Greetings from the cybercaliphate: Some notes on homeland insecurity

International Affairs

Volumn 81, Issue 5, 2005, Pages

  Jones, David Martin ^a   Smith, M L R ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27444437237     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2005.00495.x     Document Type: Article

References (139)

1. Quoted from an Al-Qaeda training manual recovered by police in Manchester following the search of a suspect's home in 1998 and translated from Arabic into English, Translation UK/BM-7. United States District Court: District of Massachusetts, United States of America vs. Richard Colvin Reid, 17 Jan. 2003, p. 5.
2. Part of the statement claimed: 'The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters': BBC News, 'Statement claiming London attacks', 7 July 2005, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4. 660391.stm.
3. Ramadan's words were: 'Des banlieues françaises aux sociétés musulmanes, vous ne trouverez pas de soutiens, sauf infimes, aux interventions de New York, Bali ou Madrid': 'Islam et occident: interview Tariq Ramadan', Le Point, 22 April 2004, p. 68.
4. Major incident - travel update, leaflet produced by the Mayor of London and Transport for London, July 2005.
5. According to the Russian anarchist writer Peter Kropotkin, violent political action 'does more propagandizing in a few days than do thousands of pamphlets': Peter Kropotkin, Paroles d'un revolté (Paris: Marpon/Flammarion, 1885), p. 286.
6. 'Terror attack "a matter of time"', BBC News, 17 June 2003, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2997146.stm.
7. Rosie Cowan, 'Attack on London is inevitable', Guardian, 17 March 2004.
8. 'Queen condemns bombing "outrage"', BBC News, 8 July 2005, a http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4665537.stm.
9. Simon Freeman, 'Leaked security services memo said Britain was safe', The Times, 19 July 2005.
10. Joseph Conrad, The secret agent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983; first publ. 1907), p. 312.
11. Tony Blair, 'Work together to a brave new world', speech to Labour party conference, The Times, 3 Oct. 2001.
12. See The future of multi-ethnic Britain: the Parekh report (London: Profile Books/Runnymede Trust, 2000). The Runnymede Trust set up a Commission on the Future of Multi-ethnic Britain in 1997. According to the Trust's summary, the 'Commission's remit was to analyse the current state of multi-ethnic Britain and propose ways of countering racial discrimination and disadvantage and making Britain a confident and vibrant multicultural society at ease with its rich diversity'. The degree to which the Commission received official recognition and endorsement is indicated by the fact that the report was formally launched by the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, on 11 October 2000.
13. Audrey Gillan, 'Detained Muslim cleric is spiritual leader to militants hearing told', Guardian, 20 Nov. 2003.
14. See James Corbett, 'London's new villains', Al-Ahram Weekly, 31 Oct.-6 Nov. 2002.
15. The stated aim of Hizb-ut Tahrir is 'to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da'wah [call: refers to the call to the 'Truth'] to the world. This objective means bringing the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar al-Islam [realm of Islam/sphere of faith] and in an Islamic society such that all of life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shari'ah [Islamic law] rules, and the viewpoint in it is the halal [that which is lawful and permitted in Islam] and the haram [that which is unlawful and not permitted in Islam] under the shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah [Caliphate] State.' See http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/english/english. html, accessed 22 Aug. 2005.
16. Brian Brady, 'Hooked at last', Scotland on Sunday, 30 May 2004.
17. See Richard Willing, 'Radical cleric fighting extradition to USA on terror charges', USA Today, 27 May 2004.
18. Jon Stock, 'Inside the mind of a seductive killer', The Times, 21 Aug. 2002.
19. Nick Britten, 'Locals shun the Tipton Taliban', Daily Telegraph, 27 Jan. 2005.
20. See Daniel McGrory and Zahid Hussain, 'New wave of British terrorists are taught at school, not in the mountains', The Times, 14 July 2005.
21. 'Three on London terror charges', BBC News, 17 Nov. 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2198228.stm.
22. Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Home Office Paper, 'Young Muslims and extremism', submitted as part of a report into a study conducted by the Cabinet Office, 'Relations with the Muslim community', Cabinet Office, 6 April 2004, pp. 10-11.
23. See also Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser, 'Islamic radicals found a haven', Washington Post, 10 July 2005.
24. See Olivier Roy, 'EuroIslam: the jihad within?', National Interest 71, Spring 2003, pp. 63-74.
25. Richard Beeston and Michael Binyon, 'Blair "repeatedly failed to tackle radical Muslims in his backyard"', The Times, 10 Aug. 2005.
