Introduction: Overview & Thesis
According to a PBS report in 2011, commenting on Middle East rooted terrorist group attacks, “While these extremely violent religious extremists represent a minority view, their threat is real” (Moore, “Evolution of Islamic Terrorism”). Today, of course, the most commonly popularized terrorist group gaining worldwide headlines in the news are the jihadists known as ISIS. Ever since ISIS has gained center stage internationally, there is hardly a human being who is not aware of the group’s presence on Earth. Currently it has been written that the contemporary world in the Middle East has been socio-politically changed, and the actions of the group ISIS has violently “shocked the international community” as they pose a serious regional threat, which Panayiotides had suggested (“The Islamic State and the Redistribution”). The situation was not always thus.
History tells a story of how this climate emerged. This paper is arranged in four key parts. These sections include: (a) History of Middle East Terrorism, (b) Effects of Wars on Terror Groups, (c) Current Status of Middle East Terrorism, and (d) In-Depth Study on Selected Groups. Historical evidence will demonstrate a turning point in 1979, hopefully providing a cogent basis for analysis. Although the dictum of language essentially characterizes terror groups as emerging from Middle East hinterlands, the effect of terrorism has taken on a globalized complexion and international concern. Nevertheless, the thesis for this prospectus is as follows. The shift from secular political terror groups to extreme Islamic religious terror groups has evolved over the last few decades.
I. History of Terrorism in the Middle East
1) Countries Involved & Associated Terror Groups
At the outset, it is important to state that terrorist groups had also emerged into a bona fide collection of organizations. Whether loosely or in varying degrees of tightly knit groups, the reality calculates that myriad terrorist groups are – in fact – organized. It is important to ascertain the various involvement of countries spans from Middle East into parts of South Asia, however for the purposes herein the focus shall elaborate on the Mid-East. This chapter shall explore whether or how a jump in historical terror spanned anti-Western Palestinian political sentiments from 1968-1979, bridging nationalist-to-jihadist progressions. Yet, in terms of different countries of the Middle East associating an elicited involvement with terrorism, either as proactively engaged in sponsorship, or accepting of terrorist presence within their borders, there exist official and unofficial lists. A generally accepted roster of nations could be identified, and examined, which tolerate the presence of terrorism, and could pose questions whether the list includes the likes of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Sudan. Libya, Syria, and the groups themselves often appeared on lists of suspect countries. Does the U.S. Department of State foster a reputable, reported roster which may deem Iran, Sudan, and Syria as key Mid-East determined and repeated sponsors of terrorism? Also, what relevance does President Obama recent removal of Cuba from the official list of terror-sponsored countries impact in any connection to Middle East factions? Nevertheless, key familiar names of Middle Eastern groups, leaders, and goals will endeavor to uncover findings.
2) Groups Involved / Leaders / Goals
The more publicized terror groups have been widely known. However, this chapter will look at a proposed, and lengthy roster of terror groups hailing from the 1960s, includes Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by George Habash then reconfigured under Ahmed Jibril, ANO, Hezbollah, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (springing from the late 1970s), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas, Al-Gamaat Al-Islamiyya, Al-Qaeda, Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and the modernized version of ISIS. Many more besides these probably have endured greater secrecy. This chapter explores goals, leaders, and sentiments. Hezbollah held no single specified leader, yet this radicalized Shia-faith-based group purportedly received state sponsorship from Syria and Iran, pioneering suicide bomber activities. Stepping up a myriad of deadly violence in the form of terrorist activities, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the 1983 deaths of Marines in Beirut, while the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing was linked to Libyan-Palestinian efforts of the reformed brand of the aforementioned. While common knowledge dictates that the PLO’s official leadership marked the personage of Yasser Arafat, Hamas and Hezbollah seemed to have no single individual in sole directorship. Additionally, Al-Qaeda’s coordinated established was erected by Usama Bin Laden in the 1990s.
3) Actions Endorsed / Bombings, Kidnappings, etc.
The list is long, yet typical of actions endorsed by these groups and others similar to them. The year 1994 alone witnessed different instances of hijackings, kidnappings, and varied styles of infrastructural bombings. Why specified examples support an inclusion of an armed attack against the British Embassy in Tehran, the murder in broad daylight of a Jordanian diplomat outside his residence in Beirut, rockets (defused) aimed at a British air carrier, shootings, restaurant and car bombings, suicide bombs, and hostage situations is imperative to understanding shall be explained. It is important to remain cognizant of the clandestine nature of these organizations, although organized to greater or lesser degrees, which brings to mind the manner in which terrorism groups of the Middle East engage in means of recruiting members.
