Current Edition About Subscribe The Jerusalem Center

Daily Alert Archive

Every Daily Alert Since 2002

Search

Search more than 90,000 news items by topic, author, or source.
Use " " to search for multiple words and phrases.

Trending Topics

September 29, 2008       Share:    

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/26/do2605.xml

Muslims Reject al-Qaeda and Bin Laden

[Telegraph-UK] Simon Scott Plummer - In a paper for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin encourages Western nations to focus on the "plentiful weaknesses" of al-Qaeda, which she defines as "indiscriminate killing in the service of a largely fictitious narrative without a shred of hopeful vision." Bin Laden has been weakened by allied military action in Afghanistan and tighter surveillance of international money transfers. More significant in the longer term is the criticism voiced within radical Islamic circles about the morality of what he is doing. Cronin argues that the best counter-terrorist policies are "those consciously synergistic with a group's natural tendency to implode." A government's top priority should be "not to win people's hearts and minds, but rather to amplify the natural tendency of violent groups to lose them." The eclipse of al-Qaeda does not mean that it is no longer a threat. Nevertheless, opinion polls show that the Islamic world is turning against it.

View the full edition of Daily Alert

Back to Archive

Subscribe to Daily Alert: