Al-Qaida in the Arabian
Peninsula
From Transnational Network to Local Political Actor in
Yemen
MASTER THESIS MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES
2018-2019
ANNIEK DIMMENDAAL
University of Amsterdam 1 July 2019
Abstract
Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the largest and best equipped branch of the Al-Qaida network. In 2009, AQAP was officially created by the merger of Al-Al-Qaida in Saudi-Arabia and Al-Qaida in Yemen. Since then, the jihadist organisation has worked further on the strong foothold that Al-Qaida in Yemen had created in Yemen since the early 1990s due to president Saleh’s policy of incorporating the returning ‘Afghan Arabs’ into his patronage system instead of containing them. This thesis argues that Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula developed from a branch of the transnational Al-Qaida network into a local political actor embedded in the Yemeni context. AQAP interwove itself into Yemeni tribal culture, by respecting tribal norms, adapting their narrative to the Yemeni context and by marrying into the tribes. Furthermore, this thesis argues that AQAP has evolved into a dynamic and learning organisation demonstrated by AQAP’s capability to govern Mukalla in 2015-2016. During its time in Mukalla, AQAP involved the local population in the governing bodies, it refrained from installing the harsh hudud punishments, it provided services and development programs for the people, and it continued paying government salaries.
AQAP’s unique position is strengthened when its ideology and strategy is compared to the other radical Islamist organisation in Yemen, Islamic State in Yemen (ISY). This comparison explains why AQAP has been relatively successful, since ISY has failed to take root in the Arab country. ISY lacked the ability to adapt to the local context and used extreme violence, in contrast to AQAP. Furthermore, ISY’s disrespect for tribal customs and rules has alienated it from the local population. Based on this analysis, it is concluded that a more locally attuned approach works better in gaining the support or the tolerance of the local population than an internationally oriented approach.
When looking at the current position of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, it is noted that AQAP is able to create alliances within the Yemeni context. Its most remarkable alliance is the temporary cooperation with Saudi-Arabia in order to fight against the Houthi’s. This is remarkable because Saudi-Arabia is one of AQAP’s identified enemies. The fact that AQAP is capable to set aside one rivalry for the other, proves that AQAP is a local actor that is aware of and participates in the political game.
Maps of Yemen
The figures below present the situation in Yemen. The first two figures show the provinces and cities of Yemen. The third figure displays the situation in Yemen as of March 2019, including Al-Qaida presence.
Figure 1: Provinces of Yemen
Content
Page
Introduction 1
Theoretical Framework 3
The Evolution of Al-Qaida 13
The context of the 1970s and 1980s 13
The birth of a new foundation 15
Al-Qaida in Yemen 17
Conclusion 19
AQAP in Yemen: Ideology and Success 20
Ideology 20
Finding a stronghold: exploiting Yemen’s weak state 23
Conclusion 27
AQAP in Yemen’s War: Position in the Political Field 2015-2019 29
Changing political scene 2011-2015 29
Governing Mukalla 2015-2016 31
Rivalries and alliances 33
Conclusion 37
The other jihadist group: AQAP vs. IS 38
Islamic State in Yemen 38
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula versus Islamic State in Yemen 39 The Secret of AQAP’s Success and the Failure of the Islamic State in Yemen 41
Conclusion 45
Conclusion 46
Introduction
In 2009, a video appeared on the internet, displaying four men seated on the floor. Dressed in Islamic gowns, surrounded by weapons and an Islamic flag, the four men declared the merger of the two branches of Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaida in Yemen.1 This was the start
of what would become Al-Qaida’s most dangerous branch: Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Originally attacking only Western targets both in the Arabian Peninsula as well as abroad, AQAP eventually also proved itself an enemy of the Yemeni government.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a branch of the larger al-Qaida network, once set up by the internationally known jihadist Osama bin Laden. Originally from Yemeni descent, the Saudi-born Bin Laden has created world’s first globally oriented violent jihadist network. But Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not solely a result of Bin Laden’s network. This thesis examines how Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula evolved into the strongest branch of Qaida and how the Yemeni state played a role in that development. It focusses on Al-Qaida’s evolution from the context of its creation to the position of Al-Qaida in the current crisis in Yemen. In doing so, this thesis argues that the AQAP branch of Al-Qaida cannot be labelled as simply waging a ‘cosmic war’. This is a term used by scholars such as Mark Juergensmeyer to define an imagined battle between metaphysical forces.2 A character of
parties that are waging a cosmic war, is that they do not possess a political program nor a clear strategy. This is also argued by Olivier Roy.3 However, by examining AQAP’s history
in Yemen, its ideology and its position in the political field in Yemen, this thesis shows that the Al-Qaida branch in Yemen has evolved into a true political actor in the region, with a strategy and that the label of ‘cosmic war’ is no longer fully applicable to AQAP.
In order to examine how AQAP evolved into a political actor, articles from a wide range of sources are used. These include academic literature, journalistic articles and studies of independent organisations such as International Crisis Group. Various studies on AQAP’s stance and ideology are brought together to explain AQAP’s position in Yemen. The timeframe that is used in this thesis starts from the 1970s until 2019, but the focus of the research lies on the years 2000 to 2019. Due to the nature of this thesis, it is insurmountable to avoid the use of Arabic terms. The transcription of Arabic words is done according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI3) transcription method.
1 BBC, ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11483095, 15 June 2019.
2 Juergensmeyer, Mark, ‘Cosmic War’, p. 1. In: Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion, online publication in 2016.
The theoretical framework explains the six theoretical concepts this thesis is based upon. Fundamentalism, Islamism, Salafism and jihad are explained in order to correctly define AQAP’s character. Mark Juergensmeyer’s concept of ‘cosmic war’ is explained. The theory of ‘failed states’ is set out in the theoretical framework, because it is applied in the thesis to explain Yemen’s role in the rise of AQAP. The next chapter examines the creation of AQAP by explaining the context of the 1970s and 1980s and the rise of international jihad. Attention is also paid to the former central figure of Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, and to the start of Al-Qaida in Yemen. This chapter is followed by a chapter on AQAP’s ideology, which is explained by using previous studies on the topic and AQAP’s online magazine. Specific attention is being paid to AQAP’s various narratives and different audiences AQAP intends to reach. Based on AQAP’s ideology and goals for Yemen, this chapter also examines why AQAP does not simply wage a cosmic war in Yemen and how AQAP made use of Yemen’s weak state. Here, the concept of ‘failed states’ as explained in the theoretical framework is applied to the case of Yemen.
The subsequent chapter focusses on AQAP’s position in the political field in Yemen during the civil war that erupted in 2015. This chapter examines how AQAP governed the city of Mukalla during 2015 and 2016 and explores AQAP’s rivalries and alliances during the ongoing conflict. This chapter also argues why the ‘cosmic war’ concept cannot be applied to AQAP based on its ability to govern and to create alliances. The chapter thereafter compares AQAP with Yemen’s other jihadist group: Islamic State in Yemen (ISY). In this chapter, the differences between AQAP and ISY are discussed and AQAP’s relative success is compared with ISY’s failure in Yemen. The thesis ends with a conclusion that reflects on the analysis of AQAP given in the previous chapters and looks ahead on AQAP’s future in Yemen.
