"Loose network" "Decentralized" "Kept their own organizational structures" "Never been a monolithic entity" Al Qaeda is an ideology more than army; a transnational movement and umbrella-like organization, not a monolithic entity"
In focusing on this issue, Frontpage Symposium joined forces with RAND to produce this co-ordinated symposium. RAND will also run the transcript of this panel discussion on its website RAND.org.
To diagnose the al Qaeda threat, Frontpage Magazine's Jamie Glazov had the privilege of speaking with five distinguished RAND experts on terrorism: Brian Jenkins, a Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation, and one of the world's leading authorities on terrorism. He founded the RAND Corporation's terrorism research program 30 years ago, has written frequently on terrorism, and has served as an advisor to the federal government and the private sector on the subject. He is a former Army captain who served with Special Forces in Vietnam. He is also a former deputy chairman of Kroll Associates; Bruce Hoffman, an internationally recognized expert on terrorism, who has written extensively on terrorism in both academic and popular journals and who has frequently testified on terrorism before Congress. The author of Inside Terrorism (Columbia Univ. Press), he is the Vice President for External Affairs and Director of RAND’s Washington, D.C. Office; John Parachini, a Policy Analyst for the RAND Corporation and the editor of a forthcoming book titled Motives, Means, and Mayhem: Terrorist Acquisition and Use of Unconventional Weapons; William Rosenau, a political scientist in RAND's Washington Office, where he studies political violence, intelligence, and military special operations. He has also served as senior policy adviser in the State Department's counter-terrorism office; as a foreign policy aide in the U.S. Senate; and as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict; and Greg Treverton, a specialist on intelligence and terrorism, who most recently served as Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council, overseeing preparation of America's National Intelligence Estimates. Associate Dean of the RAND Graduate School, he formerly directed RAND's International Security and Defense Policy Center, and was President of the Pacific Council on International Policy. His most recent book is Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information.
Interlocutor: Gentlemen, welcome to Frontpage Symposium. Let's begin with a general question: What is al Qaeda? Is it a monolithic entity or something different?
Hoffman: Al Qaeda is an ideology more than army; a transnational movement and umbrella-like organization, not a monolithic entity. Al Qaeda's strength has always been its ability to function on multiple operational levels. It uses professional terrorists, closely linked to the al Qaeda command and control nucleus, for spectacular, highly lucrative strikes such as 9/11, the 1998 embassy bombings, and the attack on the USS Cole, etc. in some instances. It uses affiliated or associated groups it has trained, armed or otherwise inspired such as the Jemmah Islamiya, the predominantly Indonesian/Malayan/Filipino group, responsible for the October 2002 Bali bombings or the Sudanese group al Ittihad al Islamiya, which committed the attacks against Israeli targets the following month in Kenya. And it uses the so-called "local walk-ins"-- individuals or groups with no previous direct, demonstrable al Qaeda connection, but who are inspired, motivated or animated by bin Laden and his implacable message of enmity against the West, the US and Zionism. Because al Qaeda is neither monolithic nor leaves a single, identifiable "footprint," nor has one set modus operandi, the movement itself is all the more formidable and resilient.
Rosenau: Al Qaeda is worldview, not an organization. Before 9/11, some parts of the US intelligence community described al Qaeda as a hierarchical, cellular terrorist group with bin Laden at the center, barking out orders to his "troops" in the field and plotting attacks around the world. This mistaken perception was a hangover from Cold-War era thinking about terrorism, in which groups like the Japanese Red Army, the Red Army Fraction, and Action Directe were organized into tight cells that received orders from their leadership. Al Qaeda is nothing like that, although as I mentioned there is certainly a "hardcore" around bin Laden involved in strategy, financing, and security.
Like the anti-globalization movement, al Qaeda is made up of a politically, nationally, and ethnically diverse group of militants, who don't agree on everything but subscribe in general terms to an ideology. Bin Laden's genius was in packaging and promoting an ideology that found enormous appeal among some elements of the Muslim world, and that allowed militants engaged in local struggles to reconceptualize their fights as part of a broader global struggle against Crusaders, Christendom, Jews, etc. Ironically, this Islamist/Salafist/fundamentalist ideology shares many features with Marxism-Leninism--an ideology that al Qaeda professes to despise (e.g., a belief in a revolutionary "vanguard," the goal of "liberation" from various economic and class oppressions, etc.). There is no question that this ideology appeals only to a fringe--but that fringe may have millions of members. Our failure to confront this ideology, and to work with those in the Muslim world who are promoting alternatives, is the biggest failure of our global campaign against terrorism. The State Department, the Pentagon, the National Security Council and other agencies are all trying to come to grips with this. With the exception of limited tactical psychological operations (e.g., dropping leaflets), we don't seem able to take action that can de-legitimize this ideology.
Parachini: Al Qaeda has evolved from a loosely aligned network of militant Islamic terrorists who shared the formative experience of expelling Soviet forces from Afghanistan to a movement with adherents around the world enabling a global reach. Al Qaeda has never been a monolithic entity, but a movement populated by Islamic militants from around the globe who answered the call to wage Jihad in Afghanistan. Different radical Islamic groups around the world now view their local struggles against national governments, rival ethnic or religious groups, in a broader context. Core followers of Osama bin Laden either originate from the countries with one of these local struggles or have developed contacts with them during and since the conflict with the Soviets. The core followers stimulate local actions with inspiration, money, planning, logistics, and sometimes personnel. The local or regional operatives build upon this contact. Thus, regional or local attacks are cast in a global context by their perpetrators and operatives functioning on a global basis have local targets that give purpose to the broader, almost cosmic struggle.
Jenkins: Al Qaeda is more than an organization. It is an ideology, a galaxy of extremists, and an enterprise for turning Islam's discontents into commitment for its brand of Jihad. The pre- 9-11 al Qaeda was chaired by Osama bin Laden, and comprised a consultative council, separate divisions devoted to specific functional areas--training, operations, education, etc. -- a global network of paid operatives, centralized training, an extensive recruiting network, and a large population of trained veterans. Al Qaeda maintained relations with and offered training and other forms of assistance to members of like-minded groups, although these groups have kept their own organizational structures. Since 9-11, al Qaeda appears to have adapted to a more hostile operating environment with greater clandestinity, a smaller physical infrastructure, and more decentralized operations relying on already dispersed Afghanistan veterans and affiliated groups.
Treverton: I share the view that al Qaeda is a loose network. It is worth remembering, for all its "virtual-ness," that it began with terrorists
from around the world face-to-face in Afghanistan. Now, shards of that network remain, or local "affiliates" with overlapping agendas. We are, I think, sometimes misled by our notion of "network," which we think of as tightly coupled, something like old-fashioned holiday lights wired in series, so that if one went out, they all went out. -- Michael Pugliese