What are its roots?

Whilst fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1984 for the CIA-funded Mujahedeen (see Afghanistan), Osama bin Laden co-founded the Maktab al-Khidamat (‘Services Office’), an organisation which raised funds and recruited foreign jihadis, or ‘Afghan Arabs’, for the war effort. In 1988 bin Laden split from Maktab al-Khidamat, taking with him a loyal following; this was the core of what would later become known as al-Qaeda. After the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, bin Laden directed his jihad towards American targets. His fervent anti-American stance has been well known since 1990, when he publicly denounced his own country, Saudi Arabia, for allowing US forces on to its soil in order to repel Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. From 1992-6 bin Laden and al-Qaeda operated out of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, where they were joined by members of EIJ (Egyptian Islamic Jihad). EIJ’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri subsequently became deputy leader of al-Qaeda. In 1996 bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were expelled from Sudan and granted a safe haven by the Taleban regime in the mountains of Afghanistan, which became al-Qaeda’s new headquarters. In 1998 bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and three others (as the ‘World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders’) issued a fatwa calling for the deaths of Americans and their allies, despite the fact that they did not possess the necessary Islamic qualifications to do so.

Данный текст является ознакомительным фрагментом.