Al Qaeda Is an International Terrorist Organization,

Al Qaeda is an international terrorist organization, which was formed in August 1988. The word Al Qaeda means 'The Base'. This organization is considered as a top threat for the world super power United States of America. Al Qaeda is responsible for many attacks throughout the world with its extensive and effective networks. This group is responsible for attack like the September 7, 2001 attack on the world trade centre and pentagon in the United States of America. It aims to develop stateless army by bringing all Muslim countries on one platform by establishing caliphate. The European Union, United Nations Security Council, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), United Kingdom, United States of America and many other countries, have declared the group as terrorist organization. Al Qaeda in recent times has been weakened due to the death of their key leaders. Today it is not considered that much efficient and effective as it was before however, it still poses threats to many countries all around the world due its huge networks in various countries and its ability to strike any time and anywhere they want (Blanchard, 2010).

Origin of Al Qaeda:

The origin of Al Qaeda can be traced back to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when a movement by the name of Islamic Muja hid Movement was launched in order to counter soviets ruthless invasion in Afghanistan which started in December 1979 and continued till February 1989. United States of America was observing the situation closely as its counter part was invading Afghanistan, which for sure meant to get access to warm waters of Pakistan. United States of America never wanted Soviets to dominate and for that, they needed to stop Soviets in Afghanistan and force them to withdraw their soldiers back to from where they came from. Soviets were up against the Mujahidin who were confronting the Soviets and giving them tough time however, due to lack of training and absence of advance weapons that were being used by the Soviets ruthlessly on Afghanistan Mujahidin caused them to take fatal blows thus slowing their movement and causing Soviets to take larger control. Meanwhile United States of America decided to fund these Mujahidin by launching an operation known as Operation Cyclone by giving them advance weapons and money to buy more weapons through Pakistan's intelligence ISI. United States of America also helped the Mujahidin by getting them trained by the Pakistani Armed Forces and then sending them for confrontation as a result slowly and slowly Soviets started to loose control and finally were force to withdraw their forces in Afghanistan. These Mujahidin consisted of people from various parts of the world mainly Arab. During the war in 1984, these mujahidin established Maktab al Khidmat in Peshawar, which also acted as their Services Office, which intended to collect funds from all around the world and to recruit and train people for this cause. Osama Bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam established Maktab al Khidmat. Osama Bin Laden was a major financer for this cause as he decided to spend all his wealth by using his connections in the Royal Family (Hassan, 2004). With Service Office established in Peshawar and funds being received in large amount by both Saudi Arabia and United States of America and mujahidin being hired and recruited, Osama Bin laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam established base camps in Afghanistan. After the Soviets were defeated and force to withdraw, their forces from Afghanistan the mujahidin now wanted to expand their operations in other part of the world where the Muslims were being oppressed like Kashmir and Palestine so numbers of organizations were formed to support this cause. Eventually one of these or collection of these was later known as Al Qaeda, which was formed by Osama Bin Laden in August 11, 1988. Initially the name Al Qaeda and its operation were kept secret. The major aim of this organization was to lift the word of God and to make their religion victorious. On February 1989 Osama Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. In August 1990, Kuwait is invaded by the Iraqi Forces, which puts the Saudi kingdom under great pressure as now the Iraqi forces were very close to the Saudi oil fields and were within striking distance. Saudi forces were well trained and were ready to counter this attack but the problem was that they were out numbered. At this critical moment, Osama Bin Laden offered his help and ensured King Fahd that the mujahidin will be able to counter this attack and force Iraqi forces to withdraw if he was given the permission. The King declined his offer and instead asked United States of America and the allied forces to help them counter this aggression by allowing them to be deployed in Saudi territory. This decision infuriated Osama Bin Laden, as he was against the deployment of foreign forces in the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. He made public statements against this decision as a result he was banished from Saudi Arabia from where he left for Sudan. In Sudan he was welcomed by Hassan Al Turabi after which he helped Sudan government in various projects and bought and setup many businesses and established camps where insurgents were to be trained. Meanwhile he continued to make statements against the Saudi Government and against King Fahd. On March 5, 1994 the Saudi king sent a delegate to Sudan who demanded Osama Bin Laden passport after which his citizenship was canceled, his family was forced to cut of the financial support being sent to him which has been estimated around $11,000,000,000 today, his assets were frozen and a time came when his family openly disowned him. Meanwhile in Afghanistan Taliban grew in power, which comprised of children who were made orphans in the soviet war and the veterans of that war. With Taliban gaining extensive and rapid control in Afghanistan Al Qaeda under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden left from Sudan because of the mounting pressure on the Sudanese Government from the Allied countries and Saudi Arabia towards Afghanistan where they were to establish their head quarters under the protection of Taliban forces. In 1996 officially announced jihad by issuing a fatwa, which said to attack Allied forces, liberate Arabian Peninsula from foreign elements and free Al- Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and help liberate Muslims in Kashmir, Iraq and Palestine thus making intentions of Al Qaeda very clear (Atwan, 2008).

Al Qaeda aims and objectives:

Although Al Qaeda is not a corporation or has legal existence but like most organization, it has objectives to fulfill its mission. Initially when Al Qaeda came into existence, its primary objective was to lift the word of the God and to make their religion and its follower victorious. Today's Al Qaeda objectives are the extended version of their initial objectives but the worrying part is that some of them are not in accordance with their own holy scriptures. Following are Al Qaeda primary objectives:

Spread Islam and the word of God throughout the world with or without the consent of the people.

