International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 38

International Journal on Criminology
of the young engineer Mustapha Choukri, which promoted El Hidjra Oua Takfir (exile
and excommunication). Choukri’s method consisted of taking to the wilderness, like
the Prophet and his companions escaping their enemies from Koreich, and of cursing
a society of unbelievers, which Choukri saw as having returned to “Djahilia” and
therefore to be fought by the sword. In Algeria, the GIA contained elements of this
sect.
Again in Egypt, the electrician Abdelsalam Farag founded a virulent and
sectarian “jihad organization.” On October 6, 1981, Farag had President Sadat
assassinated, because he was seen as a traitor for negotiating with Jews. Other Egyptian
leaders then fell under the strikes of the Takfiris, as well as some foreigners (Luxor
attack). Following these terrorist attacks, a number of these Islamists were arrested in
Egypt, while others went into hiding or fled the country. On leaving prison, those who
had been imprisoned rejoined those in exile, like Ayman Zawahiri, who became the
deputy to Oussama Ben Laden.
Another incubator of Salafism: Saudi Arabia, where the Muslim Brotherhood
and other Islamists rose up against the official Wahhabi clergy and accused the royal
family of trafficking and pillaging the wealth of the people. At the end of the 1970s,
the group of Jouhaimine Al Outaïbi, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, accused the
Sauds of corruption and finally invaded the Great Mosque of Mecca with a hundred
armed men, calling for jihad against an unjust government. Quickly surrounded and
eliminated, Outaïbi accused the Sauds of collusion with the infidel West at the expense
of Islam.
Outaïbi’s revolt is still the object of some nostalgia in Saudi Arabia, where
the Islamist opposition sometimes launches similar attacks for the same reasons:
the government is giving away the lands of Islam to the Americans, who use them
to strike other Muslims; the official, so-called “Wahhabi” Saudi clergy are traitors,
among others.
Syria was not spared from the activities of Sayyd Qotb’s disciples. The strong
repression carried out by Syrian authorities during the events in Hama (mentioned
above) was not unmotivated. During the 1960s and 1970s, many Islamist actions
shook the regime. Under the direction of Marwane Hadid, 20 an agronomy engineer
and landowner, El Taliâ El Moukatila (Fighting Vanguard) carried out multiple bomb
attacks against figures in the regime.
On the ideological level, El Mawdoudi (Indian subcontinent) and other
religious leaders, particularly in Saudi Arabia, legitimized the holy war in Afghanistan.
El Mawdoudi’s Djamat Islamia (Islamic Group) mobilized volunteers to fight in
Afghanistan. In terms of logistics and organization, the contribution of the Saudi
billionaire heir Oussama Ben Laden, with support from Zawahiri and Abdallah Azzam
was indispensable for organizing the Arab Mujahidin. In the end, Oussama Ben Laden
20
Marwane Hadid was arrested and executed in 1976.
37