Al-qaeda and the nature of religious terrorism

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 795-814

  Sedgwick, Mark ^a  

^a The American University in Cairo   (Egypt)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 11844288923     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546550590906098     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. This article is based on a paper, 'Al-Qaeda, Islam and Italian Anarchism', originally delivered to the Eastern International Region annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 30 April-1 May 2004.
2. See for example Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) pp.90-5, and Hoffman, 'Old Madness, New Methods: Revival of Religious Terrorism Begs for Broader U.S. Policy', Rand Review 22, no. 2 (Winter 1998/99) p.12. See also Magnus Ranstorp, 'Terrorism in the Name of Religion', Columbia International Affairs Online working paper (1996), available http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/ram01/. I refer to 'al-Qaeda' rather than to Qa'idat al-jihad, as it should now properly be known, because the distinction is immaterial for the purposes of this article, and because a failure to use the established term would appear excessively pedantic.
3. See for example Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) pp.90-5, and Hoffman, 'Old Madness, New Methods: Revival of Religious Terrorism Begs for Broader U.S. Policy', Rand Review 22, no. 2 (Winter 1998/99) p.12. See also Magnus Ranstorp, 'Terrorism in the Name of Religion', Columbia International Affairs Online working paper (1996), available http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/ram01/. I refer to 'al-Qaeda' rather than to Qa'idat al-jihad, as it should now properly be known, because the distinction is immaterial for the purposes of this article, and because a failure to use the established term would appear excessively pedantic.
4. See for example Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) pp.90-5, and Hoffman, 'Old Madness, New Methods: Revival of Religious Terrorism Begs for Broader U.S. Policy', Rand Review 22, no. 2 (Winter 1998/99) p.12. See also Magnus Ranstorp, 'Terrorism in the Name of Religion', Columbia International Affairs Online working paper (1996), available http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/ram01/. I refer to 'al-Qaeda' rather than to Qa'idat al-jihad, as it should now properly be known, because the distinction is immaterial for the purposes of this article, and because a failure to use the established term would appear excessively pedantic.
5. This is a point made explicitly by John Gray, Al-Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p.2. It is also implicit in David C. Rapoport's analysis, discussed below.
6. David C. Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism', in Audrey Cronin and James Ludes (eds), Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004) pp.46-73. Where no other source is given, my version of Rapoport's analysis derives from his 'Generations and Waves: The Keys to Understanding Rebel Terror Movements', paper delivered at a seminar on global affairs held at the Burkle Center for International Studies, UCLA, 7 Nov. 2003. An earlier version of this paper was published in Current History, Dec. 2001, pp.419-25.
7. David C. Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism', in Audrey Cronin and James Ludes (eds), Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004) pp.46-73. Where no other source is given, my version of Rapoport's analysis derives from his 'Generations and Waves: The Keys to Understanding Rebel Terror Movements', paper delivered at a seminar on global affairs held at the Burkle Center for International Studies, UCLA, 7 Nov. 2003. An earlier version of this paper was published in Current History, Dec. 2001, pp.419-25.
8. His waves are in the middle of the ocean, not crashing onto a beach. 'Cycle' was used in Rapoport's 'Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions', American Political Science Review 78 (1984) p.672, and 'wave' adopted for 'Generations and Waves'.
9. Rapoport refers to the 'Golden Age of Assassination' in 'Generations and Waves'.
10. Details are given below. Although not usually included in this list, the Shah of Persia might also be added.
11. The earliest instance of this wave, however, was in Ireland after the First World War.
12. Rapoport in fact says about forty years, recognizing that some waves may be shorter.
13. This is a misleading term, since the technique has almost nothing to do with suicide in its central meaning of the hopeless surrender of life to defeat. Again, however, the use of any other term would appear irritatingly pedantic.
14. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling' p.672.
