Islamic terrorism

=== Western foreign policy ===
Many believe that groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS which are reacting to aggression by non-Muslim (especially US) powers, and that religious beliefs are overstated if not irrelevant in their motivation.
According to a graph by U.S. State Department, terrorist attacks escalated worldwide following the [[United States invasion of Afghanistan|United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan]] and [[2003 invasion of Iraq]].<ref name="stopwar.org.uk">{{cite web|last=Rees|first=John|author-link=John Rees (activist)|date=7 January 2015|title=What you need to know about terrorism and its causes: a graphic account|url=http://stopwar.org.uk/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-terrorism-and-its-causes-a-graphic-account|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111021852/http://stopwar.org.uk/news/what-you-need-to-know-about-terrorism-and-its-causes-a-graphic-account|archive-date=11 January 2015|access-date=14 January 2022|website=[[Wayback Machine]]|publisher=stopwar.org.uk}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=July 2016}} [[Eliza Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller|Dame Eliza Manningham Buller]], the former head of [[MI5]], told the Iraq inquiry, the security services warned Tony Blair launching the [[War on Terror]] would increase the threat of terrorism.<ref name="stopwar.org.uk" />{{Better source needed|reason=This source is the website of an advocacy group with a very clear POV.|date=January 2015}} [[Robert Pape]] has argued that at least terrorists utilizing suicide attacks—a particularly effective<ref>For example, according to Pape, from 1980 to 2003 suicide attacks amounted to only 3% of all terrorist attacks, but accounted for 48% of total deaths due to terrorism—this excluding 9/11 attacks, from Pape, ''Dying to Win'', (2005), p. 28</ref> form of terrorist attack—are driven not by Islamism but by "a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland".<ref>{{cite web|last=McConnell |first=Scott |year=2005 |url=http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html |title=The Logic of Suicide Terrorism |work=The American Conservative magazine |publisher=The American Conservative |access-date=25 June 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060622024516/http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html |archive-date=22 June 2006 }}</ref> However, [[Martin Kramer]], who debated Pape on origins of suicide bombing, stated that the motivation for suicide attacks is not just strategic logic but also an interpretation of Islam to provide a moral logic. For example, [[Hezbollah]] initiated suicide bombings after a complex reworking of the [[martyrdom in Islam|concept of martyrdom]]. Kramer explains that the [[South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000)|Israeli occupation of the South Lebanon Security Zone]] raised the temperature necessary for this reinterpretation of Islam, but occupation alone would not have been sufficient for suicide terrorism.<ref name=kramer2010>{{cite web|url=http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2401 |title=Suicide Terrorism in the Middle East: Origins and Response |publisher=Washingtoninstitute.org |access-date=25 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112232504/http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2401 |archive-date=12 January 2009 }}</ref> "The only way to apply a brake to suicide terrorism," Kramer argues, "is to undermine its moral logic, by encouraging Muslims to see its incompatibility with their own values."<ref name=kramer2010 />

Breaking down the content  of Osama bin Laden's statements and interviews collected in [[Bruce Lawrence]]'s ''[[Messages to the World]]'' (Lawrence shares Payne's belief in US imperialism and aggression as the cause of Islamic terrorism), James L. Payne found that 72% of the content was on the theme of "criticism of U.S./Western/Jewish aggression, oppression, and exploitation of Muslim lands and peoples" while only 1% of bin Laden's statements focused on criticizing "American society and culture".<ref name="PAYNE-2008" />

