Observer: History of Al-Qaeda

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The History of Al-Qaeda, published today in The Observer......and not a mention of the CIA.


A history of terror: Al-Qaeda 1988-2008

* Andrew Wander
* The Observer,
* Sunday July 13, 2008

11 AUGUST 1988 Al-Qaeda is formed at a meeting attended by Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Dr Fadl in Peshawar, Pakistan. The creation of the group brings together extraordinary Saudi wealth, the expertise of a lifetime Egyptian militant, and a philosophical foundation for jihad from a Cairo intellectual

7 AUGUST 1990 US forces arrive in Saudi Arabia in preparation for the first Gulf War, angering bin Laden, who had offered his mujahideen to defend the kingdom from Saddam Hussein 1991 Bin Laden leaves Saudi after making public attacks on the royal family and arrives in Sudan, where he begins preparing for operations

29 DECEMBER 1992 Al-Qaeda's fi rst bomb attack kills two people at the Gold Mihor hotel in Aden

26 FEBRUARY 1993 The scale of the organisation's ambition becomes clear when they launch an audacious attack on the World Trade Centre in New York - six are killed and 1,000 injured when a 500kg bomb is detonated

4 OCTOBER 1993 18 US servicemen are killed in the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia. Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to have aided those who shot down the helicopters 1994 Dr Fadl gives Zawahiri his manuscript The Compendium of the Pursuit of Divine Knowledge. Zawahiri makes amendments, incurring the wrath of Fadl. The two men fall out, and Fadl 'retires' from terrorism. His book becomes the intellectual foundation for al-Qaeda's murderous campaign

1996 Bin Laden returns to Afghanistan, where he forms a close relationship with the leader of the new Taliban government, Mullah Omar. Meanwhile, Zawahiri is dismayed to hear that militants imprisoned in Egypt are renouncing violence

1997 The Islamic Group formally gives up its violent campaign. To scupper the peace deal, Zawahiri plans an attack in Egypt

17 NOVEMBER 1997 62 people are killed by gunmen in a massacre at Luxor in Egypt

22 FEBRUARY 1998 Bin Laden issues a fatwa declaring all American citizens legitimate targets of al-Qaeda and calling for Muslims to perform their 'duty' by killing them

7 AUGUST 1998 223 people are killed when the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are attacked. One of the hallmarks of al-Qaeda operations is simultaneous strikes

20 AUGUST 1998 The first US military action against the group comes in the form of strikes against camps in Sudan and Afghanistan

12 OCTOBER 2000 The USS Cole is rammed by a smaller vessel carrying explosives in Aden

JUNE 2001 Bin Laden's al-Qaeda group and Zawahiri's al-Jihad group formally merge

11 SEPTEMBER 2001 2,974 people are killed as hijacked planes are flown into buildings in America

OCTOBER 2001 US troops invade Afghanistan, committed to ousting the Taliban from power

NOVEMBER 2001 Bin Laden escapes capture in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan

11 APRIL 2002 Hopes that al-Qaeda's terror campaign is over are ended by an attack on a synagogue in Tunisia

20 MARCH 2003 The United States invades Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein and prevent the production of weapons of mass destruction

12 MAY 2003 27 civilians are killed in a wave of bombings in Riyadh targeting compounds in which foreigners live

16 MAY 2003 Suicide bombings in Casablanca kill 45 people

20 DECEMBER 2003 British interests are attacked in Turkey, killing 27 people. The bombings are the work of al-Qaeda successor groups, showing that while the group's organisational structure may have been damaged by the war in Afghanistan, its ability to 'franchise' a lethal mixture of Islam and violence is unharmed

11 MARCH 2004 Madrid is attacked - 191 people are killed, and almost 2,000 are injured

17 OCTOBER 2004 Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose operations have wreaked havoc in Iraq, pledges allegiance to al-Qaeda, establishing the group in Iraq

7 JULY 2005 52 are killed when public transport networks are targeted by suicide bombers in the biggest terrorist attack ever committed in the UK. The bombers are all British-born Muslims who had spent time in remote 'training camps' in Pakistan

8 JUNE 2006 Al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is killed in a US military operation

MAY 2007 From his prison cell in Cairo, Fadl publishes Rationalising Jihad, in which he attacks the campaign of violence launched by al-Qaeda. As the man who provided the intellectual justification for the group's acts when it was founded, his re-evaluation stuns jihadists

MARCH 2008 Zahawiri releases his reaction to Fadl's criticism, a 200-page letter entitled Exoneration. That he is forced to respond shows the scale of the threat Fadl's withdrawal of intellectual support poses

2 JUNE 2008 Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for a car bomb against the Danish embassy in Pakistan. Six died.
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