title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the gangster character Tommy DeVito in "Goodfellas" and received two other nominations in the same category for his portrayals of Joey LaMotta and Russell Bufalino in "Raging Bull" and "The Irishman", respectively. He announced his retirement from acting in 1999, but has returned to act in three films since then.


title: Joe Pesci

text: He is also a musician who has recorded three studio albums, "Little Joe Sure Can Sing!" (1968), "Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You" (1998), and "Pesci... Still Singing" (2019).


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci was born on February 9, 1943, in Newark, New Jersey. His mother, Maria (Mesce) worked part time as a barber, and his father, Angelo Pesci was a forklift driver for General Motors and a bartender. He is of Italian descent with family origins both in Turin and Aquilonia in the province of Avellino. Pesci was raised in Belleville, New Jersey, and graduated from Belleville High School. By the time Pesci was five years old he was appearing in plays in New York. At age 10 he was a regular on a television variety show called "Startime Kids", which also featured Connie Francis.


title: Joe Pesci

text: As a teenager, Pesci was friends with singers Frankie Valli (who is nine years his senior) and Tommy DeVito (who was 15 years his senior). In 1959 at age 16, he helped introduce them to singer and songwriter Bob Gaudio, which led to the formation of the band The Four Seasons. Pesci also grew up around numerous wiseguys.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In the 1960s, Pesci began working as a barber, following in his mother's footsteps. At the same time, he tried to start a musical career, playing guitar with several bands, including Joey Dee and the Starliters who introduced the "Peppermint Twist" record, dance, and Peppermint Lounge in New York City.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1968, he released his debut album "Little Joe Sure Can Sing!" (billed as "Joe Ritchie"), on which he sang covers of contemporary pop hits.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci later joined Frank Vincent as a comedy duo, performing as "Vincent and Pesci" from 1970 to 1976. Their act coupled Abbott and Costello-inspired double act antics with Don Rickles-style insult comedy, which proved popular with crowds. During this time, both men developed a strong professional and personal friendship with one another. In 1975, they appeared in the Broadway show "The New Vaudevillians", which only lasted one week.


title: Joe Pesci

text: The first film Pesci starred in was the 1976 low-budget crime film "The Death Collector" alongside Frank Vincent. After the film Pesci returned to The Bronx and lived above Amici's Restaurant, where he was an employee.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1979, Pesci received a telephone call from Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, who were impressed with his performance in "The Death Collector" and asked him to co-star in Scorsese's "Raging Bull" as Joey LaMotta. During the course of filming Pesci broke one of his ribs.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci won the BAFTA Film Award for Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1981 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Over the next few years, Pesci appeared in several smaller films, including "Dear Mr. Wonderful" (1982), "Eureka" (1983) and "Easy Money" (1983).


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1984, he was cast in "Once Upon a Time in America", again appearing alongside De Niro. The following year he starred as private detective Rocky Nelson in the short-lived television comedy series "Half Nelson".


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1988, Pesci appeared in the Michael Jackson musical anthology film "Moonwalker", in the film's sixth and longest segment, "Smooth Criminal." He played the antagonist, crime boss Frankie "Mr. Big" LiDeo (an anagram for one of the film's producers and longtime Jackson manager Frank DiLeo, with whom Pesci later acted in "Goodfellas").


title: Joe Pesci

text: He appeared as Leo Getz, a comedic sidekick and best friend to protagonist detectives Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) in the "Lethal Weapon" sequels, released in 1989, 1992 and 1998.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1990, he reunited with Scorsese and De Niro for "Goodfellas", in which he played mobster Tommy DeVito, based on real-life mobster Thomas DeSimone (Tommy DeVito also being the name of Pesci's old acquaintance from Belleville, New Jersey, and a member of The Four Seasons, but contrary to popular belief, the naming is coincidental). Pesci's old friend Frank Vincent also appears in the film. Pesci's character kills Vincent's character in a rage in one of the best-remembered scenes in the film after the Vincent character contemptuously tells him to "go home and get your fucking shine box." According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese let the actors do whatever they wanted. He made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines the actors came up with that he liked best, and put them into a revised script that the cast worked from during principal photography.


title: Joe Pesci

text: For example, the scene where Tommy tells a story and Henry is responding to him—the "Funny how? Do I amuse you?" scene—is based on an actual event that Pesci experienced. Pesci was working as a waiter when he thought he was making a compliment to a mobster by saying he was "funny"; however, the comment was not taken well. It was worked on in rehearsals where he and Liotta improvised, and Scorsese recorded four to five takes, rewrote their dialogue, and inserted it into the script. The dinner scene with Tommy's mother was largely improvised. Pesci received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role, which he accepted with one of the shortest speeches in Oscar history, saying simply, "It's my privilege. Thank you" before leaving the stage.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci also co-starred in the blockbuster "Home Alone" in 1990, playing Harry Lyme, one of two bumbling burglars (along with good friend Daniel Stern) who attempt to burgle the house of the young character played by Macaulay Culkin. Pesci's use of "cartoon cursing," or menacing gibberish, garnered comparisons to "Looney Tunes" character Yosemite Sam. Two years later, Pesci reprised his role in the sequel "".


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1991, Pesci played David Ferrie in "JFK". In 1992, he appeared as the title character in the comedy "My Cousin Vinny" with Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei and Fred Gwynne. During the same year Pesci headed up the cast of "The Public Eye" as Leon "Bernzy" Bernstein, a photographer. His performance in the film, a departure from his usual characters, has been critically acclaimed.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci hosted the sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" on October 10, 1992, while doing publicity for "My Cousin Vinny". During his monologue, he restored a picture of Pope John Paul II that had been torn by Sinéad O'Connor on the previous broadcast.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1993, Pesci made an appearance in "A Bronx Tale" as Carmine. The film starred Robert De Niro, who also directed, and Chazz Palminteri, who wrote the play from which the film was adapted. Both De Niro and Palminteri personally offered Pesci the role. In 1995, Pesci had his third collaboration with Scorsese and De Niro in the film "Casino", playing Nicky Santoro, based on real-life Mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro, along with Sharon Stone and James Woods; Pesci had previously co-starred with the latter in "Once Upon a Time in America". During filming, Pesci broke the same rib that had been broken 15 years prior during the production of "Raging Bull". In 1996, Pesci was considered to play Myron Larabee, the stressed-out postman, in "Jingle All the Way" opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the part was ultimately given to Sinbad, whose physical size was more comparable to Schwarzenegger's.


title: Joe Pesci

text: He had starring roles in several other films, including "Man on Fire" (1987), "The Super" (1991), "Jimmy Hollywood" (1994), "With Honors" (also 1994) and "Gone Fishin'" (1997). Pesci's role in "With Honors" was a dramatic role in which he played a homeless man living on the campus of Harvard.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1998, he released his second album and his first in 30 years, "Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You" which was named after his character from the 1992 film "My Cousin Vinny". The album was both humorous and serious, exploring a variety of genres, though most of it was big band jazz. The album spawned the single "Wise Guy", a rap number that played on the gangsta theme by making reference to Mafia gangsterism. "Wise Guy" interpolated the 1980 hit "Rapture" by Blondie, and was co-written and produced by the hip-hop production team the Trackmasters.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 1999, Pesci announced his retirement from acting to pursue a musical career and to enjoy life away from the camera. He returned to acting when he did a cameo in De Niro's 2006 film "The Good Shepherd". In 2010, he starred in the brothel drama "Love Ranch" alongside Helen Mirren.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci appeared with Don Rickles in a 2011 Snickers advertisement in which he portrays the angry alter ego of a young man who attends a party and becomes agitated by two women until he is calmed down by eating a Snickers bar.


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 2011, Pesci sued Fiore Films, the producers of the film "Gotti" saying they had broken their promise to cast him in the film as real-life mobster Angelo Ruggiero. Pesci stated that he had gained for the role. He sued them for $3 million, which was the payment he had been promised. The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2013 for an unspecified sum, and the role after many production delays, eventually went to Pruitt Taylor Vince.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci appears in the 2016 music documentary "Jimmy Scott: I Go Back Home" in which he is filmed recording "The Folks Who Live on the Hill" from Scott's 2017 posthumous album "I Go Back Home".


title: Joe Pesci

text: In 2017, Pesci was cast alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in "The Irishman", a crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. Pesci was offered his role a reported 50 times before agreeing to take part, at first saying he did not want to do "the gangster thing again," while Scorsese tried to persuade him "The Irishman" would be "different." The film received a limited theatrical release on November 1, 2019, followed by digital streaming on November 27, 2019, by Netflix. Pesci's performance as Russell Bufalino was critically acclaimed and earned him various accolades, including nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor and for two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Pesci also returned to music with his third album and his first in 21 years, titled "Pesci... Still Singing", released on November 29, 2019.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci has been married and divorced three times. His first marriage was in January 1964, from which he has a daughter. His third marriage was from 1988 to 1992, to Claudia Haro, a model and actress. In 2007, Pesci was engaged to Angie Everhart but the couple broke up in 2008.


title: Joe Pesci

text: Pesci has received numerous awards nominations including three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" (1980), "Goodfellas" (1990), and "The Irishman" (2019).