Theoretical Framework
Al-Qaida as a radical Islamist movement is often misinterpreted and mispresented, not only in the media, but also in the academic field. Orientalism and its perception of Islam and Muslim societies as one global and timeless cultural system still prevail in some circles. It is important to understand radical Islamist movements such as Al-Qaida not in the context of orientalism, but by taking into account the historicity of Islam in Muslim societies. Muslim societies have been sociologically diverse and political practices changed through time. Terms like ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘jihadists’ are interchangeably used in the media. In order to understand the development and position of Al-Qaida in Yemen, six concepts that form the foundations of this thesis are explained in this chapter. Fundamentalism, Islamism, Salafism and the notion of jihad in Islam are used to explain the character of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in this thesis. It is followed by an explanation of ‘cosmic war’ based on Mark Juergensmeyer. This concept is usually applied to Al-Qaida, but this thesis argues that it is no longer applicable to the AQAP branch. The last concept, that of failed states, is applied to Yemen in order to explain how AQAP was able to create a foothold in Yemen.
Fundamentalism
The term ‘fundamentalist’ was first used by American Protestants who were looking to rescue American Christianity from what they perceived as modernism in theology, rationalism in philosophy and materialism in life. They fought against liberalism, Darwinism and secularism by returning to the fundamentals and considered the Bible to be authoritative in theological issues as well as historical, geographical and scientific issues.4
Olivier Roy describes Islamic fundamentalism derived from the class of ulama and
mullahs, the body of lettered men within Islam, who have had a quasi-monopoly on
intellectual production and teaching. There was a trend of institutionalizing the clergy, but this derived from the states in the Arab world and not from the clerics. The main goal of ulama and mullahs is to implement sharia. In this regard, there is no specific attention paid to the political system. In classical Islamic thought the treatises reflecting on governing discuss the nature of the ruler and the government, rather than the nature of politics. The fundamentalist clergy therefore limits itself to implementing the sharia, without regard to the political system.5
4 Euben, R. ‘Fundamentalism’, in: Böwering Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, 2012, p. 179. 5 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 28-29.
These fundamentalist ulama never took the power to implement sharia.6 It were
always secular persons who realized the program of fundamentalist ulama, namely the political leaders of a country or a group. According to Olivier Roy, two currents are to be distinguished among Islamic fundamentalism. The first is traditionalist, meaning that they accept the continuity between the founding texts and their commentaries. They follow taqlid, which means imitation of what was concluded before and includes refusal to innovate and to reinterpret the texts. Traditionalists thus do not interpret the texts themselves, but rather use the large canon of commentaries on the texts. The traditionalists follow one of the four legal schools: Shafiism, Malikism, Hanafism and Hanbalism, named after the principal scholars.7
The second current is reformist fundamentalism. This current criticizes the tradition and the popular religious practices. It rejects imitation and claims to return to the founding texts.8 It is
this current that is most interesting for the subject of this thesis, Islamism
Islamism can be defined as the contemporary movement that considers Islam to be a political ideology, as much as a religion. Therefore, not only spiritual life should be based on Islam, but also practical life, including the state, should be based on Islamic teachings.9 Islamism
considers Islam to be a complete and universal system, a system that does not have to ‘modernize’. But Islamists do apply this system to a modern phenomenon, namely modern society in which economic, political and social authorities are recognized.10 It is interesting to
note that Islamists themselves are products of modern society, as both Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy point out. Islamists are rarely religious scholars, but have gone through the modern educational system. They often come from urbanized families or the impoverished middle class. They are the young generation of rural families now living in cities, with access to education and information, but without social progress. Even though they are educated and some even possess university diploma’s, unemployment rates are high in countries such as Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan. Unemployed and lacking of hope for a better future, these educated men turned to organisations that prescribed revolution and the promise of a better future during the 1970s and the 1980s.11 Roy adds that the crises in other ideologies also 6 With the exception of Iran, but as the focus lies on a Sunni jihadist organisation in this thesis, namely Al-Qaida in Yemen, we leave Iran out of the picture here.
7 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 30-31. 8 Ibidem, p. 31.
9 Ibidem, p. ix.
10 Roy, Olivier, Globalized Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 58.
11 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & CO, p. 66-67. And: Roy, Olivier, The
explains the Islamist gains in intellectual milieus. The failure of the Arab socialist model and the general loss of prestige of progressive ideologies, opened up space for a new protest ideology to emerge.12 Gilles Kepel argues that the traditional bourgeoisie of Islamic societies
also played a role. According to Kepel, the bourgeoisie had been casted aside during the process of decolonization and through Islamist movements they could find a new position within society.13
Furthermore, Islamists also make use of the modern, urban settings they are in. This is evident from among others the modern weapons and communications technology they use, as well as the large demonstrations they organize in cities.14 Contrary to how it presents itself,
Islamism is thus not an archaic phenomenon. It is actually quite modern. Islamist movements are a combination of the call to fundamentalism and the sentiment of anti-colonialism or simply anti-Westernism and anti-secularism.
Islamism adopts a severe stance against the ulama, based on several reasons. The first reason is that Islamists consider the ulama as servants of the regime in place. Institutionalization of the Islamic clergy came from the states, not from the clergy itself. In 1961 for example, Nasser’s regime in Egypt linked the Al Azhar institute directly to the state, depriving it of its independence and credibility.15 When states institutionalize the Islamic
clergy, states hold power over who gets what position within the Islamic clergy. Ulama then rely on the state for the possibility to carry out their work. This makes them accepting of the state and conforming to it, rather than conforming to the sharia, argue the Islamists. Thus, Islamists do not trust the ulama to do what is right for sharia. The second reason is that ulama accept Western modernity whereas Islamists reject it: the ulama accept the separation of religion and politics, which eventually leads to secularization. And ulama maintain the tradition where Islamists reject it: the ulama maintain the traditions of indifference to modern science and reject political and social action. Furthermore, the Islamists’ are not religious scholars themselves and the policy of opening the gates of ijtihad entails that the ulama’s monopoly over the texts is broken, as everyone has the possibility to reinterpret the founding texts which used to be the right of only the ulama.16
Both Olivier Roy and Gilles Kepel argue a distinction can be made between currents in Islamism, based on the perception of how an Islamic society should be established. The currents acknowledge the necessity to control political power, but their approaches differ.
12 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 50-52. 13 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & CO, p. 66-67.
14 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 3-4. 15 Ibidem, p. 52-53.
