Jihad Joe by J. M. Berger

INTRODUCTION
The “New” Problem
    In 1979 a motley band of several hundred extremists staged an armed takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site. It was an unprecedented heresy, and it marked the dawn of the modern age of terrorism.
    They were mostly Saudis, but the terrorists included Egyptians, Sudanese, Kuwaitis, Iraqis, Yemenis, and at least two Americans. 1
    The siege took place during a period of violent change in the Islamic world, soon after the revolution that installed the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and just before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As many as six hundred followers of a Saudi named Juhayman Al Otaibi believed they had discovered the
mahdi
, an Islamic messiah figure embodied by Juhayman’s cousin. They struck during the Hajj, Islam’s most sacred pilgrimage, seizing the Grand Mosque and taking scores of hostages. For two weeks, Saudi Arabia was paralyzed by the siege, which eventually ended with a violent raid that left most of the terrorists dead and the historic mosque smoldering from its minarets. 2
    Juhayman and a handful of his men were captured and publicly executed. One of his American followers was taken prisoner and then secretly whisked home. Weeks after the siege ended, the wife of the other American walked into the U.S. consulate in Jeddah to inform officials that her husband, Faqur Abdur-Rahman, had been killed during the takeover. Saudi police had showed her his picture. His body had been buried in a mass grave, along with everyone else who was killed while taking part in the attack. “She does not desire to attempt to recover her husband’s remains,” a State Department official reported. 3
    The Siege at Mecca was only the beginning. Thirty years later, after a highly visible series of incidents in 2009 and 2010, U.S. media outlets discovered a new reason to worry. Americans were “suddenly” signing up for violent jihad.
    Yet the phenomenon is far from new. Since 1979 American citizens have repeatedly packed their bags, left wives and children behind, and traveled to distant lands in the name of military jihad, the armed struggle of Islam.
    Their reasons are as varied as their backgrounds—some travel to defend Muslims in peril, and some fight to establish the reign of Allah on earth. Some are channeling a personal rage that has little to do with religion. Others seek a community where they can belong.
    Americans fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, and at least one American citizen was present at the founding of al Qaeda. Americans have gone to jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, and Yemen. Virtually every major terrorist attack against the United States—including 9/11—has included Americans as willful accomplices.
    While all major religions have rules that limit or justify war, a small but significant minority of Muslims believe that under the correct circumstances, war is a fundamental obligation for everyone who shares the religion of Islam. When war is carried out according to the rules, it is called military jihad or simply jihad.
    â€œJihad” is a word that has become contentious, with many Muslims arguing that it is most properly applied to a host of nonviolent activities, such as self-improvement or seeking justice. Although this argument applies in certain contexts, military jihadists do not make such qualifications when they call their work jihad.
    â€œWhenever jihad is mentioned in the [Koran], it means the obligation to fight. It does not mean to fight with the pen or to write books or articles in the press, or to fight by holding lectures.” Those are the words of Abdullah Azzam, the spiritual and physical leader of the volunteer jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, who was speaking in Brooklyn in 1988. 4 This book will generally follow Azzam’s usage, although it will also examine those who use the pen and the lectern to incite others to acts of physical jihad.
    I acknowledge