Angelina Murdasova Professor Tamara Johnson INTL 1101 April 29, 2014 Al Qaedas Global Presence Ever since

the September 11 Attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, a large amount of attention has been focused on the organization behind it, Al Qaeda. The United States has gone through so many changes since then, changes in security, laws, and even beliefs. This terror organization, however, has had an even bigger impact globally. This paper will discuss the global presence of Al Qaeda in this world, and the key factors of its existence. To begin, it is important to know how such an organization has come about. In the late 1970s the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Many young Afghan extremists were furious and declared this conflict a jihad, or a holy war. They had many supporters from other Arab countries who sided with the Afghans and included themselves in this jihad because they were also followers of Islam. Around this time a young Muslim from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden, joined this holy war. He was born into a wealthy family and was known for generously funding this struggle against the Soviets. Bin Laden was very ambitious and he wanted to extend. He began an international organization along with Abdullah Azzam, from whom Bin Laden had taken religious lessons from. They developed a support network which they called the Golden Chain in which they gathered financers who were supporters of Islam. Through this chain, donations began pouring in. The two partners began the Bureau of Services which collected

recruits for the holy war in Afghanistan. The two major financers of this organization at this time were the United States and Saudi Arabia. The United States was involved during this time because of the Cold War and their main goal was to try and stop the spread of communism. With the support of these two wealthy countries, the jihad against the Soviets began to pick up, eventually pushing them out of the country. Bin Laden and Azzam decided to continue their organization in order to prepare for future jihads. They decided to establish a base which was named Al Qaeda literally meaning base. After the death of Azzam, Osama bin Laden accepted full charge of the organization. His goal was to prepare Al Qaeda to be able to be active anywhere in the world, anywhere that Islam needed to be defended. After his exile from Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden placed his base in Sudan from where he began to scheme his huge jihad against the West. The principles written out by Al Qaeda were aimed at driving out American influence from Muslim countries, toppling pro-Western dictatorships in the Middle East, and destroying Israel. In the larger picture Bin Laden stated he wants to unite all Muslims and establish an Islamic nation using force of necessary. One of the key factors of the existence of Al Qaeda is its financing. In order for such an organization to prosper and be able to pull of such massive attacks, finances are a must. One of the main ways that this terror organization acquires their finances is through fund-raising. Financial facilitators, people who raised money, had several ways of collecting. One of the easiest ways was to simply accept donations from wealthy people and organizations especially from Saudi Arabia. Islam is the official religion of Saudi Arabia with almost 97% of the population being Muslims, making supporters of the jihad plentiful. The 9/11 Commission had actually found evidence that one of the largest banks in Saudi Arabia, the Al-Rajhi Bank, was sending funds to the hijackers involved in the incident, through the International Islamic Relief

Organization which had accounts in the bank. The donors from the Gulf countries were often approached by fund-raisers, facilitators, or employees of corrupt charities, some knowing the destination of their funds, and some not. One of the major times this was done was during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when donations are common. Another way that these facilitators gathered money was through mosques where imams, Islamic worship leaders, who were supporters of radical Islamic causes. These imams at times would take zakat donations, which are obligatory alms givings, and turn them over to these facilitators. Osama bin Laden wanted a large organization, so a lot of his funds were used on training recruits and managing training facilities, funding operations, and for salaries for jihadists. Al Qaeda is known to also provide finances to the families of those operatives killed in in the operations. Al Qaedas finances came in from all over the world falling into the cultural and political forces in that the donations were from supporters of Islam, or in the case of the United States for the political reason of defeating the Soviet Union. The recruitment process for Al Qaeda is a very long and often times confusing process. The popular view of the process is that Al Qaeda collects confused Muslims who are angry at the American influence and its support of Israel and are moved to go off and join the jihad against the West. While this may be true in some cases, the real way of recruiting jihadists is much more systematic and slower. There are many jihadist organizations in the world, some have been alive longer than Al Qaeda, while others are fairly new startups. Al Qaeda has figured a way to recruit a large amount of members at a time rather than wait for individual volunteers. One of the methods of recruitments is to convince existing groups that they are both fighting for the same cause. They want them to think that their small struggle can be part of larger, more global agenda. An example of this happened in 2006 when a jihadist group which previously known for