15. For the third wave, Rapoport points to Vietnam. I would prefer the 'events' of 1968 in Paris and Czechoslovakia. Vietnam was more significant in America than in Europe, and third-wave groups were more active in Europe than America. The third wave gathered force very quickly, and the crucial years were clearly 1968-69. Both were during the Vietnam era, but 1968 was important in European history for two other reasons: the student uprisings in France, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Before 1968, angry young West European intellectuals often turned to Soviet Communism, and although Soviet Communism sponsored second wave terrorism outside Europe, it rarely sponsored terrorism in Western Europe. The Soviet Union was thus in a sense protecting Western Europe from its own dissidents. After 1968, dissident Europeans turned away from Soviet Communism to other ways of rejecting authority. This probably has more to do with third wave terrorism than Vietnam did. Certainly, as David C. Rapoport points out, third-wave terrorists refer to Vietnam and not to Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia explains reorientation away from Soviet models, including Marxism-Leninism; Vietnam provided an alternative justification to Marxism-Leninism for condemning the Western status quo.
16. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in what is often seen as religious terrorism in Egypt in the 1940s. This might however be reclassified as second-wave, anticolonial activity.
17. One objection to my selection of 1967 as the key political event for the start of the fourth wave is that this wave did not really become visible until the 1980s. This objection might be answered by pointing to the delay of forty years, to which Rapoport admits, between the political event at the start of the second (anti-colonial) wave-President Wilson's fourteen points-and that wave's crest. Nationalism existed before the second wave became visible; the resurgence of Islam, similarly, existed before 1979.
18. Found, for example, in Ranstorp, 'Terrorism in the Name of Religion'.
19. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling' p.664.
20. Pre-Khomeini Shi'ism, with its instance on the necessary illegitimacy of any government pending the return of the Imam Mahdi, might be considered an exception to this.
21. This argument is advanced in L. Carl Brown, Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000) pp.43-51.
22. There is, of course, no real 'church' in Islam, but there are established bodies of authoritative texts, and (until very recently) a defined body of religious experts associated with them. 'Church' can thus be used as shorthand for 'textual and institutional structures of religious authority'. See Mark Sedgwick, 'Is There a Church in Islam?' ISIM Newsletter, no. 13 (Dec. 2003) pp.40-l.
23. Those political groups that did explicitly deny the authority of religious norms were radical leftists of the early twentieth century, and suffered for this to the extent that even Moscow-aligned Communist parties in the Arab world subsequently steered clear of mentioning religion.
24. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling'.
25. Rapoport recognizes, however, that all waves involve nationalism and ethnicity, and so is close to making this distinction. He also emphasizes that religious terrors is not necessarily indiscriminate.
26. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling' p.660.
27. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 15.
28. Audrey Kurth Cronin. 'Behind the Curve: Globalization and International Terrorism', International Security 273 (Winter 2002/03) p.41.
29. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 12, and Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.30.
30. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 12, and Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.30.
31. Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.41.
32. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling' p.660. Rapoport does not suggest an answer to this question.
33. An offshoot of the 'sevener' Shi'ism of the Fatimids, itself an offshoot of the mainstream 'twelver' Shi'ism familiar in contemporary Iran and Iraq, which is itself seen by Sunnis (though not by the Shi'a themselves) as an offshoot of mainstream, Sunni Islam.
34. Some scholars argued that Soviet objectives during the Cold War were different in kind from American ones, notably Henry Kissinger in passing in A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957). This difference was more evident to participants such as Kissinger than to later historians. To respond, as I do, that both Soviet and American objectives were equally political does not need to imply any moral equivalence between the two sides.
35. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling' p.672.
36. As has been said, these are the establishment of one or more states ruled by its own favored version of Islam, in which al-Qaeda differs little from the Assassins. Like many similar groups, al-Qaeda has not been explicit about the precise nature of its vision of utopia. This is partly because revolutionary groups commonly worry more about the means to power than about the details of what they might do once in power, and partly because a religiously defined utopia can be designed only with great difficulty. It is also because Muslims see Islam as a single, unchanging and final truth (unlike scholars from outside, who insist on identifying historical development, continuity and change, and multiple perspectives). The nature of the perfect Islamic state is thus in theory well-known and beyond debate. Again, it is outsiders who insist on multiple possibilities.
