LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Al Qaeda: Attacks
built 630 days ago
Though smaller than most insurgent groups, Al Qaeda in Iraq—often referred to as aqi—has been punching above its weight, contributing more significantly to the bloodshed than is generally understood. Mohammed Hafez, author of the authoritative 2007 book Suicide Bombers in Iraq, says the U.S. government has counted more than 800 suicide bombings in Iraq to date; because of improvements in American armor, more and more of them are directed against Shiite civilians, and an estimated 10,000 people have been killed. The military estimates aqi has been responsible for up to 90 percent of those attacks.
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Guide Note: Al Qaeda is an international organization of fundamentalist Sunni Muslims. The group has claimed responsibility for, among other acts of terrorism, the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
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Al Qaeda has expanded its influence in the Middle East and Europe. It has earned much credibility in the global jihadi subculture. Its grand plans to topple the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have failed, but its attacks against them illustrate the growing breadth of its ambitions and its increasing reach throughout the Middle East. And thanks to the international connections that Zarqawi established, the group has been able to provide foreign foot soldiers for the war in Iraq. Dozens of them have gone—and more continue to go—to Iraq to join the jihad. Most of them appear to be Saudis, although exact numbers are impossible to come by.
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Al Qaeda employs a number of different terrorist tactics, including suicide bombing, car bombing, roadside bombing, hijackings and paramilitary operations against civilian and military targets. Most of the organization’s attacks are well-planned and often evolve over a number of months, if not years. One of Al Qaeda’s most distinguishing tactics is the multiple suicide bombing; examples of this are the July 2005 bombings in London and the November 2005 bombings in Amman. In this type of attack, a number of suicide bombers, generally two to five, coordinate their attacks to strike a number of targets at roughly the same time. This tactic not only causes significantly more damage and casualties than a single bomb, it ... creates a greater sense of panic among victims.
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The U.S.-led offensive against al Qaeda is enjoying some success. According to the CIA, since the Sept. 11, 2002 attacks over 3,000 al Qaeda militants have been arrested, with more than one-third of the group's top leaders killed or captured. The organization has ... lost its main training camps in Afghanistan as a result of the year-long allied campaign there — although a recent UN study claims that new smaller Qaeda bases are being established in the country. While bin Laden and his chief lieutenants remain at large, al Qaeda has suffered a degree of disruption in the past year. However, such successes notwithstanding, as seen, the group remains active, and according to the UN have been linked to at least seven terrorist incidents between Aug. 9 and Nov. 28, 2002 alone. These incidents occurred as far a field as the Philippines, off the coast of Yemen, Kuwait, Indonesia, Russia, and Kenya, showing that bin Laden's organization, often working in conjunction with its regional nodes and franchises, retains an operational capacity and a global reach.
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Al Qaeda is ... adept at using the media to further its goals. Its attacks are constantly shown on news channels around the world and its taped messages are broadcast to millions of listeners. Though most media outlets seek to delegitimize Al Qaeda, they unwittingly spread its message by heavily covering the group’s activities and proclamations.
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