Islamism

Ideological war against Western values, Western influence in the Muslim world and regimes supporting the West.
 
Politically, the movement began as a Muslim and traditionalist way of reasserting native thinking and culture in Middle Eastern countries, which were dominated first by colonial powers, then by USA and USSR in the 1950s-80s. It opposed the moral laxity, socially divisive and corrupting influences of Western values and the materialism of modernity (whether Western or Soviet). The oil trade has played a significant part, by financing foreign-dominated, wealthy regimes which have not had the best interests of society at heart, and by creating national economies which do not depend on ordinary social and economic activity. Muslim fundamentalism has generally reflected an extreme interpretation of Islam, mixed with nationalism, social conservatism and antipathy toward the invasive West.
 
Use of violence escalated in the 1980s, in Afghanistan against USSR (the Afghan mujahedin were supported by USA, through Pakistan), and with the advocacy of Hamas ideologue Sheikh Fadlallah of the virtues of Muslim martyrdom, leading to the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s. During the 1990s this ideology spread wider, partially with Saudi Wahhabi financial and logistical support, throughout the Muslim world, wherever there was conflict with the West, Russia or their clients: Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, Algeria, Kashmir, the Philippines, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Central Asia. However, these were largely nationalist conflicts, in many cases arguably liberation conflicts, though fuelled by conservative Muslim radicalism.
 
Geopolitical conflict came with the founding of al Qa'eda (‘the foundation’) in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef, to support the Afghan mujahedin. Al Qa'eda seeks to end foreign influence in Muslim countries, to create a new cross-national Islamic Caliphate and to strike at the heart of Western culture. It is mainly a network, R&D, training and ideological support system, modelled on the cellular structure of the CIA, which once sponsored and guided the development of al Qa'eda through Pakistan’s ISI.
 
It has carried out trademark terror attacks (9/11 being the most dramatic), suicide bombings, attacks on symbols of power and military bases, using advanced planning and intelligence. Its influence in Iraq has been chaotic and ultimately unproductive. In supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan it has been more successful. It has supported other groups across the Muslim world with intel, men, technology, PR, training and logistics.
 
It is Wahhabi and Sunni Muslim in orientation, unsupported by Shi’a Muslims. It sponsors an insurgency in Saudi Arabia against the US-supported oil wealth of the ibn Saud regime, and currently supports Muslim insurgencies in the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Somalia and Algeria, fighting against governments aligned with the West or seen to be secular and anti-Muslim. Direct conflict with USA has declined, and US forces have made some inroads into weakening al Qa'eda’s power structure. Headquartered in Waziristan, Pakistan, it has a wide network in the Middle East and the West. It might now be past its peak, which was around 1993-2005.
 
The aim of such movements is not military but psychological - to introduce fear and division, and to provoke government repression against Muslims, which then would push Muslims into outright opposition to governments and the West. They use 'asymmetric warfare' pursued by small numbers of dedicated 'martyrs' against the armed forces of miliary powers and governments.
 
A new movement has made itself visible during 2008, particularly in the Mumbai attacks of late 2008, and not directly related to al Qa'eda. It specialises on attacks on rich hotels where westerners and westernised people gather, and it represents a new generation of young, alienated, often educated and privileged Muslims fired up with experience from earlier conflicts such as Kashmir and Iraq. They use dramatic direct frontal attacks on targets rather than suicide bombing. Their centre is in Pakistan, where the government has lost control in some areas, and their main enemy is India, seen as a Western proxy, and exploiting resentments against Hindu nationalism.
 

Links:

Wikipedia: al Qa'eda
Wikipedia: Islamist Terrorism
BBC: Investigating al Qa'eda 
US Inst of Peace: Islamic Extremism
Conflicts Forum: Listening to Political Islam
Political Islam Online