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Abu al-Yazid Mending Fences with Hamas

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It’s late, I know, but I couldn’t let Mustafa Abu al-Yazid’s interview with al-Jazeera go uncommented. I found it absolutely fascinating. My hat is off to Ahmad Zaydan for finding Mustafa and asking him excellent questions.

International media focused on the A-bomb remark, but this was neither a very significant or surprising part of the interview (here I agree with Dan Drezner). It was just a quick unrehearsed side comment in an answer to a question about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

The most significant part of the interview was Abu al-Yazid’s endorsement of Hamas. “We support the sincere mujahidin in Palestine, even the mujahidin of Hamas. We support them and help them; they are our brothers; we and they have the same ideology and the same method,” Abu al-Yazid said. This is quite a different message from that of Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who have been relentless in their criticism of Hamas in the past few years.

Not surprisingly, this caused quite a debate on the forums (see also here and here), where Hamas has long been subject of criticism (see e.g. here, here and here).

Abu al-Yazid’s statement was clearly an attempt by al-Qaida to mend fences with the broader Islamist movement and reach out to a wider audience. His choice of podium was surely no coincidence, for he is well aware that most al-Jazeera viewers are sympathetic to Hamas.

It has been a while since I heard a top al-Qaida member speak as clearly and straightforwardly as Abu al-Yazid did here.  He gave simple and seemingly honest answers to questions about al-Qaida’s organizational structure in Afghanistan, attacks called off against the US, the issue of two Islamic emirates (Iraq and Afghanistan), and many other things. Rob at the Shack is also right that overall, Abu al-Yazid’s remarks were not outlandishly radical when seen from the Arab street (the nuclear remark apart, obviously).

With the Abu al-Yazid interview, al-Qaida undoubtedly regained some of the popular support lost over the past few years. It is a reminder of how good al-Qaida can be at PR when they want to.

Watch the whole thing, look at the extracts or read it – I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Abu al-Yazid Alive

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That’s the claim of Zamjari, which Ekhlaas ranks as “a major author” on the forum.  He writes:

We proclaim to the supporters of the mujahids everywhere that our beloved shaykh is alive, prosperous, fighting, moving about freely, and leading battalions of mujahids.  Martyrdom has not yet been decreed for him.

That’s quite a claim for a major forum member to make given that al-Qaeda could release a statement that would prove him wrong.   Since there’s been no such statement, I’m inclined to give this unofficial proclamation some weight.

Document (Arabic): 8-16-08-ekhlaas-major-forum-member-says-mustafa-abu-al-yazid-still-alive

Abu Ghaith and al-Qa’ida’s Dissident Faction in Iran

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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 period, had by 2010 joined this group in their efforts to correct the errors of al-Qa’ida’s ways.

In a 2007 study of al-Qa’ida’s leadership schisms, I discussed how disagreements over the advisability and religious permissibility of the 9/11 attacks had split the historical leadership of al-Qa’ida into two camps. Following the attacks and the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan in October of 2001, the pro-9/11 group, including Bin Ladin and Zawahiri, fled to Pakistan, while the anti-9/11 group ended up in Iran, where they were placed under house arrest by Iranian authorities. There were a couple of outliers to this explanation of the various trajectories of these leaders, however. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (Shaykh Sa’id al-Masri) is described in the 9/11 Commission Report as having been among those opposed to 9/11, though he joined Bin Ladin and Zawahiri in Pakistan and eventually rose to the rank of commander of al-Qa’ida’s operations in Afghanistan and spokeman of the al-Qa’ida “General Command” before his death in a drone strike in Pakistan in May of 2010. The other outlier was Abu Ghaith, whose appearance in two famous videos released by al-Qa’ida via al-Jazeera following 9/11 left no question as to his support for those attacks, yet who ended up in Iran along with the most senior members of al-Qa’ida’s anti-9/11 faction.

The most important members of this latter faction were Sayf al-‘Adl, Abu Hafs al-Muritani, and Abu’l-Walid al-Masri. Sayf al-‘Adl (Muhammad Salah al-Din Zaydan al-Masri) was in charge of al-Qa’ida’s training operations in Afghanistan during the 1990s and, following the death of Abu Hafs al-Masri (Muhammad ‘Atif) in November of 2001, became the head of al-Qa’ida’s military committee, theoretically in charge of all of al-Qa’ida’s kinetic activities. In June of 2002 he sent an angry letter to Khalid Shaykh Muhammad (addressed here as “Mukhtar”) regarding the disastrous consequences that the 9/11 attacks had brought upon the organization and calling for an immediatie cessation of external activities.

Abu Hafs al-Muritani (Mahfouz Ould al-Walid) was the pre-9/11 head of al-Qa’ida’s shari’a committee, responsible for determining the religious legitimacy of its actions. According to the 9/11 Commission Report he presented Bin Ladin with a brief, backed by Qur’anic citations, arguing that the attacks would violate Islamic law.  More recently he has stated that in late 2001, after his objections were overridden by Bin Ladin, he submitted his resignation to the al-Qa’ida chief several weeks prior to 9/11 (on which more below).

Abu’l-Walid al-Masri (Mustafa Hamid) is something of an unusual case, as he was never a formal member of al-Qa’ida. An Egyptian journalist who joined the Haqqani network in Afghanistan in 1979, Abu’l-Walid was close to the al-Qa’ida leadership from the beginning and taught at al-Qa’ida camps in the 1990s, though he had been critical of Bin Ladin’s leadership abilities since at least 1989. He has been credited by two other senior al-Qa’ida figures with having helped convince Bin Ladin to redirect al-Qa’ida’s stategic focus from the “near enemy” to the “far enemy” – the United States – an issue I discuss most fully here (at p. 97f). Though not privy to al-Qa’ida’s internal disputes about the 9/11 attacks in late 2001, he has expressed nothing but the utmost contempt for those attacks in the years since, first as a grievous strategic blunder that played into the hands of the US and Israel, and more recently along the lines of “truther” conspiracy theories.

These three men, then, along with Abu Ghaith, several members of Bin Ladin’s immediate family, and a number of mid-level al-Qa’ida figures have until recently all been living in Iran, though there is conflicting information regarding the extent to which their freedom of movement had been restricted by Iranian authorities. (The most detailed account of their early conditions of confinement comes from Abu’l-Walid’s former wife Rabiah Hutchinson, who fled Afghanistan to Iran before leaving her then-husband and being repatriated to Australia in 2003). Up to 2009 little to nothing had been heard from any of them, though Sayf al-‘Adl’s operational activities popped up on the radar, so to speak, on a number of occasions during the 2000s, as mentioned here. The senior al-Qa’ida leaders among the group in Iran – Sayf, al-Muritani and Abu Ghaith – were entirely absent throughout this period from official al-Qa’ida messaging and propaganda production. As far as the rest of the world was concerned they had gone silent – until, that is, they all appeared on Abu’l-Walid’s website in late 2010.