37. The organizational nature of al-Qaeda is not widely understood, but there is growing recognition (implicit in the 9/11 Commission Report) that it is closer to a network than a monolithic organization under strong central command. For an excellent description, see Benjamin Orbach. 'usama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida: Origins and Doctrines', Middle East Review of International Affairs 54 (Dec. 2001) pp.58-61. Another excellent work (that unfortunately could not be consulted before this article went to press) is Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
38. The organizational nature of al-Qaeda is not widely understood, but there is growing recognition (implicit in the 9/11 Commission Report) that it is closer to a network than a monolithic organization under strong central command. For an excellent description, see Benjamin Orbach. 'usama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida: Origins and Doctrines', Middle East Review of International Affairs 54 (Dec. 2001) pp.58-61. Another excellent work (that unfortunately could not be consulted before this article went to press) is Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
39. Al-Qaeda was formed in Peshawar and Afghanistan, areas on which scholars have done little work. There are hundreds of journalistic accounts of al-Qaeda's emergence, of which the best is probably Ahmed Rashid's Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords (London: Pan, 2001), but only one scholar got anywhere near them-Larry Goodson, author of Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001). Middle East scholars who do not specialize in such matters have also generally kept away from security issues and terrorism.
40. Al-Qaeda was formed in Peshawar and Afghanistan, areas on which scholars have done little work. There are hundreds of journalistic accounts of al-Qaeda's emergence, of which the best is probably Ahmed Rashid's Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords (London: Pan, 2001), but only one scholar got anywhere near them-Larry Goodson, author of Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001). Middle East scholars who do not specialize in such matters have also generally kept away from security issues and terrorism.
41. Al-Zawahiri, in Al-Mujahidun (1998), quoted in Lawrence Wright, 'The Man Behind Bin Laden: How an Egyptian Doctor became a Master of Terror', New Yorker 16 Sept. 2002.
42. This conclusion is based on countless informal discussions over several years with many Muslims in Egypt and other Arab countries.
43. These views are not often spoken aloud, and are even more rarely put in writing, but careful if unscientific research confirms their currency, though it cannot indicate the extent of their spread. Such views are found in the history of all three monotheistic religions - unsurprisingly, since they share much the same eschatology - but are probably more frequent and widespread in Islam than in Christianity or Judaism.
44. This sequence starts with al-Zawahiri's jihad group, which probably killed the speaker of the Egyptian parliament in 1990, and used a motorcycle suicide bomb against the Egyptian minister of the interior in 1993. In 1995, it used a motorized suicide bomb against the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad. In the same year it was probably al-Qaeda that bombed a Saudi military communications facility containing US soldiers in Riyadh, and in 1998 al-Qaeda carried out the well-planned simultaneous bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, causing massive casualties.
45. There were of course other attacks, but the Marine barracks bombing was the decisive event.
46. This is the title of Robert B. Asprey's massive work on the subject, War in the Shadows.' The Guerrilla in History (New York: William Morrow, 1994).
47. Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976) p.3.
48. His Strategamata was read with appreciation by European military theorists during the eighteenth century. Laqueur, Guerrilla, p. 101.
49. This was also emphasized, for example, by Johann von Ewald in his Abhandlung von dem Dienst der Leichten Truppen (Schleswig, 1796). Laqueur, Guerrilla p. 106.
50. This was also emphasized, for example, by Johann von Ewald in his Abhandlung von dem Dienst der Leichten Truppen (Schleswig, 1796). Laqueur, Guerrilla p. 106.
51. Laqueur, Guerrilla p. 140.
52. Different people were thinking along much the same lines. An alternative candidate as originator of the phrase is Johannes Most, certainly the inventor of the letter-bomb. Most was a German anarchist who moved to the United States, where he published The Science of Revolutionary Warfare: A Handbook of Instruction Regarding the Use of Nitroglycerine, Dynamite, Gun-Cotton, Fulminating Mercury, Bombs, Arsons, Poisons, etc. (New York, 1885.) Laqueur, Guerrilla p. 147. Most's book is still in print (and editions may be purchased from specialized websites in the United States).
