Counter Terrorism Essay: Islamist Movements, Ideologies, and Groups

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Islamist movements, focusing on their ideologies and methods within the context of counter-terrorism. It begins by exploring the historical development of these movements, tracing their origins and evolution in response to political and social tensions, and then delves into the core tenets of various Islamist ideologies, including Salafi Jihadism, Wahabism, and Qutbism. The essay examines the strategies employed by these movements, including social networking, recruitment, and the use of violence. Furthermore, it provides detailed case studies of two prominent terrorist groups, ISIS and al-Qaeda, examining their origins, goals, ideologies, methods, and impacts. The essay highlights the role of key figures, such as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in shaping these groups. It also analyzes the impact of these groups on the global landscape, their use of technology, and their evolving strategies in the face of counter-terrorism efforts. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the enduring influence of these movements and their continued relevance in contemporary political discourse.

Running head: COUNTER TERRORISM
COUNTER TERRORISM
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Religious movements constitutes of spiritual groups originated in the modern era and
are also peripheral to the dominant religion and culture in the society. The religious
movements are formed at the time of tension as well as crisis. They develop an altogether
different mythical logic that is different from the institutional logic (Lewis and Tollefsen
2016). The movements take place primarily family, economic and educational structure as
well as due to significant dislocations. Religious movements bring religious reforms. For
instance, the Islamic revivalist movement is described to be morally conservative, where
Islamic values are implemented in all spheres of life (Dawson 2018). The essay aims to
discuss the Islamist movements with their ideology and methods along concerning two
terrorist groups.
When Arab lost to Israel in the Six-day June war, the ideologies of the former too
declined in the Islamic world whereas political Islam arose as a public force (Oren 2017).
Soon in the 1960s with financial and religious assistance, new Islamic organisations were
formed by the revivalist movements by Muslim communities who were in Europe as well as
America and those in the Islamic world. The new Islamist movements were insisting that the
society, as well as the government, should comply with the values of Islam and began to
criticise the control of the state over Islam and their minimal interpretations regarding Islamic
norms (Whiteside 2016). Until 1979 these ideas did not reach the public; it was only after the
emergence of the Islamic state in Iran through a revolution that the ideas reached the public.
The revolution in Iran was inspired by Third Worldism as well as by Marxism. The
revolution in Islam inspired many Islamist movements by describing Islam as a foundation
for resistance as well as political mobilization (Katzman 2019). From the beginning of the
1970s a group of new political activists who believed in violence and had no knowledge of
the Islamic education, declared their leaders to be apostates who would be eliminated by
force. It is from this time that Islamist groups became the centre of media attention and on the

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other hand, the non-violent groups received less attention (Ansari 2019). The mainstream
Islamists remained nationalistic in their views. They tried to moralise the public as well as
political life.
The Islamist movement in contemporary times tries to govern with the help of
participation as well as public debate on the one hand, and on the other, the radical groups
rejected electoral politics and revolutionary changes through violence. The concept of war of
terror had contributed to getting the attention of scholars as well as policy analysts towards
the violent forms regarding political Islam that was represented by the Al-Qaeda. The
Islamist social movements follow the multifarious strategies (Choueiri 2018). The Sufi
brotherhood as well as Jihadi groups who were armed organised themselves strengthened
their social networks, recruited militants and went on to defeat their rivals (Ernst 2017).
These strategies define them, represent their contenders as well as their allies along with the
solutions that they intended to implement. They have formed these Islamist groups because of
the unequal distribution of wealth, strength as well as the capacity of the state and the
sectarian identities (Roy 2016). Islamist movements do not only operate in the Middle East
and North America but also western Europe. In the latter Islamic as well as Sufi groups, are
on the rise that attracts new followers. Militants think that the social, as well as political
agenda regarding brotherhood, do not provide a correct solution to the social as well as
religious challenges. They refuse to accept the totalitarian form of government.
Many islamist movements have come up over the years, such as Islamism, Salafi
movement, Wahabism, Qutbism, Salafi jihadism and others. The Salafi movement is
categorised into three groups- quietist, activist and jihadist (Volpi 2018). The quietist school
support societal reforms brought by education. The activist group encourages people to
participate in politics within the framework of politics and the jihadi movement is influenced
by the ideology of Sayyid Qutb that supports revolution and violence to establish the new

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Caliphate (Merone 2017). The Salafi movement does not promote violence and believes in
the divine governance. Wahabism, on the other hand, asks Muslims to give allegiance to the
ruler of society. Qutbism is a type of ideology that was formulated by Sayyid Qutb, who tried
to encourage the use of violence that would help to achieve the Islamist goals. Qutbism has
two categorise- takfirism (shows the ex-communication of Muslims who are considered
equivalent to apostate) and offensive jihad (that promoted violence under the name of Islam
against infidels). Salafi Jihadism is the ideology that promotes violence as well as terrorism
to establish an Islamic state under a new Caliphate. It was Osama bin Laden who established
Al Qaeda as a jihadi organisation to capitalise and expand their military as well as financial
network (Merone 2017). However, it was disrupted by the US counter-terror operations that
brought the death of Osama.
There is an example of a Jihadi Movement where Ansar al-Sharia provided a case of
the former to show how the former embarked on the process of institutionalisation that
eventually failed. Now the terrorist attacks on foreign targets especially tourist locations as
well as domestic ones including police forces and civilians had set the new plan. The Islamic
Jihad movement is an ideological stream under Islam, that is a reaction to the weakening
military fervour (Zimmerman 2017). It supports militancy as well as violence that is directed
not only to non-Muslims but also towards Arab regimes who have deviated from the path of
Islam. The ideology of jihadi movement is intangible that violently contests all forms of
globalisation as well as an international system that promotes the further growth of jihadis
through citation from Islamic textbook and the dissemination of thoughts on the Internet
(Zimmerman 2017).
The primary ideology of the Islamist movements depends on the radicalization of
Muslims that leads to terror attacks. Another ideology on which the movements were based
on the fact that radical people continuously turned to Islam as they used the Islamist ideology