According to his former wife, at the beginning of his stay in Iran Abu’l-Walid was under house arrest and denied any phone or internet access, but these restrictions must have eventually been relaxed, since in 2007 Abu’l-Walid began posting some of his older writings to an obscure blog. Abu Hafs al-Muritani has recently told al-Jazeera that their confinement in Iran went through several stages, with “the last stage being not house arrest but rather hospitality, albeit with some restrictions.” Beginning in 2009, Abu’l-Walid expanded his online activities, becoming a regular contributor to the Taliban’s Arabic-language online magazine al-Sumud. He also returned to issuing withering critiques of al-Qa’ida and its strategic and ideological failings, often cross-posting these essays to jihadi forums – much to the dismay of al-Qa’ida’s cyber-loyalists.

If the e-jihadis hadn’t liked what Abu’l-Walid had to say up to this point, in mid-November of 2010 he dropped a bombshell. In the middle of that year Abu’l-Walid had migrated his online activities from the blog to a new website, the now defunct mafa.asia. On November 15 he posted to the forums, as a mafa.asia exclusive, a lengthy new book by none other than al-Qa’ida’s former spokesperson Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, with an introduction by the former al-Qa’ida religious leader Abu Hafs al-Muritani. Entitled “Twenty Counsels on the Path of Jihad,” the text created a great deal of online consternation. Here were two of the most senior members of the organization’s historical leadership, who hadn’t been heard from in years, all of a sudden issuing new messages via the website of one of al-Qa’ida’s most notorious jihadi detractors.

And it wasn’t simply the method of distribution that caused alarm. Though not naming any names, Abu Ghaith’s book and al-Muritani’s introduction were clearly part of the genre of “revisions” or “recantation” texts (muraji’at), a growing body of literature by major jihadi figures offering mea culpas for former errors and diagnosing the ills besetting contemporary jihadi activism. Introducing the text as part of a planned “revival of jihadi education” series, Abu Hafs al-Muritani explains:

“I saw that after the last three decades [of jihadi experiences around the world], the jihadi arena lacked sufficient educational guidance, and was in great and dire need of this. There is nothing aside from what the martyred mujahid shaykh ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam left in some of his audio tapes and books … but this is not enough…. So it has become necessary to issue the like of this series of educational essays to correct the path, direct the activity, treat the illnesses, apply balm to the wounds, refine the hearts, and provide the field [of jihad] and its members what they need in terms of guidance to remind and assist them and to raise them to a level that befits them.”

Here is a man best known as having been among the most senior figures in Bin Ladin’s organization saying that no worthy guidance for jihad has come out since the days of ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, who was assassinated in 1989 – not quite a ringing endorsement of al-Qa’ida’s more recent leadership capabilities, to say the least. That he would choose to launch his effort to “correct the path” from the opposition press, as it were, is a pretty clear indication that the Iranian faction had lost any hearing within al-Qa’ida central.

The book by Abu Ghaith that these remarks introduce is quite lengthy, extending to over a hundred pages, and it sounds the same notes as al-Muritani. At first glance it appears as a straightforward pamphlet of moral maxims and general operational rules of thumb for Islamist militants, illustrated with apposite anecdotes from Islamic scripture – something like a “Twenty Habits of Highly Effective Jihadis” self help book. But one need not read too closely between the lines to see the implied criticism of al-Qa’ida’s leaders. In its first line Abu Ghaith says that in his book “I have set forth the most important topics of guidance on which I feel that giving sincere advice (tanasuh) is a matter of grave importance for the jihadi leadership and members.” Sincere advice (nasiha) is a technical term in conservative Islamic discourses for formal criticism, often of a political nature; Bin Ladin’s early broadsides against the Saudi royal family in the 1990s were issued under the name of an “Advice (nasiha) and Reform Committee.” Nor is it difficult to connect the specific issues about which Abu Ghaith offers “sincere advice” to some of the more controversial aspects of Bin Ladin’s and Zawahiri’s leadership. The book speaks of the pitfalls of love of power, autocratic leadership, overemphasis on media activities, sectarian divisiveness, ideological fanaticism, and an unwillingness to work with a broader set of Islamist actors, including non-violent political groups (e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood). The journalist Jamal Isma’il pointed to some of the more obvious implied criticisms in an article in al-Hayat about Abu Ghaith’s book. Isma’il writes: “In a manner unprecedented in al-Qa’ida or the militant groups loyal to it, a new book by Sulayman Jasim Bu Ghayth … offers scathing criticism of al-Qa’ida leader Usama bin Ladin – without mentioning him by name – and the acts of jihadi groups, writing that ‘it is not permissible for one man to use the blood of others to experiment in what seems to him to be rightousness’.”

One month later, on December 17, 2010, Abu’l-Walid issued his own piece of sincere advice, though his was characteristically more direct. The title of the essay says it all, really: “Disbanding al-Qa’ida is the Best Option before Bin Ladin.” He again posted this on mafa.asia and the jihadi forums, though Shumukh, the forum most closely aligned with al-Qa’ida’s leadership, banned him from the message board and deleted his posts a week later. This was followed at the end of that month by a series of new messages from Sayf al-‘Adl – again, the first time that this al-Qa’ida leader had directly addressed the public since 9/11 – a series that I discussed at the time here. All of this was quite remarkable – a bloc of al-Qa’ida’s old guard emerging from years of silence only to undermine the legitimacy of their former employers – though it all unfolded to almost no notice in the West.

Since issuing these critiques in late 2010, this entire cast of characters has, so far as we know, left Iran. Sayf was reported to have been released from Iran in a prisoner swap arranged by the Haqqani network for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Pakistan, though the details surrounding that affair are still rather murky. Abu’l-Walid was repatriated to Egypt at the end of August of 2011. Abu Ghaith, as we now know, left Iran in January of this year. The last member of the faction, Abu Hafs al-Muritani, was transferred to Mauritanian custody from Iran in April of 2012 and released from jail in Mauritania last July.