26. Quoted in Charles Moore, 'Where is the Gandhi of Islam?', Daily Telegraph, 9 July 2005.
27. Quoted in 'Rise in hate crimes against Muslims after attacks', Reuters, 11 July 2005.
28. Quoted in Paul Berman, Tenor and liberalism (New York: Norton 2003), p. 75.
29. See also Ibrahim Abu Rabi, 'Sayyid Qutb: from religious realism to radical social criticism', Islamic Quarterly 28, 1984, p. 115.
30. Vikram Dodd and Ian Cobain, 'Crackdown on elusive extremists', Guardian, 15 July 2005.
31. Blair, 'Work together to a brave new world'.
32. 'But together we can defeat the bombers', Observer, 31 July 2005.
33. Blair, 'Work together to a brave new world'.
34. See Robert Hefner, Civil Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), ch. 1.
35. See David Martin Jones and Mike Lawrence Smith, 'From konfrontasi to disintegrasi: ASEAN and the rise of Islamism in Southeast Asia', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 25: 6, Nov.-Dec. 2002, pp. 351-2.
36. See Bhikhu Parekh, 'The cultural particularity of liberal democracy', in David Held, ed., Prospects for democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1993), pp. 156-75.
37. Briefing on British Muslims: socio-economic data and attitudes (updated), 'Relations with the Muslim community', Cabinet Office, 10 May 2004, pp. 1-5.
38. See also Foreign and Commonwealth Office/ Home Office, 'Young Muslims and extremism', p. 4.
39. James C. Davies, 'Toward a theory of revolution', American Sociological Review 27, 1962, pp. 5-18;
40. James C. Davies, 'The J-curve of rising and declining satisfaction as a course of some great revolutions and a contained rebellion', in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds, The history of violence in America (New York: Bantam, 1969).
41. See also in this context Ted Robert Gurr, Why men rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970).
42. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, FCO update on 'Building bridges with mainstream Islam', 5 Nov. 2003, pp. 29-30.
43. Fred Halliday, 'The politics of Islamic fundamentalism', in Akbar S. Ahmed and Hastings Donnan, eds, Islam, globalisation and postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 96.
44. 'Profile Omar Saeed Sheikh', BBC News, 16 July 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1804710.stm.
45. See Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 67.
46. See David Cohen, 'Terror on the dole', Evening Standard, 20 April 2004.
47. Dilpazier Aslam, 'We rock the boat", Guardian, 13 July 2005.
48. For this profile, see Roy, 'EuroIslam', pp. 67-8.
49. Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 69.
50. Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 67.
51. Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 67.
52. Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (London: Hamilton, 1992);
53. Samuel Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order (New York: Touchstone, 1998).
54. One might just as easily, and more interestingly, throw Huntington against Huntington: the Huntington of the 'clash' against the Huntington of the 'Third Wave' or, better, the Huntington who wrote Political order in changing societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
55. Oswald Spengler, The decline of the west (London: Allen & Unwin, 1922);
56. Arnold Toynbee, A study of history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).
57. Pieter Geyl, 'From Ranke to Toynbee: five lectures on historians and historiographical problems', Studies in History 39 (Northampton, MA: Smith College History Department, 1952).
58. Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs McWorld (New York: Ballantine, 1996);
59. Thomas Friedman, The lexus and the olive tree (London: HarperCollins, 1999).
60. Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, 12 vols, ed. J. B. Bury (New York: Fred de Fau, 1904), vol. 4, ch. 38, part III.
61. Gibbon, Decline and fall, vol. 4, ch. 38, part I.
62. Gibbon, Decline and fall, vol. 4, ch. 38, part III.
63. 'Cool Britannia' as a phrase to denote fashionable diversity arose from a Newsweek magazine article by Stryker McGuire in 1996 that described London as the 'coolest city on the planet'. The notion was taken up with Tony Blair's election as prime minister in 1997: he came to power promising to remake Britain as a 'modern society'. Blairite rhetoric implicitly endorsed the image of cool Britannia' which became strongly identified with Blair's first term in office, even though he never publicly used the term. See 'Cooling towards Britannia, not Blair', Observer, 12 Oct. 2003. The term 'cool Britannia' was first coined, of course, as a song title by the Dadaist-inspired art-school rockers, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, in 1967.
64. Gibbon, Decline and fall, vol. 4, ch. 38, part. III.
65. Gibbon, Decline and fall, vol. 4, ch. 38, part. III.
66. Karl Popper, The open society and its enemies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962).
67. Ernest Gellner, Conditions of liberty: civil society and its rivals (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994), p. 199.
68. See esp. Ernest Gellner, Muslim society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
69. See Kemal H. Karpat, The politicization of Islam: reconstructing faith, state and community in the late Ottoman empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 18.
70. See Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: from revival to reform to global jihad (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004).
71. See Elie Kedourie, Afghani and Aduh: an essay on religious unbelief and political activism in modern Islam (London: Frank Cass, 1966);
72. Nikki R. Keddie, An Islamic response to imperialism: political and religious writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din 'al-Afghani' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968).
