The Threat Matrix:
Conceptualizing al Qaeda and its Role in the Wider Islamist Threat Environment

Table of Contents:

[Overview]
[The Threat Matrix and its component parts]
[The Category One Threat: Islamist State Sponsors]
[The Second Category Threat: Islamist Terrorist/Insurgent Organizations]
[Al Qaeda Affiliated/Member Groups: Middle East]
[Al Qaeda Affiliated/Member Groups: Asia]
[Al Qaeda Affiliated/Member Groups: Africa]
[The Third Category Threat: "Arab Afghans"]
[The Fourth Category Threat: The Support Infrastructure]
[The Pre-October 2001 Structure of Al Qaeda and the Islamist Network]
[Part Two: The operation of the Threat Matrix]
[Geopolitics: Islamist State Sponsors and the Threat Matrix]
[Brothers-In-Arms: Al Qaeda, Terrorist/Insurgent Groups and the "Arab-Afghans"]
[The Infrastructure of Islamist Terror]
["Spectacular" Attacks: The Ultimate Objective of Al Qaeda and the Threat Matrix]
[Chronology of Pre-September 11, 2001 Terrorist Actions]
[Chronology of Post-September 11, 2001 Islamist Terrorist Operations ]
[Conclusions]

by John Thompson, Joseph Turlej

January, 2003

Introduction

The scope and sophistication of the alliance that has emerged between Islamist terrorist organizations and a hardcore of Islamist-oriented regimes that sponsor them is staggering. To conceptualize the current threat as conventional terrorist planning and executing of attacks writ large is shortsighted and dangerous --the situation is infinitely more perplexing and dangerous.

The current threat is composed of a number of state sponsors, existing terrorist groups and the illusive al Qaeda who cooperate with one another on numerous levels from training to mounting attacks. This new threat is more than an alliance of terrorist organizations; it is a radical sea change in how terrorism against the West is orchestrated. The objective here is to provide a conceptual framework which defines and outlines how these various components interact with one another.

The Threat Matrix has been devised in order to provide a visualization of the relationships that exist between al Qaeda and four other Threat Categories: 1. Islamist State Sponsors, 2.Terrorist/Insurgent Groups, 3. "Arab Afghans" and 4. the Islamist Support Infrastructure. As the Threat Matrix indicates, al Qaeda is beyond being "merely" a terrorist organization. It has evolved into becoming a facilitator of Jihad throughout the globe, offering training and operational support to its like-minded terrorist/insurgent allies and acts as a conduit for aid from the Islamists State Sponsors. Simultaneously, al Qaeda has, as its position in the Matrix implies, also become the focal point of a new Jihad against Western influence in the Muslim world, drawing on the resources of the other components of the matrix to strike literally anywhere around the world against the "common enemy".

Much of the media focus has been on the September 11, 2001 attacks, and rightly so. However, this paper seeks to go well beyond those events and address the considerably wider spectrum of threats confronting Western societies, moderate Arab states and regions where Islamists’ ideology has taken root. The threat has escalated to the point that even without the tragedy of 9/11, serious action should have been taken.

The cluster of Islamist states, radicalized individuals, terrorist groups and their infrastructures (referred to as the Threat Matrix) gradually evolved into what it is today. Bin Laden himself was first exposed to the violent Islamist cause when he participated in the Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s. There, he met with another significant figure in modern Islamist extremism, Sheikh AbdAllah Yussuf Azzam. Azzam left the Palestinian struggle, disgusted at its secular nationalism and found himself drawn to the Jihad in Afghanistan. There he found an outlet for his radical beliefs: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues." He established training camps for the arriving Mujahideen in neighboring Pakistan. With Azzam’s zeal and bin Laden’s cash the two created the Mujahideen Services Bureau (mekhtab al khidemat or MAK), which recruited Muslims from its international offices in over fifty countries for the anti-Soviet Jihad.

According to Gunaratna, it was in the latter stages of the Afghanistan Jihad that Azzam first conceptualized al Qaeda. He visualized a cohesive, self-sacrificing Islamist vanguard that would, by means of an armed struggle, create a greater Islamist state. Elements of MAK’s infrastructure, by this time significant, began to evolve into what is now known as al Qaeda, yet the two still remained separate entities. MAK was also an efficient conduit for cash generated in the Middle East and from Western sources to train and support volunteers fighting the Soviets. Azzam was concerned that without an organization such as al Qaeda, the massive Mujahideen force then fighting the Soviets could be corrupted.

