Violence and conflict in the Sahel region have significantly worsened over the past few years. As the number of violent attacks have increased by three-fold in the Lake Chad basin since 2015, and worse still, eight-fold in the Central Sahel region in the same time period,[1] more than 2 million Sahelians have found themselves internally displaced, with another 850,000 seeking cross-border refuge in the past one and a half years alone.[2]

The tension in the region has been exacerbated by the southward expansion of Islamic jihadist militant activities into sub-Saharan Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, and Nigeria.[3] Besides fighting state-led counter-terrorism forces, violence has also simultaneously erupted between the rival jihadist factions of al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wa’l Muslimin (JNIM) and the ISIS affiliate Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), as they vie over competing ideological principles and new territorial footholds in the region. As a result, counter-terrorism forces have been building up in the Sahel, with the French-led Takuba Task Force being the latest addition to the existing G5 Sahel and French-led Operation Barkhane counter-terrorism efforts,[4] creating what experts are now calling a “traffic jam of military forces” in the region.[5]

Yet, despite beefing up counter-terrorism forces, the Sahel has experienced a five-fold intensification of jihadist attacks and inter-ethnic violence since 2016,[6] evidently indicating that the counter-terrorism strategy has been largely ineffective in rooting out instability in the region. [7] A key explanation for the ineffectiveness of counter-terrorism efforts is that terrorist militant activities are, in fact, symptomatic of the multi-faceted issue of food shortages (and hence food insecurity), high unemployment, and the lack of basic services available to the local rural populations. With the state largely absent in providing food, lodging, and security due to its inability to penetrate infrastructurally into the outskirts of the rural regions, rural groups have turned towards armed forces for services.[8]

Part of the problem is also driven by climate change. As a semi-arid region heavily reliant on rainfed agriculture, the Sahel is experiencing the world’s most critical crisis of food insecurity of the day as about 80% of its farmland has been degraded by extreme droughts in the past few decades.[9] Additionally, its desertification has not been helped by its rising temperatures—rapidly increasing at 1.5 times the global average—which would take its current average temperature of 35°C up by at least 3-5°C by 2050.[10] With its arable land and water resources literally drying up, new inter-communal conflicts have thus been kindled while forced migration has been intensified in the Sahel, according to Inga Rhonda King, the President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC). [11]

Moreover, food insecurity and the lack of job opportunities are further exacerbated by the increasing population pressure exerted by an expanding Sahelian population. Due to the high fertility rates between 4.1 and 7.6 children per woman on average in the region, demographic growth rates have continued unabatedly between 2.5 percent to about 4 percent per annum. In fact, the United Nations estimates conservatively that the region’s population will explode from 135 million in 2015 to 330 million by 2050, assuming that fertility rates (unrealistically) taper down to a medium level over time.[12] With a ballooning population, it is therefore unsurprising that competition over already scarce food, resources, and job opportunities have intensified, and will continue to intensify in the Sahel over the next few decades.

The void left behind by the Sahelian governments’ inability to address these systemic core issues thus provides fertile ground for terrorist groups like the JNIM and the ISGS to take root in the region. In the face of evaporating food supply as a result of extreme climate conditions, Sahelians like 17-year old Younoussa find themselves having to choose between joining an armed terrorist or insurgent group in which they would be vastly underpaid and exploited, or slowly starving to their deaths.[13] Acutely aware of the Hobson’s choice that many Sahelians face, shrewd terrorist and insurgent armed groups deliberately exploit this difficult dilemma to forcibly recruit many Sahelians into their armed movements, often against the wishes of the latter.[14] Younoussa, for instance, was visibly saddened that he had to join an armed group in order to survive; he said in an interview with BBC correspondents, “I don’t want to be with an armed group. I want to be with my family again and get a job.”[15] Yet, Younoussa’s circumstances and sentiments are not unique, as many Sahelians find themselves increasingly lured by the prospect of joining armed groups for survival as their livelihood options continue to evaporate rapidly amid an increasingly vulnerable state of existence.[16]

It is within this context that we ought to re-evaluate our approach in the Sahel. With millions of Sahelians trapped in a vicious cycle of conflict-induced vulnerability and climate-induced conflict exacerbation, it is clear that the short-term measures of urgent humanitarian action and counter-terrorism efforts remain an important priority. Yet, these short-term measures are merely symptom-management measures that do not effectively treat the root cause of instability in the region—which is low state capacity and ineffective governance especially in the rural regions. Indeed, with all ten Sahelian countries ranking at the very bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index,[17] the greatest imperative for the Sahel in the long-term would be to promote better governance. This improvement may look like ramping up state capacity and infrastructure through major investments in education, healthcare, population control, and improving food security. It may also come through combating corruption and hosting inter-communal conciliatory dialogues with armed groups in search of a permanent cessation of hostilities, and hopefully, a long-lasting peace. As the rest of the world has pursued their own progress and development, the Sahel has been a perennially conflict-ridden and severely underdeveloped region, leaving Sahelians behind in a state of extreme poverty, violent conflict, underdevelopment, and vulnerability as they struggle to carve out an existence for themselves.

References

[1] UNICEF, “Sahel Crisis: 29 Million Sahelians Need Humanitarian Assistance and Protection,” April 27, 2021, https://www.unicef.org/wca/press-releases/sahel-crisis-29-million-sahelians-need-humanitarian-assistance-and-protection.

[2] UNHCR, “Grim Milestone as Sahel Violence Displaces 2 Million Inside Their Countries,” UNHCR, January 22, 2021, https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2021/1/600a92e4125/grim-milestone-sahel-violence-displaces-2-million-inside-countries.html.

[3] Frank Gardner, “Is Africa Overtaking the Middle East as the New Jihadist Battleground?,” BBC, December 3, 2020.

[4] Judd Devermont and Marielle Harris, “Rethinking Crisis Responses in the Sahel,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 22, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/rethinking-crisis-responses-sahel.

[5] Naz Modirzadeh, Richard Atwood, and Jean-Hervé Jezequel, “The War in the Sahel,” Crisis Group, February 25, 2021, https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/war-sahel.

[6] Crisis Group, “A Course Correction for the Sahel Stabilisation Strategy,” Crisis Group, February 1, 2021, https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/299-course-correction-sahel-stabilisation-strategy.

[7] Devermont and Harris, “Rethinking Crisis Responses in the Sahel”.

[8] Richard Skretteberg, “Sahel: The World’s Most Neglected and Conflict-Ridden Region,” accessed May 10, 2021.

[9] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The Magnitude of the Problem,” accessed May 11, 2021, http://www.fao.org/3/X5318E/x5318e02.htm.

[10] Skretteberg, “Sahel: The World’s Most Neglected and Conflict-Ridden Region”.

[11] United Nations, “Building Climate Resilience and Peace Go Hand in Hand for Africa’s Sahel – UN Forum,” November 13, 2018, https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1025671.

[12] John F. May, Jean-Pierre Guengant, and Thomas R. Brooke, “Demographic Challenges of the Sahel,” Population Reference Bureau, January 14, 2015, https://www.prb.org/sahel-demographics/.

[13] Lyse Doucet, “The Battle on the Frontline of Climate Change in Mali,” BBC, January 22, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/the-reporters-46921487.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Robert Muggah and José Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel Is Engulfed by Violence. Climate Change, Food Insecurity and Extremists Are Largely to Blame,” World Economic Forum, January 23, 2019, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/all-the-warning-signs-are-showing-in-the-sahel-we-must-act-now/.

[17] United Nations Development Programme, “Latest Human Development Index Ranking (2020),” December 15, 2020, http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/latest-human-development-index-ranking.

Introduction

Why do some terror organizations seek state sponsorship? Although the risks of cooperation for both terror organizations and states are significant, state sponsorship of violent, armed, non-state actors has occurred for decades. Notable partnerships include Iran with Hezbollah and various Palestinian groups,^[1] Iraq and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) as well as Palestinian groups,^[2] Syria and Hamas,^[3] Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaeda,^[4] Pakistan and the Taliban and Lashkar-e Tayyaba,^[5] and Venezuela and FARC.^[6] This paper focuses on Hamas’s relationship with two state sponsors, Iran and Syria. This case provides an interesting example of state sponsorship of terror, as Hamas is forced to balance the benefits it attains from these relationships with multiple sponsors, with the risks to its political and strategic interests. This case also shows how terror organizations will alter their relationships with states when partnerships conflict with their individual goals and needs, demonstrating terror organizations’ autonomy and agency. Finally, Hamas is not always ideologically and strategically aligned with its sponsors, demonstrating that there are multiple incentives for terror organizations to partner with states beyond ideological or identity-based affinity.

State sponsorship of terrorism is defined as a state providing a terror organization with various forms of assistance.^[7] Material and physical support includes financial assistance, arms provision, military training, logistical support, and also a safe haven for members to live, train, and plot in relative safety. Additionally, through state sponsorship, terror organizations can increase their legitimacy in the eyes of local and regional actors, in some ways furthering their political goals. In these relationships, terror organizations have agency. They choose to carry out violent acts on the state’s behalf and overall help in furthering their patron’s interests both domestically and abroad— all for a host of rewards from their state partner. However, state sponsorship is not always beneficial for terror organizations, as cooperation with a state can have the opposite effect and decline in the group’s operational and organizational autonomy, decrease local and regional support for the group, delegitimize its mission, increase exposure to counterterrorism. Thus, terror organizations’ desires for state sponsorship creates a puzzle, as it might end up undermining the terrorist group’s own interests.

Investigating these relationships from the terrorist perspective fills an inherent gap in the existing literature, which mostly focuses on the interests of the state sponsors and the costs and benefits states accrue from the relationship. Questions, such as what the benefits of sponsorship for terror groups are or why would these groups work with states to which they are ideologically opposed, are not investigated frequently. An exploration of a terror group’s motivations for cooperating with states is important as it equips counterterror organizations with tools to      better mitigate these relationships. This investigation can also clarify a state’s considerations for engaging in these partnerships, as having a clear picture of their partners’ interests leads to a more comprehensive decision-making process. An analysis of Hamas’s relationships with its sponsors can also provide better insight on other religious nationalist groups who have sought state sponsorship in the past, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PKK, and other Kashmiri-focused groups. This insight includes both the inherent benefits that groups seek from sponsorship but also the risks they face as groups with a complex organizational structure that depend upon some local support and maintain political power.

Using the case of Hamas, I argue that as actors with agency, terror organizations seek to satisfy their strategic and organizational interests as well as maintain their internal cohesiveness and political reputation.  However, as in any relationship, conflict between partners can occur when the state’s and the group’s goals strongly conflict, and terror organizations may re-evaluate their engagement to determine if the benefits they receive truly outweigh the costs to its organizational and political standing. In many cases, terror organizations will implement several mechanisms to retain autonomy by avoiding complete control by one state or another  while also avoiding succumbing completely to a state’s orders that are not supported by key local leaders and internal members. 

In the rest of this paper, I first discuss the literature related to state sponsorship of terror, focusing on these organizations’ interests and the costs and benefits of sponsorship from the organization’s perspective. I then move into my argument regarding why terror organizations cooperate with states when they do and why these relationships may shift. Third, I discuss the methodology of the paper and move to my case study of Hamas’s relationships with Syria and Iran. Fourth, I discuss counterarguments to my work and finish with concluding thoughts and conjectures about the implications of my findings.

Overall, I argue that terror organizations seek state sponsorship to satisfy both their strategic and organizational interests, however these concerns can often conflict especially when it comes to maintaining a group’s political reputation. Thus, if they desire to continue their partnerships with states, terror organizations must develop strategies to mitigate principal control and preserve their autonomy.

