Masaryk University

. Masaryk University

Author: Bc Fuad Ismayilov UCO 363546

Supervisor: doc. JUDr. PhDr. Miroslav Mareš, Ph.D

Brno 2010

I hereby declare that this thesis I submit for assessment is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my own work.

Date: Signature:
The goal of the thesis:

‘The goal of this thesis is to analyze the Islamic Jihad Union from the point of view of terrorism research’

Acknowledgment:

As the author of this work I would like to be grateful for my supervisor doc JUDr PhDr Miroslav Mares Ph.D for his indispensible consultation and advice that played a significant role in the creation of my work.

Table of contents

Introduction…………………………………………...………………………………….6

1. 
   Framework of the concept of ‘Terrorism’.
   
   1. 
      Defining Terrorism………………………………………………………9
      
   2. 
      Types of Terrorism……………………………………………...……...13
      
   3. 
      Methods of Terrorism…………………………………………………..15
      
   4. 
      Ideology of Terrorism………………………………….……………….17
      
2. 
   What kind of organization Islamic Jihad Union is?
   
   1. 
      The transformation of Islamic Jihad Union from Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan…..…………………………………...………………..……18
      
   2. 
      The emergence of Islamic Jihad Union……………………………...…25
      
3. 
   Islamic Jihad Union as a hierarchical organization?
   

4. 
   The ideology, identity and operations of the Islamic Jihad Union organization.
   
   1. 
      The ideology and identity of the Islamic Jihad Union………………….44
      
   2. 
      Islamic Jihad Union’s operations in Afghanistan………………………47
      
   3. 
      Islamic Jihad Union’s German link- Operation ‘Alberich’…………….53
      
   4. 
      Islamic Jihad Union’s operations in Pakistan…………………………..60
      
5. 
   Special secret services relations with the Islamic Jihad Union organization.
   

6. 
   The assessment of Islamic Jihad Union.
   
   1. 
      The assessment of Islamic Jihad Union…………………...……………64
      
   2. 
      Is Islamic Jihad Union danger to Europe………………………...……..67
      
   3. 
      Islamic Jihad Union is in United States of America?..............................71
      

The word ‘terror’ translated from Latin means the fear and horror. Terror can be understood as the policy of frightening, suppression of political opponents using violent and brutal methods. Terrorists are always looking for the different ways, how to cause a situation of chaos in the political and economic structures of society, and seek ways in order to stimulate a state of fear in the public consciousness. Also one of the aims of the terrorists actions are directed to the creation of the public panic atmosphere, confusion and disrupt the function and work of the state bodies.

The object of the terrorism violence is in the power and in the name of civil servant individuals, a community in the face of separate citizens including citizens of foreign countries, or state employees of the other states. To reach a desirable conclusions of events in the community such as revolution, destabilization of the society, involving foreign countries into the war, liberating territories and making them independent, political compromise from outside the power and so on are the violence purposes of the terrorism.

We live in the era where the threat of global terrorism remains still high and my main purpose in writing this thesis is that we know a little detailed information about the Islamic Jihad Union and I would like to use my opportunity to research the Islamic Jihad Union organization and analyze the information that I have obtained and define the Islamic Jihad Union organization’s relations with terrorism from the point of view of terrorism research and to provide you the results and conclusions which I have achieved.

Transnational terrorism is behaved as an exercise of political strength in the International Relations, i,e as an effort on the part of the political leadership of terrorist organizations in order to increase its impact concerning the policy making processes in target communities.¹ Two important components describe any modern definition of the terrorism; the presence or threat of violence and political/social motives, however without violence it is not possible to center the political decision maker’s attention to your problems and without the political or social motives the violent act is estimate as a crime rather than an act of terrorism.² The creation of important risk assessment models for the visible features of terrorism which can shape the core for risk assessment instruments is likely to be valuable enterprise. The risk assessment is a projection of the likelihood that a hazard, harmful behavior or event, will occur.³ There are three elements of the terrorism risk; ‘the threat to a target, the target’ vulnerability to the threat, and the consequences -the target should be successfully attacked.⁴

I would like to divide my thesis into six particular chapters that in my opinion will cover the Islamic Jihad Union organization from its emergence to the present.

The first chapter of my thesis is the contribution to the theoretical and methodological introduction to the nature and fundamental concepts of terrorism and I will try to write and mention the different perceptions and understandings about terrorism, its types, challenges, ideology and perspectives with the particular examples. The methods used by the terrorists will be discussed in this chapter also.