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illustrates a paradox of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead, while it is unobserved in a closed box, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: This thought experiment was devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, in a discussion with Albert Einstein, to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The scenario is often featured in theoretical discussions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics, particularly in situations involving the measurement problem.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Schrödinger intended his thought experiment as a discussion of the EPR article—named after its authors Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen—in 1935. The EPR article highlighted the counterintuitive nature of quantum superpositions, in which a quantum system such as an atom or photon can exist as a combination of multiple states corresponding to different possible outcomes.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: The prevailing theory, called the Copenhagen interpretation, says that a quantum system remains in superposition until it interacts with, or is observed by the external world. When this happens, the superposition collapses into one or another of the possible definite states. The EPR experiment shows that a system with multiple particles separated by large distances can be in such a superposition. Schrödinger and Einstein exchanged letters about Einstein's EPR article, in the course of which Einstein pointed out that the state of an unstable keg of gunpowder will, after a while, contain a superposition of both exploded and unexploded states.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: To further illustrate, Schrödinger described how one could, in principle, create a superposition in a large-scale system by making it dependent on a quantum particle that was in a superposition. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a locked steel chamber, wherein the cat's life or death depended on the state of a radioactive atom, whether it had decayed and emitted radiation or not. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that "the cat remains both alive and dead" until the state has been observed. Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-live cats as a serious possibility; on the contrary, he intended the example to illustrate the absurdity of the existing view of quantum mechanics.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: The idea that quantum superpositions of macroscopic states could be possible led to the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Since Schrödinger's time, various interpretations of the mathematics of quantum mechanics have been advanced by physicists, some of which regard the "alive and dead" cat superposition as quite real, others do not. Intended as a critique of the Copenhagen interpretation (the prevailing orthodoxy in 1935), the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment remains a touchstone for modern interpretations of quantum mechanics and can be used to illustrate and compare their strengths and weaknesses.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, ""when" does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?" (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a non-trivial linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begin to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive. But explanations of the EPR experiments that are consistent with standard microscopic quantum mechanics require that macroscopic objects, such as cats and notebooks, do not always have unique classical descriptions. The thought experiment illustrates this apparent paradox. Our intuition says that no observer can be in more than one state simultaneously—yet the cat, it seems from the thought experiment, can be in such a condition. Is the cat required to be an observer, or does its existence in a single well-defined classical state require another external observer? Each alternative seemed absurd to Einstein, who was impressed by the ability of the thought experiment to highlight these issues. In a letter to Schrödinger dated 1950, he wrote:


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Note that the charge of gunpowder is not mentioned in Schrödinger's setup, which uses a Geiger counter as an amplifier and hydrocyanic poison instead of gunpowder. The gunpowder had been mentioned in Einstein's original suggestion to Schrödinger 15 years before, and Einstein carried it forward to the present discussion.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Since Schrödinger's time, other interpretations of quantum mechanics have been proposed that give different answers to the questions posed by Schrödinger's cat of how long superpositions last and when (or "whether") they collapse.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: A commonly held interpretation of quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation. In the Copenhagen interpretation, a system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place. This thought experiment makes apparent the fact that the nature of measurement, or observation, is not well-defined in this interpretation. The experiment can be interpreted to mean that while the box is closed, the system simultaneously exists in a superposition of the states "decayed nucleus/dead cat" and "undecayed nucleus/living cat", and that only when the box is opened and an observation performed does the wave function collapse into one of the two states.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In 1932 John von Neumann described in his book "Mathematical Foundations" a pattern where the radioactive source is observed by a device, which itself is observed by another device, and so on. It makes no difference in the predictions of quantum theory where along this chain of causal effects the superposition collapses. This potentially infinite chain could be broken if the last device is replaced by a conscious observer. This solved the problem because it was claimed that an individual's consciousness cannot be multiple. Neumann asserted that a conscious observer is necessary for collapse to one or the other (e.g. either a live cat or a dead cat) of the terms on the right-hand side of a wave function. This interpretation was later adopted by Eugene Wigner, who then rejected the interpretation in a thought experiment known as Wigner's friend.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Wigner supposed that a friend opened the box and observed the cat without telling anyone. From Wigner's conscious perspective, the friend is now part of the wave function and has seen a live cat and seen a dead cat. To a third person's conscious perspective, Wigner himself becomes part of the wave function once Wigner learns the outcome from the friend. This could be extended indefinitely.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: One of the main scientists associated with the Copenhagen interpretation, Niels Bohr, offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer-induced collapse of the wave function, or of measurement; instead, an "irreversible" or effectively irreversible process causes the decay of quantum coherence which imparts the classical behavior of "observation" or "measurement". Thus, Schrödinger's cat would be either dead or alive long before the box is observed.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: A resolution of the paradox is that the triggering of the Geiger counter counts as a measurement of the state of the radioactive substance. Because a measurement has already occurred deciding the state of the cat, the subsequent observation by a human records only what has already occurred. Analysis of an actual experiment by Roger Carpenter and A. J. Anderson found that measurement alone (for example by a Geiger counter) is sufficient to collapse a quantum wave function before any human knows of the result. The apparatus indicates one of two colors depending on the outcome. The human observer sees which color is indicated, but they don't consciously know which outcome the color represents. A second human, the one who set up the apparatus, is told of the color and becomes conscious of the outcome, and the box is opened to check if the outcome matches. However, it is disputed whether merely observing the color counts as a conscious observation of the outcome.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In 1957, Hugh Everett formulated the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which does not single out observation as a special process. In the many-worlds interpretation, both alive and dead states of the cat persist after the box is opened, but are decoherent from each other. In other words, when the box is opened, the observer and the possibly-dead cat split into an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, and an observer looking at a box with a live cat. But since the dead and alive states are decoherent, there is no effective communication or interaction between them.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: When opening the box, the observer becomes entangled with the cat, so "observer states" corresponding to the cat's being alive and dead are formed; each observer state is entangled or linked with the cat so that the "observation of the cat's state" and the "cat's state" correspond with each other. Quantum decoherence ensures that the different outcomes have no interaction with each other. The same mechanism of quantum decoherence is also important for the interpretation in terms of consistent histories. Only the "dead cat" or the "live cat" can be a part of a consistent history in this interpretation. Decoherence is generally considered to prevent simultaneous observation of multiple states.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: A variant of the Schrödinger's cat experiment, known as the quantum suicide machine, has been proposed by cosmologist Max Tegmark. It examines the Schrödinger's cat experiment from the point of view of the cat, and argues that by using this approach, one may be able to distinguish between the Copenhagen interpretation and many-worlds.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: The ensemble interpretation states that superpositions are nothing but subensembles of a larger statistical ensemble. The state vector would not apply to individual cat experiments, but only to the statistics of many similarly prepared cat experiments. Proponents of this interpretation state that this makes the Schrödinger's cat paradox a trivial matter, or a non-issue.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: This interpretation serves to "discard" the idea that a single physical system in quantum mechanics has a mathematical description that corresponds to it in any way.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: The relational interpretation makes no fundamental distinction between the human experimenter, the cat, or the apparatus, or between animate and inanimate systems; all are quantum systems governed by the same rules of wavefunction evolution, and all may be considered "observers". But the relational interpretation allows that different observers can give different accounts of the same series of events, depending on the information they have about the system. The cat can be considered an observer of the apparatus; meanwhile, the experimenter can be considered another observer of the system in the box (the cat plus the apparatus). Before the box is opened, the cat, by nature of its being alive or dead, has information about the state of the apparatus (the atom has either decayed or not decayed); but the experimenter does not have information about the state of the box contents. In this way, the two observers simultaneously have different accounts of the situation: To the cat, the wavefunction of the apparatus has appeared to "collapse"; to the experimenter, the contents of the box appear to be in superposition. Not until the box is opened, and both observers have the same information about what happened, do both system states appear to "collapse" into the same definite result, a cat that is either alive or dead.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In the transactional interpretation the apparatus emits an advanced wave backward in time, which combined with the wave that the source emits forward in time, forms a standing wave. The waves are seen as physically real, and the apparatus is considered an "observer". In the transactional interpretation, the collapse of the wavefunction is "atemporal" and occurs along the whole transaction between the source and the apparatus. The cat is never in superposition. Rather the cat is only in one state at any particular time, regardless of when the human experimenter looks in the box. The transactional interpretation resolves this quantum paradox.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: On the other hand, the anti-Zeno effect accelerates the changes. For example, if you peek a look into the cat box frequently you may either cause delays to the fateful choice or, conversely, accelerate it. Both the Zeno effect and the anti-Zeno effect are real and known to happen to real atoms. The quantum system being measured must be strongly coupled to the surrounding environment (in this case to the apparatus, the experiment room ... etc.) in order to obtain more accurate information. But while there is no information passed to the outside world, it is considered to be a "quasi-measurement", but as soon as the information about the cat's well-being is passed on to the outside world (by peeking into the box) quasi-measurement turns into measurement. Quasi-measurements, like measurements, cause the Zeno effects. Zeno effects teach us that even without peeking into the box, the death of the cat would have been delayed or accelerated anyway due to its environment.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: According to objective collapse theories, superpositions are destroyed spontaneously (irrespective of external observation), when some objective physical threshold (of time, mass, temperature, irreversibility, etc.) is reached. Thus, the cat would be expected to have settled into a definite state long before the box is opened. This could loosely be phrased as "the cat observes itself", or "the environment observes the cat".