Review of the Literature Discussing State Sponsorship of Terror

One of the most common underlying arguments discussed in the literature regarding state sponsorship of terror is the idea that armed non-state actors and states will only cooperate when there is a shared interest, such as ideology, countering shared opponents, or attaining valuable resources.^[8] State sponsorship only occurs when there is a unique benefit for both sides, as cooperation is extremely risky for both groups. However, a majority of the literature discussing state sponsorship of terror exclusively focuses on the state perspective, examining the costs and benefits for states without looking at the constraints on armed non-state actors and the active choices they make when cooperating with states.

Principal-Agent (PA) theory is one of the more effective analytical frameworks for exploring the calculi of both states and armed non-state actors. According to this framework both parties use rational choice to engage in a relationship that best matches their preferences and goals. The theory describes the state’s role as the ‘principal’ while the armed non-state actor acts as the ‘agent,’ carrying out the principal’s requests.^[9] In the relationships between states and terror organizations, states will delegate certain tasks to terror organizations, such as completing clandestine operations against enemy states that are illegal for states to carry out themselves. States will delegate to agents in order to improve efficiency, giving terror organizations an autonomous mandate and rules of engagement and behavior.^[10]

In order to fully understand the relationships between states and terror organizations, it is important to briefly examine the motivations for states when they decide to sponsor a group. According to Daniel Byman, there are four arguments for why states choose to delegate to terror organizations: the terror group can pursue the state’s strategic objectives, help to promote political ideology, bolster a leader’s domestic position, and disrupt oppositional forces in the region.^[11] One of the most important benefits for states is their ability to use terror organizations in order to carry out illegal actions or attacks, preventing backlash from counterterror organizations. As a secondary benefit, the state is able to obtain plausible deniability for such illegal acts, as the state’s authority over the non-state actor’s actions is unclear.^[12] Finally, when the state more publicly supports an organization that shares ideology, religion, or ethnic identity with its citizens, its domestic popularity can increase, as some citizens could view this act as a state prioritization of their own ethnic or religious kin.^[13]

Oftentimes the benefits of delegation outweigh the risk that agents will act against the principal’s preferences, however this is not always the case.^[14] Ultimately, there is an inherent risk that cooperation will fail, potentially due to “agency slack,” or the risk that an agent will take an independent action to satisfy their own interests that opposes the state’s preferences.^[15] In order to combat this challenge, states maintain certain mechanisms to either monitor or control unruly terror organizations by sanctioning funds or cutting off ties completely.^[16]

Despite states’ ability to control their agents, terror organizations still maintain a significant amount of agency. Idean Salehyan argues that external support for rebel organizations is not solely the choice of the state but is a partnership between the principal and the agent. Because delegation to terror organizations inherently involves a “conditional grant of authority,”^[17] these groups must work as an individual actor with its own agency and preferences. Before agreeing to engage in a state partnership, terror organizations must weigh the risks and benefits of engaging with a state, effectively performing a cost-benefit analysis in order to evaluate if the state’s preferences align with their own.^[18] However, this theory oftentimes implicates terror organizations solely as gain-maximizers and assumes that these groups make clear-cut cost benefit analyses, avoiding analysis of their nuanced interests. Despite this deficiency, it is important to understand that cooperating with states satisfies terror organizations’ interests that can significantly improve chances for survival and increase their organizational and political power. 

Thus, what are terror organizations’ interests and how might terror organizations satisfy them? Peter Krause uses a two-level framework to explain the effectiveness of terror organizations and argues that these groups tend to pursue strategic goals that can benefit their broader social movements, as well as organizational interests that benefit the groups themselves.^[19] Strategic objectives concern the actions that would promote the group’s mission, including inflicting mass damage through attacks, causing harm to enemy states, and commanding territory to establish a new caliphate or state. Strategic interests also involve political goals, such as improving a political reputation and increasing regional and local support. Furthermore, by increasing its tactical capabilities, terror organizations can more directly pursue their more long-term strategic goals. Conversely, organizational objectives include increasing recruitment, establishing effective training mechanisms, obtaining funding, and ensuring that the group remains cohesive.^[20] Overall, I argue that state sponsorship of terror satisfies both terror organizations’ strategic and organizational interests. However, as Krause laments, these interests can conflict, forcing terror organizations to balance either the interests of the individual organization or those of the entire movement.^[21]

Strategic Benefits of Cooperation for Terror Organizations

What are the strategic benefits that states must weigh when deciding to cooperate as an agent of a state? Bruce Hoffman suggests that state sponsorship of terror is ultimately more beneficial for terror groups than states, as it provides these organizations essential assets that allow them to not only survive, but function more effectively.^[22] These assets oftentimes satisfy a group’s strategic interests, as states can provide terror groups with valuable material benefits, such as training and operations support, “money, arms, and logistics,” and sanctuary.^[23] Armed non-state actors can also gain access to an established state’s diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities to advance its interests. ^[24] Because most militants are not trained soldiers, they need to be taught how to operate weapons and how to perform basic military exercises, surveillance, and recruitment.^[25] Groups can also be provided with more advanced armaments and weapons systems; however, scholars argue that states are cautious not to offer supported terrorists weapons that could drastically threaten the state’s own security.^[26] Overall, the benefits can improve a terror organization’s tactical capabilities that can serve to further its strategic mission of severely weakening an opposing state, commanding increased territory, or causing fear in enemy populations.

Byman argues that states can also help terror organizations carry out attacks by providing logistical support.  These benefits include providing passports to increase travel mobility, allowing terrorists to pass through a country’s territory to and from carrying out attacks, or funding a “front company” to provide terrorists legitimate documentation, allowing them to pass through domestic and international security apparatuses more easily.^[27] Hoffman refers to the same forms of support as “unobtainable luxuries”^[28], as they can provide an organization with a competitive strategic edge, overcoming “large power asymmetries” between states, rebels, and other organizations.^[29] Furthermore, states can complete violent operations jointly with states, providing covert intelligence, such as the Iranian and Syrian provision of intelligence to Hezbollah to attack American forces in Lebanon in 1983. Intelligence regarding local politics and about a state’s enemies is also shared by terrorist organizations, increasing the incentive for states to give back to their agents. ^[30]  Increased capabilities can help to legitimize groups as a credible threat to a specific state, furthering a group’s strategic interest of destroying a certain enemy.

Moreover, diplomatic support of a group’s political wing can help to legitimize the organization, providing international support and recognition.^[31] Increased legitimacy through both name recognition and publicly documented meetings can allow groups to become more dominant as compared to their competitors, increasing the group’s reputation and satisfying its political-organizational interests. These benefits can improve the group’s legitimacy with local supporters. Particularly if a group has entered a political arena within a certain state, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, the Taliban, or Hamas, it may be more dependent on local political support.^[32] A group may seek the help of a state sponsor to increase both its legitimacy as a powerful actor with immense funding and also the capacity to unleash violence against popular enemies, such as opposing ethno-religious groups or governments.^[33] Thus, state sponsorship can satisfy not only a group’s desire for increased tactical capability, but also provide important logistical support as well as increased political legitimacy, overall furthering its strategic goals for the movement it represents.

Organizational Benefits of Cooperation

Money remains one of the most important factors that motivates terrorist cooperation with states, as it can help them achieve organizational stability through increased recruiting and safer transnational movement through the use of safehouses and passports.^[34] These material benefits help to strengthen the organization internally, as terror organizations oftentimes engage in fierce competition for new recruits with rival organizations, and money can help attract these individuals.^[35]  Furthermore, these groups can utilize state funding to provide a range of social welfare benefits and also compensation, which allows fighters to solely dedicate themselves to the group. For example, both the Lebanese Hizballah and the Kashmiri group Hizb-ul Mujahedin took advantage of Iran’s and Pakistan’s financial support to provide social welfare for fighters and build support networks that outpaced other groups, helping them to achieve dominance.^[36]

Because states have superior bureaucratic structuring and organizational capabilities, they can provide the expertise that enables a terrorist group to develop its own recruitment network and hierarchical structure. Thus, in times of organizational infighting or competition among lower-level leaders, groups may turn to states to broker agreements or help unify multiple groups to become a more powerful force. Byman cites how Iran helped to organize Hezbollah through uniting Shiite militants under one powerful banner.^[37] Similarly, Hemming Tam argues that sponsorship can also cement the power of a particular leader, as recognition of his actions by an outside powerful actor can increase his importance, and also decrease the power of his rivals, securing the leader’s power and group cohesion.^[38] While name recognition by states can improve a group’s standing with local and regional competitors, the provision of material resources can also increase internal respect of leadership, improving group cohesiveness as members increase their trust in the organization.

Ideology as a Potential Motivation for Cooperation

Finally, terror groups may be motivated to cooperate with states on ideological grounds. While groups may not be aligned to specifically spread their shared ideology, this common denominator can help states and their agents to increase trust and work more effectively together.^[39] Thus, terror organizations may seek state sponsors that are ideologically aligned, as they believe this could increase trust with the principal, which can elevate their autonomy as the state trusts the group’s values and ideals. However, evidence suggests state-terrorist      cooperation also exists between actors that are not ideologically aligned,^[40] and therefore resting this paper’s explanation on simply ideological grounds may not be effective.

The Risks for Terror Organizations

As one of the largest aspects of the agent’s dilemma when engaging with principals, however, terror groups are additionally interested in maintaining independence in order to control their own actions, as well as identity and reputation. Salehyan argues that PA theory suggests that terror organizations face a balance between benefiting their resource base and their organizational autonomy.^[41] State sponsors may attempt to impose its own vision and demands,^[42] which may threaten the group’s individual evolution and later independent decision-making ability.^[43] Similarly, since states maintain mechanisms to punish or control organizations, such as increased monitoring of activities as well as sanctioning of funds, they can effectively weaken the group’s freedom to carry out policies that would satisfy its own preferences that may conflict with the state’s interests.^[44] Carter also argues that sponsorship can leave groups more exposed to counterterrorism, especially if safe haven is provided, as the state maintains a unique insight to a group’s own organizational structure and capacity, which could be supplied to international counterterrorism forces, threatening a group’s survival.^[45]

As a risk to a group’s potential strategic goal of becoming a dominating political force, the group can also be viewed as simply a state’s puppet or a “gun for hire,” carrying out a wealthy state’s demands instead of accomplishing its own mission, especially if it is fighting for liberation against foreign powers.^[46]  This reputation can cause a decrease in popular support for the cause as well as decreased trust in the leaderships’ integrity and legitimacy, threatening the group’s bureaucratic structure and overall effectiveness. Additionally, state sponsorship can cause a group to become desensitized from the desires of its most important supporters and constituents, as the state can influence a terror organization to develop a political and military strategy that does not incorporate the realities of the population that the group represents.^[47]

Strategies to Balance the Costs

Because terror organizations maintain a significant level of agency with respect to their state sponsors, these groups are able to employ certain strategies to increase their autonomy or circumvent the costs of sponsorship. Using PA theory, Hawkins and Jacoby argue two strategies that can apply to agents such as terror organizations: remaining permeable to multiple sponsors and interpreting and reinterpreting a sponsor’s demands.^[48] Remaining permeable to a diverse range of sponsors decreases the severity of potential state sanctions and also cushions against sudden termination of support.^[49] Salehyan adds that maintaining multiple sponsors makes it more difficult to inflict coherent, effective sanctions, as coordination between states is difficult and groups could turn to sponsors that don’t support the sanctions.^[50] Furthermore, terror organizations can first interpret a sponsor’s demand directly correlating to the state’s preferences, however over time they can reinterpret them to match the agent’s preferences if they conflict with the state’s.^[51]

Overall, Byman argues that state support is a “devil’s bargain,” and requires a trade-off between a more independent terror organization and a stronger overall movement.^[52] Thus, both states and terror organizations face important trade-offs between the highly valuable assets provided by these relationships and the significant risks they pose to both the state’s reputation and the group’s autonomy and identity.