I decided to devote the second chapter of this thesis to the understanding of the Islamic Jihad Union organization and to figure out what kind of the organization the Islamic Jihad Union is. The scientific and theoretical goal of the Islamic Jihad Union organization, its emergence, and its historical development with historical sequences will be discussed in this chapter.

The third chapter is forwarded to the investigation with purpose of to find out the relationship of the Islamic Jihad Union organization with the Global Jihad and the link between global terrorist networks as Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

The fourth part of this thesis is the contribution to the ideology and identity of the Islamic Jihad Union organization. Here I will explain how the Islamic Jihad Union organization operates. The methods used by the Islamic Jihad Union organization, its allies, and its operations in different parts of the world its suicide bombe attacks will be discussed in this chapter with the chronological consequences.

The fifth chapter of this thesis was devoted to the possible roles, influences and investigations of the different special secret services concerning the Islamic Jihad Union organization. Also in this last chapter was described which international organizations and states entered the name of Islamic Jihad Union organization into their black lists.

The six and last part of this thesis was devoted to the assessment of the Islamic Jihad Union organization. In this fifth chapter I also tried to put together all my analyses and to define out how the Islam Jihad Union organization is dangerous for the Western European countries, Middle East and different regions of the world.

1. 
   Defining Terrorism
   

United States of America also does not have a single definition for the terrorism because of its government policy. Different structures of the government have their own definitions. The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as ‘the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by revolutionary organization against individuals or property with the intention of coercing or intimidating government or societies, often to achieve political, religious or ideological purposes’. ⁸ For Central Intelligence Agency the terrorism is the ‘threat or use of violence for political purposes by individuals or groups, whether acting for, or in opposition to established government authority, when such actions are intended to shock or intimidate a large group wider than the immediate victims.’⁹ For Federal Bureau of Investigation the terrorism is ‘the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives’ ¹⁰ The U.S Department of State introduced the understanding for the terrorism as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.’¹¹

Charles L. Ruby introduces three significant criteria for this definition made by U.S Department of State which differentiate it from other forms of violence. His first criterion is that terrorism must be politically motivated and directed toward goals that are political. Second his criterion is that terrorist violence is directed at noncombatants, to the people that are not lively involved in the military activities and hostilities. His third criterion is about the definition substantial groups or clandestine agents perform terrorist attacks. Charles L, Ruby’s criterion here is that political violence by nation-state is not terrorism even if peoples who are not the military members will be murdered.¹²

The United States Code introduces the understanding to the term of terrorism as illegal violence that tries ‘(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.¹³

So we can come into conclusion that the general elements between the definitions concerning terrorism among U.S structures show that U.S has acquires not so large juristic way to defining terrorism and in all of those definitions terrorism act is politically motivated.

1.2. Types of Terrorism

Using simple elements it is not so difficult to identify the types of terrorism. It is possible to divide the modern terrorism into three types: traditional, technological and intellectual.¹⁴ It is also possible to separate the most important types of terrorism into three types and see them as political, international and domestic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is characterized for the United States of America and can be in the form of internet hacking, car bombing and etc. International terrorism is the most familiar type of terrorism which took place all over the world. Political terrorism is aimed for the political purposes. Different types of terrorism also exist. For example: Anarchist terrorism (Abu Nidal Organization), right wing terrorism which attacks immigrants and refugees, left wing terrorism which is aimed to remove the capitalism and introduce the socialism (Japanese Red Army and Baader-Meinhof Group), religious terrorism that use the violence ( Hamas and Al-Qaeda), nationalist terrorism (Irish Republican Army), narco-terrorism (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) and Cyber-terrorism (Tamil Tigers).

I would like to center the reader’s attention to several scholars’ views concerning the types of terrorism. For example Martin Gus in his book introduced five terrorist typologies and they are: state terrorism, dissident terrorism, religious terrorism, criminal terrorism and international terrorism.¹⁵

Bruno Frey in his book divided the typology of terrorism into three parts: According to him the first one is domestic and transnational terrorism, where in domestic terrorism the terrorists restrict themselves to a particular national territory and in transnational terrorist groups in contrast wants to achieve the international goals¹⁶. The second one is the state sponsored terrorist organizations where the terrorist organizations supported by states and states help them to obtain the chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction.¹⁷ The last one is the religious terrorism where religiously motivated terrorist act happens for the idea of faith glory.¹⁸

Another scholar Thomas Sulcer described the three sorts of terrorism. According to him the first type of terrorism is crime and criminal is a neighbor who commits terrorism.¹⁹ The second one is the tyrant who is ruler of your own nation who commits terrorism and the tyranny is determined by the examining the Constitution.²⁰ The third one according to Thomas is a foreign terrorist and foreign terrorist is a foreigner who commits the terrorism. ²¹

Bruce Hoffman in his book inside terrorism centered the reader’s attention to the religious terrorism, international terrorism, state sponsored terrorism and ethno-nationalist terrorism.²²

Researching the works of those scholars that I have mentioned above we can meet the common elements like International terrorism, state sponsored terrorism and religious terrorism.

