Al Qaeda - Blog 7

- al-Qaeda, Arabic al-Qāʿidah (“the Base”), broad-based militant Islamist organization
founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.

- Sunni Islamist. (80-90% of islamists)
- Al Qaeda P.A. (Península Arábiga/Arabic Peninsula) (Literalist suni ideology of the Quran ):
Arabia Saudita - Independiente del estado.
Bin Laden: Exiled by the Saudi regime, and later stripped of his citizenship in 1994, bin
Laden left Afghanistan and set up operations in Sudan, with the United States in his sights
as enemy No. 1. Al Qaeda took credit for the attack on two Black Hawk helicopters during
the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia in 1993, as well as the World Trade Center Bombing in
New York in 1993, and a car bombing in 1995 that destroyed a U.S.-leased military building
in Saudi Arabia. In 1998 the group claimed responsibility for attacks on U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania and, in 2000, for the suicide bombings against the U.S.S. Cole in
Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed, and 39 injured.
“In particular, al Qaeda opposed the continued presence of American military forces in Saudi
Arabia (and elsewhere on the Saudi Arabian peninsula) following the Gulf War,” the Council
reports, adding that “al Qaeda opposed the United States Government because of the
arrest, conviction and imprisonment of persons belonging to al Qaeda or its affiliated terrorist
groups or those with whom it worked. For these and other reasons, Bin Laden declared a
jihad, or holy war, against the United States, which he has carried out through al Qaeda and
its affiliated organizations.”
- Al-Qaeda began as a logistical network to support Muslims fighting against the Soviet
Union during the Afghan War; members were recruited throughout the Islamic world.
- When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the organization dispersed but
continued to oppose what its leaders considered corrupt Islamic regimes and foreign (i.e
U.S.) presence in Islamic lands.
- Based in Sudan for a period in the early 1990s, the group eventually reestablished its
headquarters in Afghanistan (c. 1996) under the patronage of the Taliban militia.
- Al-Qaeda merged with a number of other militant Islamist organizations, including Egypt’s
Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Group, and on several occasions its leaders declared holy war
against the United States.
- In 2001, 19 militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks against
the United States. Within weeks the U.S. government responded by attacking Taliban and
al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Thousands of militants were killed or captured, among them
several key members (including the militant who allegedly planned and organized the
September 11 attacks), and the remainder and their leaders were driven into hiding.
- The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 challenged that country’s viability as an al-Qaeda

sanctuary and training ground and compromised communication, operational, and financial
linkages between al-Qaeda leadership and its militants.
Rather than significantly weakening al-Qaeda, however, these realities prompted a structural
evolution and the growth of “franchising.”
Increasingly, attacks were orchestrated not only from above by the centralized leadership
(after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, based in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions) but
also by the localized, relatively autonomous cells it encouraged. Such grassroots
independent groups—coalesced locally around a common agenda but subscribing to the
al-Qaeda name and its broader ideology—thus meant a diffuse form of militancy, and one far
more difficult to confront.
- With this organizational shift, al-Qaeda was linked—whether directly or indirectly—to more
attacks in the six years following September 11 than it had been in the six years prior,
including attacks in Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom,
Israel, Algeria, and elsewhere.
At the same time, al-Qaeda increasingly utilized the Internet as an expansive venue for
communication and recruitment and as a mouthpiece for video messages, broadcasts, and
propaganda. Meanwhile, some observers expressed concern that U.S. strategy—centred
primarily on attempts to overwhelm al-Qaeda militarily—was ineffectual, and at the end of
the first decade of the 21st century, al-Qaeda was thought to have reached its greatest
strength since the attacks of September 2001. (2000’s / 2001-2009)
- On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by U.S. military forces after U.S. intelligence located
him residing in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 31 miles (50 km) from
Islamabad. The operation was carried out by a small team that reached the compound in
Abbottabad by helicopter. After bin Laden’s death was confirmed, it was announced by U.S.
Pres. Barack Obama, who hailed the operation as a major success in the fight against
al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda released a statement announcing that Ayman
al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s long-serving deputy, had been appointed to replace bin Laden as
the organization’s leader.
Number of armed supporters (Western agenda)

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/al-qaedas-resurrection (2018)
Influence (Canada and US agenda)
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/map-of-al-qaedas-global-network/ (2013)
Presence according to BBC (UK media) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13296443 (2013)
Blog #7 - Messy migration geopolitics
Hello again and welcome to one of the last blogs of the semester, and the last one that will
actually be focused on a specific topic. For today we will be looking at the most recent topic
that we’ve seen, messy geopolitics. In class we saw two different cases of people as
individuals who were involved in international affairs due to their context; today we will be
looking at a case that is closer to us and to the common geopolitical vision that the average
Monterrey citizen has.
Today we will be looking at the case of Anthony Lopez; an hondruan migrant who in 2016
offered an interview to the National Agrarian Registry boss, Alfredo Nieves Medina, and
which was published in the National Center for the Preservation of the Railroad Cultural
Heritage (CNPPCF) and Railway Documentation and Research Center (CEDIF). This
interview took place the hostel ‘ La Sagrada Familia, Apizaco, in México City.
Let’s start our analysis of Anthony. First off, he’s a male who identifies a man. Being a man
avoids him from suffering the type of treats or discrimination that women can experience
when being a migrant. He’s 32 years old; a grown adult with experience in migration travels
that can help him out with the mental aspect of this experience. He’s also Honduranian.
Honduras is a country from which year after year caravans sail out with thousands of
immigrants looking for the so-called ‘American Dream,’ and to do that they have to go
through México.
Although López mentions many personal reasons behind his several journeys, this is one of
many histories of thousands of people. Things get really geopolitical when looking at the
reasons on why central or south americans really have to leave their country; many of them
are hoping for a better life-opportunity after living in a country that was destabilized when the
american military forces arrived to it with a message of “freedom and democracy.”
The case doesn’t get any easier when speaking about Mexico’s role. From 2017 to 2020,
former USA president Donald Trump has forced the Mexican government to close the south
frontier with Guatemala and Belize in order to prevent more migrants from using our country
as a gateway to his country.
Anthony Lopez’ case is just one of many in this geopolitical issue that involves Mexico, US,
his country, and many other latinamerican ones. Messy geopolitics at their finest.
Read the complete interview here:

http://luisrodriguez.mx/mirada/entrevista-al-migrante-hondureno-anthony-lopez/

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- al-Qaeda, Arabic al-Qāʿidah (“the Base”), broad-based militant Islamist organization

founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.

- The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 challenged that country’s viability as an al-Qaeda

Number of armed supporters (Western agenda)

Presence according to BBC (UK media) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13296443 (2013)

Blog #7 - Messy migration geopolitics

Read the complete interview here:

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