Former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] analyst [[Michael Scheuer]] argues that terrorist attacks (specifically [[al-Qaeda]] attacks on targets in the United States) are ''not'' motivated by a religiously inspired hatred of [[Culture of the United States|American culture]] or religion, but by the belief that [[Foreign policy of the United States|U.S. foreign policy]] has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East,<ref name="Scheuer 2004 9">Scheuer (2004), p. 9<br />
"The focused and lethal threat posed to U.S. national security arises not from Muslims being offended by what America is, but rather from their plausible perception that the things they most love and value—God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands—are being attacked by America."</ref> condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are." U.S. foreign policy actions Scheuer believes are fueling Islamic terror include: the US–led intervention in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq; [[Israel–United States relations]], namely, financial, military, and political support for [[Israel]];<ref>{{cite news|date=14 September 2009|title=US Support for Israel prompted 9/11|newspaper=The Australian|publisher=[[Wayback Machine]]|agency=Agence France-Presse|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-support-for-israel-prompted-911-osama-bin-laden/story-e6frg6so-1225772727712|access-date=14 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140411152607/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-support-for-israel-prompted-911-osama-bin-laden/story-e6frg6so-1225772727712|archive-date=11 April 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=[[John Mearsheimer|Mearsheimer, John J.]] |author2=[[Stephen Walt|Walt, Stephen]] |title=The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location=New York |year=2007 |pages= |isbn=978-0-374-17772-0 |oclc= |doi= |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780374177720 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=27 July 2006|title=Six shot, one killed at Seattle Jewish federation|work=Seattle Post-Intelligencer|publisher=[[Wayback Machine]]|url=http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Six-shot-one-killed-at-Seattle-Jewish-federation-1210235.php#ixzz1hCIBKtsf.|url-status=dead|access-date=14 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308170723/http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Six-shot-one-killed-at-Seattle-Jewish-federation-1210235.php|archive-date=8 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/25/nyregion/the-gunman-premeditated-the-attack-officials-say.html|title= The Gunman Premeditated The Attack, Officials Say|access-date= | work=The New York Times|first=Matthew|last=Purdy|date=25 February 1997}}</ref> U.S. support for "[[Apostasy in Islam|apostate]]" [[police state]]s in Muslim nations such as Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Kuwait;<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/interviews/scheuer.html|title= Frontline: Al Qaeda's New Front: Interviews: Michael Scheuer|access-date=8 March 2008 |publisher= [[PBS]]|date= 25 January 2005|quote= Bin Laden has had success because he's focused on a limited number of U.S. foreign policies in the Muslim world, policies that are visible and are experienced by Muslims on a daily basis: our unqualified support for Israel; our ability to keep oil prices at a level that is more or less acceptable to Western consumers. Probably the most damaging of all is our 30-year support for police states across the Islamic world: the Al Sauds and the Egyptians under [Hosni] Mubarak and his predecessors; the Algerians; the Moroccans; the Kuwaitis. They're all police states.}}</ref> U.S. support for the [[United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor|creation]] of an independent [[East Timor]] from territory previously held by Muslim Indonesia; perceived U.S. approval or support of actions against Muslim insurgents in India, the Philippines, [[Chechnya]], and [[State of Palestine|Palestine]].<ref>Scheuer (2004), pp. 11–13</ref>

[[Maajid Nawaz]] and [[Sam Harris]] argue that in many cases there is simply no connection between acts of Islamic extremism and Western intervention in Muslim lands.

{{blockquote|Nawaz: ... What does [[Sinjar massacre|killing the Yazidi population]] on Mount Sinjar have to do with US foreign policy? What does enforcing [[Taliban treatment of women|headscarves]] (tents in fact) on women in [[Waziristan]] and Afghanistan, and lashing them, forcing men to grow beards under threat of a whip, chopping off hands, and so forth, have to do with US foreign policy? <br />
Harris: This catalogue of irrelevancy could be extended indefinitely. What does the [[Anti-Shi'ism#Pakistan|Sunni bombing of Shia]] and [[Persecution of Ahmadis|Ahmadi mosques]] in Pakistan have to with Israel or US foreign policy?<ref name="tolerance-2015-57">{{cite book |last1=Harris |first1=Sam |last2=Nawaz |first2=Maajid |title=Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue |date=2015 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=57 |isbn=978-0-674-08870-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3I7JCgAAQBAJ&q=What+does+killing+the+Yazidi+population+on+Mount+Sinjar+have+to+do+with+US+foreign+policy%3F+nawaz&pg=PA57 |access-date=8 August 2019}}</ref>}}
Nawaz also argues that suicide bombers in non-Muslim majority countries such as the [[7 July 2005 London bombings|7 July 2005 bombers]] can be said to motivated by ideology not by any desire to compel UK military to withdraw from "their homeland", as they were born and raised in Yorkshire. They had never set foot in Iraq and do not speak its language.<ref name="Nawaz-debate" />