Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a broad term for both terrorist organization and a "brand name" of affiliates, all centered around reestablishing the Caliphate through armed jihad. "Terrorist" is used here as a familiar term, but it will be avoided in the rest of this article, at least with respect to military targets, to avoid distracting discussion of whether terrorism must include civilian targets. Asymmetrical attack is apt to be a more neutral description.

As opposed to the Taliban and other extreme Salafists, they are not necesssarily anti-modern, but opposed to what they see as a distinctly non-Muslim lifestyle. Ironically, however, it is useful to think of it them in terms of Western marketing of a brand identity, franchises, and imitators. Again searching for useful Western metaphors, its thinking is much closer to Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations than to more unifying paradigms from Francis Fukuyama or Thomas Barnett. Indeed, Barack Obama's Cairo speech of April 2009 attacks some of the core assumptions of al-Qaeda, which assume a zero-sum game and no concept of coexistence.

While it is certainly strongly Islamist, wants a return of the Caliphate, and seeks Muslim unity, as in Michael Scheuer's analysis of Abu Jandal, it is not as Salafist as the Taliban. Indeed, Abu Jandal himself spoke of takfir groups as far more extreme than bin Laden.

Doctrine and affiliations

One translation of al-Qaida is "the base". It cannot be overemphasized that al-Qaeda, certainly as it evolved from its beginning, is not a centralized hierarchy like a conventional military. It is decentralized, sometimes funding rather than directing, and sometimes with no direct connection other than individual training and inspiration. Even in its directly controlled operations, with a signature of simultaneous attack, it still used "mission-type" orders and left the details of execution to the operational cells.

A current analysis breaks the idea of the al-Qaeda "brand" into four levels, perhaps overlapping:

• Al-Qaeda Central is the remaining pre-9/11 core, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri with replacements for senior leaders such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Mohammed Atef. This contains the most professional operatives reserved for the high-value "spectacular" attacks such as the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa and the 9-11 attack. For such operations, teams are deployed well in advance, and may take support only from local organizations.
• Al-Qaeda Affiliates and Associates are groups that have received significant funding, training and cooperation from the core. These include the groups in the Philippines, Bosnia, Indonesia, Chechniya, etc.; Jemaah Islamiya under Hambali was one of the most closely affiliated, as was Al-Qaida in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Bin Laden wanted to join these into a global jihad, create a "critical mass" of worldwide operations, and establish reliable affiliates that could either provide local support to operations from the core or launch attacks that would complement ore operations.
• Al-Qaeda Locals with members, often individuals, that have had training and even operational experience with the core, but now operate with only minimal direction. Ahmed Ressam is one such example; he had belonged to the Armed Islamic Group, received training from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. For his opeation, however, he had only nonspecific instructions to attack the United States, was given only seed money, and told to recruit his own cell members.
• Al-Qaeda Network are local individuals and groups with no direct connection to the core, but who follow its ideology. They may carry out sophisticated attacks; the 2004 Madrid bombings appear to have carried out such a group.

Its immediate predecessor was the Services Office created to support the Afghanistan War (1978-92) by Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden. It was joined by Egyptian Islamic Jihad under Ayman al-Zawahiri. They, in turn, trace their origins to modern Salafism, articulated in part by Azzam and by the late Sayyid Qutb, derived from the medieval concepts of Ibn Tamiyya.

The group has been conducting terrorist operations since the mid-1990s, including the 9-11 attack, when its leadership was in Afghanistan. It has become a distributed worldwide organization, but the leadership is believed to be in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Group", however, does not mean the same thing as it would in a Western business or government organization. At various times, the shorthand "al-Qaeda" may have referred to the actions of bin Laden as an individual, of the Services Office and other support groups, of "al-Qaeda central", of groups allied with Al Qaeda, or of local cells of individuals that either simply are motivated by al-Qaeda principles or perhaps obtained seed money but no operational diection.

Origins

Its lineage began with the Services Office Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) in Pakistan, supporting the resistance in the Afghanistan War (1978-92), a Pakistan-based group supporting the Afghans, but also helping foreign volunteers, especially Arabs, to come to Afghanistan. Abdullah Azzam was its leader, with Osama bin Laden as his deputy. Bin Laden had an informal relationship with the Saudi General Intelligence Department (GID), international Islamic organizations and Saudi-backed Afghan leaders. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it had no contact with Bin Laden during this time, although they did interact with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which, in turn, worked with GID. The CIA, however, did fund a U.S. division of the Services Office, al-Khifa.

