Radical Islamic Groups

Radical Islamic Groups
(Excerpted from the Council on Foreign Relations Website)

Al Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network started and led by Osama bin Laden. It seeks to rid Muslim countries of what it sees as the profane influence of the West and replace their governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. After al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on America, the United States launched a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda’s bases there and overthrow the Taliban, the country’s Muslim fundamentalist rulers who harbored bin Laden and his followers. “Al-Qaeda” is Arabic for “the base.”

Jamaat al-Islamiyya & Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egypt’s two largest Islamist terrorist groups are Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which have important ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network. Offshoots of the much older and more grassroots-oriented Muslim Brotherhood, these two groups have been active since the 1970s. They draw young lower- and middle-class followers from the country’s south and from Cairo’s slums. Leaders from both groups fought alongside the Afghan mujahadeen against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Most Egyptians have expressed revulsion for the groups’ terrorist attacks, which have decimated one of Egypt’s most important sources of income,
Experts say bin Laden’s terror network grew in part out of Egyptian extremist groups, and many of al-Qaeda’s leaders are Egyptians. In recent years, bin Laden brought two leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late Muhammad Atef, into the top echelons of al-Qaeda. In addition, some members of Jamaat al-Islamiyya have reportedly joined al-Qaeda. Overall, dozens of Egyptian militants passed through al-Qaeda training camps in Taliban-run Afghanistan.
Many experts think Zawahiri, who was jailed in Egypt for his part in President Anwar al-Sadat’s 1981 assassination, and Atef were the brains behind al-Qaeda’s deadliest terrorist operations, including the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa and the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Atef was reportedly killed in a U.S. bombing raid in Afghanistan shortly after September 11.)

Hamas

Hamas is the largest and most influential Palestinian militant movement. In January 2006, the group won the Palestinian Authority's (PA) general legislative elections, defeating Fatah, the party of the PA's president, Mahmoud Abbas, and setting the stage for a power struggle…
Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism. Its founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the PA with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raising "the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." Its leaders have called suicide attacks the "F-16" of the Palestinian people. Hamas believes "peace talks will do no good," Rantisi said in April 2004. "We do not believe we can live with the enemy."
Hamas is believed to have killed more than 500 people in more than 350 separate terrorist attacks since 1993. Not all Hamas' attacks have been carried out by suicide bombers. The group has also accepted responsibility for assaults using mortars, short-range rockets, and small arms fire. The organization generally targets deeply religious young men [to accept suicide missions] although some bombers have been older. The recruits do not fit the usual psychological profile of suicidal people, who are often desperate or clinically depressed. Hamas bombers often hold paying jobs, even in poverty-stricken Gaza. What they have in common, studies say, is an intense hatred of Israel. After a bombing, Hamas gives the family of the suicide bomber between $3,000 and $5,000 and assures them their son died a martyr in holy jihad.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah is a Lebanese umbrella organization of radical Islamic Shiite groups and organizations. It opposes the West, seeks to create a Muslim fundamentalist state modeled on Iran, and is a bitter foe of Israel. Hezbollah, whose name means “party of God,” is a terrorist group believed responsible for nearly 200 attacks since 1982 that have killed more than 800 people, according to the Terrorism Knowledge Base. Experts say Hezbollah is also a significant force in Lebanon’s politics and a major provider of social services, operating schools, hospitals, and agricultural services, for thousands of Lebanese Shiites. It also operates the al-Manar satellite television channel and broadcast station.
Hezbollah and its affiliates have planned or been linked to a lengthy series of terrorist attacks against the United States, Israel, and other Western targets. These attacks include: A series of kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon, including several Americans in the 1980s; the suicide truck bombings that killed more than 200 U.S. Marines at their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983; the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which featured the famous footage of the plane’s pilot leaning out of the cockpit with a gun to his head; two major attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina—the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy (killing twenty-nine) and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (killing ninety-five); and a July 2006 raid on a border post in northern Israel in which two Israeli soldiers were taken captive. The abductions sparked an Israeli military campaign against Lebanon to which Hezbollah responded by firing rockets across the Lebanese border into Israel.
After the 2005 elections, Hezbollah won fourteen seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament. In addition, Hezbollah has two ministers in the government, and a third is endorsed by the group. Hezbollah did not disarm when it entered Lebanese politics, and experts say the group's new political involvement is not an indication that the group is becoming more moderate.

Jemaah Islamiyah

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is a militant Islamist group active in several Southeast Asian countries that's seeking to establish a pan-Islamic state across much of the region. Anti-terror authorities struck a blow against Jemaah Islamiyah ("Islamic Organization" in Arabic) when they arrested its operational chief, Nurjaman Riduan Ismuddin, also known as Hambali, in Thailand August 2003. JI is alleged to have attacked or plotted against U.S. and Western targets in Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The most recent attack believed to have been carried out by JI operatives came on October 1, 2005, when a series of suicide bombings killed at least nineteen people and wounded more than 100 in Bali, a beachfront city and international tourist destination.

The Armed Islamic Group

The Armed Islamic Group (known by its French acronym, GIA) is a radical offshoot of Algeria’s main Islamist opposition. Since the North African country plunged into a bloody civil war in 1992, the group has been linked to terrorist attacks in Europe and to the massacres of tens of thousands of civilians in Algeria. In the past few years, many GIA members have joined other splinter Islamist groups or have been jailed or killed in government crackdowns. The GIA is now thought to have between a few hundred and a few thousand operatives and is listed on the U.S. roster of foreign terrorist groups.

Ansar al Islam (Excerpted from Global Security.org)

Ansar al Islam (Supporters of Islam) was formed in December 2001. The Sunni Islamic group is composed primarily of Kurds who follow an extremist brand of Islam, however their primary focus is opposing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two large secular Kurdish groups that opposed Saddam Hussein with U.S. backing. Ansar al Islam, which operates in northeastern Iraq, has close links to and support from al-Qaida. Al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden participated in the formation and funding of the group, which has provided safe haven to al-Qaida members in northeastern Iraq.

Hizb ut Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) a radical Islamic political movement that seeks 'implementation of pure Islamic doctrine' and the creation of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia. The group's aim is to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da’wah [propagation] to the world. The ultimate goal of this secretive sectarian group is to unite the entire ummah, or Islamic world community, into a single caliphate [religious state].

Lashkar-e-Taiba (Excerpted from Council on Foreign Relations)

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or “Army of the Pure,” is the armed wing of a Pakistani-based religious organization founded in 1989. During the 1990s, the group received instruction and funding from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in exchange for a pledge to target Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir and to train Muslim extremists on Indian soil. After 9/11, when the United States named LeT a terrorist group and Islamabad banned it, the group went underground, splintered and began using different names, and stopped claiming responsibility for attacks. However, LeT is suspected of involvement in the December 2001 attack of New Delhi’s Parliament, the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, and the February 2007 blast of a train running between India and Pakistan.