Al-Qaeda was no fan of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, but the terrorist organization is not thrilled with what might replace the dictator: democracy.

 

A new video by al-Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has criticized Egypt’s democratic revolution, saying such a move can only lead to a non-religious state. Al-Zawahiri would rather see an Islamic government take control of the key Middle Eastern country.

 

Another al-Qaeda offshoot, Islamic State of Iraq, warned the Egyptian demonstrators against replacing Mubarak’s dictatorship with “something lower,” such as “vile ‘secularism,’ infidel ‘democracy,’ or rotten, pagan nationalism.”

 

But not all Muslim extremists have had the same critique of the revolution in Egypt, or the one that preceded it in Tunisia. Counterterrorism expert Brian Fishman noted in Foreign Policy that “various jihadi scholarly figures—including Abu Mundhir al-Shanqiti, Abu Basir al-Tartusi, Akram Hijazi, and Hamid al-Ali—released statements supporting the opposition movements” in these two Arab countries.

 

“Not only was al Qaeda’s official response slow, but it was obviously not coordinated with the wider jihadi milieu, revealing fractures within that community,” Fishman adds.

 

Fishman notes that “The vast majority of reformers in Algeria, Egypt, and Yemen will never turn to violence no matter how slow reform actually occurs. But a tiny percentage might.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Al-Qaida No. 2 Issues Video after Egypt Upheaval (by Lee Keath, Associated Press)

At a Loss for Words (by Brian Fishman, Foreign Policy)