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Objective collapse theories require a modification of standard quantum mechanics to allow superpositions to be destroyed by the process of time evolution. These theories could ideally be tested by creating mesoscopic superposition states in the experiment. For instance, energy cat states has been proposed as a precise detector of the quantum gravity related energy decoherence models.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: The experiment as described is a purely theoretical one, and the machine proposed is not known to have been constructed. However, successful experiments involving similar principles, e.g. superpositions of relatively large (by the standards of quantum physics) objects have been performed. These experiments do not show that a cat-sized object can be superposed, but the known upper limit on "cat states" has been pushed upwards by them. In many cases the state is short-lived, even when cooled to near absolute zero.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In quantum computing the phrase "cat state" sometimes refers to the GHZ state, wherein several qubits are in an equal superposition of all being 0 and all being 1; e.g.,


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: According to at least one proposal, it may be possible to determine the state of the cat "before" observing it.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: Prominent physicists have gone so far as to suggest that astronomers observing dark energy in the universe in 1998 may have "reduced its life expectancy" through a pseudo-Schrödinger's cat scenario, although this is a controversial viewpoint.


title: Schrödinger's cat

text: In August 2020, physicists presented studies involving interpretations of quantum mechanics that are related to the Schrödinger's cat and Wigner's friend paradoxes, resulting in conclusions that challenge seemingly established assumptions about reality.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the September 11 attacks, and the 2002 Bali bombings; it has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, India, and various other countries.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The organization was founded in a series of meetings held in Peshawar during 1988; which were attended by Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden, Muhammad Atef, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other volunteers of the Soviet–Afghan War. Building upon the networks of "Maktab al-Khidamat", a charity organisation dedicated to the Pan-Islamist cause, the founding members decided to create an organisation named ""Al-Qaeda"" which serves as a "vanguard" for "Jihad". Following the withdrawal of the Soviets in 1989, bin Laden offered "mujahideen" support to Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War in 1990–1991. His offer was rebuffed by the Saudi authorities, which instead sought the aid of the United States. The stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia prompted bin Laden to subsequently wage "jihad" against the United States and its allied Saudi family, whom he excommunicated as apostates. During 1992–1996, al-Qaeda established its headquarters in Sudan until their banishment from the region in May 1996. They shifted their base to the Afghanistan in the same year during the regime of the Taliban. Afterward, al-Qaeda expanded to other parts of the world, setting up bases primarily in Middle East and South Asia.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1996 and 1998, Bin Laden issued two "fatawas" calling for U.S. troops to leave Saudi Arabia. Lack of response from the U.S. resulted in al-Qaeda conducting the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which resulted in deaths of more than 200 people. American forces retaliated by launching the Operation Infinite Reach, killing around 50 people. The operation was a tactical failure for the United States and boosted al-Qaeda's morale. In 2001, al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 attacks, resulting in nearly 3,000 fatalities, substantial long-term health consequences and damaging global economic markets. The United States immediately instigated the war on terror and invaded Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and terminate al-Qaeda. In 2003, the United States erroneously accused Iraq of having ties with al-Qaeda and invaded Iraq. In response to the United States war crimes in Iraq, al-Qaeda launched its Iraqi regional branch in 2004. After pursuing him for almost a decade, the U.S. military killed bin Laden in May 2011.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda members believe a Christian-Jewish alliance (led by the United States) is conspiring to be at war against Islam and destroy Islam. As Salafist jihadists, members of Al-Qaeda believe that killing non-combatants is religiously sanctioned. Al-Qaeda also opposes what it regards as man-made laws, and wants to replace them exclusively with a strict form of "sharīʿa" (Islamic religious law, which is perceived as divine law). Al-Qaeda characteristically organizes attacks including suicide attacks and simultaneous bombing of several targets. Al-Qaeda ideologues envision the violent removal of all foreign and secular influences in Muslim countries, which it denounces as corrupt deviations. Following the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Al-Qaeda vowed to avenge his killing and the group was led by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri until his death in 2022. As of 2021, it has reportedly suffered from a deterioration of central command over its regional operations.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda only indirectly controls its day-to-day operations. Its philosophy calls for the centralization of decision making, while allowing for the decentralization of execution. The top leaders of Al-Qaeda have defined the organization's ideology and guiding strategy, and they have also articulated simple and easy-to-receive messages. At the same time, mid-level organizations were given autonomy, but they had to consult with top management before large-scale attacks and assassinations. Top management included the shura council as well as committees on military operations, finance, and information sharing. Through the information committees of Al-Qaeda, he placed special emphasis on communicating with his groups. However, after the War on Terror, Al-Qaeda's leadership has become isolated. As a result, the leadership has become decentralized, and the organization has become regionalized into several Al-Qaeda groups.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Many terrorism experts do not believe that the global jihadist movement is driven at every level by Al-Qaeda's leadership. However, bin Laden held considerable ideological sway over some Muslim extremists before his death. Experts argue that Al-Qaeda has fragmented into a number of disparate regional movements, and that these groups bear little connection with one another.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: This view mirrors the account given by Osama bin Laden in his October 2001 interview with Tayseer Allouni:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Osama bin Laden served as the emir of Al-Qaeda from the organization's founding in 1988 until his assassination by US forces on May 1, 2011. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was alleged to be second in command prior to his death on August 22, 2011.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Bin Laden was advised by a Shura Council, which consists of senior Al-Qaeda members. The group was estimated to consist of 20–30 people.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Ayman al-Zawahiri had been Al-Qaeda's deputy emir and assumed the role of emir following bin Laden's death. Al-Zawahiri replaced Saif al-Adel, who had served as interim commander. Al-Zawahiri was killed on July 31, 2022 in a drone strike in Afghanistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On June 5, 2012, Pakistani intelligence officials announced that al-Rahman's alleged successor as second in command, Abu Yahya al-Libi, had been killed in Pakistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Nasir al-Wuhayshi was alleged to have become Al-Qaeda's overall second in command and general manager in 2013. He was concurrently the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) until he was killed by a US airstrike in Yemen in June 2015. Abu Khayr al-Masri, Wuhayshi's alleged successor as the deputy to Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed by a US airstrike in Syria in February 2017. Al Qaeda's next alleged number two leader, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, was killed by Israeli agents. His pseudonym was Abu Muhammad al-Masri, who was killed in November 2020 in Iran. He was involved in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda's network was built from scratch as a conspiratorial network which drew upon the leadership of a number of regional nodes. The organization divided itself into several committees, which include:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Most of Al Qaeda's top leaders and operational directors were veterans who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were the leaders who were considered the operational commanders of the organization. Nevertheless, Al-Qaeda is not operationally managed by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Several operational groups exist, which consult with the leadership in situations where attacks are in preparation.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: When asked in 2005 about the possibility of Al-Qaeda's connection to the July 7, 2005 London bombings, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said: "Al-Qaeda is not an organization. Al-Qaeda is a way of working... but this has the hallmark of that approach... Al-Qaeda clearly has the ability to provide training... to provide expertise... and I think that is what has occurred here." On August 13, 2005, "The Independent" newspaper, reported that the July7 bombers had acted independently of an Al-Qaeda mastermind.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Nasser al-Bahri, who was Osama bin Laden's bodyguard for four years in the run-up to 9/11 wrote in his memoir a highly detailed description of how the group functioned at that time. Al-Bahri described Al-Qaeda's formal administrative structure and vast arsenal. However, the author Adam Curtis argued that the idea of Al-Qaeda as a formal organization is primarily an American invention. Curtis contended the name "Al-Qaeda" was first brought to the attention of the public in the 2001 trial of bin Laden and the four men accused of the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa. Curtis wrote:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: During the 2001 trial, the US Department of Justice needed to show that bin Laden was the leader of a criminal organization in order to charge him "in absentia" under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The name of the organization and details of its structure were provided in the testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, who said he was a founding member of the group and a former employee of bin Laden. Questions about the reliability of al-Fadl's testimony have been raised by a number of sources because of his history of dishonesty, and because he was delivering it as part of a plea bargain agreement after being convicted of conspiring to attack US military establishments. Sam Schmidt, a defense attorney who defended al-Fadl said:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The number of individuals in the group who have undergone proper military training, and are capable of commanding insurgent forces, is largely unknown. Documents captured in the raid on bin Laden's compound in 2011 show that the core Al-Qaeda membership in 2002 was 170. In 2006, it was estimated that Al-Qaeda had several thousand commanders embedded in 40 countries. , it was believed that no more than 200–300 members were still active commanders.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: According to the 2004 BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares", Al-Qaeda was so weakly linked together that it was hard to say it existed apart from bin Laden and a small clique of close associates. The lack of any significant numbers of convicted Al-Qaeda members, despite a large number of arrests on terrorism charges, was cited by the documentary as a reason to doubt whether a widespread entity that met the description of Al-Qaeda existed. Al-Qaeda's commanders, as well as its sleeping agents, are hiding in different parts of the world to this day. They are mainly hunted by the American and Israeli secret services.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: According to author Robert Cassidy, Al-Qaeda maintains two separate forces which are deployed alongside insurgents in Iraq and Pakistan. The first, numbering in the tens of thousands, was "organized, trained, and equipped as insurgent combat forces" in the Soviet–Afghan war. The force was composed primarily of foreign "mujahideen" from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Many of these fighters went on to fight in Bosnia and Somalia for global "jihad". Another group, which numbered 10,000 in 2006, live in the West and have received rudimentary combat training.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Other analysts have described Al-Qaeda's rank and file as being "predominantly Arab" in its first years of operation, but that the organization also includes "other peoples" . It has been estimated that 62 percent of Al-Qaeda members have a university education. In 2011 and the following year, the Americans successfully settled accounts with Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, the organization's chief propagandist, and Abu Yahya al-Libi's deputy commander. The optimistic voices were already saying it was over for Al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, it was around this time that the Arab Spring greeted the region, the turmoil of which came great to Al-Qaeda's regional forces. Seven years later, Ayman al-Zawahiri became arguably the number one leader in the organization, implementing his strategy with systematic consistency. Tens of thousands loyal to Al-Qaeda and related organizations were able to challenge local and regional stability and ruthlessly attack their enemies in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and Russia alike. In fact, from Northwest Africa to South Asia, Al-Qaeda had more than two dozen "franchise-based" allies. The number of Al-Qaeda militants was set at 20,000 in Syria alone, and they had 4,000 members in Yemen and about 7,000 in Somalia. The war was not over.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda usually does not disburse funds for attacks, and very rarely makes wire transfers. In the 1990s, financing came partly from the personal wealth of Osama bin Laden. Other sources of income included the heroin trade and donations from supporters in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic Gulf states. A WikiLeaks-released 2009 internal US government cable stated that "terrorist funding emanating from Saudi Arabia remains a serious concern."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Among the first pieces of evidence regarding Saudi Arabia's support for Al-Qaeda was the so-called "Golden Chain", a list of early Al-Qaeda funders seized during a 2002 raid in Sarajevo by Bosnian police. The hand-written list was validated by Al-Qaeda defector Jamal al-Fadl, and included the names of both donors and beneficiaries. Osama bin-Laden's name appeared seven times among the beneficiaries, while 20 Saudi and Gulf-based businessmen and politicians were listed among the donors. Notable donors included Adel Batterjee, and Wael Hamza Julaidan. Batterjee was designated as a terror financier by the US Department of the Treasury in 2004, and Julaidan is recognized as one of Al-Qaeda's founders.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Documents seized during the 2002 Bosnia raid showed that Al-Qaeda widely exploited charities to channel financial and material support to its operatives across the globe. Notably, this activity exploited the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the Muslim World League (MWL). The IIRO had ties with Al-Qaeda associates worldwide, including Al-Qaeda's deputy Ayman al Zawahiri. Zawahiri's brother worked for the IIRO in Albania and had actively recruited on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The MWL was openly identified by Al-Qaeda's leader as one of the three charities Al-Qaeda primarily relied upon for funding sources.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Several Qatari citizens have been accused of funding Al-Qaeda. This includes Abd Al-Rahman al-Nuaimi, a Qatari citizen and a human-rights activist who founded the Swiss-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Alkarama. On December 18, 2013, the US Treasury designated Nuaimi as a terrorist for his activities supporting Al-Qaeda. The US Treasury has said Nuaimi "has facilitated significant financial support to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and served as an interlocutor between Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Qatar-based donors".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Nuaimi was accused of overseeing a $2million monthly transfer to Al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of his role as mediator between Iraq-based Al-Qaeda senior officers and Qatari citizens. Nuaimi allegedly entertained relationships with Abu-Khalid al-Suri, Al-Qaeda's top envoy in Syria, who processed a $600,000 transfer to Al-Qaeda in 2013. Nuaimi is also known to be associated with Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman al-Humayqani, a Yemeni politician and founding member of Alkarama, who was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the US Treasury in 2013. The US authorities claimed that Humayqani exploited his role in Alkarama to fundraise on behalf of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). A prominent figure in AQAP, Nuaimi was also reported to have facilitated the flow of funding to AQAP affiliates based in Yemen. Nuaimi was also accused of investing funds in the charity directed by Humayqani to ultimately fund AQAP. About ten months after being sanctioned by the US Treasury, Nuaimi was also restrained from doing business in the UK.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Another Qatari citizen, Kalifa Mohammed Turki Subayi, was sanctioned by the US Treasury on June 5, 2008, for his activities as a "Gulf-based Al-Qaeda financier". Subayi's name was added to the UN Security Council's Sanctions List in 2008 on charges of providing financial and material support to Al-Qaeda senior leadership. Subayi allegedly moved Al-Qaeda recruits to South Asia-based training camps. He also financially supported Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani national and senior Al-Qaeda officer who is believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11 attack according to the September 11 Commission report.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Qataris provided support to Al-Qaeda through the country's largest NGO, the Qatar Charity. Al-Qaeda defector al-Fadl, who was a former member of Qatar Charity, testified in court that Abdullah Mohammed Yusef, who served as Qatar Charity's director, was affiliated to Al-Qaeda and simultaneously to the National Islamic Front, a political group that gave Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden harbor in Sudan in the early 1990s.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: It was alleged that in 1993 Bin Laden was using Middle East based Sunni charities to channel financial support to Al-Qaeda operatives overseas. The same documents also report Bin Laden's complaint that the failed assassination attempt of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had compromised the ability of Al-Qaeda to exploit charities to support its operatives to the extent it was capable of before 1995.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Qatar financed Al-Qaeda's enterprises through Al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra. The funding was primarily channeled through kidnapping for ransom. The Consortium Against Terrorist Finance (CATF) reported that the Gulf country has funded al-Nusra since 2013. In 2017, "Asharq Al-Awsat" estimated that Qatar had disbursed $25million in support of al-Nusra through kidnapping for ransom. In addition, Qatar has launched fundraising campaigns on behalf of al-Nusra. Al-Nusra acknowledged a Qatar-sponsored campaign "as one of the preferred conduits for donations intended for the group".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In the disagreement over whether Al-Qaeda's objectives are religious or political, Mark Sedgwick describes Al-Qaeda's strategy as political in the immediate term but with ultimate aims that are religious.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On March 11, 2005, "Al-Quds Al-Arabi" published extracts from Saif al-Adel's document "Al Qaeda's Strategy to the Year 2020". Abdel Bari Atwan summarizes this strategy as comprising five stages to rid the Ummah from all forms of oppression:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Atwan noted that, while the plan is unrealistic, "it is sobering to consider that this virtually describes the downfall of the Soviet Union."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: According to Fouad Hussein, a Jordanian journalist and author who has spent time in prison with Al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's strategy consists of seven phases and is similar to the plan described in Al Qaeda's Strategy to the year 2020. These phases include:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: According to Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute and Katherine Zimmerman of the American Enterprise Institute, the new model of Al-Qaeda is to "socialize communities" and build a broad territorial base of operations with the support of local communities, also gaining income independent of the funding of sheiks.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The English name of the organization is a simplified transliteration of the Arabic noun "" (), which means "the foundation" or "the base". The initial "al-" is the Arabic definite article "the", hence "the base". In Arabic, "Al-Qaeda" has four syllables (). However, since two of the Arabic consonants in the name are not phones found in the English language, the common naturalized English pronunciations include , and . Al-Qaeda's name can also be transliterated as "al-Qaida", "al-Qa'ida", or "el-Qaida".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The doctrinal concept of ""Al-Qaeda"" was first coined by the Palestinian Islamist scholar and Jihadist leader Abdullah Azzam in an April 1988 issue of "Al-Jihad" magazine to describe a religiously committed vanguard of Muslims who wage armed "Jihad" globally to liberate oppressed Muslims from foreign invaders, establish "sharia" (Islamic law) across the Islamic World by overthrowing the ruling secular governments; and thus restore the past Islamic prowess. This was to be implemented by establishing an Islamic state that would nurture generations of Muslim soldiers that would perpetually attack United States and its allied governments in the Muslim World. Numerous historical models were cited by Azzam as successful examples of his call; starting from the early Muslim conquests of the 7th century to the recent anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad of 1980s. According to Azzam's world-view: "It is about time to think about a state that would be a solid base for the distribution of the (Islamic) creed, and a fortress to host the preachers from the hell of the "Jahiliyyah" [the pre-Islamic period]."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Bin Laden explained the origin of the term in a videotaped interview with Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni in October 2001:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: It has been argued that two documents seized from the Sarajevo office of the Benevolence International Foundation prove the name was not simply adopted by the "mujahideen" movement and that a group called Al-Qaeda was established in August 1988. Both of these documents contain minutes of meetings held to establish a new military group, and contain the term "Al-Qaeda".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote that the word Al-Qaeda should be translated as "the database", because it originally referred to the computer file of the thousands of "mujahideen" militants who were recruited and trained with CIA help to defeat the Russians. In April 2002, the group assumed the name "Qa'idat al-Jihad" ( ""), which means "the base of Jihad". According to Diaa Rashwan, this was "apparently as a result of the merger of the overseas branch of Egypt's al-Jihad, which was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, with the groups Bin Laden brought under his control after his return to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The militant Islamist Salafist movement of Al-Qaeda developed during the Islamic revival and the rise of the Islamist movement after the Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) and the Afghan Jihad (1979-1989). Many scholars have argued that the writings of Islamic author and thinker Sayyid Qutb inspired the Al-Qaeda organization. In the 1950s and 1960s, Qutb preached that because of the lack of "sharia" law, the Muslim world was no longer Muslim, and had reverted to the pre-Islamic ignorance known as "jahiliyyah". To restore Islam, Qutb argued that a vanguard of righteous Muslims was needed in order to establish "true Islamic states", implement "sharia", and rid the Muslim world of any non-Muslim influences. In Qutb's view, the enemies of Islam included "world Jewry", which "plotted conspiracies" and opposed Islam. Qutb envisioned this vanguard to march forward to wage armed "Jihad" against tyrannical regimes after purifying from the wider "Jahili" societies and organising themselves under a righteous Islamic leadership; which he viewed as the model of early Muslims in the Islamic state of Medina under the leadership of Islamic Prophet Muhammad. This idea would directly influence many Islamist figures such as Abdullah Azzam and Usama Bin Laden; and became the core rationale for the formulation of "Al-Qaeda" concept in the near future. Outlining his strategy to topple the existing secular orders, Qutb argued in "Milestones": "[It is necessary that] a Muslim community to come into existence which believes that ‘"there is no deity except God",’ which commits itself to obey none but God, denying all other authority, and which challenges the legality of any law which is not based on this belief.. . It should come into the battlefield with the determination that its strategy, its social organization, and the relationship between its individuals should be firmer and more powerful than the existing "jahili" system."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Qutb also influenced Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri's uncle and maternal family patriarch, Mafouz Azzam, was Qutb's student, protégé, personal lawyer, and an executor of his estate. Azzam was one of the last people to see Qutb alive before his execution. Zawahiri paid homage to Qutb in his work "Knights under the Prophet's Banner".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Qutb argued that many Muslims were not true Muslims. Some Muslims, Qutb argued, were apostates. These alleged apostates included leaders of Muslim countries, since they failed to enforce "sharia" law. He also alleged that the West approaches the Muslim World with a "crusading spirit"; in spite of the decline of religious values in the 20th century Europe. According to Qutb; the hostile and imperialist attitudes exhibited by Europeans and Americans towards Muslim countries, their support for Zionism, etc. reflected hatred amplified over a millennia of wars such as the Crusades and was born out of Roman materialist and utilitarian outlooks that viewed the world in monetary terms.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The Afghan jihad against the pro-Soviet government further developed the Salafist Jihadist movement which inspired Al-Qaeda. During this period, Al-Qaeda embraced the ideals of the South Asian militant revivalist Sayyid Ahmad Shahid (d. 1831/1246 A.H) who led a Jihad movement against British India from the frontiers of Afghanistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkwa in the early 19th century. Al-Qaeda readily adopted Sayyid Ahmad's doctrines such as returning to the purity of early generations ("Salaf as-Salih"), antipathy towards Western influences and restoration of Islamic political power. According to Pakistani journalist Hussain Haqqani,


