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Original Articles
Building the Base: Al Qaeda's Focoist Strategy
- DOI:
- 10.1080/1057610X.2011.538832
pages 124-143
- Received: 4 Feb 2010
- Accepted: 16 May 2010
- Published online: 24 Jan 2011
Abstract
Al Qaeda has developed a coherent strategy for insurgent violence that has much in common with the focoism advocated by Che Guevara in the 1960s. In their strategic writing, explored here, key Islamist strategists stress the role of violence in creating revolution, and describe the export of committed fighters to focoist enclaves at the margins of enemy control. In contrast to some prominent themes in recent scholarship, the article argues that physical space is demonstrably important to the revolutionaries, that their development of leaderless jihad is designed to supplement not replace territorial control, and that their violence is avowedly strategic.
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- Citation information:
- Received: 4 Feb 2010
- Accepted: 16 May 2010
- Published online: 24 Jan 2011
Author affiliations
- a Defence Studies Department , Kings College London , London, UK
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