What Al Qaeda learned from Mao

choi

Michael WS Ryan, What Al Qaeda learned from Mao; The surprisingly secular guerrilla strategy behind the would-be Islamist revolution. Boston Globe, Sept 22, 2013.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas ... WC90nJ6M/story.html

Quote:

"When it comes to strategy, close readings of the documents suggest that Al Qaeda draws its ideas less from classical Islam than from a broad array of sources in 20th-century guerrilla warfare, as well as older European and Chinese military strategists. Its books and articles refer to the ideas of Mao, Che Guevara, Regis Debray, the Vietnamese strategist General Giap, Fidel Castro, and even the somewhat obscure Brazilian urban guerrilla Carlos Marighella. They are secular and analytic, and do not rely on religious arguments as a detailed guide to action.

"Al Qaeda strategist and trainer Abu Mus‘ab al-Suri wrote in his voluminous 'The Call to Global Islamic Resistance' that one of the most important books on guerrilla warfare has been written by an American. That book, published in 1965, is 'War of the Flea,' by Robert Taber, an investigative journalist who covered Castro’s operations in the late 1950s. The title refers to Mao’s often-cited analogy that guerrilla warfare is like the attack of a weak flea against a powerful dog. The flea first agitates the dog with a few bites, and then the dog attacks itself in a frenzy but is unable to kill the flea; as the bites multiply and other fleas join, the dog is weakened and eventually dies.

"Al Qaeda’s fundamental approach, as multiple authors explain in various texts, mirrors classic Maoist three-stage strategy. First, small groups weaken a government’s hold on a remote area; then they establish themselves in villages or communities to consolidate their power and expand. Finally, they join with similar groups until a large area is under their control, as the government withdraws and ultimately falls. Such an effort is underway in North Africa, the Sinai, Syria, Iraq, and South Asia.

Note:
(a) Régis Debray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gis_Debray
(1940- ; French; fought in 1967 [together] with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia)
(b) Carlos Marighella (1911-1969)
(c) Despite the title, the lengthy and boring article talks about Mao only in quotations above. There is no need to read the rest of the article.