What do al qaeda stand for

It is worth noting that there is an ongoing debate as to the amount of influence Al Qaeda has on its regional allies. Recent investigations by various governments into terrorist individuals and attacks, however, have indicated that the organizations listed below are linked to Al Qaeda. It should also be noted that the groups listed below are the largest and most important Al Qaeda allies, but do not constitute a complete list.

Founded in , the group operates primarily out of Indonesia and seeks to overthrow regional governments and replace them with a totalitarian Islamic state. Its ideology and anti-Western rhetoric closely resembles that of Al Qaeda, making the two organizations natural allies.

The men reached an arrangement to coordinate attacks whereby JI would scout potential targets and provide supplies. In turn, Al Qaeda would provide funding, expertise and a number of willing suicide bombers.

Fortunately, many of these attacks never came to fruition and Hambali was arrested in Thailand in In addition to its assistance in planning attacks in Southeast Asia, Al Qaeda provided guerrilla training to JI operatives at its camps in Afghanistan.

Between and November , many JI members were trained there, including its senior explosive expert, Dr. Azahari Husin. Despite the incarceration of several top leaders, JI continues to pose a threat to the stability of security of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Indonesian authorities believe that the organization is behind an October suicide bombing in Bali which killed at least Though the extent of coordination between Al Qaeda and JI in this attack is unknown, authorities believe that several of the planners, including Azahari Husin, were trained by Al Qaeda.

The Abu Sayyaf Group is a small militant Islamic organization operating out of the southern Philippines, where it seeks to establish an Islamic state. Founded around , it is known for its brazen kidnappings and brutal beheadings. It has also conducted a number of large attacks on Filipino and foreign civilians, including a February bombing of a ferry in Manila harbor which killed people.

Additionally, intelligence officials believe that Abu Sayyaf members have trained in Al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Despite their past cooperation, the current operational links between Al Qaeda and Abu Sayyaf are unclear.

According to police reports stemming from recent arrests in the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf also trains and coordinates attacks with the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah. Hattab declared that the new group would refrain from attacking civilians. Largely due to this policy, the GSPC quickly rose to prominence in Algeria's rural areas, where most of its support is located. It repeatedly attacks the Algerian military and also kidnaps Western tourists in an effort to weaken and ultimately overthrow the Algerian government, replacing it with Islamic rule based on a "pure" interpretation of the Koran.

The group is now closely allied with Al Qaeda, from which it receives material and financial support. Members of the organization have stated that that bin Laden himself ordered the creation of the group and continues to bankroll it.

In the past, the group has targeted France, and in September it issued a statement threatening the country with more attacks. Around the same time, a GSPC operative in Algerian custody divulged information about a cell in France which was allegedly planning to carry out major terrorist attacks on the Paris subway, Orly airport and the headquarters of the French intelligence service. Members of the organization have been arrested in major raids in Italy, France and Spain. It espouses the same rigid Salafist ideology as Al Qaeda.

Intelligence services hold the group accountable for several major terrorist attacks, including the Madrid train bombings that killed over people and injured at least 1, European and U. Al Qaeda in Iraq was formed shortly after the U. The immediate goal of the group was to end the American occupation of Iraq by killing Americans and their Iraqi supporters.

The two organizations are known to jointly plot strategies and tactics. The group has been responsible for some of the most deadly terrorist attacks in Iraq, often targeting Iraqi police recruits and government officials. It has targeted Shiites in an attempt to destabilize relations between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite populations, and it has also beheaded foreigners, including American Nick Berg.

It is considered the most dangerous terrorist organization in the country. Ansar al-Islam was formed in by Kurdish Islamists and militants loyal to Osama bin Laden, who allegedly helps fund the group. At its founding, the group sought to establish an Islamic nation in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, but after the U.

The group has claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile suicide bombings in Iraq. In , Ansar al-Islam seized control of a small piece of territory in northern Iraq, near the Iranian border. Under the direction of its spiritual leader Mullah Krekar, Ansar al-Islam enforced a strict form of Islamic rule in its newly-acquired territory.

Shortly thereafter, Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi joined with Ansar al-Islam and set up a number of alleged terrorist training camps in the area. In one of the first operations of the U. Special Forces, alongside Kurdish partisan fighters, attacked and destroyed the Ansar al-Islam headquarters in the village of Sargat in March Krekar was arrested in Norway in and is awaiting extradition to Iraq.

Since , Jaish Ansar al-Sunna Arabic for "Army of the Followers of the Teachings" has carried out some of the most lethal terrorist attacks in Iraq, including many suicide bombings, in an effort to achieve its ultimate goal of establishing a fundamentalist Islamic government in the country. Among the deadliest attacks claimed by Ansar al-Sunna is a bombing in Erbil that killed people in February , and a suicide bombing at a U. The group, described by U. According to U.

The full extent of their links is unclear; however, captured members of Ansar al-Sunna have reportedly described Zarqawi as having a leadership role in the group some Ansar al-Sunna followers have also reportedly described a rift between their leaders and Zarqawi. It is clear, however, that Ansar al-Sunna and Al Qaeda maintain some sort of operational links. Lashkar-e-Taiba Army of the Pure is a Pakistani-based Islamic terrorist organization which seeks to drive out Indian forces from the Jammu and Kashmir region of South Asia and establish an Islamic caliphate.

Intelligence services consider LET to be the most hardcore of the Kashmir-based Islamic militant groups, and it is known for its many deadly attacks, including a daring raid on the Indian parliament in which killed LET is known for its expertise in suicide bombing and conventional assault tactics. It is alleged by numerous intelligence officials that LET has members around the world, including in the U.

