Al-Qaeda and IRA 1

Running Head: AL-QAEDA AND IRA

The Similarities and differences Between Al-Qaeda and IRA

 Al-Qaeda and IRA 2

Abstract

Al-Qaeda is not an organization in the way that to stick with terrorism.

The Provisional IRA is an organization. It is equally easy to show that Al-

Qaeda is not simply a kind of Provisional IRA, only dedicated to Islamic

military instead of being Roman Catholic.

This paper shows the major differences and several similarities between

Al-Qaeda and Irish Republican Army (IRA), and it focuses on their goals

and strategies.
 Al-Qaeda and IRA 3

The Similarities and differences Between Al-Qaeda and IRA

Terrorism, famously, is a misnomer. This is exemplified with the

saying one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter; an

observation that relates well to groups such as the IRA(Irish Republic

Army), and the Muslim fundamentalist groups of which Al-Qaeda is

currently the most famous or infamous. Terrorism, however, should

actually be treated as being a part of a long-standing tradition of direct

action, action taken by groups who have no access to the news agenda

under normal circumstances. These groups are marginalized from

accessing the public area usually for political-economic motives, and so

resort to tactics that shock, grab media attention and so set the news

agenda.

Al-Qaeda is a multi-national support group which funds and

orchestrates the activities of Islamic militants worldwide. It grew out of

the Afghan war against the Soviets, and its core members consist of

Afghan war veterans from all over the Muslim world. It was established

around 1988 by the Saudi militant Osama Bin Laden based in Afghanistan.

IRA on the other hand, has been the largest and most active guerillas and

terrorist group in Northern Ireland. By focusing on the three key

components of terrorism the violence, the coercive goals, and the

 Al-Qaeda and IRA 4

psychological effects, I can begin to compare it to organized crime and see

where there are similarities and differences.

Similarities

The prominent pro-Unionist commentator, Conor Cruise O’Brien,

uses his weekly column in the Irish Independent to focus on the

association between the IRA and anti-America terrorists. Ruth Dudley

Edwards, after condemning republicans for drawing parallels between

themselves and oppressed peoples for political advantage, pointed in the

same article to the following similarities between the IRA and Al-Qaeda;

both targeted armed forces, both killed civilians, both attacked the centers

of democratic states, both attacked important commercial targets, both

were involved in global terrorism, and both supported suicide as a political

weapon.

The IRA fought what it described as English imperialism, While

Al-Qaeda and its allies fight western economic imperialism within the

Middle East. It is almost uniformly linked to actions that cause the loss of

life, such as 9/11, the bombing on Madrid commuter trains in 2004, the

Real IRA’s bombing of Omagh in 1999 or the bomb attacks on the London

transport system during July 2005.

Of course there is a nexus between the fund generation activities of

terrorists and criminals. Terrorist organizations are known to tap into

illegal sources of funding such as drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping,

robbery, fraud, gambling, and smuggling of contraband goods. The IRA

 Al-Qaeda and IRA 5

has a history of extortion and robbery, while Al-Qaeda, itself relied upon

the export of drugs from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Despite these similarities, there is however three major sources of

funds that appear unique to terrorist organizations and serve to severely

complicate the picture from a control point of view, in that they do not in

themselves constitute criminal activity in many a domestic context.

Differences

Al-Qaeda’s Goals and Strategy

Al-Qaeda has definite goals. It needs the active support of a few states and

the tacit support of many people who share its sense grievance even if they

do not applaud its methods.

A central question regarding actors and strategies is whether al-Qaeda

represents a transformation of the phenomenon of terrorism or a

continuation of existing trends. The terrorism that threatens the post-Cold

War world, chiefly al-Qaeda and its affiliates, is thought by some analysis

to differ profoundly from the terrorism of the past(Benjamin & Simon,

2003). Is the global jihadist movement the first no state actor to adopt a

genuinely international goal, that of reestablishing Muslim domination by

driving the West out of Muslim lands and imposing Islamic rule. Is al-

Qaeda essentially an apocalyptic movement? Or are the goals of such

groups basically local and hence part of an old pattern? (Doran, 2002).