Olivier Roy divides the Islamists into two currents: the moderate Islamists versus the radical Islamists. The moderate Islamists promote re-Islamization from the bottom-up. In practice, this means preaching the masses and establishing sociocultural movements to involve the masses in the re-Islamization process. At the same time, moderate Islamists pressure the leaders of the country to introduce sharia into legislation. Apart from Islamization bottom-up, there is thus also a top-down factor in their Islamization plan. This form of Islamism can be found in the first Islamist movements, in the ideology of Hasan al-Banna in Egypt and Mawdudi in Pakistan. They argued that revolt could only take place if the state took a severely anti-Islamic stance and if all means of peaceful protest had been exhausted. The radical Islamists argue that there is no compromise possible with current Muslim society. They therefore argue that political rupture is necessary.17
Gilles Kepel describes the different currents within Islamism based on the approaches of three main Islamist thinkers: Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, Mawlana Mawdudi of Pakistan and Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. Qutb argued that a clean break with the established order would be best. For Kepel, Sayyid Qutb’s thought represents militant Islamism. Mawdudi considered that the establishment of an Islamic state should be undertaken gradually, through political involvement: moderate Islamism. Khomeini created a revolution based on a coalition of all interested parties: the middle class, the disinherited, intellectuals on the radical spectrum and clerics, in a revolutionary form of Islamism.18
The militant or radical Islamist current finds its ideological origin in the work of the Egyptian Muslim Brother Sayyid Qutb. As a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, he was imprisoned by the Egyptian state in the 1950s and the 1960s, and eventually sentenced to death for his writings on Islam and jihad in 1966. His book ‘Ma’alim fi al-Tariq’ sets out his ideology which is based on two concepts: jahiliyya and takfir. Qutb argued that existing governments and societies of Muslim countries have returned to jahiliyya, which is the condition of ignorant pre-Islamic societies. Leaders of such governments that are only in name Muslim, should be declared infidels, which entails the second concept, takfir: the act of declaring someone who claims to be Muslim as an infidel.19 According to Sayyid Qutb,
Muslims have the duty to revolt against such Muslim rulers that are considered to be non-Islamic. This revolt may also contain violent action.20 Moderate Islamists reject the concept of 17 Ibidem, p. 41-42.
18 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006, p. 23-24.
19 Qutb, Sayyid, Milestones, USA: SIME journal, 2005, p. 28-29. And: Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political
Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 41-42.
takfir, because they follow the tradition of the ulama, in which an unjust power is still
preferable over fitna, division of the community.21
Salafism
Salafist reformism was a response to European colonialism in the 19th century. In the 19th
century, European countries colonized various Arab and other Muslim countries. Religious leaders in these countries launched the call for jihad against the European colonizers and unified tribes by imposing sharia instead of local common laws. The idea of the Muslim world as being backward rose from the colonization and the inability of the Muslim countries to fight it. During the second half of the 19th century, this current of thought addressed the
idea of the backwardness of the Muslim world and found a solution for it. Returning to the ancestors, by rejecting common law and rejecting the tradition of the ulama, would rid the Muslim world of this perceived backwardness. The return entailed the right to individual interpretation, also known as ijtihad, of the founding texts. The gates of ijtihad were reopened after ten centuries of orthodoxy.22
According to Quintan Wiktorowicz, one of the leading scholars on Islamic ideology, Salafism can be divided into various factions: purists, politicos and jihadi Salafists. These factions share a common religious creed, which comprises of three parts: the concept of
tawhid, which is the unity of God, the notion that God is supreme and entirely unique and the
notion that God alone has the right to be worshipped.23 The three factions differ in how they
apply this creed to the new issues and problems of the modern world. The purists emphasize the promoting of the Salafi creed and combat deviant practices. They tend to steer away from political action because they believe that as long as society does not yet understand the tenets of faith, political action will lead to injustice and corruption. Hence, the purists do not view themselves as a political movement. The politicos on the other hand, do favour political action. This faction arose during the 1980s and 1990s when more politically minded Salafi scholars became critical of incumbent regimes. A specific milestone in the rise of the politicos was when the purists of Arabia issued a fatwa that permitted American troops in Saudi-Arabia. The politicos challenged the purists and considered them blind to the political world they lived in. The politicos are thus politically involved, but do not call for a revolution. The jihadi Salafists on the other hand, are the Salafi faction that favours violence to establish
21 Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 42. 22 Ibidem, p. 31-33.
23 Wiktorowicz, Quintan, ‘Anatomy of the Salafi Movement’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, nr. 3 (2006), p. 208-209.
Islamic states. This faction was established during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The jihadi Salafists argued that the purists were either ignorant about the political world or they were consciously hiding the truth from the people. The jihadi Salafists portray the purists as the ‘ulama of power’, implying a close relationship between the purists and the state, which in turns undermines the independence of Islamic interpretation. This is contrasted with the politicos and the jihadi Salafists, which they frame as honest.24
With its goal of returning to the way of the ancestors and establishing an Islamic state, and its violent approach in doing so, Al-Qaida can be labelled as a jihadi Salafist organisation and a radical Islamist organisation.
Jihad
Salafi jihadists build their theories of revolt against the state around the Islamic concept of jihad. The concept of jihad is not a timeless, fixed concept but evolved through time. In the early days of Islam, classical theory describes jihad in legal works which are part of sharia, the Islamic body of law. Jihad is then referred to as military campaigns by Muslims against non-Muslims who refuse to accept Islam or refuse a protected status under Muslims. In this sense, jihad is a collective duty, meaning that if a number of persons in that society were to perform jihad, it would not be necessary for others to do so. In general, the offensive jihad is considered to be a collective duty, whereas the defensive jihad is considered to be an individual duty.25
Specifically with the rise of European colonialism, jihad as an Islamic concept went through a development. The notion of jihad changed from a legal or jurisprudential term to an ideological and political discourse. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan for example, a modernist Indian thinker, argued that the true nature of jihad is the defense of the faith. Jihad must therefore be waged only against those who obstruct the faith and its performance. He argued that Indian Muslims were not obliged to fight their British occupier in the 19th century, as the British did
not obstruct the performance of Islamic faith.26 Mawdudi considered the traditional pillars to
be phases of training and preparation of jihad, which he defined as the holy war to build an Islamic state through full participation in the political system of Pakistan. He argued that Pakistan should be an Islamic state created by Islamization from above.27 And Sayyid Qutb
defined jihad as the obligation of every Muslim to fight against every force, especially
24 Ibidem, p. 217-228.
25 Hallaq, Wael B., Shari’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 324-325.
26 Ibidem, p. 336.
Muslim rulers that are considered not Islamic enough, in order to install the sharia and to build the truly Islamic society. In his theory, violence can be used for this goal.28
In the 1980s, a university professor in Saudi Arabia who would become important to Al-Qaida’s notion of jihad joined the resistance in Afghanistan. His name was Abdallah Azzam and he was of Palestine origin. At the Abd al-Aziz University of Jeddah, one of his students was Osama bin Laden.29 Later, the two would remain in contact and they would work
together as they both supported the jihad in Afghanistan.30 Abdallah Azzam’s defined jihad as
an obligatory duty for all Muslims. In his definition, jihad becomes obliged when Muslim land is occupied by non-Muslims. In that case, the inhabitants of that land must join the jihad. If the inhabitants fail to do so, or if their jihad is not enough to cast out the occupiers, then the obligatory nature of jihad extends to those around them until it involves all Muslims.31 Azzam
wrote a specific set of rules for Muslims defining who has to join the jihad: all able Muslims should join jihad, including the cripple that can still perform other tasks than fighting and the women, which may travel to the place of jihad with a non-marriageable male guardian and can perform duties such as education nursing and assisting refugees. Only the severely ill and the Muslims that cannot find someone else to financially take care of their family in their absence are allowed to refrain from joining jihad.32
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula frequently uses the word ‘jihad’ in its online magazine Sada al-Malahim. Jihad is in this magazine presented as a defensive jihad, meant to remove foreign elements from the Arabian Peninsula and to overthrow the ‘apostate’ regimes of Saudi-Arabia and Yemen. The end goal of their jihad is to build a caliphate ruled by Islamic law. In convincing their readers of the importance of jihad, AQAP frames jihad as the main pillar of Islam.33 An extensive description of AQAP’s narratives, including that of jihad,
can be found in chapter two.
