ji·had·ica

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever?

The release of the video Salil al-sawarim (SaS) by ISIS’s media department al-Furqan over the weekend demonstrated the sophistication of the jihadist use of social media to disseminate their video content. Al-Furqan’s sister department, al-I’tasimu had announced the release of the fourth instalment of Sas on Twitter on Saturday noon, March 17, 2014. A few hours later, it was published via al-I’tasimu’s high-profile Twitter account and the tier-one jihadist forums. The first three Salil al-sawarim videos had been very popular, high quality edited and showed a mix of extreme obscene violence and ideology at play. This is the first part of the brief glimpse into the data collected on Twitter revolving around the  #صليل_الصوارم_الرابع Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha explore the data networks and outline in brief terms the ideological bearings at play. For a second post we will provide the readers with a more in depth analysis, outlining the

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Nico Prucha May 19, 2014

The Islamic State of Disunity: Jihadism Divided

The rebel offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) in northern Syria, which broke out on January 3, 2014, has dramatically heightened tensions between Jihadi-Salafi thinkers. As noted previously, two tendencies predominate among jihadis insofar as the Syrian war is concerned: one favoring the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) and cooperation with all rebel groups, and another favoring ISIS and its exclusionary political designs as the reborn Islamic state, or proto-caliphate. On the ground at least, the uprising against ISIS has not for the most part opposed the more pragmatic JN backers to the more ideological ISIS devotees. Although driven violently out of Raqqa by the Islamic State in mid-January, JN has largely stood aloof during this confrontation. Rather those arrayed against ISIS—what one jihadi author has termed “the tripartite aggression”—consist of two upstart groups, the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front and the Mujahidin Army, and the Islamic Front (IF),

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Cole Bunzel January 30, 2014

What role does the Palestinian question play in global jihad?

In policy circles as well as among both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists, the question of whether, how and why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict plays a role in al-Qaida’s global jihad is hotly debated. The reason for this is clear: pro-Israeli politicians and activists obviously don’t want to conclude that American support for Israel, for example, causes people to become jihadis fighting the US, while people with a more pro-Palestinian point of view are often keen to point out that there is a correlation between the two, presumably hoping for a more even-handed American approach towards the conflict. Research Despite the fact that this question has often come up in debates, suprisingly little research has been done on the connection between transnational or global jihad on the one hand and the Palestinian question on the other. To address this issue, Jihadica alumnus Thomas Hegghammer and yours truly have edited a special issue

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Joas Wagemakers December 17, 2013

Caliphate Now: Jihadis Debate the Islamic State

Since the mid-November beheading in Aleppo of allied commander Muhammad Faris of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham, a barrage of negative media attention has afflicted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). ISIS was concerned by its public image problem even before this signal mistake. In a September statement, Islamic State official spokesman Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani defended his emirate from a perceived media onslaught, thought to be led by “the unbelieving West” and its regional allies and aimed at discrediting ISIS: playing up its feuds with other mujahidin in Syria and playing down its battlefield accomplishments. Another campaign to discredit the Islamic State, however, cannot be attributed to Western origin. It arises from within the jihadi community itself. In November the two most high-profile jihadi ideologues alive today issued searing critiques of ISIS and its emir, al-Baghdadi. Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filistini, imprisoned in Jordan in the

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Cole Bunzel November 25, 2013

Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: The Case for al-Baghdadi

The once fledgling Islamic State of Iraq has appeared to be going strong again since its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, merged it with the jihadi efforts in Syria to become the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Although this merger was apparently rejected by Abu Muhammad al-Julani, the leader of the Syrian Jabhat al-Nusra, at first, things now seem to be going smoothly. (See here for a recent report on Syria’s military opposition, by the way.) Since the start of the ISIS in April of this year, much support for this state and al-Baghadi has been expressed among jihadis across the world. Not everybody seems to be convinced, however, and apparently some still see the need to criticise al-Baghdadi as a proper leader of the ISIS. For this reason, Abu Hummam Bakr b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari, one of the scholars who used to be on the Shari’a Council of

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Joas Wagemakers September 21, 2013