Methodology:

In the following section, I present the case study of Hamas’s relationship with two of its most active sponsors, Syria and Iran. Although many terror organizations cooperate with states, this case will provide verified examples of benefits groups seek from states and also the ways in which they must balance these demands with the requirements states employ to achieve their own goals. Hamas’s relationship with both Syria and Iran is interesting as Hamas is not extremely ideologically aligned with either state, Hamas faced a severe risk of Syrian constriction of its operations and of becoming an Iranian puppet, much like Lebanese Hezbollah. Specifically, I focus on the benefits of Syrian and Iranian sponsorship for Hamas and how it has helped to further its strategic and organizational interests. I also evaluate the strategic and political costs for Hamas in the context of events in Israel, Palestine, as well as the Arab world. Finally, I highlight strategies it has employed to balance its strategic and organizational interests in order to maintain political support and survive.

Iranian and Syria Sponsorship of Hamas:

Established in 1987 as the militant political bureau of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian Intifada, Hamas, or Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya,has become one of the most powerful terror organizations and political actors in Palestine as both an Islamist and nationalist organization. Following the creation of its Charter in 1988, Hamas designated Palestine as an Islamic “waqf” or an area designated for Muslims by God in order to legitimize its violence as “defensive Jihad” in the name of Islam. Following the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993, by both the Palestinian Liberation Organization (Fatah) and the Israeli government, Hamas’s extremist opposition to a peaceful solution between Israelis and Palestinians increased, and it began to cite its main mission as the complete liberation of Palestine from what they regard as so-called Israeli occupation.^[53] Thus, Hamas straddles both an Islamist and nationalist identity, allowing the group to create ties with diverse range of populations, non-state organizations, and state actors.

This nationalist-political viewpoint of the organization conflicts with the analysis of many scholars that Hamas is inherently a religious fundamentalist group that is unable to accept peace with Israel due to its strict Jihadist beliefs that remain unchanged overtime.^[54] Ultimately, Hamas must be understood as an organization that implores strategic choices within the context of political events and social movements, and thus can change its calculi to reflect the broader movement on the ground.^[55]  

History of State Sponsorship

Within the Palestinian territories, the alternative to Hamas is Fatah, as the chief, mostly non-violent competitor, it views Hamas as ultimately weak and disloyal to the cause of complete liberation, as it has sought compromise and make peace with the Israeli government. Thus, Hamas’s alternative forms of actions are essentially diplomacy and negotiation without the threat of violence, which the organization refuses to accept.^[56] In order to increase its leverage over Israel and other secular groups, as well as enhance its military capabilities and political legitimacy, Hamas sought external forms of state support from several sponsors, most notably Iran and Syria.  

The peak periods of Iranian and Syrian support began in the mid-1990s and continued through the beginning of the Arab Uprisings in 2011. While Syria has a long history of sponsoring Palestinian groups in the name of Pan-Arabism, its main motivation for sponsorship of groups like Hamas comes from gaining strategic leverage over Israel. Much like its strategic partner in Syria, Iran has also sought to expand its regional influence and damage its enemy in Israel. Iranian support began in 1990, when Hamas and other militant groups were invited to Tehran for an Islamic conference on the Palestinian cause. Furthermore, support heightened during the 2004-2008 period, when Iranian leverage in the region increased as the Iraqi Shiites took power following the American invasion, causing the state to look to the entire region to increase its influence.^[57]

 It is important to note that ideologically, Hamas was not fully aligned with either of these sponsors. While Hamas is an Islamic organization, it identifies as Sunni Muslim, which competes across the region with Shiites, whose center of power is based in Iran. Besides, Iran is not officially an Arab country, and therefore Hamas does not maintain domestic leverage with Iranian citizens, who do not adopt the Palestinian cause is their own.^[58] Additionally, while the Syrian regime under Hafez al-Asad promoted ideals of Pan-Arab nationalism, it still identifies as a secular Ba’athist state, and thus opposes the Islamic governance vision.^[59] Because Hamas and its main sponsors during this period were not ideologically compatible, there was not an influx of trust between Hamas and its principals; however, it is unclear if this added benefit was needed to maintain the relationships. Moreover, it is difficult to argue that one of the main benefits for Hamas, in seeking state sponsorship, is its desire to spread its Islamic ideology, as there is limited evidence that it has attempted this through any of its state sponsors.

Iranian Provision of Financial Support

According to Canadian, Israeli, British, American, and Palestinian Authority intelligence, Iran has provided large amounts of state funding directly to the Hamas organization and the al-Qassam Brigades. Thus, unlike some sponsorship Hamas has obtained from Saudi Arabia, funding does not arrive from Iran through the charitable organizations in the Islamic dawa, but directly to operational units.^[60] According to some reports, Iran provided twenty to fifty million dollars annually to Hamas.^[61] Following a 2004 crackdown by the Saudi Arabian state on the financing of terror due to American pressure which ceased Hamas funding from Islamic charitable organizations in the Gulf, Hamas was forced into a state of emergency and turned to Iran for help, which in turn entered its peak period of support. Up until the severing of relations between the state and its agent in 2012, Iran had been providing Hamas with approximately twenty-three million dollars monthly.^[62] However, it is difficult to trace exactly how Hamas sought to use these funds and thus it could have been used to benefit both its strategic and organizational interests. I mention where these funds may have been used throughout the discussion of the benefits of state sponsorship below.

Satisfaction of Strategic Interests through Cooperation

In order to satisfy its strategic interests, Hamas had to enhance its operational and logistical capabilities, obtain valuable financial resources, evade Israeli counterterrorism forces, and establish its reputation as a legitimate regional and local actor. Hamas has sought and received most of its material benefits through its Iranian partner, while achieving some political benefits from Syria.

Through its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas has inflicted many forms of violence, including assassinations, suicide bombings, rocket launches into Israeli territory, and the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and civilians.^[63] With the provision of arms from its Iranian partner, the organization has been able to increase its operational capabilities that help the group to achieve its strategic goals. These weapons included a marine vessel and fifty tons of weapons sent to Gaza in 2002 (e.g., force multiplier weapons systems, rockets, mortars and mortar bombs, land mines, Faj-5 rockets, and other smaller arms). Additionally, the provision of funding reportedly enhanced Hamas’s ability to launch suicide attacks, as Iran transferred $400,000 dollars directly to the al-Qassam Brigades to support military activities in Israel.^[64]

While the U.S. Department of State has claimed that Hamas has not received funding or arms directly from Syria, Syria has allowed the group to fundraise and obtain arms within the state and smuggle them directly to Palestinian cells. Despite this, a 2002 report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz claims that Syria offered Hamas direct aid if it were to restart its suicide bombing programs,^[65] suggesting that Hamas could improve its tactical capabilities and its strategic goals through Syrian assistance. Although this may be pure conjecture, suicide attacks in Israel peaked in 2002, potentially representing Syrian influence during this period.^[66] Thus, Iranian provision of funding and arms, as well as Syrian provisional aid and territory for smuggling, has helped Hamas carry out these attacks as well as to reduce the power differential between itself, Israel, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—all actors that receive foreign financial support, either legally or illegally.^[67]

Moreover, because most Hamas fighters are not trained soldiers, members of the IRGC provided training in various camps across Syria and Lebanon, as well as in Tehran to learn various field tactics and weapons technologies. According to his own omission, Hassan Salameh, the Hamas commander who orchestrated several suicide bus bombings in Israel in 1996, stated that he received all of his military training from Iranian forces. Overall, due to its fighters’ lack of advanced military training, its demand for advanced weapons systems, and its limited fundraising sources, Hamas turned to state sponsors to provide these necessary materials in order to ensure not only their survival but further success. Furthermore, Syria also provided significant safe haven to Hamas leadership, allowing them to plot attacks inside of the state without government interference, helping to improve the organization’s tactical fluidity.^[68] As an additional benefit, by partnering with Iran, Hamas gained access to the state’s existing alliance network between other groups sponsored by the states, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has helped carry out a significant number of Hamas attacks and smuggle weapons across the border.^[69] These forms of support allowed Hamas to improve its operational logistics and efficiency, furthering its strategic interests.

 Hamas also established political offices in Tehran and Damascus (1999), increasing its access to both governments’ resources as well as decreasing its chances of counterterrorism as the main political leaders were based outside of Gaza in another sovereign territory. From these offices, leaders could meet with foreign leaders and speak with the media in order to raise a higher profile to garner regional and, potentially, local support.^[70] Additionally, Hamas was able to achieve public recognition from both Iran and Syria in the 1990s and early 2000s, increasing its regional reputation.^[71] For example, Hamas was included in an alliance of mostly secular organizations created by the Syrian state who rejected negotiations with Israel, and Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam and Hafez al Asad shared veiled statements praising Hamas.^[72] Byman argues that this recognition is particularly essential for nationalist groups as their goal is eventually to take power over a state, which requires international support.^[73]  Both public recognition and establishing political offices in Iran and Syria enhanced Hamas’s reputation as an influential political regional actor and also its threat to the West and Israel, as it was potentially able to harness government resources. Also, offices outside of Palestine helped Hamas more effectively coordinate its operations as well as protect its important political leadership.^[74] 

Satisfaction of Organizational Interests

Hamas cooperated with Iran and Syria in order to advance its organizational and political interests, such as maintaining its base of fighters together, increasing its legitimacy with local populations, and effectively coordinating and planning operations. Because of its access to the Iranian logistical network, Hamas was able to spread its influence further across the Levant region, establishing a presence in Lebanese refugee camps, from which it was able to significantly increase its recruiting capacity.^[75] Funding also could have been used to increase recruiting both within the Palestinian territories as well as refugee camps. Additionally, Hamas was able to adequately compensate its militants, deterring members from defecting to other organizations or seeking other sources of employment.^[76] This compensation also increased loyalty to the organization, improving organizational cohesiveness and support for leadership. What’s more, in times of organizational distress, such as the decapitation of important leadership, Hamas reportedly increased Iranian financial and material support to limit the damage to the organization due to the deaths of Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and Ahmed Yassin in 2004, which left the group with no clear internal leadership.^[77] Thus, state sponsorship increased legitimacy of Hamas leadership within the organization through the provision of essential resources to the group’s members and maintained cohesiveness during times of distress.

Conflicts Between Satisfying Strategic and Organizational Interests

Although Hamas sought both material, logistical, and regional political benefits from its state sponsors, the conflict between its strategic and organizational interests occurred when its sponsors’ demands posed significant threats to the group’s domestic political reputation. As a nationalist group, Hamas was somewhat dependent on local support for its organization and its actions and was forced to reckon with popular opinion on the ground. One such ideal is the belief that an “Independent Palestine” is the strongest version of the state, and thus Hamas and its competitors are held to a standard of independent decision-making that is tied to its legitimacy in the region it seeks to control.^[78] Thus, by engaging with powerful state sponsors, Hamas risked appearing as if it was no longer committed to its mission of achieving an independent Palestinian state and instead only sought to carry out Syria and Iran’s foreign policy goals.