There is no consensus on what al-Qaeda and its attendant groups want. Do

their leaders seek to seize power in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, or
 Al-Qaeda and IRA 6

Indonesia, in effect replicating the success of the Iranian revolution at the

national level, or do they want to challenge the United States and its allies

on the global level. Their primary goal is the overthrow of what it sees as

the corrupt and heretical governments of Muslims states, and their

replacement with the rule of Sharia (Islamic Law). Al-Qaeda is intently

anti-Western, and views the United States in particular as the prime enemy

of Islam. Bin Laden had issued three fatwah or “religious rulings “calling

upon Muslims to take up arms against the United States. Attempts to

radicalize existing Islamic groups and create Islamic groups where none

exist.

Advocate destruction of the United States, which is seen as the chief

obstacle to reform in Muslim societies.

IRA’s Goals and Strategy

IRA on the other hand, has three aims: first, weaken the

commitment of the British government for administering Northern Ireland,

second, terrorize the Protestant community and weaken support for their

militia groups, third, weaken support for their Republican rivals, the

Official IRA. Their long-term goal is the creation of an Irish Republic on

the whole island of Ireland. To achieve these goals, the IRA has sought to

persuade the British to leave, the Protestants to stop fighting, and the

Catholics to support them rather than the Officials who adopted non-

violent political solution.

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IRA tactics mainly consist of bombings and assassinations of

British and Protestant security forces, whether on duty or not, and often

without consideration of any collateral damage. Attacks within Northern

Ireland have been frequent over the past thirty years with hundreds of

deaths and thousands of injuries on all sides occurring every year. Some of

the more remarkable IRA attacks include a 1973 car bombing in London,

bombing in Birmingham and Guildford in 1974 in which twenty-four

people died and hundreds were injured, two bombings in London in 1982

in which eleven soldiers were killed ; a December 1983 bombing of

Harrod’s department store, an attack on the Tory conference in Brington in

1984 that killed five and could have killed most of the British cabinet, a

1985 attack on the Newly Barracks of the RUC that killed nine and injured

thirty-two, a rocket attack on 10 Downing Street at the height of the Gulf

War, and a 1993 bombing of the city of London that caused extensive

financial damage.

As the perpetrators of these acts and many more like them, the IRA

deserves to be labeled as a group that uses terrorist methods. (Walker,

1986). Recall that terrorism is the use of violence to create a climate of

fear that will lead to political change. All of these attacks, whether on

civilians or soldiers, were designed to use terror to convince the British

government to change its politics in Northern Ireland. Even the attacks on

the security forces were not planned by the IRA according to a military

logic because they were not trying to defeat the British forces, instead.
 Al-Qaeda and IRA 8

Besides violence, the Ira also used hunger strikes as a tactic. Six

different times during the current conflict, IRA prisoners have gone on

hunger strikes while in prison, demanding to be treated as political rather

than criminal prisoners.

Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda’s goals and strategies appear much more

diffuse than those of groups such as the IRA, affecting a much larger

number of states. While Northern Ireland saw some appalling violence by

no state entities, the overall percentage of civilian casualties tended to be

significantly lower than in many al-Qaeda attacks. Al-Qaeda has made

extensive use of suicide bombers, posing banning problems that were not

present in Northern Ireland, and there have been persistent claims that al-

Qaeda is intent on employing weapons of mass destruction though its

actual attacks have been technologically low level.

In conclusion, although AQaeda and IRA have many similarities,

they have clear differences in their main goals and aims. Some groups

state that they are fighting for national salvation or seeking independence.

Others say that they fight to take revenge for past events. In the terrorism

literature, it is impossible to find different typologies for terrorism and

classifications of terrorist groups; however, a different classification is

necessary for the terrorist organizations because of their local

characteristics, ideology, goals, and activities.

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References

Benjamin, D. & Simon, S. (2003). The Age of Sacred Terror, Radical

Islam’s War

Against America. New York: Random House.

Doran, M. (2002). The Pragmatic Fanaticism in Middle Eastern Politics.

Political

Science Quarterly 117, no 2: 177-190.

Walker, C. (1986). The Prevention of Terrorism in British Law.

Manchester University

Press.