The attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 are
widely believed to have heralded a new form of terrorism.
In the same vein the response to those attacks, coming in
the form of a U.S. declaration of war on terrorism, was unprecedented
in both scope and ambition.
However the slogan: “War on Terrorism” is not
only vague, but downright misleading. It is clear that neither
the United States nor its principal allies are intent on tackling
every terrorist organisation in the world. Indeed if this
were really the case the U.S. would be bombing the jungles
of eastern Sri Lanka and the mountains of north-western Spain
to undermine Tamil Tiger and ETA fighters, respectively.
The “War on Terrorism” is effectively a struggle
against a particular strain of Islamic militancy; namely the
global terror spearheaded by al-Qaeda. Therefore in the first
instance the United States needs to re-phrase the “War
on Terrorism” to “War on Islamic Terrorism”.
This will entail costs in so far as it might alienate some
sections of Islamic opinion. Nevertheless it is a cost well
worth paying as it clarifies the enemy and should promote
greater cooperation between the intelligence and the academic
communities.
From the information readily available in the public domain
it is clear that the academic and journalistic communities
have not developed a penetrating insight into the al-Qaeda
phenomenon. The best book on this subject is arguably Jason
Burke’s: Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. However
even this book, impressive as it is in the amount of desk
and field research that it displays, betrays certain fundamental
misunderstandings.
Most of the cutting edge research into Islamic terrorism
is being carried out by specialist journals in the United
States. The best journal is arguably the Jamestown’s
Foundation’s fortnightly Terrorism Monitor and its spin-off
the Spotlight on Terror. The title of this extract (i.e. the
Essence of al-Qaeda) is borrowed from an interview with Dr.
Saad al-Faqih (a leading London-based Saudi Arabian dissident
and expert on al-Qaeda) that appeared in the early February
2004 edition of the Spotlight on Terror.
The emergence of al-Qaeda is rooted in a triangular relationship
between the Saudi regime, the official clerical establishment
in that country and dissident Islamic activism in the Kingdom.
Therefore any long-term solution to the serious challenge
posed by al-Qaeda needs to address some of the pernicious
features of the Saudi regime.
This will not be easy as the Saudi monarchy constitutes one
of America’s closest allies in the Middle East. Nevertheless
the seriousness of the situation is likely to lead to a strategic
shift in U.S.-Saudi relations in the decisive years ahead.
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