Ultimately, an important change in Hamas’s strategic calculus occurred when it transitioned between 2002 to 2006 from complete rejectionism of Israel and devotion to total violence to a political party that utilizes violence in addition to functioning with a pseudo-democratic government to achieve its goals.^[79] On January 25, 2006, Hamas officially transformed into a legitimate political actor after the organization won 76 out of the 132 seats in the Palestine National Authority government. ^[80] This strategic change was in many ways driven by popular desire for democratic governance in Gaza, which forced Hamas to alter its strategic calculus and maintain a balance between political sensibility and armed resistance.^[81] Thus, Hamas’s reliance on local political support increased, forcing it to re–examine its relationships with its sponsors in order to further align its actions with the demands of its newly expanded base.  Without public support, Hamas not only faced the loss of political power to its rival, Fatah but also important recruiting and other smaller financial streams that are not externally sponsored by other states. In fact, in 2007, Hamas faced significant criticism from rival Fatah leaders inside the PLO, with one senior official stating “when I talk about Hamas, I cannot say they are Palestinians, because they are implementing a mandate for Iran, or Syria.”^[82] As a result, state sponsorship sometimes backfired on Hamas; while the group obtained foreign assistance to achieve its strategic goals and improve the organization, their political reputation as a nationalistic actor was damaged, representing the inherent conflict between strategic interests and political goals.

As a secondary risk, Hamas potentially faced a decrease in both operational and organizational autonomy, as Iran and Syria could have dictated all of the group’s actions or implement its monitoring and sanctioning capabilities. While there is limited evidence of this loss of operational independence, especially since Hamas and its principals shared similar foreign policy goals in relation to Israel,^[83] Hamas was surely concerned about this loss of autonomy especially when looking at Iran’s puppet, Hezbollah.^[84] In order to avoid a complete loss of autonomy and also the risk of losing political support, Hamas had to develop other strategies to limit either sponsors control over their agency.

Strategies to Balancing Interests

One of Hamas’s most effective strategies in reducing both Iranian or Syrian control was maintaining multiple sponsors. By opening communication with Iran and Syria, as well as Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq (pre-U.S. invasion), Hamas was able to extract a large diversity of resources from multiple sponsors. Furthermore, the sponsors’ preferences did not always align, and thus they were largely unable to use collective action in order to pressure or sanction Hamas into following their demands. This strategy also helped Hamas avoid total and complete organizational failure, as following its refusal to support the Asad regime in Syria, the group faced a significant loss of funding, safe haven, and political capital; though, it was able to turn to other sponsors such as Qatar and Egypt to further their organizational and tactical capabilities.

Additionally, in order to maintain positive relations with local supporters, Hamas obtained third-party funding from wealthy donors in the Gulf, the West Bank, and Gaza to fund its social aid network which provided efficient, high-quality service to Palestinians. Strategically, this part of the organization was able to further establish its credibility and give it an edge over its Fatah rivals, who were unable to provide equally beneficial resources to its struggling citizens.^[85] Although the proportion of citizens that were dependent on these resources was quite small,^[86] the image created by these acts allowed Hamas to balance potential reputation damage due to state sponsorship with the idea that Hamas was overall more legitimate and credible than its rival.

When faced with state demands that conflicted with broader Palestinian public opinion, Hamas attempted the risky strategy of “walking a middle line” through neutral public statements. These actions ultimately cost the group its strongest sponsor: Iran. This strategy proved successful in the beginning of Hamas’s development when it made a neutral public statement during the First Gulf War, in which it neither supported Iraq nor the rest of the Arab world. In comparison to the PLO, who supported the Iranian enemy in Iraq, Hamas’s neutral stance did not negatively impact its relationship with either state. More importantly, Iran viewed Hamas as a more preferential option for sponsorship than its rival.^[87] Thus, this strategy proved beneficial to Hamas as it allowed the organization to obtain new highly beneficial support.

However, during the beginning of the Arab Uprisings and the Syrian Civil War, Iran demanded that Hamas publicly support the Syrian state, which directly conflicted with Palestinian public opinion at the time as most of the population supported the mass movements. Initially, Hamas attempted to “reinterpret” Iran’s demands and again make neutral statements regarding the protests. In the end, the group faced significant domestic backlash and threats to its reputation, as it was viewed again as a foreign agent of Iran and Syria.^[88] In order to save its political reputation, Hamas refused to promote the Assad regime and put itself in the Sunni block on the side of protestors.^[89] In response, Iran severed its financial support and Hamas was forced to move its political offices from Syria to Qatar, officially ending cooperation with either state.^[90] Thus, when Hamas decided that its sponsor’s demands posed an extreme threat to its political interests, as well as the organization’s legitimacy, it decided to take an action that eventually ended the relationship, despite its strategic benefits. Ultimately, broader political events can strain alliances between states and terror organizations, and in order to support its long-term strategic interests, terror organizations may dissolve a previously beneficial partnership that supported its organizational goals.

Conclusion

By examining Hamas’s relationship with its most important sponsors, I argue that terror organizations seek state sponsorship to satisfy their strategic and organizational interests. However, these interests can oftentimes conflict, especially when a sponsor provides important organizational benefits but their demands threaten a group’s political reputation and strategic long-term interests. Through the provision of arms, training, safe haven, and funding, Iran and Syria helped to improve Hamas’s tactical capabilities and furthered its strategic goals of targeting Israel and gaining domestic political power in Palestine. Furthermore, Hamas sought involvement with Iran’s international logistical network, which later provided the group with training and other forms of support. Hamas benefited from Iranian funding and both private and public legitimacy provided by Iran and Syria that served to strengthen the internal organization and increase member support. However, Hamas’s strategic-political interests of maintaining local support and becoming the dominant political faction in the Palestinian territories ultimately conflicted with its desire to seek sponsorship, as state demands conflicted with local popular opinion, particularly seen during the 2011 Arab Uprisings in Syria.

 Thus, I argue that when a group’s strategic and organizational interests conflict, the terror organization must find ways to balance the two in order to maintain important sources of sponsorship, or must conclude that the relationship no longer suits their needs. These differential mechanisms include diversifying the amount of state patrons, “walking a middle line” by making neutral public statements or reinterpreting a state’s demands, allowing terror organizations to increase their autonomy, preserving their reputation as an independent actor, and maintaining relationships with states that satisfy their strategic and organizational interests. However, terror organizations may choose to prioritize their strategic interests and political reputation, and therefore will sever relationships if they no longer match the group’s preferences. Despite their subservience in these relationships in exchange for highly valuable state benefits, we can still learn from studying terror organizations’ preferences,as they are an essential aspect of the principal-agent relationship. Overall, by examining state sponsorship from the terror organization’s perspective, we can derive serious lessons about these group’s agency and autonomous decision-making processes.

Works Cited

Baconi, Tareq. “Regional Misfortunes.” In Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018.

Blank, Jonah. “Lashkar-e Taiba and the Threat to the United States of a Mumbai-Style Attack.” RAND Corporation testimony series, June 12, 2013, 1–9. https://www-randorg.ezproxy.haverford.edu/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT300/CT390/RAND_CT390.pdf.

Byman, Daniel L. “Understanding, and Misunderstanding, State Sponsorship of Terrorism.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, (2020): 1-19, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610x.2020.1738682.

Byman, Daniel. Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Byman, Daniel L. “The Changing Nature of State Sponsorship of Terrorism.” The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, no. 16 (May 2008): 14–19. https://www.brookings.edu/wp content/uploads/2016/06/05_terrorism_byman.pdf.

Byman, Daniel, and Sarah E. Kreps. “Agents of Destruction? Applying Principal-Agent Analysis to State-Sponsored Terrorism.” International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 1 (2010): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2009.00389.x.

Carter, David B. “A Blessing or a Curse? State Support for Terrorist Groups.” International Organization 66, no. 1 (2012): 129–51. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41428948.

Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, and Jonah Blank. Report, the RAND Corporation § (2013). https://www-randorg.ezproxy.haverford.edu/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT300/CT390/RAND_CT390.pdf.

DeVore, Marc R. “Exploring the Iran-Hezbollah Relationship: A Case Study of How State Sponsorship Affects Terrorist Group Decision-Making.” Perspectives on Terrorism 6, no. 4/5 (October 2012): 85–107. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26296878.

Gerges, Fawaz A. “The Transformation of Hamas.” The Nation, June 29, 2015. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/transformation-hamas/.

Hafez, Mohammed M, and Marc-André Walther. “Hamas: Between Pragmatism and Radicalism.” In Routledge Handbook of Political Islam, 62–74. ProQuest E-book Central. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/haverford/detail.action?docID=957784.

Hawkins, Darren G., and Wade Jacoby. “How Agents Matter.” In Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, 202–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Hoffman, Bruce. “Terrorism Today and Tomorrow.” In Inside Terrorism, 2nd ed., 258–67. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Hroub, Khaled. “Hamas and ‘International Islamism’.” In Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide, 93–103. New York: Pluto Press, 2010. doi:10.2307/j.ctt183p4vc.12. “Iran, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” Wilson Center. Accessed December 20, 2020. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/iran-hamas-and-palestinian-islamic-jihad.

Krause, Peter. “The Political Effectiveness of Non-State Violence: A Two-Level Framework to Transform a Deceptive Debate.” Security Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): 259–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2013.786914.

Levitt, Matthew. “State Support for Hamas.” In Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad, 171–202. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npc2n.11.

Mendelsohn, Barak. “Strange Bedfellows: Syria’s Support for Jihadi Terrorist Groups and the Limits of Ideologically-Unlikely Partnerships,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (forthcoming).

Robinson, Glenn E. “Hamas as Social Movement.” In Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, edited by Quintan Wiktorowicz, 112–37. ProQuest E-book Central. Indiana University Press, 2003. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/haverford/detail.action?docID=238838.

Salehyan, Idean. “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (2010): 493–515. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002709357890.

Schiff, Ze’ev. “Sources Say Syria Pushing Hamas to Renew Attacks.” Haaretz.com. Haaretz, January 11, 2018. https://www.haaretz.com/1.5190298.

Shapiro, Jacob N. “The Terrorist’s Dilemma.” In the Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations, 27–31. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tt8v9.5.

Sherwood, Harriet. “Hamas and Iran Rebuild Ties Three Years after Falling out over Syria.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, January 9, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/hamas-iran-rebuild-ties-falling-out-syria.

Szekely, Ora. “Hamas.” In Politics of Militant Survival in the Middle East: Resources, Relationships, and Resistance, 202–41. Palgrave MacMillan, 2017.

Thomson, Amy. “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship.” M.A. thesis, Massey University, 2012. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/3846/02_whole.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

“Venezuela – United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, December 1, 2020. https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/venezuela/.

Wilner, Alex. “The Dark Side of Extended Deterrence: Thinking through the State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 3 (February 3, 2017): pp. 410-437, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2017.1284064.

“Who Is Responsible for the Taliban?” The Washington Institute. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 1, 2002. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban.

Worman, John. “Abu Nidal: Chameleon of Change, A.K.A. Terrorism’s Free Agent.” Global Security Studies 4:1 (2013), 64.

References

[1] Marc R DeVore, “Exploring the Iran-Hezbollah Relationship: A Case Study of How State Sponsorship Affects Terrorist Group Decision-Making,” Perspectives on Terrorism 6, no. 4/5 (October 2012): pp. 85-107, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26296878.

[2] Daniel L Byman, “The Changing Nature of State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, no. 16 (May 2008): 14, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05_terrorism_byman.pdf.

[3] Matthew Levitt, “State Support for Hamas,” in Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 171-202, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1npc2n.11.

[4] Daniel L Byman, “The Changing Nature of State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” 19.

[5] Jonah Blank, “Lashkar-e Taiba and the Threat to the United States of a Mumbai-Style Attack,” RAND Corporation Testimony Series, June 12, 2013, pp. 1-9, https://www-rand-org.ezproxy.haverford.edu/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT300/CT390/RAND_CT390.pdf;“Who Is Responsible for the Taliban?” The Washington Institute (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 1, 2002), https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban.

