The call for a global jihad

The call for a global jihad Around 1994, the Salafi groups waging "jihad" in Bosnia entered into a seemingly irreversible decline. As they grew less and less aggressive, groups such as EIJ began to drift away from the Salafi cause in Europe. Al-Qaeda decided to step in and assumed control of around 80% of the terrorist cells in Bosnia in late 1995.
At the same time, al-Qaeda ideologues instructed the network's recruiters to look for Jihadi international, Muslims who believed that jihad must be fought on a global level. The concept of a "global Salafi jihad" had been around since at least the early 1980s. Several groups had formed for the explicit purpose of driving non-Muslims out of every Muslim land, at the same time and with maximum carnage. This was, however, a fundamentally defensive strategy.
Al-Qaeda sought to open the "offensive phase" of the global Salafi jihad. Bosnian Islamists today call for "solidarity with Islamic causes around the world", supporting the insurgents in Kashmir and Iraq as well as the groups fighting for a Palestinian state.
FatwasIn 1996, al-Qaeda announced its jihad to expel foreign troops and interests from what they considered Islamic lands. Bin Laden issued a fatwa, which amounted to a public declaration of war against the United States of America and any of its allies, and began to refocus al-Qaeda's resources towards large-scale, aesthetic strikes. Also occurring on June 25, 1996 was the bombing of the Khobar towers, located in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
On February 23, 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, along with three other Islamist leaders, co-signed and issued a fatwa (binding religious edict) calling on Muslims to kill Americans and their allies where they can, when they can.Under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Combat Against the Jews and Crusaders they declared: