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Al-Qaedas Increased Use of Female Suicide Attackers in Iraq: Quantitative and
Qualitative Explanations
Angela Pieyro De Hoyos
MES379HB
Special Honors in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
May 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faegheh Shirazi
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Supervising Professor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sonia Seeman
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Second Reader
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Abstract
Al-Qaedas Increased Use of Female Suicide Attackers in Iraq: Quantitative and
Qualitative Explanations
Angela Pieyro De Hoyos, Special Honors in Middle Eastern Studies,
The University of Texas at Austin, 2010
Supervisor: Faegheh Shirazi
The modern Salafi ideology used by Al-Qaeda to justify suicide attacks is based
on the reactionary writings of Ibn Taymiyya, a 13th
century scholar. The fall of Baghdadin 1250 was echoed in the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20
thcentury, as well as
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia
during the Gulf Wars. During each of these times, similar political climates led to the
revival of Ibn Taymiyyas extremely narrow interpretation of Islam. I will explain the
rise in female perpetrated suicide attacks in Iraq examined in the context of the origins of
Al-Qaedas ideology as well as their strategic organizational motivations.
The surge of Multi-National Coalition troops made it difficult for men to
perpetrate suicide attacks, and this directly caused the strategic shift to relying on women
to take their place. By examining suicide attacks in Iraq from 2005-2010, we see that
Salafi-Jihadi organizations responded to immaterial barriers by using female perpetrators
to circumvent these barriers based on social norms exempting them from search by
predominantly male security forces. Captured al-Qaida recruiters support this in their
confessions.
As these groups adapted, they failed to consider the consequences of their actions.
Their increased attacks on soft targets, namely Sunni members of the Awakening
turned their natural constituency against them. Coupled with the contradictory nature of
how Salafis value martyrdom and their low view of women, al-Qaida in Mesopotamia
has alienated its supporters; both the Sunnis who participated to fight Shiia militias and
their true believers. This will have organizational consequences for the group which may
contribute to the eventual end of their operations.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF JIHAD .............................................................. 1
The Role of the Mamluks in the Fall of Baghdad....................................................... 3
Cultural Consequences ................................................................................................. 5
Ibn Taymiyya: The New Jihads Spin Doctor ............................................................ 6
Ideologue on the Move ................................................................................................ 11
Reviving Ibn Taymiyyas Legacy............................................................................... 12
Wahabi Revival ........................................................................................................... 13
Parallel Realities .......................................................................................................... 14
The Wahabi Connection ............................................................................................. 17
The Third Revival ....................................................................................................... 19
The Invasion of Kuwait: Ibn Taymiyyas Second Revival ...................................... 21
Bite the Hand that Feeds You .................................................................................... 22
Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia ........................................................................................... 26
Petraeus Plan.............................................................................................................. 29
Fall of Empire: Redux................................................................................................. 32
METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE PERPETRATED ATTACKS IN IRAQ 2005-2010....................... 35
The Surge ..................................................................................................................... 36
Table 1: Iraqi Civilian Deaths iraqbodycount.org Acessed 04/22//2010
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/................................... 37
Digging Deep ................................................................................................................ 37
Figure 1: Number Dead and Injured by Female Suicide Attackers ....................................... 38
Strategic Motivations of Organizations..................................................................... 38
Figure 2: Total and Female Attacks per Year ....................................................................... 41
Figure 3: Breakdown of Female-Perpetrated Suicide Attacks by Target .............................. 42
Female Perpetrator, Female Recruiter ..................................................................... 42
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Figure 4: Location of Female Suicide Attacks ...................................................................... 44
Table 2: Location of Female ................................................................................................. 45
Perpetrated Suicide Attacks .................................................................................................. 45
Unwilling Martyrs ....................................................................................................... 45
Strategic, Not Symbolic Actions ................................................................................. 46
Female Multipliers ...................................................................................................... 49
Table 3: Total Suicide and Car Bombs and Female Perpetrated Suicide Attacks ................. 50
God Knows No Wrath like a Woman Scorned ......................................................... 51
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................ 53
Consequences ............................................................................................................... 57
Appendix A: Raw Data ................................................................................................................ 59
Bibliography................................................................................................................................. 62
VITAE .................................................................................................................................. 66
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List of Tables
TABLE 1:IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS IRAQBODYCOUNT.ORG.......................................................................... 37
TABLE 2:LOCATION OF FEMALE................................................................................................................ 45
TABLE 3:TOTAL SUICIDE AND CAR BOMBS AND FEMALE PERPETRATED SUICIDE ATTACKS....................... 50
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List of Figures
FIGURE 1:NUMBER DEAD AND INJURED BY FEMALE SUICIDE ATTACKERS....................... 38
FIGURE 2:TOTAL AND FEMALE ATTACKS PER YEAR......................................................... 41
FIGURE 3:BREAKDOWN OF FEMALE-PERPETRATED SUICIDE ATTACKS BY TARGET.......... 42
FIGURE 4:LOCATION OF FEMALE SUICIDE ATTACKS......................................................... 44
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CHAPTER ONE: A POLITICAL
HISTORY OF JIHAD
"Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are
not really progress at all, but just terrible things."
Russell Baker
In order to understand al-Qaidas increased use of female suicide attackers in Iraq,
it is crucial to understand the historical factors that led to the current circumstances. The
use of suicide terrorism in the name of Jihad in Islam is a departure from mainstream
ideology, which only began in the 13th
century.
Since the 8th century, the Muslim Empire had relied on Mamluks1 to serve as their
military forces. Over time, many capable Mamluk leaders used their political prowess to
gain control of outlying kingdoms. This weakened the Arab empire due to the fact that
their motivations and background were clearly different from the previous Arab army.
They were more interested in preserving their domains and power than in the greater
good of the kingdom. This led them to create alliances with invaders, which left areas
vulnerable to attack.
1 or plural
(al-mamalik) were the military contractors or converted slave armies of Muslim
Empires in use as early as the 9th
century.
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In the thirteenth century, the Islamic Empire was at its nadir. Converts joined
from different ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, splitting the Muslim umma2
into Arab `araba3
and Arabmustaraba4
. Because of their non-Arab heritage, the
newcomers did not care about Arabs as leaders of the Muslim world which led to the fall
of Baghdad at the hands of Mongol leader Hulagu Khan5
in 1250. After the Mongols
invaded and overwhelmingly conquered the Muslim Empire, they stayed there and
adopted the religion and customs of the land they came to inhabit. Around this time,
many European crusaders did the same. This lead to a sudden dilution of the customs and
language which had united the Muslim Empire since the time of the first Caliph Abu
Bakr who died in 634 CE.
The current ideological justifications for Jihad used by groups such as al-Qaida
are built on revivals of the scholarly work and revolutionary interpretation of Ibn
Taymiyya. He was the first Muslim scholar to expropriate the authority to declare jihad
a power previously reserved for a rightful imam6. Three major attacks on the Muslim
Empire during Ibn Taymiyyas life radicalized his studies and writings: the Tatar Mongol
invasion from the East, the influx of Crusaders from West, and the military betrayal by
Mamluk Caucasians from within. Ibn Taymiyya took the right and responsibility of
declaring Jihad out of the hands of the Imam and gave it to the masses, changing forever
the nature of Islamic warfare.
2The world-wide community of Muslims
3 The original and ethnically Arab Muslims
4 Literally meaning Arabized Arabs including all converts to the religion after the originalMuslim expansion5
Hulagu Khan6 The FairImam is the supreme religious and political empire of the Muslim umma
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It was this political climate that spurred Ibn Taymiyya to be the first cleric to re-
define Jihad as the religious justification to war that many terrorist organizations use
today. Though long dead, his ideas were revived during periods with political parallels to
the times in which he first popularized his beliefs. As the Ottoman Empire weakened and
fell, Mohammed Ibn `Abd al-Wahab drew on Ibn Taymiyyas work to call for a return to
Islam as it was originally practiced. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the
presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf Wars revived for the second time
the polemic writings of Ibn Taymiyya.
