Global jihad splits into wars between Muslims
Al-Qaida: the unwanted guests
Le Monde Diplomatiqe
(TM comment: This has the ring of truth.)
As the arc of chaos grows from Afghanistan to Somalia by way of the Middle East, the region’s states are growing weaker and their armed groups gaining in power. But in this battle for competing visions between the US and al-Qaida, the Sunni resistance is now opposing al-Qaida in Iraq, as are the Taliban in Afghanistan.
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
There is a widening split between armed Islamists, as two recent incidents show. In March the local Taliban in the Pakistani tribal zone of South Waziristan killed foreign fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Almost simultaneously, infighting broke out between the Islamic Army in Iraq and the local branch of al-Qaida. The confrontation between the two strategies – and two different ideologies – of the Islamist struggle is getting more violent.
Many of the foreign volunteers who have flooded into Pakistan and Iraq since 2003 are Takfirists, who regard “bad Muslims” as the real enemy (see ‘Takfirism: a messianic ideology’). Indigenous Islamic resistance groups have reacted uncomfortably to the growth of this near-heresy within al-Qaida which, by waging war against Muslim governments, has brought chaos to the populations it claims to defend.
Between 2003 and 2006, across the war zone that is the two Waziristans, Afghanistan and Iraq, the complexity of the situation reinforced al-Qaida’s doctrinaire thinking and reduced indigenous groups to silence. The consequence of Takfirist influence was the emergence in the two Waziristans of a self-styled Islamic state that challenged the writ of the Pakistan government within its own boundaries and fuelled the spread of armed conflict to major cities. The aim was to provoke armed insurrection against the pro-western military regime.
The fierce response of the Pakistani army led to the deaths of hundreds of non-combatants, including women and children, and fuelled the anger of Takfirist ideologues. But many Taliban leaders privately felt that the Takfirists had lost touch with reality and were distorting the sharply focused anti-western strategy developed during the 1990s by Osama bin Laden. The war of national resistance against foreign occupying forces had been transformed into one aimed at Pakistan’s military establishment.
(Continued here. Here's a sidebar to the article, printed in full here:)
Takfirism: a messianic ideology
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Takfirism is a centuries-old belief that suddenly revived among Islamic militants in Egypt after the Israeli victory in 1967. It claims that the Muslim ummah (the community of believers) has been weakened by devi0ation in the practice of Islam. Takfirism classifies all non-practising Muslims as kafirs (infidels) and calls upon its adherents to abandon existing Muslim societies, settle in isolated communities and fight all Muslim infidels.
Small isolated groups of Takfirist militants survived throughout the Arab world in the 1970s. They regrouped alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, during the war of resistance against Soviet forces. The Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Uzbek leader Tahir Yuldash and Sheikh Essa, who were later the top leadership of al-Qaida, were among the fiercest proponents of Takfirism in these years. After the US invasion it flourished in Iraq, where the al-Qaida leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, killed in June 2006, was a leading exponent.
Le Monde Diplomatiqe
(TM comment: This has the ring of truth.)
As the arc of chaos grows from Afghanistan to Somalia by way of the Middle East, the region’s states are growing weaker and their armed groups gaining in power. But in this battle for competing visions between the US and al-Qaida, the Sunni resistance is now opposing al-Qaida in Iraq, as are the Taliban in Afghanistan.
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
There is a widening split between armed Islamists, as two recent incidents show. In March the local Taliban in the Pakistani tribal zone of South Waziristan killed foreign fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Almost simultaneously, infighting broke out between the Islamic Army in Iraq and the local branch of al-Qaida. The confrontation between the two strategies – and two different ideologies – of the Islamist struggle is getting more violent.
Many of the foreign volunteers who have flooded into Pakistan and Iraq since 2003 are Takfirists, who regard “bad Muslims” as the real enemy (see ‘Takfirism: a messianic ideology’). Indigenous Islamic resistance groups have reacted uncomfortably to the growth of this near-heresy within al-Qaida which, by waging war against Muslim governments, has brought chaos to the populations it claims to defend.
Between 2003 and 2006, across the war zone that is the two Waziristans, Afghanistan and Iraq, the complexity of the situation reinforced al-Qaida’s doctrinaire thinking and reduced indigenous groups to silence. The consequence of Takfirist influence was the emergence in the two Waziristans of a self-styled Islamic state that challenged the writ of the Pakistan government within its own boundaries and fuelled the spread of armed conflict to major cities. The aim was to provoke armed insurrection against the pro-western military regime.
The fierce response of the Pakistani army led to the deaths of hundreds of non-combatants, including women and children, and fuelled the anger of Takfirist ideologues. But many Taliban leaders privately felt that the Takfirists had lost touch with reality and were distorting the sharply focused anti-western strategy developed during the 1990s by Osama bin Laden. The war of national resistance against foreign occupying forces had been transformed into one aimed at Pakistan’s military establishment.
(Continued here. Here's a sidebar to the article, printed in full here:)
Takfirism: a messianic ideology
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Takfirism is a centuries-old belief that suddenly revived among Islamic militants in Egypt after the Israeli victory in 1967. It claims that the Muslim ummah (the community of believers) has been weakened by devi0ation in the practice of Islam. Takfirism classifies all non-practising Muslims as kafirs (infidels) and calls upon its adherents to abandon existing Muslim societies, settle in isolated communities and fight all Muslim infidels.
Small isolated groups of Takfirist militants survived throughout the Arab world in the 1970s. They regrouped alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, during the war of resistance against Soviet forces. The Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Uzbek leader Tahir Yuldash and Sheikh Essa, who were later the top leadership of al-Qaida, were among the fiercest proponents of Takfirism in these years. After the US invasion it flourished in Iraq, where the al-Qaida leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, killed in June 2006, was a leading exponent.
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1 Comments:
Thanks for posting this very interesting article.
I hadn’t heard this thought before : “Dr Muhammad Bashar al-Faithi, a leading member of the Muslim Scholars’ Association, a component of Iraqi resistance : “Today I believe it was Bremer’s deliberate policy to draw al-Qaida militants into Iraq, where it is far more easy to kill or capture them than in Waziristan or Afghanistan”
I am afraid that -- either by design or ignorance – America still does not understand the various sects and attributes every problem to al-Qaida. Never mind that a posting on Ansar al-Sunnah's web site told foreign militants to stop coming. The group, which defines itself as both nationalist and Islamic, said it needed money, not more recruits. Iraqi insurgents seem worried that bin Laden is out to hijack their rebellion.
No doubt that Bush is using al-Qaeda as a catchall to mask his problems -- we gotta have a villian. But how do we counter the ignorance when you hear mindless members of Congress like Michele Bachmann who rant about a secret plan by Iran to partition Iraq and turn half of the country into a “terrorist safe haven zone” ? I admit that makes it somewhat understandable that ordinary people cannot distinguish between Salafi, Wahhabi, Takfirists Islamists but I cannot understand why so many cannot understand the difference in Sunni and Shiite.
Have you read Matthew Duss’s excellent piece Misunderstanding Muqtada al-Sadr ? link
It is insightful, and in some ways you cannot help but consider how the Bush and al-Sadr families have both contributed to affect the world events for generations. It also makes you ask the question, when will the Bush Administration realize that al-Maliki's coalition government is on the verge of collaspe and that by 2009, al-Sadr will be running the show.
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