If we know that a banner is a condition for jihad of pursuit, what is the ruling on the attacks and bombings carried out by some individuals in disbeliever states?

Abu Malik: We know that jihad, especially when it is for spreading the da'wah and conveying the message, must have a banner. And for the Muslims to gather under this banner, the owner of this banner, who is the imam or the ruler, must call the ummah (the Muslim community) to jihad in the path of Allah. But as we see, the lands of the Muslims are in a state of division, disagreement, and fragmentation, and there are many banners. So for the Muslims to unite under one banner, this requires a long time, and perhaps it will not happen in the present generation or in the near future; it may require a long time. So many young Muslims, who are eager and burning with a desire to see their religion victorious and its banner raised, hasten the matter and go and carry out purely individual operations. They do not submit to, or perhaps they flee from, the systems and rulers who govern those lands, fearing that they will fall into what is forbidden and be held accountable for it. So what I say is: if a group of young people, for example, enter the land of the disbelievers, or land occupied by the disbelievers from the Muslims, without the permission of the ruler and not under one banner, and they are sincere and directed toward Allah, and their goal is to fight in the path of Allah, and they are killed, will they be martyrs with this intention or not?

The Shaykh : I say that regarding these people, their action is not prescribed (mashru') without a doubt, because they are individual actions that neither satisfy hunger nor benefit. As for whether they will be martyrs, the previous answer may be our answer, with a simple addition: if they set out in this individual action to fight the disbelievers with knowledge and deliberation, it is possible that if their departure was based on knowledge, even if their ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) was wrong, they may be considered martyrs. But what I know is that many of these young people who set out driven by extreme enthusiasm do not study the issue in light of the rulings of the Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law); rather, they surrender to their unbridled emotions. And as you all know, if emotions are not restrained by the rulings of the Shari'ah, their harm is greater than their benefit. So we do not see that as acceptable except with this condition: that it be accompanied by knowledge and ijtihad.
Abu Malik: I was actually asked this question today as well. Some of the brothers came to me and asked me a question like this, so I gave an answer like this or close to it. And I mentioned to these brothers an example or a trace of the consequences resulting from such individual operations. Some of the enthusiastic young people who follow leaders—we do not want to speak about the permissibility or impermissibility of these leaders, or their knowledge or ignorance; that is a matter we do not want to address now—but I say that people like these fight or enter, and perhaps one of them carries a dagger, or perhaps a mine, or perhaps a pistol or a rifle, and he attacks a car, or a group, or a single individual, killing him, and perhaps killing two or three. The immediate effect of this operation, which they call operations, is that some aircraft will bomb the camps and residential gatherings where the people have nothing to defend themselves with. And even if they do have such defensive means, they are not able to resist these aircraft that kill dozens, if not hundreds, of the innocent people who live in these camps.