Exporting Global Jihad

Volume One: Critical Perspectives from Africa and Europe

Tom Smith, Hussein Solomon, Tom Smith, Hussein Solomon

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781838604707
• eBook ISBN: 9781838607548
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique sociale

This timely 2 volume edited collection looks at the extent and nature of global jihad, focusing on the often-exoticised hinterlands of jihad beyond the traditionally viewed Middle Eastern 'centre'. As ISIS loses its footing in Syria and Iraq and al-Qaeda regroups this comprehensive account will be a key work in the on-going battle to better understand the dynamics of the jihads global reality. Critically examining the global reach of the jihad in these peripheries has the potential to tell us much about patterns of both local mobilisation, and local rejection of a grander centrally themed and administered jihad. Has the periphery been receptive to an exported jihad from the centre or does the local rooted cosmopolitanism of the jihad in the periphery suggest a more complex glocal relationship? These questions and challenges are more pertinent than ever as the likes of ISIS and many commentators, attempt to globally rebrand the jihad and as the centre reasserts its claims to the exotic periphery. Edited by Tom Smith (Portsmouth), Kirsten E. Schulze (LSE) and Hussein Solomon (UFS) the two volumes critically examine the various claims of connections between jihadist terrorism in the 'periphery', remote Islamist insurgencies of the 'periphery' and the global jihad. Each volume draws on experts in each of the geographies in question. The global nature of the jihad is too often taken for granted; yet the extent of the glocal connections deserve focused investigation. Without such inquiry we risk a reductive understanding of the global jihad, further fostering Orientalist and Eurocentric attitudes towards local conflicts and remote violence in the periphery. This book will therefore draw attention to those who overlook and undermine the distinct and rich particularities of the often-contradictory and cosmopolitan global jihad. In many of the peripheries, particularly those with intensive large-scale insurgencies, there is extensive international military alliance. The Bush doctrine to 'fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here' certainly looks to be alive and well in places like Somalia, the Philippines and Niger amongst many others. Crucially we must ask - is such reasoning sound – is the threat global and if so in what way? Furthermore - is action in the peripheries under the guise of combating the global jihad overlooking the local issues and threatening to make a wider threat where it was otherwise contained? Diagnosing nations or regions as 'breeding grounds' or 'sanctuaries' of global jihad carries the spectre of having to chose sides in a battle of civilisations, which looms over a number of developing nations reliant on good western relations.

Al-Andalus

The caliphate of Cordoba reimagined

Maria do Céu Pinto Arena

Introduction

Al Qaeda and ISIS have tapped into the dissatisfaction of many Muslims and the failed integration of Muslim diasporas to build a narrative. In this narrative,¹ Islamist struggles are nested within a global confrontation that sets the Muslim world in the position of having to defend itself against both its own governments and the West-dominated global order. A series of interlocking narratives produced by those movements proves that it is the duty of all true believers to engage in jihad, in order to fight apostate Muslim governments and the Western onslaught on the Islamic world.² Jihadism has become ‘a cloak patched from different sources of local discontent, real and perceived, stitched together by a puritanical and radical interpretation of Islam, and thriving on an enabling global momentum’.³ Harnessing local causes to the broad and undefined aim of creating a Sharia-committed universal order, or caliphate, is the hallmark of a ‘glocal’ phenomenon, in which complex and often incoherent relationships are established between a global context and local circumstances.⁴ As a ‘glocal’ phenomenon,⁵ it absorbs flows of people, technology, money, information and political ideas, flows that Iberia has absorbed in its Muslim history.

This has resulted in a complex set of interwoven terrorist hubs across Spain, hinged on the bonding Al Qaeda narrative⁶ of a terrorist assault of the West against the Muslim world. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks (9/11) and the Madrid 11 March 2004 attacks (3/11), police and prosecutors in Spain have uncovered dozens of plots and several interconnected, polymorphous networks of Muslim militants. The picture that emerges from the vast information collected so far on terrorist networks in Spain is, arguably, that jihadis have become a ‘structural phenomenon’.⁷ Spain is a natural meeting point for Islamic militants, mainly due to its proximity to the Maghreb, and its enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which have increasingly emerged as recruitment hubs. It has been a major recruiting ground for a host of jihads: from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, in the 1990s, to the war in Syria in 2011. It is also a strategic area for logistical activities,⁸ such as financing and recycling identities.⁹

The cells uncovered in Spain since 9/11, being intersected, have moved and re-formed constantly, overlapping in highly complex manners, either at the domestic level or with connected networks abroad. Global jihad cells centred in Spain exhibit a series of nested interactions, that is, they are embedded in other broader, encompassing networks. They build on the first Al Qaeda network created on Spanish territory, engaged in recruitment for the Afghan war and as a revolving door to other jihadi locations. Many of the earlier networks were dismantled, although the ones broken up in the wake of 9/11 were rebuilt on a previous infrastructure, at least partially. The incredible connectivity of these cells is confirmed, at different levels, in the 3/11 bombings: they involved different groups that had links to other plots in other countries, and members located in Spain, Italy, Morocco and Belgium.¹⁰ By contrast, Portugal perceives the threat of terrorism as lower than in other European countries,¹¹ but around fourteen Portuguese nationals or residents left for Syria/Iraq after 2011. The majority were recent converts, and had long lived abroad.

This chapter will analyse the evolution of extremist networks in Spain, starting with the cells of the1990s, continuing with the 3/11 network and including the more recent rings to recruit young people as Islamist militants to foreign jihads. This is followed by an analysis of the phenomenon of Portuguese foreign fighters.

