Homeland Security

Intelligence and Homeland Security

Steven A. Bruner

American Military University

Midterm

Introduction

The Al Qaeda group has been the most notorious terrorist group since its foundation in 1998. This group steers, plan and conduct deadly terrorist attacks in the United States and other parts of the world. Al Qaeda is an influential jihadist terrorist network that serves as an ideological umbrella for many terrorist organizations in the United States and other parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to determine the origin, the ideology and the goals of the Al Qaeda terrorist group and examine its evolution through a comprehensive analysis of the structure and the activities of the group.

The Origin, Ideology, Goals, and objectives of the Al Qaeda Terrorist Group

Origins of Al-Qaeda

The invasion of the soviet in the 1979in Afghanistan led to the formation of the jihadist group from Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt and other Muslim worlds (Cohen, 2018). This group was initially formed to fight against the invaders. Afghanistan acted as a fertile ground for the jihadist group to form its organizational and fighting skills through the fights. Osama bin Laden from Saudi Arabia left school in his teens to join the fight against the expulsion of the collective from Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden together with Azzam in the early 1980s formed their fighting camp in Afghanistan with the aim of attracting fighters from the Muslim territories to join in the battle. Osama bin Laden then announced the war against the West and was imminently joined by other jihadist leaders to form a joint alliance known as the Al Qaeda group.

Ideology

Al Qaeda was formed basing on the ideologies of Jihadism with the main goal of protecting the Arab and the Muslim countries from invasion by the foreign countries particularly Europe and the United States (Sullivan, 2016). The old-fashioned and the over-conservatism lifestyle of Muslims contradicted with that of the western countries many years before the military development in the United States in the Gulf countries.

Goals and Objectives

The main goal of the Al Qaeda is to rid the Muslim world away from the western cultures, to put an end to Israel and develop an Islamic caliphate that stretches from Indonesia to Spain using the Sunni and the sharia laws. But not all members of the Al Qaeda group comply with the sharia laws.

Leadership, Funding, and Capabilities Such as Physical Bases or Operating/Support Location(S), Training Programs, and Communications Methods

Al Qaeda's Top Leaders

According to Nacos (2016), the main leader of the Al Qaeda was Osama bin Laden before his death. The second leader in command of the Al Qaeda terrorist group is Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a former medical practitioner, and an all-time jihadist. At one time, Zawahiri was a highly ranked jihad official of the Muslim community until he joined Osama in the 1990s. He also traveled to the United States in the early 1990s whereby he raised huge sums of money to fund the terrorist operations through falsified charity organizations. He is the second most wanted terrorist leader in the world today according to the department of homeland security and the FBI.

Another leader, third in command in the AL Qaeda group is Khalid Mohammed. However, this leader was captured in Pakistan in the march of 2003 (Sullivan, 2016). Khalid was a prominent terrorist leader who was linked with the al-Qaida attacks in the early 1990s. He was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist attack. He is presently being held by the security operations in the United States for security reasons.

Geographical Locations

The leaders of the al-Qaida group have largely functioned in Pakistan since the invasion of the Americans on Afghanistan (Cohen, 2018). The group has a robust presence in Pakistan. The group is also found in Somalia and Yemen. As of 2013, the Al Qaeda and the affiliates of the group had unusual occurrence in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Somalia, Morocco, Nigeria, and Niger.

Funding

Most researchers believe that the Al Qaeda group received its funding from the family inheritance of its leaders. But the CIA reports that the group has continued to receive its funding from private donations that account for 30 million dollars every year (Nacos, 2016). The group also receives its funding from fundraising activities and fraudulent charity organizations as well as donors who have no idea where the money is going to. Some of the charity organizations developed by the Al Qaeda group to collect funds include Al Wafa Organization, Al Charity Organization and others which are wholly run by the affiliates of the Al Qaeda group. The group also obtains its funds from drug trafficking manipulating the stock markets, trading in conflict diamonds and other malicious activities.

Training Programs

The Al Qaeda group recruits are trainees and militants through actively involved with the local tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The recruits are offered 1,000 to 1,500 dollars per month alongside several other benefits and vacations provided they swear to work in secrecy with the group. The training involves years of running and training on their muscles to be strong and know how to kill their targets.

Suspected Weapons/Lethal Agents and Delivery Methods, Procedures Used In Prior Attacks, Propaganda, and Surveillance Methods

Weapons

The weapons used by the Al Qaeda group include chemical weapons and lethal poison that can be dispersed as aerosols, gases or liquids. These weapons are also known as weapons of mass destruction (Cohen, 2018). Other weapons used by the Al Qaeda group include biological and nuclear weapons which have impacts that widen uncontrollably, making the whole civilians vulnerable to these weapons. The weapons are made of poison that doesn't kill the suspects immediately but harming their minds before eventually killing them.

Targets & Tactics

Al Qaeda employs different tactics to achieve its objectives. First, they use suicide bombings, grenades, kidnapping, rocket, and small arms attacks and propaganda to further their goals of attacking the United States and other countries within the Middle East. The Al Qaeda group has previously used biological and chemical weapons to carry out several assassinations. It assassinated Ahman Sha Massoud, Afghanistan political leader in 2001. The terrorist group also killed the former prime minister of Pakistani Benazir Bhutto in a bombing attack in 2003. Apart from killing the political leaders, the group also allegedly attacked the French satirical newspaper as a result of publishing their activities and attempted to kill Kurt, the Danish artist who published cartons highlighting on the dangerous group.

The Al Qaeda group and its affiliates target the United States and other western countries especially the countries in the Middle East (Sullivan, 2016). It also targets the political figures as well as the security forces that prevent the group from achieving its objectives. The affiliates of the terrorist group tried to attack the Homeland Security of the United States in the 2000s. It also attempted the airplane attack during this same period (Trump, 2017). Research indicates that the group has not presently carried out any 9/11 attack because it is still waiting for the opportunity and sufficient funds for executing this plan. Other analysts claim that the Al Qaeda is not currently planning to attack the country because it is weaker and instead depending on smaller attacks.

Manual for Attack

The al Qaeda group used the manual for attack for communications. In the manual, the members of the group are expected to swear in the name of Allah before partaking of their mission (Nacos, 2016). The manual contains the information on how to gather the necessary information about the enemy or the target, the installations, the land, and the neighbors. The manual also contains the information on how to kidnap the enemy and the personnel of target and how to assassinate the enemies and the foreign tourists.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Al Qaeda group categorizes itself as a frontrunner with the objective of spreading and restoring the Islamic and Jihadism principles which are adopted by the terrorist group. The main goal of the terrorist group is to conquest the governments that do not conform to the ideologies and the principles of their group. The group also aims at resorting the western alliances and replacing them with Muslim governments. In this light, the United States is the main target in the frame of purification of the western allies as states in the jihadist propaganda and other documents. As such, it is imperative for the United States to develop a strong security system that would prevent the terrorist group from ever invading the country.

References

Cohen, S. J., Kruglanski, A., Gelfand, M. J., Webber, D., & Gunaratna, R. (2018). Al-Qaeda’s propaganda decoded: A psycholinguistic system for detecting variations in terrorism ideology. Terrorism and Political Violence, 30(1), 142-171.

Nacos, B. L. (2016). Terrorism and counterterrorism. Routledge.

Sullivan, B. A., Freilich, J. D., & Chermak, S. M. (2016). Financial Terror: Financial Crime Schemes Involving Extremists Linked to the American Far Right and al‐Qaeda and Affiliated Movements. The Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism, 420.

Trump, D. J. (2017). National security strategy of the United States of America. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT WASHINGTON DC WASHINGTON United States.