The Role of the Mamluks in the Fall of Baghdad
Around the 8th
century it became common practice for Muslim Emperors to rely
on Mamluk slaves as their military apparatus. While it was common for the military
leaders to fight each other to be near the caliph, they would put their divisions aside in the
face of outside threats, resuming their rivalries once eliminated.
These were not the Mamluks birthright lands and they resented the system which
treated them as second class citizens. Thus, valued their small kingdoms over the larger
Arab empire and made deals with threatening conquerors relinquishing the rule of small
pieces of land in exchange for the right to stay in power. They preferred to be number one
in their smaller kingdoms rather than being part of a greater empire that relegated them to
a second class, leaving them few resources to present a united Arab military front
(Michot 1995).
In comparison to the military of the Mamluks, the patriotic Arabs before them
were willing to fight for the survival of the empire, refusing propositions made by
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conquering forces. The Mamluks held second-class status in the empire overall, but their
successful administration of petty kingdoms gave them local power which they sought to
maintain. After the fall of Baghdad Mamluks became kings, and fled Baghdad and stayed
in Damascus, starting kingdoms in the Levant and in Egypt.
This retreat of the Mamluks from Baghdad meant that the caliph failed to gather
the requisite forces to stop Mongolian invasion. The Mongols were brilliant military
leaders as shown by their vicious conquest of all lands from Central Asia to the shores of
the Mediterranean. However, their slash and burn tactics destroyed civilizations. They
moved from land to land because they were incapable politicians who couldnt rule and
knew only war. When they came to the Middle East it was the first time in history, a
conquering force adopted the culture and religion of the land they conquered
During the Mongol invasion, the intruders realized the power of the Imam and the
importance of destroying him. From their stronghold in Tabriz (present-day Iran), they
sent the Caliph a message calling for his surrender which he refused, saying that the
Imam of Muslims does not surrender to anyone but God. The Caliph Mu`atasim fatally
assumed those three months would be enough to send runners to all Islamic territories
and re-form his army but by then the empire was at its weakest point. Al-Mut`asim, the
last caliph was a spoiled and foolish young man had not maintain the pivotal runner
system which was the nervous system of the empire.
Not only did he overestimate his ability to regroup his army, but he also failed to
realize that Mongols actually prefer winter for their attacks. As soon as summer and
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autumn ended, with the granted time coming to an end, the Caliph began to form an
army. This was too little too late and by this time, Mongol forces pressed at the gates of
Baghdad. When they invaded, one castle stood alone, defenseless and unprepared for the
Mongol siege.
They ruthlessly destroyed everything. Hulagos7
first order of invasion was to kill
every male above the age of 13, a massacre which lasted for two weeks. They killed the
caliph and his 13 sons and his daughters and his wives, destroying every single living
symbol of Arabic Muslim Empire. They showed no mercy or respect to anybody with
ruthlessness unmatched in any war between two empires before (Klein-Franke 2007).
The Mongols had destroyed the core and source of Arab Muslim strength and the
ultimate symbol of its power, forever eliminating the caliphate by killing al-Mua`tasim
and all of his family and heirs. Chapter 1 part two
CulturalConsequences
The Arab Muslims who lived during the time of the fall of the empire saw a
dramatic change in their culture, their religion, and most importantly their mother tongue.
Historically, their language was their biggest source of pride and unity. Arabic as a
language was extremely important to them as shown by the fact that their prophets only
miracle was the unmatched verse of the Quran which he recited.
The reason for this rapid change was that newcomers to Islam brought with them
their languages, traditions and beliefs, mixing these with the existing culture. New faith
7 Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan was the Mongol conqueror who led the sack of Baghdad
(Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 2009) Accessed 4/29/2010
http://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=
39012518&site=ehost-live
http://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39012518&site=ehost-livehttp://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39012518&site=ehost-livehttp://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39012518&site=ehost-livehttp://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39012518&site=ehost-livehttp://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39012518&site=ehost-live -
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groups in Islam such as the Sufis8
created during this time exemplify how the new mix of
society and culture departed from traditional Islam.
Patriotic Arab clerics such as Ibn Taymiyya believed that the purity of Islam was
the source of its strength and the force behind all of the past success and the victories of
the Islamic empire. According to these Arab patriots, the only pure Islam was that which
was carried by the original Arab Muslims and their descendents thereafter. They kept
themselves away from the Sufis, whose beliefs were adopted by the Mamluk sultanates.
Scholars like Ibn Taymiyya thought that the new orders had nothing to do with the
original religion which organized every single detail of the political, social, and economic
life of believers, even discussing beliefs surrounding military and war tacticssomething
that had never been found in any religion before
Ibn Taymiyya: The New Jihads Spin Doctor
Ibn Taymiyya was born in what is now Saudi Arabia during the Tatar invasions of
the Muslim empires. He fled with his family and moved to Damascus where he published
his first religious interpretations by the age of 20. His area of study focused particularly
on Jihad and hurub ar-rasool9, the wars of the prophet. His formative years were thus
spent in a political climate of great upheaval and change, reacting to the diversification of
Islam that would bring about the subsequent collapse of the Muslim Empire.
The fall of Baghdad affected Taymiyya deeply. He personally bore witness to the
end of Islams golden age and the empires transition from a super power to small and
8 an adjective describing the practitioners of the mystical sunni sects of Islam9 The wars fought by the Prophet Mohammed against infidels in his lifetime (Imam ShiraziWorld Foundation 2006) accessed 5/1/2010
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scattered kingdoms ruled by non Arab rulers, who, as recent converts to the religion, did
not prize Islamic heritage as deeply as Arab Muslims. This fall from power inspired his
interest and subsequent research and writings concerning Jihad. When the Mongolian
Tatars killed the Caliph10
, there remained no murja`ia11
. The Mongolians had effectively
ended righteous Jihad for good, having killed the caliph and all of his sons, wives, and
blood relatives, making it so no one remained with the religious authority to declare Jihad
as prescribed by Muslim belief.
Ibn Taymiyya was the leading Sunni cleric of the time. His entire philosophy was
based on this idea of pure Islam and its perpetuity through the original believers and their
descendents (as-salaf as-salih12
). One may easily see his radical reaction toward any new
or modern thought in the religion as reactionary to this influx of new practices in Islam,
and this became his weak point. He decided that it was up to him not only to fight new
things being added to Islam during that period, but he also started to fight things which
were established before his time under a fair imam which he had no authority to doubt.
However, the center of his philosophy was that the weakening and collapse of the Islamic
Empire was a result of the influx of other beliefs and practices on Islam which
according to himstarted long before the fall of Baghdad.
He believed it was his duty as a Muslim to fight current events, as well as to fight
the weight of history. Having witnessed the fall of the empire, he saw what the Imam
10Another word for theImam
11 literally meaning reference, here a person holding religious authority to declare jihad as prescribedby Muslim belief12
The Righteous Descendents, those alive during the time of the life of the Prophet Mohammedand of the four Rashidun Caliphs
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could not have seen, and was thus felt endowed with the right to revise the word of the
fair imam.
With this philosophy as his starting point, he began to write his books about how
everything in Islam as a practice (mu`amilat13
and `ibadat14
): (Arabi and Ibn Taymiyya
1998) has to be exactly the same as what the good descendents in the first generation of
Muslims who actually lived during Mohammads life and during the time of the
Rashidun caliphs did. The Quran says about them No falsehood comes from their hands
and no falsehood can approach them from before or from behind.
