ji·had·ica

Shaykh `Isa on Near Enemy vs. Far Enemy

In a first effort to pin down Shaykh `Isa on the big Jihadi questions of the day, I read through his opinion on the near enemy/far enemy debate: “Are jihadi operations in the abodes of the original infidels preferable? Or in the lands of Muslims that are ruled by infidels?” The “original infidels” in the first part of the question are people who have never been Muslims. The unqualified “infidels” in the second part includes original infidels and Muslims who have apostatized. In answering the question, `Isa offers America as an example of the “abodes of the original infidels” and Afghanistan as an example of the “lands of Muslims that are ruled by infidels.” `Isa’s bottom line: “The apostate who has authority over Muslim lands is, in the eyes of the inhabitants of these countries, the near enemy, and the original infidels in their lands are the far enemy” (p.

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Will McCants June 12, 2008

AQ Inspires Grand Theft Auto 4

Ekhlaas member `Abd al-Wahhab alleges that the programmers of Grand Theft Auto 4 have been inspired by al-Qaeda. To prove his point, he posts a series of links to clips from the game in which al-Qaeda’s terrorist tactics are employed.  `Abd al-Wahhab then asks: “Is the West preparing its next generation in the mode of  Muslim fighting?” The post is in Arabic, but the links are easy to make out: 6-3-2008-ekhlaas-grand-theft-auto-tactics

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Will McCants June 12, 2008

Leaderless Jihad in Iraq? Not So Much

The U.S. military has just released a large number of captured al-Qaeda documents from Iraq to CNN. It seems that most (all?) of the documents are from the headquarters of the security commander for Anbar province, Faris Abu Azzam (killed 18 months ago). There are no links to the original documents, so we’re left with Michael Ware’s excellent rundown of the juicy bits. In the past, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has been the main conduit for these sorts of materials, but in recent months the military has been going direct with major news outlets. Based on Ware’s summary, here are some of the documents in the collection: 2005 memo warning that executing sinners and traitors in public will alienate their families and invite their revenge December 2005 minutes of senior al-Qaeda commanders meeting in western Iraq to plan a three-month campaign that will begin in mid-January 2006. The campaign,

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Will McCants June 11, 2008

Major Jihadi Forums Down

I wrote the following last night, but decided to wait until today to see if any of the forums came back up. Good thing I waited: Ekhlaas is back, but not stable–the server is being very fickle. I was on long enough to read the collective textual sigh of relief from the forum members, who thanked the members of Firdaws and Hesbah for hosting some of their number while their forum was down. I think my concluding thoughts from yesterday still stand and it would be interesting to figure out who the insiders were who were so sure that Ekhlaas was coming back. One more thing: there were no explanations of why the site went down. ——————— Gregory noted in the comments a few days ago that Ekhlaas has gone down. Members of Firdaws, another major Jihadi discussion board, have been speculating on the causes of its absence. One poster

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Will McCants June 10, 2008

Fatah al-Islam Leader Threatens Hezbollah, U.S.-Friendly Sunnis

Shakir al-`Absi, the fugitive leader of Fatah al-Islam, has issued his second audio statement since the defeat of his organization at the hands of the Lebanese Army last year. In it, he claims that the U.S. knows that it cannot directly break the “power” (shawka–a favorite Jihadi term) of the Sunnis in the Middle East, so it is using proxies to achieve the same result. This is particularly the case in Lebanon. Firstly, the U.S. is working through Sunni proxies to take control of the state’s material and media resources. Secondly, it is deliberately empowering Iran and its rejectionist allies in the region. (“Rejectionists” is a pejorative term used for Twelver Shia, who reject the first three caliphs). `Absi goes on to say that the Sunnis of Lebanon have no one to fight for them. Hezbollah is not serious about fighting Jews; they just want control of Lebanon. And the

