International Journal on Criminology
the Islamist movement of those years by the fact that his country , Tunisia , was “ a dictatorship , in which political Islam was excluded and the Arab regimes as well as the West were oppressors .” 2 In this regard , Brown 3 explains that at the time , young North Africans , especially Algerians , who joined the jihad in Afghanistan were motivated by combat and by the belief that it would provide them with experience and support that they would use once they returned to their countries of origin to overthrow the regimes in place , which were perceived as repressive . Democracy , as a political regime , was then considered kufr , that is , unholy , and jihad was claimed as the only way to overthrow the regimes in place . However , during the Arab Spring , Al-Qaeda reassessed its dogmas and strategies , and in 2011 , through its leader Aymen al-Zawahiri , supported the Arab uprisings , stating that “ The Arab uprisings were earthquakes that completely overturned the calculations of the United States [ whose allies these regimes were ]; the masses want culture and education that express their Arab and Muslim identity .” 4 Also , rather than calling for the overthrow of the regimes that emerged from these revolts , al-Zawahiri called for reforms , the most important of which was the establishment of regimes applying sharia , implying that armed jihad was not the only way to establish Islamic regimes . This position had led to sharp criticism of his organization from his rival , the EI . It is thus in strict conformity with this line that al-Annabi ’ s message is inscribed , recalled here at the very beginning of this paper .
According to Bruce Hoffman , 5 the jihadist movement , especially Al-Qaeda , appeared to be the main beneficiary of the Arab Spring by crossing itself across the world and taking advantage of the means of communication and new technologies “ liberated ” after the revolts , while avoiding attacks against the popular masses and leaving the EI , after its emergence , “ exposed to the blows ” of repression . Exploring the link between terrorism and political instability during the Arab Spring , Michael J . Schumacher and Peter Schraeder 6 believe that the persistence of instability nd the difficulty of implementing reforms in a context of riots favored terrorist violence . This is also the analysis of Donald Holbrook , 7 who thinks that Al-Qaeda had been taken over by the Arab Spring and by popular revolts that contradicted its discourse and methods . However , the organization was able to take advantage
2 Interview by a Jihadist with the author
3 V . Brown , “ Classical and Global Djihad : Al Qaida franchising frustrations ,” in A . Mghadem and B . Fishman , Faultlines in Global Jihad : Organizational , Strategic and ideological fissures , London and New York , 2013 Routledge , pp . 92-93 .
6 M . J . Schumacher et P . Schraeder , 2019 , “ Does Domestic Political Instability Foster Terrorism ? Global Evidence from the Arab Spring Era ( 2011 – 14 )”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism ( 2019 ).
7 D . Holbrook “ Al-Qaeda ' s Response to the Arab Spring ”, Perspective on Terrorsim , Vol . 6 , No . 6 ( 2019 ) 38