Last October al-Muritani sat down for two lengthy interviews with al-Jazeera (parts one and two), shedding further light on the Iranian exile of al-Qa’ida’s dissident faction.  There is much of interest in this interview, but I will only highlight some of the statements that bear upon this post. In his interview, al-Muritani first directly addresses and confirms the 9/11 Commission Report’s characterization of him as having opposed the 9/11 attacks. When asked about his “revision” or “recantation” – i.e., the texts published by Abu’l-Walid in 2010 – he denies that his current position is a revision, stating that he had always objected to takfir (declaring other Muslims heretics) and indiscriminate violence. Aligning with other insider accounts, such as the autobiography of Fazul ‘Abdallah Muhammad, al-Muritani says that the debates within al-Qa’ida about the 9/11 attacks were not about the details of the operation – these were not known, even to the upper-level leadership – but rather over the idea of a violent attack on US territory itself. He also says that Abu Muhammad al-Masri, a senior member of al-Qa’ida’s military committee and also believed to be or to have been in detention in Iran, was of the faction opposed to the 9/11 attacks. Al-Muritani says that his objections to 9/11 were purely on religious grounds, and that ultimately it was due to the autocratic nature of Bin Ladin’s leadership that all the various objections expressed by his inner circle were dismissed and the attacks carried out. He says that he does not approve of the tactics of the branch of al-Qa’ida operting in northern Mali, saying that what they are doing is not the right way to establish an Islamic state. Regarding his stay in Iran, he says that an arrangement was made with the authorities whereby al-Qa’ida members committed to carrying out no attacks from within Iran, and he says that overall the treatment by the Iranians was good, though it had its ups and downs. Al-Muritani says that no Western or Arab governments were given access to him or other al-Qa’ida refugees, nor were they interrogated during their stay in Iran. He reiterates the criticisms from the “Twenty Counsels,” saying that the jihadi movements are wrong to denounce the political Islamist movements and that jihad means nothing if it is not the struggle of the community as a whole. He also repeats the criticisms of indiscriminate killing and sectarian devisiveness, saying that while holding some heretical views the Shi’a are nonetheless Muslims, contrary to the view taken by al-Qa’ida in Iraq under Zarqawi.

As with the statements issued through Abu’l-Walid’s blog in 2010, al-Muritani’s interview was not well-received by the online jihadi community. One of the main platforms of salafi jihadi pronouncements, the Minbar at-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad website, posted a lengthy denunciation of Abu Hafs for his “recantation,” refuting at length the “heresies” uttered by him in the interview (such as that the Shi’a are Muslims).  Ultimately, though, the interview simply confirmed what many on the forums had already suspected: that a group of the most famous leaders of the historical al-Qa’ida had soured on Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, and some of the more extremist tendencies of post-9/11 jihadism.

Finally, I would note that there was speculation in some of the initial reports about Sayf al-‘Adl’s release in 2009 that the Iranian diplomat prisoner swap had also included the release of Abu Ghaith and Abu Hafs al-Muritani at that time. Since we now know that wasn’t the case, it raises further questions about the current whereabouts of Sayf al-‘Adl. He, and his colleague Abu Muhammad al-Masri, may very well still be in Iran, or only recently released. I would imagine that it is the fates of these men that the US government is most eager to learn details of from Abu Ghaith, now that he is in custody.

Hamas and the Jihadis

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The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has long been a source of controversy in the world of Sunni jihadism. Especially since it participated in and won the elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, going on to form a unity government with Fatah, the dominant faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the following year, the group has generally been shunned by jihadis. Hamas’s roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, its embrace of the “polytheistic” religion of democracy, its perceived failure to rule by Islamic law in Gaza, its unholy alliance with Shiite Iran—all of this has made it unpalatable, if not anathema, to the adherents of Jihadi Salafism (al-salafiyya al-jihadiyya). The question that divides jihadis is exactly what level of condemnation is called for. Is the right approach to pronounce takfir (excommunication) on Hamas, or on certain elements of it? Is Hamas to be supported when it faces off against the Jewish state? Are its war dead to be considered martyrs?

The recent hostilities between Hamas and Israel have brought the controversy over Hamas back to the fore, shedding new light on the jihadi movement’s ideological fault lines. The first division is that between al-Qaida and the Islamic State, and as one would expect it is the Islamic State that takes the harder line against Hamas. There is another fault line, however, that runs between two ideological camps on the pro-al-Qaida side of the jihadi movement. It is here, as will be seen, where the most intense debate has taken place. One of the camps has not shied away from criticizing al-Qaida itself.

Al-Qaida vs. the Islamic State

Shortly after the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on May 10, when Hamas fired more than 150 rockets into Israel and Israel responded with airstrikes, most jihadi groups, including the various branches of al-Qaida, issued statements of solidarity with the Palestinians. The statements also decried the perceived Israeli aggression on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, where clashes had been taking place between worshippers and Israeli security forces since May 7. Al-Qaida central, through its al-Sahab media outlet, issued three such statements between mid-May and early June.

The first statement appeared on May 11 in the form of an issue of al-Qaida’s occasional newsletter, al-Nafir. Titled “Al-Aqsa in the Care of the Descendants of al-Bara’ ibn Malik,” it appears to have been written before the air war began as its focus is the Palestinian demonstrations around the al-Aqsa mosque. Al-Qaida here likens the fearlessness of the demonstrators to that of the Prophet’s companion al-Bara’ ibn Malik, who was launched into a walled area of thousands of apostates in the so-called “wars of apostasy” in early Islam. The issue also quoted at length from a March 2002 speech by Osama bin Ladin in which he inveighs against normalization with the Jewish state and encourages Muslims to kill Americans and Jews by any means possible.

Several days later, on May 17, came a more controversial statement from al-Qaida’s “general leadership,” titled “Statement of Love, Honor, and Support for Our People in Palestine.” The purpose of the statement was to salute the “mujahidin” in Gaza and their launching of “jihadi missiles toward the Zionists.” The statement never mentions Hamas, but it does mourn the death of one of its military commanders. Toward the end, the al-Qaida leadership offers its condolences (or congratulations) to the Palestinians on “your pious martyrs, foremost among them the heroic leader Basim ‘Isa Abu ‘Imad.” Basim ‘Isa, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on May 12, was a top military commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing. As noted by the analyst Wassim Nasr on Twitter, the praise for Basim ‘Isa here was in keeping with a preexisting al-Qaida policy to distinguish between the political and military wings of Hamas. That policy was elucidated over a decade ago by the al-Qaida commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (d. 2010) after he made the mistake of saying in an interview that “we and Hamas share the same thinking and the same methodology.” Following criticism of his remark, Abu al-Yazid issued a clarification acknowledging that he had misspoken and explaining that the approach of the al-Qaida leadership is to distinguish between Hamas as a political organization, which had committed terrible methodological errors such as embracing democracy, and the righteous mujahideen fighting under Hamas’s banner (i.e., the al-Qassam Brigades, or at least some of them).

