Softy Muslims Outside The Community

"Their most immediate operational priority remained the “near enemy”: the so-called apostate regimes of the secular, nominally Islamic states of North Africa and the Sahel region, declared takfir by these zealots. This meant that our captors rejected the credibility of the Muslim allegiance of all these governments, thereby, in the eyes of AQIM, setting them apart from the ummah and effectively excommunicating their members from Islam. As deemed non- believers, the political leaders, and the security forces that kept them in place, became, in the eyes of AQIM’s mujahideen, legitimate targets."
(Robert Fowler. A Season In Hell: My 130 Days In The Sahara With All Qaeda)