3) Actions Endorsed / Bombings, Kidnappings, etc.
4) Means of Recruiting Members
Obviously, no radical terrorist groups will openly advertise in any Westernized mainstream publication, although rumor has it that Arab publications or bookstores in the West encourage radical violence. Nevertheless, the recruitment means of terror groups is persistent, proactive, and with the development of the Internet and its easy use and access, these organizations are able to effectively run campaigns for new members. Largely, it will be discussed how the methods are based upon fanning ideologies and probing ways to garner psychological supports. Özeren et al. explained how terrorist groups proactively engage in identification of potentially rife candidates for recruitment in strategic ways, seeking certain individuals rendered perfect would-be candidates, could be their integrative approach. The idea behind such planning is deliberate and sophisticated, focusing on socio-political, psychological, and economic backgrounds of future targeted members. From a political viewpoint, various wars have fostered an impetus for ideological opposition, thus sparking outrage from the organizations.
II. Effects of Various Wars on Terror Groups & Their Involvement
1) Chemical/Biological Warfare
It is no secret in the season of the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks in New York, that chemical warfare threatening gestures of biochemically driven anthrax-mailing attacks were recorded. How the use of such agents can substantially elevate morbidity in terrorist situations shall be explored. While the threat of such destructive, insidious attacks is real, political sentiments may be responsible for fanning the flames of terror groups’ hatred and disgruntled political complaints, a keener examination is proposed to look more closely at the situation to decipher all nuances. Historians and experts have viewed 1979 as a turning point in worldwide terror in the face of the United States’ approved Shah’s ending of rule in Iran, coupled with the Soviet Union’s instigated invasion war of Afghanistan. If a dangerous mix of stirring up tribal factions, the impossibility of finger-pointing any single political leader, or successfully identifying Washington to blame and its possible panic of a communist takeover in the region, gives ample fodder for reflection in deeper analytical pursuit. Could the trio of Operations Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and the Enduring Freedom war campaigns only lead to greater ambitions of using chemical agents of bio-poisons, and deadly gas/vaporous tactics in the near future as politically driven strife of the different terror groups progresses?
2) Revolution in Iran 1979
Under the auspices of the first President Bush, Operation Desert Storm would usher in a coalition of forces invasion in a strike against Iraq, with troops reaching Kuwait City by February 29, 1991 in an insistence last-resort move to get Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, but the Revolution in Iran 1979 must be explained in how it set the tone. By the time the wars of Bush the Second transpired, in a supposedly an initial retaliatory move in response to the terrorist attack of the events of September 11th, 2001 (9/11), an entire slew of inconsistencies and political doubts had uncomfortably swept the international scope of opinions. The commonly well-known, and what would come to be proven, as false accusations of Saddam Hussein’s harboring of weapons of mass destruction crumbled in the face of criticisms that the United States had merely used the excuse as a ruse to invade for the purpose of controlling valuable oil resources. For need or greed, remains to be debated as some would agree or disagree. Nevertheless, in many ways, terrorist response to what had been deemed as criminal governmental interference of enemy outsiders, willing to use military force to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, was unacceptable. In the collective motivating efforts of these wars, and the ‘War on Terror’ as a theme, brought devastating consequences.
3) Soviet War in Afghanistan 1979
After the Shah’s depose, and the US-response to 9/11 as a war on terror would eventually lead to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The connection of the Soviet involvement and U.S. reaction and understated fears might have prompted some escalation in Middle Eastern groups need for terror campaigns. Could they be viewed as an unjustified type of vengeance actually fueled a rising hatred that all Muslims were terrorists? Some generalized estimated understandings correlated to military spending, which may have hovered between 3 and 4 trillion dollars, will be discussed in this chapter in specific conjunction with the Soviet War, and how raised frustrations about how United States’ policies had adversely affected their respective countries, and regions.