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al Qaeda aims to establish an Islamic state in the Arab World, modelled after the Rashidun Caliphate, by initiating a global Jihad against the "International Jewish-Crusader Alliance" led by the United States, which it sees as the "external enemy" and against the secular governments in Muslim countries, that are described as "the apostate domestic enemy". Once foreign influences and the secular ruling authorities are removed from Muslim countries through Jihad; Al Qaeda supports elections to choose the rulers of its proposed Islamic states. This is to be done through representatives of leadership councils ("Shura") that would ensure the implementation of "Shari'a" (Islamic law). However, it opposes elections that institute parliaments which empower Muslim and non-Muslim legislators to collaborate in making laws of their own choosing. In the second edition of his book "Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet", Ayman Al Zawahiri writes:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Following its 9/11 attack and in response to its condemnation by Islamic scholars, Al-Qaeda provided a justification for the killing of non-combatants/civilians, entitled, "A Statement from Qaidat al-Jihad Regarding the Mandates of the Heroes and the Legality of the Operations in New York and Washington". According to a couple of critics, Quintan Wiktorowicz and John Kaltner, it provides "ample theological justification for killing civilians in almost any imaginable situation."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Among these justifications are that America is leading the west in waging a War on Islam so that attacks on America are a defense of Islam and any treaties and agreements between Muslim majority states and Western countries that would be violated by attacks are null and void. According to the tract, several conditions allow for the killing of civilians including:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: "The Guardian" in 2009 described five distinct phases in the development of Al-Qaeda: its beginnings in the late 1980s, a "wilderness" period in 1990–1996, its "heyday" in 1996–2001, a network period from 2001 to 2005, and a period of fragmentation from 2005 to 2009.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The origins of Al-Qaeda can be traced to the Soviet War in Afghanistan (December 1979February 1989). The United States viewed the conflict in Afghanistan in terms of the Cold War, with Marxists on one side and the native Afghan "mujahideen" on the other. This view led to a CIA program called Operation Cyclone, which channeled funds through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to the Afghan Mujahideen. The US government provided substantial financial support to the Afghan Islamic militants. Aid to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan "mujahideen" leader and founder of the Hezb-e Islami, amounted to more than $600million. In addition to American aid, Hekmatyar was the recipient of Saudi aid. In the early 1990s, after the US had withdrawn support, Hekmatyar "worked closely" with bin Laden.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: At the same time, a growing number of Arab "mujahideen" joined the "jihad" against the Afghan Marxist regime, which was facilitated by international Muslim organizations, particularly the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), also known as the "Services Bureau". Muslim Brotherhood networks affiliated with the Egyptian Islamist Kamal al-Sananiri (d. 1981) played the major role in raising finances and Arab recruits for the Afghan Mujahidin. These networks included Mujahidin groups affiliated with Afghan commander Abd al-Rasul Sayyaf and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Palestinian Islamist scholar and major figure in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. Following the detention and death of Sananiri in an Egyptian security prison in 1981, Abdullah Azzam became the chief arbitrator between the Afghan Arabs and Afghan mujahideen.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: As part of providing weaponry and supplies for the cause of Afghan Jihad, Usama Bin Laden was sent to Pakistan as a Muslim Brotherhood representative to the Islamist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami. While in Peshawar, Bin Laden met Abdullah Azzam and the two of them jointly established the "Maktab al-Khidamat" (MAK) in 1984; with objective of raising funds and recruits for Afghan Jihad across the world. MAK organized guest houses in Peshawar, near the Afghan border, and gathered supplies for the construction of paramilitary training camps to prepare foreign recruits for the Afghan war front. MAK was funded by the Saudi government as well as by individual Muslims including Saudi businessmen. Bin Laden also became a major financier of the "mujahideen", spending his own money and using his connections to influence public opinion about the war. Many disgruntled members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood like Abu Mussab al-Suri also began joining these MAK networks; following the crushing of Islamic revolt in Syria in 1982.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: From 1986, MAK began to set up a network of recruiting offices in the US, the hub of which was the Al Kifah Refugee Center at the Farouq Mosque on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. Among notable figures at the Brooklyn center were "double agent" Ali Mohamed, whom FBI special agent Jack Cloonan called "bin Laden's first trainer", and "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leading recruiter of "mujahideen" for Afghanistan. Azzam and bin Laden began to establish camps in Afghanistan in 1987.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: MAK and foreign "mujahideen" volunteers, or "Afghan Arabs", did not play a major role in the war. While over 250,000 Afghan "mujahideen" fought the Soviets and the communist Afghan government, it is estimated that there were never more than two thousand foreign "mujahideen" on the field at any one time. Nonetheless, foreign "mujahideen" volunteers came from 43 countries, and the total number who participated in the Afghan movement between 1982 and 1992 is reported to have been 35,000. Bin Laden played a central role in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Mohammad Najibullah's Communist Afghan government lasted for three more years, before it was overrun by elements of the "mujahideen".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Toward the end of the Soviet military mission in Afghanistan, some foreign "mujahideen" wanted to expand their operations to include Islamist struggles in other parts of the world, such as Palestine and Kashmir. A number of overlapping and interrelated organizations were formed, to further those aspirations. One of these was the organization that would eventually be called Al-Qaeda.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Research suggests that Al-Qaeda was formed on August 11, 1988, when a meeting in Afghanistan between leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden took place. The network was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War. An agreement was reached to link bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. After fighting the "holy" war, the group aimed to expand such operations to other parts of the world, setting up bases in parts of Africa, the Arab world and elsewhere, carrying out many attacks on people whom it considers "kāfir".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Notes indicate Al-Qaeda was a formal group by August 20, 1988. A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge ("Bay'at") to follow one's superiors. In his memoir, bin Laden's former bodyguard, Nasser al-Bahri, gives the only publicly available description of the ritual of giving "bay'at" when he swore his allegiance to the Al-Qaeda chief. According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because "its existence was still a closely held secret."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: After Azzam was assassinated in 1989 and MAK broke up, significant numbers of MAK followers joined bin Laden's new organization.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In November 1989, Ali Mohamed, a former special forces sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, left military service and moved to California. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and became "deeply involved with bin Laden's plans." In 1991, Ali Mohammed is said to have helped orchestrate bin Laden's relocation to Sudan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 had put the Kingdom and its ruling House of Saud at risk. The world's most valuable oil fields were within striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and Saddam's call to Pan-Arabism could potentially rally internal dissent.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were outnumbered. Bin Laden offered the services of his "mujahideen" to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow US and allied forces to deploy troops into Saudi territory.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The deployment angered bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. King Fahd's refusal of Bin Laden's offer to train the Mujahidin; instead giving permission for American soldiers to enter Saudi territory inorder to repel Saddam Hussein's forces would greatly anger Bin Laden. The entry of American troops into Saudi Arabia was denounced by Bin Laden as a "Crusader Attack on Islam" that defiled the sacred lands of Islam. He asserted that the Arabian Peninsula has been "occupied" by foreign invaders and excommunicated the Saudi regime due to its complicity with United States. After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops and rejecting their legitimacy, he was banished and forced to live in exile in Sudan. Bin Laden also vehemently denounced the elder Wahhabi scholarship; most notably Grand Mufti Abd al-Azeez Ibn Baz, accusing him of partnering with infidel forces over his verdict that permitted the entry of US troops.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: From around 1992 to 1996, Al-Qaeda and bin Laden based themselves in Sudan at the invitation of Islamist theoretician Hassan al-Turabi. The move followed an Islamist coup d'état in Sudan, led by Colonel Omar al-Bashir, who professed a commitment to reordering Muslim political values. During this time, bin Laden assisted the Sudanese government, bought or set up various business enterprises, and established training camps.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: A key turning point for bin Laden occurred in 1993 when Saudi Arabia gave support for the Oslo Accords, which set a path for peace between Israel and Palestinians. Due to bin Laden's continuous verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan on March 5, 1994, demanding bin Laden's passport. Bin Laden's Saudi citizenship was also revoked. His family was persuaded to cut off his stipend, $7million a year, and his Saudi assets were frozen. His family publicly disowned him. There is controversy as to what extent bin Laden continued to garner support from members afterwards.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1993, a young schoolgirl was killed in an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the Egyptian prime minister, Atef Sedki. Egyptian public opinion turned against Islamist bombings, and the police arrested 280 of al-Jihad's members and executed 6. In June 1995, an attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Mubarak led to the expulsion of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), and in May 1996, of bin Laden from Sudan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: According to Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the Sudanese government offered the Clinton Administration numerous opportunities to arrest bin Laden. Ijaz's claims appeared in numerous op-ed pieces, including one in the "Los Angeles Times" and one in "The Washington Post" co-written with former Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney. Similar allegations have been made by "Vanity Fair" contributing editor David Rose, and Richard Miniter, author of "Losing bin Laden", in a November 2003 interview with "World".