by coordinated suicide bombings (seen as an al-
Qaida trademark) against the American embas-
sies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, and
against the USS Cole, a destroyer docked in the
Yemeni port of Aden, in October 2000. After the
U.S.-led coalition’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, young
Sunnis from various countries were recruited to
form the “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia Group,” a
jihadist guerrilla organization under the leader-
ship of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966–2006),
a Jordanian militant who had been marginally
involved in the Afghan jihad. This group, though
small in size, attacked U.S. troops and is suspected
of having fomented Sunni-Shii conflict through a
campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations,
causing many civilian casualties. It also claimed
responsibility for the bombing of a luxury hotel
in Amman, Jordan, in 2005. Although Zarqawi
is known to have been in communication with
al-Zawahiri, there is no evidence of a direct chain-
of-command connection between the two organi-
zations. In addition, deadly public transportation
bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2006
were allegedly conducted by local al-Qaida cells,
but no direct connection has been established.
Most likely they were carried out by individuals
who had been inspired by al-Qaida’s propaganda.
A group called al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghrib,
which appears to be a spin-off from the Armed
Islamic Group, has conducted bombings in alge-
ria to deadly effect since 2006. Al-Qaida has also
been linked to terrorist attacks in Indonesia and
the Philippines.
Al-Qaida’s notoriety and continued existence
has generated much controversy around the world
between Muslims and non-Muslims, and among
Muslims themselves, about the nature of its rela-
tion to Islam. Even though more is now known
about the organization than in the past, a body of
politicians, scholars, religious leaders, and edito-
rialists persists in equating its ideology and use of
violence with Islam as a whole, both in the distant
past and in the current post–cold war period. This
understanding has had an impact on policymak-
ing, security measures, and military planning
domestically and internationally. The chief defect
in this line of thought is that it overlooks both
the great diversity of forms Islam has assumed
historically as well as the widespread rejection
of al-Qaida’s ideology and tactics by govern-
ments of Muslim-majority countries and ordinary
Muslims. Another group of politicians, scholars,
religious leaders, and editorialists has persisted
in minimizing or denying any connection with
Islam at all. While this denial may help temporar-
ily deflect criticism and suspicion from Islam and
Muslims, the vast majority of whom have nothing
to do with al-Qaida and its spin-offs, it neverthe-
less fails to give serious consideration to the fact
that al-Qaida’s leaders and membership believe
themselves to actually be good Muslims seek-
ing to defend Islam and the wider Muslim umma
from their enemies. Between the two extremes of
polemics and apologetics there are more balanced
understandings that are conducive to a better
assessment of the nature of Islamic radicalism,
the actual threat al-Qaida poses, and how to best
proceed to counteract that threat. The report of
the 9/11 Commission, for example, found, “most
Muslims prefer a peaceful and inclusive vision of
their faith... [and] are repelled by mass murder
and barbarism whatever their justification.” But it
also concluded that bin Ladin and other Islamists
“draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance
within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition)”
that was “further fed by grievances stressed by
bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim
world.”
See also abd al-rahman, Umar; arab-israeli
conFlicts; eUrope; gUlF Wars; islamism; Jihad
movements; pan-islamism; Wahhabism.Further reading: Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda:
Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2002); Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda
Reader (New York: Random House, 2007); National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report (NewK 566 al-Qaida