Share this story!            

Al Qaeda now a generic term

WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda has become a generic term and often misleading and erroneous terminology is in use to describe Islam and Islamic groups and concepts, according to an analysis published this week.

Stratfor, a news and political analysis service available to subscribers, argues that the contradictory and often-erroneous terminology used in the media, in popular discourse and occasionally by informed experts regarding the phenomenon known as militant Islamism has made it difficult to understand the concept and to distinguish between the various types of Muslim militant actors.

“We see the actors called terrorists, fighters, militants, radicals, rebels, insurgents, extremists and fundamentalists, while the ideology itself is called Islamic, Islamist, Wahabi or jihadist. The use of these and other such terms interchangeably not only leads to hyper-confusion, but also creates problems from a counter-terrorism perspective. Moreover, the use of the Al Qaeda label as a generic term for any and all types of Muslim militants has created the perception of a global monolith, despite efforts to nuance the term with phrases such as ‘Al Qaeda-linked,’ ‘Al Qaeda-inspired,’ ‘affiliated with the Al Qaeda network’ and such,” the analysis points out.

Stratfor explains that it is important to understand that ‘Islamist’ – not ‘Islamic’ – is the accurate term to refer to the militants’ ideology, which seeks the establishment of a government that implements Islamic law. Calling them ‘Islamic’ is problematic because it fails to underscore that these Muslim militants – individuals and groups – are a small subset of the Muslim world. Using the term ‘Islamic’ confers legitimacy upon these actors, implying that they are indeed representing the religion of Islam and the vast majority of Muslims. Furthermore, even the term Islamist cannot be used generically to identify all types of Muslim militant actors. Some Muslim militants are ideologically secular. The vast majority of Islamist groups are moderates. Many Islamists are close allies of the US, such as the two main Iraqi Shia groups, Hizb al-Dawah and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Stratfor writes that beyond the moderate mainstream of Islamism are two types of actors –radical and militant. The former espouse a radical agenda, but do not use violent means. Hizbut Tahrir, the trans-national group calling for the re-establishment of the supranational caliphate, is one such example. The latter group, comprising militants, does espouse violence, which is why it is important to use the term “militant Islamist” when defining such groups. Groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, are ideologically Islamist and have nationalistic goals. They maintain armed wings to fight what they perceive as foreign occupation, but when it comes to achieving their goals of establishing an Islamic polity, they engage in mainstream electoral politics. On the other hand, there are ‘jihadists’ who seek to establish an Islamic state by waging “holy war” against the current regime. Al Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan in Central Asia are such groups. According to Stratfor, “While all jihadists can be referred to as Islamist militants, not all Islamist militants are jihadists. Even among jihadists, there are those who operate within a given state, such as the Taliban, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Algeria, and Jamaat al Mujahideen in Bangladesh. These are different from groups with a regional agenda – including Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia and the Chechen group led by Shamil Basayev – that want one Islamic state to encompass a region.”

Turing to Al Qaeda, Stratfor points out that the global movement operates across continents, with branches, affiliate entities and ties to independent Islamist militant operators whose goal is to fight the US presence in the Arab or Muslim world and establish an Islamic polity encompassing as many parts of that world as possible.

The Chechen militants exhibit jihadist tendencies, in that they seek to establish a regional Islamic state in the North Caucasus, and at the same time are fighting Russia. The same can be said of some of the militant groups in Kashmir who are separatists and have the establishment of Islamic rule as their objective. There is also the issue of Wahabi or Salafi ideology. Although not all Wahabis are jihadists, it would be safe to say that most jihadists are Wahabi. The first jihadist groups – such as Tandheem al-Jihad, Gamaa al-Islamiyah, and Takfir was al-Hijrah – were all born in Egypt as militant offshoots of the moderate Muslim Brotherhood. “Nowadays, jihadism has morphed into an extreme brand of the Wahabi ideology – although even to this there are exceptions.

The Taliban movement is one example. The Taliban are not Wahabi in their creed, as they follow the Maturidi School of Islamic theology. Deputy Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri noted this in his letter to the network’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an effort to moderate al-Zarqawi’s extreme Wahabist views. Although the Arab footprint is quite obvious in almost all Islamist militant groups, ethnicity is a huge determining factor as well, which would explain why infighting was reported between Arab and Central Asian militants among the Al Qaeda ranks hiding out in northwestern Pakistan. In other words, jihadists are also a sub-category within the wider Islamist militant universe,” Stratfor states. khalid hasan

Home | National

Share this story!