15
Basing his ideology
on this term is what made him the first Salafi cleric. Most of the Salafi practices and
beliefs and fatwas go back to his books.
There are several schools of thought: hanbali, shaf`ai, maliki, and hanafi plus the
ideology of Shiis,ja`fari. TheJa farischool of thought followed by Shiis is greatly
disliked by Ibn Taymiyya and Salafis today who consider them infidels for their
reverence of the family of the prophet. According to Shiis the twelfth imam will come
back with Christ at the end of the time to fill the earth with justice and fairness after the
period of evil and injustice. This effectively closed the door in the face of any cleric at
any time wishing to use this dangerous weapon. The other four divisions closed the door
13 The practical components of Islam which dictate human affairs not intended to bring one closer togod.
14 The spiritual components of Islam including but not limited to: belief in the one god, praying,
fasting, alms giving, and pilgrimage
15
[:42]Sura al-Fussilat verse 42 as per my own
translation
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of fatwa16
. Though this was less definitive of an obstacle to jihad, no cleric can make
fatwas without having strong evidence from their book as a reference for his fatwa.
Ibn Taymiyya opposed the centralization of the fatwa process and attributed to it
the weakening of Islam, as well as the outright denial of jihad in Jafari thought. To
circumvent this, he started looking before the time of the division between the five
schools of Islamic ideology. Thus, the perfect time for him was that of the good
descendents. As they are even mentioned in the Quran so no Muslim can argue with
whatever evidence he finds during their time to back up his new school of thought
There are four circumstances in which Muslims are allowed to kill anyone
without direct and explicit permission from a fair imam. These four just reasons for
murder are: in defense of ones money, in defense of honor, or `ard17
and their female
relatives, in defense of blood spilled, and in defense of religion (Swazo 2008). There is
only to be one fair imam in the world and this position was permanently eliminated by
the Mongol slaughter of the Caliph and his family. In consequence, any halal18
taking of
a life by a Muslim must be for one of these four reasons.
Ibn Taymiyya had observed this destruction of the Muslim Empire by the
Mongols and watched as Arabs under the command of Salah ad-Din19
began to stop the
crusaders.. Salah ad-Din, in his defense of Muslim territory against the Crusades,
abstained from declaring Jihad even though there was a fair Imam to validate it, unlike
16 A religious decree17 Arabic word meaning honor18 Something which is permissible, also the opposite of sin, or haram 19
The leader of Muslim forces in defense against the Third Crusade, known as Saladin in Europe
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the Salafi organizations of today. While modern groups say they are fighting crusaders
and, therefore, have the right to declare Jihad, Salah ad-Din instead fought a permissible
war which was never declared as a jihad, even in the presence of a fair imam.
It was around this time as well that the Tatars and Mongolians became Muslim
and, after the peace treaty, some crusaders likewise converted and stayed in the territory,
resulting in an interesting cultural mix of Tatar, Mongolians, and European crusaders.
Many of these new converts lived in Arab lands without speaking proper Arabic,
a fact that grated with conservative elements of Muslim society. These conservatives
believed corruption had infiltrated so deep in their society as to have infiltrated even the
Arabic language, the pride of the Arabs for centuries. Encouraged by the success of the
Arab campaigns against crusaders, they felt well positioned to form a new Arab patriotic
military campaign against all non-Muslims Their aim was to re-form a pure society out
of the corrupt in which they lived.
These factorsthe numerous violent conquests on the Muslim Empire, the killing
of the Caliph, and the perceived corruption of Arab societytogether drove Ibn
Taymiyya to write what were essentially the new rules for Jihad drawing from Kitab20
,
Quran and Sunnah21
. After centuries of the rule of the Arab iron fist around the world,
their enemies had come to realize that the source of their strength was the fair imam. The
holy man who served as the spiritual leader and political of the empire, and supreme
20 Literally meaning book, here referring to the holy books revered in Islam including the Torah andthe Bible21
The traditions, sayings, and habits of the Prophet Mohammed as reported by various sources
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Misguided Ones al-thaleen24
. Using Christians as an example, he said they should be
eliminated because they will never make real peace with Muslims. He said the same thing
about the Shii and theNussariyah25
the other 80% of schools of thought in Islam.
Ibn Taymiyyasfatwas were in thirty seven books by the time he died at the age
of 67 in the prison the Damascus castle (qalatsalah ad-din). His death in the prison
drew much attention. Public opinion was against the authorities back then for being soft
and making treaties with the crusaders. Shortly after his death, his books and his school
of thought had been almost forgotten, partly due to his belief in violent elimination of
groups in Islam, definitely extending to non-Muslims as well.
Reviving Ibn Taymiyyas Legacy
Ibn Taymiyyas most important fatwa was the jihad fatwa entitled Jihadfi Sabil
Allah26
in which he declared that groups dont need a fatwa from a fair imam to fight an
enemy in your land, or anywhere else you can harm him. Changing this ideological
convention was a critical turning point. As part of traditional Islamic belief, declaring a
jihad fatwa to fight the enemies of Islam still requires a fair imam. Here, Ibn Taymiyya
dismissed this obligationin effect handing out the rights for DIY fatwas. He went so far
as to disregard the fatwa which all the Muslims agreed upon which classified the states
between dar al-harb27
and dar al-salm28
: house of war, house of peace, or less literally,
state of war and state of peace. Even if a fairImam has declared jihad has you cannot
24 The misguided ones as referred to in the Quran
25 A group believing that the caliphate should remain in the family of the Prophet and that this cannot
wait until judgment day, but that they must participate in revolution now to make this a reality26 Jihad in the name of/for the sake of God27
The permissible state of war28
The permissible state of peace, during which no war can be fought
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fight your enemy during dar as-silm but according to Ibn Taymiyya the whole world is
dar al-harb until the entire world believes in what he believes: the practice of and rule by
a Salafi Islam
Wahabi Revival
Viewing the world as in a perpetual state ofdar al-harb was adopted by Wahabis
in the 19th
century when they established the first Saudi-Wahabi state in Saudi Arabia.
Ibn Taymiyyas long dormant ideas were revived by the Egyptian Sayyid Qutub29
s
books in the early 20th
century. Wahabis at the time were fighting the hanafi30
Ottoman
Empire. Weakening the Ottoman Empire was a shared interest of the British and the
Wahabis, and with British help they conquered most of the land between Najd and
Hijaz31
, what we know today as Saudi Arabia.
The British also supported the Wahabi movement with weapons and military
advisors and maps, sometimes offering air support as they did in the battle of ad-Diraiyah
in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia where all the oil wealth is now found. Sayyid
Qutub was not viewed favorably by the Wahabis because his intention was to use the
ideology of Ibn Taymiyya to declare jihad against the British occupation of Egypt,
despite their help.
29 The intellectual force behind the Muslim Brotherhood who wrote many famous books advocating
a return to pure Islam, the most famous of which is called Signposts on the Path or 30
Old school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence
31 Large territory in what is now Saudi Arabia from the coastal strip along the Red Sea to the
central flats of Saudi Arabia
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He failed and died, but one of his students, Hassan al-Banna32
, who established
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt adopted the same thoughts and beliefs, adding from
Ibn Taymiyyas books to his own ideologyusing the same reasons to declare jihad
against the kings of Egypt and Sudan because they were backed by the west because they
were not Arabs and following the good descendants established path.
Parallel Realities
By comparing the times and political situation that Ibn Taymiyya experienced
after the fall of the Islamic empire and its subsequent occupation, with the time and
political circumstances of the formation of the Wahabi movement and the writing of
Sayyid Qutub, we find striking similarity in the socio- and geo-political conditions of the
fall of the Muslim Caliphate, and the fall of the Ottoman Empire (Nafi 2009).