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: After the fall of the Afghan communist regime in 1992, Afghanistan was effectively ungoverned for four years and plagued by constant infighting between various "mujahideen" groups. This situation allowed the Taliban to organize. The Taliban also garnered support from graduates of Islamic schools, which are called "madrassa". According to Ahmed Rashid, five leaders of the Taliban were graduates of Darul Uloom Haqqania, a madrassa in the small town of Akora Khattak. The town is situated near Peshawar in Pakistan, but the school is largely attended by Afghan refugees. This institution reflected Salafi beliefs in its teachings, and much of its funding came from private donations from wealthy Arabs. Four of the Taliban's leaders attended a similarly funded and influenced madrassa in Kandahar. Bin Laden's contacts were laundering donations to these schools, and Islamic banks were used to transfer money to an "array" of charities which served as front groups for Al-Qaeda.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Many of the "mujahideen" who later joined the Taliban fought alongside Afghan warlord Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi's Harkat i Inqilabi group at the time of the Russian invasion. This group also enjoyed the loyalty of most Afghan Arab fighters.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The continuing lawlessness enabled the growing and well-disciplined Taliban to expand their control over territory in Afghanistan, and it came to establish an enclave which it called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In 1994, it captured the regional center of Kandahar, and after making rapid territorial gains thereafter, the Taliban captured the capital city Kabul in September 1996.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1996, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a perfect staging ground for Al-Qaeda. While not officially working together, Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and supported the regime in such a strong symbiotic relationship that many Western observers dubbed the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as, "the world's first terrorist-sponsored state." However, at this time, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. In 1996, Osama Bin Laden officially issued the ""Declaration of Struggle against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques"" which called upon Muslims all over the world to take up arms against American soldiers. In an interview with the English journalist Robert Fisk; Bin Laden criticised American imperialism and its support for Zionism as the biggest sources of tyranny in the Arab World. He vehemently denounced the US-allied Gulf monarchies; especially the Saudi government for westernising the country, removing Islamic laws and hosting American, British and French troops. Bin Laden asserted that he planned to foment an armed rebellion to overthrow the Saudi regime with the help of his "Mujahidin" soldiers and establish an Islamic Emirate in Arabian Peninsula that properly upholds "Sharia" (Islamic law). Upon questioned whether he sought to launch a war against the Western world; Bin Laden replied: "It is not a declaration of war - it's a real description of the situation. This doesn't mean declaring war against the West and Western people - but against the American regime which is against every Muslim."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In response to the 1998 United States embassy bombings, an Al-Qaeda base in Khost Province was attacked by the United States during Operation Infinite Reach.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: While in Afghanistan, the Taliban government tasked Al-Qaeda with the training of Brigade 055, an elite element of the Taliban's army. The Brigade mostly consisted of foreign fighters, veterans from the Soviet Invasion, and adherents to the ideology of the mujahideen. In November 2001, as Operation Enduring Freedom had toppled the Taliban government, many Brigade 055 fighters were captured or killed, and those who survived were thought to have escaped into Pakistan along with bin Laden.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: By the end of 2008, some sources reported that the Taliban had severed any remaining ties with Al-Qaeda, however, there is reason to doubt this. According to senior US military intelligence officials, there were fewer than 100 members of Al-Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan in 2009.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al Qaeda chief, Asim Omar was killed in Afghanistan's Musa Qala district after a joint US–Afghanistan commando airstrike on September 23, Afghan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) confirmed in October 2019.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In a report released May 27, 2020, the United Nations' Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team stated that the Taliban-Al Qaeda relations remain strong to this day and additionally, Al Qaeda itself has admitted that it operates inside Afghanistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On July 26, 2020, a United Nations report stated that the Al Qaeda group is still active in twelve provinces in Afghanistan and its leader al-Zawahiri is still based in the country.<ref name="https://www.daijiworld.com"></ref> and that the UN Monitoring Team estimated that the total number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan were "between 400 and 600".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1994, the Salafi groups waging Salafi jihadism in Bosnia entered into decline, and groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad began to drift away from the Salafi cause in Europe. Al-Qaeda stepped in and assumed control of around 80% of non-state armed cells in Bosnia in late 1995. At the same time, Al-Qaeda ideologues instructed the network's recruiters to look for "Jihadi international" Muslims who believed that extremist-"jihad" must be fought on a global level. Al-Qaeda also sought to open the "offensive phase" of the global Salafi "jihad". Bosnian Islamists in 2006 called for "solidarity with Islamic causes around the world", supporting the insurgents in Kashmir and Iraq as well as the groups fighting for a Palestinian state.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1996, Al-Qaeda announced its "jihad" to expel foreign troops and interests from what they considered Islamic lands. Bin Laden issued a "fatwa", which amounted to a public declaration of war against the US and its allies, and began to refocus Al-Qaeda's resources on large-scale, propagandist strikes.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On February 23, 1998, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a "fatwa" calling on Muslims to kill Americans and their allies. Under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders, they declared:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Neither bin Laden nor al-Zawahiri possessed the traditional Islamic scholarly qualifications to issue a "fatwa". However, they rejected the authority of the contemporary "ulema" (which they saw as the paid servants of "jahiliyya" rulers), and took it upon themselves.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist Ramzi Yousef operated in the Philippines in the mid-1990s and trained Abu Sayyaf soldiers. The 2002 edition of the United States Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism mention links of Abu Sayyaf to Al-Qaeda. Abu Sayyaf is known for a series of kidnappings from tourists in both the Philippines and Malaysia that netted them large sums of money through ransoms. The leader of Abu Sayyaf, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, was also a veteran fighting in the Soviet-Afghan War. In 2014, Abu Sayyaf pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda has launched attacks against the Iraqi Shia majority in an attempt to incite sectarian violence. Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites while claiming responsibility for Shiite mosque bombings. The same month, a statement claiming to be from Al-Qaeda in Iraq was rejected as a "fake". In a December 2007 video, al-Zawahiri defended the Islamic State in Iraq, but distanced himself from the attacks against civilians, which he deemed to be perpetrated by "hypocrites and traitors existing among the ranks".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: US and Iraqi officials accused Al-Qaeda in Iraq of trying to slide Iraq into a full-scale civil war between Iraq's Shiite population and Sunni Arabs. This was done through an orchestrated campaign of civilian massacres and a number of provocative attacks against high-profile religious targets. With attacks including the 2003 Imam Ali Mosque bombing, the 2004 Day of Ashura and Karbala and Najaf bombings, the 2006 first al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra, the deadly single-day series of bombings in which at least 215 people were killed in Baghdad's Shiite district of Sadr City, and the second al-Askari bombing in 2007, Al-Qaeda in Iraq provoked Shiite militias to unleash a wave of retaliatory attacks, resulting in death squad-style killings and further sectarian violence which escalated in 2006. In 2008, sectarian bombings blamed on Al-Qaeda in Iraq killed at least 42 people at the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala in March, and at least 51 people at a bus stop in Baghdad in June.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In February 2014, after a prolonged dispute with Al-Qaeda in Iraq's successor organisation, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Al-Qaeda publicly announced it was cutting all ties with the group, reportedly for its brutality and "notorious intractability".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In Somalia, Al-Qaeda agents had been collaborating closely with its Somali wing, which was created from the al-Shabaab group. In February 2012, al-Shabaab officially joined Al-Qaeda, declaring loyalty in a video. Somali Al-Qaeda recruited children for suicide-bomber training and recruited young people to participate in militant actions against Americans.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The percentage of attacks in the First World originating from the Afghanistan–Pakistan (AfPak) border declined starting in 2007, as Al-Qaeda shifted to Somalia and Yemen. While Al-Qaeda leaders were hiding in the tribal areas along the AfPak border, middle-tier leaders heightened activity in Somalia and Yemen.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In January 2009, Al-Qaeda's division in Saudi Arabia merged with its Yemeni wing to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Centered in Yemen, the group takes advantage of the country's poor economy, demography and domestic security. In August 2009, the group made an assassination attempt against a member of the Saudi royal family. President Obama asked Ali Abdullah Saleh to ensure closer cooperation with the US in the struggle against the growing activity of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and promised to send additional aid. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drew US attention from Somalia and Yemen. In December 2011, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the US operations against Al-Qaeda "are now concentrating on key groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa." Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the 2009 bombing attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The AQAP declared the Al-Qaeda Emirate in Yemen on March 31, 2011, after capturing the most of the Abyan Governorate.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: As the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen escalated in July 2015, fifty civilians had been killed and twenty million needed aid. In February 2016, Al-Qaeda forces and Saudi Arabian-led coalition forces were both seen fighting Houthi rebels in the same battle. In August 2018, "Al Jazeera" reported that "A military coalition battling Houthi rebels secured secret deals with Al-Qaeda in Yemen and recruited hundreds of the group's fighters... Key figures in the deal-making said the United States was aware of the arrangements and held off on drone attacks against the armed group, which was created by Osama bin Laden in 1988."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In December 1998, the Director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center reported to President Bill Clinton that Al-Qaeda was preparing to launch attacks in the United States, and the group was training personnel to hijack aircraft. On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacked the United States, hijacking four airliners within the country and deliberately crashing two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane was crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. In total, the attackers killed 2,977 victims and injured more than 6,000 others.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: US officials noted that Anwar al-Awlaki had considerable reach within the US. A former FBI agent identified Awlaki as a known "senior recruiter for Al-Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator. Awlaki's sermons in the US were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, and accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. US intelligence intercepted emails from Hasan to Awlaki between December 2008 and early 2009. On his website, Awlaki has praised Hasan's actions in the Fort Hood shooting.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: An unnamed official claimed there was good reason to believe Awlaki "has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the US [in 2002], including plotting attacks against America and our allies." US President Barack Obama approved the targeted killing of al-Awlaki by April 2010, making al-Awlaki the first US citizen ever placed on the CIA target list. That required the consent of the US National Security Council, and officials argued that the attack was appropriate because the individual posed an imminent danger to national security. In May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, told interrogators he was "inspired by" al-Awlaki, and sources said Shahzad had made contact with al-Awlaki over the Internet. Representative Jane Harman called him "terrorist number one", and "Investor's Business Daily" called him "the world's most dangerous man". In July 2010, the US Treasury Department added him to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and the UN added him to its list of individuals associated with Al-Qaeda. In August 2010, al-Awlaki's father initiated a lawsuit against the US government with the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging its order to kill al-Awlaki. In October 2010, US and UK officials linked al-Awlaki to the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot. In September 2011, al-Awlaki was killed in a targeted killing drone attack in Yemen. On March 16, 2012, it was reported that Osama bin Laden plotted to kill US President Barack Obama.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On May 1, 2011, US President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The action took place north of Islamabad. According to US officials, a team of 20–25 US Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command stormed bin Laden's compound with two helicopters. Bin Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which US forces experienced no casualties. According to one US official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the Pakistani authorities. In Pakistan some people were reported to be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces. The site is a few miles from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that US forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Details soon emerged that three men and a woman were killed along with bin Laden, the woman being killed when she was "used as a shield by a male combatant". DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister, confirmed bin Laden's identity. The body was recovered by the US military and was in its custody until, according to one US official, his body was buried at sea according to Islamic traditions. One US official said that "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult." US State Department issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following bin Laden's death and US diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior US official said. Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Times Square to celebrate bin Laden's death.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad revealed in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper that he doubted Al-Qaeda even existed. He was quoted as saying, "Is there really an entity called Al-Qaeda? Was it in Afghanistan? Does it exist now?" He went on further to remark about bin Laden, commenting "[he] cannot talk on the phone or use the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of the world? This is illogical."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Following the mass protests that took place in 2011, which demanded the resignation of al-Assad, Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and Sunni sympathizers soon began to constitute an effective fighting force against al-Assad. Before the Syrian Civil War, Al-Qaeda's presence in Syria was negligible, but its growth thereafter was rapid. Groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have recruited many foreign Mujahideen to train and fight in what has gradually become a highly sectarian war. Ideologically, the Syrian Civil War has served the interests of Al-Qaeda as it pits a mainly Sunni opposition against a secular government. Al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Sunni militant groups have invested heavily in the civil conflict, at times actively backing and supporting the mainstream Syrian Opposition.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On February 2, 2014, Al-Qaeda distanced itself from ISIS and its actions in Syria; however, during 2014–15, ISIS and the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front were still able to occasionally cooperate in their fight against the Syrian government. Al-Nusra (backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey as part of the Army of Conquest during 2015–2017) launched many attacks and bombings, mostly against targets affiliated with or supportive of the Syrian government. From October 2015, Russian air strikes targeted positions held by al-Nusra Front, as well as other Islamist and non-Islamist rebels, while the US also targeted al-Nusra with airstrikes. In early 2016, a leading ISIL ideologue described Al-Qaeda as the "Jews of jihad".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In September 2014, al-Zawahiri announced Al-Qaeda was establishing a front in India to "wage jihad against its enemies, to liberate its land, to restore its sovereignty, and to revive its Caliphate." Al-Zawahiri nominated India as a beachhead for regional jihad taking in neighboring countries such as Myanmar and Bangladesh. The motivation for the video was questioned, as it appeared the militant group was struggling to remain relevant in light of the emerging prominence of ISIS. The new wing was to be known as "Qaedat al-Jihad fi'shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya" or al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Leaders of several Indian Muslim organizations rejected al-Zawahiri's pronouncement, saying they could see no good coming from it, and viewed it as a threat to Muslim youth in the country.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2014, "Zee News" reported that Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official for South Asia, had accused the Pakistani military intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of organising and assisting Al-Qaeda to organise in India, that Pakistan ought to be warned that it will be placed on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, and that "Zawahiri made the tape in his hideout in Pakistan, no doubt, and many Indians suspect the ISI is helping to protect him."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In September 2021, after the success of 2021 Taliban offensive, Al-Qaeda congratulated Taliban and called for liberation of Kashmir from the "clutches of the enemies of Islam".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda has carried out a total of six major attacks, four of them in its jihad against America. In each case the leadership planned the attack years in advance, arranging for the shipment of weapons and explosives and using its businesses to provide operatives with safehouses and false identities.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: To prevent the former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah from coming back from exile and possibly becoming head of a new government, bin Laden instructed a Portuguese convert to Islam, Paulo Jose de Almeida Santos, to assassinate Zahir Shah. On November 4, 1991, Santos entered the king's villa in Rome posing as a journalist and tried to stab him with a dagger. A tin of cigarillos in the king's breast pocket deflected the blade and saved Zahir Shah's life. Santos was apprehended and jailed for 10 years in Italy.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On December 29, 1992, Al-Qaeda launched the 1992 Yemen hotel bombings. Two bombs were detonated in Aden, Yemen. The first target was the Movenpick Hotel and the second was the parking lot of the Goldmohur Hotel.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope. Internally, Al-Qaeda considered the bombing a victory that frightened the Americans away, but in the US, the attack was barely noticed. No American soldiers were killed because no soldiers were staying in the hotel which was bombed. However, an Australian tourist and a Yemeni hotel worker were killed in the bombing. Seven others, mostly Yemenis, were severely injured. Two fatwas are said to have been appointed by Al-Qaeda's members, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, to justify the killings according to Islamic law. Salim referred to a famous fatwa appointed by Ibn Taymiyyah, a 13th-century scholar much admired by Wahhabis, which sanctioned resistance by any means during the Mongol invasions.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 1996, bin Laden personally engineered a plot to assassinate United States President Bill Clinton while the president was in Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. However, intelligence agents intercepted a message before the motorcade was to leave, and alerted the US Secret Service. Agents later discovered a bomb planted under a bridge.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On August 7, 1998, Al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in East Africa, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans. In retaliation, a barrage of cruise missiles launched by the US military devastated an Al-Qaeda base in Khost, Afghanistan. The network's capacity was unharmed. In late 1999 and 2000, Al-Qaeda planned attacks to coincide with the millennium, masterminded by Abu Zubaydah and involving Abu Qatada, which would include the bombing of Christian holy sites in Jordan, the bombing of Los Angeles International Airport by Ahmed Ressam, and the bombing of the .


