The Rise of Al-Qaeda
The Rise of Al-Qaeda
This chapter traces the roots and development of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda became an operationally organized, independent, and centralized transnational group only in the second half of the 1990s. It emerged as a result of the two developments: entropy of the local jihadist movement in the mid-1990s and the reverberations of the Afghan jihad. The group sought to win the hearts and minds of Muslims and spearhead popular resistance against the Western crusade against the umma. Once bin Laden and Zawahiri gained credibility in the eyes of the Muslim masses, they would level the playing field with local rulers and seize power in their native lands.
Keywords: terrorist group, terrorists, Afghanistan, bin Laden, Zawahiri, Muslims, transnational groups
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