In Spain, the Muslim share of the population is 2.3 per cent, that is, 1,021,000 people.¹² In terms of national origin, the main Muslim group are Moroccans. To that one must now add the growing Pakistani group (a majority in some cities, like Barcelona and Valencia). Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese and Pakistanis together make up 86 per cent of the total. These groups show very different age and sex distribution, due to their different immigration histories. The Moroccan community, being the most long-standing immigrant community in Spain, has a strong family focus. The main sector of Muslim employment is services. The construction sector has traditionally been an important source of employment for immigrants, followed by industry and agriculture. Only a small minority are self-employed, mostly Pakistanis.¹³ In general, the Muslim population work in jobs requiring less training and at the most basic levels of the labour market. It is a group with little formal education, in which the absence of studies and illiteracy (9%) is triple that of the level of the whole of Spanish society. Just over a third (36%) leave school before reaching ten years of age, and, among them, only 9 per cent have a university degree.¹⁴ With regard to their geographical location, the Muslim settlements are higher in number in the south-eastern half of the country: Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia and Murcia.

In Portugal, the Muslim population of approximately sixty thousand people accounts for around 0.6 per cent of the total Portuguese population, representing the largest religious minority in the country.¹⁵ Most are Sunni Muslims living in the Greater Lisbon area (Lisbon, Odivelas, Laranjeiro, Palmela and Barreiro) and in the south. Muslims in the country generally have their roots in the former African colonies – Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau – but newcomers include people from Bangladesh, Senegal, Morocco and Pakistan, among others. When they arrived at the metropolis, the initially small community of Portuguese Muslims belonged to a cultured middle class, and were mainly well-educated people, working in the services sector or in business.¹⁶ The Muslim immigrants that have arrived in Portugal since the 1990s have to cope with greater obstacles to their social and professional integration and even to obtaining legal status because they do not speak Portuguese and do not have any kind of ties with the host country. Some of them live in poverty – especially those coming from sub-Saharan Africa – and they work mainly as traders and street sellers and in the construction sector.

Spain: A plotter’s terrain

From the 1990s, Spain was a focal point for key support networks upon which Al Qaeda depended, as well as for activities such as fundraising, recruiting and propaganda. Spain provided a staging post for Al Qaeda in preparation for the 9/11 attacks. It was a major focal point of the international investigation launched in its wake. From the investigation, it emerged that Spain was a natural meeting point for Islamic militants from all over the world, as well as a recruiting ground and a strategic point for support activities.¹⁷ The 9/11 attacks, as well as the plots uncovered in their wake, offer an example of the scope and reach of the presence of an interlocking set of terrorist cells that spanned Europe across Spain, Italy, Germany, Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, with supporters in numerous other countries. Since the 9/11 attacks, Spanish police and prosecutors have made hundreds of arrests¹⁸ and uncovered a large, interconnected network of Muslim extremists with extensive links to other countries and continents.

The protagonists of an amazing web of plots, some of which are interconne cted, have crossed through Spain or used its territory as a refuge or a safe ground from where to command and orchestrate terror acts. These terror plots include the planned attacks against the US embassy in Paris, the US embassy in Rome, the Strasbourg cathedral, and those actually carried out against the Djerba synagogue in Tunisia and the US embassies in East Africa, as well as the 2003 Casablanca bombings.¹⁹

The evidence produced by the police and intelligence work provided an inside look at groups operating at the edges of Islamic terrorism in Europe, inspired by Osama bin Laden.²⁰ Their large distance from the core Al Qaeda underscores what terrorism experts have described as one of Al Qaeda’s central organizational principles: its strong decentralization. The 3/11 attacks in Madrid are a confirmation that some groups of Arab radicals in Europe gradually moved from their support and logistics role to active involvement in terror. Some of the main suspects behind the 3/11 attacks were third-tier figures on the fringes of a Madrid Al Qaeda cell that was dismantled in late 2001 for providing logistical support to the 9/11 hijackers. Some of those suspects’ contacts were gleaned from numerous other European probes.²¹

Spain’s proximity to North Africa has allowed a significant Muslim immigrant population, both legal and illegal, to take root. Heavy immigration – both legal and illegal – from North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and South Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh) has turned Spain into a magnet for terrorist recruiters. The region of Catalonia not only has the highest Muslim population in Spain but also is where hard-line Islamist movements, such as Salafism, have a strong presence. Many towns in Catalonia have become centres for Salafi Islam.²² Over 30 per cent of the individuals sentenced for jihadi-related terrorist criminal offences were arrested in Catalonia or were resident in that Autonomous Community.²³

Al Qaeda’s network in Spain

The first arrests of extremist elements were conducted in 1995 when Spanish authorities uncovered cells of the Algerian Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA). Many GIA members took part in the Afghanistan war and, upon their return home, hardened their stance against the military...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• About the Editors
• Contributor Bios
• Introduction: Examining the global linkages of African and European jihadists
• ‘Glocalized’ jihad, political conflict, and conspiracy theorization across a fragmented Somalia
• Global or local? Exploring the emergence and operation of a violent Islamist network in Kenya
• Reflections on Islamist militancy in the Sahel
• Jihad in Mali: Regional conditions, regional goals, global importance
• Nigeria: The rise and ‘fall’ of Boko Haram
• Libyan jihadism: From Gadhafi and tribalism to the Arab Spring and tribalism
• Jihad and the United Kingdom
• Confronting orientalism, colonialism and determinism: De-constructing contemporary French jihadism
• Exporting jihad from the street-level groups in the Low Countries
• Scandinavian jihad
• The evolution of the jihad in Germany
• Al-Andalus: The caliphate of Cordoba reimagined
• Index
• Copyright