The devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Wash-
ington once more placed the Islamic world at the very heart of world affairs. It
is assumed that the attacks were perpetrated by Islamic extremists linked to
the so-called bureau of registration of jihad fighters (sijill al-qa‘ida, known as
al-qa‘ida) created by Osama bin Laden in 1988 during his stay in Afghanistan.
On 23 February 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa in the name of a World Islamic
Front for Jihad declaring that it was the duty of each individual Muslim to
fight and kill Americans according to their capability. Nobody really knows
with certainty how many people work within bin Laden’s World Islamic Front.
Estimates range between hundreds and thousands of combatants acting at dif-
ferent levels of the organization. There exist other smaller jihad federations
and groups trained in Afghanistan which have been serving in crisis areas such
as Chechnya and perhaps also Algeria and which might be related to the net-
work of Afghanistan veterans. All in all perhaps 5,000 sympathisers in the broad-
est sense might have had contacts with bin Ladin’s al-qa‘ida over the last 13
years. Ladenist sympathisers are probably also active in other Islamic circles –
particularly in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – without, however, operat-
ing as supporting groups.