hands of former colonial powers (especially the French and British); governed by the repressive, corrupt regimes that have been backed by foreign powers (notably the US and the USSR) who are out to make short-term strategic alliances; dotted with wealthy Muslim individuals willing to back all kinds of radical activity; and filled with alienated, impoverished youth ready to pledge themselves to jihad. Burke clearly knows this area and its issues personally, and one of the strengths of his book is the "from the field" perspective it provides.

So what is al-Qaeda in Burke’s analysis and how does it relate to these developments? Whereas Bari Atwan had envisioned al-Qaeda as split between the inner circle and the cyber-community, Burke identifies three historical components: “A hardcore, a network of coordinated groups and an ideology.” The hardcore, as he says at one point, probably consisted of no more than about a dozen people at the time of the 9/11 attacks. They were closely connected to bin Laden and moved in the militant movements in Afghanistan in the later 1990s. Crucially, to Burke’s argument, this hardcore largely ceased to have any tactical or administrative importance once the US bombs began falling on Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. However, the networks of militancy were and are highly plural, fed by frustration and repression throughout the Islamic world, and much more numerous. Finally, the ideology of al-Qaeda—its most important aspect especially now, post-9/11—is a broad sense that any local experience of frustration in the Islamic world is really a manifestation of the global degradation of the umma by “the Christian-Zionist Crusaders,” to which jihad (targeting both non-Muslims and those Muslims who are not sufficiently rigorous in their religious observance) is the necessary response. “Overcoming the fitna, of the factionalism and parochialism, of militant groups,” Burke writes, “was one of the main reasons bin laden set up ‘al-Qaeda.’ This burgeoning ideological consonance [of radical groups since 9/11] has helped him achieve that aim.”

Some of the most interesting moments in the book come as Burke offers alternate models to the prevailing notion of al-Qaeda as “a coherent hierarchical terrorist group, with a single leader, a broadly uniform ideology and an ability to conceive and execute projects globally through well-disciplined cadres, sleepers and activists spread around the world.” A better way to think about al-Qaeda, Burke proposes, is as “a wealthy university disbursing research grants and assisting with facilities such as libraries or with teaching that can allow the ambitions of its pupils, particularly those star students who have attracted the attention of the chancellor or the senior lectures, to be fulfilled.” Following a rudimentary form of encryption used by al-Qaeda itself, another model could draw from corporate-speak: “Individuals or small groups (companies) would approach the executive and board (bin Laden, Atef, et al.) with ideas that they believed were worth support. Of hundreds of such proposals, only a few were chosen. Some received a significant investment, others were merely given a small among of cash.”



Since 9/11, another corporate analogy is that of the business franchise. As al-Qaeda has become more of an ideology than an actual, integrated entity, “local groups can pick and choose from its parts like local country franchises designing their McDonald’s maharaja burger in New Delhi and chips with mayonnaise in Holland.” Projects like 9/11, Burke claims, best answer to these models. For, it seems clear that the project of flying planes into American targets was either brought to the hardcore leadership in Afghanistan by the “German franchise” of Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell ca. 1999, or else it was proposed by bin Laden’s group and then worked out in detail by Atta’s group. In either case, bin Laden and company seem to have provided encouragement, some technical advice, and overseen the funding, while Atta addressed the extensive logistical problems, only notifying the senior al-Qaeda officials of the date and full shape of the plan at its very latest stages.
Burke usefully proposes that we see so-called “al-Qaeda attacks” on a scale ranging from those most closely connected to the hardcore (like the 1998 embassy bombing in Nairobi) to the 2004 Bali nightclub bombings, which—although sharing al-Qaeda’s outrage at the incursion of Western behavior into Islamic territory and redressing it with suicide bombing—had no real connection to the original, hardcore group. It was, instead, an attack “in the style of al-Qaeda.”

Thus, where Bari Atwan had pressed for the novelty of al-Qaeda, Burke sees in it the pattern of numerous revolutionary movements throughout history—movements wherein social class identity and aspiration are expressly significant. Here, Burke’s treatment of Mohammed Atta is instructive. A student of urban planning, Atta had grown increasingly radicalized during his graduate studies in Germany. While infuriated by what he saw as the "Disneyfication" of Islamic spaces across the Middle East, he also came to recognize that there were no other available channels open to him to express this anger; he had little prospect, for example, of fulfilling his dream of obtaining a post in his native Egypt's Westernized academy. Well-educated, urban and middle-class, Burke argues, Atta fits the profile of “revolutionary cades over several centuries.” Like “Russian anarchists, Bolshevik activists and French revolutionaries of an earlier age,” Atta and others active in militant Islam fit one social type of the radical insurgent: “These are men who are articulate, intelligent and relatively worldly. They have aspirations and experience profound resentments when those aspirations are frustrated. When their expectations cannot be met, they perceive it as an injustice. If there are no effective ways to resolve the problems within the bounds of state-sanctioned political or social activism then alternatives are sought. Radical Islamic militancy is one.”

Throughout his book, Burke makes note of the actual connections between Islamist radical theorists and leftist revolutionary ideas; I'm sure someone better versed in Marxian revolutionary theory than Old Ken could explain how Burke is drawing upon much older arguments. In any case, quoting those in bin Laden’s inner circle, Burke notes the crossing of “modern secular revolutionary theory” and Islamic commentary as forging a recognition that “to wake the masses, a ‘vanguard’ is needed to lead by example.” Thus, if men like bin Laden and Atta represent the middle class, revolutionary vanguard, what makes Islamic radicalism work is a second group—whose underclass identity is clearly significant in Burke’s analysis. Of this second group, Burke writes:

"They are less educated, more violent and follow a more debased, popularized form of Islam. They are more unthinkingly radical, bigoted and fanatical. Instead of being drawn from frustrated, aspirant groups within society they are more often drawn from its margins, from those who have few expectations to be disappointed."

“Poor, unemployed, angry people” like shoe-bomber Richard Reid, failed 9/11 pilot Zacarias Moussaoui, and violent warlord Abu Musab al-Zarqawi all fit this mold for Burke.

In the end, Burke’s conclusion is that because of the exploitation of a corrupt elite in cahoots with foreign interests, repressive political systems, poverty and short-sighted Western policies, the Islamic world lacks no shortage of either the aspiring classes whose frustration will lead to new calls to radicalization or the destitute, angry poor who will follow their nihilistic message. “Bin Laden” and “al-Qaeda” are, thus, lazy shorthand for a complex, global situation that has identifiable roots in socio-political history and bears witness to the larger class structure of historical revolutionary movements.