1. On September 11, 2001 …
Mohammed Atta and eighteen other hijackers fulfilled the vision set forth as early as 1996 by Khaled Sheikh Mohammed for a “planes operation” against American targets. While Mohammed originally envisioned ten attacking planes, the plan green-lighted by Osama Bin Laden in Spring 1999 led to the less ambitious plot that became 9/11. In 2001 Bin Laden’s “Al-Qaeda” group gained strength and respect as it merged with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s “al-Jihad.” Zawahiri was a long-time radical who had been influenced by the anti-Western philosophy of Sayyid Qutb and his Egyptian “Muslim Brotherhood.”
--The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright

2. What IS Al-Qaeda? ( Information taken from the non-partisan
Council on Foreign Relations;
see and
from Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda
and the Road to 9/11 …

3. What is Al-Qaeda?
Al-Qaeda is an international terrorist network co- founded by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. 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.”

4. Where did it come from?
Al-Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the Services Office—run by bin Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam—recruited, trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahadeen, or holy warriors, from more than fifty countries. Bin Laden wanted these fighters to continue the "holy war" beyond Afghanistan. He formed al-Qaeda around 1988.

5. Where IS it?
There is no single headquarters. From 1991 to 1996, al-Qaeda worked out of Pakistan along the Afghan border, or inside Pakistani cities. Al-Qaeda has autonomous underground cells in some 100 countries, including the United States, officials say. Law enforcement has broken up al-Qaeda cells in the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Albania, Uganda, and elsewhere.
It’s impossible to say precisely how big it is, because al-Qaeda is decentralized. Estimates range from several hundred to several thousand members.

6. Is it connected to other groups?
Yes. Among them:
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
Islamic Army of Aden (Yemen)
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad (Iraq)
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Kashmir)
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Salafist Group for Call and Combat and the Armed Islamic Group (Algeria)
Abu Sayyaf Group (Malaysia, Philippines)
Jemaah Islamiya (Southeast Asia)
The Taliban
These groups share al-Qaeda's Sunni Muslim fundamentalist views. Some terror experts theorize that al-Qaeda, after the loss of its Afghanistan base, may be increasingly reliant on sympathetic affiliates to carry out its agenda. Intelligence officials and terrorism experts also say that al-Qaeda has stepped up its cooperation on logistics and training with Hezbollah, a radical, Iran-backed Lebanese militia drawn from the minority Shiite strain of Islam.

7. What has it done?
The group has targeted American and other Western interests as well as Jewish targets and Muslim governments it sees as corrupt or impious—above all, the Saudi monarchy. Al-Qaeda linked attacks include:
* While it’s still being debated, it seems that it may have participated in the Benghazi, Libya attacks that left four, including the American Ambassador, dead last year.
The March 2004 bomb attacks on Madrid commuter trains, which killed nearly 200 people and left more than 1,800 injured.
The May 2003 car bomb attacks on three residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The November 2002 car bomb attack and a failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli jetliner with shoulder-fired missiles, both in Mombasa, Kenya.
The October 2002 attack on a French tanker off the coast of Yemen.
Several spring 2002 bombings in Pakistan.
The April 2002 explosion of a fuel tanker outside a synagogue in Tunisia.
The September 11, 2001, hijacking attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The October 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing.
The August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

8. What type of Muslims are Al-Qaeda members?
Al-Qaeda members are nominally “Sunni,” but a fringe radical version of that sect; most Sunnis in Iraq have rejected their terrorist tactics, with the number of those who reject Al-Qaeda growing steadily in recent months …
SUNNIS (80% of Muslims) believe that any good Muslim can be a leader; they prefer to reach agreements by means of consensus and tend not to see sacred wisdom in their leaders, like . . .
SHI’ITES (20 % of Muslims), who believe that Muhammad designated his son-in-law Ali to succeed him, and that sacred, even divine wisdom continues to exist in the modern world and among Shi’ite leadership
In the “Middle East” Iran and Iraq are heavily Shi’ite, while the surrounding nations are mostly Sunni
(from Islam, by Frederick Denny)

9. More on Islam?
The world’s second largest religion and its fastest growing, with 1.3 billion adherents in 70 countries
More than just a “religion”; typically a complete way of life
Based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad ( AD) as revealed in the Koran and in the Sunna (“beaten path”), the customs and traditions observed by Muslims that are based on the Prophet’s own life
Two principal sects: Sunni (a large majority), and Shi’ite or Shia (10%; concentrated in Iran and Iraq, where they maintain majorities) Shi’ites have been more associated with fundamentalism since the reign of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (remember the Iranian revolution?)
A majority of the world’s Muslims are non-Arab (Indonesia’s 200 million is the largest Muslim population in one country)