WORLD Split widens between al-Qaida, other radical Muslim groups

Some scholars say distinctions must be made between hard-line Islamist organizations and 'holy warrior' groups.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- When terrorists blew themselves up in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last week, the radical Palestinian group Hamas quickly joined Arab governments and Western leaders in condemning a "criminal attack against all human values."
Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood called the bombings "aggression on human souls created by God."
The denunciations were unexpectedly harsh from the Islamic fundamentalist groups -- Hamas has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, and the Brotherhood is determined to impose an Islamic government -- but experts agree that radical Muslim organizations want to distance themselves from al-Qaida.
The widening rift largely has not been acknowledged among Western powers, who tend to lump Islamic radicals together. The U.S. list of "Foreign Terrorist Organizations," for example, puts al-Qaida with Hamas and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah.
Scholars of Islamic movements and some Western policymakers, however, say distinctions now must be made between hard-line Islamist organizations and "holy warrior" groups such as Osama bin Laden's terror network.
'Fundamental difference'
"There is a fundamental difference between Islamic groups: Most are sociopolitical reformists, others are religious extremists," said Dia'a Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on radical groups.
Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, have national agendas, he said. They want to reorganize society according to Sharia, or Islamic law.
Extremist religious movements such as al-Qaida are international revolutionaries who excoriate not only non-Muslims but also Muslims who fail to follow their views. Theirs is a holy war to spread their views among Muslims and to repel any "infidel invasion" of Islamic lands.
"Branding these two branches of radicalism the same way, as terrorist organizations, reflects a complete misunderstanding of the issue," he said.
Rashwan said the confusion was a "fatal mistake" of the Bush administration in its war on terror.
He said that to fight an enemy, one had to define it correctly: "America doesn't, and this is why it is losing the war on terrorism."
U.S. policymakers and the State Department did not respond to requests by The Associated Press for comment.
Leaders from both branches of radical Islam frequently join in a call to destroy Israel and form an Islamic superstate of all Muslim countries.
But the similarities are mostly rhetorical, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
"The rift is widening, partly because most governments have become more open to engaging in a dialogue with hard-line Islamic voices if they give up violence," he said in a telephone interview.
And in most Muslim countries, he said, the population has been more willing to engage with national radicals than with "millennial" movements that view Israel and the West as apocalyptic enemies. In Lebanon, for example, al-Qaida-style groups had little support, but Hezbollah became the leading political force among Shiite Muslims, he said.
Cracking down
By cracking down on al-Qaida but allowing more freedom to political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood -- a rising force in Egypt with more than 80 lawmakers in Parliament -- Arab states were in effect "creating more daylight" between revolutionary and reformist radicals, he said.
"Realistically, part of the U.S. policy is influenced by the attitude of host countries," Alterman said.
Washington is more willing to engage with a group if local authorities already have, like in Morocco, where the national government opened talks with the Justice and Development Party but rejected other hard-line groups. The United States has largely followed the same line, he said.
The current halt in attacks by the likes of Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections and formed a new government last month, however, left a vacuum that is being filled by other radical groups, such as Islamic Jihad, a competing Palestinian group. It has claimed responsibility for eight suicide attacks against Israel since a cease-fire declaration last year.
Israeli media also have reported mounting signs that al-Qaida had designs on the Jewish state as a next battleground. Israeli officials said recently that Palestinians have established contacts with followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The officials also said al-Zarqawi had established footholds in neighboring countries -- Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.
Yet many Mideast watchers see a political motive.
"Quite a few observers believe Israel tends to overstate al-Qaida links to Palestinian terrorism because they want to be seen as equal victims of a global movement against the West," said Jeremy Binnie of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London.
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