Salafi jihadism

"Theoreticians" of Salafist jihadism included Afghan jihad veterans such as the Palestinian Abu Qatada, the Syrian Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, the Egyptian Mustapha Kamel, known as Abu Hamza al-Masri.[19] Osama bin Laden was its most well-known leader. The dissident Saudi preachers Salman al-Ouda and Safar Al-Hawali, were held in high esteem by this school.

Murad al-Shishani of The Jamestown Foundation states there have been three generations of Salafi-jihadists: those waging jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. As of the mid-2000s, Arab fighters in Iraq were "the latest and most important development of the global Salafi-jihadi movement".[20] These fighters were usually not Iraqis, but volunteers who had come to Iraq from other countries, mainly Saudi Arabia. Unlike in earlier Salafi jihadi actions, Egyptians "are no longer the chief ethnic group".[20] According to Bruce Livesey Salafist jihadists are currently a "burgeoning presence in Europe, having attempted more than 30 terrorist attacks among EU countries" from September 2001 to the beginning of 2005".[5]

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, in Iraq jihadi salafi are pursuing a "system-collapse strategy" whose goal is to install an "Islamic emirate based on Salafi dominance, similar to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan." In addition to occupation/coalition personnel they target mainly Iraqi security forces and Shia civilians, but also "foreign journalists, translators and transport drivers and the economic and physical infrastructure of Iraq."[14]

Salafist jihadists groups include Al Qaeda,[7] the now defunct Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA),[13] and the Egyptian group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya which still exists.

In the Algerian Civil War 1992–1998, the GIA was one of the two major Islamist armed groups (the other being theArmee Islamique du Salut or AIS) fighting the Algerian army and security forces. The GIA included veterans of the Afghanistan jihad and unlike the more moderate AIS, fought to destabilize the Algerian government with terror attacks designed to "create an atmosphere of general insecurity".[21] It considered jihad in Algeria fard ayn or an obligation for all (adult male sane) Muslims,[21] and sought to "purge" Algeria of "the ungodly" and create an Islamic state. It pursued what Gilles Kepel called a "wholesale massacres of civilians", targeting French-speaking intellectuals, foreigners,[21] and Islamists deemed too moderate, and took a campaign of bombing to France, which supported the Algerian government against the Islamists. Although over 150,000 were killed in the civil war,[22] the GIA eventually lost popular support and was crushed by the security forces.[23] Remnants of the GIA continued on as "Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat", which as of 2015 calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.[24]

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, (the Islamic Group) another Salafist-jihadi movement[25] fought an insurgency against the Egyptian government from 1992 to 1998 during which at least 800 Egyptian policemen and soldiers, jihadists, and civilians were killed. Outside of Egypt it is best known for a November 1997 attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor where fifty-eight foreign tourists were hacked and shot to death. The group declared a ceasefire in March 1999,[26] although as of 2012 it is still active in jihad against the Bashar al-Assad regime Syria.[25]

Flag of al-Qaeda

Perhaps the most famous and effective Salafist jihadist group was Al-Qaeda.[27] Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), or the "Services Office", a Muslim organization founded in 1984 to raise and channel funds and recruit foreign mujahideen for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was established in Peshawar, Pakistan, by Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. As it became apparent that the jihad had compelled the Soviet military to abandon its mission in Afghanistan, some mujahideen called for the expansion of their operations to include Islamist struggles in other parts of the world, and Al Qaeda was formed by bin Laden on August 11, 1988.[28][29] Members were to making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.[30] Al-Qaeda emphasized jihad against the "far enemy", i.e. the United States. In 1996, it announced its jihad to expel foreign troops and interests from what they considered Islamic lands, and in 1998, it issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Americans and their allies whenever and wherever they could. Among its most notable acts of violence were the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed over 200 people;[31] and the 9/11 attacks of 2001 that killed almost 3000 people and caused many billions of dollars in damage.

According to Mohammed M. Hafez, "as of 2006 the two major groups within the jihadi Salafi camp" in Iraq were the Mujahidin Shura Council and the Ansar al Sunna Group.[14] There are also a number of small jihadist Salafist groups in Azerbaijan.[32]

The group leading the Islamist insurgency in Southern Thailand in 2006 by carrying out most of the attacks and cross-border operations,[33] BRN-Koordinasi, favours Salafi ideology. It works in a loosely organized strictly clandestine cell system dependent on hard-line religious leaders for direction.[34][35]

Jund Ansar Allah is, or was, an armed Salafist jihadist organization in the Gaza Strip. On August 14, 2009, the group's spiritual leader, Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa, announced during Friday sermon the establishment of an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian territories attacking the ruling authority, the Islamist group Hamas, for failing to enforce Sharia law. Hamas forces responded to his sermon by surrounding his Ibn Taymiyyah mosque complex and attacking it. In the fighting that ensued, 24 people (including Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa himself), were killed and over 130 were wounded.[36]

In 2011, Salafist jihadists were actively involved with protests against King Abdullah II of Jordan,[37] and the kidnapping and killing of Italian peace activist Vittorio Arrigoni in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.[38][39]

In the North Caucasus region of Russia, the Caucasus Emirate replaced the nationalism of Muslim Chechnya and Dagestan with a hard-line Salafist-takfiri jihadist ideology. They are immensely focused on upholding the concept of tawhid (purist monotheism), and fiercely reject any practice of shirk, taqlid, ijtihad and bid‘ah. They also believe in the complete separation between the Muslim and the non-Muslim, by propagating Al Wala' Wal Bara' and declaring takfir against any Muslim who (they believe) is a mushrik (polytheist) and does not return to the observance of tawhid and the strict literal interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah as followed by Muhammad and his companions (Sahaba).[40]

Flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

In Syria and Iraq both Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS[41] have been described as Salafist-jihadist. Jabhat al-Nusra has been described as possessing "a hard-line Salafi-Jihadist ideology" and being one of "the most effective" groups fighting the regime.[42] Writing after ISIS victories in Iraq, Hassan Hassan believes ISIS is a reflection of "ideological shakeup of Sunni Islam's traditional Salafism" since the Arab Spring, where salafism, "traditionally inward-looking and loyal to the political establishment", has "steadily, if slowly", been eroded by Salafism-jihadism.[41]

In several places and times jihadis have taken control over an area and ruled it as an Islamic state, such as in the case of the ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

As Islamists, establishing uncompromised sharia law is a core value and goal of jihadists, but strategies differed on how quickly this should be done. Observers such as journalist Robert Worth have described jihadis as torn between wanting to build true Islamic order gradually from the bottom up to avoid alienating non-jihadi Muslims (the desire of bin Laden), and not wanting to wait for the Islamic state.[43]

In Zinjibar, Yemen, AQAP established an "emirate" that lasted from May 2011 until the summer of 2012. It emphasized (and publicized with a media campaign) not strict sharia law, but "uncharacteristically gentle" good governance over its conquered territory—rebuilding infrastructure, quashing banditry, and resolving legal disputes.[44] One jihadi veteran of Yemen described its approach towards the local population:

You have to take a gradual approach with them when it comes to religious practices. You can't beat people for drinking alcohol when they don't even know the basics of how to pray. We have to first stop the great sins, and then move gradually to the lesser and lesser ones ... Try to avoid enforcing Islamic punishments as much as possible unless you are forced to do so.[44]

However AQAP's "clemency drained away under the pressure of war",[44] and the area was taken back by the government. The failure of this model (according to New York Times correspondent Robert Worth), may have "taught" jihadis a lesson on the need to instill fear.[44]

The ISIS, is thought to have used for its model a manifesto entitled "The Management of Savagery", which emphasizes the need to create areas of "savagery", i.e. lawlessness, in enemy territory. Once the enemy was too exhausted and weakened from the lawlessness (particularly terrorism) to continue to try and govern, the nucleus of a new caliphate could be established in their absence.[45] The author of "The Management of Savagery", emphasized not so much winning the sympathy of the local Muslims but extreme violence, writing that: "One who previously engaged in jihad knows that it is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, frightening [others] and massacring – I am talking about jihad and fighting, not about Islam and one should not confuse them."[45] (Social-media posts from ISIS territory "suggest that individual executions happen more or less continually, and mass executions every few weeks", according journalist Graeme Wood.[46])