Al-Qaeda began as a 1988 database of Afghan volunteer records
Evidence
Working with his former teacher Abdullah Azzam, he brought in and trained thousands of volunteers. By the mid-1980s he had established several camps of his own and in 1988 he created a database of the volunteers who passed through his camp; the file was named al-Qaeda. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 408
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Clarifies that al-Qaeda literally means a database file, not a standing army.
- SHARE: A precise origin fact worth sending to anyone writing about organizational genesis or counterterror.
Related
Broader Connections
- Al-Qaeda’s name originated as bin Laden’s 1988 database of camp volunteers
#corroborates(0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 408