Prime Junta
RPGCodex' Little BRO
- Joined
- October 19, 2006
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- 8,540
I have to disagree a bit here, they migth have this code, and they are very well organized in cells.
Not anymore. That was Al Qaeda 1.0, which was as good as wiped out following the US offensive in Afghanistan. The current Al Qaeda isn't really an organization in any meaningful sense of the word; it's a shared ideology and a mutual-help network of like-minded individuals. This makes it much more difficult to defeat or destroy, but also greatly limits its operational capabilities.
But we also have several Al Qaida funded suicide bombings were a poor man or woman's family is offered money to become a suicide bomber, get training and pick a target. He does a "good" dead and his family and children gets a lot of money to survive. There are more willing people than they can train. Possibly because of poority and lack of knowledge in many countries they recruit from. US has realised this and started to pay $ to families who turn sides, it worked very well and reduced violence in for example Iraq by 60% when they started with this tactics.
I think you may be mixing a few different things here.
(1) Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, do financially support families of "martyrs" regardless of how they died (in battle, by suicide bombing, or as bystanders), and I'm sure this makes it easier for them to find recruits (suicide bomber and other), as it removes "how will my family survive when I'm gone" from the equation. The motivation is still first and foremost ideological (although in many cases not religious -- both Hamas and Hezbollah are national resistance movements with a religious basis, not international revolutionary movements like AQ). I haven't heard of Al Qaeda operating this way (although it's certainly possible).
(2) Your view of US tactics in Iraq is pretty garbled. I take it you're referring to the successes in Al-Anbar province, where the local tribal chieftains turned against "Al Qaeda in Iraq," with American support. This didn't happen by giving money to poor people so they wouldn't become suicide bombers; it happened by giving the local shaykhs security guarantees and money. AQ in Iraq never was very popular with the locals -- Sunni integrism was never very strong there to start with, and they behaved like the fanatical idiots that they are.
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- Joined
- Oct 19, 2006
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