ji·had·ica

Abu Ghaith and al-Qa’ida’s Dissident Faction in Iran

With the recent arrest of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (Abu Yusuf Sulayman Jasim Bu Ghayth), al-Qa’ida’s former spokesman and Bin Ladin’s son-in-law, there has been much speculation in the press about a group of senior al-Qa’ida figures who have spent much of the last decade in Iran. In this post I will revisit the writings of these men, all of whom appeared online in unusual circumstances at the end of 2010, and the light that their writings shed on the Iranian sojourn of this group of al-Qa’ida’s pre-9/11 senior leadership. Taken together, these sources suggest that these men constituted a dissident faction within al-Qa’ida, one which in recent years had become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, and the direction that the latter had taken al-Qa’ida since the September 11 attacks. It also emerges that Abu Ghaith, while not a member of this faction at the beginning of this

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Vahid Brown March 11, 2013

“The Iran Crisis and Its Effects on the Global Jihad”

How will the Iran debacle affect al-Qaida? This was the question raised yesterday in a short strategic study titled “The Iran Crisis and Its Effects on the Global Jihad by Abu al-Fadl Madi (أبو الفضل ماضي), a Falluja forum member with so-called “great writer” status. He briefly outlined the situation in Iran claiming that the protests mark the end of the second period in Iran’s modern history, with the first ending in 1989. He called the new period the “Termination of the Rule of the Jurisprudent Theory.” He argued that the crisis could alter regional “balances, priorities, and strategies” and the “Global Jihadi Current” cannot ignore these events. He described four possible outcomes of the Iranian protests. The first was the possibility of the regime defeating the opposition by force. He argued that this would increase Ahmadinejad’s power, giving him more leeway to negotiate with the West, but due to

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Scott Sanford June 23, 2009

Jihadi Explains Iranian Realpolitik

Abu `Abd al-Rahman `Atiyyat Allah (possibly this person) has written a new booklet titled Ru’ya kashifa in which he tries to convince his Jihadi brethren that Iran and Hezbollah are not working with the U.S. and Israel as part of a grand conspiracy to subjugate Sunnis. Rather, he argues, Iran and its cat’s paw Hezbollah are seeking hegemony in the region. Achieving it means supporting popular Muslim causes and making temporary alliances with ideological enemies or competitors. Below is a summary: It is hard to analyze Shia states and groups because of their doctrine of dissimulation (taqiyya), or concealing one’s true beliefs. p.4 Dissimulation is permitted in Sunni Islam if you are in danger. But the Shia make a habit of it. p.5 Outwardly Iran and Shia groups stress Sunni-Shia unity; embrace causes that are important to Muslims, particularly the Palestinian issue; and put Iran forward as the only authentic

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Will McCants August 6, 2008

Saudi Terror Arrests Summary, Government Points Finger at Iran

I’ve been collecting news stories on the terror suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia. Much of the reporting relies on Saudi security personnel and the Interior Ministry’s statement last week, so it should be read with due skepticism. There’s a lot to discuss, but I’ll save my comments for later. For the moment it’s worth noting that, as of today, the Saudis are now injecting a new piece of information into the story: the network was taking orders and receiving money from someone in Iran: The funding for the AQ cells in Saudi came from one of the major countries in the region in the form of Euros. (al-Qabas, “Oil Cell”) Instructions for the cells came from the same major country in the region in which leaders of AQ sought refuge, like the Egyptian Sayf al-Adl who is currently living there. (al-Qabas, “Oil Cell”) Below is my summary of all the

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Will McCants June 29, 2008

Hamas and al-Qaida: The Concerns of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi

Since Hamas’s “Operation al-Aqsa Flood” attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the global jihadi movement has been divided over how to respond. While the Islamic State has reiterated its unequivocal stand against Hamas, al-Qaida has staked out a position of nearly unlimited support and sympathy. The contrast could not be starker. Al-Qaida, however, has a problem in taking this pro-Hamas stand. This is that some of the key jihadi ideologues who have long supported al-Qaida, and who command a certain following within al-Qaida’s global network, are deeply uncomfortable with it. The most noteworthy of these is Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (b. 1959), the Palestinian-Jordanian scholar whose many books, essays, and fatwas have profoundly shaped the ideological complexion of the jihadi movement, or “the jihadi current” (al-tayyar al-jihadi) as it is most commonly known in Arabic, going back to the 1980s. Al-Maqdisi has long served as something of the jihadi movement’s