It is also important to note that in violent Islamist movements, the term jihad is often used to legitimize violence. Jihadist movements, like Al-Qaida and Islamic State, use violent attacks in order to achieve their goals. Portraying these attacks, which at time might cost a lot of lives and harm others, as part of a holy war legitimizes the violent strategy that is used. In
28 Tripp, Charles, ‘Sayyid Qutb’, in: Rahnema, Ali, Pioneers of Islamic Revival, London: Zed Books Ltd, 1994, p. 158-171.
29 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2014, p. 144-146. 30 Ibidem, p. 315-316.
31 Al-Azzam, Abdullah, ‘Join the Caravan: Part three: Clarifications about the Issue of Jihad Today’, p. 425, in: Donohue, John J. and John L. Esposito, Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
32 Ibidem, p. 428-429.
33 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 158-162.
the narrative of jihad, all victims of these violent attacks serve a higher purpose. Their death is thus not in vain if it is portrayed as jihad, a holy war.
Cosmic war
In the early 2000s, Mark Juergensmeyer, an American scholar in sociology, global studies and religious studies, developed his theory of ‘cosmic war’. He defines a cosmic war as “an imagined battle between metaphysical forces – good and evil, right and wrong, order and chaos”.34 The actors who are involved in a cosmic war, believe they are carrying out a divine
duty and are supported by God. He does not limit the theory of cosmic war to one religion, but argues that every religious tradition has these images of grand battles with a divine value.35
According to Juergensmeyer, cosmic wars have various characteristics. In a cosmic war one party views the other not merely as the enemy but as pure evil. Thus, as long as the other party still exists, one’s own existence cannot be secure. In a cosmic war, it is therefore unlikely to negotiate a truce, since the parties will not accept its own flaws and consider the fight as a battle between metaphysical forces, a battle that comprises of more than just this world. Actors of a cosmic war do not have a clear political program, nor a clear strategy, because their sole goal is to defeat those that they perceive as evil.36 A cosmic war provides a
worldview for those who accept it. It provides a clear distinction between good and evil, it provides moral justification for the violence that is used and it promises victory in the future. A cosmic war thus empowers its participants, as it gives them the feeling they understand what is really going on in the world, and it gives them the license to act upon this secret knowledge they have. They get the strong feeling that eventually they will win, albeit not in their own lifetimes, but perhaps in the lifetimes of others that come after them. But regardless of when their victory occurs, they will enjoy the promise of personal redemption and a heavenly reward.37
When discussing this concept, Juergensmeyer mentions Al-Qaida as one of the examples of movements that fight a cosmic war. Other authors, such as Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American scholar of religious studies, also continue to work on defining cosmic wars
34 Juergensmeyer, Mark, ‘Cosmic War’, p. 1. In: Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion, online publication in 2016.
35 Ibidem, p. 1.
36 Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Berkely: Univeristy of California Press 2000, p. 149-155.
37 Juergensmeyer, Mark, ‘Cosmic War’, p. 8-13. In: Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion, online publication in 2016.
and consider Al-Qaida to be an example.38 Olivier Roy, a French political scientist and
experienced researcher of Islamist movements, also argues that Al-Qaida does not have a political program nor a strategy.39
Failed states
The notion of a ‘failed state’ was developed based on the problematic nature of some ex-colonial states. While these states gained sovereignty as they gained independence from their colonizers thanks to changes in the international system, they lacked internal legitimacy. They thus possessed what is called ‘negative sovereignty’.40 Due to this lack of legitimacy, a state
does not succeed in creating an effective infrastructure of law, government and policy-making. When this infrastructure fails to take root, the central state is not in control.41 Violent
movements such as radical Islamist movements, but also criminal gangs or other armed non-state actors, often thrive in these situations. They compete with the non-state for control, resulting in violent struggle.42
Failed states are also defined as being incapable of providing the basic conditions for the population, such as security, education, economic opportunity and a legal and judicial framework.43 Failed states by definition are unable to provide security and to control their
borders. In a failed state, the state often merely controls the capital city and the area around it. But in other areas of the state, the citizens are exposed to insecurity and violence, caused by the competition for power and control among various armed groups. Failed states contain weak institutions and democratic debate is absent. The bureaucracy has lost its sense of professional responsibility and solely carries out the orders of the executive power. The armed forces are highly politicized.44 Furthermore, in a failed state the only effective educational and
health systems have been privatized. In state education and health institutions, the employees are paid late or not at all. This causes financial insecurity and on the long term poverty for employees of state facilities. Materials become scarce and absenteeism of students and employees rises. Economic opportunity is provided only for a privileged few, those close to
38 For example in Aslan, Reza, ‘Cosmic War in Religious Traditions’, p. 6. In: Jerryson, Michael, Mark Juergensmeyer and Margo Kitts, Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, p. 1-9. But also in Aslan, Reza, How to Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Islam, Cornerstone 2009. 39 Roy, Olivier, Globalized Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 55 and 325.
40 Jackson, Robert, Quasi-state, Dual Regimes and Neoclassical Theory: International Jurisprudence and the
Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 26.
41 Scruton, Roger, The Palgrave McMillan Dictionary of Political Thought, London: McMillan Publishers Ltd, 2007, p. 240.
42 Ibidem.
43 Rotberg, Robert, ‘The New Nature of Nation-State Failure’, The Washington Quarterly, nr. 3 (2002), p. 85. 44 Ibidem, p. 87.
the ruler, whereas the people are left to fend for their own. Corruption and starvation are widespread in failed states.45
When a state does not provide the basic conditions for its populations, or only uses what is left of its capacity to support a few or the favoured ethnicity or community, the nation-state loses its basic legitimacy and its authority is questioned. Citizens become more and more aware of the fact that the state has abandoned them and they become loyal to their own community or tribe, which becomes the only source of security and economic opportunity they can rely on. These sections of citizens, either divided in communities, tribes, clans, or other groups, derive support from external and internal actors. They start to compete for power and autonomy, in order to ensure survival.46 And thus, a violent struggle beings.
During that violent struggle, when the central state struggles for its survival, the state also becomes what Noam Chomsky calls an ‘outlaw state’: a state that refuses to comply with international laws and treaties. The leadership of failed states dismiss principles as laid out in international treaties in this stage, such as to honour human rights, to reject the use of force for reasons other than self-defense and to recognize that agreements bind all parties involved. In general, failed states thus exempt themselves from the laws of war and other international norms.47
The Evolution of Al-Qaida
45 Ibidem, p. 88-89. 46 Ibidem, p. 90.
47 Chomsky, Noam, Failed States: the Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, London: Hamish Hamilton Penguin Group, 2006, p. 38-39.
