Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

562 • QA’EDA, ALfor the Riyadh suicide attacks of 12 May 2003 and the al Khobarmassacres of foreign contractors on 29 May 2004. The al Qa’eda inIraq affiliate also conducted the 9 November 2005 suicide bombingsof three luxury hotels in Amman, Jordan, as well as the two bombingsof the al Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, on 22 February 2006 and on13 June 2007. Al Qa’eda is also believed to have been involved in the27 December 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime MinisterBenazir Bhutto. The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were alsocarried out by suicide bombers recruited by al Qa’eda.One must distinguish the central core group of al Qa’eda centeredaround bin Laden from the network of affiliated organizations operatingoutside Afghanistan and Pakistan. These other organizationsseek to coordinate operations with the main al Qa’eda group, while alQa’eda also exploits a third layer of “walk-ins” consisting of young,committed Islamic fundamentalists attracted to al Qa’eda who volunteerfor martyrdom actions with no prior Afghan war experienceor training. Acceptance by al Qa’eda requires that one must be abelieving Muslim, but acceptance into a leadership position requiresproficiency in the Arabic language and some ties of family, friendship,or past shared combat experience to vouch for one’s integrity tothe cause. Prior to al Qa’eda, most terrorist organizations had a centralleadership with command and control branches linked to severalcompartmentalized “cells” that operated independently but ordinarilycould not coordinate attacks due to their mutual isolation. Bin Ladencreated a system whereby allied groups outside Afghanistan and cellsof al Qa’eda operatives in various countries functioned as independentcells but could coordinate their actions through a netwar system of humancouriers that eluded the electronic surveillance upon which mostWestern intelligence agencies relied. This system works because themembers of these different groups and cells share bonds of trust forgedin their common experience fighting together in the Afghan war. Mostleaders of the allied regional groups formed friendships with bin Ladenduring the Afghan war, as well as with other al Qa’eda leaders.The al Qa’eda core consists of bin Laden, other leaders, and theroughly 1,000–1,500 men who completed the al Qa’eda trainingprogram, passed its rigorous physical and mental tests, and who havesworn personal fealty, or bayat, to bin Laden as their leader, imposingreligious obligations of obedience to him unto death. This coreprovides the bodyguards, internal security force for preventing infil-