Death of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's shows the US hasn't learnt its lesson: You can't kill your way to victory
By Stan Grant
Ayman al-Zawahiri, right, who was Osama bin Laden's lieutenant and took over the leadership of Al Qaeda after bin Laden's assassination, has now also been killed by the CiA.
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death will have the same impact on Al Qaeda as the killing of Osama bin Laden. In short: it is a blow, but not fatal.
I was in Pakistan in 2011 when US forces assassinated bin Laden in a night time raid on the terror mastermind's hide out in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.
In the days after as I reported from outside the bin Laden compound, some were predicting the demise of Al Qaeda.
That wasn't what I saw or heard. I spoke to young Muslims and senior clerics in Islamic schools when they pledged allegiance to their slain leader.
They were seething with anger at America, the West and Pakistani leaders they accused of aiding and abetting bin Laden’s killing.
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s death will have the same impact on Al Qaeda as the killing of Osama bin Laden. In short: it is a blow, but not fatal.
I was in Pakistan in 2011 when US forces assassinated bin Laden in a night time raid on the terror mastermind's hide out in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.
In the days after as I reported from outside the bin Laden compound, some were predicting the demise of Al Qaeda.
That wasn't what I saw or heard. I spoke to young Muslims and senior clerics in Islamic schools when they pledged allegiance to their slain leader.
They were seething with anger at America, the West and Pakistani leaders they accused of aiding and abetting bin Laden’s killing.
Al Qaeda is more than its leader
Simply, the idea of Al Qaeda was greater than the leader himself. The organisation would outlive him.
Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor and bin Laden's lieutenant, took command. He was not as charismatic and didn't boast the same battlefield credentials as bin Laden, but Zawahiri was schooled in the same militant version of faith and violence as bin Laden.
Zawahiri was on the FBI's most wanted list.(Supplied: FBI)
Zawahiri and bin Laden both came under the spell of Egyptian cleric Sayyid Qutb, a critical figure in the spread of modern Islamic radicalism.
Zawahiri and bin Laden both came under the spell of Egyptian cleric Sayyid Qutb, a critical figure in the spread of modern Islamic radicalism.
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Sayyid Qutb |
Qutb had studied in the United States where he seethed against what he saw as Western decadence. He wrote a tract The America I have Seen, that damned America’s individualism, racism, loose morals and even its poor haircuts.
He advocated violent struggle.
Qutb was later executed for plotting the assassination of Egypt's secular president Gamal Abdel Nassar. Qutb was hailed as a martyr.
His execution ignited a radicalism in Zawahiri while bin Laden studied under Qutb's brother, Mohammed.
Bin Laden took his struggle to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Red Army invasion in 1979. Al Qaeda took root as the Taliban came to power when the Soviets fled a decade later.
The words of Sayyid Qutb spread like a virus.
"We love death, like you love life", bin Laden would later chillingly say after he had plotted the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
US kills Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan
After each setback, Al Qaeda's influence spread
America declared war on Afghanistan, it sought to root out Al Qaeda. The Taliban was toppled and the US opened another front in Iraq.
But bin Laden and Zawahiri's brand of militant faith refused to die.
Other leaders rose. Younger and if possible, even angrier. Each iteration of Islamist terrorism more lethal than the last.
America declared war on Afghanistan, it sought to root out Al Qaeda. The Taliban was toppled and the US opened another front in Iraq.
But bin Laden and Zawahiri's brand of militant faith refused to die.
Other leaders rose. Younger and if possible, even angrier. Each iteration of Islamist terrorism more lethal than the last.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the alleged mastermind of Al Qaeda operations in Iraq.(Reuters)
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up his own branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq. So bloodthirsty was he, that even bin Laden and Zawahiri tried to bring him under control, with no success.
These groups, despite presenting themselves as defenders of the faith, in fact slaughtered many more fellow Muslims than the West.
Zarqawi – a Sunni Muslim – described his rival Shia Muslims as a "lurking snake", a "malicious scorpion".
He targeted them to spark an even greater holy war, to drag Western forces onto his battleground.