53. Different people were thinking along much the same lines. An alternative candidate as originator of the phrase is Johannes Most, certainly the inventor of the letter-bomb. Most was a German anarchist who moved to the United States, where he published The Science of Revolutionary Warfare: A Handbook of Instruction Regarding the Use of Nitroglycerine, Dynamite, Gun-Cotton, Fulminating Mercury, Bombs, Arsons, Poisons, etc. (New York, 1885.) Laqueur, Guerrilla p. 147. Most's book is still in print (and editions may be purchased from specialized websites in the United States).
54. Hippolyte Havel, Errico Malatesta: The Biography of an Anarchist. A Condensed Sketch of Malatesta, from the Book Written by Max Nettlau (New York: Jewish Anarchist Federation, 1924). Text available online at Anarchy Archives: An Online Research Center on the History and Theory of Anarchism, http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist.archives/ malatesta/nettlau/ nettlauonmalatesta.html (Accessed 16 July 2003).
55. Havel, Errico Malatesta.
56. John Simkin, 'Anarchism', online at Spartacus Schoolnet, http://www.spartacus. schoolnet.co.uk/USAanarchist.htm (Accessed 19 July 2003).
57. Gerald Brenan, 'El terrorismo en la Espana del siglo XIX', (2002), online at Historia del Anarquismo, http://ateneovirtual.alasbarricadas.org/historia/ index.php7page = El + terrorisme (Accessed 17 July 2003).
58. Simkin, 'Anarchism;' 'Propaganda by Deed'. Workers Solidarity 55 (Oct. 1998); and similar reference sources.
59. 'Propaganda by Deed', Workers Solidarity 55 (Oct. 1998).
60. Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp.144, 173-5.
61. Laqueur, Guerrilla pp.179-81. There were, of course, other factors.
62. David C. Rapoport, 'Messianic Sanctions for Terror', Comparative Politics 20 (1988) p. 196. Rapoport does not use the phrase 'shock and awe'.
63. Rapoport, 'Messianic Sanctions for Terror' p. 196.
64. He would have approved of its tactical success, at least. I have no idea what Malatesta's actual views on the Arabs and Islam were, though there were various links in the nineteenth century between European anarchists and early Arab and Islamic nationalists. Islam was widely seen in such circles as a progressive - because anti-imperialist-force. Some time around 1878, Malatesta was in Egypt, but Havel (in Errico Malatesta) admits ignorance of what he did there. He probably concentrated on the Italian and Greek communities, which seem to have been those most receptive to political radicalism.
65. There is some disagreement as to whether the United States is a direct target of al-Qaeda or an indirect one, with most opinion tending toward the second view-that the United States is incidental to the real struggle, which is against the established regimes in the Middle East. See, for example, Gray, Al-Qaeda p.75, and Fawaz A. Gerges, 'Eavesdropping on Osama bin Laden', Columbia International Affairs Online October 2001, http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbrOO/ video/cbr-v/cbr.vJb.html. See also Feher, 'Robert Fisk's Newspapers', though Feher perhaps puts his argument too strongly. In one sense, it hardly matters; in the political analysis of people such as Bin Laden, the Zionists, Israel, Accessed April 2004. America and regimes 'friendly' to America are all equally 'oppressors of the Muslims'.
66. There is some disagreement as to whether the United States is a direct target of al-Qaeda or an indirect one, with most opinion tending toward the second view-that the United States is incidental to the real struggle, which is against the established regimes in the Middle East. See, for example, Gray, Al-Qaeda p.75, and Fawaz A. Gerges, 'Eavesdropping on Osama bin Laden', Columbia International Affairs Online October 2001, http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbrOO/ video/cbr-v/cbr.vJb.html. See also Feher, 'Robert Fisk's Newspapers', though Feher perhaps puts his argument too strongly. In one sense, it hardly matters; in the political analysis of people such as Bin Laden, the Zionists, Israel, Accessed April 2004. America and regimes 'friendly' to America are all equally 'oppressors of the Muslims'.
