Documenting the Global Jihad

Of all the jihadis we’ve seen in recent years, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi must rank as one of the most violent. Nicknamed “the slaughtering sheikh” (al-shaykh al-dhabbah) by fellow militants, he is widely held responsible for killing hundreds of Shiites in Iraq and personally beheading the American hostage Nicolas Berg. It would therefore be interesting to know what went on in the mind of this man, who was killed in an American attack in 2006.

While several publications have tried to show us the man behind the myth, it would be even better if we could get a glimpse of what al-Zarqawi thought in his pre-Iraq years. Well, the time has come. About a week ago, a jihadi website posted a notebook allegedly used by al-Zarqawi while imprisoned in Jordan in the 1990s. The link on the website (the eleventh title from the top) is called Safahat min Daftar al-Shaykh Abi Mus’ab al-Zarqawi (Pages from Shaykh Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s Notebook) and leads to an .exe file that actually allows you to flick through the man’s writings.

Some Jihadica readers may remember that Will McCants discussed this document two years ago (on 22 June 2008 to be exact). At the time, however, only a few pages were available and the links to the rest of the document didn’t work (or at least don’t work anymore). Some readers may also be familiar with the Jordanian journalist Fu’ad Husayn and his book Al-Zarqawi: Al-Jil al-Thani li-l-Qa’ida (Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of al-Qa’ida, available in English here), which also only showed a few of the notebook’s pages on pp. 21-23. Now, however, the full 77-page document is available in its original form, including even the blank pages.

Authenticity and timing

The document seems to be authentic. As Will noted at the time, the notebook is dedicated to several people, including Umm Qudama and Abu Qudama, who are respectively al-Zarqawi’s sister and brother-in-law, and al-Zarqawi was indeed in prison in 1998, when the document is said to have been written. This information could, of course, easily have been known by others but there is a third reason to believe this document is indeed the real deal. As mentioned, Will discussed some of these pages before when they appeared on a jihadi forum and so did the book by Fu’ad Husayn, who told me he had received the notes directly from al-Zarqawi’s family. Now that they appear on another jihadi website, it seems unlikely that three different sources keep recycling different pages of a notebook that was never written by al-Zarqawi, although one cannot be entirely sure of course.

As to why this document was posted now, one can only guess. The notebook wasn’t written or discovered recently and, considering al-Zarqawi has been dead for four years, nothing of interest seems to have happened to him that caused the document’s publication. Moreover, if it was posted on the website to commemorate some kind of anniversary (his death, his birth, his release from prison etc.), it would presumably have been announced with quite a bit of fanfare but it wasn’t. The most likely reason it was posted a week ago is that the website it appeared on, tawhed.ws, has posted several collections of jihadi writings as e-books over the past few weeks. These include Ayman al-Zawahiri’s writings, for example, but also those of Mustafa Abu l-Yazid. The posting of al-Zarqawi’s notebook may thus be part of a general effort by the people behind the website to release collections of writings, even of those that have been in their possession for a long time.

Religious texts

In any case, and as Will noted at the time, this is a great source for academics studying the backgrounds and inner workings of terrorists. Although this blog post is not the place for an in-depth analysis of the content, we can surely take a quick glance. The document is filled with religious texts that deal with various topics. There is Qur’anic exegesis, for example on p. 8, where al-Zarqawi cites the explanation of the verse “and be not as those who say, ‘We hear,’ and they hear not” (Q. 8: 21) by the mediaeval exegete al-Qurtubi (d. 1273), and on p. 20, by Ibn Kathir (1300-1373). It also contains several texts apparently copied from books by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292-1350), for example on pp. 9-11 and 15-16. Although Ibn al-Qayyim is generally a favourite among radical Muslims for his uncompromising and strict views on various issues - like his teacher Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) - the fact that he was persecuted and imprisoned because of his ideas may also have inspired al-Zarqawi.