Zarqawi would in time be killed, but he gave rise to Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakar al Baghdadi.
Baghdadi's death and the toppling of the ISIS caliphate has not stopped that organisation, which remains active from the Middle East, to South Asia and Africa.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up his own branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq. So bloodthirsty was he, that even bin Laden and Zawahiri tried to bring him under control, with no success.
These groups, despite presenting themselves as defenders of the faith, in fact slaughtered many more fellow Muslims than the West.
Zarqawi – a Sunni Muslim – described his rival Shia Muslims as a "lurking snake", a "malicious scorpion".
He targeted them to spark an even greater holy war, to drag Western forces onto his battleground.
Zarqawi would in time be killed, but he gave rise to Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakar al Baghdadi.
Baghdadi's death and the toppling of the ISIS caliphate has not stopped that organisation, which remains active from the Middle East, to South Asia and Africa.
Al-Zawahiri (right) was often pictured at Osama bin Laden's side.(Reuters: Hamid Mir/Editor/Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn)
The question facing America and its allies
On and on it goes. America and its allies presented with a question: how can you kill an enemy that will not die?
Scholar Shadi Hamid has spent his career trying to understand what drives Islamic militancy. He says "the one element I continue to struggle with is what might be called the willingness to die".
Writing about Al Qaeda, philosopher John Gray says it peddles a seductive brand of identity: claiming the world is against them, and then turning victimhood into a virtue.
Gray says "it provides meaning and purpose in lives that lack them".
Rather than medieval, Gray says, these groups are entirely modern. They exploit a void, a soullessness.
Cemil Aydin, in his book The Idea of the Muslim World, says these militant groups are seeking to reclaim a lost Muslim glory, and avenge what they see as Western imperialism.
Aydin says "with its true spirit recovered, Muslim modernists claimed, Islam would be an instrument in the revival of the victimised, declining Muslim world."
US President, Joe Biden, has claimed a victory in the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri. We heard the same thing from Barack Obama when he got bin Laden.
But the lesson is you can't kill your way to victory.
After bin Laden died, I reported on a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Each day these boys would rock back and forth for hours on end to the words of their Imam – their teacher.
They did not hear beauty of the holy Koran, but instead the words of hate.
They told me bin Laden was a hero.
Afterwards they played in the schoolyard with plastic guns aimed directly at our cameras.
On and on it goes. America and its allies presented with a question: how can you kill an enemy that will not die?
Scholar Shadi Hamid has spent his career trying to understand what drives Islamic militancy. He says "the one element I continue to struggle with is what might be called the willingness to die".
Writing about Al Qaeda, philosopher John Gray says it peddles a seductive brand of identity: claiming the world is against them, and then turning victimhood into a virtue.
Gray says "it provides meaning and purpose in lives that lack them".
Rather than medieval, Gray says, these groups are entirely modern. They exploit a void, a soullessness.
Cemil Aydin, in his book The Idea of the Muslim World, says these militant groups are seeking to reclaim a lost Muslim glory, and avenge what they see as Western imperialism.
Aydin says "with its true spirit recovered, Muslim modernists claimed, Islam would be an instrument in the revival of the victimised, declining Muslim world."
US President, Joe Biden, has claimed a victory in the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri. We heard the same thing from Barack Obama when he got bin Laden.
Joe Biden's full speech about the death of Osama bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri
But the lesson is you can't kill your way to victory.
After bin Laden died, I reported on a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. Each day these boys would rock back and forth for hours on end to the words of their Imam – their teacher.
They did not hear beauty of the holy Koran, but instead the words of hate.
They told me bin Laden was a hero.
Afterwards they played in the schoolyard with plastic guns aimed directly at our cameras.
Stan Grant is the ABC's international affairs analyst and presenter of Q+A on Thursday at 8.30pm. He also presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel.
On the contrary, RuZia is killing its way to victory, with countries representing more than. 50% of the world's population agreeing with their excuse for conducting the killing.
ReplyDelete"On the contrary"
ReplyDelete!!!???
Where were u when the killing in Donbass started?