As Hassan al-Bannas Muslim Brotherhood gained popular support, King Fuad33
of Egypt sensed the potential danger of the movement and decided to stop it by
imprisoning some of the followers. This was the height of tension between the
movement and the authorities in Egypt, and after the assassination of the prime minister
who had just disbanded the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna was assassinated in
retaliation. Everybody thought that was the end of al-Bannas movement in Egypt, but
two years later the military revolution occurred in Egypt. The inexperienced government
tried to wear the Islamic robe to lead the Egyptians and to control the southern territory of
Sudan. Public opinion favored the Islamic regime, and the Muslim Brotherhood
established a strong presence early on.
32 Political leader and founder of the Muslim Brotherhood
33 The last king of Egypt to wield any power
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Abdel Nasser34
decided to free the Muslim brothers from prison and to investigate
Hassan al-Bannas assassination. He ordered the capture of two of the top officials of the
royal palace and imprisoned them, accusing them of his assassination. Abdel Nasser gave
the brothers maneuvering space and time to reform their line and re-elect leadership.
Learning from historys mistakes at this time, it became an organization with multi-
headed leadership. This gave the Muslim Brotherhood a sort of hydra effect; so, it
became impossible for anyone to take the whole organization by taking the head off.
This spirit of Ibn Taymiyyas decentralized the religion and allowed anybody to be the
leader and the soldier and the cleric at the same time.
However, the honeymoon between Abdel Nasser and his revolutionary supreme
council and the Muslim Brotherhood did not survive an attempt to assassinate Abdel
Nasser when he was giving a public speech from a balcony in Alexandria on the 26th
of
October in 1954. The authorities blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for this attempt even
though many believe that Abdel Nasser himself faked the attempt in order to re-imprison
the Muslim Brotherhood members who, at the time were the fastest growing threat to
Nassers revolution. Nasser saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to the Arab
nationalist movement of which he wanted to be the supreme leader in order to become
the leader of a united Arab nation.
The Muslim Brotherhood suffered many losses, especially a decline in followers
and supporting clerics after he executed various leaders and launched a campaign to clear
34
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al-Azhar35
from all the clerics who supported the Muslim Brotherhood or believed in Ibn
Taymiyyas fatwas.
During the 1960s Abdel Nasser almost succeeded in eliminating the movement,
but the 1967 war came and destroyed Abdel Nassers biggest source of powerthe
Egyptian armed forces. Egypt suffered crippling damages during that war almost left the
military government crippled and gathered all of its forces east of the Suez canal to
defend Cairo from the Israeli army. During the six-day war in 1960, the Arab nationalist
movements pride suffered irreparable injuries which led Abdel Nasser to go alone to al-
Azhar to pray and ask for the peoples support to free the lost territories. This gesture
came from a leader who fought al-Azhar a few years ago.
Between 1967 and 1970, Abdel Nassers regime stopped harassing the Muslim
Brotherhood acknowledging he needed the mosques authority and influence over the
people. Religious authority will go beyond any government authority in Egypt as there is
a mosque in every village and neighborhood in Egypt. It is clearly far beyond the
governments capabilities to match that influence to recruit people to rebuild the country
and rebuild the armed forces to re-take the Sinai and heal the fatal blows suffered byArab
pride. However, in most of the nations who lost the war, the public opinion shifted
toward god and religion to protect them and help them win the next war.
Abdel Nasser died suddenly in 1970, and General Anwar Sadat, the most
pragmatic Arab leader, succeeded him in office. He shut down all the secret prisons and
35 The Noble Azhar University which has been the leading Sunni institution of literature
and Islamic Jurisprudence since the late 10th
century.
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the internment work camps for political prisoners in which were the majority of the
prisoners were Muslim Brotherhood members and communists. He even revealed the
secret phone-tapping documents of the political leaders of the country and held a meeting
with Muslim Brotherhoods leaders, promising freedom to organize and to do them no
harm in Egypt from now one. This spiked his approval ratings, allowing him to control
the government and the country with more ease. The boost was desperately needed, for in
the beginning the supreme revolutionary council voted for him to be the president
perceiving him as the weakest and least well known of all of them. Without public
support, he would have been the councils puppet. As-Sadat now had the street power
behind him to eliminate the power centers and lobbyists in the regime loyal to Abdul
Nasser above their loyalty to Egypt.
The Wahabi Connection
The Muslim Brotherhood received considerable funding and support from the oil
revenue of the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia; and this oil revenue was beyond any previous
charitable contribution. Saudi Arabia lacked the internal infrastructure on which to spend
their revenue and needed an outside market for their new capital. This brought millions of
dollars to Egypt, to the Brotherhood, and to the government. This is a stark contrast to
Abdel Nassers time when he fought against the Wahabis in Yemen and the Muslim
Brothers in Egypt.
After the 1973 war, Sadat and the Egyptian Army won the war against Israel and
crossed the Suez Canal. This created a new situation in the Middle East that dragged the
superpowers and the international community in to solve the crisis between Israel and
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Egypt before it would become an international crisis, which led to the Camp David
accords between Egypt and Israel. That was a turning point in public opinion and was a
huge disappointment for the Muslim Brotherhood who thought that even Abdel Nasser,
their number one enemy who had imprisoned them and executed their leaders was better
than Anwar Sadat because he didnt shake hands with the Zionists. Organized protests
filled the streets in most of the areas that the Muslim Brotherhood controlled. They took
to the streets of Cairo, protesting against the treaty and calling Anwar Sadat a traitor
while calling for his resignation.
Anwar Sadat decided to strike back, this time in a different way than what the
Muslim Brotherhood was used to. He struck them through the National Assembly by
calling for an emergency meeting to discuss an event that happened in Alexandria
between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Coptic Church in Alexandria. The Muslim
Brotherhood claimed that the Coptic Church hosted a play that offended the Prophet
Mohammed and threatened to burn down all of the Coptic churches in Egypt down unless
the Coptic Church apologized. As-Sadat used this incident as an excuse to re-imprison
most of their leaders and attack them publicly on national TV where he used strong
words against their leaders calling them names like filthy dogs primitive
uneducated clerics from the 13th
century. These words were an internal message
for all of the followers of Ibn Taymiyya.
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This incident directly lead to his assassination by Khalid al-Islambooli36
, during a
military parade on the revolution day. Al-Islambooli was part of a secret armed cell
which followed the command of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was executed and general
Husni Mubarak37
became president and declared a state of emergency and banned the
brotherhood from any political or social activity, re-imprisoning many of their followers
and leaders.
The Third Revival
The soviet invasion of Afghanistan was starting to face a small resistance in the
mountains of the southeast border area. During that time, the Wahabi clerics in Saudi
Arabia declared Jihad on the Soviet troops in Afghanistan based to Ibn Taymiyyas
fatwas which gave them the authority to do so, even in the absence of a fair imam. They
started sending money and recruits to Afghanistan through Islamic charities and
organizations in Pakistan run and funded by Saudi Arabia. The United States backed this
movement and sent military equipment and advisors to train the fighters in camps
between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The regime in Egypt found this a golden opportunity
to get rid of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were thorns in their side,
specifically the most violent cells, by making a deal with them to send them to the greater
Jihad against the Soviet invaders of Islamic Afghanistan. Of course, the Muslim
Brotherhood swallowed the bait and started sending a flow of people to Afghanistan.
Most of the governments in the Middle East started making it easy for unwanted jihadists
to go to Pakistan where their final destination would be the border American training
36 Egyptian officer largely responsible for assassination of Anwar Sadat37
Anwar Sadats vice president who assumed the presidency upon death of Sadat and hasbeen there ever since.