The third al-Qaida statement appeared on June 2, two weeks after a ceasefire was reached between the warring parties on May 21. Once again taking the form of an issue of al-Qaida’s al-Nafir newsletter, the statement hailed Hamas’s “sword of Jerusalem” campaign as a great victory that should be seized on “to revive the duty of jihad” in the youth of the Muslim umma. The model of initiating battles to defend mosques under siege from unbelievers and apostates was one to be followed across the Islamic world. The statement went on to praise “the mujahidin in Gaza” and in particular “their heroic leader Muhammad al-Dayf,” the supreme military commander of the al-Qassam Brigades. The singling out of al-Dayf further exemplified the al-Qaida leadership’s fondness for Hamas’s military wing to the exclusion of its political wing.

Taken together, the three statements show al-Qaida posturing as the ally of the al-Qassam Brigades and trying to portray the hostilities with the Jewish state as part of al-Qaida’s larger war with the Americans, the Zionists, and the “client” Arab regimes. Nowhere in these statements is there any hint of criticism of Hamas as a political organization, unless that is to be read in the omission of Hamas’s name. In the past al-Qaida has issued harsh condemnations of the Hamas political leadership, but here no such thing is to be found.

The Islamic State could not have responded more differently to the war between Hamas and Israel. After more than a week of silence on the matter, the official line came in the editorial of the May 20 issue of the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, al-Naba’. Titled “The Road to Jerusalem,” the editorial condemned Hamas (never mentioned by name) as a proxy of Shiite Iran and as part of its axis of “resistance.” Hamas’s warfare was not to be considered jihad as it served the interests of the Iranians and their plot for regional domination. “The difference between jihad and resistance is as the difference between truth and falsehood,” the editorial read. “Whoso allies with those who curse the Prophet’s wives [i.e., the Shia] will never liberate Jerusalem … and whoso differentiates between the Rejectionists [i.e., the Shia] and the Jews will never liberate Jerusalem … Indeed, we consider the mujahid who lies in wait for the Rejectionists in Iraq to be closer to Jerusalem than those who show loyalty to the Rejectionists and burnish their image.” The editorial went on to claim that all of the Islamic State’s battles “east and west are in fact steps in the direction of Jerusalem, Mecca, al-Andalus, Baghdad, Damascus, and all other captured Muslim lands.” In other words, it is the Islamic State, and not Hamas, that holds the promise of liberating Jerusalem.

Perhaps the most notable line in the editorial was a remark toward the end rejecting the idea of Palestinian exceptionalism. “The soldiers of the caliphate,” it stated, “have not exaggerated the issue of Palestine and have not made it an exception among the issues of the Muslims … They have not differentiated between the blood of their Muslim brethren in Palestine and the blood of their brethren in other lands.” This is a remarkable statement, and one that illustrates a stark difference between the Islamic State and al-Qaida regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike al-Qaida, the Islamic State is not interested in posing as the ally of whatever Sunni Muslim group is waging war against the Jewish state. For the Islamic State, any group that deviates from its methodology (manhaj) is simply not worthy of honor and support.

On June 21, the Islamic State’s official spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Qurashi, delivered an audio address that echoed much of the sentiment of the editorial. Al-Qurashi ridiculed the idea that Hamas could ever bring victory to Palestine and urged the Palestinians not to be deceived by the rockets launched by Hamas “in service of their Iranian masters.” Hamas was hypocritical for condemning the Gulf states’ normalization with Israel when it had normalized relations with “Zoroastrian, Safavid Iran.” As in the editorial, the idea here is that it is folly to differentiate between the Jews and the Shia.

Al-Maqdisi vs. Abu Qatada

Among jihadis opposed to the Islamic State and generally aligned with al-Qaida, a divide has emerged in recent years between two competing ideological camps—namely, those who side with the more hardline ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and those who ally with the relatively more moderate Abu Qatada al-Filastini. Both men, who are Palestinian-Jordanians, have active social media presences and devoted followings. Much of their disagreement has revolved around the issue of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria, which al-Maqdisi has condemned and Abu Qatada praised. The matter of Hamas has proven equally controversial.

The war of words over Hamas, which played out on the messaging app Telegram, began on May 13 when al-Maqdisi responded to a comment by the jihadi scholar Na’il ibn Ghazi Musran, who is aligned with Abu Qatada. Musran had written that Gaza was “the standard of distinction between faith and unbelief, and the line separating monotheism (tawhid) in its entirety from apostasy in its entirety.” The author was referring to the different reactions in the Arab world to the Gaza conflict, his point being that those unsupportive of the Palestinian belligerents were in “the camp of apostasy” and those supportive were in “the camp of truth.” In his response, al-Maqdisi ridiculed the idea that “Gaza is the standard,” as the ongoing battle was not one between tawhid and unbelief. He cited what he saw as the outright apostasy of some Palestinian youth and their adherence to pagan nationalism. Addressing the people of Palestine, he wrote: “Do not expect victory from God so long as you are silent about the reviling and cursing of God around you.”

Later that day, Abu Qatada authored a brief response in which he objected to such casual dismissal of unspecified Palestinian youth as apostates. “It is incumbent upon us,” he wrote, “to treat the Muslim youth, even if they are people of sin, as belonging to us. We should understand them as belonging to us and being of us, for the call to expel them from the umma means making them the soldiers of Satan, and making them against us and against Islam. This is a profound error.” Abu Qatada did not believe that Hamas’s efforts would achieve “complete victory and the elimination of the Jewish state,” but nonetheless “these winds of faith in Palestine,” he said, referring to Hamas’s military operations, keep “the spirit of jihad” alive and renew faith in “the necessity of waging jihad against the unbelievers and the apostates.” And likewise, “they teach us to keep in check our quarrels with the Muslim sinner, the Muslim innovator, and the Muslim who errs.”

If Abu Qatada’s view was that the Gaza conflict ought to teach jihadis to be more tolerant and openminded, al-Maqdisi’s view was the opposite. In a post published on May 14, al-Maqdisi accused a certain unnamed shaykh (ba‘d al-shuyukh) of “exploiting these events to spread error and confusion.” “What is necessary,” he retorted, “is that these occasions and battles and wars be exploited to teach people their tawhid and their true religion, not to dilute it, change it, and distort it with false conceptions.” The problem with “making Gaza and Palestine the measure of unbelief and faith,” he reiterated, was that it overlooked the transgressions of the those purporting to wage jihad. “It is impossible for victory to come,” he declared, “from the exaltation of the Rejectionists of Iran and its affiliated parties that attack the honor of the Prophet’s wives, pronounce takfir on the Companions, and kill the Sunnis in Iraq and al-Sham.” In a subsequent post published the next day, al-Maqdisi clarified that while he supports the military efforts of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad against the Jews, he nonetheless does not consider them “jihad in the path of God”; for the path of these groups is not “tawhid and dissociation from all forms of polytheism and idolatry,” but rather “exalting and burnishing of the image of Rejectionist Iran.”