Dedication

While the notebook does not have a single topic or message, most of the texts mentioned seem somehow related to what I would call “dedication” to the cause. The passage explained by al-Qurtubi mentioned above seems to serve as a reminder to stay pious and focused, for example. Al-Zarqawi also discusses jihad (p. 12) and cites a hadith (tradition on the life of Muhammad) about not having to fear if one trusts in God (p. 13). He continues by mentioning the various types of consolation to the believers (p. 15). Al-Zarqawi sometimes also writes short pieces that he seems to have made up himself. One of them (p. 25) mentions the close connection one should maintain with God, while one should break with the tawaghit (idols, used here probably to refer to “un-Islamic” rulers). The rest of the notebook is similarly filled with poems, religious texts and exhortations to remain patient and to keep one’s faith.

What all this adds up to is a collection of short pieces that seems to portray a man dedicated to his faith who uses religious texts to get him through the tough times he is facing. Considering the fact that he was in prison when he wrote this and would go on to become one of the world’s best-known jihadis, this makes a lot of sense, of course. I will leave it to others to decipher all of the notebook, which contains a lot of blank pages after p. 34 but also shows some nice drawings (for example on pp. 70-71). It should be clear, however, that any scholar seriously dealing with al-Zarqawi cannot afford to ignore this source.

In the previous two parts of this short series (here and here), we saw that the Jordanian radical ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and his website, Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, have been closely involved in efforts to support the mujahidun in the Caucasus by offering advice, translating books into Russian and encouraging and praising their efforts. We still don’t know why this is the case, however. In this final part of the series, we will try to answer that question.

The Shari’a Committee

To understand why al-Maqdisi and his website are so interested in the mujahidun in the Caucasus, we need to go back a few years to an interview that al-Maqdisi gave to the Jordanian newspaper Al-‘Arab al-Yawm, which was published on 5 July 2005. As regular Jihadica readers know, al-Maqdisi used his week-long release from prison in that year to criticise his former pupil Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and to scold other jihadis for their – in his view – extremist and sometimes plain stupid actions in conflicts that they could never win anyway. He also mentioned that he wanted to set up a committee of religious scholars that could guide jihadi youngsters all over the world by giving them advice and fatwas. Although this latter piece of information was not widely reported at the time and was not acted upon by al-Maqdisi - he was quickly rearrested in 2005 and not released until 2008 - it is nevertheless highly interesting because he seems to have realised this goal of setting up such a committee in 2009.

Since September last year, Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad has had a forum on which readers can ask al-Maqdisi and ten other scholars all kinds of questions related to Islam. Although many of these questions (collected in ten volumes so far) are about issues that have nothing to do with jihad, such as wearing trousers (vol. 5, p. 25) or determining the first day of Ramadan (vol. 2, pp. 5-6), many of them do deal with fighting and violence. Considering the context given above (i.e. that this forum was perhaps partly meant to prevent young jihadis from using too much violence), it is not surprising that several of these fatwas actually discourage questioners from using force. A question on Hamas’ Qassam Brigades in the Gaza Strip is answered with the advice to radical jihadis to remain patient and not to seek any confrontation with Hamas (vol. 1, pp. 1-2), notwithstanding the Shari’a Council’s strong disagreements with that movement. Another reply to a Belgian group called Shariah4Belgium advises that group’s members to support jihad elsewhere, but to refrain from using violence in their own country because of their weakness there.

So what is the Minbar doing in Moscow then?

The Minbar’s communique about the subway bombings in Moscow earlier this year, its interest in the Caucasus and its efforts to translate certain books into Russian should probably be seen as part of this wider plan by al-Maqdisi and certain like-minded scholars to support and encourage mujahidun who try to wage a “clean” jihad and to advise others on how to do that. In fact, if one were to take a look at the communique with which this series started as well as al-Maqdisi’s epistle about the Islamic Emirate in the Caucasus, it is striking that so much of these texts is spent praising the mujahidun for their eagerness to obtain knowledge, their supposed purity of arms, the situation in which they allegedly had no other choice than to use violence, their correct choice of victims etc., while hardly any attention is paid to their military prowess. The praise, in other words, seems to be caused not by the mujahidun’s firepower but by their careful and considered use of violence and appears to be directed not just at the mujahidun in the Caucasus but also at other aspiring jihadis as if to tell them: “Take a good look guys, this is how you wage a proper jihad.”