This chapter contains the history of Al-Qaida in general, by examining the context in which Al-Qaida was created in the 1980s and the role of Osama bin Laden. Specific attention is paid to Yemen as the home country of one of Al-Qaida’s branches and the attacks that were carried out on US targets in Yemen. The chapter continues with an explanation of American-Yemeni relations concerning the presence of Al-Qaida in Yemen and ends with a conclusion on how Al-Qaida waged a cosmic war in its early years.
The context of the 1970s and the 1980s
The roots of Al-Qaida can be traced back all the way to the 1970s. The 1970s were turbulent years and in 1979 a series of events shocked the world: the holiest place of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca, was taken over and occupied by rebel forces in Saudi-Arabia; the Islamic Revolution in Iran followed by the occupation of the American Embassy in Tehran and the hostage-taking of its staff; the Soviet Union rushed to Afghanistan to help the communist government fight against the Afghan resistance. These events should be seen in the context of the Cold War of the 20th century. The United States were humiliated in Iran on the one side,
and threatened with an expansion of communist influence in Afghanistan on the other side. In order to counter the influence of the Soviet Union, the United States supported the Afghan resistance. Transnational Islamic religious networks initiated the call for a jihad in Afghanistan and soon Islamic scholars with recognized credentials issued fatwas stating that the Soviets invaded the territory of Islam. A defensive jihad was proclaimed meaning all able Muslims should participate. The Afghan mujahedeen were soon joined by jihadists from all over the world. For the first time in world history, training camps and centres in neighbouring Pakistan were the stage of immense gatherings of international Islamists.48
The fact that the parties of the Afghan resistance resided on Pakistani soil, amidst millions of refugees that fled from war-torn Afghanistan, also led to the spread of Islamist militant ideas among Afghan refugees. Being far from their tribal areas and torn away from the tribal structures, the traditional Islam with its emphasis on symbolic sites, the land and the hierarchies of tribal society lost against militant Islam. Young Afghans were educated in the camps through the networks of the militant parties present in Pakistan, both the Hezb party and the Deobandi madrassa networks.49 This would form a strong basis for the Taliban.
The Afghan resistance was perceived by the West as freedom fighters, fighting against the oppressive communist regime. The Saudis and the Gulf states perceived the Afghan
48 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006, p. 136-139. 49 Ibidem, p. 142.
resistance as the vanguard of the Umma, the Muslim community, and the jihad, as a counter movement against the Shi’i Islamic Revolution in Iran that threatened the domination of Saudi-Arabia in the region. From both parts of the world, the West and the Arab countries, the Afghan resistance received substantial financial aid. The Afghan resistance was largely made up of several parties with their bases on Pakistani soil. Both American and Arab aid came through channels of the Pakistani government and the Pakistani government of General Zia ul-Haq favoured the group that was closest to it, the Hekmatyar’s Hezb party, a radicalised Pashtun majority party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A large share of the financial aid thus went to the Hezb party.50
In order to be sure that the financial aid the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia intended for the Afghan resistance arrived at the right place, Saudi-Arabia sent Saudi volunteers to the Pakistani-Afghan area to serve as correspondents of the Islamic humanitarian agencies. In the beginning, Saudi-Arabia was thus not only aware of Saudi citizens going to Pakistan or Afghanistan, but also supported it. In the 1980s, these ‘Arab Afghans’ as there were called, came not only as correspondents for the Saudi government, but also as combatants in the jihad. A key figure among them was Abdallah Azzam: a Palestinian university professor. In the 1970s he had been teaching at the Abd al-Aziz University in Jeddah, where one of his students was Osama bin Laden.51 In 1985 Azzam founded his magazine ‘Al Jihad’, which he
used to convince Muslims it was their duty to join the jihad in Afghanistan, using the theory of the defensive jihad in which Muslims must defend Muslim territory when it is invaded by non-Muslim forces.52
Meanwhile, the gathering of international jihadists in camps and centres in Pakistan initiated a socialization of Islamist networks. In the 1980s special jihad tours were organised for rich Saudi youngsters that wished to experience jihad themselves.53 They would spend
several weeks in summer camps, including a trip across the border into Afghanistan and opportunities to take photographs on location. This was a comfortable way to let them experience jihad and inspire them to continue the fight back home. Eventually, the gathering of Islamist networks turned into a radicalization process. Among the Islamists gathered on Pakistani soil, one could find a lot of experienced activists who had already served prison
50 Ibidem, p. 140-142.
51 Porter, J.M.B., ‘Osama bin Laden, Jihad, and the Sources of International Terrorism’, Indiana International
and Comparative Law Review, nr. 3 (2003), p. 879.
52 Al-Azzam, Abdullah, ‘Join the Caravan: Part three: Clarifications about the Issue of Jihad Today’, p. 425, in: Donohue, John J. and John L. Esposito, Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
sentences in their own countries. The states that had once jailed them were often relieved to see them disappear beyond their borders. Those experienced activists were educated men, often fluent in English, competent with computers and they were financially supported by private Arab benefactors that sympathised with the cause.54 It was here that Osama bin Laden,
the founder of Al-Qaida, entered the scene. The birth of a new foundation
Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi-Arabia in 1957. He was the son of the Yemeni immigrant Mohammed bin Laden and his Syrian wife Alia Ghanem. When he was three years old, his parents divorced and his mother married Mohammed al-Attas who raised Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was raised in a wealthy environment in a family that was close to the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia. He was educated at the King Abdelaziz University of Jeddah, at which he met Abdallah Azzam. According to his family, it was this period at the university in Jeddah that Osama bin Laden came in contact with people that formed his extreme ideology.55
In the early 1980s Osama bin Laden travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to help in the fight against the Soviet occupation.56 Saudi and American support of the Afghan resistance soon
ceased to exist. For Saudi-Arabia, the struggle with Iran for power in the Islamic world no longer presented the threat it did a decade earlier. It turned out that the Islamic Revolution in Iran did not spread to other countries, as Saudi-Arabia had feared. For the United States, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the consequent Soviet withdrawal from Afghan territory meant that the Afghan question was taken off the list of America’s strategic priorities. Furthermore, Washington became alarmed by the involvement of mujahedeen leaders in the heroin trade in Afghanistan and Arab states expressed concern about the possibility of Afghanistan falling into the hands of Islamist extremists that found refuge in the Afghan mountains. In this context, both the United States and the Arab states ceased their support for the Afghan resistance and the jihadists in Afghanistan were left to fend for their own.57
Born into a wealthy family, Osama bin Laden brought part of that wealth with him to Afghanistan. By 1986, Osama bin Laden had established several camps of his own within Afghanistan. In 1988, Bin Laden started to keep record of all the jihadists and other
54 Ibidem.
55 Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, p. 72-80. 56 Ibidem, p. 100.