Al-Maqdisi vs. al-Qaida (and Abu Qatada)

The war of words between al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada went on hiatus for about two weeks. It resumed on June 1 when al-Maqdisi authored a post condemning al-Qaida’s statement mourning the death of the Hamas military commander Basim ‘Isa. In the post, titled “Questions Posed to the Brothers at al-Sahab,” al-Maqdisi presented his criticism in the form of questionings attributed to others. “Many mujahid brothers, shaykhs, and preachers were displeased,” he wrote, “by the al-Sahab statement’s exaltation of the al-Qassam leader who was killed in the recent war in Gaza, and they wondered astonishedly: ‘Are our brothers not aware of the deviation of Hamas and its leadership from the path of tawhid in favor of the path of democracy, and their alignment with Hizb al-Lat [i.e., Hizbullah] and Bashar [al-Asad] and Iran?’” Al-Maqdisi continued in this way, referring to the “surprises, shocks, and perturbations” that have succeeded one after the other since the mourning of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi by some of the al-Qaida leadership. “Has the methodology (manhaj) changed?” he asked. “Or have the ranks of al-Qaida been penetrated by those who pay no heed to the purity of the manhaj? … It is presumed that al-Qaida continues to condemn the advocates of democratic Islamism and to dissociate from their manhaj, so how can it mourn their dead when they died on behalf of democracy? And how can it exalt their military leaders who in turn exalt Iran and Bashar and choose the path of democracy?” Al-Maqdisi was putting it out there that a lot of supporters of al-Qaida, himself included, were aghast at such praise for Hamas, even if the praise was restricted to Hamas’s military wing.

The following day, Abu Qatada responded to al-Maqdisi with a brief post implicitly rebuking him for suggesting that Hamas’s war dead were not martyrs (al-Maqdisi had pondered how al-Qaida could “mourn their dead when they died on behalf of democracy?”). Hamas was far from perfect, Abu Qatada explained, yet it nonetheless deserved praise for having “returned the Islamic identity” to the Palestinian cause that had been dominated by leftist and secularist parties. For this reason, he said, and because the secularist alternative is far worse, the critics of Hamas have generally been restrained in their criticism. The right way to deal with them, he declared, was to seek their improvement (ta‘dil) and not their destruction (tadmir). “Their dead are martyrs and their legal status is Islam,” he concluded. “Patience concerning their errors, together with the proffering of advice, is the right-guided sunni way.”

Al-Maqdisi’s response, which appeared the next day, was to insist that “whoso is killed in the path of democracy, and in support of a group that refrains from implementing the Sharia and chooses democracy, is not a martyr; rather he is a corpse (fatis), bother some though it will.” In the same post, al-Maqdisi launched into a comparison of Hamas and the Islamic State, both of which, as he explains, have killed their opponents and exposed their civilian populations to bombardment. Though al-Maqdisi has long been a critic of the Islamic State, here he suggests that the caliphate is superior to Hamas in that it has implemented the Sharia as opposed to democracy and does not show loyalty to idolatrous tyrants (tawaghit). Why then, he asks, addressing Abu Qatada (though not by name), is it your view that we must approach the Islamic State as something to be destroyed (tadmir) but Hamas as something to be improved (ta‘dil)? Al-Maqdisi’s point here was not that the Islamic State is improvable while Hamas is not. His point, rather, was that if the Islamic State is irredeemable then Hamas is doubly so, since Hamas is worse than the Islamic State in certain ways.

This time Abu Qatada did not respond. Al-Maqdisi would follow up to reaffirm that “whoso dies in the path of democracy is a corpse, not a martyr,” and later he would author a long post quoting some of Abu Qatada’s older works that were highly critical of Hamas and its ilk. The most recent post by Abu Qatada regarding Hamas was actually a statement condemning the group for allying with Iran and its Shiite proxies, and particularly the Houthis whom a Hamas representative had recently honored with a medal. Yet even here it was clear that Abu Qatada considered Hamas a Muslim group; the criticism was harsh but still intended as constructive.

Whither al-Maqdisi and al-Qaida?

As noted above, the jihadi reactions to last month’s Israel-Hamas war point to two fault lines in the Sunni jihadi movement: one between the Islamic State and al-Qaida, and one in the pro-al-Qaida side of the movement between the followers of al-Maqdisi and the followers of Abu Qatada. Al-Qaida, as I have written before, almost certainly would like to hold on to both ideological camps, but increasingly it is alienating al-Maqdisi and his followers. The change in approach appears to be by design. With the Islamic State representing the more extreme and intolerant version of Jihadi Salafism, al-Qaida is intent on presenting itself as the movement’s more moderate face. To that end, it has taken a softer line on mainstream Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and played down the emphasis on ideological exclusivism promoted by al-Maqdisi and his camp.

Al-Qaida has long wavered between a more pan-Islamist and a more Salafi (i.e., doctrinally exclusivist) tendency, and today the pan-Islamist tendency has the edge. Al-Maqdisi has taken note of this development, hence his questioning whether al-Qaida has “changed its methodology.” For the supporters of the Islamic State, the answer to this question is obvious and al-Maqdisi knows it. As one Islamic State supporter recently wrote, addressing al-Maqdisi, “Yes, it has changed, and you have ceased to have any value to them and they no longer pay any heed to what you say. Soon they may issue a statement in which, implicitly or explicitly, they dissociate from you and your extremism.” The writer was probably overstating the divergence between al-Maqdisi and al-Qaida; neither is eager for a divorce. But if al-Maqdisi continues to express outrage at what he see as the accumulating deviations of al-Qaida, then a breakup of sorts may well be inevitable.

Mourning Morsi: The Death of an Islamist and Jihadi Divisions

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Following the death of Mohamed Morsi, the former Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, on June 17, 2019, a contentious debate broke out in the world of Sunni jihadism over the proper reaction to his demise. The Islamic State exhibited no grief whatsoever, its Arabic weekly noting the passing of “the Egyptian apostate idol-ruler … [who] rose to power by means of polytheistic democracy and spent one year in power, [ruling] by other than what God has revealed.” For the Islamic State, Morsi’s loss was no loss at all. He was no better or worse than any other apostate ruler in the Islamic world. But for those jihadis in the orbit of al-Qaida, the matter was not so black-and-white. Some rued his loss, others objected to their doing so, and passions ran high. The debate highlights the significance and endurance of a widening ideological divide in this segment of the jihadosphere.

