ji·had·ica

Justifiying Martyrdom in German

Editor’s note: I am glad to introduce Nico Prucha as a new regular contributor to Jihadica. Nico is an German Arabist who has followed the jihadi Internet for a long time and has written several articles on the topic for Jane’s and other publications.] In mid-April Elif Medya published a 30-page document in German justifying martyr operations. The text is essentially a significantly expanded translation of an English-language document published by Tibyan Publications a few years ago and attributed to the Saudi ideologue Yusuf al-Uyayri (d. 2003). The Tibyan text in turn was based on an Arabic text that al-Uyayri wrote for the Sawt al-Qawqaz website in late 2000 following the first suicide bombing in Chechnya (perpetrated by a woman named Khava Baraeva). Signed by “your brothers of the German Taliban Mujahideen”, the document has two parts. The first is a translation of the abovementioned Tibyan text. The second part

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Nico Prucha May 21, 2010

Guest Post: The Story of Eric Breininger

[Editor’s note: This post was written by Christopher Radler and Behnam Said, who are intelligence analysts based in Hamburg, Germany. For links to the original document, see the comments to the preview post.] On 3 May a message announcing the death of Eric Breininger (b. 3 August 1987) and three of his fellow combatants was posted on several German jihadist websites. Breininger, who travelled to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the winter 2007, was one of the most infamous German jihadists. From Waziristan Breininger, a.k.a. “Abdul Ghaffar al-Almani”, sent several videotaped messages to the jihadist community in Germany, asking them to join the jihad or at least to support it financially. Since September 2008 the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) searched for Breininger, based on his assumed affiliation with a foreign terrorist organization. A day after the announcement of his death, Breininger’s alleged autobiography, entitled Mein

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Thomas Hegghammer May 11, 2010

Preview: Autobiography of a German Jihadist

The memoirs of Erik Breininger, the German jihadist who was allegedly recently killed in Waziristan, have reportedly appeared online. I haven’t seen them myself yet, but if their authenticity can be established, we are dealing with an extremely valuable document. Jihadica will bring you more details soon.

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Thomas Hegghammer May 5, 2010

New Report Profiling the Taliban

Anne Stenersen has written a new FFI report on the organizational structure and ideology of the Taliban. The report is based on field research, analysis of online Taliban propaganda and a thorough review of the secondary literature. This is essential reading for anyone working Afghanistan. One of her conclusions caught my eye: “For the time being, it looks like any attempt to negotiate with the Taliban leadership directly would serve to strengthen the insurgent movement, rather than weakening it. A more realistic approach is probably to try to weaken the Taliban’s coherence through negotiating with, and offering incentives to, low-level commanders and tribal leaders inside Afghanistan.”

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Thomas Hegghammer April 23, 2010

Did the Quetta Shura Break With al-Qaida?

Mustafa Hamid, aka Abu’l-Walid al-Masri, published a blog piece a little while ago which discussed the arrest of Mullah Baradir. It’s fascinating reading, especially the first part which deals with the historical role of Mullah Baradir in the Taliban insurgency. It’s already been covered in part by Leah Farrall. I thought I’d add some comment about the opening lines of the article, in which Mustafa Hamid says that the Taliban’s high council made three important decisions after 2001, one of which was to “break the ties between the Taliban and al-Qaida.” Mustafa Hamid has previously said that al-Qaida and the Taliban have moved further apart after 2001, although I don’t think he’s ever been this specific. We have heard similar things in the media, but the reports are hard to confirm. Was there actually a decision in the Quetta shura, led by Mullah Baradir at the time, to break ties

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Anne Stenersen March 22, 2010

New Interview with Jalaluddin Haqqani

The latest issue of Nawai Afghan Jihad includes an interview with Jalaluddin Haqqani.  The interview is centered on American policy in Afghanistan and the danger America poses to the world. Little mention is made of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or the role of Pakistani extremists in Afghanistan. To a question regarding the “propaganda unleashed by the Karzai government” that jihadi activity along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan is planned and plotted in Pakistan, Haqqani gives a rather diplomatic response: “there are passionate young men from the tribal areas who have inherited the jihadi gusto of the past (fighting the British and Soviets) and who were martyred on Afghan soil. We acknowledge and appreciate their jihadi engagement.” Asked to comment on the signs of a changing US policy towards Afghanistan – especially, for the Karzai government to initiate “dialogue” with the Taliban – Haqqani denounces this as sheer propaganda and maintains that the

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Qandeel Siddique November 19, 2009

The Taliban, the UN and al-Qaida

(Editor’s note: Anne tried to post a comment on Vahid Brown’s landmark post on Al-Qaida-Taliban relations. Given that she is one of the world’s foremost experts on this issue, there was no way I was going to let her remarks “disappear” into the comments section. So here they are. Her text begins with a response to an earlier comment about Taliban’s view of the UN). “Mullah Omar’s statement should not be interpreted to mean that he or other Taliban leaders are ready to recognize the United Nations. In fact, the Taliban’s leaders have criticized the UN on a number of occasions, in addition to the one you mention. In 2006 Mullah Omar accused the UN of being nothing but a “tool for America” and Mullah Baradir echoed this in 2008, saying that “we regard all the decisions of the United Nations towards Afghanistan, as American orders.” I do not think

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Anne Stenersen October 30, 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

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

Visions of Afghan and Somali Emirates

On 25 August 2009, the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) published a plea by Dr. John Boutros for Muslims to aid the jihadi cause. He stated, “Do not mourn because the Islamic Caliphate is imminent… Trust me, the US is one or two thrusts” away from crumpling. However, in order to make this happen Muslims must give aid to the jihadis. Boutros claimed that the United States is weak due to the financial crisis, which is allegedly causing the rich states to consider separating from the Union. He stated that militarily the United States is vulnerable because it has so many soldiers in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the suburbs of Baghdad, who are easy targets. In regards to the United States homeland he continued, “Hundreds of thousand of soldiers stationed in the streets of Washington and Los Angeles wait for a martyr to cross the continents

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Scott Sanford August 27, 2009
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