Al Qaeda

aka Al Qa'ida, Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places, Islamic Salvation Foundation, Osama bin Laden Network, World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders

Al Qaeda (Arabic for “The Base”) is a loosely knit terrorist network that facilitates the activities of like-minded militant Islamic groups in more than 60 countries around the globe. Al Qaeda is believed to have been behind both attacks on the World Trade Center (1993 and 2001) and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, among many other incidents.

Organizationally, Al Qaeda is governed by a small core comprising the majlis al-shura, or consultative council, which makes the final decisions on major policy decisions, including the approval of terrorist operations and the issuing of Islamic decrees, or fatwas. Al Qaeda also has a military committee, a business committee, a media committee, and a religious committee. Most Al Qaeda operatives never have contact with the top leadership and are dispatched for duty at the last moment without prior knowledge of the organization's plans. For this reason, intelligence analysts have experienced great difficulty breaking into the network.

The network was established in 1989 by Saudi militant Osama bin Laden with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood figure Abdullah Azzam. Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan from 1989 to 1991, Sudan from 1991 to 1996, Afghanistan again from 1996 to 2001, and was forced into exile after the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom into Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.

Al Qaeda seeks to overthrow the current world order and replace it with a fundamentalist Islamic order characterized by a unified Muslim world under the leadership of one Muslim Caliph. Accordingly, it has set several goals. First, it seeks to topple what it considers to be the morally bankrupt and heretical regimes of the Middle East. Al Qaeda chastises these regimes for not properly implementing Islamic law, or shari'a. The organization's top target is Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's two holiest sites, which bin Laden lambastes for allowing U.S. soldiers to be stationed on its soil. Second, Al Qaeda sees the United States as the foremost enemy of Islam for what it perceives to be oppressive foreign policy. As the world's lone super power, the United States also represents the largest impediment to an Islamic order. Al Qaeda, therefore, seeks to destroy it. Finally, Al Qaeda calls for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel and to replace it with a Muslim state of Palestine. Al Qaeda, however, has never directly attacked a Jewish or Israeli target.