3. 
   Methods of Terrorism.
   

Analyzing the different methods of terrorist acts helped researchers’ to introduce several conclusions. Terrorists use a lot of methods in order to achieve their goals. As we know one of the well known methods of the terrorists is the kidnapping the government officials, journalists, military personnel, foreign tourists or the diplomats of the foreign embassies and states. Their goal is to achieve the political blackmail and usually with kidnapping they demand the governments to execute their wills to release their partners from prisons, redemption and etc.

Explosions of the industrial, transport, military, state bodies, editorial offices of different newspapers or magazines, headquarters of party committees are among the methods of the terrorists. One of the methods of the terrorism using by terrorist organizations is the individual terror or political assaults which is forwarded to the public figures and officials, bankers and so on. One of the large spread techniques of the terrorism is the political kidnapping. Another method that uses terrorists is the capture of schools, buildings, institutions, banks, embassies, that are accompanied with the capture of hostages that happened in Nord-Ost Theater and in Beslan school siege that occurred in Russian Federation. Today this method is one of the most popular forms of terrorism using by terrorist organizations. It is important to outline fact that their control over hostages lets them to negotiate with the government officials with superiority.

One of the large using methods by the different international terrorist organizations is the delivery to their opponents the explosive devices which could be sending by person or by using vehicle. Filling the explosive elements into these vehicles or other transport facilities they are able to observe the situation from long distances and are able automatically set in motion those devices at the required and necessary time for them.

Terrorist attacks to the urban transports like trains, buses and so on are very famous among terrorist. 11March 2004 the world centered its attention to the explosions in Madrid where the dynamite exploded on four trains and took away 191 lives and injured nearly 1800 persons²³. This terror accident was very terrible and stayed in the memory of the people in Europe quite long and affected very negative to the public psychology. Police investigation showed that these attacks were carried by a group of people from North Africa which inspired from the tracts written in al-Qaida affiliated website that called for terror in Spain and that tract called for two or three attacks to exploit the coming general elections in Spain in March 2004, saying that they would ensure the victory of the Socialist party and the withdrawal the Spanish army from Iraq.²⁴ So we can say that that method of terror was politically motivated and well organized by the terrorists.

One of the methods that international terrorist groups are trying to use in their activities is the chemical, biological and radiological materials. The leader of Al-Qaeda Usmaa bin Laden in November 2001 announced that ‘if United States of America used a chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons and we have as a deterrent’.²⁵

The experiences that different terrorist organizations are gaining, using various methods and techniques that they are gaining in their terrorist activities, provide support for other groups and organizations. In conclusion I would like to say that the methods and techniques used by the terrorists are always changing and differs from organization to organization because of number of factors and characteristics.

3. 
   Ideology of Terrorism.
   

Ideology is an effective message that stimulates and moves ordinary people into action. Ideology at the same time is the active and progressing brief system which is developed by the understanding of events or incidents by the ideologues. Ideology is used to allure recruits, fighters, and sympathizers and to hold on them mentally or physically. Using the ideology concept the members of different Jihad organizations and groups successfully recruit fighters and followers from different sections of the society. In order to implement and spread the ideology terrorist groups are using it in the form of propaganda videos, different speeches and lectures in the mosques, in writings and etc. The role of ideology is to support the different terrorist organizations with a sense of direction and the justification to use violence.²⁶ Carol Winkler argues that terrorism operates as a symbolic marker of the culture which does not represent an ideology, in and of itself, because it fails to induce the understandable, positive orientation for members of the collective.²⁷ Gus Martin described that ideologies can constitute political, social or economic programs and also can constitute racial, religious or ethnic systems of belief and mentioned the common attribute of all ideologies as the guide the worldview and method of existing for nations, groups and individuals.²⁸ Ideology is simultaneously cultural and psychological in significance and can be understand as one of the factors in the motivation process.²⁹

