AL-QAEDA TERRORISM

Experts on terrorism have recognized that the form of terrorism that al-Qaeda engages in is different from the sort of terrorism that was common in the 1970s and 1980s (Kushner, 1998). Terrorism at that time was often associated with wars of national resistance. This is still the case in many parts of the world. Groups that engaged in terrorism often did so mainly for its political effects (Carr, 1997). It was a way to make the world notice them and their cause. It was also the one means they had to attack much more powerful enemies. Once they had support and resources, groups would often abandon terrorism. They would turn instead to conventional military or political action. Often they were supported by some state (Lacqueur, 1987).

Even when they committed terrorist acts, their goal was to create an effect of psychology, not simply to kill people. For example, when airplane hijackers took hostages, their goal was defeated if they killed them all. The goal was to force attention, and often to bargain. An example would be a demand for release of prisoners. A list of terrorist actions since 1945 tends to bear this out, until the last few years (Ripley, 1999)

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all, though, bin-Laden had money, to fund their operations. At this time, Egyptian Jihad was almost broke. What Ayman al-Zawahri had to offer to bin-Laden was his organizational skills and experience. Egyptian Jihad had not been very successful against the Egyptian government, due to lack of resources and constant pressure from the Egyptian police. However, al-Zawahri and his followers had developed many ideas on how to plan and carry out terrorist operations. Thus, Egyptian Jihad ended up becoming merged into al-Qaeda. The Ideology of "Islamic" Terrorism The ideology of al-Qaeda was not created by Osama bin Laden, or even by Ayman al-Zawhahri. It was created, for the most part, by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian radical religious scholar who was executed by the Egyptian government of Abdel Nasser in 1966. Born around the turn of the last century, as a young man Qutb was exposed to both Western and Muslim learning. In his earlier career he was quite Westernized, adopting ideas such as socialism. He studied literary criticism, and wrote a book called Literary Criticism: Its Principles and Methodology (Berman, 2003). Many Western accounts of Qutb's career emphasize a period when he studied in the United States around 1
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Approximate Word count = 5943
Approximate Pages = 24 (250 words per page)