In 1988, a dispute erupted between bin Laden and Azzam over the direction in which the fledgling al Qaeda would proceed. Bin Laden wanted it to become a global terrorist organization, Azzam opposed this. In 1989 Azzam was killed by a car bomb. Gunaratna argues that it was the Egyptian Mujahideen (with ties to terrorists in that country) who allied themselves with bin Laden that actually carried out the assassination. Even after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, al Qaeda still maintained a presence in Pakistan.

During the 1990/1 Gulf War, bin Laden became openly enraged at the Saudi government’s decision to allow American and European troops to be stationed there. His plan for a Mujahideen force as an alternative was rejected by the Saudi Royal Family. In the eyes of bin Laden and other Islamists, it was sacrilege to allow Western Christians (infidels) to guard the holy sites of Islam — which is the role the Saudi Royal family is supposed to fill. The Saudi royals forced bin Laden into exile.

Bin Laden was then drawn to Sudan and into the orbit of its spiritual leader Hassan Abdallah al-Turabi, who offered the fig leaf of legitimacy to a brutal Islamist military dictatorship. Al-Turabi had ambitions to create a wider Islamist revolution beyond his own country and placed both Sudan’s wealth and territory behind this objective. In the early 1990s, extensive efforts were undertaken in that country to build a support infrastructure by numerous terrorist organizations and their state sponsors. Al-Turabi, a Sunni Islamist formed an alliance with Tehran, the primary Shi’ite sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East. The significance of this new alliance, consisting of the two major factions within Islamist terrorism cannot be understated -- the resources of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbollah were brought together with the "Arab Afghans" and the emerging al Qaeda organization.

Sudan offered a safe haven for these terrorist organizations to train, plan and organize. Soon, another state sponsor, Pakistan and the Islamist terrorist groups trained and run by its Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI), joined the alliance and offered their existing training camps and expertise to the equation. They also used their influence and presence in Afghanistan to open even more facilities. Numerous other insurgent and terrorist organizations joined, including Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front. The brutal Taliban, after winning the civil war in Afghanistan, immediately embraced bin Laden and his associates. Within several years, the foundations were laid for a massive network of Islamist terrorists to generate and launder cash, train and deploy terrorists, and strike around the globe. Bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization became rising stars in this endeavor. His expertise in international business and construction, as well as his experience as a veteran of the Afghan conflict made him indispensable in the formation stages. Over time, his organizational successes allowed him to attain a position of authority and prominence.

The Matrix visually links each Threat Category to the others, representing the strategic reality that confronts us -- a convergence of threats previously believed to be distinct and/or unrelated. In this new reality, the situation has become infinitely more complex as the distinctions between al Qaeda, its allied terrorist organizations and the "Arab Afghans" have blurred.

The case of Canadian-based Ahmed Ressam (the "millennium bomber") provides an intriguing example. He was first a member of Algeria’s murderous Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Bin Laden had made overtures to this terrorist organization and brought it under the network’s influence. By doing so, the GIA was offered specialized training in the camps of Afghanistan. After indoctrination and training, most participants returned to their own groups. Al Qaeda trainers were constantly on the look out for the most talented, committed and promising recruits whom they could offer further training and membership in their "prestigious" and "near-mystical" organization. Ressam appears to fall into this category. He was an Algerian GIA member (and a Salafist) organized into an al Qaeda cell that was then deployed to attack American targets.

There are other examples of this blurring. Zawahiri, leader of Egypt’s Jihad Group is also a veteran of the anti-Soviet campaign and therefore one of the "Arab Afghans". He is also chief counsel to bin Laden, making him one of the highest-ranking members of al Qaeda --he falls into three categories. For these reasons, the entire cluster of threats must be considered as a whole, as the Threat Matrix implies, if we are to obtain a full appreciation of the problem confronting us today.

