In 1979, the Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca was besieged by violent religious extremists whose goal was to overthrow the allegedly Westernized house of Saud and replace it with an authoritarian Islamic theocracy. From then on, Islamist terrorism became a major international phenomenon spearheaded first by Shia (Hezbollah, IJO), then Sunni (Hamas, JIA) and finally Salafi (Al-Qaeda, ISIL) militant cells.
Is there any documented evidence of major Islamist-inspired terrorist activity before the '80s? If not, then why didn't it exist before that time and why did it emerge in that decade in particular?
Islamism before the '80s
Jaxson Green
Aiden Howard
I have heard that Wahhabism was promoted by international intelligence communities during that time. It is clear that organisations like the CIA have been promoting terror and chaos for years, with Bin Laden being an ex-CIA member, and the constructed event of 9/11 to incite a larger war on terror, to introduce things like the patriot act. Obama was funding ISIS, and Trump now has an excuse to drop all of those bombs the US military likes to meaninglessly produce using billions of tax-payer money. It is all just a scam, don't fall for any MSM propaganda, radical islamism is the least of the west's problems. It is just neoliberal hysteria designed to promote fascism, people die all over the world everyday from poverty, but a bunch of nihilists who killed some white people is the biggest threat to world peace? I don't think so.
Luke Jackson
Care to substantiate your claims? You sound like an edgy woke Facebook teen right now.
Ethan Brooks
Didn't know anyone would deny that US funded all the fundamentalist groups in the Middle East.
Anthony Watson
Do you have any evidence to back that up?
Andrew Williams
Tell me about all those Hizbullah terrorist attacks
Parker Lee
Political Islam did exist before that, as pioneered by Said Qutb and the various muslim brotherhood branches, with some "success": murdering the secular leader of Egypt etc. But after the Mecca siege the House of Saud entered into a bargain with the local extremists in the country: we will fund extremism at home and abroad, if we get to keep all political power in the Kingdom. And since then Saudi funded mosques and madrassas have been ruining Islam wherever they are allowed in, and ruining the various local traditions in the process.
Mason Cruz
en.wikipedia.org
This is by far the most famous, the cia obviously argues that bin laden was never in their "direct circle" when they were helping the mujahedeen. But various newspapers like "le Figaro" have released articles saying that bin laden was in direct contact with the cia.
PS: I'm only providing proof for the us funding fundamentalist groups(not the 9/11 shit). Theres tons of reports of the usa funding the FSA in Syria which contain various islamist cells.
Andrew Edwards
Not only is the US funding terrorism, it can't even keep track of which ones its funding:
latimes.com
Julian Jones
Some of their most notorious attacks:
1983: US embassy bombing in Lebanon (63 killed)
1984: US embassy annex bombing in Lebanon (23 killed)
1986: Bombing campaign in France (20 killed)
1992: Israeli embassy bombing in Argentina (29 killed)
1994: AMIA bombing in Argentina (85 killed)
Note that most of the victims killed by the bombing of American and Israeli targets were native employees, visitors or passers-by. Just like many of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel end up killing civilians to this day.
Julian Williams
yeah nah
Carter Bennett
US support for Afghan mujahideen is common knowledge indeed, but you made statements implying Ben-Laden was a CIA agent, 9/11 was fabricated and Obama funded ISIS. Please provide evidence for those.
Ethan Parker
Yes, it does. Have you never heard of front groups or proxies?
Hezbollah deliberately targeted Israeli civilians en masse during the 2006 July War, a fairly recent event.
Ayden Reyes
The IDF killed thousands of civilians during the July War while Hezbollah killed ~50.
Carter Cooper
But that's not "all the fundamentalist groups in the Middle East". American imperialism is bad enough, we don't need to make shit up à la human skin lampshades. There is no reason to believe the US government funded Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS, etc.
Xavier Johnson
This is irrelevant whataboutism. Nobody here denies that the American or Israeli armies are perfectly capable of behaving like terrorists. That's simply not the subject; the question in the OP is about Islamist terrorism.
Easton Foster
So why are you bringing up a conventional ground war?
Nicholas Ortiz
Capable my ass. They are terrorists. The Israeli air campaign against Lebanon was an poorly disguised terror bombing campaign aimed at breaking the will of the Lebanese people to resist.
Juan Miller
fuck off kike
Landon Johnson
Because deliberately targeting civilians qualifies as terrorism. Besides, it was only a note in my post; the five major attacks I listed were not part of conventional warfare operations.
Now that's what I call hair-splitting. The US and Israeli armies are terrorist organizations. Here, happy?
I'm not sure what your antisemitism is supposed to convince me of.
Alexander Brooks
This is complete revisionism. The events of '79 certainly boosted Wahabi power but the Saudi monarchy has always ran an authoritarian theocratic state. Both the Muslim World League and the Islamic University of Medina predate the Grand Mosque seizure by almost two decades.
Christopher Morris
My statement wasn't clear and I apologize: When I said the extremists sought to usher in an authoritarian theocracy, I meant a government which was even more authoritarian and theocratic in nature than the house of Saud's at the time.
They did (and still do), but did they themselves conduct or promote terrorist activities before the '80s?
AFAIK those organizations weren't associated with terrorist activity, but I might be wrong — which is why I'm actually asking the question found in the OP.