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Australian Journal of International Affairs

Volume 63, Issue 1, 2009

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Abstract

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has suffered a grave setback in the context of its ongoing campaign there. Since late 2006 Sunni tribal militias working in conjunction with Coalition forces have decimated AQI's ranks, and the organisation has been largely expelled from its former sanctuaries in western Iraq. This article seeks to explain the causes of al Qaeda's defeat with a view towards drawing out their broader implications for the ongoing struggle against jihadist terrorism. I argue that AQI's defeat can be ascribed to its ideological inflexibility, its penchant for indiscriminate violence, and its absolute unwillingness to accommodate the sensitivities and political interests of its host communities. Furthermore, I argue that, far from being exceptional, al Qaeda's mishandling of its local allies in Iraq represents merely the latest instance of a tendency to alienate host communities that has long been evident in its involvement in conflicts in the Islamic world. My analysis confirms that al Qaeda's ideological extremism constitutes a vital point of vulnerability, and that it remains possible to pry global jihadists away from their host communities even in the context of ongoing high-intensity conflicts.

Abstract

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Details

  • Citation information:
  • Published online: 10 Mar 2009

Author notes

  • Andrew Phillips -

    Andrew Phillips is a lecturer in international relations at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. His research interests focus broadly on the evolution of the global state system from 1500 to the present, and concentrate specifically on the challenges that ‘new’ security threats such as religiously motivated terrorism, the spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and state failure pose to the contemporary global state system. His published works include a co-authored article on the relationship between nationalism, tribalism and Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, as well as an article contrasting the dynamics of transnational religious military mobilisation in Reformation Europe and the contemporary Middle East (Review of International Studies, forthcoming). Before his postgraduate studies Andrew worked as a policy advisor in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

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