4) Operation Desert Storm, 5) Operation Iraqi Freedom, 6) Operation Enduring Freedom
In hindsight, this portion of the chapter will view the series of wars, and how they created a dominoes-effect of Muslim hatred by Westerners that quickly reversed into an international questioning of U.S. motives, in terms of socio-political hegemony. As the American people began to recover from the sheer shock and ‘awe’ – if you will – of 9/11 the harder analytical gazes began to reverberate around the world, with a recognition that militarily powerful governments, such as the United States, were willing to put a plethora of human lives at stake while criminalizing or torturing others against the international rule of law for human dignity. In other words, the outcome created animosity on both sides – growing Islamic discontent, and American state power determined to control its perceived rights to fight terrorism. To certain minds, the changing of names of these wars, such as Operation Enduring Freedom instigated by Donald Rumsfeld specifically aimed at mitigation of terrorism, seemingly may have gradually initiated the shift to a fully-fledged Islamic/religious brand of terror group activities.
III. Current Status of Terrorism in the Middle East
This section regards how and if, United States efforts had announced its military opposition against the group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the form of ‘Operation Inherent Resolve’ according to news reports. Undoubtedly, further need to expand what happened shall be highlighted in this section of whether the ideological influence of ISIS has caught on to varied regional factions in the Middle East. Currently, the terrorist group ISIS has literally instilled fear into the hearts and minds of millions around the world due to the wholesale slaughter of people, and non-Muslim villages in parts of the Middle East and around proximity of Syria. As the ideological impact and influence of ISIS’ religious/political Islamic terrorism grows, their radicalized intentions have percolated community and infrastructural disasters in the Middle East today. The one person, as leader of the ISIS group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has seemed to resent Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is the Al Qaeda leader, because the former (ISIS leader) as perpetrating the push for the Islamic political state, had rejected the Al Qaeda jihadist movement – a clear competitive spirit among terrorist groups. The whole picture is complex. The outcome of this rivalry is yet unfolding, and is unclear.
Furthermore, according to the same immediately aforementioned source, Al Qaeda’s goals seek to eject the United States from the Muslim world altogether, while simultaneously supportive of fighting U.S.-backed regimes, leveraging these objectives with widespread propaganda to convince other Muslims to join in the crusade. Meanwhile, ISIS’ strategy agrees with some of Al Qaeda’s general goals, but in the true militarized sense rather has positioned itself for a religiously-driven political takeover of entire regions, in terms of territorial control seized by force, and expansive in nature. In comparison, the symbolic violent terrorist attacks plotted against embassies by Al Qaeda, contrast to the ISIS beliefs that the creation of a governance for Islamic ideology nationalists to live underneath, sharpens the stunning difference. Meanwhile, Boko Haram seems to be a franchise of ISIS. The contemporary, dangerous merger seems to echo the extreme religious Islamic sentiments, over a hatred of all religions other than Islam – particularly distributing a loathing for Christian and Jewish religious belief. Abubakar Shekau, the Nigerian self-appointed leader of Boko Haram agrees with the militant stance of ISIS, embracing similar goals of complete takeover and abolishment of non-Islamic regions in terms of a willingness to upset governments, and re-shape political hinterlands.
The task herein is to find out how extensive the terror group and organization Hezbollah, retains an ideological philosophy based upon Islamic religious ideals spawned by a devotion originating in following the guide of the Prophet Muhammed. Likewise, the Hamas organization had U.S. State Department worried, so further researched analysis will be commented upon in this chapter. The idea is to find out about designed religious beliefs that blend with a political ideology, in accordance with militarized styles of deadly terror, with a presence of contacts in every major city, or area, in the Palestinian territories. Its funding and weaponry training reportedly derives from Iran, with donations from sympathizers in the form of non-profit charity institutions. Additionally, the youth-comprised terror group known as Al-Shabaab, needs further clarification, since it seemed to have emerged from the Somali region of Africa whose interests of more of an indigenous nature, wielding its context of violent intimidation towards the assassination of aid workers, a 2010 suicide-bombings attack at the World Cup, and a plethora of Mogadishu government-aimed car explosion assaults. Since the various terror groups do not always pre-announce their tactics in the naming of leadership figures, their collective strength is further exercised by clandestine surprise-attack behavior, and its means of multi-faceted recruitment techniques.
