Al Qa'idah (AQ) - Tarbiyah Jihadiyah

Future (4 th generation) warfare introduced in Iraq:Families would be the hidden fighters: Scholars like Yusuf al-Uyayri gave justifications for the'martyrdom-operations' (strapping an explosive-belt to the body and detonating at a target ofan enemy of high priority) by quoting the Prophetic narrative (in Sahih Muslim) of the story ofthe 'Boy and the King' which is often mentioned in the tafseer/explanation of Surah al Burooj(Quran chapter 85). Wherein the boy sacrificed his-self, and the believers threw themselves in afire willingly to support the religion of Allah (God).Due to this Fatwa (religious ruling), thousands of people, men, women, couples, childrens andeven entire families from Iraq and neighboring countries would attack the enemy at Americancheckpoints. There were cases when families would pass-by in cars, smile at those whosearched them (to make the illusion that they were a friendly family only), and when enteringinto the 'Green Zone' (the US dominated part of Iraq), they would detonate the car and killmany American and Shi'a Iraqi soldiers. Desperate situations resort to desperate measures. TheSunnis' of Iraq felt they had nothing to lose, and Paradise to win, where they could meet theirfamily members once again.Tech-media-warfare: During early stages of the Iraqi war, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawirevolutionized the war to the new generation of warfare. He would have youths in their 20smaking websites teaching combat skills and videos of battles almost in real-time where ‘soldierswere ambushed and blown up’ with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). Updates on the battlescenes were given many times a day, which enticed many Muslim Arabs of neighbouringcountries (especially Saudi Arabia) to join the conflict after seeing its successes. They even hadupdates on websites on how to come through neighboring Syria pretending to be fishermenand paying a few bribes to some corrupt border guards, informing of which smuggling routescould easily get them into Iraq for the Jihad. They even had names of mosques who werefriendly and willing to host ‘emigrants’ and anyone participating in the resistance. Theyproduced 40min documentaries of attacks in different quality resolutions) (High, medium, andlow [for mobile devices]), and all this was just within 2003-2007, which shows they were anadvanced group in the new generation of warfare. The 4th generation of warfare uses mediadissemination to win over people’s hearts and minds in any conflict, in addition to finding outmore about the enemy. AQI did this well. Famous commanders and martyrs biographies wouldbe edited in high quality with graphics of battles, then subtitled for other languages and spreadacross the internet. (I.e. al-Khattab biography shows his life (part 1) and some of his battles [inpart 2 – 200mb] in Chechnya, with English subtitles.) The quality of the content shows howadvanced the groups have become in media warfare.Technologically did have its negative sides too; whilst US and Shi’a forces were on the search for AQhideouts, they would capture some men and women, and torture them in humiliating ways forconfessions, with threats of rape and severe torture. Confessions led to more ‘leads’ to AQ membershouses and hideouts, which would be raided and searched through. If anyone dropped a USB thumbdrive,or a piece of paper with plans or maps or simcards, the US forces would collect it and add it to acentral database through their smartphone systems. Hundreds of small data samples like this gave the15