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

Sayf al-‘Adl and al-Qa’ida’s Historical Leadership

In light of the widely reported news that Sayf al-‘Adl (also spelled Saif al-Adel) has taken the reins of operational leadership within al-Qa’ida in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, I thought it would be useful to Jihadica’s readers to provide a bit of context about this man and about the significance, if any, of these reports (see, e.g., Musharbash and Bergen), all of which rely on the testimony of Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. First of all, it would be more correct to say that Sayf al-‘Adl remains the operational leader of al-Qa’ida rather than that he has lately assumed this rank. (Nor is this the first time that Benotman has called attention in the press to Sayf’s operational re-emergence in al-Qa’ida. He discussed Sayf’s release from Iran and return to headquarters, as it were, with Der Speigel last October)

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Vahid Brown May 18, 2011

Al-Qa’ida Revisions: The Five Letters of Sayf al-‘Adl

The jihadi forums have seen some rather heated and confused debate over the past several months after the publication online of a series of writings from senior leaders of the pre-9/11 al-Qa’ida organization whom we’ve not heard from in years, and which are bringing back into the open serious disagreements over strategy and ideology that had divided al-Qa’ida prior to the 9/11 attacks. The online imbroglio over this growing al-Qa’ida revisions literature – even the existence of the literature itself – has, to my knowledge, escaped the notice of Western audiences. My aim here is to draw attention to this new “crack in the foundation” of the movement, focusing on the most recent salvo: five letters written, under a pseudonym, by Sayf al-‘Adl (also spelled Saif al-Adel), the second-in-command of al-Qa’ida’s historical leadership. These letters are the latest addition to a significant recent body of work by al-Qa’ida figures that

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Vahid Brown February 10, 2011

CIA Bomber a Jihadi Blogger?

UPDATE: 1/6/2010 – Al-Qa’ida has issued a statement on the forums this evening, signed by Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid on behalf of AQ General Command, and dated January 2, 2010, affirming that Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, “the famous propagandist and writer on the jihadi forums,” carried out the attack in Khost. The statement also claims that Abu Dujana left a martyrdom testament saying that he acted in revenge for the killings of Baitullah Mehsud, Salih al-Somali, ‘Abdallah Sa’id al-Libi “and their brothers.”  The statement also promises the release of further information in due course. AFP has more on the release here.  * * * The jihadi forums are in a frenzy today over breaking news that one of their own may have been the suicide bomber that killed seven CIA employees in Khost, Afghanistan on December 30, 2009. First reported by al-Jazeera yesterday, and picked up in the Wall Street Journal today, it appears that a spokesperson of the

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Vahid Brown January 4, 2010

Al-Qa’ida in Arabian Peninsula Issues Claim of Responsibility

The Malahim Foundation, the media wing of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has issued a statement on the forums today claiming responsibility for the attempted attack on a Detroit-bound commercial airplane on Christmas Day.  The statement claims that the “martyrdom-seeking mujahid brother ‘Umar Faruq” attempted the attack “in coordindation with mujahidin in the Arabian Peninsula” in retaliation for US airstrikes on AQAP targets in Yemen.  The message boasts that Faruq’s successful negotiation of airport security in getting on the plane was further proof that the AQAP had perfected its detection-resistant bomb technology, claims that a technical fault frustrated Faruq’s attempt, and vows that “we will continue on this path with God’s permission until we have obtained our objective.” The message then addresses appeals to various audiences to take up arms against Americans and American interests. “All Muslims of fervid faith and belief” are called upon to help expell infidels from

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Vahid Brown December 28, 2009

Waziristan of Arabia

In what has turned out to be a rather prescient quip, the Arab journalist Abd al-Ilah Sha’i, who has conducted interviews for al-Jazeera with both Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Anwar al-Awlaqi and who is an occasional commentator on the jihadi forums, wrote last week on the Falluja forum that South Yemen was becoming the “Waziristan of the Arabian Peninsula.” This comment was made in connection with the US-supported airstrike on an alleged AQAP training camp in Abyan, Yemen, early on December 17, corresponding with the Islamic calendar’s New Year’s day (1 Muharram 1431).  Events that have unfolded since then have unfortunately only strengthened the aptness of the comparison. This past Wednesday, December 23, Abu ‘Umayr Muhammad Ahmad bin Salih ‘Umayr al-‘Awlaqi, described variously as a “mid-level figure” in AQAP, or as the “al-Qa’ida leader for Shabwa Province,” appeared in an al-Jazeera video taken at a protest rally in Abyan, seeking to stoke