The Shari’a Committee is only less than a year old and consists of relatively unknown scholars (apart from al-Maqdisi) and it remains to be seen whether its fatwas actually have the kind of influence that its authors want them to have. Still, throughout the past year, several new scholars have been added to the committee - sometimes with much fanfare - and if others (perhaps Abu Basir al-Tartusi?) join too, al-Maqdisi’s and the Minbar’s efforts to stem the extremist tides of unlimited violence could pay off and have the potential to become an influential ideological force.

Why would al-Qaida attack Norway? Here are some thoughts by Dominic Tierney and yours truly.

I also have other, somewhat less obvious thoughts on the matter, but I will wait to share them until we know more about the facts in the case.

International media have been in a frenzy recently over the publication of an English-language jihadi magazine entitled Inspire. The magazine – available here (beware of possible virus) – appears to be the work of the Yemen-based group al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine features the logo of the “al-Malahim foundation”, AQAP’s media arm, and contains articles by and about AQAP members such as Anwar al-Awlaqi and Nasir al-Wahayshi. Unfortunately, only 3 of the 67 pages are legible, as the PDF seems to be corrupt. The coverage has been followed by extensive blogospheric speculation about the document’s significance.

Rarely have I seen so much fuss over such an insignificant event. The hulabaloo says a lot more about Western media than about al-Qaida. Specifically it reveals a level of ignorance about the world of jihadi propaganda that I find very disappointing nine years after 9/11.

For one, Inspire is not – I repeat: not – the first English-language jihadi magazine. It is not as if non-Arabic speaking Muslims have been isolated from the world of jihadi propaganda until now. There have been several online magazines in English in the past, and most have been of higher quality than Inspire. Has everyone forgotten last year’s Jihad Recollections? Besides, there were several English-language paper magazines in the 1990s. London-based GIA supporters had a newsletter in the early 90s, Abu Hamza al-Masri’s “Supporters of Sharia” group had another in the late 90s, and Australian Islamists published the magazine Nida ul Islam from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.

Second, online jihadi propaganda of other types – such as websites and videos – have been widely available in English for over a decade. (Remember Azzam Publications?). Al-Sahab, the entity that disseminates statements from al-Qaida Central, has been subtitling videos and translating transcripts on a regular basis since at least 2005.

Third, the market for English-language propaganda is not quite as large as people think. Many Muslims living in the West speak the language of their country of origin, so they don’t need English-language material. In fact, many aspiring activists prefer ideological material in Arabic because they consider it more authentic. Those who don’t speak it themselves can rely on friends to convey the content for them, use translation software, or simply watch videos.

Fourth, the question of authenticity is neither soluble nor particularly important. Most commentators address the issue of authenticity in binary terms, as if documents are either fabricated by the CIA or manufactured by the inner core of al-Qaida. This is not how propaganda production works. Virtually no propaganda today is produced by the inner core of militant organizations. Propaganda production is usually outsourced to cells and individuals with varying degrees of contact with senior operatives. In fact, a considerable amount of jihadi media is produced by self-started entrepreneurs with no direct ties to militants whatsoever. Authenticity is therefore most often a matter of degrees, not a question of either-or. Inspire may well be the work of genuine religious activists, but not necessarily of the inner core of AQAP. Without signals intelligence it is extremely difficult to determine the precise nature of the link between the editors and the AQAP leadership.

Judging from the amount of recycled material in Inspire, I would be surprised if the AQAP connection is very strong. Remember that AQAP’s Arabic-language magazine Sada al-Malahim (published since 2008) usually contains much more original material, suggestive of much closer links between editors and operatives. Even if Inspire was produced by AQAP cadres, I am not sure it would tell us anything we didn’t already know. We already know that the group is alive and well, that it has ambitions to recruit in, and strike at, the West, and that it has a very active media apparatus.