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Cole Bunzel June 10, 2024

“Dissolve al-Qaida”: The Advice of Abu Mariya al-Qahtani

Last week, Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, a senior leader in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), delivered a controversial message on his Telegram channel. The time had come, he wrote, for al-Qaida’s branches to shut the organization down. After the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 31, 2022, and with the question of succession complicated by the leading candidate’s presence in Iran, this was the best path forward. He urged the affiliates to consider an alternative model of jihadism, one that embraces cooperation with regional states as part of a strategy of confronting “the Iranian project” in the Middle East. The advice, or nasiha, was not received well in al-Qaida circles. Several critics of the nasiha wrote at length against it, castigating its author as an ignoramus and dismissing his arguments as unfounded. Two of these authors purport to be members of al-Qaida. The exchange is worth considering, as Abu Mariya is no

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Cole Bunzel August 24, 2022

Was Ayman al-Zawahiri Really a Success Story?

At Akhbar al Aan, a news outlet with a keen interest in covering the developments in the Salafi-jihadi world, every year around the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks we strive to tell compelling stories about where Al Qaeda (AQ) stands and where it may go next. Our audience includes young men on the cusp of deciding what to do with their lives. We know some of them may have lost hope of finding a fulfilling life and might be attracted to the call of extremist organizations like AQ. That’s why we care about informing our audience with reliable facts and insightful analyses of the reality of violent extremism.  In April, when we reviewed the potential of various story possibilities on AQ, Ayman al-Zawahiri did not even make it to our shortlist of top AQ personalities to storify. Our team and the extremism experts who regularly contribute to our output have

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M. Nureddin August 5, 2022

The Islamic State vs. the Jewish State: How the Caliphate Views Israel

The past few weeks have witnessed a new wave of Palestinian terrorism in Israeli cities. Surprisingly, this string of violence was touched off by two attacks linked to the Islamic State. In the first attack, on March 22, four Israelis were killed and two injured when an Arab Israeli, Muhammad Abu al-Qay‘an, carried out a stabbing and ramming in the southern Israeli town of Beersheeba. The attacker had previously served a prison sentence for promoting and planning to join the Islamic State in Syria. In the second attack, on March 27, two Israeli police officers were killed and five other people injured when two Arab-Israeli gunmen, cousins Ayman Ighbariyya and Khaled Ighbariyya, opened fire in the northern Israeli city of Hadera. Early the next day, on March 28, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Hadera attack. Its A‘maq news agency released a separate report that included an image of

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Cole Bunzel April 15, 2022

Abbottabad Insights: How al-Qa‘ida in Iraq Was Formed (Part 1)

*Editor’s note: The “Abbottabad Insights” series aims at analyzing the files recovered from Usama bin Ladin’s compound in 2011 which have remained largely understudied to date, aside from the first batches released between May 2012 and January 2017. The first two articles of this series will deal with the inside story of the founding of al-Qa‘ida in Iraq, providing unique insights into the negotiation process between al-Qa‘ida Central and Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi in 2004. A third piece will tackle the relationship between Bin Ladin’s group and al-Zarqawi’s during the last months of the Jordanian’s career. Other articles covering a wide range of issues, from al-Qa‘ida’s external operations to its ties with other militant groups, will follow. On October 17, 2004, al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, the precursor organization to the Islamic State, issued a statement announcing with much fanfare that its leader Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi had pledged “allegiance” (bay‘a) on behalf of his group “to the mujahid

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Kévin Jackson April 7, 2022

The Syrian Jihad, al-Qaida, and Salafi-Jihadism: An Interview with Muzamjir al-Sham

In early June, the much-awaited interview with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani was released by Frontline.[1] American journalist Martin Smith asked al-Jolani a number of questions ranging from the jihadi leader’s personal trajectory and relationship with al-Qaida and the Islamic State to the subsequent transformation of HTS from a group invested in global jihadism to one focused on local struggle in Syria and Idlib in particular. The interview revealed what HTS is seemingly becoming more and more every day: a third model of jihadism that is departing from Salafi-Jihadi ideology and in opposition to both al-Qaida and the Islamic State. In light of the Frontline interview, the authors decided to interview a prominent jihadi source who actively monitors the ongoing conflict between HTS and Hurras al-Din (HaD), the new Syrian al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, and the state of al-Qaida and the Salafi-Jihadi movement globally. The source, who

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Daniele Garofalo September 23, 2021
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