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camps to fight the Soviet enemy. Organizing these camps was done with the blessing of
the CIA (the Central Intelligence Organization) and the greater U.S. Government.
The Arab fighters in Afghanistan grew in numbers and became what they call the
Arab Afghans38
. They were hard-core fighters who had nothing to lose but their lives,
which they believed is the ultimate sacrifice and would redeem them from whatever sins
theyve committed on Earth, making a clear, wide open path to paradise. Those Arab
Afghan fighters were different than the true Afghan fighters, because they were pure
fighters with no political agendas or local affiliations like Afghan groups fighting the
Soviets. Their attitude gave them the upper hand in battles with the Soviets and in the
entire war over all; not to mention the help of millions of Saudi dollars and the training
by the most lethal trainers in the world, the CIA and the green berets.
The Arab Afghans are the first manifestation of what we know today as al-Qaida.
After the complete Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Arab Afghans
appeared on the surface and to the public as holy heroes who brought the lost pride of the
Muslims after centuries of degradation.
However, the collapse of the Soviet Union later on as well as the fall of Warsaw
and the Iron Curtain, busied the west with re-organizing Eastern Europe and preserving
the Soviet heritage during the 1990s. This gave time to the Arab Afghans and their new
leader Osama Bin Ladena prince from the royal family of Saudi Arabia and a member
of one of the wealthiest families in the worldthe time to declare al-Qaida an
38Arab Afghans were the ethnically non-Afghan men organized around Islam to expel the Soviets from
Afghanistan
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international organization, which is what they call qa`dat al-islam39
meaning the base
of Islam.
The Invasion of Kuwait: Ibn Taymiyyas Second Revival
On the morning of August 2nd
, 1990 the world woke up to the news of Saddams
invasion of Kuwait. By night time, Saddam controlled 20% of the worlds oil production.
Fearing that the Republican Guard would march forward to Saudi Arabias eastern oil-
rich fields and gain control of 50% of the worlds oil, the Kingdoms government invited
the western coalition to intervene.
The United States of America launched Operation Desert Shield which flooded
the holy lands of Saudi Arabia with western forces for the first time in Islamic history.
The Saudi government knew that they were playing with fire, but they had no other
choice. Saddam controlling the eastern oil fields jeopardized the entire region and the
world. Nascent Al-Qaida vehemently opposed this and called for the formation of an
Islamic army from Muslim countries to protect the holy land and liberate Kuwait, and
asked the Saudi government to retract their invitation to the foreign forces.
Al-Qaidas demand was not realistic because the oil fields were only a few
hundred miles south of the border with Kuwait, lightly defended by the comparatively
inadequate Saudi army. In the face of the worlds fifth largest army at the time, the Iraqi
army, the Saudis had no choice but to call upon the West and specifically the United
States to protect them.
39 Name of premier world-wide terrorist organization, literally meaning in Arabic The Base
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The Saudi government disregarded Bin Ladens demands and the campaign
escalated until the allied forces launched Operation Desert Storm, using Islams holiest
lands to launch their attack and repel Saddams forces. The operation was a huge success
for the allied forces, who liberated Kuwait within two months. The Iraqi forces suffered
catastrophic damages but Saddam managed to maintain enough military power to control
the country again after the Kurdish and Shii uprisings.
Even though the military campaign destroyed most of the offensive capabilities of
the Iraqi army, Saddam managed to hide a few hundred long-range ballistic missiles and
four thousand tanks and two thousand pieces of artillery with an immense stock-pile of
chemical warheads. Thus he remained a threat if he were to decide to launch any suicide
operations. This is why Kuwait and Saudi Arabia wanted a permanent US presence on
their soil to deter any future incursions.
That decision continues to affect the region and the entire world; this foreign
presence is what al-Qaida used as an excuse to declare jihad against the Saudi
government and the royal family for the first time. The Saudi government found itself
between two difficult choices: fighting yesterdays ally, al -Qaida and Osama bin Laden
whose beliefs enjoy deep popular support; and living at mercy of Saddams whim and
arsenal.
Bite the Hand that Feeds You
Al-Qaidas first attack against Western interests in Saudi Arabia came hard and
fast. In 1992, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the first terrorist attack against two
hotels hosting westerners, mostly Americans in Yemen. The attack was intended to
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eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia in support of operation Restore
Hope. The Saudi government banished bin Laden and he moved to Sudan where he
stayed with Hassan at-Turabi, an Islamist theoretician. From Sudan he started re-
grouping the Arab Afghan fighters. In 1993 when Saudi Arabia gave support for the Oslo
Accords which set the path for peace between Israel and Palestine, bin Laden and
Zawahiri opposed this decision as al-Qaidas supreme leaders. Zawahiri was already
wanted by the Egyptian authorities for his affiliation with the assassination attempt on the
life of Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Sudqi. The police arrested 280 of al-Jihad40
s
members but he managed to escape and join bin Laden in Sudan.
In 1994, King Fahad41
sent a delegate to Sudan to bring bin Laden back but Sudan
refused because of bin Ladens support of the Islamic groups in the south who were
fighting the Christian separatists and paying millions of dollars to support them. After
the American withdrawal from Somalia, it was declared as a failed state, meaning that
there was no form of government controlling the territory. Al-Qaida found this to be a
golden opportunity to plant its roots in the African horn42
, spreading its cells through the
region in the name of fighting the increased Israeli influence in the region. However, this
led to the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar as-Salam. Here, al-Qaida
came face-to-face with the United States.
40 The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, referred to as al-Jihad seeking to institute Islamic
law in Egypt41
King of Saudi Arabia until 2005
42The Horn of Africa: The part of Eastern Africa literally shaped like a horn
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Sudan found itself surrounded by the international community and facing the
threat of a U.S. military operation on its soil against al-Qaida, like that which happened in
1969 against what the U.S. thought to be al-Qaida training camps and chemical weapons
factories, despite the Sudanese governments insistence that they were just
manufacturing drugs. Seeking to avoid a repeat of this episode, the Sudanese government
told al-Qaida that they had over-stayed their welcome.
Back in Afghanistan, the Taliban who were gaining power and territory welcomed
their old allies back. Al-Qaida returned back to where it had begunAfghanistan, and
started operating from there once again.
In 1998, bin Laden and Zawahiri signed and issued a declaration under the name
of the Organization World Islamic Front called Combat Against the Jews and
Crusaders43
. From that date until September 11th
, 2001, al-Qaida was a big part of the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan and played a key role in Taliban military success in the
Afghan civil war. In 2001, al-Qaida hit the heart of the American empire and the worlds
financial capital fast and hard to send a clear message that they did not fear anyone or any
power ruling the world now. However, the attack brought al-Qaida back to the surface
from Kandahars caves and it became the worlds most dangerous and powerful terrorist
organization. Even the United Statesthe biggest military power in the worldneeded
the support of other countries to fight it. Al-Qaidas strategy behind the attack was to
drag the U.S. into a long conflict on a battlefield they knew well and had already fought
the only military power comparable to the U.S. on it for ten years and won. Al-Qaida
43 "
" (World Islamic Front 1998)
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knew that after the attack the Americans would strike back, and hard, but from a military
perspective thats what they wanted: to choose the battlefield where theywould have the
upper hand. In the mountains of Afghanistan, the technological disparity between their
fighters and the U.S. military became less important a tactic they continue to use
successfully today.
The Talibans regime collapsed after the allied invasion of Kabul and al-Qaida
fled the country, with most of al-Qaidas leaders moving to the tribal area of Waziristan.
Here, they reorganized their lines to start a long guerilla war against the U.S. and their
allies in Afghanistan. After the 2001 war in Afghanistan, al-Qaida changed their tactics.
