J. M. Berger - Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam

JIHAD
JOE

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AMERICANS WHO
GO TO WAR
IN THE
NAME OF ISLAM

J. M. Berger

Copyright 2011 by J. M. Berger

Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berger, J. M. (John M.)
Jihad Joe : Americans who go to war in the name of Islam / J.M. Berger. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59797-693-0 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. TerroristsRecruitingUnited States. 2. TerrorismReligious aspectsIslam. 3. Religious militantsUnited States. 4. Jihad. 5. Islamic fundamentalismUnited States. 6. Qaida (Organization) I. Title.

HV6432.B464 2011
363.3250973dc22

2010053161

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

Potomac Books, Inc.
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First Edition

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In 1979 a motley band of several hundred extremists staged an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islams holiest site. It was an unprecedented heresy, and it marked the dawn of the modern age of terrorism.

They were mostly Saudis, but the terrorists included Egyptians, Sudanese, Kuwaitis, Iraqis, Yemenis, and at least two Americans.

The siege took place during a period of violent change in the Islamic world, soon after the revolution that installed the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and just before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As many as six hundred followers of a Saudi named Juhayman Al Otaibi believed they had discovered the mahdi, an Islamic messiah figure embodied by Juhaymans cousin. They struck during the Hajj, Islams most sacred pilgrimage, seizing the Grand Mosque and taking scores of hostages. For two weeks, Saudi Arabia was paralyzed by the siege, which eventually ended with a violent raid that left most of the terrorists dead and the historic mosque smoldering from its minarets.

Juhayman and a handful of his men were captured and publicly executed. One of his American followers was taken prisoner and then secretly whisked home. Weeks after the siege ended, the wife of the other American walked into the U.S. consulate in Jeddah to inform officials that her husband, Faqur Abdur-Rahman, had been killed during the takeover. Saudi police had showed her his picture. His body had been buried in a mass grave, along with everyone else who was killed while taking part in the attack. She does not desire to attempt to recover her husbands remains, a State Department official reported.

The Siege at Mecca was only the beginning. Thirty years later, after a highly visible series of incidents in 2009 and 2010, U.S. media outlets discovered a new reason to worry. Americans were suddenly signing up for violent jihad.

Yet the phenomenon is far from new. Since 1979 American citizens have repeatedly packed their bags, left wives and children behind, and traveled to distant lands in the name of military jihad, the armed struggle of Islam.

Their reasons are as varied as their backgroundssome travel to defend Muslims in peril, and some fight to establish the reign of Allah on earth. Some are channeling a personal rage that has little to do with religion. Others seek a community where they can belong.

Americans fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, and at least one American citizen was present at the founding of al Qaeda. Americans have gone to jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, and Yemen. Virtually every major terrorist attack against the United Statesincluding 9/11has included Americans as willful accomplices.

While all major religions have rules that limit or justify war, a small but significant minority of Muslims believe that under the correct circumstances, war is a fundamental obligation for everyone who shares the religion of Islam. When war is carried out according to the rules, it is called military jihad or simply jihad.

Jihad is a word that has become contentious, with many Muslims arguing that it is most properly applied to a host of nonviolent activities, such as self-improvement or seeking justice. Although this argument applies in certain contexts, military jihadists do not make such qualifications when they call their work jihad.

Whenever jihad is mentioned in the [Koran], it means the obligation to fight. It does not mean to fight with the pen or to write books or articles in the press, or to fight by holding lectures. Those are the words of Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual and physical leader of the volunteer jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, who was speaking in Brooklyn in 1988. This book will generally follow Azzams usage, although it will also examine those who use the pen and the lectern to incite others to acts of physical jihad.

I acknowledge that there is a debate in the public square on this issue, but this book defines jihad as jihadists doas the use of violence to achieve specific goals, usually either the defense of Muslims perceived to be in peril or the advancement of Islams global position.

Although most religions include guidelines for war and civic defense, the rules of jihad are fundamental to the core texts of Islam. A small minority of Muslims even rate jihad as one of Islams most basic obligations.

Throughout this book, I have put a premium on representing the voices of American jihadists and letting their own words explain their actions. This doesnt mean I accept everything they say as being sincere and legitimate. Far from itthere are clear lies in some cases, distortions and misconceptions in others. But regardless of how imperfect these sources are, the words of American jihadists provide a window into their overt reasons for taking up arms and their moral context for the violence they inflict.

In many cases, however, these sources are strong. Some, of course, are statements given in interviews after an arrestattempts to rationalize or justify violent acts in an effort to win a lighter sentence or to burnish a public image. Yet many of the quotes you will read in these pages were intended for Muslim audiences. Many are taken from surveillance tapes in which these Americans talked with their peers in unguarded moments. Such sources are invaluable windows into why Americans take up the banner of jihad.

What lies in their hearts only Allah knows. One can only work with the sources as they exist. To ignore the stated reasons that jihadists use to justify their actions is, at the least, foolish. To impose imagined reasons without examining the evidence is reckless.

Many labels exist for people who embrace a vision of global jihad or the dream of a world ruled by Islamic law, such as Salafis, Wahhabis, Deobandis, Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamists. For the most part, I have tried to downplay these labels, in part to spare the reader a barrage of unfamiliar and confusing technical terms whose meanings are often disputed.

One area where important definitions can get murky is the distinction between terrorist and jihadist. The two terms have become conflated in recent years, in part due to a deliberate and systematic rebranding of the word by Western diplomatic maneuvers and psychological operations. Here, I think an important distinction can be drawn. Not all jihadists are terrorists, but virtually all Muslim terrorists define their activities as jihad.