[6] “Venezuela – United States Department of State,” U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State, December 1, 2020), https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/venezuela/.

[7] Daniel L Byman, “Understanding, and Misunderstanding, State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, November 2020, pp. 1-19, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610x.2020.1738682.

[8]Barak Mendelsohn, “Strange Bedfellows: Syria’s Support for Jihadi Terrorist Groups and the Limits of Ideologically-Unlikely Partnerships,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (forthcoming).

[9] Daniel Byman and Sarah E. Kreps, “Agents of Destruction? Applying Principal-Agent Analysis to State-Sponsored Terrorism,” International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 1 (2010): pp. 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-3585.2009.00389.x.

[10] Darren G. Hawkins and Wade Jacoby, “How Agents Matter,” in Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 202.

[11] Daniel Byman, “Why Do States Support Terrorism?” in Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 36-44.

[12] Byman, “Why Do States Support Terrorism?” 22.; Alex Wilner, “The Dark Side of Extended Deterrence: Thinking through the State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 3 (February 3, 2017): pp. 410-437, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2017.1284064.

[13] Byman, “Why Do States Support Terrorism?” 33.

[14] Jacob N. Shapiro, “The Terrorist’s Dilemma ,” in The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 27, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tt8v9.5.

[15] Idean Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (July 2010): 495, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002709357890.

[16] Shapiro, “The Terrorist’s Dilemma ,” in The Terrorist’s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations, 31.

[17] Byman and Kreps, “Agents of Destruction? Applying Principal-Agent Analysis to State-Sponsored Terrorism,” 3.

[18] Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 495.

[19] Peter Krause, “The Political Effectiveness of Non-State Violence: A Two-Level Framework to Transform a Deceptive Debate,” Security Studies 22, no. 2 (2013): pp. 259-294, https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2013.786914, 261.

[20] Krause, “The Political Effectiveness of Non-State Violence: A Two-Level Framework to Transform a Deceptive Debate,” 272.

[21] Ibid, 292.

[22] Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006), 267.

[23] Daniel Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” in Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 54.

[24] Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 267.

[25] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 59.

[26] Byman, “Why Do States Support Terrorism?” 52.

[27] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 61.

[28] Hoffman, “Terrorism Today and Tomorrow,” in Inside Terrorism, 259.

[29] Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 507.

[30] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 59.

[31] Ibid, 73.

[32] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 62.

[33] Krause, “The Political Effectiveness of Non-State Violence,” 272.

[34] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 60.

[35] Ibid, 61.

[36] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” pp. 60-61.

[37] Ibid, pp. 63.

[38] Henning Tamm, “Rebel Leaders, Internal Rivals, and External Resources: How State Sponsors Affect Insurgent Cohesion,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 4 (August 22, 2016): pp. 599, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqw033.

[39] Barak Mendelsohn, “Strange Bedfellows: Syria’s Support for Jihadi Terrorist Groups and the Limits of Ideologically-Unlikely Partnerships,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (forthcoming), 6.

[40] Mendelsohn, “Strange Bedfellows,”.

[41] Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 507.

[42] Ibid, 507.

[43] David B Carter, “A Blessing or a Curse? State Support for Terrorist Groups.” International Organization 66, no. 1 (2012): 129–51. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41428948.

[44] Byman and Kreps, “Agents of Destruction?” 10.

[45] Carter, “A Blessing or a Curse? State Support for Terrorist Groups,” 130.

[46] John Worman, “Abu Nidal: Chameleon of Change, A.K.A. Terrorism’s Free Agent.” Global Security Studies 4:1 (2013), 64; Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 507.

[47] Ibid, 507.

[48] Hawkins and Jacoby, “How Agents Matter,” in Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, 208.

[49] Ibid, 205.

[50] Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” 509.

[51] Hawkins and Jacoby, “How Agents Matter,” 206.

[52] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 78.

[53]Mohammed M Hafez and Marc-André Walther, “Routledge Handbook of Political Islam,” in Routledge Handbook of Political Islam (Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), pp. 63-64, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/haverford/detail.action?docID=957784.

[54] Hafez and Walther, “Routledge Handbook of Political Islam,” 65.

[55] Glenn E. Robinson, “Hamas as Social Movement,” in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, ed. Quintan Wiktorowicz (Indiana University Press, 2003), pp. 112-137, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/haverford/detail.action?docID=238838.

[56] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 8.

[57] Khaled Hroub, “Hamas and ‘International Islamism’,” in Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide (New York: Pluto Press, 2010), pp. 93-103, doi:10.2307/j.ctt183p4vc.12.

[58] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 125.

[59] Daniel Byman, “Syria and Palestinian Radical Groups,” in Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 139.

[60] Levitt, “State Support for Hamas.”

[61] “Iran, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Wilson Center, accessed December 20, 2020, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/iran-hamas-and-palestinian-islamic-jihad.

[62] Harriet Sherwood, “Hamas and Iran Rebuild Ties Three Years after Falling out over Syria,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, January 9, 2014), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/hamas-iran-rebuild-ties-falling-out-syria.

[63] Hafez and Walther, “Routledge Handbook of Political Islam,” in Routledge Handbook of Political Islam, 64.

[64] Levitt, “State Support for Hamas,” 174.

[65] Ze’ev Schiff, “Sources Say Syria Pushing Hamas to Renew Attacks,” Haaretz.com (Haaretz, January 11, 2018), https://www.haaretz.com/1.5190298.

[66] Ora Szekely, “Hamas,” in Politics of Militant Survival in the Middle East: Resources, Relationships, and Resistance (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 211.

[67] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 8.

[68] Szekely, “Hamas,” in Politics of Militant Survival in the Middle East: Resources, Relationships, and Resistance, 217.

[69] Ibid, 215.

[70] Ibid, 215.

[71] Ibid, 214.

[72] Szekely, “Hamas,” 212.

[73] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 62.

[74] Byman, “Syria and Palestinian Radical Groups,” 132.

[75] Byman, “The Nature and Impact of State Support,” 66.; Szekely, “Hamas,” 215.

[76] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 116.

[77] Levitt, “State Support for Hamas,” 174.

[78] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 118.

[79] Fawaz A. Gerges, “The Transformation of Hamas,” The Nation, June 29, 2015, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/transformation-hamas/.

[80] Hafez and Walther, “Routledge Handbook of Political Islam,” in Routledge Handbook of Political Islam, 62.

[81] Gerges, “The Transformation of Hamas.”

[82] Szekely, “Hamas,” 217.

[83] Ibid, 217.

[84] Levitt, “State Support for Hamas,” 174.

[85] Szekely, “Hamas,” 226.

[86] Ibid, 228.

[87] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 30.; Szekely, “Hamas,” 213.

[88] Thomson, “The Ties that Bind: Iran and Hamas’ Principal-Agent Relationship,” 119.

[89] Tareq Baconi, “Regional Misfortunes,” in Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018), 186.

[90] Szekely, “Hamas,” 218.

Despite the unilateral and coalitional responses of the U.S., other states, and the broader international community, terrorist movements associated with violent jihad have gained traction and resilience over the last thirty years.  The devastating and symbolic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 turned the attention of the U.S. and the world to the rising threat of violent extremism in the name of Islam, and led U.S. President George W. Bush to declare that the U.S. would become one of the major leaders in this “Global War on Terrorism.”  This “War on Terror” has been primarily understood in terms of political violence, but military action and “hard force” have proved insufficient in responding to this phenomenon.

Dina Al Raffie, in September 2012, offered a sober assessment of U.S. efforts in this counterterrorism campaign:

Perhaps the biggest mistake in [this war] was the belief that the destruction of Al-Qaeda’s training camps would lead to the demise of the group, its affiliated movements and the Salafi Jihadist ideology to which the organization is understood by many to belong.  Few paused to consider if Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were perhaps only the tip of a substantially larger iceberg.  Now, eleven years down the line, two wars and 1.283 trillion dollars later, politicians and scholars alike are still devoting time into furthering our understanding of groups like Al-Qaeda and their associated Salafi Jihadist movement. More importantly, much focus has been given to the ideology that underlies the phenomenon of Salafi Jihadism in an effort to understand why it continues to inspire local initiatives and individuals to act on its behalf.[1]

In the last decade, as she explained, governmental and military officials leading the counterterrorism campaign have slowly begun to recognize the need for “soft” efforts in the communication arena, whether it be an enhanced focus on the propaganda mechanisms or the narratives themselves.[2]

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al-Qaeda, proudly described one of the organization’s achievements as “a clear thought and ideology […] relying on strong evidence from the Koran, the prophet’s tradition, and the respected scholars. This provided it with a solid base on which it hoisted its banner, which everyday attracts new advocates, God willing”.[3] Al-Qaeda has proven to be an extremely resilient organization in the face of much international pressure.  It is diffuse, decentralized, and worn down in some areas today, yet Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula share the same goals as Osama Bin Laden called for after the “War on Terror” began following September 11^th – the establishment of a transnational pan-Islamic identity and the restoration of the Caliphate in order to unite, protect, and enable the Muslim community to actualize its full potential.[4] Groups with similar ideologies [like the Islamic State] may slight Al-Qaeda today, and it may face increasing challenges in leading its adherents and affiliates.  However, Al-Qaeda believes that the U.S. is retreating in the Middle East, and failures of the Arab spring have added greater purpose and “ideological momentum.” In spite of the international coalition’s efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism, the Salafi jihadist view of the world (a willingness to restore an “originalist” form of Islam through violence) that Al-Qaeda promotes and fights for has maintained its appeal and even gained ground over time.[5]  This dynamic demonstrates that the world must approach the challenges of religious terrorism with a longer-term perspective to understand the conditions that allow for these groups to rise and endure.  Key to understanding these conditions is an understanding of one of the common threads that run through the generations of this wave of religious terrorism associated with violent jihad: a compelling narrative.

Violent extremism creates unique problem sets that cannot be addressed with mere military force; countering this threat both at home and abroad requires deliberate and well-informed engagement with the war of ideas and the narratives each group uses.  It is therefore imperative that scholars and policy-makers alike understand how religious leaders communicate to recruit, radicalize, mobilize, and legitimize their terrorist strategies and tactics.  The most effective narratives are embedded and grounded in cultural meaning, identities, stories, history, and religious scripture.  Each of these elements stands as a support structure for the narratives and the organizations themselves. We need to understand how Salafi Jihadists build bridges between mainstream Islam and their ideology through the weaving together of religion, history, culture, and other features in an attempt to justify the propagation of violence.[6]

Research Question

The broad question I seek to answer is: what are the components of the religious and ideological narrative Al-Qaeda has sought to use in attracting followers and mobilizing its support base toward violence?  Many authors have articulated various narratives that exist within Al-Qaeda propaganda.  Though progress has been made on this subject in the last decade, there is a need for synthesis of the existing knowledge and further exploration of the steps that can be made moving forward to counter these methods of radicalization, recruitment, and mobilization.  The multitude of sources provides many ideas, but the current literature lacks a framework that captures the many dimensions, intricacies, nuances, and full sequential, cumulative logic of the narrative. It has become a very complicated landscape but the existing models are too simplified – a theoretical framework that fuses the most significant ideas together but appreciates the complexities will add value in fighting this war of ideas because it will enable us to better understand the foundational themes, underlying assumptions, arguments, strands of logic, rhetorical modes of persuasion, and smaller pieces of this patchwork that form the entire narrative.  Only by understanding each piece of the puzzle can we respond effectively. Hence, this paper will survey the literature on the narratives used by Al-Qaeda to synthesize existing ideas and construct a new, more comprehensive conceptual framework.