73. Wael Hallaq, 'Was the gate of Ijtihad closed?', International Journal of Middle East Studies 16: 1, 1984, pp. 3-11.
74. See Shaykh Ibn Taymiyah, Al-'Ubudiyyah: being a true slave of Allah, trans. Nasiruddin al-Khattab (London: Ta-Ha, 1999).
75. See Nazih N. Ayubi, Political Islam: religion and politics in the Arab world (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 60-63;
76. Hasan al-Banna', Five tracts of Hasan al-Banna', trans. Charles Wendell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
77. See Rudolph Peters, Jihad in classical and modern Islam: a reader (Princeton, NJ: Marcus Wiener, 1996), p. 128.
78. Ayubi, Political Islam, p. 139.
79. Sayyid Qutb, Ma'alim fi al-tariq (Milestones) (Damascus: Holy Koran Publishing, 1985), pp. 21-2.
80. See Sayyid Qutb, Islam: the misunderstood religion (Kuwait: Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, 1967).
81. Johannes J. G. Jansen, The neglected duty the creed of Sadat's assassins and Islamic resurgence in the Middle East, with a translation of Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj, al-Faridah al-Gha'ibah (London: Macmillan, 1986).
82. Nimrod Raphaeli, Radical Islamist profiles, 3: Ayman Muhammad Rabi al Zawahiri: the making of an arch terrorist (Berlin: Middle East Media Research Institute), 11 March 2003, p. 10.
83. See Monstasser al-Zayyat, The road to al Qaeda: the story of Bin-Laden's right hand man (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
84. See Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, reason and religion (New York: Routledge, 1992).
85. Salafiya, or salafism, refers to the honour due to the supposedly untainted Islamic beliefs and practices of the first four caliphs, the Rushidun. It thus becomes clear that fundamentalism in Islam equates more or less to radical Christian forms of Protestantism in its desire to 'return' to a pure, unmediated and uncorrupted personal relationship with God.
86. See William E. Shepard, Sayyid Qutb and Islamic activism (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. xxxix-xl.
87. Craig Whitlock, 'Briton used internet as his bully pulpit', Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2005.
88. Sayyid Qutb, The religion of the future (Kuwait: International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, 1971), p. 121.
89. Gellner, Conditions of liberty, p. 31.
90. Gellner, Conditions of liberty, p. 27.
91. David Martin Jones and M. L. R. Smith, 'Franchising terror', World Today 57: 10, Oct. 2001, p. 10.
92. With the discovery of a ricin plot in Britain, and of clear links between the plotters and Abu Hamza's Finsbury Park Mosque, the mosque was belatedly raided by Scotland Yard on 20 January 2003. Even then, in deference to Muslim sensibilities police wore Islamically appropriate footwear. See 'Anti-terror police raid London mosque", BBC News, 20 Jan. 2003, at http://news.bbc.co. uk/2/hi/uk_news/ england/2675223.stm.
93. Quoted in Robert Mendick, 'Now Bakri attacks "hypocrite Muslims'", Evening Standard, 21 July 2005.
94. The London mayor Ken Livingstone, far from discouraging Islamist activism, publicly welcomed Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on a visit to London as an honoured guest, despite the cleric's endorsement of suicide bombing in Israel. In January 2005 Livingstone published a 26-page justification of his meeting, claiming: 'I regard it as my responsibility to welcome a leader of any great religion, such as Dr al-Qaradawi.' See Mayor of London, Why the mayor will maintain dialogues with all of London's faiths and communities (London: Greater London Authority, 2005), p. 2.
95. See in this context Amir Tahiri, 'Beards and scarves aren't Muslim, they're simply adverts for al-Qaeda', The Times, 27 July 2005.
96. Collected by the authors at the meeting, 25 Aug. 2002.
97. See Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 69.
98. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has maintained that many of the world's crises 'are a consequence of our colonial past': New Statesman, 15 Nov. 2002.
99. Asian Wall Street Journal, 2-4 Aug. 2002.
100. See Mohamed Sifaoui, Inside al Qaeda: how I infiltrated the world's deadliest terror organization (London: Granta, 2003), pp. 129-31.
101. Sifaoui, Inside al Qaeda, p. 129.
102. Philip Johnston, 'Hardline cleric faces expulsion from Finsbury Park mosque', Daily Telegraph, 17 Jan. 2003.
103. The propensity of multiculturalism to lead to forms of cultural apartheid has long been noted by conservative and libertarian commentators alike. See e.g. 'Multiculturalism: the new racism', Impact (Ayn Rand Institute), Nov. 2002. These kinds of criticism were implicitly accepted by the Cantle Report into the inter-racial riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in the spring and summer of 2001, which pointed to the deeply segregated nature of Muslim and other communities in many urban areas in northern England.