In the summer of 1989, Azzam became concerned with the approach of bin Laden and Zawahiri, who wanted to expand the fight. Azzam's concern was finishing Afghanistan, and then dealing slowly with other Muslim states. Zawahiri wanted to act against Hosni Mubarrak of Egypt. Bin Laden thought worldwide. Others were concerned with Pakistan. Zawahiri told his son-in-law, Abdullah Anas, that he was worried about Bin Laden if he stayed with the radicals: "This heaven-sent man, like an angel; I am worried about his future if he stays with these people."

Services Office

Azzam and bin Laden had been extremely close, but their differing interpretations of jihad caused an irrevocable break. Azzam was assassinated in November 1989; there are many conjectures but no consensus on who did it. Bin Laden took over the Services Office, which had a U.S. branch called al-Khifa. There are links, although not definitive ones, between either MAK and al-Khifa and terrorist acts before the formal founding of al-Qaeda, and before bin Laden's fatwa declaring war against the U.S. Al-Qaeda's actions often do not follow a strict organization table; there may well have been informal support or actual support under a cover identity.

Al Qaeda

According to Bergen, the first written mention of "al Qaeda", in the sense of an organization rather than a physical base, was in an article by Abdullah Azzam, in April 1988.

Every principle needs a vanguard to carry it forward and, while forcing itts way into society, pus up with heavy tasks and enormous sacrifices. There is no ideology, neither earthly nor heavenly, that does not require such a vanguard that gives everything it possesses in order to achieve victory for this ideology. It carries the flag all along the sheer endless and difficult path until it reaches its destination. This vanguard constitutes the solid base (al Qaeda al Sulbah) for the expected society.

A meeting in August 1988 dealt with organizing the new group, which, in part was seen as needed due to problems with MAK. "Al Qaeda is basically an organized Islamic faction; its goal will be to lift the word of God, to make His religion victorious: Requirements to enter al Qaeda:

• Membership of open duration
• Listening and obedient
• Good manners
• Referred from a trusted side
• Obeying statutes and instructions of al Qaeda"

Also in 1988, bin Laden met Ayman al-Zawahiri at a hospital in Peshawar. In some respects, they were alike: religious fundamentalists that functioned in complex modern fields. In other respects, they were quite different, but offered things that the other needed; they were allies, not friends. Their alliance took them in a direction other than each had planned individually.

Al-Zawahiri had little interest in Aghanistan, but realized he could use bin Laden as a sponsor to rebuild his Egyptian organization. Bin Laden's first priority was forcing an invader out of a Muslim land, then, in a diffuse way, to punish the "far enemy" of the West for crimes against Islam. Where bin Laden had money and energetic youthful volunteers, al-Zawahiri had seasoned leaders and both organizational and geopolitical skills. Al-Qaeda represented a compromise among the views of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and Azzam.

Al-Qaeda proper was created in 1989, organized by Abu Ayoub al-Iraqi and bin Laden. Volunteers gave an oath of bayat to bin Laden. Their motivation was to carry on after the Soviets left. Some reports put its creation in 1988; there are also reports of terrorist acts where the jihadists, outside Afghanistan, were in contact with the Services Office. Besides bin-Laden and al-Zawahiri, others have been associated with its formation, such as Abu Ayoub al-Iraqi. Their immediate followers changed with time and war; Mohammed Atef was the first military commander, killed in action. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed worked with bin Laden, but did not formally swear allegiance (bayat) until some years later.

First operations

Its first combat operation was the siege of Jalalabad, in 1989, where bin Laden demonstrated himself to be brave but tactically unskilled. He and his followers, often Arabs motivated by martyrdom, participated in the Afghan civil war until 1992, when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Azzam was killed in November 1989. Bergen observed that bin Laden was not in Afghanistan at the time, but that it was to bin Laden's ideological advantage to have Azzam dead. Azzam, he felt, was the only man with the moral authority to control the more extreme jihadists. He believes the killing probably was by a combination of Egyptian militants, possibly in concern with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. An Egyptian journalist, Faraj Ismail, bad quoted Azzam as saying the Arabs should not take sides in the Afghan conflict. Azzam had spoken well of Ahmad Shah Massoud, whom Hekmatyar hated.

