In today’s world, every attack on Western targets seems to “bear the hallmarks of al-Qaeda.” Writing on the group has become a booming industry for the huge army of self-described counterterrorism experts and retired intelligence officers who dominate the media debate on militant Islam. But no one seems interested any more in asking the basic question: “What is al-Qaeda?”

Al-Qaeda, the experts tell us, is a pyramid-shaped organization—much like the ex-Communist Party of the Soviet Union—with Secretary General Osama bin Laden on top, issuing orders to his “sleeping cells” here and there. His followers are devout, brainwashed, fanatic foot soldiers, awaiting the orders of their commander-in-chief. The logic then follows that if senior al-Qaeda operatives are captured or killed, and their finances dried out, the world will be a safer place. 

Well, maybe not, says Jason Burke, The Observer's chief reporter who spent years covering militant groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the Islamic world. In describing this ghostly phenomenon, Burke's new book Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror offers a polemic against mainstream media and intelligence-dominated views on militant Islam.  

While covering the war in Afghanistan, Burke found “it was impossible to explain what had happened merely by looking at developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan... What had occurred at Tora Bora was the culmination of a huge and complex historical process. The men who had been under those bombs on those slopes above us were from Yemen, Egypt, the Sudan and Algeria as well as from southwest Asia. The reason for what happened at Tora Bora involved their histories as much as those of the Afghans.” 

In Al-Qaeda, Burke takes us on a journey from the beginnings of Islamic revivalism in the colonial era to the present day “war on terror.” He provides a clear narrative of the movement’s figures and ideas. Radical politics, represented today by bin Laden and his associates, were previously the marginal fringe of the Islamist movement. Modern Islamism was largely a gradualist reform movement drawing on ideas of nationalist politics, fused with the salafi tradition. The transformation from reform to revolution took place incrementally, over several decades. Its motives are far from irrational millenarianism. As Burke insists, Al-Qaeda and Islamist radicals voice real political grievances, articulated in religious terms—grievances that could also motivate radicalization to the left. He adopts a comparative approach, and shows striking similarities between some Jihadi views and those of their radical leftist counterparts.  

The book lays heavy emphasis on the sense of injustice and frustrated expectations suffered by Muslims. While Burke is careful to highlight the causes of anti-Western sentiments in today’s Muslim World (in which the endless tragedy of Palestine figures strongly), as well as distinctly ideological developments in the region (the wholesale and widespread exporting of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism, for example), it is the failures of Arab and Muslim post-colonial regimes which he sees as the primary cause of political Islam’s radicalization.  

Most important is the author’s investigation of al-Qaeda’s modus operandi. Al-Qaeda might have existed as a hierarchal organization or even a minuscule de facto state only between 1996 and 2001, when bin Laden managed to gather several veterans of the Afghan, Bosnian and Chechen jihads around him. While this “al-Qaeda hardcore” successfully established contacts with numerous militant groups across the Islamic world, Burke notes that the links were often pragmatic, short-term, and far from a master-follower relation. Even a single “al-Qaeda linked” group could have more than one link with the al-Qaeda core. For example, the militia Ansar al-Islam, based in Iraqi Kurdistan, was comprised of three factions. Two dispatched emissaries to meet bin Laden in the spring of 2001, seeking aid, while the third never made any contact, rejecting bin Laden’s internationalization of jihad. Some militant groups elsewhere refused his help for a broad variety of reasons, including fear of surrendering their autonomy or simply because they had a different, purely domestic agenda. Simply dubbing these groups “al-Qaeda linked” risks neglecting the important fact that they are often homegrown and a result of concrete local grievances. 

Burke compares the interaction between the al-Qaeda’s core and the Islamic radical networks to “a newspaper or TV production or publishing house. Bin Laden and his associates acted as commissioning editors of films, books or newspaper articles. Freelancers approached them with ideas that were sometimes funded and resourced but often rejected. Occasionally, old ideas were rehashed or the editor’s ideas were given to people whose own ideas had been rejected. Equally often, the approaches of the… commissioning editor were rejected as inappropriate, unwelcome or simply unnecessary.” 

If the al-Qaeda mainframe has been smashed in Afghanistan, and other established groups are being contained elsewhere, this does not mean the end of radical Islam. Burke reminds us that bin Laden did not initiate Islamic militancy, and it will not die with him. Even if the organizational structures are decimated, al-Qaeda remains as an idea, a worldview and ideology that is capable of attracting radicalized Muslim youth. These are the freelance Jihadis Burke describes: “In very broad terms, they share the key ideas, and the key objectives, of bin Laden and the ‘al-Qaeda hardcore’. They subscribe, whether involved in radical groups or not, to the ‘al-Qaeda’ worldview. They speak the ‘al-Qaeda’ language… It’s not about being part of a group. It is a way of thinking about the world, a way of understanding events, of interpreting and behaving.”  

With the ongoing radicalization engulfing the Islamic World, some ordinary young Muslims who feel their governments have let them down have started taking matters into their own hands. The radical literature available for any web surfer means that the ideological foundation for dissent, as well as the practical know-how, can easily be found. As Burke explains, “The discourse associated with al-Qaeda is very contemporary. It is accessible, demotic and needs no great erudition or literacy to understand… [I]t evokes events and personalities, many dating back to the seventh century, in the knowledge that they will be understood by the target audience. The symbolism is powerful but easy to grasp. It offers instant gratification, instant empowerment. Any group or individual can find elements that are useful within it.”  

The effects of this technologically induced availability are already being seen. Burke continues, “Its symbols have even spread outside the Islamist context. Thai Hells Angels now sport portraits of bin Laden on their bikes and helmets. Bin Laden has become a counter-cultural symbol, representative of a discourse of dissent. Before satellite TV, phones and the internet, bin Laden might have been nothing more than a Messianic mahdi for a thousand tribesman. But modern communications technology has allowed exiled radicals to broadcast their views to target populations free from state interference or retribution.” 

In Egypt, the birthplace of political Islam, the regime has been announcing crackdowns on several alleged militant groups for the past two years. In most cases, the suspects had no political records. The authorities were careful to say that the detainees subscribed to al-Qaeda’s ideology, but did not have any “organizational” links with the group. Al-Qaeda literature was found in some of the suspects’ homes, downloaded from the web. As Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayyat told me, in his office in Cairo, “More of these [amateur] groups will appear, due to the rage against US policies in the Middle East.” His current clients include a group of 43 “freelancers” who were allegedly planning to use pigeons laden with explosives to attack Western targets in Egypt, and a suicide-attack on the US embassy with a hijacked bus. The damage that can be inflicted by these groups could vary in scale from a couple of stones thrown at a McDonald’s to “disastrous operations,” he warned. The ghost that is al-Qaeda continues to haunt.

 Hossam el-Hamalawy is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Cairo. He writes on militant Islam and politics of dissent in the Middle East. You can reach him at hhamalawy77@hotmail.com 

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