Methodological Approach

I will use an exploratory approach to examine this ideological component of Al-Qaeda’s appeal and persuasion.  This method of exploration offers great utility because it has the potential for a level of critical, honest, open-minded, and reflective engagement that is unmatched by conclusive or confirmatory research, which is driven from its start by a biased motivation to prove or validate hypotheses and “advance arguments that make exclusive truth claims”.[7] Exploratory research starts from an “original set of models, explanations, and questions, then becomes an act of gradual, structured, and theory-led heuristic expansion”.[8]  Rather than striving to prove an exclusive claim about reality or identify a final solution, this type of study aims to provide “more or less plausible and hence fruitful ways to examine and explain reality that can be shared, if successful and plausible, after a critical evaluation”.[9]  As a result, conflicting explanations have the space to coexist, and each may hold its own strengths and limitations, and may explore or explain the topic with varying levels of depth.[10]  Oftentimes exploratory research serves as a foundation upon which the scholar can complete future research.[11]  My methodological process and intent is therefore to build a conceptual framework to improve our ability to analyze, understand, and ultimately counter the narratives historically employed by Al-Qaeda and other violent extremist groups such as the Islamic State.

Literature Review

Synthesized Conception of the term “Narrative,” and its Variations

Before examining the scholarship on the ideological trends of terrorism associated with the Islamic religion, it is important to discuss and clarify a few definitions. First and foremost, I will summarize and bring together various ideas about narratives themselves. Generally speaking, the term narrative can be thought of as the “story or recruitment pitch of violent extremists”.[12]  However, in my exploration of Al-Qaeda’s narrative themes, I will employ a more nuanced definition that includes different forms of narratives.

My understanding of narratives most heavily draws from Steven Corman’s definitions.  First, Corman recognizes that the academic and practical realms lack consensus on the distinctions between concepts like story, narrative, and discourse.  He then clarifies the definitions of each.  A story, he offers, is “a sequence of events, involving actors and actions, grounded in desire (often stemming from conflict) and leading to an actual or projected resolution of that desire, [while] a narrative is a system of stories that share themes, forms, and archetypes”. When stories are sequentially and deliberately tied together in this ensemble, it “creates a unified whole that [holds greater meaning] than the sum of its parts”. [13] Corman then delineates several different forms of narratives, the first being “master narratives, [which] are so deeply engrained [and well-known] that they [and the themes, memories, and values they are associated with] can be invoked by words and phrases without actually telling the stories that comprise them”.[14]  These include common stories and experiences that take on a trans-historical and even transnational nature when recounted for rhetorical or ideological purposes.[15] Master narratives can be combined to form an inclusive rhetorical vision, which “contains a stock of values, morals, story forms, and archetypical actors that can be used in narrative action”. Alluding to them can generate powerful emotional responses. Local and personal narratives are the last two kinds. Local narratives, which can emerge out of master narratives, refer to “[more specific] events in particular times and places,” and personal narratives allow individuals to determine what their role is, has been, and should be, by fitting themselves into the context of a local narrative.[16]    

Before moving onto the more specific case of Al-Qaeda, it is crucial to consider why narratives are important.  In exploring this question, I will bring together ideas and explanations from numerous scholars and practitioners, creating a logical path through which we can better understand the impact narratives have on our societies, cultures, perceptions, world-view, decision-making calculus, and even rationality.  Michael Vlahos asserts that in war, narratives serve as the foundation of all strategy, upon which all else – policy, rhetoric, and action – is built […] War narratives “can illuminate the inner nature of the war itself”.[17] Juxtaposing this upon the radical extremists’ concept of jihad, or holy war, it becomes clear that the narrative supports and sustains the strategy while providing insight into the perceived nature of the struggle as a whole.  As military theorist George Dimitriu asserts, narratives are a resource through which a “shared sense is achieved, representing a past, present and future, an obstacle and a desired end-point”.[18]  Furthermore, narratives are “both products of, and contributors to the nature of existent cultures”.[19] The interweaving of narratives constructs “social realities” by defining subjects, identities, and establishing their relational positions within a system of signification”.[20] Although the phenomenon of narratives is not dangerous in and of itself, these constructed “realities” and templates become much more disturbing when they are employed as tools for political actors to mobilize support for and acceptance of violent extremism because they “present an alternate form of rationality”.[21] Narrative rationality spurs action because of its salient link to desires, emotions, values, and its impact on how we interpret, conceptualize, and explain events within the world. Oftentimes, it trumps logical reasoning.[22] It is clear that the power of narratives, if harnessed with the intent to radicalize, draw support, and inspire violent actions, can have a significant impact on both individuals and groups.

Survey of the Literature on Al Qaeda’s Narrative

One of the most comprehensive analyses of Al-Qaeda’s narrative, completed by Alex Schmid, brings together much of the academic knowledge on Al-Qaeda’s ideological narrative that existed by the year 2014, and provides a survey of the counter-narrative efforts of the U.S. and UK.  He “[consults] the ideological writings and propaganda statements of Al-Qaeda, as contained in, for instance, the documentary collections edited by Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli or the ones of Raymond Ibrahim, Bruce Lawrence and Robert Marlin”.[23] Ibrahim, when examining the writings of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri, observed that “most of their [extremist products] fit neatly into two genres – religious exegesis, meant to motivate and instruct Muslims, and propagandist speeches, aimed at demoralizing the West and inciting Muslims to action”.  Both are characterized by the claims that “the West is oppressive and unjust toward Islam, that the West supports ruthless and dictatorial regimes in the Islamic world,” and other grievances.[24] The messaging within these writings and speeches intensifies real or imagined grievances, and as Briggs describes, is a “mix of historical and political facts with half-truths, lies and conspiracy theories. These messages often convey simplistic argumentation which promotes thought-processes that include black-and-white thinking, de-sensitization, dehumanization, distancing of the other, victimization and calls to activism and militancy”.[25]

Schmid emphasizes that Al-Qaeda’s “chief message” is meant to cement the idea that “the West is at war with Islam,” and through its rhetoric has constructed a narrative of humiliation and oppression coupled with an opportunity to achieve redemption and glory by demonstrating “faith and sacrifice” through jihad. It is only by “following the course proposed by Al-Qaeda, the self-appointed defender [and vanguard] of Islam, which it claims is under systematic attack from “Zionist Christian Crusaders,” that justice and dignity can be restored, and Western influence can be eradicated in the Muslim world.[26]

Schmid lays out three structural components of the narrative: basic grievance, a vision of the good society, and a path from the grievance to the realization of the vision.  In addition, he highlights important ideas within the narrative that are not necessarily sanctioned by conventional interpretations of the faith: that suicide/martyrdom (shahid) operations are legitimate, civilian and military targets are both valid in the fight against its near and far enemies, the excommunication of Muslims is proper protocol for failures to abide by Sharia law or accept the beliefs and practices deemed right by jihadists, the pursuit of jihad (in the sense of holy war) is an individual obligation for every true Muslim, a clash of civilizations between the Muslim and non-Muslim world will occur until Sharia rule is established universally, and that the establishment of a government ruled by Sharia is a stepping stone to a Sharia based world government.[27]

Lastly, Schmid covers six ways in which the narrative “prepares the path for vulnerable young Muslims toward terrorism:” identifying the problem as an injustice rather than a mere misfortune, constructing a moral justification for violence, blaming the victims, dehumanizing the victims, displacing responsibility (ordered by God or other authorities) or diffusing responsibility (placing accountability on the group rather than the individual), and misconstruing or minimizing harmful effects (through euphemisms or by contrasting one’s own atrocities with those of the enemy.[28]

Another scholar, David Betz, contributed a basic model of the narrative, breaking it into four sequential ideas: Islam is under general unjust attack by Western crusaders led by the U.S.; jihadis are defending against this attack; the actions they take in defense of Islam are proportionately just and religiously sanctified; and, therefore it is the duty of good Muslims to support these actions.[29]

Tom Quiggin provides a list of the most relevant and influential works by Al-Qaeda and its sympathizers, and bases his analysis of the group’s ideology on this literature and its statements.  His main takeaways include a three-part structure of a set-up (that aligns well with Betz’ model), climax, and resolution in the narrative which forms the rationale behind joining the organization, and eight themes that resonate within Al-Qaeda’s jihadist discourse.  The structure includes (1) political grievances (oppression, poverty, exploitation) in its claim that Muslims are under attack, (2) the notion that Al-Qaeda’s mission is to be the heroic vanguard and agent of the oppressed and only the organization and its followers are fighting the opponents of Islam, and (3) the claim that if you are not supporting Al-Qaeda, you are supporting the oppressors (a call to action).[30] The eight concepts within the narrative are: jihad (struggle through war), bayat (pledge of obedience to the leader of a group as one would give to Mohammed), daru Islam (an Islamic state), the Ummah (collective Muslim community), takfir (accusing others of being infidels or non-believers), shaheed or istisyhad (martyrdom and migration to Allah to be rewarded after a suicide act), Al-Wala’ Wal Bara’ (us versus them, friends versus enemies), hijrah (migration – surrendering worldly inclinations for the sake of heavenly goals and Allah).[31]

Although Schmid, Betz, and Quiggin’s narrative structures are easy to understand, there is room to fill in the gaps, elucidate the complex set of assumptions, logics, appeals, and justifications behind each component, and build upon their ideas with a more nuanced framework.

Richard Engel draws out a powerful account of an “arc of history” that Osama Bin Laden relied upon in much of his rhetoric, and that “every Muslim schoolchild is taught” and grows to resent: “Islam’s golden era of the Arab caliphate, the Crusades, the Mongol devastation, the rise of the Ottomans, World War I, the carving up of the Middle East by Europe, and the poverty, weakness, and wars in the Muslim world of the last century”.[32]  Though Engel acknowledges that only a small percentage of Muslims agree with terrorist tactics, millions understand this world vision.[33]  Bin Laden’s account of history places blame for every problem and time of adversity Muslims faced or currently face on the West.  This narrative sees nation-building and policing efforts as a subversive attempt to “reinforce a foreign system under the banner of democracy” in such a way that it makes the region weak, Israel strong and secure, and favors secular, pro-American autocracies.[34] Bin Laden’s solution for changing the trajectory was to attack the U.S., the “modern crusader,” wear and bring it down, enact change in the world order by doing so, and enable the Islamic caliphate to rise again through this Salafi jihadi movement.[35]

Similarly, Bruce Hoffman touches upon this need for “far-reaching changes in the world order,” describing the choices Al-Qaeda saw itself facing: “either to accept it with submission, which means letting Islam die, or to destroy it, so that we can construct the world as Islam requires”.[36] When distinguishing between secular and religious terrorists, Hoffman asserts that the militancy justified with religion is even more unrestricted than that of secular terrorist groups who are susceptible to political, moral, and practical imperatives.  First, “for the religious terrorist, violence is a sacramental act or divine duty executed in direct response to some theological demand or imperative. Terrorism assumes a transcendental dimension;” thus, religious terrorists are virtually unimpeded.[37]  For instance, the structural differences in audiences ‘leads to a sanctioning of almost limitless violence against a virtually open-ended category of targets […] and explains the rhetoric common to holy terror manifestos describing persons outside the terrorists’ religious community in denigrating and dehumanizing terms, such as “infidels,” “nonbelievers,” “children of Satan,” and “mud people.” The deliberate use of such adjectives to condone and justify terrorism is significant in that it further erodes the constraints on violence’.[38]

Heather Gregg, in her discussion of the definition of religious terrorism, points out that “non-religious factors may cause groups to use terrorism for religiously salient goals. For example, groups may use terrorism with the aim of overthrowing governments that they believe are not upholding the tenets of a particular religion and installing a religious government in its place. The cause of the terrorist act is something outside of the faith, but the goal is uniquely religious”.[39] This idea may have salience with the way Al-Qaeda constructs its narrative appeals and frames its ultimate objective.

