User talk:Xora~enwiki

what is al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden. It seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. After al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on America, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda’s bases there and overthrow the Taliban, the country’s Muslim fundamentalist rulers who harbored bin Laden and his followers. “Al-Qaeda” is Arabic for “the base.” What are al-Qaeda’s origins? Founded in pakistan Al-Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the Services Office—run by bin Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam—recruited, trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahedeen, or holy warriors, from more than 50 countries. Bin Laden wanted these fighters to continue the “holy war” beyond Afghanistan. He formed al-Qaeda around 1988. Who are al-Qaeda’s leaders? According to a 1998 federal indictment, al-Qaeda is administered by a council that “discussed and approved major undertakings, including terrorist operations.” At the top is bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is thought to be bin Laden’s top lieutenant and al-Qaeda’s ideological adviser. At least one senior al-Qaeda commander, Muhammad Atef, died in the U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan, and another top lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. In March 2003, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, and al-Qaeda’s treasurer, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, were also captured in Pakistan. Where does al-Qaeda operate? We don’t know if it has a headquarters anymore. From 1991 to 1996, al-Qaeda worked out of Sudan. From 1996 until the collapse of the Taliban in 2001, al-Qaeda operated out of Afghanistan and maintained its training camps there. U.S. intelligence officials now think al-Qaeda’s senior leadership is trying to regroup in lawless tribal regions just inside Pakistan, near the Afghan border, or inside Pakistani cities. Al-Qaeda has autonomous underground cells in some 100 countries, including the United States, officials say. Law enforcement has broken up al-Qaeda cells in the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Albania, Uganda, and elsewhere. How big is al-Qaeda? It’s impossible to say precisely, because al-Qaeda is decentralized. Estimates range from several hundred to several thousand members. Is al-Qaeda connected to other terrorist organizations? Yes. Among them: •	Egyptian Islamic Jihad •	Jamaat Islamiyya (Egypt) •	The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group •	Islamic Army of Aden (Yemen) •	Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Kashmir) •	Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan •	Salafist Group for Call and Combat and the Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) •	Abu Sayyaf Group (Malaysia, Philippines) These groups share al-Qaeda’s Sunni Muslim fundamentalist views. Some terror experts theorize that Al-Qaeda, after the loss of it Afghanistan base, may be increasingly reliant on sympathetic affiliates to carry out it agenda. Intelligence officials and terrorism experts also say that al-Qaeda has stepped up its cooperation on logistics and training with Hezbollah, a radical, Iran-backed Lebanese militia drawn from the minority Shiite strain of Islam. What major attacks has al-Qaeda been responsible for? The group has targeted American and other Western interests as well as Jewish targets and Muslim governments it saw as corrupt or impious — above all, the Saudi monarchy. Al-Qaeda linked attacks include: •	The May 2003 car bomb attacks on three residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia •	The November 2002 car bomb attack and a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli jetliner with shoulder-fired missiles, both in Mombasa, Kenya •	The October 2002 attack on a French tanker off the coast of Yemen Several spring 2002 bombings in Pakistan •	The April 2002 explosion of a fuel tanker outside a synagogue in Tunisia •	The September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon •	The October 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing •	The August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Al-Qaeda is suspected of carrying out or directing sympathetic groups to carry out the May 2003 suicide attacks on Western interests in Casablanca, Morocco; the October 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia; and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Plots linked to al-Qaeda that were disrupted or prevented include: a 2001 attempt by Richard Reid to explode a shoe bomb on a transatlantic flight; a 1999 plot to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport; a 1995 plan to blow up 12 transpacific flights of U.S. commercial airliners; a 1995 plan to kill President Bill Clinton on a visit to the Philippines; and a 1994 plot to kill Pope John Paul II during a visit to Manila. How is al-Qaeda funded? In several ways. Bin Laden, whose family runs a large construction company in Saudi Arabia, has provided funds from his vast inheritance, and he established companies to provide income and charities that act as fronts. Protection schemes, credit-card fraud, and diamond and drug smuggling are other possible sources of money. Donors sympathetic to al-Qaeda’s mission—many from the Persian Gulf region and reportedly including disaffected members of the Saudi royal family—channel funds to the group. How does al-Qaeda operate in the United States? Secretly. What we know about al-Qaeda’s U.S. operations comes largely from investigations into the September 11 attacks and a foiled millennial attack on the Los Angeles airport. In the federal indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was apprehended before September 11, prosecutors describe how the hijackers lived in the United States for months before the attacks—renting apartments, taking flight classes, joining health clubs, and living off funds wired from overseas. Are there still al-Qaeda operatives at large in the United States? Experts suspect there are, although they don’t know how many. In February 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller III warned that several hundred Islamist radicals with links to al-Qaeda are living in America, some of them organized into cells that are plotting future attacks. Before September 11, had al-Qaeda attacked U.S. interests? Yes, repeatedly. In 1995, a car bomb outside the Saudi National Guard building in Riyadh killed seven people, five of them Americans. In 1998, simultaneous bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. In Yemen in 2000, a small boat laden with explosives hit the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors. Other al-Qaeda plots—such as 1995 plans to simultaneously blow up a dozen American airliners over the Pacific and to reportedly crash a plane into CIA headquarters—were uncovered before they could be carried out. Is al-Qaeda the same as the Taliban? No. Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist organization; the Taliban are Afghan fundamentalists who established an Islamic republic. However, the two were closely linked. The Taliban provided refuge for bin Laden and al-Qaeda; bin Laden and al-Qaeda offered ideological guidance and financial assistance to the Taliban. Does al-Qaeda engage in forms of violence other than terrorism? Yes. Al-Qaeda has supported, trained, and fought alongside Muslim guerrillas in armed conflicts in Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, and Uzbekistan. Does al-Qaeda have a charter or manifesto? In an al-Qaeda house in Afghanistan, New York Times reporters found a brief statement of the “Goals and Objectives of Jihad”: 1.	Establishing the rule of God on earth 2.	Attaining martyrdom in the cause of God 3.	Purification of the ranks of Islam from the elements of depravity In 1998, several al-Qaeda leaders issued a declaration calling on Muslims to kill Americans—including civilians—as well as “those who are allied with them from among the helpers of Satan.” Does al-Qaeda have an operations manual? Yes. In the early 1990s, al-Qaeda produced the Encyclopedia of the Afghan Jihad, a detailed how-to guide for using handguns, explosives, and biological and chemical weapons, in print and on CD-ROM. Materials belonging to a captured al-Qaeda operative in England detail techniques for forgery, surveillance, and espionage.