Before my research I would like to say that Islamic Jihad Union took its root from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan strongly affirmed on the structures of the formed terrorist network on the territory of the country, became its integral part and started to play a significant role in the military and political policy in Afghanistan and among Taliban regime.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (also known as O’zbekistan Harakati) as it is known locally (Harakat-ul-Islamiyyah in the Arab language) had its origin in the so called Islamic movement Adolat (Justice), a faction of the large group known as Islom lashkerlari (Islamic Warriors).³⁰ Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is the biggest Islamic political organization in Central Asia. When the peaceful negotiations with the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan become difficult or in some cases impossible officially called Harakat ul Islamiyyah Ozbekistan or Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan established in 1998. When Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan established it included the former activists of Islamic organizations in Uzbekistan, whose activities were banned by the Uzbekistani president Islam Karimov in the years of 1992 and 1993. Tahir Yuldashev (picture 1)³¹ became the political and ideological leader of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Juma Namangani (picture 2)³² became leader of the military unit of the organization, and together they founded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan organization.³³

Picture 1 Picture 2

In summer 1999-2000 when the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan started to operate in the mountains with the border regions of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan it gained its first international attention. One of the main purposes of this organization was to establish the Islamic government first in Fergana³⁴ valley and then consequently in Central Asia including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and in China where Uyghurs are living (Chinese province Xinjiang).³⁵ Under the leadership of Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldashev the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan organization approximately had three thousand members mainly formed from Tajiks and Uzbeks.³⁶ Passing the difficult stages of transformations in semi-legal public associations in Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan took part in civil war in Tajikistan (1992-1997) and recommended itself as faithfully ally of Taliban movement and become the powerful military group that were able to conduct large scale operations in Afghanistan and behind its limits.³⁷ Operated in Afghanistan the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan used the Mazar-e Sharif and Kunduz as their headquarters in the north part of the country.³⁸

The leaders of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Tahir Yuldashev and Juma Namangani, have developed plans for external subversive activities and have strengthened the system of formation and preparation of diversionary units. One of the tasks was to carefully select the most perspective recruits among personnel and to pay a high attention to their training and preparation in the camps of Al-Qaida. The insurgents that finished successfully the special trainings and courses were formed into small diversionary groups and were sent through Iran and Turkey and further into the Central Asia countries with the purpose of long term settling and creation the illegal terrorist organizations. In order to get the support from different radical and extremist groups and organizations the leader of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Tahir Yuldashev travelled to the countries as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Caucasus as well, and made the secret negotiations concerning the financial support with the secret and intelligence services of those states. By the year 2001 the leaders of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have effectively formed the functionary finance system where except the direct receipts from Al-Qaida and other international foreign terrorist organizations and centers, the considerable share of money came from the flow of old Uzbek emigrants from Saudi Arabia.³⁹ Abraham Smulevich in his research mentions that according to unverified information after the movement of members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) helped them with financial aid in short period of time.⁴⁰ Because of its close relationships with Taliban the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan got armed support from them and their military capacity included pistols and silencers, grenade launches, night vision equipment and sniper rifles that were acquired from military unite in Central Asia.⁴¹ The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan by the early 2001 had its camps in Afghanistan and in Tajikistan and Tahir Yuldashev established Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan cells in Ferghana Valley.

Guido Steinberg in his research while speaking about the rift between the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Islamic Jihad Union mentioned that ‘the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was not totally unaffected by the trend towards internationalization that Islamic Jihad Union leaded by separating from its Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan organization and in 1998 it moved closer to more globally oriented groups like al-Qaida and due to its increasing number of non-Uzbek recruits and its relationships with Chechens and Uyghur’s. In addition by operating together with Taliban, its Pakistani sympathizers and al-Qaida Arab fighters, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan strengthened the feeling of solidarity between the various nationalities and had the organization focused its efforts entirely on Uzbekistan it would have risked loosing the aid of non-Uzbeks especially when it was true after 2001, when the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan lost its base in Afghanistan and was forced to operate from Waziristan.’⁴⁷ There was the separation of the views of within the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan concerning the ideological and strategic opinion and this factor eventually led of the separation of Islamic Jihad Union from its mother organization Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The argument around the dispute within Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was whether Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan should continue to focus their activities in the fighting in Uzbekistan against the Kerimov regime or Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan should enlarge its influence and role in Central Asia or like Al-Qaida in the Western countries. Different articles were written in Central Asian media several times that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan had changed its name into the Islamic Party of Turkestan (Hizb-i Islami Turkestan) and are trying to bring the new Islamic rule in the Central Asia completely, but that kind of in formations rejected by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leaders and mentioned that Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan will focus its activities only in Uzbekistan⁴⁸. Taking into account all these arguments we can say that the organization was under the ideological tension and this was one of the factors that brought to split and this split pushed to the emergence of Islamic Jihad Union.