It was only after the Abdallah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, admitted their involvement in the attack against the Iranian embassy in Beirut, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for the bombings on al-Aridi Street in the Southern Suburb of Beirut in early January 2014 that the Lebanese finally conceded that the Al-Qaeda had expanded to Lebanon. Yet, they still had dissenting opinions over what triggered the expansion. Was it provoked by Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war as the March 14 Forces claim or was Al-Qaeda planning to relocate the war to Lebanon so as to provoke a Sunni-Shia’a strife?

In light of the tremendous panic that took over the Lebanese and their constant worry about future bombings, this debate has become a minute detail in an overarching crisis, fueled by Islamist declarations that Lebanon has become a Land of Jihad, not Nusra, where war and military operations would play themselves out.

All this leads us to probe and investigate the mental outlook of Al-Qaeda and its position on military action and suicide operations, which assume different names- martyrdom or terrorism- depending on the political and Islamic leanings of the party discussing the operations.

Of Al-Qaeda’s stances:

In the case of an easily reachable target- a building for enemy meetings, for instance- that could be demolished by a small booby-trap bomb, but we were at risk of disposing of our large explosives’ supply during our movements, we may under these circumstances use explosives in huge amounts so that not only will the enemy building be leveled to the ground but swallowed up into its furthest depths. Hence, the horror of our foes will be multiplied and we will have scored notable media gains, for their losses will be too heavy to conceal from the public. This has been tried and tested several times and it has proved to be successful.

At the heart of the principles deemed a mainstay of wars both in past and present and acknowledged by strategists and historians, is the fact that the mobilization of jihadists in wars accelerates the fall of enemies, all enemies, and that the easiest means to defeat the greatest military opponents is to drain them both militarily and economically. In an attempt to justify his blunders, the mendacious Rumsfeld was surprisingly truthful when he said to journalists “What more do you expect from us? Do not forget that we are spending billions of dollars against an enemy that spends millions.” Another foreign researcher reported that the USSR demise was mainly ascribed to the exhaustion of its economic and military powers in small-scale wars, in addition to its invasion of Afghanistan and the ensuing aftermath. He added that the US will probably meet a similar fate in its current wars, concluding humorously that its enemies need not promote any form of attrition to expedite the fall of the US, because Bush is on this mission himself.

Even the smallest stages of a military operation- such as the preparation, storage and cleaning of weapons- are all governed by specific rules and regulations that every member needs to learn at least in so far as his sphere of specialty requires. In this context, it is worthwhile noting that the assassination attempt of one of Egypt’s most malignant tyrants, Minister of Information Safwat El-Sherif, failed because one of the two members in charge of the assassination had stored the arms in a humid place on the eve of the operation. When the turn came for the assassin to shoot the minister after his colleague had first targeted the bodyguard, the bullets jammed in the firearm and the assassination attempt failed.

The rate of military operations will grow progressively so as to communicate to the public, the peoples of the world and the belittled enemy troops a real and practical message that the power of jihadists is on the rise, for all of them are ignorant of these dynamics and the swelling operations- whether in terms of numbers, magnitude or outreach, would inculcate into their minds an impression that the jihadists are advancing steadily while the enemy is crawling back toward inevitable defeat. This would embolden the peoples and revive their hopes, paving way for a spontaneous and continuous ascent of the movement. For this reason, we had better start with small-scale operations and move gradually into movements of greater scope, even if we were capable of launching large operations right from the beginning. Numerous are the benefits yielded from the escalation of military activities such as elevating the youth and familiarizing them with the confrontation and so on.

It is worthwhile pinpointing that the part related to the outreach of the operations mentioned earlier is not at odds with the concept of progression. We may start with small-scale operations in the largest geographic area in those places that are far apart from each other; then, in later stages, heighten the intensity of operations while narrowing down the distances between the divergent targets. Furthermore, the escalation of operations may serve for a certain phase only and the operations may assume later a regular pace or a wave-like aspect depending on developments.

Wave-like operations favor groups whose military bases and fortified defense sites are situated far from the site of operations as well as those who want the enemies to know that the waves of terror will not end and that they will pay dearly for their actions, for an interim cease of operations by no means signifies that they will be permitted to succumb the Muslim nations to their will. The fact of the matter is that the jihadists will be preparing another wave of operations that would fill the enemy with endless terror and thus the enemy had better spare the Muslims their evil or at least tone it down so that Allah might accomplish a matter already destined.

Whenever a ten-member jihadist group confronts an extremely easy operation- naturally not including martyrdom - that requires one or two members at most, although only one or two are sometimes sufficient to handle larger operations- it is recommended to engage all ten jihadists in this guaranteed win, God willing, in order to demonstrate power and intimidate the enemy. This will set tongues wagging among people and in the media and both the public and the enemy will thus anticipate larger mobilization and numerical superiority in future operations, which would promote the profile of jihadists in the media and spread fear of confronting them.

Diversify and expand the strikes of spite against the Jewish enemy and the crusaders in every nook and corner of the Islamic world and even outside it if possible thus causing a dispersion of the enemy’s efforts and resources to the highest possible extent. For instance, an attack against a tourist site that hosts crusaders in Indonesia would result in the deployment of an additional number of security forces, many times higher than usual, in all tourist resorts around the world as well as in a drastic increase in spending. Likewise, targeting a usurious bank for the crusaders in Turkey would entail larger security vigilance in all the banks of crusaders worldwide and more depletion… The diversification and expansion of blows executed by small and separate groups coupled with recurrent attacks- two or three- on the same target will keep the enemy on alert and drain its powers.