Where Are the Self-Proclaimed 'Mujahideen' for Gaza?

By Badr Al-Ibrahim – Nov 15, 2024

The question of armed Salafi groups, or so-called “jihadi groups,” and their position on what is happening in Gaza does not seem urgent or widely discussed in Arab public discourse. In some ways, this issue has become self-evident: it is obvious that these groups in Syria, Iraq, and across the Arab region do not engage with events in Gaza in the same way they do with the Arab civil wars. This is because of changes in the orientation of these groups since the events of September 11, through the occupation of Iraq and subsequent events, up to the Arab Spring and the ensuing wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden began by fighting against Soviet communism in Afghanistan. However, after that war ended and US forces entered Saudi territory to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait, he adopted a stance of confronting the United States, and established Al-Qaeda within this framework. In both cases, Bin Laden proceeded from religious interpretations of international conflicts, viewing the struggle as one between faith and disbelief. This positioned him and his fellow “Arab Afghans” in service of US objectives during the Cold War against the Soviets. Later, he adopted a war against what he saw as the “Crusader-Zionist alliance” led by the United States, which in his view sought to eliminate Islam.

In Bin Laden’s vision, fighting the Americans includes fighting most Arab and Islamic regimes that have become infidels through their loyalty to the West, violating the principles of loyalty [to Islam] and disavowal [of enemies of Islam,] in addition to their failure to implement Sharia law. However, Bin Laden never focused his greatest efforts on fighting these regimes. Instead, his focus was on the “head of the snake” to expel the United States from the Islamic world, believing that internal enemies would then fall. Yet he never defined a clear strategy based on priorities in attempting to hurt the United States. For instance, targeting “Israel,” the West’s most important base in the Arab world, would have been more effective than scattered operations targeting Americans without distinguishing between civilian and military targets.

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The US invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 operation led to Bin Laden losing control of Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in different regions, leading to a kind of independence among these organizations. This marked the beginning of militant Salafi movements changing priorities, consolidated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the Tawhid and Jihad group in Iraq, who took Al-Qaeda into a new phase after the US occupation of Iraq, and prioritized what they saw as the internal enemy. Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Bin Laden but focused on attacking the religious and political institutions of Shiites in Iraq, without distinguishing between civilian and military, considering this a priority for so-called “jihadi actions.”

Bin Laden expressed reservations about Zarqawi’s strategy through his published letters. Similarly, Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed, in a 2005 letter to Zarqawi that, despite his antagonism against Shiites, he had reservations about attacking Shiite civilians and their mosques, as this would generate hatred against Al-Qaeda and distract them from fighting the United States. Zarqawi paid no attention and continued prioritizing the internal enemy of “rejectionists” and “apostates” (including a large segment of Sunnis.) Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and then Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi followed this same path, and this approach was later deployed in Syria. The difference between the Islamic State organization under al-Baghdadi and the Nusra Front under al-Julani was organizational, not ideological or strategic (all were intellectual descendants of Zarqawi), with priority remaining on the “internal enemy” within a religious/sectarian interpretation of the conflict.

The result was bloody civil wars in the Arab Mashriq, characterized by many Salafi militants positioning themselves in alliance with the US and its allies to confront the “internal enemy.” Today, the most that these so-called “jihadi” groups in Syria can offer Gaza is verbal sympathy, as anything more would require changing their positioning and priorities, overturning their entire strategy of recent years. Practical alignment with Gaza would mean aligning de-facto with Iran and its allies—something that Washington would never accept. This would end any existing or potential US support for these groups in what they consider their primary battle. Thus, we see statements from prominent members of these groups confirming that their priority is hostility to Iran and its allies rather than “Israel,” and even justifying alliance with “Israel” against Iran and its allies.

This points to the importance of the battle waged by some Arab Spring liberals, along with Arab NATO media, to change the minds of Arab consciousness regarding priorities of friendship and enmity, and primary versus secondary contradictions, trying to convince the Arab public opinion that Iran and others are more dangerous than “Israel” and the colonial West. Losing sight of the primary contradiction with the colonial West, elevating secondary contradictions to primary status, and the sectarian vision of regional conflict leads to throwing oneself into the arms of colonialism and seeking its support. Examples in this regard are Iraqi sectarian parties that supported the US invasion of their country in 2003 and the armed groups in Syria after 2011.

Gaza has reaffirmed the self-evident primary contradiction with the dominant, oppressive force of US imperialism that fundamentally hinders any renaissance and progress in the region. Thus, it became obvious that those who do not consider this contradiction to be the primary one will not come to the support of Gaza.

(Al-Akhbar) with additional editing by Orinoco Tribune

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/DZ/SC