Instead of the traditional, pyramid organization it was, it shifted shape into a line
organization. The line had already been told by Ibn Taymiyya that the whole world was
dar al-harb, giving the impetus to hit the enemy where ever they can, whenever they can,
and as hard as they can. Technically, they no longer needed regular operational
instructions, but rather received instructions through hidden messages in al-Qaida
statements to the media, especially on the al-Jazeera network, and over the Internet to
connect with the groups world-wide. Al-Qaida didnt gain much fame from this phase of
the war against the U.S. in Afghanistan because unlike when they were fighting the
Soviets, they didnt receive any support from any other country, not financial or military
support.
Support came from some radical Wahabi charity organizations in Saudi Arabia
through Afghanistan, and it is suspected that they have some connections in the Pakistani
government that allow them to have access to some sensitive information, useful for their
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attacks. The war in Afghanistan was not very popular in the Islamic world because it
happened a thousand miles away from their immediate interests. But, after the U.S.s
invasion of Iraq, al-Qaida had the golden opportunity to fight its nemesis: the United
States of America, in the Arabian Peninsulathe center and the heart of the Islamic
world where American defeat would be for them the sweetest.
Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia
Al-Qaida started its operations in Iraq a few months after the fall of Saddams
regime. The first attack that al-Qaida claimed was the bombing of the Jordanian embassy
in Baghdad in 2003. However, al-Qaidas presence in Iraq began long before that,
starting in the Kurdish region in the north which was under the UN protection after desert
storm to protect the Kurds from revenge from Saddam. The new form of regional
government in the Kurdish region wasnt powerful enough to control its own territory,
especially with the hard mountainous terrain of the area.
In 1993 the first Islamic group linked directly to al-Qaida called Ansar al-Islam44
started operating in the mountainous area between Iraq and Iran. This area was among the
first targets during Operation Iraqi Freedom to be hit by cruise missiles, remaining a
target of air strikes until the end of the war. Most al-Qaida experts in Iraq think that the
leaders and most of the followers of Ansar al-Islam fled the area and went to Baghdad to
meld in with the chaos the fall of Saddams regime brought with it. They started
contacting other regional extremists like Zarqawi. A Jordanian national who fought in
Afghanistan, and he worked as an advisor for the group during the1990s in the north. He
44 A Kurdish Salafi group
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came to Iraq to lead al-Qaida in Iraq and to establish what they call al-Qaida in
Mesopotamia.
Soon after their attack on the Jordanian embassy, they claimed responsibility for
the devastating suicide attack against the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed over
400 Iraqi civilians and UN employees including the chief of the mission, Sergio De Milo
leading the UN to withdraw all of its employees from Iraq and close their offices there,
running their operations from their regional office in Amman. Al-Qaida became an
embarrassment to the coalition forces and the newly formed Iraqi transitional government
under the supervision of the coalition provisional authority. It became one of the most
difficult challenges that both of the US government and the Iraqi government would deal
with for years to come.
After several big attacks, al-Qaida made an alliance with the remaining members
of Saddams regime and the B`athists who fled to Syria, fearing the revenge of the Iraqi
people after the collapse of the regime. The B`ath party45
thought they would use al-
Qaida as their armed wing to achieve political success by embarrassing the US in Iraq
and make the current government weak and non-functional. Al-Qaida realized early that
the B`athists just wanted to use them to reach a deal with the Americans to have the
chance to rejoin political life in Iraq. Al-Qaida distanced itself from the B`ath party,
calling them slaves of their nationality (al-Jaza'iri 2007).
45 Known as the Arab Socialist Ba`th Party is a secular pan-Arab socialist party
which has ruled both Syria and Iraq at different times
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However, from 2003 to 2007, al-Qaida succeeded in launching catastrophic
attacks all over Iraq against the coalition forces and the Iraqi government and the Iraqi
civilians who were affiliated with the new government and the coalition forces, especially
the Shiia who supported and participated in the new government and the liberation of
Iraq.
The most complicated and dangerous attack took place in Samarra, 170 miles
north of Baghdad when al-Qaida managed to bomb and destroy one of the most sacred
Shiia shrines in the worldThe Golden Dome Mosque (al-askari`ayn shrine)
46
.
This single attack put Iraq on the edge of a civil war. In the hours that proceeded
the attack, over 170 attacks were recorded against Sunni mosques in the capital alone.
The day after protesters walked the streets in most of the Shii neighborhoods and cities
asking for revenge; threatening that if the government couldnt or wouldnt do that give
them revenge, and if the Americans couldnt protect them, they would wipe out the entire
Sunni population of Iraqaround 25% of the Iraqi population. Sectarian violence led to
the area where al-Qaida mostly operated from around Baghdad, known as the Sunni
triangle, to be called by the Iraqis the death triangle.
The new government of Iraq found itself in a difficult position of being incapable
of placating angry masses and of taking the revenge that the angry crowds in the streets
demanded because of their limited military resources. Thus, they needed American
support. Somehow, the Iraqi government, with the help of the Shiia cleric in Iraq (Ali as-
46
is a twelve Shii shrine in Samarra, Iraq that because of its great cultural importance, hasoften been targeted by sunny extremists
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Sistani47
) managed to calm the angry streets. The top US commander, General David
Petraeus, flew to Washington to ask the administration for 30,000 more troops in Iraq in
order to impose order in the streets of Iraq. The administration greed and congress gave
the green light for the increased troop levels and increased war funds.
Petraeus Plan
General Petraeus started the surge in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle to crack
down on al-Qaidas strongholds. General Petraeus truly did something extraordinary. He
bought the loyalty of the Sunni tribal leaders in the Sunni areas and supported them
against al-Qaida attacks directed at the tribe leaders for not paying a protection tax. This
became one of the American top strategies to fight al-Qaida in Iraq and this Sons of Iraq
initiative spread through the Sunni areas forming what was called the Awakening
movement against al-Qaida.
The Sunni Awakening turned the war against al-Qaida in Iraq and was a huge turn
in the overall war where al-Qaida lost their operative areas, recruits, supply routes, and its
social support among the local Sunni populationsthe only area in Iraq where they had
support to begin with. Al-Qaida suffered catastrophic damages to its structure by losing
almost 90% of their leaders by aerial attacks launched by the US, and the rest was lost as
the local fighters who used to work for al-Qaida switched sides to the Awakening after
they saw that al-Qaida was getting them nowhere.
47 Is the highest Shia authority in the world right now
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By the end of 2007, the roads to Baghdad were opened and the death triangle,
became a relatively safe place again, colloquially returning to the Sunni triangle. Iraq
held another election and a national constitutional government was put in place for the
first time in the countrys history, and its armed forces started increasing in numbers and
equipment. A huge military campaign was launched against the Shiia militia who were
attacking the Sunni neighborhoods in the name of fighting al-Qaida. That gave the Shiia
dominated government Sunni support in in fighting al-Qaida which made a tremendous
impact in the battle. Al-Qaida was pushed out of the Sunni Triangle and out of Baghdad
to a mountain area north of Baghdad in the provinces of Ninava, Tikrit, Kirkuk, and
Diyala. This area had no cities or villages or even accessible roadsimportant for the
most rudimentary operational base. The area was surrounded by hundreds of military
checkpoints, run by Iraqi security forces.
Al-Qaida lost its last support in Iraq and the Islamic world saw all of the
devastating attacks against Iraqi civilians and the death toll among Muslim Iraqis
hundreds of times higher than the coalition-caused deaths in Iraq. Even the most
extremist groups started questioning the point of this massacre against Muslims in the
name of jihad. Al-Qaida lost the initiative, lost the domestic support, and lost the
international extremist sympathy which decreased the supply of foreign recruits on whom
they depended to carry out their suicide attacks in Iraq. At the end of 2008 a joint
intelligence operation led by the American Special Forces with the Iraqi Special Forces
on a Syrian border town led to the capture of one of al-Qaidas leaders alive. From his
confiscated laptop security forces found all of the information about the international
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recruits and their routes from Europe and North Africa and the Middle East. After the
capture, European security authorities launched a detain campaign against extremist
organizations linked to that leader.
