Abizaid Details al Qaeda's Long-Term
Goals
Defense Link (military)
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Sept. 29, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2005 – Al Qaeda terrorists hope to drive
American influence from the Middle East and install a global Muslim leader in
Saudi Arabia, Army Gen. John Abizaid said today.
Speaking during Senate testimony, Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command,
said al Qaeda's objectives are clear. "They believe in a jihad, a jihad to
overthrow the legitimate regimes in the region," he said. "In order to do that,
they first must drive America from the region."
Al Qaeda believes the most important prize is Saudi Arabia, which is home to
the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. If al Qaeda terrorists manage to take
control of Saudi Arabia, they will try to create and expand their influence in
the region and establish a caliphate, Abizaid said.
The term harkens back to the immediate successors of Muhammed and means a
land led by a supreme secular and religious ruler. Al Qaeda insists that
re-establishing a caliphate would mean that one man, as the successor to
Muhammad, would possess clear political, military and legal standing as the
global Muslim leader.
Abizaid said al Qaeda would then apply a very narrow, strict interpretation
of Sharia, Islamic law, not believed in or practiced anywhere else in the world
today. Such conquest in the Middle East "would certainly allow al Qaeda and
their proxies to control a vast oil wealth that exists in the region," he said.
"They intend to destroy Israel in the process, as well."
The next goal would be to expand into non-Arab Islamic countries. This would
include the middle of Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, the general said.
The organization would operate from these areas and also from cyberspace. He
said al Qaeda uses to Internet to transmit their hatred. "They aim to take
advantage of open societies and will strike at those societies when they are
ready at their time and place of choosing," he said.
In an allusion that is probably distasteful to American companies, Abizaid
said al Qaeda is not a monolith like IBM. Rather, it is a franchise operation
like McDonald's. This makes it very difficult to cut off the head of the
organization. The group uses any and all means to further its goals: drugs,
smuggling, so-called charitable organizations and others.
To beat al Qaeda and affiliate organizations requires military action but
also "all elements of international and national power to put pressure
throughout the network over time in order to squeeze the ideology, defeat its
sources of strength, and ultimately allow the good people of the region to have
the courage and the ability to stand against this type of organization,"
Abizaid said.
The United States and its coalition allies are doing this, he said. The key
to success is helping the people of the region develop the will and
capabilities to challenge al Qaeda. The "long war against terror" will be won
by "self-reliant partners in the region who are willing to face the enemy
within their own countries," he said.
U.S. and coalition forces must remain in the region long enough to
"stabilize Afghanistan, stabilize Iraq, continue to deter Syria and Iran, and
protect the flow of oil vital to all the peoples of the world and the economies
of the region," he said.
The United States must make it clear that America has no territorial
designs. "We must make clear that we fight with them out of mutual respect and
mutual benefit," Abizaid said.
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