EVOLUTION OF AL-QAEDA

Evolution of Al-Qaeda

Evolution of Al-Qaeda

Part-1

Translating into English as “The Base,” Al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist group established by Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) toward the end of the 1980s. Begun as a pro-Muslim network during the Afghan War against the Soviet Union, Al-Qaeda has since become known worldwide as a terrorist organization for the attacks it perpetrated on American soil on September 11, 2001. The U.S. military invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 and toppled the Taliban regime, which had been harboring Al-Qaeda's leadership. American forces have harried the terrorist network in Afghanistan and Pakistan ever since, succeeding in finding and killing Osama bin Laden in May 2011. While intelligence experts say that Al-Qaeda is substantially weaker than it was in 2001, the organization may still pose serious threats throughout the world. This paper discusses the evolution of Al-Qaeda.

Profile Of The Organization

On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union deployed troops in support of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and against the Muslim Afghan Mujahideen. Osama bin Laden, son of a Saudi billionaire who made his fortune in construction, was fresh out of King Abdul Aziz University when he started working to raise funds in support of the mujahideen effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. By 1988, he had developed a strong enough reputation and broad enough base of mujahideen volunteers to form his own militant organization called Al-Qaeda. (Alexander, 2009)

The Afghan War finally came to an end in 1989 when Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-) withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was celebrated as a hero when he returned to Saudi Arabia. Yet his government did not welcome him as a military leader. Bin Laden strongly objected when Saudi Arabia accept U.S. military troops on its soil following the 1991 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, which precipitated the First Gulf War. Embittered, bin Laden relocated to Sudan where he began plotting to thwart U.S. involvement in matters he believed were best left to Muslims. The Saudi government grew outraged over bin Laden's public support of terrorism on U.S. soil, such as the bomb attack against the World Trade Center in 1993, and revoked his citizenship. Settling in Afghanistan in 1996 after his deportation from Sudan, bin Laden worked with the Islamist Taliban militia while plotting a holy war against the United States. The first major action of his holy war occurred in 1998, when Al-Qaeda bombed three U.S. embassies in Africa, leaving 224 people dead. The group's most devastating plot was yet to come. (Bergen, 2002)

Evolution Of Al-Qaeda

On 2 May 2011, Osama bin Laden (1957-2011), the most reviled terrorist in a generation and founder of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, was killed in a carefully orchestrated U.S. military operation. Bin Laden, in hiding for ten years after orchestrating the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States that left 3,000 people dead, was shot and killed in a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan—just 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Pakistan's capital, ...