Al-Maqdisi vs. Abu Qatada

The leading parties to the debate were the Palestinian-Jordanian scholars Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada al-Filastini, longtime friends who have fallen out in recent years over the matter of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian jihadi group that broke ties with al-Qaida in attempting to present a moderate face. In short, al-Maqdisi, the more ideologically intransigent of the two, has condemned HTS for abandoning al-Qaida and diluting the principles of jihadism, while Abu Qatada, the more open-minded one, has championed HTS and its seemingly moderate turn. Al-Maqdisi, it could be said, represents a more exclusivist form of jihadism, one concerned with defining and policing the boundaries of the faith, while Abu Qatada stands for a more inclusive version, one that deemphasizes the strict Salafi-Wahhabi theology adored by al-Maqdisi and appeals to the umma broadly. For al-Maqdisi, then, a man such as Morsi has committed the unforgivable sins of partaking in democracy (understood as polytheism) and failing to implement the Sharia. Abu Qatada is willing to overlook these faults.

On June 17, less than an hour after the news of Morsi’s death broke, Abu Qatada took to Telegram to bemoan his loss. “May God have abundant mercy on him and accept him among the righteous,” he wrote. “May God have mercy on you, Dr. Mohamed. We give condolences to his family, and we say, ‘Surely we belong to God, and to Him we return’ [Q. 2:156].” A few minutes later, in a second note, he urged all Muslims to join him in mourning the late president: “[This is] an appeal to every Muslim on this earth to beg pardon for him and to ask God to have mercy on him, for he died unjustly. Not for a moment did I doubt that he possessed a heart sincerely devoted to his religion and his umma.” He added shortly thereafter, “Dr. Morsi—I bear witness before God that I loved him for the sake of God.”

Al-Maqdisi could not contain his exasperation. Writing on Telegram a few hours later, he declared that his stance was unchanged as regards “Morsi, Erdogan, Hamas, and the likes of them who have chosen the path of democracy, having been misled and having misled their followers thereby.” “We do not love them,” he continued, in an obvious reference to Abu Qatada’s remarks, “and it is not permissible for us to love them, as do those whose balance of association and dissociation (al-wala’ wa’l-bara’) has become defective; and we do not ask God to have mercy on them; nor do we call on people to ask God to have mercy on them when they die. For theirs is a heresy warranting excommunication.” While he took care not to name Abu Qatada here, it was clear to all concerned who stood accused of having a faulty theological compass. In the same post al-Maqdisi attacked the selfsame unnamed person for “turning his back on his old method.”

A day later, on June 18, Abu Qatada responded to al-Maqdisi, among other critics, in a written Q&A with his London-based student, Abu Mahmud al-Filastini. Reaffirming his belief that Morsi was a Muslim sincerely devoted to the faith, Abu Qatada clarified that he did not support everything the man had said or done. But his sympathy for him was evident. He remarked that the burden of responsibility borne by Morsi as president of Egypt constrained him severely, and that in any case one cannot expect perfection from an Islamic leader given the circumstances of the age—“the reign of idol rulers, the corruption of education, and the drying up of the springs of guidance.” Abu Qatada was likewise careful to avoid mentioning his antagonist by name. His student, Abu Mahmud, however, did not show the same compunction.

In a post following the Q&A, Abu Mahmud quoted an essay by al-Maqdisi from a few years prior, one that appears to defend the Muslim Brotherhood from excessive criticism. Al-Maqdisi had argued that it was wrong to accuse every member of the Muslim Brotherhood of unbelief, or to equate the Brotherhood with those far worse than it, such as secularists. “If I said these were the words of the one who has been condemning and denouncing and acting enraged because of asking God to have mercy on Morsi, would anyone believe it?” Abu Mahmud wrote. He then referred to the Taliban’s recent eulogy of Morsi, which he quoted in full. Let’s see al-Maqdisi get worked up over the Taliban’s statement, he wrote.

The next day, al-Maqdisi uploaded a pair of audio messages to Telegram in an attempt to clarify his position. In the first he explained that his main issue was not with asking God to have mercy on Morsi, that is, saying “may God have mercy on him.” While he was opposed to it himself, he did not deem it such a big deal so long as one refrained from praising Morsi and leading people to believe that democracy was acceptable. “My only problem,” he said, “is with him who asks God to have mercy on him and in doing so leads people to believe that his method is correct; or adds to asking God to have mercy on him praising him and endorsing him, even endorsing the contents of his heart that only God knows.” In the second audio message he elaborated on his reasons for not saying “may God have mercy on him” with respect to Morsi, citing the practice of the Prophet and earlier Muslim scholars not to use such statements with respect to various “innovators.” For whatever reason, here and elsewhere al-Maqdisi avoids denouncing Morsi as an unbeliever in explicit terms, preferring to describe his behavior—not necessarily the man—as unbelieving.

Secondary contributors

Meanwhile, other notable names in the jihadi world contributed opinions on the matter. Among them was Abu ‘Ubayda Yusuf al-‘Annabi, a senior leader in al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, who sided passionately with Abu Qatada in a short interview. Al-‘Annabi wrote that Morsi had died “unjustly and oppressed … so how could we not ask God to have mercy [on him]? … If we could we would seek revenge on his behalf.” Regardless of what errors he may have committed while in office, he continued, Morsi’s “independent reasoning and interpretation” shielded him from charges of unbelief. Also in Abu Qatada’s corner, unsurprisingly, were the scholarly voices of HTS, including its leading Sharia official Abu ‘Abdallah al-Shami. HTS as a group would also issue an official statement of mourning.

More critical of Morsi, but still willing to say “may God have mercy on him,” were the Egyptian scholars Hani al-Siba‘i and Tariq ‘Abd al-Halim, allies of al-Maqdisi who reside in the United Kingdom and Canada, respectively. Each of them, however, was careful to distance himself from the methodology of the Muslim Brotherhood (see here and here). ‘Abd al-Halim added that while he disagreed with al-Maqdisi’s position on asking God to have mercy on Morsi, he certainly understood where he was coming from—Morsi had no doubt uttered words indicative of unbelief.

As can be seen, it was the two Palestinian-Jordanians who were setting the terms of the debate. And it was not over yet.

A mirage of unity

On June 20, al-Maqdisi released a more aggressive attack on his critics, this time in written form. His target was the more inclusive form of jihadism advocated by Abu Qatada. “Certain persons,” he wrote, “are calling on the jihadi current to revise itself and to purify its ranks and its writings of extremism.” Indeed, he said, “the time has come for full and comprehensive revisions to the methodology of the jihadi current,” but this was “to defend and protect it,” not from extremism, but “from attempts to corrupt it by certain characters, groups, and individuals.” These were people who did not belong to the jihadi movement at all:

It appears that the current has, over the past decades, been united with certain individuals as in a mirage. As facts have come to light in incidents and convulsions, it has become clear that we are united with them neither in methodology nor in politics nor in jurisprudence nor even in sentiments.

