Takfirism is a centuries-old belief that suddenly revived among Islamic militants in Egypt after the Israeli victory in 1967. It claims that the Muslim ummah (the community of believers) has been weakened by deviation in the practice of Islam. Takfirism classifies all non-practising Muslims as kafirs (infidels) and calls upon its adherents to abandon existing Muslim societies, settle in isolated communities and fight all Muslim infidels.

Small isolated groups of Takfirist militants survived throughout the Arab world in the 1970s. They regrouped alongside the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, during the war of resistance against Soviet forces. The Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Uzbek leader Tahir Yuldash and Sheikh Essa, who were later the top leadership of al-Qaida, were among the fiercest proponents of Takfirism in these years. After the US invasion it flourished in Iraq, where the al-Qaida leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, killed in June 2006, was a leading exponent.

After 2003 Takfirism gained support among al-Qaida’s middle leadership and the rank and file. These ideologues were no longer defined by their hatred of the US military machine. Takfirism encompassed the belief that infidels within Muslim societies gave strength to the enemy and were a danger to be eliminated. Leaders of infidel Muslim societies were prime candidates for elimination before those who had been led astray from Islam could be brought back into the fold. The Takfirists were enemies of all non-practising Muslims. The difficult, isolated terrain of North and South Waziristan was their new sanctuary.

They were different from the ideologues of al-Qaida in the 1990s, who had concentrated upon driving out western occupying forces from Muslim territories. The Takfirists focused on the enemy within. The lesson they learned after 9/11 was simple: they had been ransomed for US dollars and bombed by both western and Pakistani infidels. Henceforth, they would make no distinction between Muslims and Christians or between presidents Musharraf and Bush. The elimination of the enemy within was a necessary preliminary to any showdown with outsiders. Repeated assassination attempts against Musharraf during the past four years must be viewed within this context.

This dual sensibility afflicts all Takfirist militants, whether in al-Qaida or its allied groups. They must continue their war against western armies, but meanwhile will lay down the basis for a conformist Islamic state to keep dissenting brethren in line. As well as raising the standard of rebellion against Muslim states, they have attacked moderate pro-Islamic reformists inside resistance groups based in the Waziristans. Takfirists abhor Shiism, which they regard as an unacceptable deviation from Islam. Sectarian warfare has assumed a partnership with jihad, over which it often takes precedence. Takfirism is messianic – the sole leadership of Muslims against apostates and the infidel West.