Memo about Syria: Jihadis are people too

Perhaps the most important reason mentioned by a lot of people why the United States should not bomb targets in Syria is that the possible downfall of President Bashar al-Asad’s regime may lead to a situation in which jihadis come to power, who may be even worse than the country’s current leader. Such fears are certainly justified. Yet we should also be careful not to exaggerate the threat that these men supposedly represent.  In this post, I look at a specific series of fatwas from the Shari’a Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad that deals with the problems and questions that potential jihadis have (these, these, these, these and these), which shows that jihadis – their sometimes radical views notwithstanding – can be quite human too. Refusing parents Many of the questions that Abu l-Mundhir al-Shinqiti, the shaykh who has long been the sole scholar on the Shari’a Council, has

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Joas Wagemakers September 6, 2013

66 Important Jihadist Twitter Accounts (part 2)

In our earlier post, together with Ali Fisher we detailed and assessed 66 accounts listed by Shumukh al-Islam jihadi Forum member Ahmad ‘Abdallah as ‘important jihadist’ members on twitter. We looked primarily at the users individually, using the data of these 66 accounts to create this infographic to give our readers an overview of these users. In this post we focus on what we are able to find out about them as a group and provide an interactive network map to show the links between these advocated ‘important jihadist’ twitter accounts. Relational dynamics Analysing the relational dynamics between these accounts as a group and those who choose to follow them is a key part of understanding the online strategies of “The most important jihadi and support sites for jihad and the mujahideen on Twitter”. As we identified previously, the accounts had been categorized in different types by Ahmad ‘Abdallah. This

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Nico Prucha September 4, 2013

Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: Al-Maqdisi

As Cole Bunzel pointed out some time ago, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the famous Jordanian radical Salafi scholar, has published several fatwas and other documents in the last few months. Cole mainly dealt with only two of al-Maqdisi’s recent publications, however, while there are several others he wrote afterwards that are quite interesting as well. Joining rallies Several months ago, al-Maqdisi started publishing a series of short documents containing one or more fatwas. It’s not clear who’s asking the questions, but this doesn’t make his answers any less interesting. In the first installment of the series, al-Maqdisi discusses questions that are quite similar to some that his brother in arms Abu l-Mundhir al-Shinqiti also dealt with several years ago, namely whether or not it is allowed to participate in rallies against the regime. Al-Maqdisi’s answer is similar to al-Shinqiti’s – it is allowed – but far more detailed. Al-Maqdisi states that

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Joas Wagemakers August 23, 2013

The ‘Who’s Who’ of the Most Important Jihadi Accounts on Twitter?

In this part of our series for Jihadica on the Jihadi Twitter phenomenon, Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha take a closer look at 66 Twitter accounts recommended by a Jihadi online forum user. To be clear, we are analyzing these accounts that are defined in this posting as most important for jihadi sympathizers, but it does not necessarily mean that the individual Twitter accounts are an integral part of this worldview. A posting on the Shumukh al-Islam forum recently provided a “Twitter Guide” (dalil Twitter). This ‘guide’ outlined reasons for using Twitter as an important arena of the electronic ribat; identified the different types of accounts which users could follow; and highlighted 66 users which Ahmad ‘Abdallah termed “The most important jihadi and support sites for jihad and the mujahideen on Twitter”. We mentioned this guide in our first post kicking off the series on Jihadica. In this post we

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Nico Prucha August 20, 2013

Toward an Islamic Spring: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Prison Production

Even from behind bars, the influential jihadi scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi continues to command a following. Last week the Ansar al-Mujahidin forum launched a media campaign demanding freedom for the Palestinian-born shaykh, who was imprisoned in Jordan in September 2010 and is serving a five-year sentence. Tellingly, the campaign to free al-Maqdisi (observable on Twitter at #أطلقوا_العلامة_المقدسي) drew far more attention on the jihadi forum than Ayman al-Zawahiri’s most recent statement marking the anniversary of the Nakba. No one, it would seem, possesses jihadi cachet online like the imprisoned Palestinian. (For more on his influence and ideology, check out Joas Wagemakers’ new book.) “The Ibn Taymiyya of Our Age” This contrast says much about the nature of the Jihadi-Salafi community, where it is often independent writers and thinkers—more than the al-Qaeda leadership itself—who chart the ideological course of the movement. Al-Zawahiri himself has acknowledged his debt to al-Maqdisi, describing him

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Cole Bunzel June 11, 2013
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