How is al-Qaeda connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? There are strong links. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the militant cleric convicted in the 1993 plot, once led an Egyptian group now affiliated with al-Qaeda; two of his sons are senior al-Qaeda officials. And Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who was convicted of masterminding the 1993 attack, planned al-Qaeda’s foiled attack on American airliners over the Pacific Ocean. He is also the nephew of the former senior al-Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, who is now in U.S. custody. How does al-Qaeda find new members? It recruits Muslim men from around the world. Many recruits have come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen, but al-Qaeda has also succeeded in attracting Muslims living in the West. Other than Afghanistan, which countries have had ties with al-Qaeda? Sudan provided a base for al-Qaeda from 1991 to 1996. Iran, which supports the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, has reportedly cooperated with al-Qaeda, some of whose members may have trained in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon. U.S. and Arab intelligence officials say that al-Qaeda operatives, including several senior leaders, found shelter in eastern Iran after fleeing Afghanistan. In May 2003, administration officials claimed that senior al-Qaeda figures were in Iran and urged Tehran to apprehend them. Did Iraq have ties with al-Qaeda? The question of Iraqi links to al-Qaeda remains murky, although senior Bush administration officials insist such ties existed. Both al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence officers reportedly backed Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist militia fighting U.S.-backed Kurds who opposed Saddam Hussein’s government. In the 2003 Iraq war, U.S. warplanes destroyed the Ansar camps in northeastern Iraq. In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council that Iraq was harboring a terrorist cell led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected al-Qaeda affiliate and chemical and biological weapons specialist. Powell said Zarqawi had both planned the October 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan and set up a camp in Ansar al-Islam’s territory in northeastern Iraq to train terrorists in the use of chemical weapons. Powell added that senior Iraqi and al-Qaeda leaders had met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Beyond that, some Iraq-watchers suspect that al-Qaeda members attended Iraq’s Salman Pak terrorist training camp. Widely circulated reports said that Muhammad Atta, a mastermind of the September 11 attacks, met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. And fleeing al-Qaeda members reportedly took refuge in Iraq. But U.S. officials say they doubt that the Atta meeting took place, and many experts and State Department officials say that any al-Qaeda presence in Iraq probably was in northern regions of the country beyond Saddam’s control. Some analysts say there was scant evidence of ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s secular regime, a claim supported by the lack of such evidence found after Saddam’s downfall. The CIA in May 2003 began an internal review of prewar intelligence reports, including those related to suspected connections between Iraq and terrorism. Does al-Qaeda have biological or chemical weapons? We don’t know, but the terror network has certainly been interested in acquiring them. U.S. officials say they found a laboratory under construction near Kandahar that seems to have been intended for developing biological weapons such as anthrax, and evidence recovered elsewhere in Afghanistan—including a videotape of dogs succumbing to unknown vapors—suggests that al-Qaeda was conducting crude chemical warfare experiments. The United States has attacked several Afghan sites where it suspected chemical weapons were being developed. And, while in the United States, the September 11 hijacker Muhammad Atta reportedly looked into obtaining a crop duster, which could be used to spray biological or chemical agents. Does al-Qaeda have nuclear or radiological weapons? We don’t know. While experts say al-Qaeda would find it difficult to steal or build an atomic bomb, the network’s interest in atomic weaponry is clear. In January 2003, British officials said that documents found in the Afghan city of Herat had led them to conclude that al-Qaeda had successfully built a small “dirty bomb”—an ordinary explosive laced with radioactive material. That tracks with an April 2002 statement by Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaeda lieutenant captured in Pakistan, who told U.S. investigators that al-Qaeda had worked on building a dirty bomb. In November 2001, bin Laden told a Pakistani newspaper that al-Qaeda had nuclear weapons. Although little evidence has surfaced to back that claim, we do know that al-Qaeda has tried to acquire nuclear bombs, materials, and know-how. Several Pakistani nuclear scientists reportedly met with bin Laden in Afghanistan in August 2001 to discuss weapons of mass destruction. Can al-Qaeda outlive bin Laden? We don’t know. Bin Laden may have planned operations to be carried out after his own death, experts say. Historically, many terrorist groups have dissolved or succumbed to infighting after key figures died. However, al-Qaeda’s structure is less centralized than these groups, and some members could launch further attacks themselves. “The network is perfectly capable of functioning without this head,” Michelle Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Washington Post. But Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc., says that while bin Laden’s death alone would not necessarily cause al-Qaeda’s demise, “when you eliminate the leadership of that group and don’t have training camps, I think al-Qaeda is out of business in the long term.”

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