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Dear Reader,

The ASIAN STUDIES WWW MONITOR
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Editor, Dr T. Matthew Ciolek.

Canberra, 21 January 2011.


08 December 2009

Deadly Vanguards: A [2009] Study of al-Qa'ida's Violence Against Muslims

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Deadly%20Vanguards_Complete_L.pdf

4star
08 Dec 2009

The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC), U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, US.

Self-description:
"Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Occasional Paper Series.
Deadly Vanguards: A Study of al-Qa'ida's Violence Against Muslims. December 2009.
Scott Helfstein, Ph.D. Nassir Abdullah Muhammad al-Obaidi

[...] Since the inception of al-Qa'ida, the organization has claimed to represent Muslim interests around the world declaring itself the vanguard of true Islam, and the defender of Muslim people. Unfortunately for al-Qa'ida, their actions speak louder than their words. The fact is that the vast majority of al-Qa'ida's victims are Muslims: the analysis here shows that only 15% of the fatalities resulting from al-Qa'ida attacks between 2004 and 2008 were Westerners.
This report [850KB, PDF format - ed.] used Arabic media sources to study the victim's of al-Qa'ida's violence through a non-Western prism. This allows researchers to avoid accusations of bias associated with Western news outlets or U.S.-based datasets. [...] All of the sources used in this exercise are available as an appendix to this report to ensure that other researchers can reproduce these results.

The results show that non-Westerners are much more likely to be killed in an al-Qa'ida attack. From 2004 to 2008, only 15% percent of the 3,010 victims were Western. During the most recent period studied the numbers skew even further. From 2006 to 2008, only 2% (12 of 661 victims) are from the West, and the remaining 98% are inhabitants of countries with Muslim majorities. During this period, a person of non-Western origin was 54 times more likely to die in an al-Qa'ida attack than an individual from the West. [...] Irrespective of statements made by [al-Qa'ida's second in command Ayman] Zawahiri and others, the figures, drawn from exclusively Arabic news sources, show that the Muslims they claim to protect are much more likely to be the targets of al-Qa'ida violence than the Western powers they claim to fight."

Site contents:
* [Introduction];
* Methodology: Arabic Primary Source Material;
* Analytics: The Real Victims (Figure 1: Casualties, Annual Figure 2: Casualty Percentage, Annual Figure 3: Casualties, Monthly Figure 4: Casualties, By Country (Excluding Iraq) Figure 5: Casualties, Excluding Afghanistan and Iraq, Annual Figure 6: Number of Attacks by Fatality Figure 7: Casualties 1995-2003, Including and Excluding the 9/11 Attack);
* Conclusions;
Appendix: Data Tables (Attacks and Casualty Sources, Arabic, 2004-2008, Attacks and Casualty Sources, English, 2004-2008, Major al-Qa'ida Attacks and Casualty Sources, Arabic, 1995-2003, Major al-Qa'ida Attacks and Casualty Sources, English, 1995-2003).

[Other recent CTC [http://www.ctc.usma.edu/] Publications include: #Radical Islamic Ideology in Southeast Asia; #"Embattled in Arabia: Shiis and the Politics of Confrontation in Saudi Arabia" by Toby Jones; #Militant Ideology Atlas; #Stealing al-Qa'ida's Playbook; #Dysfunction and Decline: Lessons Learned From Inside al-Qa'ida in Iraq; #The CTC Sentinel: Cutting Edge Research; #CTC Report on Terrorism, Deterrence, and Nuclear Weapons; #The Globalization of Martyrdom; #Iranian Influence in Iraq: Politics and "Other Means"; #Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout: al-Qa'ida's Road in and Out of Iraq; #Sunni and Shi'a: Differences That Matter. A handy overview of the Helfstein, Abdullah & al-Obaidi paper is provided by a 12/03/2009 Yassin Musharbash' article in Spiegel Online International (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660619,00.html) entitled: 'Surprising Study On Terrorism - Al-Qaida Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims' - ed.]

URL http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Deadly%20Vanguards_Complete_L.pdf

Internet Archive (web.archive.org/) [the site was not archived at the time of this abstract - ed.]

Link reported by: Richard Fernandez (wretchardthecat--at--hotmail dot com) in December 7th, 2009 issue of his Belmont Club Blog [http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/]

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