Al-Qaeda : from global network to local franchise / Christina Hellmich.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [169]-206) and index.

9/11 and the anxious search for answers -- What is al-Qaeda? From Afghanistan to 9/11 -- Hypocrites, Wahhabis and Salafi jihadis: post-9/11 explanations of al-Qaeda's ideology -- Reclaiming the umma: the ideology of al-Qaeda in the context of the pan-Islamic tradition -- Al-Qaeda post-9/11: destroyed, weakened or re-emergent? -- The future of al-Qaeda.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and up to and beyond Osama bin Laden's death, al-Qaeda has come to embody the new enigmatic face of terrorism, dominating discussions of national and international security. Yet in spite of the attention it receives, conflicting assumptions about the group abound. Is al-Qaeda a rigidly structured organization, a global network of semi-independent cells, a franchise, or simply an idea whose time has come? What is meant by talk of the "global Salafi jihad" that is confronting the West? What are the implications of bin Laden's death? Christina Hellmich offers a critical examination of the widely-held notions regarding the origins and manifestations of al-Qaeda and the sources on which they rely, mapping the organization{u2019}s alleged transition from what began as a regional struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan to the increasingly leaderless jihad of the post-9/11 world. Rather than just providing yet another biography of al-Qaeda, Hellmich forensically examines discrepancies between the most common explanations and to the limits of what can realistically be known. Drawing on Arabic-language sources - some of them previously unavailable in English - Al-Qaeda: From Global Network to Local Franchise offers a penetrating insight into an organization which, for all its notoriety, is one of the least-understood of our time.