The man who made Osama bin Laden

Washington Examiner | Sean Durns

Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian cleric and co-founder of al Qaeda, established the ideological framework and operational infrastructure for global jihadist terrorism prior to his assassination in Peshawar, Pakistan, in November 1989. His religious edicts transformed local insurgencies into an international obligation for Muslim militants, directly facilitating the rise of Osama bin Laden.

While popular accounts of the September 11 attacks often focus on downstream operators, Azzam created the foundational network known as Makhtab al-Khidamat to recruit, fund, and transport foreign fighters during the Soviet-Afghan War. This network directly evolved into al Qaeda's core cadre. His theological doctrine elevated armed jihad into an individual duty, fundamentally altering international security dynamics and counterterrorism challenges across the Middle East and South Asia. Consequently, Azzam’s organizational model and jihadist literature provided the strategic blueprint that sustained global terrorist operations long after his death, shaping the geopolitical trajectory of the modern War on Terror.

Comment

Abdullah Azzam's codification of jihad as an individual religious duty fundamentally decentralised non-state violence, shifting mobilisation away from state-sponsored proxies toward self-directed transnational cadres. By establishing the Makhtab al-Khidamat in Peshawar during the Soviet-Afghan War, Azzam decoupled insurgent recruitment from local territorial grievances. This doctrinal shift created an operational blueprint where ideological resonance superseded formal institutional command structures.

This ideological decentralisation permanently altered counterterrorism tracking mechanisms, as legacy intelligence frameworks designed for state actors failed to monitor diffuse, self-starter cells. Consequently, western security services monitoring the Soviet-Afghan War prioritised Soviet containment while overlooking the recruitment infrastructure that subsequently enabled global strikes by al-Qaeda.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which factor proved more decisive in the transition from local anti-Soviet resistance to global jihadism — the institutional mobilization framework created by Makhtab al-Khidamat or the theological doctrine articulated by Abdullah Azzam?

The available evidence points toward the institutional framework of Makhtab al-Khidamat as the crucial catalyst, as doctrine alone lacked the logistical apparatus required to project force globally. By establishing formal recruitment and financial pipelines in Peshawar, the organization enabled ideological concepts to materialize into an operational non-state network.

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