volunteers who came through his camps. This gave birth to an organizational structure named Al-Qaida, or The Base. For reasons that are still unclear, Bin Laden had broken with his former teacher and later partner in Afghanistan, Abdallah Azzam, in 1988. Abdallah Azzam was mysteriously murdered in the year thereafter. By then, the Saudi regime became seriously concerned by Osama bin Laden’s activities in Afghanistan. As a result, he was detained when he visited his homeland.58 It was then that Saddam Hussein took preparations to invade
Kuwait and Osama bin Laden offered the Saudi regime the services of his jihadist network to defend the Saudi frontier. Instead, the Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia called in the troops of an international coalition led by the United States. With the help of family contacts, Osama bin Laden managed to escape the country and positioned himself against the Saudi regime and the presence of non-Muslim troops on Arabian soil. Bin Laden found safe haven in Sudan, from where he helped other jihadists that were no longer welcome in Pakistan, to find work for them in Sudan and in Yemen.59
Criticising the royal Saudi family and calling for the jihad against the American presence on Arabian soil, it did not take long before Osama bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship. International pressure on Khartoum increased, and Osama bin Laden was expelled from Sudan.60 Once again, bin Laden found himself in the mountains of Afghanistan
from where he released an official statement in 1996, the Declaration of Jihad against the
Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.61 In this document bin Laden argued
that a defensive jihad was justified because the Americans had invaded Muslim lands. He also stated that people must rise against the Saudi royal family, since they had invited troops of the United States on their soil. In order to establish a devout Islamic caliphate, the Americans must be driven out of the peninsula, he argued.62
In 1998, Osama bin Laden created the International Islamic Front against Jews and Crusaders. The Front included the Egyptian al-Jihad Group, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a few leaders of Islamist cells in India. The founding charter of the Front stated that “to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it”.63 Shortly thereafter, the United 58 Ibidem, p. 315-316.
59 Ibidem, p. 316.
60 Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, p. 195 and p. 220-225. 61 Ibidem, p. 234.
62 Salem Press, ‘Osama bin Laden’s Declaration of Jihad against Americans’,
https://www.911memorial.org/sites/default/files/Osama%20bin%20Laden's%201996%20Fatwa%20against %20United%20States.pdf, 1 May 2019.
63 Open Source Center, ‘Tekst of Fatwa Urging Jihad against Americans’,
States’ embassies in Kenya and in Tanzania were simultaneously destroyed by bombings. It was then that Osama bin Laden officially became a wanted person by the United States, and a price of 5 million dollars was placed on his head.64
Al-Qaida in Yemen
During the 1990s, the Al-Qaida network became active in the Arabian peninsula, leading to several attacks aimed at US personnel. In December 1992, two bombs went off in a hotel in Aden, where US military personnel stayed while on their route to deployment in Somalia. In November 1995, a bomb exploded at a joint military facility in Riyadh: five members of the American military personnel lost their lives. In June 1996, a bomb in Dhahran, Saudi-Arabia, killed another 19 US citizens. These bombings and the attacks on the US embassies in Kenia and Tanzania led to a heightened state of alert among the US military. This, however, could not prevent the next large attack on US military personnel in Yemen. On 12 October 2000, the U.S.S. Cole entered the port of Aden to refuel. A smaller boat carrying large bombs approached it and when the bombs exploded, a large hole was created in the U.S.S. Cole and killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded many others.65 In response, Yemeni officials arrested
suspects Fahd al-Quso and Jamal al-Badawi. They also identified Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri as a suspect in the bombing. In the year thereafter, several videos circulated on the internet with statements and chants from Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida, implicating that they are responsible for the attack. Finally, in 2004, the suspects Fahd al-Quso, Jamal al-Badawi, Maamoun Msouh, Ali Mohamed Saleh and Murad al-Sirouri were charged and sentenced in court. Yemeni authorities also stated that all six defendants belong to the Al-Qaida network. In 2007, Sudan is found indirectly responsible for the attack by the US, for its support to the Al-Qaida network.66 In 2019, president Donald Trump of the United States announced that the
primary suspect of the attack, Jamal al-Badawi, who managed to escape from jail shortly after his sentence, was killed during an airstrike in Yemen.67
On September 11, 2001 the US were confronted with the largest attack on its soil. The attack on the Twin Towers in which almost 3000 people lost their lives, was soon claimed by Osama
64 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006, p. 319-320.
65 Report of the House Armed Services Committee Staff, The Investigation into the Attack on the U.S.S. Cole, May 2001, p. 1-5.
66 CNN, ‘USS Cole Bombing Fast Facts’, https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/18/world/meast/uss-cole-bombing-fast-facts/index.html?no-st=9999999999, 7 May 2019.
67 CNN, ‘Trump: US military killed terrorist behind USS Cole bombing’,
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2019/01/04/politics/uss-cole-al-badawi-killed/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fedition.cnn .com %2F2013%2F09%2F18%2Fworld%2Fmeast%2Fuss-cole-bombing-fast-facts%2Findex.html%3Fno-st %3D9999999999, 7 May 2019.
bin Laden. The hijackers that carried out the attack had different Arab backgrounds and were instructed and trained by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attack. They were also able to travel around several continents to carry out their preparations relatively freely in the years before the attack.68 The fact that the hijackers were able to prepare the attack
undetected, caused great worry within the United States. After the attack on 9/11, president George W. Bush launched his ‘war on terror’ for revenge but more important, to prevent such attacks on the US in the future. Bush’ ‘war on terror’ put Yemen high on Washington’s priorities list as the United States believed that numerous jihadists found safe haven in Yemen’s territories. As a result, the US administration started pressing the Saleh government to begin aggressive counterterrorism operations against Al-Qaida in Yemen.69 Eventually, the
Yemeni government was willing to cooperate with the US counterterrorism policy in Yemen, if the US involvement would be kept secret. In 2002 and 2003, the US carried out airstrikes in Yemen that did great damage to Al-Qaida in Yemen. In 2002 its leader, Abu Ali al-Harithi, was killed and a year later his successor Muhammad Hamdi al-Ahdal was captured.70 The US
announced their role in the killing of the AQY’s leader and the Yemeni authorities were not pleased with this media attention.71
President Ali Abdullah Saleh is believed to have used the Islamists during his reign to cling to power. In the 1990s, he reportedly came to a political compromise with the jihadists returning to Yemen from Afghanistan. Saleh enlisted the fighters to fight for him during the 1994 civil war and included them in the government patronage system in reward for their services.72 With the Islamists roaming free in his country, president Saleh could present
himself to western countries as the strong ruler Yemen needed in the fight against the jihadist threat. He is accused of knowingly letting Al-Qaida figures escape from prison, in order to maintain the jihadist threat in Yemen. One of these escapes is the escape of 23 prominent members of Al-Qaida from the prison in Sana’a in 2006, which revitalized the organization.73
68 The 9/11 Commission, ‘The 9/11 Commission Report’, https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911 Report.pdf, 7 May 2019.
69 Council on Foreign Relations, ‘Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula-aqap, 7 May 2019.
70 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 154.
