Al Qaeda terrorists actually 'just want to defend themselves' claims controversial new study

Al Qaeda terrorists do not want to destroy Western civilisation – and in fact aim to defend themselves, a provocative study has argued.

The study is certain to cause anger among relatives of victims of extremist groups, which often unleash violent and unprovoked attacks. The academics claim, however, that the goals of such groups are broadly ‘defensive’.

The study, which analysed 2,000 propaganda texts from Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups says that the group’s goals are ‘defensive’.The researchers looked at quotes from the Qur’an, and found that the extremists focused on maintaining faith and hope in the face of attacks.

The researchers claim that simply altering the Western view of Islamic extremists as would-be ‘conquerors’ could help to halt the global conflict.
Notorious verses from the Qur’an were quoted in Al Qaeda materials far less than the researchers expected. The so-called ‘Verse of the Sword’ (9:5) that says ‘fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them’ was used only three times.

How this fits in with the violent attacks unleashed by Al Qaeda and affiliated groups is unclear.

The researchers catalogued more than 1,500 quotes from the Qur’an that extremists used to support their arguments, and identified the chapter (surah) and verse represented in the quote.
‘We were surprised at the very limited use of the sword verse,’ said Bennett Furlow, a research assistant and one of three co-authors of the study, ‘How Islamist Extremists Quote the Qur’an.’ ‘Conventional wisdom says Islamists are bent on world domination and this verse is the justification. We found it to be insignificant,’ he said.