67. There is some disagreement as to whether the United States is a direct target of al-Qaeda or an indirect one, with most opinion tending toward the second view-that the United States is incidental to the real struggle, which is against the established regimes in the Middle East. See, for example, Gray, Al-Qaeda p.75, and Fawaz A. Gerges, 'Eavesdropping on Osama bin Laden', Columbia International Affairs Online October 2001, http://www.ciaonet.org/cbr/cbrOO/ video/cbr-v/cbr.vJb.html. See also Feher, 'Robert Fisk's Newspapers', though Feher perhaps puts his argument too strongly. In one sense, it hardly matters; in the political analysis of people such as Bin Laden, the Zionists, Israel, Accessed April 2004. America and regimes 'friendly' to America are all equally 'oppressors of the Muslims'.
68. While public opinion in areas such as Europe generally made a clear distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq, Arab public opinion on the whole did not. These comments and similar comments below are based on discussions with various Arabs in Egypt during the period in question, and on the Arab media and Egyptian mosque sermons (khutbas), The majority Arab view included the conviction that 9/11 was not the responsibility of Arabs anyhow. There were several hypotheses regarding alternative actors; what matters is not how plausible these were, but how widely they were accepted. A straw poll of university students in Cairo on 11 September 2002 suggested that less than ten per cent were inclined to accept that Arabs had been behind the events of the previous year.
69. To some extent, these are valid questions, but they fall outside the scope of this article.
70. Indeed, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad told his interrogators that the World Trade Center was chosen as a target as a way of attacking the US economy. 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004) p. 153. Such a motivation would fit with the 'second plausible explanation' considered above, that the perpetrators of 9/11 were 'simply not thinking very hard.' It hardly seems likely, however, that the name 'world trade center' could be taken quite so literally. Of course, 9/11 did indeed have an adverse impact on the U.S. economy, but Khalid Shaykh Muhammad would have to have been an unusually smart market analyst to have anticipated its actual impact on the Dow Jones index.
71. The New Powder Keg in the Middle East: Mujahid Usamah Bin Ladin Talks Exclusively to 'Nida'ul Islam". Nida'ul Islam 15 (Oct.-Nov. 1996), http://www.fas.org/irp/world/ para/docs/LADIN.htm. (Accessed 17 Sept. 2001). I have edited Nida'ul Islam's translation to remove stylistic peculiarities. The quotation may be from Bin Laden as claimed, or may perhaps have been invented by Nida'ul Islam; even in that case, it still establishes familiarity with Malatesta-type theories among some of Bin Laden's followers.
72. Except, perhaps, by Herzl and his followers - but that is a complex argument.
73. Sageman even suggests that certain experiences in the West are among of the key factors in explaining their participation in al-Qaeda. Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks.
74. 9/11 Commission Report p. 146.
75. In this context, 'Sharia' has almost lost its original meaning of canon law and instead denotes a form of political ideology.
76. Jonathan Fighel, 'Sheikh Abdullah Azzam: Bin Laden's Spiritual Mentor' (27 Sept. 2001) online at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herlzliya, http://www.ict.org.il/articles/ articledet.cfm?articleid = 388. Accessed April 2004. Azzam ran the Office of Services (Maktab al-khidamat), a name ironically reminiscent of the prototype of the CIA (the Office of Strategic Services), the focus of Arab assistance to the Afghan insurgency. Ahmed Rashid, Talihan: The Story of the Afghan Warlords (London: Pan, 2001) pp.131-32.
77. Jonathan Fighel, 'Sheikh Abdullah Azzam: Bin Laden's Spiritual Mentor' (27 Sept. 2001) online at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herlzliya, http://www.ict.org.il/articles/ articledet.cfm?articleid = 388. Accessed April 2004. Azzam ran the Office of Services (Maktab al-khidamat), a name ironically reminiscent of the prototype of the CIA (the Office of Strategic Services), the focus of Arab assistance to the Afghan insurgency. Ahmed Rashid, Talihan: The Story of the Afghan Warlords (London: Pan, 2001) pp.131-32.
78. 9/11 Commission Report p.146.
