The Middle East Media Research Institute reports on a new issue of Al-Qaeda’s online magazine, “Voice of Jihad.”
“Our number one enemy,” this issue tells us, “is the Jews and the Christians, and we must free ourselves to invest all our efforts until we annihilate them – and we are able do this if Allah allows us to do it – because they are the main obstacle to establishing the Islamic state.”
Note the goal: establishing the Islamic state, the caliphate. Why this is so widely ignored I don’t know, but not just Al-Qaeda, but every radical Muslim group has stated this as its goal. If the US withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, and every citizen of Israel moved to Idaho, there would still be radical Muslims waging jihad against Jews and Christians in an effort to establish the Islamic state.
This issue also declares a plan to “avoid, as much as possible, confrontations with the armies and forces of the state, so that we can strike lethal blows to the occupiers, Allah willing.” In this sentence “the state” refers to Muslim rulers who don’t measure up to radical Muslim standards. It may signal an intention to stop picking off members of the Iraqi governing council, and to concentrate on killing Americans instead.
Also, a certain Sheikh Nasser Al-Najdi affirms the laws of jihad and dhimmitude that I reveal in Onward Muslim Soldiers. The fact that he can appeal to traditional stipulations of Islamic jurisprudence for all this is a key reason why Al-Qaeda and groups like it are able to gain recruits in the Muslim world: “Islam is an all-encompassing religion. It is a religion for people and for regimes… At a time when people are given the choice [of believing] in Islam or paying Jizya [a poll tax paid by non-Muslims living under Muslim rule], Islam is the only alternative for the countries [of the world.]…Therefore, the crime of the tyrants in infidel [i.e. non-Muslim] countries, who do not rule according to Allah’s law, is an enormous sin… and we are obliged to fight them and initiate until they convert to Islam, or until Muslims rule the country and he who does not convert to Islam pays Jizya.” Read Sura 9:29 of the Qur’an and tell me that this Sheikh is perverting Islam; I do not contend that the radical vision of Islam is the only form of Islam out there, but to ignore its traditional foundations is to miss a chief source of the problem.
Also, in the course of a debate about whether Al-Qaeda should attack Americans in Saudi Arabia or not, Abd Al-Aziz bin ‘Issa bin Abd Al-Mohsen (Abu Hajjer), who is wanted in Saudi Arabia, noted: “It is also true that we must use this country [Saudi Arabia] because it is the primary source of funds for most Jihad movements, and it has some degree of security and freedom of movement.”
Straight from a key Al-Qaeda member: Saudi Arabia is “the primary source of funds for most Jihad movements.”