Also, some American citizens who have been arrested on terrorism-related charges have undergone training at LET camps in Kashmir and Pakistan. In an attempt to rein it in and reestablish Iraqi authority over the group, Baghdadi declared Jabhat al-Nusra part of his organization. Nusra leaders balked, pledging a direct oath to Zawahiri as a way of retaining its independence.

Zawahiri found this lack of unity frustrating and in late ordered Baghdadi to accept this decision and focus on Iraq. Baghdadi refused, and declared Jabhat al-Nusra subordinate to him: a move that sparked a broader clash in which thoughts of fighters from both groups died. Thousands more foreign fighters, inspired by the stunning success of the Islamic State and the bold declaration of a caliphate, flocked to Syria and Iraq to join the fight.

The dispute between the Islamic State and Al Qaeda is more than just a fight for power within the jihadist movement. The two organizations differ on the main enemies, strategies, tactics, and other fundamental concerns. As a result, the threat they pose to the United States differs as well. By targeting the United States, Al Qaeda believes it will eventually induce the United States to end support for these Muslim state regimes and withdraw from the region altogether, thus leaving the regimes vulnerable to attack from within.

Yet Zawahiri cannot openly oppose sectarianism: it is too popular, and with the sectarian slaughter in the Syrian civil war, too many in the Muslim world find it compelling. Ostensibly in response to intervention by the United States and others in the conflict, Western civilians in the region including journalists and humanitarian aid workers have also become targets—though the Islamic State saw them as hostile before the U.

And now that American military advisers are on the ground in Iraq supporting the Iraqi military, the U. Al Qaeda has long used a mix of strategies to achieve its objectives.

In addition, Al Qaeda supports insurgents in the Islamic world to fight against U. The Islamic State embraces some of these goals, but even where there is agreement in principle, its approach is quite different.

Part of this is inspirational: by creating an Islamic state, it electrifies many Muslims who then embrace the group. And part of it is basic strategy: by controlling territory it can build an army, and by using its army it can control more territory. Cole in the port of Aden in , and plots like the attempt to down over 10 transatlantic flights all show an emphasis on the spectacular. At the same time, Al Qaeda has backed an array of lesser terrorist attacks on Western, Jewish, and other enemy targets; trained insurgents; and otherwise tried to build guerrilla armies.

Yet although Al Qaeda has repeatedly called for attacks against Westerners, and especially Americans, it has refrained from killing Westerners when it suited its purposes. Al Qaeda often takes a similar approach to Western aid workers operating in its midst: on at least two occasions, senior leaders of the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra implored the Islamic State to release Western aid workers the Islamic State had captured and were threatening to execute. The Islamic State evolved out of the civil wars in Iraq and Syria, and its tactics reflect this context.

Terrorism, in this context, is part of revolutionary war: it is used to undermine morale in the army and police, force a sectarian backlash, or otherwise create dynamics that help conquest on the ground. But it is an adjunct to a more conventional struggle. Al Qaeda, in contrast, favors a more gentle approach. A decade ago Zawahiri chastised the Iraqi jihadists for their brutality, correctly believing this would turn the population against them and alienate the broader Muslim community, and he has raised this issue in the current conflict as well.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State both profess to lead the jihadist cause throughout the Muslim world. The Islamic State is playing this game too, and wherever there is a call to jihad, there is a rivalry. Although attention is focused on the Islamic State, Al Qaeda affiliates have done well in recent months. The Islamic State has gained support from a number of important jihadist groups.

In March, Islamic State supporters in Yemen bombed Houthi mosques, playing on the sectarian war narrative that the Islamic State has long emphasized and Al Qaeda has long sought to suppress—indeed, AQAP immediately issued a statement publicly disavowing any involvement in the mosque bombings. It is difficult, however, to gauge the overall level of Islamic State support.

Al Qaeda has historically been fairly quiet for a terrorist group when it comes to claiming and boasting of attacks, while the Islamic State often exaggerates its own prowess and role to the point of absurdity.

In the past, when an affiliate joined Al Qaeda, it usually took on more regional activities and went after more international targets in its region, but did not focus on attacks in the West. By taking on the Islamic State label, local groups seem to want to attach themselves to a brand that has caught the attention of jihadists worldwide.

Yet this ascendance may be transitory. Like its predecessor organization in Iraq, the Islamic State may also find that its brutality repels more than it attracts, diminishing its luster among potential supporters and making it vulnerable when the people suddenly turn against it. The good news is that the Islamic State is not targeting the American homeland—at least for now. The global terror network has been linked to radical groups across the Middle East and beyond. During the Soviet-Afghan War in Afghanistan, in which the Soviet Union gave support to the communist Afghan government, Muslim insurgents, known as the mujahideen, rallied to fight a jihad or holy war against the invaders.

Among them was a Saudi Arabian—the 17th child of 52 of a millionaire construction magnate—named Osama bin Laden, who provided the mujahideen with money, weapons and fighters. Along with Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar, preacher and mentor of bin Laden, the men began to grow a large financial network, and when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in , al Qaeda was created to take on future holy wars. For Bin Laden, that was a fight he wanted to take globally.

Azzam, conversely, wanted to focus efforts on turning Afghanistan into an Islamist government. Exiled by the Saudi regime, and later stripped of his citizenship in , bin Laden left Afghanistan and set up operations in Sudan, with the United States in his sights as enemy No. In the group claimed responsibility for attacks on U. Cole in Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed, and 39 injured.

Expelled from Sudan in , bin Laden returned to Afghanistan under protection of the Taliban, where he provided military training to thousands of Muslim insurgents. For these and other reasons, Bin Laden declared a jihad, or holy war, against the United States, which he has carried out through al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations.

After September 11, , when four passenger airplanes were hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists, resulting in the mass murder of 2, victims in New York, Washington, D. The attacks led to the U.