79. Those who knew Bin Laden as a young man did not regard him as particularly clever. Anonymous informants, Cairo, 2002.
80. See, for example, Soeid, Taking Stock: An Interview with George Habash', Journal of Palestine Studies 281 (Autumn 1998) p.90. It is unlikely, however, that Malatesta-type ideas actually reached al-Qaeda or Khalid Shaykh Muhammad through Habbash and Azzam, since Habash's own explanation of the PFLP's terrorism concentrates on generating publicity rather than on fomenting insurrection. Soeid, 'Taking Stock' p.93.
81. See, for example, Soeid, Taking Stock: An Interview with George Habash', Journal of Palestine Studies 281 (Autumn 1998) p.90. It is unlikely, however, that Malatesta-type ideas actually reached al-Qaeda or Khalid Shaykh Muhammad through Habbash and Azzam, since Habash's own explanation of the PFLP's terrorism concentrates on generating publicity rather than on fomenting insurrection. Soeid, 'Taking Stock' p.93.
82. A friend from student days describes passionate discussions with al-Zawahiri about the nature of Arab, Muslim, and Egyptian identity. The friend in question was then a leading member of the Muslim Brothers, but has since passed through Communism to the academic study of psychology. Interview with anonymous informant, Cairo, April 2004.
83. Wright, The Man Behind Bin Laden'.
84. 9/11 Commission Report p. 147.
85. 9/11 Commission Report p.68.
86. Rapoport makes a similar point in a different context in 'Fear and Trembling,' p.673.
87. Usamah Bin Ladin and others, World Islamic Front Statement, 23 Feb. 1998, http:// www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm (Accessed 17 Sept. 2001).
88. Martin Kramer, Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996) pp.231-43 and 539-56, http:// www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Calculus.htm and http://www.geocities.com/ martinkramerorg/Sacrifice.htm (Accessed 4 April 2004).
89. 'Notes Found After the Hijackings', New York Times 29 Oct. 2001 p.B3. Comparison with photocopies of the Arabic text posted by the FBI confirm the accuracy of the Times's translation.
90. Juan Cole, 'Al-Qaeda's Doomsday Document and Psychological Manipulation', paper presented at a conference on 'Genocide and Terrorism: Probing the Mind of the Perpetrator', Yale Center of Genocide Studies, New Haven, 9 April 2003, http:// www.juancole.com/essays/qaeda.htm (Accessed 19 Jan. 2004).
91. Various informants, Cairo, Sept. 2001.
92. Stepniak, in Underground Russia, quoted in Rapoport, 'Generations and Waves'.
93. Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.41.
94. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p.15.
95. Cronin, 'Behind the Curve', p.41.
96. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 15. See also Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.41, for a similar view.
97. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 15. See also Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.41, for a similar view.
98. Octavio Paz, 'El pachuco y otros extremos', in El laberinto de la soledad (Mexico, DF: Cuadernos Americanos, 1950) p.21.
99. Cronin, 'Behind the Curve', p.41.
100. Hoffman, 'Old Madness' p. 15.
101. Cronin, 'Behind the Curve' p.56.
102. During the Cold War, for example, the United States made relatively less use of military means than did the USSR, and was much more imaginative in the use of alternative means.
103. It is generally agreed that the factors contributing to the success of any guerrilla campaign include a base, money, and outside support. Given this, military and diplomatic action aimed at denying al-Qaeda bases, money and outside support makes complete sense. It is also, of course, the sort of action that a powerful sovereign state can take most easily. The logic of military action in Iraq is a different question.
104. 9/11 Commission Report pp.364 and 375-77.
105. Nicolas Marmie, 'Hundreds of Thousands March against Terror after Deadly Suicide Bombings', AP despatch from Morocco, 25 May 2003.
106. 'Moroccans Turn Out Against Terrorism', Reuters despatch from Casablanca, 25 May 2003.
107. It is not clear to what extent, if any, al-Qaeda has alienated potential supporters in other parts of the Muslim world. Unfortunately for US policymakers, Morocco may be something of an exception.