Fifth, there is nothing particularly new or uniquely worrying about the content of Inspire, at least judging by the table of contents. The exact same types of articles have appeared in other magazines for years. The article on “make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” is hardly a game changer in the world of terrorism. Tactical instruction manuals abound online and have done so for a decade.

The bottom line is that Inspire is a drop in an ocean of jihadi propaganda. The recent media coverage suggests that otherwise educated observers don’t seem to realise 1) how large and 2) how old that ocean is. I find this both disappointing and disconcerting. For a decade, militants have been pumping out sophisticated propaganda and genuinely dangerous training manuals to a vast Arabic speaking audience. In comes a sloppy magazine in English, and suddenly people speak of a new al-Qaida media offensive. This ignorance and linguistic myopia is inexcusable, since blogs and translation services have made information about jihadi propaganda more available than ever.

In my view, the only interesting thing about the release of Inspire is the fact that the PDF file is corrupt and rumoured to carry a Trojan virus. This is somewhat unusual. However, before we can say what it means, we need to know for sure whether the file was simply corrupt or whether it actually contained a virus. Basically we need more input from people who know the technological side of things (Aaron, have you looked at this?) Personally I don’t see why either jihadis or intelligence services would deliberately disseminate viruses, given that a virus would hurt both friends and enemies. In any case, whoever created Inspire wanted attention, and they certainly got that - in spades.

Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is by Mathilde Aarseth, a summer intern at FFI.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the soccer World Cup is on. To mark the occasion Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad prominently displays a fatwa tackling the issue of the legality of watching the World Cup. Like every religious edict, it is introduced by a question, in this case from a presumed jihadi football fan. The tormented soul is not worried about the game in itself, but rather its sinful surroundings. Is it really OK for a good Muslim to watch lightly dressed women cheering from the grandstands while music is being played over the loudspeakers?

No is the answer of Sharia council member Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi. Since the football players are paid according to the number of goals they score, this amounts to a form of gambling, which is forbidden in Islam: “The Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) said that money rewards in competitions are only allowed under three circumstances: Horse races, camel races and archery, because these are activities that are useful in war”.

Unless all the players are paid evenly, it is forbidden to participate in these football matches, as well as watching them on TV or reading about them in the news. Al-Maqdisi also reminds his readers that the soccer matches encourages loyalty to the sport teams rather than to God, as well as “unnecessary fun” and inattention to the religion:

“These matches are invented by our enemies, and through the matches they seek to distract us from jihad towards them. They want to weaken the Islamic umma and make them waste their time on trivial things instead of religion.”

He also denounces the fact that women are shown on TV, the sinful behavior among the players, as well as the cursing and fighting between the supporters. Not to forget that the matches can make one forget his prayer times.

Al-Maqdisi continues “I remind you of how the infidels have waged war against our religion, distorted our dogmas, ripped apart our people and cut off its limbs (…) After all this, how can any of us watch these matches that distract us from God and the duties of our religion and jihad against our enemies? Like a butterfly that sees the fire and then flies right into it.”

Two of the world’s foremost experts on al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb have published new reports on the group. Al-Hayat journalist Camille Tawil has written a report for Jamestown, and Sciences-Po professor (and Jihadica alumnus) Jean-Pierre Filiu has written another report for Carnegie. Needless to say they are both excellent and worth anyone’s time.

In part 1 of this short series of posts, we saw that the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad website published a communique by the leader of the Islamic Emirate in the Caucasus, Dokku ‘Umarov, claiming responsibility for the attacks in Moscow on 29 March 2010. This was slightly odd since the Minbar mostly publishes books, articles and fatwas, not claims of responsibility for attacks committed anywhere. Although a quick glance at the website may give the impression that this is indeed an exception, a more detailed look reveals that it is part of a broader trend.

It appears that the Minbar has been involved in the conflict between Russia and the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus for some time. For instance, the Jordanian owner of the website, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, has written an epistle in support of the mujahidin in the Caucasus. In it, al-Maqdisi praises the supposed ideological purity, leadership and righteousness of the fighters in the Caucasus and writes that this group can serve as an example for other jihadi groups in the Muslim world. He speaks highly of their acts but especially of what he describes as their knowledge, their carefulness in applying takfir (excommunication of Muslims) and their unwillingness to deviate from tawhid (the unity of God) and compares them favourably with Hamas, another group fighting a non-Muslim enemy.