71 Rugh, William A., ‘Yemen and the United States: Conflicting Priorities’, The Fletcher Forum of World
Affairs, nr. 2 (2010), p. 110-111.
72 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 153-154.
73 The Australian, ‘Yemen terrorists are pawns of power’,
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/yemen-terrorists-are-pawns-of-power/news-story/8ced69cd35d98d3c1972f7ee9b87d247, 7 May 2019.
In the years thereafter, numerous members and leaders of Al-Qaida in Saudi-Arabia crossed the border into Yemen, most likely as a result of successful Saudi counterterrorist actions.74 Yemen provided a relatively safe haven for them to operate from. In January 2009, a
video appeared on the internet in which four men declared the merge of Al-Qaida in Yemen and Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia. This was the start of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).75
Conclusion
The international Al-Qaida network was founded within the context of the 1970s and the 1980s, when the regional powers of the Arab world were struggling for power and the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States drove the US to support the Islamist resistance in Afghanistan. Finally, when both the Arab states and the US stopped their financial and material support for the Islamist movements based in Pakistan but operating in Afghanistan, it was too late. With the help of wealthy Arab benefactors, an internationally oriented jihadi Salafi movement was created: Al-Qaida. Led by Osama bin Laden, this network waged a cosmic war, an imagined battle between metaphysical forces such as good and evil, right and wrong. Al-Qaida did not have a clear political program or a strategy, but was focussed on fighting the enemy they perceived as evil.76 Ironically, its main enemy was
the United States, the state that had contributed to its existence in the first place.
In the next chapter I would like to substantiate that the different circumstances in Yemen, where militants could operate from a relatively safe haven thanks to the policy of former president Saleh, Al-Qaida was able to create its own strategy.
AQAP in Yemen: Ideology and Success
After the formal creation of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in 2009, the combined branch of Al-Qaida proved successful both in Yemen and abroad. This chapter explains the ideology
74 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 154.
75 Long War Journal, ‘Arabian Peninsula al Qaeda Groups merge’,
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/01/arabian_peninsula_al.php, 8 May 2019. 76 Roy, Olivier, Globalized Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 55 and p. 325.
and narratives of AQAP through its magazines, both for local as well as for international public. The second part of this chapter examines the stronghold AQAP was able to create in Yemen by applying the theory of a failed state on the case of Yemen. The chapter ends with a conclusion on how AQAP’s position in Yemen contributed to the development of its strategy. Ideology
In 2008 Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula launched their online magazine Sada al-Malahim (the Echo of Epic Battles), as a result of the unreliability of the mainstream media and the rise of the internet as a new mode of communication. Before the internet-era, jihadist organisations like Al-Qaida had to rely on mainstream media channels such as newspapers and TV stations who decided what content they would spread and when. With the rise of the internet, every organisation in the world was able to communicate directly with its public, keeping complete control of how and when it would communicate their message. AQAP made use of this new communication development and used their magazine in order to spread their ideology and justify their actions. The magazine consists of articles written by local jihadists such as the leader of AQAP Nasser al-Wahayshi, but also articles of well-known international jihadists like Osama bin Laden and jihadi authors, like Abu Mus’ab al-Suri.77
In the magazine AQAP identifies two major issues that demand change. The first is a local issue and it is based on the general Al-Qaida mission to be the vanguard of the uprising of the oppressed.78 This local issue is the illegitimacy of the regime of president Ali Abdullah
Saleh in Yemen, which is characterised by corruption, socioeconomic collapse, unemployment and rising prices, according to AQAP: “The people of Yemen are suffering from the decline of living standards, the rise of costs, and the discriminatory practices of the government in employment […] Oil in Yemen is extracted from Marib, Hadramawt, and Shabwa, so where are the oil revenues?”.79 With addressing this local, Yemeni issue, AQAP
cleverly positioned itself in the Yemeni context, attracting Yemeni’s that suffer under the regime of president Saleh. Due to the high rate of poverty and the low living standards, Yemeni’s would be likely to agree with AQAP’s stance against the president. In taking this stance, AQAP frames itself outside of its Islamic goal to install sharia, but rather focusses on practical, everyday issues that bother the local population.
77 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 150-153.
78 Quiggin, Tom, ‘Understanding al-Qaeda’s Ideology for Counter-Narrative Work’, Perspectives on Terrorism, nr. 2 (2009), p. 20.
79 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 155.
The second issue AQAP addresses in its magazine is an international issue: the Western aggression on Muslims worldwide. This message is based on the overall Al-Qaida narrative that Muslims are under attack by everyone else in the world.80 In the AQAP
magazine this message does include but is not limited to Yemen. The magazine states: “How can we live in peace, how can we enjoy our existence when our vulnerable brothers in Gaza are experiencing excruciating suffering?”.81 In addressing this issue AQAP targets a sense of
injustice and victimhood within the Muslim communities around the world, but also in Yemen. By portraying the West as an evil power that invades Muslim territories, AQAP positions itself as protector of the Muslims. The ideology of AQAP is thus twofold, both local and international. However, for the local problems that AQAP addresses in the magazine, AQAP always finds an external reason behind them. For example, AQAP defines the local regimes they fight against as proxies of the United States, Israel and Europe. They consider the West therefore responsible for all socioeconomic problems in Yemen.82
Interestingly, the magazine differentiates between their targets in the West. Whereas AQAP declares the US its unequivocal enemy, it provides the European Union with an alternative. It states that if the EU withdraws their caricature drawings of the Prophet and presents its apologies and prohibits any further drawings of the Prophet, then the relations between the EU and the Muslims can be repaired.83 This shows that AQAP considers the US
to be the initiator of Western interference in Muslim countries, and not the EU. The US is thus placed on top in their hierarchy of targets. This is fully in accordance with the general Al-Qaida narrative that was established by its founder Osama bin Laden. In 1996 for example he issued a fatwa of ‘jihad against Americans’. The entire declaration was about the United States and he never once mentioned Europe, nor did he issue such a fatwa of jihad against the Europeans or any specific European country.84
In the issues of the magazine AQAP also identified two Muslim enemies, apart from the local and international enemy. The first Muslim enemy are the Shi’ites. Through the magazine AQAP blames the Shi’ites for secretly integrating in Sunni society before taking up arms and taking control. In this narrative the Shi’ites are portrayed as a hypocrite group
80 Quiggin, Tom, ‘Understanding al-Qaeda’s Ideology for Counter-Narrative Work’, Perspectives on Terrorism, nr. 2 (2009), p. 20.
81 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 155.
