Transcript of Event: "The Jihadists' Revolt Against Al Qaeda"

By Andrew Cochran

On September 23, the Counterterrorism Foundation and New America Foundation held a live panel discussion on Capitol Hill with Peter Bergen, CTB Contributing Experts Evan Kohlmann and Paul Cruickshank, and guest commentator Maajid Nawaz to discuss "The Jihadists' Revolt Against Al Qaeda: Why Some of Al Qaeda’s Old Allies Have Turned Against It." You can view New America's video of that panel, and you can download a transcript, thanks to Assistant Newslink Editor Brett Wallace. Here are excerpts from the panel:

Peter Bergen: "There are two central fronts in the war on terror, Iraq and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. What happened with Al Qaeda in Iraq, it was an assisted suicide, we helped their suicide and so did the Sunni awakening. They had five problems. First they have terrible leadership. Al Masri who runs AQI is not Zarqawi, Zawahiri or Osama Bin Laden, he is a bad leader. Second is organization. Third is ideological problems, they can’t make compromises. They also have made a lot of enemies such as the 1920’s Brigade. Many of the recruits that have come to Iraq are gone because they commit suicide. The fact that we have seen female suicide attacks is a sign of weakness, not strength.

We know what these groups are against but what are they for? There is no al Qaeda minister of employment, Al Qaeda school, or Al Qaeda social welfare organization. There is not a category of government they have said they are not against, Russia, China, the West, Israel, Shiites and so on. Because of this problem they can’t turn themselves into political movements."

Even Kohlmann: "Arguably over any other issue, the predominant topic of discussion, controversy—and often schism—within the Salafi-Jihadi discourse has revolved around the justifications for deliberately killing other Sunni Muslims, including both innocent civilians and competing mujahideen fighters.

Nowhere else has that debate become more evident and problematic for Salafi-Jihadi leaders than in Iraq, where the insurgency has recently undergone a series of fundamental shifts. First, a wide array of prominent Sunni insurgent factions—including the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Iraqi Hamas, and Asaeb al-Iraq al-Jihadiya (to name just a few)—have become embroiled in bitter public feuds with Al-Qaida’s “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) over the latter’s aggressive insistence that all Sunni insurgent groups join together under the banner of the ISI. The combined impact of this has undeniably had a debilitating impact on the long-term political viability of Al-Qaida and the ISI."

Paul Cruickshank: "But what we have seen recently emerge in the UK is a backlash against Al Qaeda. While a small group of people have been energized by Al Qaeda’s escalating violence, this group of hardcore extremists is becoming more isolated. The July 7 London bombings and the carnage that Al Qaeda has produced in Iraq and other Muslim countries has made a significant number of British Muslims, who were once on the fence when it came to Al Qaeda, turn firmly against them. I think that one can now say that the Muslim community in Britain is finally waking up to the threat of Al Qaeda terrorism. Moreover, the fact that Jihadists are now taking on Al Qaeda has made it considerably easier for moderates to criticize the terrorist organization.

In the UK there are signs that the radicals are on the back foot. Just anecdotally, I can tell you that attendance seems to be down at events organized by groups supportive of Al Qaeda compared to a few years ago. I asked a leading pro-Al Qaeda militant in the UK about the many empty chairs at one such event this summer and he conceded that it was becoming more difficult to attract young Muslims to such meetings. British authorities have taken advantage of the emerging Jihadist critique of Al Qaeda by pragmatically engaging with Jihadists and Salafists critical of Al Qaeda, while cracking down on the real problem groups. The British government’s approach is to try to isolate the violent extremists."

Maajid Nawaz: "All terrorist jihadist organizations, not meaning Hamas here, but the international global Islamists, they are all Wahhabi in nature and share that creed. Whether you look at North Africa or Lashkar-e-Taiba, they are Wahabi in creed and Islamist in politics. By embracing former terrorists who are still Islamists, there is a danger of a short term tactical gain and a long term ideological loss. By empowering former jihadists, who are yet to recant Islamism itself, are we reinforcing the same ideology that produced terrorism, and if it doesn’t produce it again there is a danger at the very least that they could obtain power and establish a totalitarian state that does not believe in national borders and will conquer neighbors."

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