104. See Building cohesive communities: a report of the independent review team (London: Home Office, 2002), ss 2.13-2.19.
105. See M. M. Ashan and A. R. Kidwai, Sacrilege versus civility: Muslim perspectives on the Satanic Verses affair (Markfield, UK: Islamic Foundation, 1993).
106. House of Commons, Religious Hatred Bill (London: Stationery Office, 2005).
107. Roy, 'EuroIslam', p. 67.
108. Interestingly, this is a notion given implicit recognition in official documents; see Foreign and Commonwealth/Home Office, 'Young Muslims and extremism', p. 22. It was also given inadvertent acknowledgment by Tony Blair in his statement on 5 Aug. that the 'rules of the game are changing';
109. see 'Rules of the game', The Times, 10 Aug. 2005.
110. See Jamie Campbell, 'Why terrorists love Britain', New Statesman, 9 Aug. 2004.
111. A fact that led Bakri to assume his activities had immunity in the UK. See Yotam Feldner, Radical Islamist profiles: Omar Bakri Mohammad (Berlin: Middle East Media Research Institute), 24 Oct. 2001.
112. 'Muslim cleric says groups plan to strike London', Boston Globe, 19 April 2004.
113. Faridah al-Gha'ibah (The neglected duty), by the Eygptian Abd al-Salem Faraj, is a seminal text in the development of Islamic extremism. Published in the 1980s, it maintained that the duty of the Muslim was to struggle and wage warfare against Islam's enemies, the reward for martyrdom being entry into paradise. Faraj was executed in 1982 for his part in the assassination plot against President Anwar Sadat.
114. 'Muslim cleric says groups plan to strike London'.
115. 'Blair pays tribute to resilience', BBC News, 9 July 2005, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4666311.stm.
116. Quoted in 'Tributes and tears one week on', CNN.com, 14 July 2005, at http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/14/london.attacks.tributes/.
117. See 'In full: Blair on bomb blasts', BBC News, 7 July 2005, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4659953.stm.
118. Quoted in Dhimmi watch, 8 July 2005, at http://www.jihadwatch.org/ dhimmiwatch/archives/007014.php, accessed 22 August 2005.
119. David Harrison, Andrew Alderson and Bruce Johnston, 'Forceful, persistent, patient, unravelling the bombing plot', Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2005.
120. Quoted in Duncan Campbell and John Hooper, 'Second bomb suspect was seen in Rome', Guardian, 1 Aug. 2005.
121. See Peter Oborne, 'Don't be misled - the London bombs were a direct response to the Iraq war', Spectator, 30 July 2005;
122. Salim Lone, 'Withdrawal would curb terrorism', Guardian, 12 July 2005;
123. 'The Iraq connection', Guardian, 20 July 2005.
124. Frank Gregory and Paul Wilkinson, 'Riding pillion for tackling terrorism is a high risk policy', Security, terrorism in the UK, briefing paper 05/01, July 2005, p. 3.
125. 'We have the laws: use them', Sunday Telegraph, 17 July 2005;
126. David Leppard and Robert Winnant, 'Blair's extremism proposals attacked as the bunt continues for terror's new breed', Sunday Times, 7 Aug. 2005.
127. See 'Who will be deported and who decides', Guardian, 6 Aug. 2005.
128. Duncan Gardham, 'Preachers of hate could be charged with treason', Daily Telegraph, 8 Aug. 2005;
129. 'Calling terrorists traitors is no answer', Daily Telegraph, 9 Aug. 2005.
130. 'Labour's shambles', Daily Telegraph, 10 Aug. 2005.
131. Many of the Algerian GIA suspects implicated in the Paris Metro bombings of 1995 sought, and obtained, sanctuary in the UK; among them was Rachid Ramda, whom the French authorities have been attempting unsuccessfully to extradite for over ten years. See Alan Travis, 'Judges quash extradition of suspect', Guardian, 28 June 2002.
132. See e.g. David Clark, 'This terror will continue until we take Arab grievances seriously", Guardian, 9 July 2005;
133. Simon Jenkins, 'Panic in the face of fanatics is making Britain dangerous', Sunday Times, 31 July 2005.
134. 'Deporting hatred', The Times, 6 Aug. 2005.
135. Colin Randall, 'France ejects 12 "preachers of hate'", Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2005.
136. See Andrew Porter and Robert Winnett, 'Law may halt Blair's war on extremism', Sunday Times, 7 Aug. 2005;
137. Ferdinand Mount, 'Our Law Lords act like children presented with a new Lego set', Daily Telegraph, 17 Aug. 2005.
138. See in this context Roger Sandall, The culture cult: designer tribalism and other essays (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001).
139. Michael Collins, The likes of us: a biography of the white working class (London: Granta, 2004).