To destroy State of Israel and all those who directly or indirectly are helping her especially states like United State of America, Great Britain, France, Australia and Canada.

Driving Non-Muslims away from their sacred lands.

Dominate the world by restoring Muslim caliphate.

Strategy of Al Qaeda:

Al Qaeda strategies are a bit more complicated to comprehend. Following are the strategies of Al Qaeda to ultimately achieve their objectives:

Overpower and destroy the enemy

Drain the enemy financially

Make enemy fight amongst themselves

Draw out the opponent thin

Overpower and destroy the enemy:

In order to achieve their objectives Al Qaeda main strategy is to make their enemies fear them. They do so by entering fear in their minds and in their hearts. Few years back people in United States use to travel freely without any slightest bit of worry in their mind about any mishap but after September 9/11 attacks on the Word Trade Centre and Pentagon things changed. Now everyday not a single day passes without hearing news about terrorism. Now if you are to travel on a plane, go to airport or go to any high profile place or even a shop near by you will have that fear somewhere at the back of your mind. You will also be expecting strict security points and checks everywhere deployed to ensure safety but all this tells us one thing that main aim of Al Qaeda or any terrorist organization is to terrorize and fill terror in the minds and hearts of people and so far they have been successful in doing so (Ibrahim, 2007).

Drain the enemy financially:

Al Qaeda plans its act in such a way that they want their enemy to have them focus all the time in this way they will be spending more and more on them because of the fear, they put the people in. This money, which is being spent for security could have been spent on other economic development and social projects in order to benefit people but it does not, seems to be the case any more. With United States of America expanding its operations in many countries it requires smooth flow of funds all the time in order to sustain its troops in those places which again shows us that Al Qaeda has successfully able to achieve its strategy for this part.

Make enemy fight amongst them:

This is a very important strategy for Al Qaeda and very big weakness of the United States and the allied countries that Al Qaeda is aiming to make these countries fight amongst themselves so that in the end they could be more vulnerable to Al Qaeda. The group has use this tactics on several occasions especially in areas where war against terrorism is still in process. Places like Afghanistan where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops are often deceived by these people as a result firing takes place on troops of Pakistan and some time by Pakistani troops on us who are allies on the war against terrorism. These acts are definitely planned and aimed at disrupting ties between the two countries as conflict between them will give Al Qaeda chance to flourish in Afghanistan leaving NATO fighting with its allies instead of cooperating with each other to counter terrorism which has become major problem for every country. Similarly, people living within United States have become against each other and the unity that was seen before September 9/11 attacks can no longer be observed be it civilian or the military, Al Qaeda has been successful in implementing this strategy (Kepel, Milelli, & Ghazaleh, 2008).

Draw out the opponent thin:

Al Qaeda wants its enemy to be scattered in several places in order to fight terrorism instead of being concentrated in an area. In this way they will always have a chance to strike and make their enemy bleed and today we see that how the forces has been dispersed in several locations where they are combating terrorism. This has led to increased attacks on the soldiers by these terrorist organizations, which has frequently increased. This indicates that they have almost achieved to implement their strategy number four and once its fully implemented then these terrorist hit hard on the forces combating terrorism through suicide bombings and assault on soldiers killing plenty of them and transferring fear and sense of uncertainty into the mind of soldiers and their families.

Ideology and Motivators of Al Qaeda:

Al Qaeda is regarded as radical Islamist movement developed to ensure the revival of Islam and the unity of Muslim states for the last three decades. In order to ensure Islamic supremacy it is very important to establish a strong Islamic state, which can act as a platform for them where they can follow their religion without any external or western influence on their people. According to Al Qaeda Jews have abandoned their books and have altered their scriptures, which are no longer original. It has been done order to implement their evil plans of destroying Muslim countries by snatching their supremacy away from them. For this purpose, they seek to destroy the state of Israel, which acts as safe heavens for these people, and they want to destroy all the countries that extend their support to Israel for this evil cause. At Al Qaeda religion is taken very seriously as to them Islam is a way of life that tell the Muslims from A to Z. how to live their life and any influence or any act to influence their religion and their life styles will not be tolerated by them. All these factors act as ideology and motivators for Al Qaeda (Riedel, 2010).

Leadership:

It is known to everyone that Osama Bin Laden was the one to start this organization. However it is still unclear as to how this organization operates but from the knowledge and investigation derived from the sources it is said that the organization is run and administered by a council who approves or disapproves the major decision that has to be under taken by the organization with Osama Bin Laden at the top of this council. On May 1, 2011, United States forces conducted a special operation in which the founder of Al Qaeda who may not have been active in its operations was found and killed. Few months after the death of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmed Al Zawahiri who had previously served under Osama Bin Laden for many years and acted as his deputy and ideological advisor became in charge of Al Qaeda (McGrath, 2011). Other then that Mustufa Abu al Yazid who belongs to Egypt and was an advisor to Osama Bin Laden for more then a decade originally part and member of Al Qaeda leadership council. He was imprisoned for conspiring against the Egyptian President. United States claim to have kill several Al Qaeda important leaders through drone strikes and also claim to have many important Al Qaeda leaders in their custody like Khalid Sheikh who has been accused of being the mastermind behind September 11 attacks and Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi who was the treasurer for Al Qaeda. Atiyah Abd Rahman is amongst many who were killed during drone strikes in Pakistan.

Structure of Al Qaeda:

Al Qaeda structure comprises of the following elements:

Shura Council (Advisory Council): Shura council is responsible for developing and directing of overall strategy of the organization.

Sharia Committee (Political Committee): Sharia committee is responsible for issuing fatwas.