title: Al-Qaeda

text: On October 12, 2000, Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen bombed the missile destroyer "USS Cole" in a suicide attack, killing 17 US servicemen and damaging the vessel while it lay offshore. Inspired by the success of such a brazen attack, Al-Qaeda's command core began to prepare for an attack on the US itself.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The September 11 attacks on America by Al-Qaeda killed 2,996 people2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel as well as 19 hijackers who committed murder-suicide. Two commercial airliners were deliberately flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a third into the Pentagon, and a fourth, originally intended to target either the United States Capitol or the White House, crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It was the deadliest foreign attack on American soil since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and to this day remains the deadliest terrorist attack in human history.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The attacks were conducted by Al-Qaeda, acting in accord with the 1998 "fatwa" issued against the US and its allies by persons under the command of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others. Evidence points to suicide squads led by Al-Qaeda military commander Mohamed Atta as the culprits of the attacks, with bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Hambali as the key planners and part of the political and military command.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Messages issued by bin Laden after September 11, 2001, praised the attacks, and explained their motivation while denying any involvement. Bin Laden legitimized the attacks by identifying grievances felt by both mainstream and Islamist Muslims, such as the general perception that the US was actively oppressing Muslims.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Bin Laden asserted that America was massacring Muslims in "Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq" and Muslims should retain the "right to attack in reprisal". He also claimed the 9/11 attacks were not targeted at people, but "America's icons of military and economic power", despite the fact he planned to attack in the morning when most of the people in the intended targets were present and thus generating the maximum number of human casualties.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Evidence later came to light that the original targets for the attack may have been nuclear power stations on the US East Coast. The targets were later altered by Al-Qaeda, as it was feared that such an attack "might get out of hand".


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda is deemed a designated terrorist group by the following countries and international organizations:


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the US government responded, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban, which it believed was harboring Al-Qaeda. The US offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were paramilitary officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).


title: Al-Qaeda

text: The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the US would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. US President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over", and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Soon thereafter the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government as part of the war in Afghanistan. As a result of the US special forces and air support for the Northern Alliance ground forces, a number of Taliban and Al-Qaeda training camps were destroyed, and much of the operating structure of Al-Qaeda is believed to have been disrupted. After being driven from their key positions in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, many Al-Qaeda fighters tried to regroup in the rugged Gardez region of the nation.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: By early 2002, Al-Qaeda had been dealt a serious blow to its operational capacity, and the Afghan invasion appeared to be a success. Nevertheless, a significant Taliban insurgency remained in Afghanistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Debate continued regarding the nature of Al-Qaeda's role in the 9/11 attacks. The US State Department released a videotape showing bin Laden speaking with a small group of associates somewhere in Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban was removed from power. Although its authenticity has been questioned by a couple of people, the tape definitively implicates bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the September 11 attacks. The tape was aired on many television channels, with an accompanying English translation provided by the US Defense Department.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In September 2004, the 9/11 Commission officially concluded that the attacks were conceived and implemented by Al-Qaeda operatives. In October 2004, bin Laden appeared to claim responsibility for the attacks in a videotape released through Al Jazeera, saying he was inspired by Israeli attacks on high-rises in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon: "As I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."


title: Al-Qaeda

text: By the end of 2004, the US government proclaimed that two-thirds of the most senior Al-Qaeda figures from 2001 had been captured and interrogated by the CIA: Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003; and Saif al Islam el Masry in 2004. Mohammed Atef and several others were killed. The West was criticized for not being able to handle Al-Qaida despite a decade of the war.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Al-Qaeda involvement in Africa has included a number of bombing attacks in North Africa, while supporting parties in civil wars in Eritrea and Somalia. From 1991 to 1996, bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Islamist rebels in the Sahara calling themselves Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have stepped up their violence in recent years. French officials say the rebels have no real links to the Al-Qaeda leadership, but this has been disputed. It seems likely that bin Laden approved the group's name in late 2006, and the rebels "took on the al Qaeda franchise label", almost a year before the violence began to escalate.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In Mali, the Ansar Dine faction was also reported as an ally of Al-Qaeda in 2013. The Ansar al Dine faction aligned themselves with the AQIM.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2011, Al-Qaeda's North African wing condemned Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and declared support for the Anti-Gaddafi rebels.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Following the Libyan Civil War, the removal of Gaddafi and the ensuing period of post-civil war violence in Libya, various Islamist militant groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda were able to expand their operations in the region. The 2012 Benghazi attack, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, is suspected of having been carried out by various Jihadist networks, such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al-Sharia and several other Al-Qaeda affiliated groups. The capture of Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, a senior Al-Qaeda operative wanted by the United States for his involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings, on October 5, 2013, by US Navy Seals, FBI and CIA agents illustrates the importance the US and other Western allies have placed on North Africa.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Prior to the September 11 attacks, Al-Qaeda was present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its members were mostly veterans of the El Mudžahid detachment of the Bosnian Muslim Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three Al-Qaeda operatives carried out the Mostar car bombing in 1997. The operatives were closely linked to and financed by the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina founded by then-prince King Salman of Saudi Arabia.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: Before the 9/11 attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan, westerners who had been recruits at Al-Qaeda training camps were sought after by Al-Qaeda's military wing. Language skills and knowledge of Western culture were generally found among recruits from Europe, such was the case with Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian national studying in Germany at the time of his training, and other members of the Hamburg Cell. Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef would later designate Atta as the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers. Following the attacks, Western intelligence agencies determined that Al-Qaeda cells operating in Europe had aided the hijackers with financing and communications with the central leadership based in Afghanistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2003, Islamists carried out a series of bombings in Istanbul killing fifty-seven people and injuring seven hundred. Seventy-four people were charged by the Turkish authorities. Some had previously met bin Laden, and though they specifically declined to pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda they asked for its blessing and help.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2009, three Londoners, Tanvir Hussain, Assad Sarwar and Ahmed Abdullah Ali, were convicted of conspiring to detonate bombs disguised as soft drinks on seven airplanes bound for Canada and the US The MI5 investigation regarding the plot involved more than a year of surveillance work conducted by over two hundred officers. British and US officials said the plotunlike many similar homegrown European Islamic militant plotswas directly linked to Al-Qaeda and guided by senior Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan.


title: Al-Qaeda

text: In 2012, Russian Intelligence indicated that Al-Qaeda had given a call for "forest jihad" and has been starting massive forest fires as part of a strategy of "thousand cuts".