For the above reasons, there has always been confusion over what al Qaeda actually is. According to Gunaratna: "It is neither a single group nor a coalition of groups: it comprised a core base in Afghanistan, satellite terrorist cells worldwide, a conglomerate of Islamist political parties, and largely independent terrorist groups that it draws on for offensive actions and other responsibilities". The term "al Qaeda" is reserved for the core membership of bin Laden’s inner circle, not the entire network of organizations. This alliance and cross-membership structure further emphasizes why a matrix can best depict the relationships between individuals, groups and their state sponsors.

Often in analyzing operations it is difficult to determine upon whose behalf it is being executed: State sponsor(s), a terrorist organization, the al Qaeda leadership or, more often, some combination of all three. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing illustrates this feature of the Threat Matrix. Iran, sensing instability within Saudi Arabia participated in the plot as a means of embarrassing a hated faction within the royal family and felt that the event could trigger an Islamist revolution there. Bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership viewed the Saudi royal family as "apostates" and American forces there as "infidels"; both were the enemies of Islam in their eyes. The Saudi Islamists who assisted in the operation held the same view. While each component had slightly different reasons for carrying out the operation, all agreed ideologically and strategically on the targets for the attack.

Coupled with this loose structure is a method of operation that capitalizes on this advantage. When, for example, two American embassies in East Africa were bombed in 1998 (an attack which killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more — the vast majority of whom were ordinary citizens of Kenya and Tanzania), a number of claims of responsibility were made, but none by al Qaeda or its member organizations. Sometimes, al Qaeda created fictitious organizations to highlight a particular demand or objective. Until recently, al Qaeda allowed local groups to claim responsibility for operations even when they were only minimally involved.

Al Qaeda and its associate Islamist groups have never been a static alliance. They have grown in size, expanded their strategic and tactical capabilities and have responded rapidly to environmental changes. Initially, al Qaeda and the other components of the Threat Matrix relied heavily upon Islamist State Sponsors. In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan the situation reversed and an Islamist state became dependent upon the terrorist infrastructure for financial resources and trained fighters to maintain its grip on the population. Within the Threat Matrix there is a synergy with each component contributing to the whole, while simultaneously benefiting enormously from participation. For example, the Terrorist/Insurgent groups after contact with al Qaeda in the training camps and through the assistance of the "Arab Afghans" were infused with a new ferocity, much of this is the result of the acceptance of "martyrdom" as a tactic as well as a more thorough indoctrination while undergoing training.

This matrix model also provides some predictability. For example, American-led military action and high-level diplomatic pressure has and will continue to focus on countries labeled as state sponsors in the Threat Matrix. Also, the Threat Matrix represents the dynamic relationships existing between each of the component parts. The ouster of the Taliban by military force has certainly not crippled the network in the long term. The Islamist alliance learned from bin Laden’s 1996 expulsion from Sudan and the 1998 closure of camps in Pakistan that states could be pressured to act against them. In 1999, bin Laden arranged for training camps to be built in the Philippines in areas controlled by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Camps can also be found in Indonesia. The Matrix relationship allows component parts to re-organize themselves and continue to pose a tremendous threat, despite significant setbacks.

To date, the most progress has been made in removing the state sponsors from the equation. Regimes, unlike illusive organizations such as al Qaeda are vulnerable to diplomatic, military and economic pressure and are therefore easily targeted by the international community. Pakistan was subjected to the coercive diplomacy of the United States and has now become an ally in the fight against terrorism. In addition to being spared any retribution, a number of the economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan were lifted — these were imposed after Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were tested. Sudan’s military dictator General Bashir also relented to American arm twisting and has offered information and intelligence on Islamist organizations. Because these regimes cooperated with the West, they were spared a full public airing of their role in Islamist terrorism. American-led diplomacy cleverly and humanely turned these enemies into allies (at least for now). Syria, with influence in Lebanon, where many Islamists are based, voted along with the other members of the U.N. Security Council in November 2002 to support a tough resolution on Iraq. To demonstrate their resolve, the U.S.-led coalition decimated the Taliban after they refused to comply with demands to turn over the al Qaeda leadership. It is fair to state that none of the Islamist State Sponsors anticipated the robust response delivered by the current administration. Past responses to HizbAllah attacks in Lebanon in the 1980s, the 1993 ambush in Somalia, the first World Trade Center bombing or the double explosions at American embassies in Africa in 1998 were feeble at best, leading the Islamists to conclude that they could force the U.S. to retreat if they pressed hard enough. Iraq is the next state to be targeted as this paper is being written.

