ji·had·ica

New Study of Jihadi WMD Chatter

The Jihadi Websites Monitoring Group at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzlia, Israel, has produced a very interesting report about WMD discussions on jihadi internet forums (hat tip: Nawaf). I am not surprised that this original work is coming out of Herzlia, for it was Reuven Paz – the pioneer of online jihadism studies – who wrote some of the earliest serious analyses of jihadi intentions regarding WMD. Since then many have made valuable contributions this literature, including Jonathan Spyer , Jerry Long,  Andrea Plebani, Sammy Salama and Lydia Hansell, Anne Speckhard, and others. At my own FFI, Anne Stenersen and others have also conducted in-depth studies on this. (In the most fascinating of these, Anne collaborated with FFI scientists to objectively assess the quality and effectiveness of the many WMD recipes and instruction manuals circulating on the forums, but this report is unfortunately exempt from public disclosure, for

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Thomas Hegghammer June 30, 2009

Obama is more Dangerous than Bush

This is the title of the main story in the July issue of al-Sumud, the Arabic-language magazine of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The 56-page magazine has several articles devoted to Obama and the Cairo speech, and the front page features a particularly unflattering picture of the US president. But it is the lead article which I find the most interesting, because it confirms that jihadis feel threatened by Obama in their fight for Muslim hearts and minds. The two-page article (pp-18-19) is written by the Saudi sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Julayyil and is actually taken from the latter’s website, which says the text was written on 17 May 2009. Al-Julayyil starts off by saying he was motivated to write this article after observing a lot of optimism among Muslims over the arrival of the new US administration. He says he realises  many will react to the headline, for how can

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Thomas Hegghammer June 29, 2009

A Brief History of Jihadism in Turkey

Despite the Istanbul attacks in 2003, the Turkish fight against terrorism has remained largely synonymous with the fight against Kurdish separatists. To my knowledge, there are few if any in-depth academic studies of Turkish jihadism. Not even the 2003 Istanbul attacks have been closely examined by scholars, despite a wealth of available Turkish sources. At most, there are studies of how the Turkish media covered these events, and the emphasis is on the narrative being used by non-jihadists to describe the phenomenon (see e.g. Gökhan Gökulu’s 2005 M.A. thesis “Terör Eylemlerinin Medyaya Yansıması”). With the exception of Mehmet Faraç’s book İkiz Kulelerden Galata’ya: El Kaide Turka and the reporting of a few other journalists, Turkish writers and intellectuals seem surprisingly uninterested in the phenomenon itself. Although it has been thought that the secular Turks were almost immune to militant Islamism, the Turkish jihadist community appears to be growing. The first

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Einar Wigen June 26, 2009

“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

Weekend Trivia

British soldiers found an Aston Villa tattoo on the body of a dead Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, British newspapers reported earlier this week. Of course, for Birmingham City supporters, this is reason enough to deploy nuclear weapons against the Taliban. It’s more unclear what this means for Taliban-al-Qaida relations, given that Bin Ladin is an Arsenal supporter. Jihadica is on the ball and will report any soccer-related chatter on the forums. Jihadists have been more interested in fashion this week, with forum participants discussing the “Infidel” fashion label at length. I knew this stuff existed, but I didn’t realise quite how much there is. Some introspective forum participants got the irony and likened the phenomenon to jihadists embracing the label “terrorist”. Others saw it as a sign of the apocalypse. But most didn’t know what to make of it. Thanks to Cecilie and Brynjar for the links. Have a great

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Thomas Hegghammer June 19, 2009

Are the Uzbeks Going Global?

[Editor’s note: I am thrilled to introduce Einar Wigen, author of the recent FFI report on the IJU, as a guest contributor. Einar interned at FFI last summer and is currently a a student fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI). A fluent Turkish speaker, Einar specialises in jihadism among the Turkics. Not many people produce world-class research as summer interns, so this guy is really someone to look out for in the future.] The Turkic peoples have until now played a fairly peripheral role in global jihadism. They have not attracted much academic attention, and apart from the 2003 Istanbul bombings and the 2008 American Consulate attacks, operations carried out by Turkics have gained little attention. The Waziristan-based group Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) seems to be trying to change this (as Jihadica has suggested before). The IJU broke off from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 2001,

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Einar Wigen June 17, 2009

Neumann Strikes Again

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence led by the indefatigable Peter Neumann at King’s College London has launched a new blog called FREErad!cals. It has a very impressive team of contributors consisting of leading scholars and experienced bloggers, including Neumann himself, Ubiwar blogger Tim Stevens, deradicalisation specialist Omar Ashour, Lashar-e-Tayyiba expert Stephen Tankel, Central Asia and ideology specialist Jeni Mitchell, famous Israel scholar Ahron Bregman, Sciences-Po alumna Alex Matine and the mysterious Amm Sam. If you are reading Jihadica you are probably already familiar with ICSR, but if not, you should definitely check out their website and publications. ICSR is a multinational, multilateral initiative at the forefront of the field of terrorism and radicalisation studies. Although the name takes forever to type, FREErad!cals is a great addition the blogosphere and I look forward to learning from it the months and years to come.

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Thomas Hegghammer June 16, 2009

Why is al-Sahab Called al-Sahab?

This excellent question was raised in a comment to an earlier Jihadica piece. Since it probably interests a wider audience, I figured I should devote a separate post to it. Most readers probably know that the word sahab means “clouds” and that it emerged as the name of al-Qaida’s media production company around 2002. But why would al-Qaida name the mouthpiece of global jihad after something as wishy-washy as a cloud? The answer is that the word figures in a common epithet of God, namely مجري السحاب (mujri al-sahab) meaning “Mover of the Clouds”. The name usually features in the expression منزل الكتاب ومجري السحاب وهازم الأحزاب (munzil al-kitab wa mujri al-sahab wa hazim al-ahzab), “Revealer of the Holy Book, Mover of the clouds and Defeater of the clans”. This expression in turn occurs in a famous night prayer uttered by the Prophet Muhammad during one of his military expeditions.

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Thomas Hegghammer June 15, 2009

The Gadahn Factor

Adam Gadahn aka Azzam al-Amriki has appeared in a new videotape focusing on Palestine. This is the latest in a massive 6-month media offensive by al-Qaida central to lay claim to the Palestinian cause and to discredit US president Obama. It is not clear when the 35-minute tape was made; it mentions Obama’s April speech to the Turkish parliament, but not his recent Middle East tour. The 35-minute tape was probably recorded some time in April, for it is dated Rabi al-Akhir, which ended on 25 April, and there are no references in the speech to events after that. Gadahn looks as serious as ever; his beard has grown and his spoken classical Arabic has improved (although he is clearly reading from a teleprompter). It is worth noting that he is speaking on a general topic (Palestine) as opposed to a US-specific one, and that he is introduced as Adam

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Thomas Hegghammer June 14, 2009

New FFI Report and Conference Papers

I would like to draw your attention to some new FFI publications. Most important is the new report by Einar Wigen on the Waziristan-based Uzbek group Islamic Jihad Union. Einar has trawled Turkish-language jihadi websites to produce this very impressive piece of work which is arguably the best available analysis of the history of the IJU and the nature of its international network. I promise not to post on every new FFI report, but this one is exceptionally good – and very topical. I am delighted to reveal that Einar will be contributing to Jihadica in the near future. We have also made available a number of conference papers by FFI fellows. Some were presented at the International Studies Association Conference in New York in February, others at the joint FFI/Sciences-Po/West Point workshop in Oslo in March. The papers, wihch can be accessed here, cover a range of topics: –

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Thomas Hegghammer June 11, 2009
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