82 Ibidem, p. 156-157. 83 Ibidem, p. 159.
84 Salem Press, ‘Osama bin Laden’s Declaration of Jihad against Americans’,
https://www.911memorial.org/sites/default/files/Osama%20bin%20Laden's%201996%20Fatwa%20against %20United%20States.pdf, 1 May 2019.
within Muslim communities. In doing so, AQAP tries to invoke a sense of insecurity among Sunni Muslims, because the Shi’i enemy hides among the Sunni’s and could attack at any time. The second Muslim enemy that AQAP identifies are the Muslim collaborators, meaning Muslims working for the American or Israeli armies and the Yemeni security agents that work against jihadi groups. AQAP argues that true Muslims would never work for the West or for Muslim governments that are instruments of the West.85
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula calls for a defensive jihad: a jihad in which able Muslims have to fight to expel the West from Islamic soil and to overthrow the puppet regimes of Muslim countries like Saudi-Arabia and Yemen. Muslims that wish to join the jihad, do not need permission from parents or other relatives as long as they are of an ‘age of understanding’.86 The next element of their jihad is the establishment of a caliphate ruled by
Islamic law. So far, AQAP does not differ from other jihadi groups, like for example the Islamic State. The general policy of jihadi groups is to use violence to achieve their goal of expelling the unbelievers from Muslim lands and to install a caliphate. However, AQAP has shown organisational learning in their way of achieving their goals. AQAP took learning out of the evaporation of support and popularity of Al-Qaida in Iraq and Al-Qaida in Saudi-Arabia after their use of large-scale suicide bombings that also killed numerous Muslim civilians. AQAP therefore recommends the use of selective violence against specific targets that do not risk a large number of Muslim civilian casualties. Apart from defining the targets in the online magazine, AQAP also sets out what weapons should be used and how such an attack can be carried out in a section titled “School of Yusuf”.87
AQAP seeks to motivate Muslims for jihad by using four motivational frames. It emphasizes a Salafi jihadi Muslim identity that values jihad as the sixth pillar of Islam, it creates the perception that Muslims are under constant attack from the West, it creates an imagery of victimization and humiliation in order to shame Muslims into violent jihad and it seeks to inspire Muslims by writing about historical and contemporary jihadists. The martyr section in the magazine contributes to the fourth motivational frame. By writing about the martyrs of AQAP it honours them and inspires readers to seek the same honour.88
85 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 157-158.
86 Quiggin, Tom, ‘Understanding al-Qaeda’s Ideology for Counter-Narrative Work’, Perspectives on Terrorism, nr. 2 (2009), p. 21.
87 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 158-159.
It is interesting to see that AQAP tailors its message to its intended audience. In Sada
al-Malahim two different groups of audiences can be identified. The first is the local Yemeni
audience focussed on everyday issues and suffering from dire socioeconomic conditions and high rates of illiteracy. Messages meant for the local Yemeni’s take the tribal society of Yemen into account. The mode is also different. Research shows that AQAP uses poems in colloquial Yemeni dialect to reach the Yemeni public. This is a very clever way to get a foothold into Yemeni society, where poems are a centuries old way of communicating messages.89 In order to reach other groups that live in Yemen, AQAP also writes about their
specific situation. For example, the article AQAP wrote on the deplorable conditions of Somalis in Yemeni refugee camps. It is also highly doubtful whether Al-Qaida reaches a large number of people through their online magazine in Yemen, as internet access is not widely spread in Yemen. Apart from writing articles and poems, AQAP therefore uses other modes of communication as well. Al-Qaida has for example been seen distributing pamphlets to youth in the governorate of Dhamar, posting bills and handing over CDs at checkpoints. Another popular news-gathering means in Yemen are qat chews: articles are read aloud and discussed during these gatherings. This specific mode of communication also reaches illiterate Yemeni’s.90
The second audience AQAP intends to reach is an elite, primarily non-Yemeni Muslim audience that is fully aware of global history and contemporary international politics and developments. Articles about globalization and the Global War on Terror are specifically tailored for this audience.91
It is important to mention that AQAP also seeks to reach a third audience. In 2010 AQAP launched an English written magazine, Inspire, to reach Muslims in the West. The message of this magazine is slightly different, as it is meant for Muslims that live in the West and not in Muslim countries. It therefore focusses on their identity as a Muslim in a Western country. It states that individual jihad is a duty for any true Muslim living in the West, as being Muslim is enough to classify them as the West’s enemy. The magazine uses colloquial English specifically tailored for their Western audience, to give readers the feeling they are conversing with knowledgeable peers.92 The goal of Inspire is to mobilize Western Muslims 89 Ibidem, p. 165-169.
90 Ibidem, p. 165-169 and Eleftheriadou, Marina, ‘Elements of ‘armed non-state actors’ power: the case of Al-Qaeda in Yemen’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, nr. 2 (2014), p. 414.
91 Page, Michael, Lara Challita and Alistair Harris, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions’, Terrorism and Political Violence, nr. 23 (2011), p. 166-168.
92 Ingram, Haroro J., ‘An Analysis of Inspire and Dabiq: Lessons from AQAP and Islamic State’s Propaganda War’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, nr. 5 (2017), p. 366-367.
to undertake attacks in the West, not to encourage them to join the Arabian Peninsula front, and to reinforce the organization’s image worldwide in order to attract donations and support.93 The tailoring of the messages, the difference in language, form and mode,
contributes to a wider spread of AQAP’s message. Finding a stronghold: exploiting Yemen’s weak state
The Stanford Centre for International Security and Cooperation has kept a close eye on the development of AQAP, its leadership and its activities. Its extensive report shows that AQAP has been involved from its creation in 2009 in targeting both local and foreign citizens in Yemen and abroad, and targeting government personnel of both Yemen and Saudi-Arabia. Among its attacks are the kidnapping and killing of several foreign women in Yemen in 2009, the suicide bombing attack aimed at the British ambassador in Yemen in 2010, a suicide bombing attack killing 96 Yemeni military personnel during a military parade in 2012, car bombs targeting Houthi areas in 2014 and the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in 2015.94
After the failed attempt to bomb an airplane over Detroit in 2009, AQAP had Washington’s attention once more. The Obama administration managed to cooperate with the Yemeni government and together they stepped up their operations against the jihadist organisation. A US drone strike in 2011 resulted in the deliberate killing of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Born in the US but of Yemeni origin, Anwar al-Awlaki was a fluent English speaking member of Al-Qaida. Within AQAP he was responsible for the magazine
Inspire that was meant for Muslims living in the West. With his colloquial English he was
popular among English speaking Muslims.95
With the Yemeni government and the US government going after AQAP, how did AQAP manage to create a stronghold in Yemen? In order to answer this question, we have to look at the broader history of Yemen’s nation. It was only in 1990 that the northern Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Republic of South Yemen were unified as one country. Before this unification, northern Yemen had been part of the Ottoman empire starting from the 19th century, followed by an Imamate in the early 20th century. In the 1960s this Imamate
was overthrown by the Yemen Arab Republic, supported by Egyptian forces. Egyptian
93 Eleftheriadou, Marina, ‘Elements of ‘armed non-state actors’ power: the case of Al-Qaeda in Yemen’, Small
Wars & Insurgencies, nr. 2 (2014), p. 413.
94 Stanford Centre for International Security and Cooperation, ‘Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’,
https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/al-qaeda-arabian-peninsula?highlight=Islamic+State, 8 May 2019.
95 Eleftheriadou, Marina, ‘Elements of ‘armed non-state actors’ power: the case of Al-Qaeda in Yemen’, Small
Wars & Insurgencies, nr. 2 (2014), p. 413; Byman, Daniel, ‘Yemen’s Disastrous War’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, nr. 5 (2018), p. 146.