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Will McCants June 9, 2008

Smackdown! Sageman vs. Hoffman

That’s how the New York Times sets up the Sageman/Hoffman argument today: Two powerful academics are feuding over whether al-Qaeda is a leaderless movement (Sageman) or a hierarchical terrorist organization (Hoffman). There are billions in federal dollars hanging in the balance. And best yet, the two guys can’t stand each other. There’s a lot more agreement between Sageman and Hoffman than the Times piece portrays. Both men accept that there are grassroots Jihadi groups popping up without any operational connection to AQ and both men believe that AQ Central (Bin Laden, Zawahiri, et al) is alive and well in the FATA region of Pakistan. The main difference is over how strong AQ Central is and what relationship it has to those who fight in its name. In his latest book, Sageman says AQ Central is not that strong outside of Pakistan/Afghanistan and that it doesn’t have any operational links with

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Will McCants June 8, 2008

Mauritania on the Horizon

Ekhlaas member moutagha asks “What is the reason that Usama mentioned Mauritania in his latest speech?” He notes that it was well after al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked the Israeli embassy in Mauritania in February 2008 and after Jihadis killed four French tourists in December 2007. Although moutagha does not receive any good responses to his query, his question did remind me of something strange I noticed when reading Zawahiri’s Exoneration. In it, Zawahiri goes on at some length about the large numbers of Mauritanian scholars and seminary students who have come to visit Bin Laden and support his cause. I don’t know enough about North Africa or Jihadi-Salafism in Mauritania to understand this dynamic, so I’m left with moutagha’s question: why Mauritania? Document (Arabic): 5-29-08-ekhlaas-why-mauritania

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Will McCants June 7, 2008

Jihadi Curriculum, Part 1: Ideology

A blogger by the name of Shamil al-Baghdadi has created a curriculum titled “Method for Building the Personality of a Terrorist Mujahid.” The curriculum is divided into three parts: ideology, physical training, and ops. I’m only interested in the ideological bit, but those who are interested in the rest can easily find it on Shamil’s blog. Shamil begins by explaining how to find a good recruit. First, you need to study the potential recruit before speaking freely with him. Make sure he is serious before approaching him or allowing him to approach you, even if he already knows about the aims and beliefs of the global Jihadi community. Training is divided into three parts: Sharia, physical, and technical. Begin with the Sharia training. The first thing to do is make sure your recruit has a good command of classical Arabic, not just colloquial Arabic. He should study one of the

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Will McCants June 5, 2008

Nasir al-Fahd’s Ruling on WMD

Nasir al-Fahd’s May 2003 ruling on WMD has been making the rounds on Ekhlaas as part of the general hubbub surrounding the nuke video. It’s worth a review since Jihadis refer to it often not only to justify their quest for WMD, but to justify indiscriminate killing of noncombatants in general. Fahd, a Saudi cleric who was put in jail soon after writing this ruling, argues that Jihadis can use WMD if they have no other way to repel the evil of their enemies. The scriptural proofs for this position are of two types: The first type of scriptural proof (mainly from the Qur’an) says that you can strike your enemy with what they use to strike you. There is no need for other proof in this situation. Since the infidel enemy has killed ten million Muslims through direct and indirect means, then Muslims can kill ten million of them.

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Will McCants June 5, 2008

Qur’an Verse 9:29

The moderators at the Middle East Strategy at Harvard blog kindly allowed me to post some comments on Raymond Ibrahim’s article.  Since they have now closed the thread, I’ll finish my thoughts here.  Ibrahim has been arguing that the Qur’an contains very clear doctrines on warfare.  I disagree; this is where the Qur’an is most confusing, which is why later scholars had to come up with the doctrine of abrogation to explain away the contradictions.  Ibrahim retorted by citing verse 9:29, which is traditionally taken to be a justification for fighting Jews and Christians until they submit and pay a tax. I responded to Ibrahim by saying that verse 9:29 does not support his position well since it is notoriously ambiguous.  He shot back that “(t)here is nothing ambiguous about 9:29—at least not to native Arabic speakers.”   For those of you that don’t know Arabic and might be inclined to

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Will McCants June 4, 2008
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