Gulf War

Bin Laden had come home to Saudi Arabia and witnessed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He offered his fighters to the Saudi government, who infuriated him by accepting Western troops on Saudi land. Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence, saw bin Laden's personality change after that meeting, "...from a calm, peaceful gentle man interested in helping Muslims to a person who believed he would be able to amass and command an army to liberate Kuwait. It revealed his arrogance and his haughtiness."

Complaining overtly, they stripped him of his citizenship. Exiled to Sudan, his hate for the Saudi royal house continued to motivate him.

Sudan period

At this point, from 1992 to 1996, al-Qaeda was principally a centralized organization, operating under the patronage of Hassan al-Turabi. Eventually, al-Turabi expelled them, but not before al-Qaeda had supported the Somalian resistance.

During this period, al-Qaeda both conducted operations, and began its pattern of cooperating with other militant groups, some of which would later merge. One of these, Jamaat al-Islamiyya or the Islamic Group, was an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, was a spiritual leader of the Jamaat al-Islamiyya faction that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and possibly other operations in the U.S.

East Africa

Al-Qaeda carried out a series of programs against the Western involvement in Somalia. It began with a December 1992 of a hotel in Aden, Yemen, used by American military personnel traveling to the U.S. component of the UNISOM II relief operation, Operation RESTORE HOPE. Bin Laden issued a fatwa in 1993, telling Somalis to attack and eject Americans.

Its first clearly identified attack against Americans was a December 1992 bombing of a Yemeni hotel in Aden used by American soldiers traveling to Somalia to participate in Operation RESTORE HOPE. By April 1993, bin Laden issued a fatwa calling upon all Somalis to attack American forces and eject them from their country; he sent trainers and planners, including Mohammed Atef, to Somalia. They played a role in the Battle of Mogadishu on June 5.

Richard Clarke wrote that al-Qaeda never planned to stay in Somalia, and, while it believed the U.S. had "cut and run" under pressure, it was convinced that the U.S. had been humiliated. Clarke asked, rhetorically, if Clinton was right not to respond, with massive force, to the U.S. casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu? He said he is not sure if anything the U.S. could have done would have deterred al-Qaeda, no matter how many Somalis died.

Balkans

After the Somalia conflict, al-Qa’ida sent Arab fighters, led by leadership of Shaykh Anwar Shaaban and Amir Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros, to Bosnia, to fight with Muslims under to fight alongside their Muslim brothers.

This refined al-Qaeda's techniques, including recruiting and training local fundamentalists, as well as channeling funds through Islamic charities and NGOs, creating the complex al-Qaeda financing networks. Clarke said that the high worldwide visibility of the Bosnian, as opposed to the Chechen, conflict was ideal for al-Qaeda's psychological goals. He wrote that the U.S. did not recognize what would become an al-Qaeda signature:

• former mudjahedeen arrived and formed an Afghan Arab force
• "arrangers", logisticians, financiers, and "charities" set up support networks

The Bosnians, according to Clarke, would rather not have had the "muj", who were exceptionally savage in battle; this was an observation later made about Chechens in Afghanistan Nevertheless, the Bosnians took aid where they could; Iran sent guns and al Qaeda sent men.

The support networks involved charities including the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, the Benevolence International Foundation in Chicago, the International Islamic Relief Organization in Saudi Arabia, and others. Key al-Qaeda personnel in Bosnia would include:

• Abu Sulaiman al-Makki, a cleric who was next to bin Laden when the latter praised the 9-11 attack,
• Abu Zubair al-Haili, arrested in 2002 for plans to attack U.S. ships from Gibraltar
• Ali Ayed al-Shamrani, who would be beheaded by the Saudis for the 1995 bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard
• Khalil Deek, arrested in December 1999 for planning Millenium attacks in Jordan
• Fateh Kamel, part of the Canadian Millenium cell with Ahmed Ressam

North Africa

In August 1994, two Spaniards shot to death three French Muslims in a hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco. The investigation was reported to have established telephone contact between the killers and the Office of Services, and learned that the suspects had been in Afghanistan.

