From Baghdad to Beirut, the frequency of suicide attacks has recently increased and became more focused on sectarian killing. The latest target was the Iranian Embassy in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, where 23 people died Nov. 19. In various parts of Iraq, the recent Shiite mourning ritual of Ashoura seemed a good moment for jihadists to augment their bombing, claiming hundreds of lives over a short time. As various jihadist brigades often claim responsibility for such attacks and have done so for a long time, the region is certainly in the middle of the third jihadist wave, which may not be the last, but it is definitely one that is determined to kill along sectarian lines. As argued in previous Al-Monitor articles, Lebanon seems to not only see a repeat of the Iraqi model but also a spillover from the Syrian conflict. A common denominator underlies this newer turmoil, namely the mutation of jihadist violence into a sectarian war. 

The first wave of jihadist violence was local. It started with the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on Oct. 6, 1981, during a military parade. It was justified as a struggle against the near enemy, mainly Arab regimes accused of all sorts of sins from blasphemy to treason. Security measures tightened their grip on jihadist activists and ideologues, who were either killed or lingered in prisons. This local jihad failed to achieve its objectives of toppling regimes, so its ideologues switched from the local to the global in search of new jihadist destinations, thus marking a second wave.

The likes of Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri and Saudi Osama bin Laden fled to Afghanistan to launch the second wave of jihad, becoming a truly global project, attracting many recruits from Muslim countries and elsewhere. They initially came from the Arabic center of the Muslim world and later from the periphery, all attracted by the opportunity to save Muslims and experience an Islamic camaraderie with members of the umma, the Muslim community, in its struggle against those dubbed the enemies of Islam. At the time it was the Soviet Union. The globalization of this jihad sprung out of both local failures under the pressure of security measures and failure to instigate a social and political movement across the Arab and Muslim world. Both the global jihadists and their local predecessors remained on the periphery of societies, incapable of mobilizing these societies, although they had many supporters, sympathizers and funders.

The majority in the Arab world remained spectators, perplexed by the deadly violence of the local jihad and its later globalization. Those who swore to die for faith were capable of inflicting spectacular atrocities in faraway territories, which may have enchanted a few, but in reality most societies were apprehensive about the violence committed in the name of God. The critical moment came when global jihad started targeting the far enemy, marked by 9/11. This moment may have been the climax of global jihad but it reflected a certain dead end, reached immediately after the Afghan project came to its logical conclusion, with jihadists celebrating their victory over the godless Soviet Union.