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Osama bin Laden turns 50
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| 09 March 2007 |
Osama bin Laden turns 50
Osama bin Laden's principal contribution to jihadism has been strategic rather than ideological. By declaring war on the US, he sought to unite the fractious jihadist movement against a common enemy. Fawaz Gerges argues in his book The Far Enemy that "a small minority of jihadis, transnationalists led by Al-Qaeda, a network composed of several tiny militant groups, launched a systematic onslaught to hijack the whole jihadist movement and strategically change its direction and destination".
The 11 September 2001 attacks were not intended to cow the US into pulling its troops out of the Middle East, but to provoke an aggressive response that would lead to a protracted conflict and encourage Muslims to join the jihadist movement, much as the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan had done in the 1980s.
Although the war initially went badly for Al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, Bin Laden got what he wanted when the US invaded Iraq, outraging vast numbers of Muslims and opening a new jihadist front in an Arab country in the process.
Contemplating victory
Al-Qaeda will claim any US retreat from Iraq as a great victory and will look to complete the next phase in its strategy, the establishment of an 'Islamic state'. This intention is clear: Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its allies are already operating under the name Islamic State in Iraq, which claims western and central Iraq as its territory.
However, victory in Iraq would undermine the unifying factor behind Al-Qaeda's current success. While many Muslims see the Iraq conflict as a legitimate defensive jihad against a non-Muslim occupation, far fewer will support an offensive jihad intended to impose strict sharia in peaceful Muslim countries. So far, Islamic takeovers have only been possible in the most desperate, war-ravaged countries, namely Afghanistan and (briefly) Somalia.
Al-Qaeda also faces the possibility that the jihadist movement will again fragment as its adherents refocus on overthrowing the regimes in their home countries. While the destruction of Israel will remain the ultimate objective, the jihadists are likely to become divided over the best way of achieving this goal and the tactics that can be justifiably used. With many Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Syrian jihadists focusing on their home countries, the movement's energies are likely to be stretched, even as popular support for the movement wanes.
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© 2007 Jane's Information Group
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