Four Algerians belonging to the Armed Islamic Group hijacked an Air France jet in December 1994, apparently planning a suicide attack on the Eiffel Tower, but French counterterrorists diverted them to Marseilles and successfully killed them in a raid there.

Middle East

The Middle East is no stranger to terrorism, and, just as it was unwise to leap to the conclusion that the Oklahoma City bombing was done by foreign jihadists, not every asymmetrical attack in the Middle East is affiliated with al-Qaeda or its ideology. A given target, such as an American or Saudi military installation, may be of interest to the essentially Sunni al-Qaeda, but the actor may be Shi'a, perhaps with Iranian sponsorship as with the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. Those convicted for the 1995 bombing of the Saudi Arabian National Guard claimed to be "inspired" by al-Qaeda, but al-Qaeda operational control is less clear.

Other attacks, such as the 1997 Luxor massacre of tourists, was conducted by the Islamic Group, some of whose members later affiliated with al-Qaeda. Assuming that every attack traces back to al-Qaeda is exactly what is desired by its "brand identity" concept.

Yemen had always been a high priority for bin Laden personally. In 1999, an attack on the destroyer USS Sullivans (DDG-68) failed when the suicide boat sank just after launching. The USS Cole was successfully attacked in Yemen in October 2000. These operations had been directed by Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who headed al Qaeda operations in the Arabian Peninsula until his arrest in November 2002, who had earlier fought in Afghanistan beginning in 1996, and probably joined al Qaeda in 1997 or 1998.

North America

Several significant terrorist incidents took place in the United States before Bin Laden's formal fatwa in August 1996, as the “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” (i.e., Saudi Arabia). Some of the participants were associated with al-Khifa, the U.S. branch of the Services Office. Al-Khifa had been under surveillance by the New York Police Department and FBI since 1988; it clearly reported to Abdullah Azzam but bin Laden's, and al-Qaeda's involvement was less clear.

On November 5, 1990, an Egyptian El Sayyid Nosair shot and killed Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in New York City, as well as two others as he made his escape. Two accomplices found in his apartment were arrested: Mohammed Salameh and Mahmoud Abouhalima. They were linked to al-Khifa.

Nosair was found to be heading military training at a Jersey City, New Jersey mosque, of which Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was a spiritual leader. Rahman, who had been associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad and suspected in its 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, had been on a terrorist watchlist but managed to enter the United States.

Ibrahim el-Gabrowny, Nosair's cousin, went to Saudi Arabia to receive $20,000, from, Osama bin Laden for Nosair's legal fees. According to the New York task force, Nosair and Aboualima were being linked outside the U.S., but nothing was definitive. Nosair was acquitted of the Kahane killing but convicted of the two others in 1991.

In 1992, Ramzi Yousef arrived in the U.S., and linked up with the Jersey City cell, meeting with Abouhalima, and then moving into Salameh's apartment. "Yousef was the catalyst," said Charles Stern, one of the FBI agents in the subesequent 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation. "Either somebody sent him over and said hook up with these guys or someone here reached out overseas and said we need a guy." Yousef was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was not yet associated with bin Laden. According to these investigators, while bin Laden did not know Yousef, he was funding Rahman, and it is argued that the 1993 bombing was an "affiliate" operation of al-Qaeda although generally not considered under its direction.

Back to Afghanistan

El-Hage had visited Nosair in prison and also acquired some weapons for Abouhalima after the Kahane murder.

9/11 Period

The 9/11 Attack was known, within al-Qaeda, as the "Planes Operation". Since al-Qaeda knew when it would happen, it had prepared; the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud on 9/9 was a probable way to cripple local reaction in Afghanistan.

The team had its own manual that justified violence by emulating the moment in early Islamic history when Muhammad canceled contracts with non-Muslims and organized raids (ghazwa) against the Meccans in order to establish Islam as a political order. No statement in the manual explicitly identifies the United States as the financial, military, and political center of the turn-of-the-21st-century non-Muslim world; rather, such identification is tacitly assumed, as was shown by the action itself. Instead, the manual prescribes recitations, prayers, and rituals by which each member of the cells should prepare for the ghazwa. Not the objective aim but the subjective intention is at the center of the manual.

Location after 9/11

While it cannot be overemphasized that al-Qaeda is a mobile and decentralized organization, its leadership is, most likely, primarily in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan: the Federally Administered Tribal Area (especially South Waziristan), Northwest Frontier Province, and Balochistan Province. While these are physical locations in Pakistan, there is considerable movement across the border.

