Early Jihadist Groups

Mohammed Alqahtani

PSCI 4165

10/24/2015

- Discuss the similarities and differences between Al Qaida and earlier Jihadist groups.

Most of the terrorist organizations, Jihadists, have their origin in the Muslim world. From such a perspective, they all appear to have Islamic roots, making them similar in their ideology. From such a perspective, the objective of Al Qaida and earlier Jihadists has been the same. This is to use terror to achieve their political and ideological objectives. All jihadists are founded in the disguise of protecting the Islamic religion, particularly from non-Muslims. They have always believed that whatever acts are committed in protecting the religion is a noble act and it is what God wants. However, this basic belief

Al-Qaeda has major differences from other earlier groups that came up in the Muslim world. Earlier jihadists such as the Muslim Brotherhood have a local reach. This means that they sought to achieve their objectives regionally. On the contrary, Al-Qaeda appears to be a global outfit, although it was created in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda is the jihadist group whose operations have occurred outside the region, with attacks extending as far as to the United States and other nations. A good example to support this argument is the claims that the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 was carried out by this group (Devji,

These earlier groups used the ideals such as those used by the Taliban, which was created with the effort to fix Afghanistan. The local perspective in the earlier jihadist groups is evident. The problems of Kashmiris, Palestinians, Chechnyans or Muslims in other parts of the world did not interest these groups. Devji (38) suggest that those earlier groups might not even be aware of the problems affecting Muslims in other parts of the world. Their actions were restricted to their countries and their objectives were local in nature; their actions were also local or regional in nature.

Al-Qaeda, unlike the earlier groups, is also concerned with the threat of Westernism. Al-Qaeda is a global group, with its effects being felt in different parts of the world. It has been revealed to have some connections to other groups outside their states such as Al Shabaab and Boko Haram (Barfield 268). The Al Qaeda has a different objective, to establish the rule by Islamic governments all over the world and that all the governments across the world would have such rule. It appears like Al Qaeda is establishing some presence in different parts of the world to achieve these objectives (Devji,