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Vahid Brown December 27, 2009

A Mujahid’s Bookbag

Earlier this month a new and expanded edition of a popular jihadi text collection was released on the forums (e.g., here). Called “A Mujahid’s Bookbag” (Haqibatu’l-Mujahid), the collection of over 2000 jihadi texts was compiled by Zubayr al-Ghazi, a functionary of the Falluja forums, and consists of searchable, indexed Word files. Some of these texts are thousands of pages long, others are brief letters, fatwas or interview transcripts.  The list of authors whose works are compiled here is of note, and provides a useful benchmark for currently-influential ideologues in the Arabophone Salafi jihadi movement.  When cross-referenced to the Militant Ideology Atlas (MIA), our best benchmark of influence circa 2006, I found that 21 of the 53 named authors in this collection were not cited in the works we canvassed for the MIA. I also cross-referenced the list of 19 scholars identified by Zawahiri in the Exoneration as supportive of al-Qa’ida; 8

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Vahid Brown December 21, 2009

Al-Qa’ida and the Afghan Taliban: “Diametrically Opposed”?

Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban and al-Qa’ida’s senior leaders have been issuing some very mixed messages of late, and the online jihadi community is in an uproar, with some calling these developments “the beginning of the end of relations” between the two movements.  Beginning with a statement from Mullah Omar in September, the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta-based leadership has been emphasizing the “nationalist” character of their movement, and has sent several communications to Afghanistan’s neighbors expressing an intent to establish positive international relations.  In what are increasingly being viewed by the forums as direct rejoinders to these sentiments, recent messages from al-Qa’ida have pointedly rejected the “national” model of revolutionary Islamism and reiterated calls for jihad against Afghanistan’s neighbors, especially Pakistan and China.  However interpreted, these conflicting signals raise serious questions about the notion of an al-Qa’ida-Taliban merger. The trouble began with Mullah Omar’s message for ‘Eid al-Fitr, issued on September 19, in

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Vahid Brown October 21, 2009

Al-Qa’ida Publicy Cements Ties to the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan

The official al-Qa’ida media outlet al-Sahab has released a flurry of videos in the past two weeks featuring leaders of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), both living and dead, in what amounts to a media campaign announcing their open alliance with Pakistan’s deadliest militant network.  On September 28, Zawahiri’s video eulogy for the slain TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud – the “role model of the youth” (ritha’ qudwat al-shabab) – was posted to the forums, followed two days later by a similar video message on the “martyrdom” of Baitullah starring Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid.  On October 2, al-Fajr Media distributed a third al-Sahab video eulogy for Baitullah, but this time featuring Wali ur-Rahman, the new TTP commander for the Mehsud tribal areas (an English transcript of which can be downloaded from here; links to all three videos can be found here).   This series of al-Sahab celebrations of Baitullah, released two days apart over

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Vahid Brown October 14, 2009

Abu’l-Walid is Back… with the Taliban (and not al-Qaida)

(Editor’s note: I am delighted to introduce our next guest blogger, Vahid Brown from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Vahid is a linguist and historian with deep knowledge of the history of al-Qaida and the jihadi movement. He is the author of Cracks in the Foundation and the co-author of several well-known CTC reports. Vahid and I share many research interests, so I am thrilled that he will be with us for the next month or so.) Mustafa Hamid Abu’l-Walid al-Masri, once a senior member of al-Qa’ida, has re-emerged lately after several years of relative silence and is once again chronicling, critiquing and offering strategic guidance to the jihadi movement.  He began posting new “editions” of his voluminous early writings to a blog in 2007 and ‘08, and this July he began to add newly-written articles on the Afghan insurgency, one of which has already been covered by

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Vahid Brown October 9, 2009
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