Having lost the safe havens provided by many sponsor states, it appears al Qaeda is morphing into a "virtual organization", with even fewer hard targets to be hit. Several researchers have confirmed that training is taking place in Europe and North America under the cover offered by the mosques and "cultural" organizations of the Islamist Support Infrastructure. This, coupled with the recent deployment of American advisors and Special Forces to the Philippines and training exercises being held in North Africa, points in the direction that both the Islamists and the U.S.-led coalition are heading.

State sponsorship and direct support for al Qaeda and the wider Islamist network was critical in its early phases. This formidable threat could not have risen to its present status without direct financing, training and logistical support from the governments of Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan and since the air strikes of 1998, Iraq. There is an ongoing debate over the nature of Iraq’s role in this network. Bodansky has argued that the regime has offered safe-haven in the late 1990s to bin Laden as well as access to weapons of mass destruction. Conversely, Gunaratna maintains that there have only been overtures made between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

The most obvious indication of a relationship between the two comes from the propaganda of bin Laden and the Islamists. They routinely blame American policy for the deaths of thousands of children in Iraq that supposedly resulted from economic sanctions, without specifying that there is an "oil for food" clause designed to prevent this. Furthermore, Iraq is by no means run under Islamist principles or Sharia law (such as Sudan or the Taliban’s Afghanistan), the objective of the fundamentalists. By deliberately ignoring the massive abuses of the Muslim civilian population in Iraq and openly supporting the tyrannical Saddam Hussein -- while being simultaneously hostile to regimes that treat fellow Muslims better than Iraq does — it seems abundantly clear that there is a relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq.

In its early years, al Qaeda operations were approved by its state sponsors, often with the sponsoring states’ intelligence officers traveling to oversee final preparations for an attack. VEVAK (Iranian intelligence) officers for example gave final approval for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, using the pilgrimage to Mecca as cover to enter Saudi Arabia. To this point, there is no evidence directly linking any of the state sponsors to the September 11 attacks -- although this deadly terrorist assault was precisely the result that the involved regimes had envisioned when al Qaeda was conceived and nurtured.

A critical figure in the escalation of Islamist terror against the West and moderate Islamic regimes is Hassan Abdallah al-Turabi. He was invited by Genaral Bashir to act as the spiritual leader of Sudan in the wake of Bashir’s 1989 military coup which instituted an Islamist government. According to Yossef Bodansky, Turabi successfully merged his own doctrine which blamed Western (especially American) influence in the Middle East for the presence of corrupt, un-Islamic regimes (such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), with already existing Sunni and Shi’ite radicalism. The Sunni doctrine called for the creation of Islamist states first, to be followed by their merger into a larger Islamist nation. Shi’ite Islamist doctrine viewed the state as un-Islamic and therefore an illegitimate entity for the advancement of Islam. The proper role of Islamist leaders was to actively assist their brothers-in-arms, no matter where and against any enemy, in acts of "Islamic solidarity".

What emerged from the resolution of this impasse was a radical and deadly re-orientation of both terrorist philosophies and their modus operandi: America, not the secular regimes which it supports, became the primary target. They reasoned that a greater Islamist state could only emerge if the Americans were brutally forced out of the region. Their smaller-scale conflicts were to be merged into a larger, more coordinated Jihad against the common enemy, the United States and the rest of the "unbelievers" which it leads.

According to Gunaratna, bin Laden and his closest associates, coming from the Salfist branch of Islam, made an ideal bridge between the different factions of Islamists. The Salafi are viewed as the "pious pioneers of Islam", seeking to return Islam to its past glory, as it was under the Caliphs.

Towards this new end, the Islamic International was created. It featured a military wing, the Armed Islamic Movement (AIM, sometimes referred to as the International Legion of Islam). Even as early as 1991, AIM was providing training for numerous terrorist organizations including those operating in Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan on Sudanese soil. In 1992 arrangements were made for more terrorists and insurgents controlled by Pakistan’s ISI to receive training in the same camps. What soon followed was closer cooperation between Pakistan and the Islamists which included the expansion and modernization of training camps in Afghanistan.

