都匀湘才学校:Understanding Strategic Change in Al-Zawahiri...

来源：百度文库 编辑：九乡新闻网 时间：2024/04/27 18:22:04

Understanding Strategic Change in Al-Zawahiri’s Time


Bin Laden dead, Al-Qaeda new leader succeeds, US vows to kill the new leader as killed Bin Laden - BUT which direction core al-Qaeda (based along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border) will go in the post-Bin Laden era according to the ideology of its remaining leaders?  


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Far Enemy and Near Enemy??


Bin Laden was fond of the idea of fighting against “the far enemy” (the “Crusaders and Jews”). Seventy percent of his speeches and appearances were focused on the far enemy, with 20% consisting of general advice and instructions to jihadis, and just 10% directed at toppling local regimes of “the near enemy” (“apostate” regimes in the Muslim world). [6] These figures suggest that although Bin Laden served as a symbol for jihadis, he was a strategist more than a religious ideologue.


Unlike Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri is focused more on the near enemy, this being due to his background as leader of a national jihad group before it adopted Salafism and joined the larger international jihad movement in the 1980s, of which al-Qaeda is the prime example. Al-Zawahiri’s focus on “the near enemy” comprised 50% of his speeches; in contrast “the far-enemy” was the focus of only 15% of his speeches, the rest being comprised mainly of general advice and instructions. The works of Abu Yahya al-Libi, Abu Abdulrahman Attiya al-Libi and Abdul Majid Abdul Majid reflect a similar lack of focus on fighting the far enemy. This suggests that core al-Qaeda will focus on targeting near enemies in the future. In his June 8 eulogy for Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri made explicit calls for jihad against the near enemy in Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya.




Ideologues and Operatives ?


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Al-Qaeda and all its branches have a functional division between political-ideological leaders and military operatives. Switching broad strategies would increase the roles of certain leaders from both groups.


Focusing on the near enemy could be the first challenge to al-Zawahiri’s leadership. Al-Qaeda’s rhetoric promoting violent jihad has had very little effect on the youths agitating for political change in the streets of the Arab world, which has also hurt its recruitment base. ?However, if political violence were to continue to escalate in Libya, Syria and Yemen, for instance, it would provide new opportunities for a movement that has always gravitated to areas in crisis.


Besides its tactical advantages, individual jihad suggests that the “far enemy” remains a priority for al-Qaeda.


Al-Qaeda will continue after Bin Laden by relying on its ideology, but a change will be seen in its behavior. These changes will be reflected in new roles for the movement’s leaders, particularly those involved in developing the group’s ideology.??Under al-Zawahiri’s leadership, al-Qaeda will be more near-enemy-oriented, but this will depend on developments in the Arab world and the direction of the popular opposition movements.



Relying on military operatives to maintain ties with locals in the region could become a problem for core al-Qaeda if they do not dedicate an ideologue for such missions. Though al-Zawahiri will play an important role as al-Qaeda’s new leader, the increased roles of various ideologues will mean that the movement will be led in a more collective fashion than has existed previously.




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