In years prior, he suggested, it had been possible to paper over the differences between the real and the faux jihadis, but this was no longer the case:

The agreed principle of global jihad and enmity for the idol-rulers, and the principle of rebelling against them and fighting, united us with many, but as for methodology, jurisprudence, political theory, and the firmest bonds of monotheism … they have opposed us in these for decades … The time has come to purge this imaginary and flimsy union.

The idea of unity with Abu Qatada and his allies was a fantasy no longer worth indulging. This was a civil war, and it could not be avoided. Now more than ever, he said, it was imperative to define our core jihadi principles sharply and definitively, to “lay a foundation of monotheism, creed, and methodology above all things,” and on that foundation to “build a true and honest union.”

Abu Mahmud, the student and ally of Abu Qatada, replied on Telegram that it was al-Maqdisi who was the “intruder upon the current,” not his opponents.  “The jihadi current has never embraced the methodology of extremism,” he wrote, and al-Maqdisi has never been considered the principal “theoretician” (munazzir) of the movement. This was the view of al-Qaida’s leaders and scholars, who, he claimed, did not subscribe to al-Maqdisi’s exclusivist theology. Days later, al-Qaida would seem to prove his point.

Al-Qaida’s eulogy

On June 27, the “general leadership” of al-Qaida put out a statement eulogizing Morsi and advising the Egyptian people to rise up in armed jihad. “May God pardon him and forgive him,” it read. “We have no doubt that he was killed unjustly and oppressed, and we give our condolences to his family and to all his children and loved ones.” The two-page statement was no endorsement of Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood, however, as it urged Egyptians to reject “the religion of democracy.”  The message was similar to an earlier al-Qaida statement from 2017 eulogizing Mahdi ‘Akif, the former spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. While registering its “disagreement” with ‘Akif on unspecified matters, al-Qaida had nonetheless underscored a shared “brotherhood of Islam.”

The reaction from Abu Qatada’s allies was predicable enough. Abu Mahmud, in an audio statement, suggested that al-Maqdisi would now have to accuse al-Qaida of diluting jihadism. Another ally of Abu Qatada’s hailed the statement as evidence of al-Qaida’s pan-Islamist orientation, saying the group does not subscribe to “the religion of the jihadi current” that some people are trying to found. Al-Qaida “sees itself as a part of the umma, not as an alternative to it,” he wrote. (Islamic State supporters, for their part, also felt vindicated. One of them took the statement as further proof of the “Brotherhoodization” of al-Qaida under the leadership of Zawahiri.)

Al-Maqdisi sought to downplay the apparent difference between himself and al-Qaida in light of the statement. In an audio message he once again stressed that his problem was with praising and expressing approval of Morsi, not so much with asking God to have mercy on him. And the al-Qaida statement had been clear in criticizing the democratic and pacifist inclinations of the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, the statement was for the most part unobjectionable.

In any case, he asserted, it would not be long before he was vindicated, as always happens. “Those who follow our history,” he said, “know that we have disagreed with al-Qaida before, and we have disagreed with some of the leaders of al-Qaida … and by the grace of God all those we have advised, in the end and after a certain time, not because I am infallible but by the grace of God … it has become clear that we were correct.” As evidence of his sterling record in this regard, al-Maqdisi cited the time in 2009 when he publicly took issue with an al-Qaida leader’s comments on Hamas—an episode described by Daniel Lav in his book (p. 171). The leader, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, had said an interview with Al Jazeera that “we and Hamas share the same thinking and the same method.” Al-Maqdisi objected in an essay, whereupon Abu al-Yazid recanted in a clarifying statement, acknowledging his error and thanking al-Maqdisi for his intervention.

In recounting this ten-year old story, however, al-Maqdisi invites the question whether al-Qaida would show him the same level of deference today as it did then. At a time when it is seeking to distinguish itself from the “extremism” of the Islamic State and appeal broadly to the umma, the likely answer is no.

Al-Qaida amid the storm

While al-Maqdisi’s views, particularly as regards theology, are highly popular among jihadis who support al-Qaida, the latter is trying to cultivate a broad base of support in the Islamic world. It needs the likes of al-Maqdisi for ideological legitimacy, but it also needs the support of Abu Qatada and his ilk if it is going to succeed in generating pan-Islamist appeal. The jihadi civil war being waged by the two men is thus an unwelcome development as far as al-Qaida is concerned. The group would like to hold on to the supporters of both, not choose between them. But the case of Syria, where HTS decided to cut ties with al-Qaida in pursuing the vision espoused by Abu Qatada, and where al-Qaida loyalists aligned with al-Maqdisi have formed a new al-Qaida franchise, suggests this may not be possible. The divide between these two ideological camps may well be unbridgeable, as al-Maqdisi suggests. He is always proven right, after all.

Al-Qaeda’s Top Scholar

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If the Bahraini jihadi ideologue Turki al-Bin`ali personifies “the caliphate’s scholar-in-arms” for the Islamic State, one would find difficult to name a similar leading figure in al-Qa`ida’s ranks. Indeed, although most of the senior jihadi scholars sided with Ayman al-Zawahiri in his conflict with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, none of them actually belong to the organization. While the senior scholars certainly have longstanding ties to both al-Qa`ida’s leaders and rank and file and have been instrumental in furthering its agenda and that of its affiliates, they all remain independent from al-Zawahiri’s command.

With that said, al-Qa`ida has long strived to promote religious scholars in its ranks, such as Abu Yahya al-Libi and `Atiyyatullah al-Libi, who proved to be major influences in the militant landscape and in jihadi sympathizers’ circles. However, a sustained U.S. drone strikes campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas removed these well-known heavyweights.

Over the remaining ideologues, the Palestinian Abu al-Walid al-Ghazi al-Ansari, also known as Abu al-Walid al-Filistini, represents the closest thing to a formal al-Qa`ida scholar today.

[Read more…]

Virtual safe havens and the war of ideas

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Abu Muqawama has a great piece in the New Republic today. Given his very kind words for Will and myself, I am biased, but the article makes an extremely important point about the importance of virtual safe havens. Although I just posted and don’t really have the time to blog, I felt compelled to add a few thoughts.

There are at least two more reasons why there ought to be a virtual dimension to the new AfPak strategy. First, the Pashto and Urdu-language part of the jihadi cyberspace is growing rapidly, and very few people are keeping track of it. Those who do rarely know the Arabic sites and vice-versa. No analyst I know has enough Arabic and Pashto to connect the dots (except Mustafa Abu al-Yazid).

Second, the Internet infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan is relatively poorly developed compared to the Arab world. This is very worrying, because it means that there is a huge untapped propaganda resource which will be exploited as the local infrastructure inevitably develops. This is unlike in much of the Arab world, where the Internet’s potential has been largely taken out by the local jihadi groups. We are seeing the signs of this trend in the spread, on the ground, of semi-virtual propaganda such as DVDs etc – see this brilliant ICG report for details.