Moving deeper into how religion drives the narrative, in her article about Salafi Jihadism, Dina Raffie provides an assessment of how religion is used as a pretext for violence. She stresses that the groups often redefine and re-contextualize religious terms and concepts to align with jihadist narratives. [40] Similarly, Quintan Wiktorowicz characterizes the religious dimension of the narrative as a “dichotomous struggle for God’s sovereignty on earth [which] eliminates the middle ground and sets the stage for a millennial, eschatological battle between good and evil”.[41]

Finally, three of the stories or concepts most heavily used within Islamist Extremism’s strategic communication provide insight into the major themes and underlying beliefs: Al-Nakbah (this invokes themes of the catastrophe in the loss of Palestine to Israel then deliverance because champions from the ummah step forth to restore the community), Crusaders (this is the common colonization story of Christian invasions of the Middle East in the 10^th through 12^th centuries, followed by subjugation and humiliation of the community until they’re repelled), and the Pharaoh (this is a label to “apostate leaders” in Muslim countries whom extremists consider to be corrupt and dictatorial, encouraging the audience to resist the tyrant and take on the role of God’s agent).[42] The main conclusions of each of these are that the struggle requires a champion to reconcile the injustice, and that all in the Muslim community should join and contribute. These stories represent calls to action, and have the potential to inform my understanding of the deep cultural values, beliefs, and worldviews that drive behavior.

Synthesized, more Inclusive & Nuanced Framework

The wide array of sources provides many ideas, but the current literature lacks a framework that captures and embraces the complexities, dimensions, nuances, and full sequential, cumulative logic of the narrative.  Each of the scholarly works offer a few components that are important, or a structure to the narrative.  Although simplification helps provide order to complex phenomena, oversimplifying the dynamic and intricate processes characterizing Al-Qaeda’s narrative may be limiting our ability to understand and counter the terrorist activity.  Taking this existing literature and each of the overlapping, diverging, and unique contributions into account, I have created a fused framework that maps out the relationships between the broad themes, ideas, claims, and beliefs nested within Al-Qaeda’s narrative. I offer a nuanced and detailed thematic framework that captures how commonly experienced emotions, grievances, thoughts, beliefs, and values can be intensified, radicalized, and mobilized to build a willingness to commit acts of violence.  Counter-narrative efforts must first and foremost be based upon a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the narratives themselves; in order to question, identify hypocrisy, and dismantle the validity of the narrative and its assumptions, one must first understand the full spectrum of and relationships between the ideas it propagates.  I propose ten major themes, messages, or functions that create a cumulative effect when intertwined to form Al-Qaeda’s compelling narrative.

1) Grievances as Unjustly Imposed

The first broad narrative theme is the idea of grievance.  Within this context, Al-Qaeda invokes a story of victimization, and recounts a history of humiliation through invasion, oppression, exploitation, discrimination, marginalization, and other forms of mistreatment.  Osama Bin Laden placed emphasis on what he described as the “puppets” of the U.S. and the unjust influence and involvement of the U.S. and West in the Middle East, and grounded much of the narrative in the underlying premise that the main problems Muslims face and have faced throughout history “were caused by the American occupiers”.[43] This deflects responsibility for “war” from the terrorists to the ‘oppressors’.  The notion of grievance is thus multifaceted, and spurs thought processes and belief systems that lead to alienation of the Muslims who have grown to resent Western influence, and blames the necessity of jihad on the West.

2) The Perceived Need to Defend Islam in the Face of an Existential Crisis

By painting grievances as imposed by the West rather than just misfortunes, and by framing Western actions as part of a larger attempt to strengthen themselves at the expense of the Islamic world, the “local stories” are translated into broader national and transnational narratives of collective and unjust suffering that must be reconciled.  This second message Al-Qaeda broadcasts is that this continued historical struggle is evidence that Islam is under siege.  Al-Qaeda therefore depicts its ‘defensive war’ as the justified and provoked response to an existential crisis. As Engel describes, Osama Bin Laden argued that the secret intent behind Western presence, policing, and stability efforts was to “keep Muslims locked in a nation-state system that thwarted the rightful destiny of Islam”.[44] As a result, Al-Qaeda classifies its acts of violence as resistance to the aggression from an enemy bent on weakening Islam.  The implications of this framing is that the narrative encourages Muslims to believe that Al-Qaeda, in employing a strategy of terrorism and engaging in violent, indiscriminate tactics, is responding proportionately to decades and even centuries of ‘injustice’.  Al-Qaeda’s mission is to thus rectify the world order so that it is conducive to Islam’s survival and prosperity.[45]  By framing the narrative in this way, it can then be perceived as a “struggle to uphold Islam, not terror”.[46]

3) Seeing the World in Black and White

Third, Al-Qaeda has crafted an interpretation of the battleground and enemy that is extremely polarized. The reduction of the complex and dynamic relationships between actors in the international arena into simple, clichéd dichotomies dividing humanity into good versus evil, friend and foe, and us versus them is epitomized by the term al-Wala wa’l-Bara, meaning those one has “to love, support, help, follow, defend […], and those one has to despise, desert, denounce”.[47] This polarization defines the struggle itself as a grand, divine war against the corrupt and impure enemies of Al-Qaeda using the notion of takfir: labeling “infidels” or apostates like the US, Israel, and other Jews, Christians, polytheists, pagans, and secular leaders.[48] The degradation and dehumanization of ‘enemies’ makes it easier for Al-Qaeda to present these groups as almost unworthy of living, and distance themselves further from their targets.  By portraying the West as Christian and Zionist crusaders, the organization builds the narrative around these ‘predators’ to further differentiate between what is good and evil.

4) An Irreconcilable Eschatological Conflict between these Forces of Darkness and Light

The problem the narrative helps to create is also underlined by a sense of irreconcilability.  It essentially renders any possibility of a middle ground, compromise, or peaceful coexistence null; the conflict itself becomes a zero sum game.  Instead, Al-Qaeda calls upon Muslims to help obliterate these dark forces of Western influence so that it can ultimately lead the establishment of a Sharia state after eradicating its largest threat.  Therefore, not only does Al-Qaeda circulate the theme of unjustly imposed grievance and create the perception of an existential struggle against evil, but it also interprets the conflict as eschatological, rooting it in highly connotative and subjective interpretations of the past, present, and future.  This system of interpreted historical events, emotionally-charged memories, powerful stories, and perceptual themes elevates the decision to join as a moral imperative.

5) Al-Qaeda as the Only Way: The Divinely Appointed Agent of the Oppressed

The fifth narrative theme is the premise that Al-Qaeda is the vanguard that embraces and calls upon Muslims of all nations and ethnicities around the world.  It claims to be both an agent of the oppressed, and an agent of Allah.  Al-Qaeda, under Osama Bin Laden, was especially concerned with its brand and made efforts to ensure its affiliates were sanctioned and following its protocols to remain true to this identity and control its message.  Al-Qaeda often invokes the idea of bayat in the context of followership, which highlights that followers and operatives should show the same level of obedience to Al-Qaeda as they should show to Allah.  It has often been presented as a theological imperative, or duty incumbent upon all Muslims to demonstrate piety and devotion to the faith through Al-Qaeda membership.  A highly important nuance to consider is that Al-Qaeda frames adherence as the only rightful path, stressing that if one is not supporting the organization, they are instead supporting the oppressors and defying Allah.  In this way, the narrative seeks to persuade Muslims that the only way to rectify and achieve redemption for the injustices, lessen their grievances, protect their religion to ensure its survival in the face of dark and powerful adversaries, and show true obedience to Allah is to join Al-Qaeda.

6) Exploiting the Idea of Transcendence to Dismiss the Laws of the World as Illegitimate

Al-Qaeda has sought to recruit, radicalize, and mobilize in pursuit of its political agenda by religious-based justification of violent means.  First, Al-Qaeda’s narrative exploits the transcendent nature of religion itself by weaving an argument together that invalidates the laws and rules of society and the international system.  The organization sees the values, institutions, and conflict resolution mechanisms currently in place as illegitimate, and furthermore draws upon the idea of the cosmic world being more important than the physical to justify why it ought to not be constrained by secular rules.[49]

7) Enticing Potential Followers with Promises of Immediate Heavenly Rewards and Glorifying ‘Champions’ of the Islamic Community

The seventh theme is a powerful message about the morality of violence. The narrative highlights the value of force because of the expediency of those tactics in the attainment of individual heavenly reward and in the fulfillment of Al-Qaeda’s vision of the ideal world.  Another primary element within this theme of glorification of violence is the “social-heroic” idea, which venerates violent acts of terrorism and their perpetrators.  Acts of terrorism themselves are regarded as noble, sacramental acts of devotion. The idea of “personal responsibility to protect fellow Muslims from harm,”[50] the idealization of martyrdom and celebration of former fighters as saviors or “champions of Islam” within the Al-Qaeda community, and the promise of immediate heavenly rewards and deliverance upon death fall within this religious-ideological concept.  This piece of the narrative encourages and incentivizes fellow Muslims to exhibit a willingness to sacrifice for the cause.

8) Appealing to the Faith and Using Claims of Protecting the Religion as a Shield Against Challengers and ‘Debunkers’

When Al-Qaeda fits its efforts and mission in the context of the religion, it bolsters its legitimacy and draws upon elements of the faith that mainstream Muslims can relate to. Al-Qaeda relies upon an “eclectic patchwork of cherry-picked elements from sources considered sacred, [including the Qur’an and the Hadith among other classical theological concepts],” and has built appeal and justification into its narrative by incorporating Salafist and jihadist Islamism in the religious tradition.[51]  Doing so also allows the narrative to retain a sense of impenetrability or “invulnerability” because any attack on it or attempt to “debunk” the fallacies can be framed as an attack on Islam itself, which reinforces aforementioned themes.[52]

9) Transforming and Mobilizing a Religious Constituency to Create Political Change Through Force

On whole, Al-Qaeda’s primary audience is the worldwide Muslim population, and its narrative is carefully and deliberately crafted to ultimately transform its initial religious constituency into a politically motivated group that can serve as an agent of coercive change. As shown above, Al-Qaeda’s narrative appeals to deep-seated grievances, fears, pride in the religion, moral drives, a belief in obedience, a desire to be a hero and contribute, and lastly a strong sense of piety and devotion. The religious and ideological narrative seeks to intensify these feelings, thoughts, values, and beliefs to ultimately mobilize the individuals to commit acts of violence.  The thought processes triggered by each thematic aspect of the narrative are intended to first politicize then radicalize those who are susceptible to the messages such that they are willing to train and use force in accordance with Al-Qaeda’s global mission.

10) The Narrative’s Impact on Al-Qaeda’s Strategic Flexibility and Long-Term Resilience

Finally, Al-Qaeda’s narrative plays a significant role in its overall strategy and resilience.  First, the narrative allows the organization to build legitimacy and credibility regardless of whether it succeeds or fails in the shorter-term.  For instance, the terrorist attacks of September 11^th served Al-Qaeda as “propaganda of the deed”.[53]  Consistent with the understanding that its primary audience is the Muslim community, this was intended to have a great impact on the confidence of Al-Qaeda’s potential supporters who might begin to see the U.S. as vulnerable, and trust Al-Qaeda more as a powerful, capable organization worthy of supporting. Even if it would cause a greater security dilemma for Al-Qaeda, it seems the second objective was to provoke the U.S. to act in such a way that would further anger, alienate, and drive Muslims into the welcoming arms of Al-Qaeda.[54]  Both goals could further strengthen the narrative. Therefore this parallels insurgency warfare: the military defeat of the group in a certain location like its stronghold, safe-haven, or primary training ground may temporarily disrupt and dismantle the body of the organization, but it may actually contribute to its longer-term political or strategic success by providing more empirical evidence that can be woven into an already compelling, multi-generational narrative.  Al-Qaeda constantly seeks new and promising markets for the circulation of its message, ways to socialize new generations of followers, and ways to link world events to its narrative. The adaptable narrative protects the organization by maintaining a reservoir of collective memories about successes, and framing any military failures, Western, or U.S.-led efforts to destroy it as further confirmation of the requirement of violence in this great “war on Islam”.

