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Al-Qaeda ( Arabic: القاعده, "the foundation" or "the base") is a militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1988 to expand the mujahideen resistance movement against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan into a pan-Islamic movement to defend, via military and terrorist tactics, other Islamic communities under siege, including those in Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya and Palestine. As a militant Islamist movement, the group places itself in confrontation with the United States, due to the United States' support for Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other regimes that al-Qaeda perceives as oppressing Muslims. Another main reason for their conflict with the United States is their perception (shared by some other Muslims) that Western culture and values are incompatible with Islam. Al-Qaeda has been involved in attacks against both civilian and military targets around the world, and is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States, United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly, Saudi Arabia, AustraliaAustralia is the sixth-largest country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its neighbouring count and many other governments.Al-Qaeda gained worldwide notoriety after the September 11, 2001 attacksThe attacks of September 11, 2001 were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. Nineteen members of the al-Qaida militant Islamist group hijacked four aircraft. They crashed two into the two towers of the on the World Trade CenterThis article is about the World Trade Center complex in New York City; see this article for the many other buildings around the world that have also been called "world trade centers". The World Trade Center in New York City was a complex of several buildi in New York CitySkyline, with Statue of Liberty New York, New York" redirects here. For alternate meanings, see New York, New York (disambiguation). New York — officially named City of New York and often called New York City to distinguish it from the state of New York, and the PentagonThis is an article about the geometrical shape. See The Pentagon for an article about the building near Washington, DC. See also: Pentagon (disambiguation). In geometry, a pentagon is any five-sided polygon. However, the term is commonly used to mean a re in the Washington, D.C. area. The group is ostensibly led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, although al-Qaeda's true size and organizational structure are unknown. The International Institute for Strategic Studies states in a 2004 reports that al-Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential militants scattered around the world operating in more than 60 countries. Others question whether this murky entity has more than a handful of true members. [1]
1 Overview
Although "al-Qaeda" is the name of the organization used in popular culture, the organization does not use the name to formally refer to itself. The name "al-Qaeda" was coined by the U.S. federal government based on the name of a computer file of bin Laden's that listed the names of contacts he had made in Afghanistan, which talks about the organization as the al-Qaeda-al-Jihad ("the base of the jihad").
Al-Qaeda's religious inspiration comes mostly from the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, whence many of its senior members came. Though it adheres to no particular sect, in general its philosophy is Salafist; the ultimate goal of al-Qaeda is to establish a Caliphate across the entire Islamic world, by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow secular or Western-supported regimes. Another of its chief goals is to help destroy the state of Israel, and bring all of Palestine under the Caliphate. Anti-semitic sentiments are often expressed by Al-Qaeda members in speeches.
Al-Qaeda believes that western governments, and particularly the American government, interfere in the affairs of Islamic nations against the interests of Muslims through economic and military support of regimes that oppress Muslims.
Besides the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, al-Qaeda is also suspected of carrying out the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania.
The military leader of al-Qaeda is widely reported to have been Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was reportedly arrested in Pakistan in 2003. Its previous military leader, Muhammed Atef, was allegedly killed in a U.S. bombing raid on Afghanistan in late 2001.
