The Radicalization of Sunni Conservative Fundamentalism

Abstract

The recent burst of violence linked with the Saudi-born Islamic militant, Usama Bin Laden, sheds some light on a recent evolution of Islamic radicalism. In the eighties, most of the violence was linked either to an internal confrontation between a state and its Islamist opposition (Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, and later Algeria) or to a state-sponsored terrorism with strategic goals: for instance, the attacks against US and French barracks in Lebanon in 1983-4 and the hostage-takings of 1985 were aimed at ending the Western support for Iraq in the war with Iran. In the nineties, the internal violence either decreased or is no longer threatening the state apparatus. It is rather being directed at ‘side-targets’ (like tourists in Egypt, former fellow-Islamists, or the civilian population in Algeria).