Conclusions and Implications

Assessing the state of the literature on Al-Qaeda’s ideological and religious narrative, there are a variety of sources that offer useful theories to describe the structure or logic of Al-Qaeda’s overarching message.  However, the current literature lacks a framework that is thorough enough to encapsulate the nuances, and full sequential, cumulative logic of the narrative.  I have therefore created a synthesized framework that maps out the themes and the details nested within: commonly experienced emotions, grievances, thoughts, beliefs, and values that can be intensified, radicalized, and mobilized to build a willingness to commit or at the very least grow complicit in the proliferation of acts of violence.  I have proposed ten major themes, messages, or functions that hold a cumulative effect in Al-Qaeda’s narrative.  Though parsimonious theories hold value in the way they strive to deconstruct complex realities, oversimplification when it comes to understanding the narratives of violent extremists potentially disables efforts to counter and respond to those narratives; my framework provides a thorough delineation of the stories, themes, appeals, and logics within the ensemble.       

Implications for Policy and Further Research

As many scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners have noted, kinetic force is not sufficient in countering terrorism.  There are several dimensions to the threat, and the more recent rise of the Islamic State illustrates that this phenomenon of radical jihadism is recurrent and multigenerational.  This renders the ideological domain even more important, because the propaganda rhetoric and narratives religious terrorist organizations rely on draw from decades and centuries of history, as well as current events, to paint a picture of the world and their religious constituency’s existing and rightful place in the order. The Islamic State has invested heavily in this arena, and has constructed powerful propaganda mechanisms that use the latest social media platforms to recruit, radicalize, and mobilize homegrown terrorists, supporters in the Middle East, and foreign fighters.  Though it is a sobering and unsettling realization, the threat of radical jihadism is not one that can be fully eradicated or defeated, but must be instead conceptualized as a “chronic disease like cancer,” and thus managed and contained.[55]  There is a need to pinpoint effective ways to act more preventatively and proactively rather than just reacting to attacks themselves including (but not limited to) “identify[ing] at-risk segments of the population, interdicting those who have become radicalized before,” building cooperation between the public and private sectors to adapt to the ever-evolving nature of the war of ideas in the context of the rapid pace of technological innovation, strengthening multilateral relationships to synchronize and coordinate but also delegating and allocating resources and mission sets, tactfully leveraging partnerships with the Muslim community at home and abroad to engage in credible counter-radicalization and counter-narrative efforts that help reveal hypocrisies, fallacies, and inconsistencies with the mainstream interpretations of the world religion of Islam, empowering preemptive education programs, community groups, and political action communities, and bridging the relationship gap to lessen the supposed need to posture oneself to defend its religion in light of a perceived existential crisis.[56] Understanding the narrative first will enable us to continue to problem-solve and address the root causes of this type of violence.

Building upon these implications, there are a few more suggestions from this exploratory research in the counter-narrative challenge.  First, it is imperative that we strive for greater understanding, especially by increasing the transparency of our intentions in and with various regions and states.  We need to strive to acknowledge the political, economic, and social grievances many Muslims face around the world to demonstrate greater empathy, support, and sensitivity to the cultural, societal, and historical contexts in which we operate and involve ourselves.  We need to engage in diplomacy and work to not truly show that we are not at war with Islam in our own country and beyond.  These ways should be incorporated into our strategic vision, and will address the first four components of the narrative in my framework. Moving forward, we need to aid the broader Muslim community to invalidate and shed light on the hypocrisies of Al-Qaeda’s claims that jihad is the rightful path and that legal and moral codes of the modern world are indeed legitimate and necessary to uphold for the security and prosperity of all of humanity.  Finally, Muslim leaders in both the U.S. and international arena must highlight inconsistencies between Al-Qaeda’s methods, tactics, and premises and the foundational texts of the faith.  All in all, as Hoffman concludes, we need a broader solution range and greater awareness of the various domains in which this national and international security challenge manifests itself, as well as a true investment in the longer-term battle against radical extremist ideologies that arise at home and abroad.

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 Endnotes

[1] Dina Al Raffie, (2012). Whose Hearts and Minds? Narratives and Counter-Narratives of Salafi Jihadism. Journal of Terrorism Research. 3(2). DOI: http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.304

[2] Alex P. Schmid, ‘Al-Qaeda’s “Single Narrative” and Attempts to Develop Counter-Narratives: The State of Knowledge,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (2014): 1.

[3] Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Foreign Broadcasting Information Service (FBIS)-NESD-2002-0108.

[4] Heather S. Gregg, “Defining and Distinguishing Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Vol 8. No. 2, 2014.

[5] “The Unquenchable Fire”, The Economist (28 Sept. 2013). Available online at http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21586834-adaptable-and-resilient-al-qaeda-and-its-allies-keep-bouncing-back-unquenchablefire. See also, Engel, Richard. And Then All Hell Broke Loose (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016): 36.

[6] Dina Al Raffie, (2012). Whose Hearts and Minds? Narratives and Counter-Narratives of Salafi Jihadism. Journal of Terrorism Research. 3(2). DOI:http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.304

[7] Bernd, Reiter, “The Epistemology and Methodology of Exploratory Social Science Research: Crossing Popper with Marcuse,” (2013). Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications, Paper 99. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gia_facpub/99

[8] Ibid., 7.

[9] Ibid., 4.

[10] “Exploratory Research,” Research Methodology, accessed April 7, 2017, http://research-methodology.net/research-methodology/research-design/exploratory-research/.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Sara Zeiger, “Undermining Violent Extremist Narratives in South East Asia,” Hedayah, 2016.

[13] https://info.publicintellige Steven R. Corman, “Understanding the Role of Narrative in Extremist Strategic Communication,” in “Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies,” July 2015. 35.

[14] Ibid., 36.

[15] Dina Al Raffie, (2012). Whose Hearts and Minds? Narratives and Counter-Narratives of Salafi Jihadism. Journal of Terrorism Research. 3(2). DOI:http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.304

[16] Ibid., 37.

[17] Michael Vlahos. “The Long War: A Self-defeating Prophecy,” Asia Times, 9 September 2006.

[18] G. Dimitriu, Strategic Narratives, Counternarratives and Public Support for War: The Dutch government’s explanation of the Uruzgan mission and its influence on the Dutch Public (Leiden University: Master Thesis, Campus The Hague, 2 February 2013), p. 13.

[19] Dina Al Raffie, (2012). Whose Hearts and Minds? Narratives and Counter-Narratives of Salafi Jihadism. Journal of Terrorism Research. 3(2). DOI:http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.304

[20] Richard Jackson, “Constructing Enemies: ‘Islamic Terrorism’ in Political and Academic Discourse”, Government and Opposition 42, (2007), 396.

[21] Ibid., 37

[22] Ibid.

[23] Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli (Eds.), Al-Qaida Texte des Terrors (München: Piper, 2006); Raymond Ibrahim, The al Qaeda Reader, (New York: Doubleday 2007); Bruce Lawrence (Ed.), Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden (London: Verso, 2005); Lorry M. Fenner, Mark E. Stout and Jessica L. Goldings (Eds.), Ten Years Later: Insights on al Qaeda’s Past and Future through Captured Records (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2011); Robert O. Marlin (Ed.), What Does al Qaeda Want? Unedited Communiques (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2004); See also, Jim Lacey (Ed.), The Canons of Jihad. Annapolis (Naval Institute Press, 2008); Karen J. Greenberg (Ed.), Al Qaeda Now: Understanding Today’s Terrorists (Cambridge: University Press, 2005).

[24] Raymond Ibrahim, The al Qaeda Reader (2007), pp. xii, 2 and 5-6.

[25] R. Briggs, S. Feve Review of Programs to Counter Narratives of Violent Extremism (2013), 9.

[26] Alex P. Schmid, ‘Al-Qaeda’s “Single Narrative” and Attempts to Develop Counter-Narratives: The State of Knowledge,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (2014): 6.

[27] Alex P. Schmid, “The Importance of Countering al Qaeda’s ‘Single Narrative’”, in E.J.A.M. Kessels (Ed.), Countering Violent Extremist Narratives (The Hague: National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2010): 47.

[28] Alex P. Schmid, ‘Al-Qaeda’s “Single Narrative” and Attempts to Develop Counter-Narratives: The State of Knowledge,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (2014): 8.

[29] David Betz. 2008. “The virtual dimension of contemporary insurgency and counterinsurgency,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2008, p. 520.

[30] Tom Quiggin, “Understanding Al-Qaeda’s Ideology for Counter-Narrative Work,” Terrorism Research Initiative Vol 3, no 2 (2009).

[31] Ibid.

[32] Richard, Engel.  And Then All Hell Broke Loose (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016): 33.

[33] Ibid., 37.

[34] Ibid., 34.

[35] Ibid., 34.

[36] Bruce Hoffman, “Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1995), pp. 274.

[37] Ibid., 272.

[38] Ibid., 273.

[39] Heather S. Gregg, “Defining and Distinguishing Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Vol 8. No. 2, 2014.

[40] Dina Al Raffie, (2012). Whose Hearts and Minds? Narratives and Counter-Narratives of Salafi Jihadism. Journal of Terrorism Research. 3(2). DOI:http://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.304

[41] Wiktorowicz, Quintan. “A Genealogy of Radical Islam.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 28, no. 2 (2005): 81.

[42] Steven R. Corman, “Understanding the Role of Narrative in Extremist Strategic Communication,” in “Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies,” July 2015. https://info.publicintelligence.net/ARL-CounteringViolentExtremism.pdf. 27.

[43] ‘The New Powder Keg in the Middle East: Mujahid Usamah Bin Ladin Talks Exclusively to ‘Nida’ul Islam’‘. Nida’ul Islam 15 (Oct.-Nov. 1996), http:==www.fas.org=irp=world= para=docs=LADIN.htm.

[44] Engel, Richard. And Then All Hell Broke Loose (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016): 34.

[45] Bruce Hoffman, “Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1995), pp. 274.

[46] Ramakrishna, Kumar. “Deligitimizing the Global Jihadi Ideology in Southeast Asia.” Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 27, No. 3 (December 2005), pp. 343-369.

[47] Alex P. Schmid, ‘Al-Qaeda’s “Single Narrative” and Attempts to Develop Counter-Narratives: The State of Knowledge,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (2014): 1.  

[48] Ibid.

[49] Bruce Hoffman, “Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1995), 272.

[50] Ibid., 9.

[51] Alex P. Schmid, ‘Al-Qaeda’s “Single Narrative” and Attempts to Develop Counter-Narratives: The State of Knowledge,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (2014): 4.

[52] Ibid.

[53] Mark Sedgwick, “Al-Qaeda and the Nature of Religious Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2004): 800.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Price, Bryan C. “15 Years after 9-11: the State of the Fight Against Islamic Terrorism,” Prepared testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, 2016. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20160921/105337/HHRG-114-AS00-Wstate-PriceB-20160921.pdf.

[56] Ibid., 13.  See also Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press, 2006. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/hoff12698.