This huge loss impacted the operations of al-Qaidas suicide missions in Iraq.
With al-Qaida left crippled and handcuffed, choking with no international aid, starving
for domestic support, they started thinking about another strategy. For the first time al-
Qaida used female suicide bombers in Iraq. From a western perspective it may seem
inconsequential, but anybody who knows the structure of the society and the traditions
and the beliefs of Muslims, it was a radical change in tactics.
According to all Muslim schools of thought, including Ibn Taymiyya and the
Salafis, there is no jihad for the womenjihad is requisite for all Muslim men and
women are exempt from this responsibility. They can participate if they want but most
likely as a matter of culture, they didnt in Iraq, even in al-Qaida attacks up until then.
The huge security increase in Iraq, and the huge decrease of the amounts of attacks which
went from 200 attacks per day to 17 attacks per day, gave the government the time and
the maneuvering space to distribute its forces and regain the initiative to launch counter
attacks against the insurgency. But, the security forces in Iraq are almost entirely male
and in Iraq, just like any other Muslim country, especially in the Middle East, a male
security officer is not allowed to touch or search any female, and sometimes, not even
allowed to go through her personal belongings such as a purse or a backpack or carry-on,
except in some government buildings and airports.
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Al-Qaida used this hole in security and started recruiting women to launch suicide
attacks because they knew how dangerous this weapon would be and the amount of effort
the government would need to train another army, of female security personnel and
distribute them to all of the important checkpoints and security units, or to order male
security officers to search females which would cause the government indescribably
outcry from the public. Either way, the government would need time to adjust to the
tactic and find the solution to it which would not be easy. That was al-Qaidas reasoning,
to take back the initiative back from out of the hands of the Iraqi government and put the
Iraqi government on the defensive again.
Fall of Empire: Redux
It is said in Arabic that Arabs chew on history meaning that it is an inextricable
part of everyday life. That being said, is it impossible to understand why one human
being would end their life to end the lives of others. Through this comprehensive history,
we examined how Mamluk ambivalence contributed to the fall of the Muslim Empire at
the hands of the Mongols in the 13th
century. The subsequent integration of the Mongols
and that of crusaders who stayed after the battles led to a dilution of Arab Muslim
culture. These incidents deeply impacted Ibn Taymiyya, the jurist who re-defined Jihad
as a right explicitly reserved for a fair Imam to something any Islamic jurist can declare.
At the time of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Wahabis based their ideology
on Ibn Taymiyyas Salafi interpretations, based on a similar sequence of events. After the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the presence of American troops on holy Muslim land
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during the two Gulf Wars of the 1990s, bin Laden and al-Qaida saw the same threat to
Islam that Ibn Taymiyya saw, leading them to revive his ideology once again.
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METHODOLOGY
I began my search on Lexis-Nexis Academic Resource (Lexis Nexis 2010)and
identified all mentions of Iraq and female and suicide terroris*. I compiled all of
the news with those I collected from the internet cross-listed with incident database
iraqbodycount.org (Iraq Body Count 2010) as well as that of antiwar.com (Anti War.com
2010) and with the Brookings Institution Iraq Index(O' Hanlon and Livingston 2010).
I entered this into a table of raw data as attached in Appendix A.
The highly politicized debate in the U.S. surrounding the effectiveness of
increased troop levels and more generally the Iraq war in general has negative effects on
data collection surrounding incidents of violence. Some websites seek to over-represent
the casualties and other sites to over-represent the effectiveness of the surge. Thus,
military counts of this data would be more accurate though possibly still biased to reflect
the success of their operations in reducing violence or civilian deaths, or to reflect what
organizational goals they have.
The U.S. government has not declassified any documents relating to terrorism
since 1987, and none about Iraq since 2003. However, one can apply for an account to
access government documents through the Freedom of Information Act, as well as
information from opensource.gov. Getting an account is not an expedient procedure but it
is recommended for anyone with long-term involvement in this research. Thus my
research is limited by the widely varying reports of death and injury counts, as well as
inconsistencies in the permanence of digital news sources beyond one or two years.
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CHAPTER TWO: FEMALE
PERPETRATED ATTACKS IN IRAQ
2005-2010
The use of female suicide attackers is in Iraq is a strategic organizational decision.
It was a response to the increase of America and Multi-National Force Coalition troops in
2007 that acted as a barrier to the use of male suicide bombers. The fact that an
overwhelming majority of attacks were perpetrated in Diyala Province shows a strategic
decision to use women. This is especially true when combined with the confessions of a
captured organizer which shows us that 34% of the total of female suicide attackers in
Iraq were directly and strategically organized by this one woman. What makes women
more successful perpetrators of suicide attacks is the fact that they are culturally exempt
from search by the predominantly male security apparatus.
The absence of self-organization also makes the use of women a clearly strategic
decision. Many of these women were coerced to participate as shown by the same
apprehended organizer, and some women were very young or mentally handicapped.
Iraqi female suicide bombers were selected and recruited by an operator, meaning
someone else made the decision to perpetrate this act rather than each individual woman.
In contrast to the infamous and widely circulated propaganda videos and
messages celebrating martyrs, nothing of this sort is made to boast the acts of these
women. Palestinian suicide organizations not only use women, but also include them in
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postmortem. Attacks of this nature are strategic because of the perceived effectiveness of
female bombers, at least in infiltration if not necessarily in number killed.
The Surge
On January 10th
of 2007, President Bush announced his New Way Forward, an
action plan to deploy an additional five U.S. Army Brigades, approximately 20,000
American soldiers to Iraq (Laurent 2009). Also known as the surge, this increase in
troop levels was intended to reinforce and secure Baghdad and the Sunni Anbar province.
This action proved effective at reducing casualty rates in affected areas over the long
term. Table 1 shows the astonishing 62% reduction in Iraqi civilian casualties from 2007
when the surge was announced, to a year later. In the year of 2007 alone, there was a
68% reduction in Iraqi civilian deaths from 2,807 in January of 2007 to 905 Iraqi civilian
deaths in December of 2007.
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Jan 3 571 1046 1439 2807 744 276 258
Feb 2 603 1203 1451 2536 1011 343 296
Mar 3977 957 785 1791 2616 1540 416 311
Apr 3437 1267 1024 1593 2436 1261 484 145
May 544 618 1226 2110 2757 761 327 *
Jun 594 831 1215 2430 2094 671 487 *
Jul 649 781 1444 3165 2575 586 394 *
Aug 792 822 2166 2745 2333 592 585 *
Sep 555 941 1330 2412 1225 534 298 *
Oct 516 946 1201 2926 1187 522 404 *Nov 483 1531 1208 2987 1053 473 205 *
Dec 529 906 996 2683 905 522 426 *
12,081 10,774 14,844 27,732 24,524 9,217 4,645 1,010
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Table 1: Iraqi Civilian Deaths iraqbodycount.org48
Acessed 04/22//2010
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/
The rise in the number of deaths points to the need to address the comprehensive
roots of suicide terrorism as implemented by Salafi jihadist organizations.
Comprehensive literature reviews by authors in the social sciences such as Martha
Crenshaw have shown an opportunity to clearly define the historical background of
differences between the ideological justification used by Shii groups-who see their
actions as defensive-and the offensive nature of Salafi-based jihad groups (such as al-
Qaida) leaves room for a better general understanding of the matter.