Advice

The group’s qadi (judge), Abu ‘Imran Anzur b. Aldar, has also asked al-Maqdisi for advice about Muslims working for the Russian government and to what extent the fighters in the Caucasus are allowed to co-operate with them. Abu ‘Imran observes that some Muslims are not very pious or fear for their lives but nevertheless sympathize with the fighters in the Caucasus and therefore use their positions in the Russian army or governmental circles, which Abu ‘Imran believes to be forces of unbelief, to secretly help the Islamic Emirate and wants to know how he should deal with this phenomenon. Al-Maqdisi’s rather general answer is that Muslims should show their true faith to others but their unwillingness to do so because they are weak or scared should not automatically lead to their excommunication. In fact, he maintains that these Muslims may be able to help further the cause of Islam as a whole and that this could be a good thing in certain situations.

The “mujahid leader” Abu ‘Imran also asked al-Maqdisi for advice about Muslim participation in the Olympic Games or the football World Cup. Interestingly, his question does not deal with the tight shirts and short trunks that athletes wear but concentrates on whether it is allowed to participate in sports while wearing clothes that prominently display the word “Russia” as well as Russian symbols. He also wonders whether the pagan Greek origins of the Olympic Games are acceptable in this respect and complains about youngsters who refuse to wear Nike clothes because that brand derives its name from a Greek goddess but who have no problem wearing shirts with the name of the “false god” Russia on it. One may wonder how relevant this question is for people who are busy waging a war against Russian troops, but al-Maqdisi treats it as a serious matter. He states that while participation in sports is not wrong in itself, it is in this context, although he is again careful not to brand those who do participate in the Olympic Games as infidels.

Russian

These two questions mentioned above are reportedly not the only times Abu ‘Imran asked al-Maqdisi for advice since he is said to been in touch with him about other things and has also asked for the latter’s books to be translated into Russian (see here). The Minbar’s involvement with the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus is not limited to al-Maqdisi, however, since those running the website have been busy translating not just some of al-Maqdisi’s books but also some by ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam and others into Russian.

So now we know that the communique about the Moscow bombings was not an exception but was actually part of a greater involvement by the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in the Caucasus. This still leaves one question: why?

To be continued…

A new RAND report by Brian Jenkins provides a much-needed overview of jihadi radicalization cases and terrorism plots in the United States since 2001. The study pairs up very nicely with Petter Nesser’s equally indispensable overview of plots in Europe. Apart from offering a comprehensive list of cases, Jenkins makes a number of very pertinent observations, not least regarding the scale of the problem. How many of you knew that 1970s America saw 15 to 20 times as many terrorist incidents as the post 9/11 period?

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 presents writings on martyrdom by three other figures, namely Nasir al-Din al-Albani, Muhammad bin Uthaymin and Sulayman al-Ulwan. The latter is a notorious  Saudi jihadi cleric while the first two are more mainstream (and deceased) figures of Salafi Islam.

As a whole, the text provides a German-language assessment and justification for suicide missions. The treatise distinguishes between the concepts of “suicide”, “self-sacrificial” and “martyrdom” (istishahdiya) operations, highlights a definition by Yusuf al-‘Uyairi on who can be considered a “martyr” (shahid), and throws in a wide mix of historical sources to illustrate and support the argument.

The main significance of the document is that it is in German and thus accessible to German speaking audience. It is the latest addition to a very rapidly growing body of German-language jihadi literature. Of all these new texts, the jihadist defense of ‘martyrdom’ operations by Elif Medya and the German Taliban Mujahideen may well be one of the most important.

What’s the point of editing a blog if you can’t use it for shameless self promotion?

My book Jihad in Saudi Arabia is finally out in the US. I am marking the occasion with a book launch at George Washington University today at 4pm, so if you are in the DC area, please come along.