The exact relationship between the original Afghan Taliban and today's al-Qaeda is not as clear as when al-Qaeda operated from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the Taliban leadership is generally assumed to be in the Quetta area.

Organization

Many analysts now call al-Qaeda a "franchise" or "brand" rather than a monolithic organization. The core ran a number of operations, but, even early on, used decentralized execution in the field.

Core

The spiritual head of al-Qaeda is called the Emir (Commander), presumably Osama bin Laden. He interprets religious guidance but is not himself a theologian; there is controversy if he does have the authority to issue fatwas. He has an inspirational goal, and exercises authority through the shura council.

Al-Qaeda's majlis al-shura Council sets policy, based on the Quran and religious documents (for example, the writings of Qutb), ensure guidance from the Emir is followed, approves fatwas, and authorize major terrorist operations. Its decisions are binding, if and only when a quorum for shura consultation is reached, through regularly-scheduled or emergency sessions and by preserving the principle of secrecy—often decided by secret ballots. Members are picked by the Emir.

It consists of bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, a general secretary, and averages between 7 and 10 total members.It supervises the work of the six major committees: Military, Political, Information, Administration-Financial, Security, and Surveillance.

Military Committee

Responsible for preparing young Islamic freedom fighters, training and organizing them for combat, and teaching them tactical and technical skills. Also develops and implements procedures for the greater fighting forces in accordance with Islamic law. The committee is subdivided into five separate divisions:

• President
• training-combat
• training-operations,
• nuclear weapons section
• library and research section.

Political Committee

The "foreign ministry" of al-Aqeda, which deals with its relations to organizations, whether Islamic republics or other jihadi organizations. It is organized into:

• president of the committee
• representative to the president
• political section
• operational political officers.

It focuses on religious interpretation within the political interactions available to it, and "spreading the brand."

Information Committee

Al-Qaeda understands the role of information operations; the committee has a wider range than psychological warfare alone. The committee does produce political intelligence. Its goals are to:

• Proselyze the ca;; upon all Muslims to embark on a personal jihad in the name of Islam.
• Spread and enforce the general rules and concepts of al-Qa’ida ideology (includes salafism, Qutbism, and when necessary, takfir).
• Conduct information operations to spread the ideology and ignite global jihad. Attack the West wherever and whenever possible and do so in accordance with the shari’a.
• Uncover, reveal, and exploit the weaknesses of secular governments and nationalist parties. Reinforce the importance of Islamic jihad as each Muslim’s individual mission.

Administration and Financial Committee

The functions of this committee may appear mundane, but have to operate within a context of protecting them from financial intelligence It provides salaries, vacations and leave, disability and medical benefits, as well as severance benefits. It does accounting, safeguards funds, provides loans if needed, and oversees financial policies and services for the organization. Loans may seem odd, until it is realized that two of its major defectors, L'Houssaine Kherchtou and Jamal al-Fadl, broke away over financial issues.

Security Committee

Responsible for counterintelligence, this committee guards the leadership as well as operations, and deals with host countries. Led by a committee chairman, the committee is comprised of a lesser council and an executive branch composed of:

• investigations section,
• imprisonments and torture section
• documents section
• coordination and relations section.
• guard detail
• security education.

Surveillance Committee

This is the intelligence arm of al-Qaeda, about which little is known in the open literature.

Affiliates

Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was formed by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a U.S. air strike in June 8, 2006. He appears to have been succeeded by Abu Ayyub al-Masri. It is not clear if Al-Masri has been captured.

Al-Qaeda set up the Islamic State of Iraq, was created, possibly headed by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Iraq claimed to have captured him in April 2009.