Digging Deep
There is relatively little literature that analyzes the number of female suicide
attackers in Iraq from 2005 through 2010. Yet the reason why I found it so critical to
research this subject, the contemporary nature of the conflict, was also the cause of much
of the difficulty in researching it. While much investigation has been done with regard to
womens participation in secular nationalist struggles, such as their pivotal role in
Algerias FLN (National Liberation Front) and in the infamous LTTE (Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Elam), the reportage of attacks and the associated body counts is a grim and
48According to the Iraq Body Count website the data is based on 22,451 database entries from the
beginning of the war to 26 April 2010. The most recent weeks are always in the process of compilation and
will rise further. The current range contains 4,2434,398 deaths (4.4%4.2%, a portion which may rise or
fall over time) based onsingle-sourced reports. Graphs are based on the higher number in our totals. Gaps
in recording and reporting suggest that even our highest totals to date may be missing many civilian deaths
from violence.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/announcements/3/ -
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sometimes sporadic business. Subsequently, it has been difficult to find consistent
reliable figures of womens participation in suicide campaigns in Iraq. From the data I
compiled, I synthesized Figure1 below, showing the number dead and wounded by
female suicide attackers. This shows the marked increase from 2007 to 2008 in the
number of people killed and injured by female suicide attackers.
Figure 1: Number Dead and Injured by Female Suicide Attackers
Strategic Motivations of Organizations
According to Robert Papes The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, suicide
attacks are implemented by organizations that follow a strategic logic. He claims that
suicide attacks have increased since the 1980s because of the tactics success in gaining
concessions from the modern liberal democracies they target..
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Papes critical finding is that terrorism is strategic, not random or isolated;
perpetrated by individual fanatics, but in clusters as part of larger campaign. Groups
announce specific goals and stop attacks when those have been achieved. According to
Pape, the strategic logic of suicide terrorism is specifically designed to coerce modern
democracies to make significant concessions to national self-determination especially in
the face of foreign occupation. Pape concludes that groups continue to use suicide attacks
largely because of their success in the 1980s and 1990s.
Thus, the most promising way to contain suicide terrorism is to reduce terrorists
confidence in their ability to carry out such attacks on the target society. Pape argues that,
States that face persistent suicide terrorism should recognize that higher offensive
military action nor concessions alone are likely to do much good and should invest
significant resources in border defense and other means of homeland security. (Pape,
The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism 2003)
While Papes premise that the strategic logic of suicide attacks targets liberal
democracies to earn territorial concessions is validated by his research, my data suggests
that it is not so in Iraq. Of the 72 attacks perpetrated in Iraq by female suicide bombers,
not one targeted the Multi-National Force Coalition or even any non-Iraqi interests.
Every single female perpetrated attack targeted Shii neighborhoods and pilgrims,
Awakening coalition members, Iraqi police, and other local interests such as weddings.
According to Pape, psychological profiles are not one size fits all, and therefore
such evaluations are not very useful. Even if suicide attackers are irrational or fanatical,
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the leadership that directs and recruits them is not. He cites Thomas Schellings, the
rationality of irrationality, in which, an act that is irrational for individual attackers is
meant to demonstrate credibility to a democratic audience that still more and greater
attacks are sure to come. As such, modern suicide terrorism is analogous to instances of
international coercion. Thus terrorism is effectively the coercive instrument of choice of
the weaker group in an asymmetrical conflict.
Strategic Location of Female-Perpetrated Attacks
Of the 72 women who perpetrated suicide attacks in Iraq from 2005 to 2010, 76%
of these attacks were carried out after the beginning of the surge. Figure 1 shows the
dramatic decrease of male-perpetrated attacks after the beginning of the surge in 2007. At
this same time, female-perpetrated attacks reached their all-time high.
In political science, a barrier is defined as any mechanism through which one
group limits the ability of any other group to attack it. Barriers essentially require some
amount of time and effort to be defeated or circumvented, thus increasing the resources
needed to complete an operation against the group that erected the barrier (Jervis,
Allingham & Sandmo, Andreoni et al, as cited by an-Nakhla).
By increasing the planning required on the offending side, barriers slow down
offending groups and give the erectors more time to prepare for their attack. An-Nakhla
says a barrier supported with checkpoint systems and surveillance increases the
possibility of stopping and punishing infiltrators before they reach their targets.
(Nakhala 2009).
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Figure 2: Total and Female Attacks per Year
Erecting barriers is not a tactic that prevents attacks outright, but rather one that
attempts to mitigate their frequency and effectiveness in terms of casualties inflicted. I
contend that the increased use of female suicide bombers by al-Qaida in Mesopotamia49
and other related Sunni terrorist groups was a strategic reaction to the increased
difficulties faced by men in the perpetration of suicide attacks over time.
In her doctoral prospectus, Duaa an-Nakhla claims that, barriers are institutions
of intensified border-policing enabling the state to practice coercion and extraction. These
practices include preventing exit and entry, suppressing contraband, and extracting
revenues from goods and people in the form of customs taxes. (Nakhala 2009). I would
further posit that the surge of troops, the capture of high-level al-Qaida in Mesopotamia
49The part of al-Qaida which operates in Iraq goes by the name al-Qaida in Mesopotamia
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400450
500
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010*
Attacks
Total and Female Suicide Attacks per Year
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operatives, and loss of public support ostensibly served as immaterial barriers. These
three factors meet the criteria of a barrier and have the intention defined above, without
being a physical barrier such as a wall (Gavrillis n.d.).
Figure 3: Breakdown of Female-Perpetrated Suicide Attacks by Target
Female Perpetrator, Female Recruiter
This is supported by the anecdote of the capture of the Iraqi woman by the
operational name of Um al-Mumineen, or mother of the believers. She confessed to
orchestrating the rape of dozens of women in order to later convince them that the only
way to recover their honor was to perpetrate suicide attacks (Haynes 2009). The 51 year-
old woman claims that she was personally responsible for the recruitment of over 80
1%
15%
8%
7%
2%
13%
17%
5%
30%
2%
Targets of Female Attacks
American Patrol
Awakening Members
Checkpoint
Courthouse
Hospital
Market
Police
Shi'a Mosques & Neighborhoods
Shi'a Pilgrims
Wedding Procession
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young women this way, and that 24 of them went on to perpetrate suicide attacks in
Diyala and Baghdad.
According to intelligence officials, al-Mumineen is directly connected to at least
24 female-perpetrated attacks in Baghdad and in the province of Diyala. Based on my
data, it is clear that attacks from Baghdad and Diyalas city of Baquba account for the
majority of attacks, perhaps due in part to the recruitment of vulnerable women by Um
al-Mumineen and her collaborators.
Al-Mumineen (whose real name was Samira Ahmed Jassim) worked for a
network of Sunni extremists that directed her to orchestrate these attacks. They supplied
her with a monthly stipend and living quarters above a store where she sold abayas, the
long flowing black robes in which she concealed her recruits bombs. Though the rapes
have not been independently confirmed, she allegedly manipulated the rape victims to
escape the shame of their life on Earth in the service of God.
Figure 3 shows the location of female-perpetrated suicide attacks. Baquba is a city
in the province of Diyala. This means that 48% of the women who committed suicide
attacks did so in, and were likely from, Diyala. Thus we can conclude that a strong
correlation exists between the political and social climate of that area and female suicide
attacks. Diyala is a province in the Sunni triangle where al-Qaida held their
organizational stronghold before the surge and awakening programs really took hold.
Figure 3 shows that 49% of attacks were perpetrated in this province (with 48% in
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Baquba alone, a city in Diyala). This geographic centralization shows the organizational
nature female-perpetrated attacks.
Figure 4: Location of Female Suicide Attacks
According to the newspaper article, this was called