targeting the Algerian ruling regime, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC by its French initials) joined the Al Qaeda organization. Al Qaeda made this announcement on September 11, the anniversary of its attack on the United States. In a few months, the GSPC changed its name to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This is just one example of a minor guerilla operation becoming a limb of the larger international Al Qaeda. One of the leading pull factors for these small organizations is that Al Qaeda does not demand sole allegiance. It promises to support the struggles of these groups, but at the same time giving them the opportunity to make a bigger global impact. This whole assimilation process is long because there are often disagreements in the ranks about these two fights. They disagree on which fight is more important, the smaller local one, or Al Qaedas larger international Agenda. In the case of the GSPC, the process took 4 years, and it is still incomplete. During its assimilation process, the GSPC changed it course of action slightly as it began targeting not just Algeria, but France as well. It began to accept different priorities with influences from Al Qaeda, such as focusing more on U.N and Israeli targets, as well as Algerias energy infrastructure, which had previously not interested them. Acquiring these affiliates gives Al Qaeda a larger sphere of influence, getting them closer to their larger targets. The affiliating organizations have their own benefits to such deals. They can acquire more fighters, smuggling networks, and money. Money is the largest interest, because without it the rebel fighters have no way of affording explosives and paying their operatives salaries. When they join Al Qaeda they are given this along with stipends for families of caught operatives, arranged travel, and bribes to local governments. While there are many positive aspects of these mergers, there are also some evident downfalls. The largest is the lack of control. With so many groups, it is nearly impossible to control every single one, especially those from remote areas. There have been instances where smaller organizations have

fought their own battles that do not go along with Al Qaedas beliefs, yet they used the banner of Al Qaeda. In such instances Al Qaeda must decide whether to denounce these organizations and lose their followers, or to ignore the consequences. Even after the death of Osama bin Laden, there are many affiliates that are active today. Al Qaeda in Pakistan is still active despite the deaths of several of its key leaders. This is the core of Al Qaeda, and since bin Ladens death it has been run by Ayman al Zawahari who still provides guidance to its affiliates. It has kept its original goal of attacking the United States. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula poses the greatest threat to the United States. Since its beginning there have been three attempts to attack the United States, the most popular one being the attempted underwear bomber. Al Qaeda in Iraq has regained most of its control since the withdrawal of American troops. It supports several other organizations, such as the opposition in Syria. These three countries are only some of Al Qaedas followers, showing that it has gained global influence to a certain degree, and there is a cause for worry. In this paragraph I would like to mention two attacks that Al Qaeda was involved in. On March 11, 2014 there was a bombing in the Madrid rail way station in Spain. 202 people were killed and around 1,400 more people were injured. Soon enough evidence emerged that the responsibility lay in Al-Qaeda. About a dozen suspects were arrested, most of them Moroccan. Several of them blew themselves up during a police raid in order to not be captured. Many Spanish citizens put the blame on their prime ministers support of the United States and the war in Iraq for making Spain a target. Another instance occurred on July 7, 2005 when four bombs exploded in three subway stations and on one double decker bus in London during the morning rush hour. 700 people were wounded and about 52 were killed. A group named the Secret Organization of Al-Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility, saying the attacks were in response

to Britains involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two examples of attacks also show the globalization of Al Qaeda, and how the organization has spread out its targets with the help of its smaller organizations. In conclusion, by looking at Al Qaedas global financing, recruitments, and attacks it is evident that this organization has made a large global impact and will continue to do so. By involving countries such as Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others, there is much prospect to be expected in the future. Although it is growing weaker in aspects of leadership it may not be long before Al Qaeda may regain its composure and once again be as strong as it used to be.

Works Cited Aryanfard, Ojan. "Beyond Al-Qaeda: Pari 1, the Global Jihadist Movement and Beyond AlQaeda: Part 2, the Outer Rings of the Terrorist." Air & Space Power Journal. 23.1 (2009). Print. Byman, Daniel L. "The History of Al Qaeda." The Brookings Institution. N.p., 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2014 Laub, Zachary. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq (a.k.a. Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria)." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 09 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2014 "Al Qaida's Affiliates and Allies." MI5.gov.uk. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. Aryanfard, Ojan. "Beyond Al-Qaeda: Pari 1, the Global Jihadist Movement and Beyond AlQaeda: Part 2, the Outer Rings of the Terrorist." Air & Space Power Journal. 23.1 (2009). Print.