Turabi and the Iranian leadership hosted numerous conferences that brought diplomats from of the sponsoring states, their intelligence services and terrorist organizations together. At a major series of gatherings held in the Middle East in 1994, government officials from Sudan, Iran and Syria, Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah, as well as key "Arab Afghans" (including bin Laden) met together and arrived at a critical decision: There would be "… a twin-track approach to the future terrorist offensive in the United States- the creation of ‘an environment of terror’ and a series of ‘spectacular operations’ …combined with low level operations both in the United States and against Americans all over the world. … The latter would be a concentrated effort to terrorize the people of the United States through a sustained campaign of ‘small’ operations, essentially a kind of violent psychological warfare."

Between 1995 and 1996, bin Laden was forced to relocate from Sudan to Afghanistan as a result of financial incentives and diplomatic pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States. The massive terrorist infrastructure, including the array of training camps for new recruits and the hundreds of "Arab Afghans" accompanied him. A strong bond was still however maintained between al Qaeda and the Sudanese Islamists.

In 1996, according to Bodansky, Tehran decided to escalate its efforts to launch "spectacular" terrorist attacks against the United States with a new organization, the Hizbollah International. In June, another summit was held involving terrorist organizations of Shi’ite origin such as Hizbollah, as well as those of the Sunni majority, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP-GC (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command), Hamas, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Also present were key "Arab Afghan" figures. It was agreed that the participants would --under the new banner -- unify their financial systems and standardize their training. This would allow for considerable inter-operability, international mobility for terrorists and allow a rapid deployment and strike capability that had not existed previously. While under primarily Iranian/Shi’ite influence, the three person leadership committee included two Sunni "Arab Afghans", one of whom was bin Laden.

Later that year, another major gathering of officials from Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, key figures from both Sunni and Shi’ite terrorist organizations, as well as those operating in Algeria and the Balkans was held on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The delegates resolved to intensify their efforts at launching a spectacular operation against the United States. Bin Laden himself also issued a public statement denouncing Americans and calling for violence against them in a fatwa he wrote.

In 1997, further improvements were made to the Islamist terror infrastructure, which included upgraded and expanded training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both Iran, through its intelligence service and the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, and Pakistan through the ISI had been offering training and support for these camps since the early 1990s. Their new objective was to seek recruits without previous ties to the Afghan conflict or existing Islamist terrorist organizations. Bin Laden took an active role in this process. The preparations were made for the inevitable and mammoth sized clash with the West and the United States that the Islamists envisioned.

In February of 1998, bin Laden issued another "fatwa" in which he stated: "… to kill the Americans and their allies —civilian and military- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it… We …call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it." This desire to confront their enemies manifested itself in the simultaneous truck bombings at U.S. embassies in Africa and the foiled plot to mount a major attack at the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament in France.

Later that year, under instructions from Tehran, a new umbrella organization was created to regroup and further unite the Sunni Islamist organizations. This was called the World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. One of the most crucial developments at this time was the unification of the fractured Islamist networks in Egypt under this new banner. Iran’s Ayatollah Khatemi, also received a visit by Hamas’ Shayk Yassin during his visit to that country in 1998.

The weapons inspection crisis in Iraq and subsequent air strikes by US and British aircraft opened the door to cooperation between Islamist terrorists, their state sponsors, and Saddam Hussein. Secular and repressive, Iraq is hardly the ideal ally for the fundamentalist alliance but the pressing need to attack the "common enemy" prevailed.

In early 1998, Qusay Hussein (Saddam’s younger son and apparent heir after the ‘playboy’ Oday was badly injured in an apparent assassination attempt) met with Iranian intelligence officials and agreed to cooperation. Baghdad offered first to open itself as a base for training terrorists and a place for bin Laden to escape to if necessary. Second and more ominously, Iraq seemed willing to provide assistance in developing a capability to create and use weapons of mass destruction by the Islamists. Iraq dispatched a team of scientists into Afghanistan, with the assistance and blessing of Pakistan. Bin Laden "was promised anything Baghdad could deliver". Even prior to this, Bodansky argues that the alliance possessed Ebola, Anthrax, Salmonella and Sarin nerve gas. He also argues that bin Laden, through contacts with the Chechen Mujahideen, was seeking nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union.

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John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca