Terrorism and Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations after the Cold War

Abstract

Al-Qaeda is conventionally portrayed as a monolithic, hierarchical organization whose activities – coordinated by the network's leader Osama bin Laden – are the source of international terrorism today. Al-Qaeda is considered a radical tendency within the broader Islamist Salafi movement, legitimizing its terrorist operations as a global Islamist jihad against Western civilization. Al-Qaeda's terrorist activity today is considered, “blowback” from long finished CIA and western covert operations in Afghanistan.

The conventional wisdom is demonstrably false. After the Cold War, Western connections with al-Qaeda proliferated around the world, challenging mainstream conceptions of al-Qaeda's identity. Western covert operations and military – intelligence connections in strategic regions show that “al-Qaeda” is a network whose raison d’etre and modus operandi are inextricably embedded in a disturbing conglomerate of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies today. US, British, and Western power routinely manipulates al-Qaeda through a complex network of state-regional and human nodes. Such manipulation extended directly to the 9-11 hijackers, and thus to the events of 9-11 itself.11This paper advances an original argument based partially on research in Ahmed (2005), supplemented here with significant new data and analysis. Also see Ahmed (2002).

Citation

Mosaddeq Ahmed, N. (2006), "Terrorism and Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations after the Cold War", Zarembka, P. (Ed.) The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 (Research in Political Economy, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 149-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0161-7230(06)23005-0