Having said this, in the overall “war of ideas” we must realise the limits of the Internet and other media, because at the end of the day they are just that: media. In the debate about Abu Muqawama’s article, “MK” is spot on when he asks: “What exactly are we going to use for the substance of our digital message if we don’t actually try to deal with some of the real-world problems that render the jihadist narrative plausible or appealing?”

I couldn’t agree more. For several years people in Washington have been discussing public diplomacy in the misguided belief that it is somehow enough to tinker with the form and distribution techniques of “our message” to win the war of ideas. The elephant in the room (or in the Beltway) is that the war of ideas has to be waged on substance.

It is very simple: 1) Say and do things on Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir that make Muslims feel less geopolitically deprived and humiliated. 2) Be nice to the locals in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and broadcast your good deeds, 3) Point out where the jihadis are wrong on substance, and 4) Let mainstream Muslim clerics take care of the theology.

In the meantime we can and should do things to limit the Internet’s effectiveness as a propaganda tool, but at the end of the day the Internet is just the messenger.

Update: Tim Stevens has an excellent in-depth post on this topic and Abu Muqawama has added further remarks.

Update 2: Tim reposted an extremely interesting DoD-sponsored study of safe havens relevant to the discussion. I should of course also mention Mike Innes’ book on safe havens – the only one on the subject as far as I know. His take on Abu Muqawama’s article is here (sorry for the delay).

Back

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I have been busy the past two weeks, but the jihadis have been busier. Bin Ladin has issued two audio statements, one proposing practical steps to liberate Palestine and the other about the treacherous government in Somalia. Al-Zawahiri warned against the forthcoming Crusader attack on Sudan, while Mustafa Abu al-Yazid has addressed the people of Pakistan. Abu Umar al-Baghdadi has spoken about the US plan to withdraw from Iraq, but he does not seem to get the same attention from the online community as his colleagues in Afghanistan. Abu Qatada has issued a statement from prison about the decision to extradite him to Jordan. Fatah al-Islam sharia officer Abu Abdallah al-Maqdisi has been taking questions since Monday, but nobody is allowed to ask about Shakir al-Absi or Asad al-Jihad2 (hmm).

On the magazine front, Sumud 33  has been out for a little while. Fortunately Sada al-Malahim 8 came out on Sunday so now Greg can sleep again. Turkestan al-Islamiyya 3 came out earlier this week, adding to the past month’s increasing flow of Uighur jihadi propaganda.

We have also seen the publication of a couple of unusual videos featuring Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, one with him delivering a funeral sermon in front of a crowd of several hundred people, and another showing him at a large wedding alongside half the jihadi community in Zarqa.  I suspect these videos are part of an attempt to bolster al-Maqdisi’s legitimacy by showing that he is enjoying freedom of movement and expression. By the way I highly recommend the 2-hour wedding video. It offers a fascinating inside look into the sociology of Islamism. It serves as a great illustration of a point I made in a recent article about Zarqa, namely that you cannot deradicalise entire communities. The film may depress you, but you might enjoy the songs.

I will be back soon with a report from the jihadi roundtable in Oslo.

Update (27 March): The Christian Science Monitor became the first Western newspaper to report on the Maqdisi controversy today – and Jihadica is mentioned.

Document (Arabic): 03-26-09-shouraa-mustafa-abu-al-yazid
Document (Arabic): 03-19-09-shouraa-abu-qatada-statement
Document (Arabic): 03-23-09-shamikh-abu-abdallah-al-maqdisi-qa
Document (Arabic): 03-22-09-shouraa-sada-al-malahim-8
Document (Arabic): 03-25-09-shouraa-turkestan-al-islamiyya-3
Document (Arabic): 03-12-09-faloja-maqdisi-fima-kuntum
Document (Arabic): 03-12-09-ansar-maqdisi-wedding-video

New Issues of Two Jihadi Journals

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Issue 12 of the Tala’i` Khurasan (Vanguards of Khurasan) is out.  Several big names have written pieces, including Atiyyat Allah (we have to learn from our mistakes), Abu al-Walid al-Ansari (how past jihads failed), Abu Yahya al-Libi (fighting to restore the Sharia is the only way forward in Palestine), and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (the meaning of piety and patience).  It also includes a 9/11 anniversary article on al-Qaeda’s strategic reasons for attacking the U.S., an article on Jihadis released from prison in Afghanistan, and a summary of the most important operations in Afghanistan over the last four months.

This month we also have a new journal published by al-Shabaab, the AQ-linked group in Somalia.  Marisa thinks its publication means Shabab is growing stronger; that may be, but they can’t produce an attractive journal yet.   The name of the journal, Millat Ibrahim (The Religious Community of Abraham), is an allusion to a Qur’anic verse and a book by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi that have to do with shunning lukewarm Muslims.  There’s even a blurb for Maqdisi’s book at the end of the periodical.  Not surprisingly then, some of the content is devoted to exposing the evils of more compromising Somali opposition groups; for example, there’s a chart of differences between the Shabab and the Liberation Party of Somalia.  Also of interest is a biography of slain Shabab leader Adam Ayro.

Document (Arabic): 10-4-08-shamikh-issue-12-of-talae28099i-khurasan-released

Document (Arabic): 10-4-08-faloja-shabab-publishes-new-journal-millat-ibrahim

Map of Recent Strikes on al-Qaeda Leadership in Pakistan

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Reuters reports, on the authority of a Pakistani security official, that an “Abu Saeed al-Masri” was killed.  The official said Masri is “among the top leadership of al Qaeda.”  The identity of Masri is unknown, but the news media is claiming that it’s Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a close Egyptian friend of Zawahiri’s from the Sadat assassination days (Long War and CT Blog have good summaries of the news).

If true, it is horrible news for al-Qaeda.  Abu al-Yazid is the head of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and one of the few public faces of the organization (he sometimes gets the job of announcing the death of AQ operatives killed in Afghanistan).  Moreover, it comes after a string of successful strikes on high-profile al-Qaeda leaders this year: Abu Layth al-Libi, Abu Sulayman al-Jaza’iri, and Abu Khabab.  Of course, there are other capable leaders waiting in the wings, but don’t underestimate the damage these deaths cause.  It is sending AQ Central back to 2003.

To get a spatial and chronological sense of what is happening, I’ve put together a map of the 2008 killings based on Bill Roggio’s nice summary of the information.  The marks for al-Jaza’iri and Abu Khabab are accurate since we know where they died; for Libi and Abu al-Yazid (if dead), all we know is the province.