Although al-Qaeda's totalitarian vision first caught our attention after 9/11, this was not the start of the global jihad. Through the '90s the group bombed targets across the Middle East, aiming to snatch power by unseating Arab regimes. It also targeted Western interests, including the bombing of US military bases in Saudi Arabia, the embassy bombings in East Africa and an attack on the USS Cole docked in Yemen. These were tactics entirely consistent with the message Azzam had preached. Suggestions that al-Qaeda might therefore implode under the weight of criticism from jihadist clerics like al-Awdah and Dr Fadl misreads the history of Azzam and the ideas of modern jihad. Where al-Qaeda parted with him was by shifting the centre of its campaign into the Western world, with 9/11 marking a dramatic break with its earlier tactics - not ideology. The debate now is about where the jihad heads next.
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