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to justify their attitudes (Sidahmed 2018). The ideology of Islamist groups depended on the
teachings of four figures- Hassan Al Banna and Sayyid Qutb from Egypt, to Ayatollah in Iran
and Sayyid Maududi in Pakistan. They were all successful in turning Islam into an ideology
of political struggle. Initially, violence was avoided but it could not be controlled for long.
Their doctrine was to mobilise the Muslims who supported the borderless umma. The
ideologies of Islamists movements played a crucial role in demonstrating the development of
the radical beliefs of the Muslims (Sidahmed 2018). They mostly depended on violence as
well as terror attacks.
The two most popular terrorist groups at present are ISIS and al Qaeda. ISIS (Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria) initially shaped the conflicts both physical as well as ideological in
the Middle East. It is one of the most prosperous terrorist organisation. To understand the
origin of ISIS one needs to be well acquainted with the history of al-Qaeda. The latter was
formed in 1979 when the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. The former’s cruelty had
shocked the entire world where foreign people were brought to the state to resist the cruelty.
This was when Osama bin Laden met many young radicals who formed al-Qaeda. Gradually
with the less popularity of al-Qaeda, the ISIS came into being in Iraq (Gerges 2017). The
leader of ISIS is Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. They are funded by the extortion schemes from the
territory that is under their control. The primary aim of the ISIS is to create an Islamic state
across Iraq, Syria and other countries, they follow the sharia law and wants to establish a
society that reflects the ancient ideas of the Muslims. They use modern technology like social
media to promote religious fundamentalism as well as reactionary politics. The ideology of
ISIS is based on Salafi Jihadism (Haykel 2016). According to their ideology Islam must
adopt sectarian killing. They disagree with all kinds of innovations in Islam and are planning
to revive the Wahabi project based on restoration of the caliphate that would be governed by
rigid Salafi doctrine. ISIS commits violence against minorities (Bozorgmehri 2018). They

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also made Baghdadi self-declared authoritative power and also announced the establishment
of a new Islamic state. They also kidnapped the school going boys of Syria and forcefully
taught them Islamic theology that was radical (Bloom 2017). After losing its land in Iraq and
Syria, they have shifted their strategies to countries who hold territory towards insurgency
against a specific state. The group continues to cause damage wherever possible. The US
finally killed Baghdadi on October 26, 2019. However, ISIS still remained active beyond the
borders. Their method is to create conflict between Muslim as well as non-muslim. They
believe in reviving the takfirist practices and intend to bring apocalypse by waging war
against crusaders.
Al-Qaeda is another terrorist group that began as a logistical network that was formed
to support the Muslims against the Soviet Union during the war of Afghan. Even when the
organisation was separated after the Soviet’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, it continues to
oppose the corrupted Islamic regimes and the presence of foreigners in the Islamic land. The
network had merged with other militant organisation who were Islamist. Its leaders also
declared a war against the US. The organisation also went on to train thousands of militants
for the future terrorist attacks in the US, Tanzania and others (Boeke 2016). After bin-
Laden’s expulsion from Saudi, he established various headquarters in Sudan. They also
worked and made alliances with other radicals. It was in 1999 that bin-Laden announced the
formation of a terrorist organisation that would fight against the Jews and its crusaders. Al
Qaeda also made use of the Internet for communication as well as recruitment (Haykel 2016).
After the death of bin Laden by the US military forces, al-Qaeda announced Ayman al-
Zawahiri as their leader. The primary ideology of al-Qaeda was to remove all foreign
influence from the Muslim land. They believe that an alliance between Christians and Jews is
a conspiracy against Islam to destroy them. They also support and follow the ideology of
salafid jihadis that the religion sanctions the killing of non-muslims. Their ideology also

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shows a willingness to kill the apostate ad emphasised on jihad (Cohen et al 2018). They also
condemned Muslim leaders for not following Islam as it should have been developed and
stated that jihad should be adopted not only to protect Islam but also to purify it. They also
aimed to drive the Americans out of the Muslim nations, destroy Israel and topple the
dictatorship of the West along the Middle-East (Cohen et al 2018). According to al-Qaeda
leader bin-Laden, it was the duty of all Muslims to wage war against the US and Jews. They
are responsible for the 9/11 attack and other brutal killings around the globe. They operate
their organisation from the Middle-East as well as beyond that. They were also responsible
for the bombing in London that was considered as the worst attack after the second world
war. Bombs were exploded in subway stations and buses. A group claimed that the attack
was a retaliation of UK’s involvement in the battles that took place in Iraq as well as
Afghanistan (Hellmich 2016). Despite the US threat, al-Qaeda continues to be a threat to the
world. They are still trying to reorganise the jihad movement globally by exploiting the
resentment, anger and suffering of the Muslim world and using it against the US and their
allies (Bloom 2017). It has been successful in gathering Islamist groups from Asia, Middle
East and Africa.
To conclude, it must be noted that though the leaders of the terrorist groups have died
its influence and impact still remains with the people. The ideology of both the groups are
still intact and the world still faces a threat from them. Currently, the ideology has passed
from an organisation to individuals. A practical method and strategy need to be implemented
to weaken as well as destroy the groups by using their ideology. However, it should not be
forgotten that the jihadi movements have nothing to do with the teachings of Islam as the
changes also affect the Muslims.

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