IV. In-Depth Study of Selected Groups
This chapter will not take for granted the following statements, but explores their veracity. In light of the task of further research in ferreting out firm evidentiary grounds in the cogent pursuit of the thesis proposal herein, a thorough study of key selected groups is required. The main four groups so targeted for further erudite exploration include Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah. The socio-political and crossover religious threads of each of these terror organizations of the Middle East, may demonstrate a clearer pathway to comprehension of how the evolution from secular political terror groups shifted to more extreme tactics based upon a move to extreme Islamic-religious sponsored violence over the decades. Certainly, the situation is complex. The series of wars on terrorism, over the decades by the United States’ first President Herbert Walker Bush, then continued with the second U.S. Bush President, George, played key roles in rearranging and intensifying attitudes of the various terror groups.
Furthermore, it is important to interject at this point that although ISIS and Al-Qaeda have had slightly differentiated approaches, essentially they are in agreement with the Islamic philosophical religious beliefs and the willingness to carry out violent terror, as a means to institutionalize its eventual political governance. However, this is the question: Does Al-Qaeda (with its variant spellings) represent the emergence of the newly militant brand of Islamic terrorism, from the year 2000 onward, in terms of planned implementation of international built manpower, financing, transportation, and extremist training? The concept is that the terror organization sought to leverage its ideals and beliefs in an aggressive fashion against so-deemed imperialism of the West, beckoning likeminded Muslims from all over the world to join in the crusade primarily aimed against Washington, DC without hesitancy to kill United States citizens – whether civilians or enlisted service men and women – to demonstrate their determination.
One might consider Al-Qaeda as a ‘founding-father’ of sorts for the Middle East terror groups movement. Therefore, Al-Qaeda dramatizes an appropriate choice for further detailed study of the historical unfolding of how the shift from a secularized movement rose to intensify its overarching, collective mission into one of extreme religious terror. Here in this portion, Hezbollah roots are investigated, and how or if its organization dug deeply into the early 1980s, conducted organized operations which were not necessarily approved by Tehran. This, perhaps overlooked detail, may provide a solid historical basis for examining the evolution from secularized Middle Eastern terror groups, into the more radicalized militancy of religious-based Islamic philosophized terror sponsorship. In a manner of speaking, Hezbollah may be responsible for helping to create and instigate a more independent ‘anything-goes’ rogue-sort of terror group activity. Hezbollah, according to the same aforementioned source, is the originator of the suicide-bomber technique. This factor alone has deeply significant ties to how terror organizations currently set up recruitment techniques, based upon a complexity of factors, including psychological assessments.
Can U.S. State federal government sources, on Hamas – also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement – be trusted? This analysis examines how strongholds a decades of organizational build-up credited for sparking violent uprisings of the Palestinians in late 1987 – could or might be blamed – as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The world witnessed Egypt’s coup of 2011, and the frequent implicated involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood. Given these contemporary realities, it is little wonder that the shift occurred, and much more problematic and complex to pinpoint the exact moments. The reason why is because the shift to religious extremism of Middle Eastern terror groups appears to have been organic. Nevertheless, the inclusion of an in-depth study of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS illustrates a well-balanced mix of terror group examples of which to explore.
Conclusion: Commentary
Any overview, commentary, analysis, or socio-political research on the topic of terrorism in the Middle East, is bound to inflame myriad opinions about the existence of terror groups in the first place. Hopefully, this plan to unravel a cogent understanding may be gained from the thesis prospectus so suggested herein. Other interesting current aspects of the topic, may be learned from United Nations (UN) reports and analyses as compared to United States’ interests and international security assessments of the situation. Today, the digitalized globalization of virtually all commercial commodification activities, communications, banking, and Internet-connected computerized software of every industry – including the world’s military powers – adds an entirely new face to the topic. Social media reflects an incredibly engaging and powerful psychological persuader, in terms of both political and religious beliefs. Furthermore, the importance of social media in the scheme of terror group recruitment cannot, or should not be underestimated.
Also, it has not yet been decided on how much to focus on the loosely reported, or underreported rumored connection of terrorist groups focusing recruitment on African-American citizens. Yet, the sidebar sub-topic may be worthwhile to mention. Certainly, this is not to suggest that all Black Americans hold sympathy with terror groups, or are in any level of agreement at all with their felonious activities. However, it could be fair to suggest that at least a modicum of sympathy is being aimed at darker ethnic sectors in the United States who understand the nature of domestic terrorism perceivably gauged against them by armed police, such as in the recent deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and the youngster Tamir Rice – which made international news headlines. In any case, this thesis provides an intellectual rubric for better comprehension, questioning, insight, or recommendations.
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