Zarqawi was at first an affiliate of al-Qaeda and had not sworn allegiance. His goals differed from the core al-Qaeda concepts. A letter, claimed to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri to him, was intercepted on July 9, 2005. The authenticity has not been confirmed, and could Iranian or American black propaganda. Nevertheless, it does address some of the known differences. According to the letter, Zawahiri sees four medium-term goals:

1. Expel the Americans from Iraq
2. "Establish an Islamic authority or emirate over whatever Sunni territory in Iraq can be brought under its control. This stage must be prepared for during the struggle to expel the Americans, Zawahiri warns, in order to prevent other forces from taking power. ... The fledgling emirate must also expect to be in a constant state of war with an enemy who is trying to prevent the stability necessary for the emirate to become a Caliphate.
3. "Extending the jihad to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."
4. The clash with Israel, which could be done in parallel with some of the other goals

Longer-term goals, which may be critical of Zarqawi's approach to inciting Sunni-Shia fighting, include:

1. "homogenizing Islam by “correcting mistakes of ideology among Muslims that is, the conversion of all Muslims not simply to Sunni Islam, but also to the Wahhabi school and the elimination of the Ashari-Matridi school and others. This goal cannot be achieved by force or in a short time; it is not the role of the mujahidin, but calls rather for generations of proslytizing (dawa) and education.
2. "expansion of the Islamic Caliphate throughout the whole of Iraq, al-Shamâ Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine Egypt, and the Arabian peninsula. Even these are not final borders, however, as the Caliphate is eventually supposed to spread its domain over the entire Land of Islam (Dar al-Islam) from North Africa to Southeastern Asia, and ultimately, over the entire world.

The letter emphasizes that Islamic principles of "shura consultation recommending good and forbidding evil. It should also be based on the ahl al-al wal-aqd ahl ar-ray (those who allow and bind) and the ulama who are experts in sharia."

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, developed from an Algerian group. The precursor split from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in 1998, because that organization's violence was seen as counterproductive. While some have suggested the name change was intended to revive the Algerian insurgency, others regard it as seriously considering actions throughout North Africa and Europe, and possibly beyond. Its leader in 2008, Abdelmalek Droukda, appeared to have allied, in 2004, with al-Qaeda forces in Iraq. He cited Ayman al-Zawahiri as key to the alliance, as well as the U.S. declaration of AQIM as a terrorst group rather than a regional insurgency. "We found ourselves on the blacklist of the U.S. administration, tagged with terrorism. Then we found America building military bases in the south of our country, and conducting military exercises, and plundering our oil and planning to get our gas.”

The degree to which it is a threat to Europe, rather than principally focused on Algeria and its neighbors, is uncertain. "Their ambition is to attack in Europe, but I wouldn’t hard-sell it,” said Gilles de Kerchove, the head of counterterrorism for the European Union. “I wouldn’t say AQIM is poised to attack in Europe.”

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (APAP) was formed from the merger of Saudi and Yemeni groups. It is believed to be headed by Nasser al-Wahishi, a Yemeni who escaped from a prison in Sanaa in 2006. This is a newer "affiliate" than the others, and seems to have learned from the others. As opposed, in particular, to operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, the group is largely "home-grown" and cooperates much more effectively with existing tribal structures. "They've worked hard to put deep, and what they hope are lasting, roots that will make it very difficult for them to be rooted out of Yemen," says Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University. "They've done a good job of looking at the mistakes that other versions of al Qaeda have made elsewhere."

"As long as Qaeda respects the tribes, some tribes will welcome them," says Sheikh Abdulqawi Sherif, the head of the pro-government Bani Dhabian tribe, whose land borders Mareb and Shebwa provinces, two areas where al Qaeda cells are based. Gen. Yahya Saleh, nephew of Yemen's president and the head of one of the country's counterterrorism forces, acknowledges the alliances some tribes have with al Qaeda.

Still, he says, "the tribes in Yemen are practical. They know there will be a heavy price to pay for harboring al Qaeda, and more and more, [the tribes] will not be willing to pay that price."

It had been operating locally, as with a suicide bombing against Korean tourists in March 2009, , but it appears responsible for the attempted suicide bombing of a U.S. aircraft on 25 December 2009.

The Saudi elements escaped to Yemen after intensified security in 2004 and 2005. In February 2006, 23 Yemeni prisoners escaped from the main prison in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Two of those escaped prisoners – Nasser al-Wahishi (or Wuhaishi) and Qasim Al Raimi – now head AQAP, although Saeed al-Saudi Shahrani has also been described as al-Wahishi's deputy. "Two former Guantanamo Bay detainees, and graduates of the Saudi rehabilitation program, appeared in a video announcing the merger and assumed senior positions (although one later left and surrendered to Saudi authorities). The group went public just days after U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration and vow to shut Guantanamo."