Entries Tagged 'Afghanistan' ↓

The latest issue of Nawai Afghan Jihad includes an interview with Jalaluddin Haqqani.  The interview is centered on American policy in Afghanistan and the danger America poses to the world. Little mention is made of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or the role of Pakistani extremists in Afghanistan.

To a question regarding the “propaganda unleashed by the Karzai government” that jihadi activity along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan is planned and plotted in Pakistan, Haqqani gives a rather diplomatic response: “there are passionate young men from the tribal areas who have inherited the jihadi gusto of the past (fighting the British and Soviets) and who were martyred on Afghan soil. We acknowledge and appreciate their jihadi engagement.”

Asked to comment on the signs of a changing US policy towards Afghanistan – especially, for the Karzai government to initiate “dialogue” with the Taliban – Haqqani denounces this as sheer propaganda and maintains that the “pretext” of dialogue will be used by Americans to realize its political goals, including “spreading an atmosphere of distrust amongst the mujahideen.” In fact, such heavy reliance on propaganda warfare is symptomatic of an “enemy who is losing in battle.”

The truth is, he says, that the US is “connivingly promoting its own strategy by using dialogue as a cover. In order to have a dialogue, the terms and conditions of the various parties concerned need to first be discussed. However, they believe that only they are entitled to having any conditions. The Emirate’s policies and terms with regards to dialogue are clear – the key one being that all occupying forces leave Afghanistan.”

Haqqani repeatedly refers to the US as a nation who has imposed its “arrogance and terrorism” on the whole world, and especially Afghanistan, where the root of all problems is American presence and influence.  “It is America who is targeting innocent people and putting their security at risk, and imposing a secular and corrupt government on the people of Afghanistan. A government whose notoriety – profligacy, involvement in drug smuggling, and looting of its own people – was made public by the US itself.”

However, despite his harsh views of the US, Haqqani displays a certain sympathy for Obama, suggesting that the latter “protect his people from the fire Bush pushed him into.”

In response to a question regarding his preoccupation with jihadi activities outside of the Emirate, Haqqani reassures his audience that the allegation is entirely false and a figment of the enemy’s imagination. He says “I am currently engaged with leading jihadi operations in the Khost and Paktika provinces.”

(Editor’s note: Anne tried to post a comment on Vahid Brown’s landmark post on Al-Qaida-Taliban relations. Given that she is one of the world’s foremost experts on this issue, there was no way I was going to let her remarks “disappear” into the comments section. So here they are. Her text begins with a response to an earlier comment about Taliban’s view of the UN).

“Mullah Omar’s statement should not be interpreted to mean that he or other Taliban leaders are ready to recognize the United Nations. In fact, the Taliban’s leaders have criticized the UN on a number of occasions, in addition to the one you mention. In 2006 Mullah Omar accused the UN of being nothing but a “tool for America” and Mullah Baradir echoed this in 2008, saying that “we regard all the decisions of the United Nations towards Afghanistan, as American orders.” I do not think their 12 Oct 09 statement was issued as a direct response to forum criticism, since it is pretty consistent with the Taliban’s past propaganda statements on the UN.

From the Taliban’s perspective, opposing the UN and wanting to have “good relations” with neighbouring countries are not necessarily contradictory. In the 1990s there was a huge debate within the Taliban regime on whether to join the UN or not – the main argument against it was that joining the UN would mean that the Islamic Emirate would have to subordinate itself to “infidel” laws (the UN Charter, etc). Having strategic alliances with other countries is another matter, which may also be easier to defend from a religious point of view (this seems to be the point of the al-Sumud editors as well). But clearly, there are many within the wider jihadi community who do not agree to this distinction.

By the way, excellent article Vahid – I agree that AQ central are probably not too happy about the Taliban-IEA’s recent propaganda statements, although I do not think it will have any practical implications for the insurgency – there is simply not enough incentive for neither the Quetta Shura or AQ central to “turn on” the other as long as there is a common enemy to fight and the Quetta Shura see themselves in a position of strength (i.e. there is no need for them to enter into negotiations with the Afghan regime, in which they would probably have to renounce their relationship with al-Qaida). Al-Qaida’s close relationship with Haqqani (as you mention in the comment) is also a crucial point – while the Quetta Shura may not be dependent on al-Qaida they are indeed dependent on having Haqqani and his allies on their side. That may partly explain why the Quetta Shura is putting up with al-Qaida propaganda that contradicts their own agenda.”

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

The trouble began with Mullah Omar’s message for ‘Eid al-Fitr, issued on September 19, in which he calls the Taliban a “robust Islamic and nationalist movement,” which “wants to maintain good and positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect.”  Mullah Omar further stated that he wishes to “assure all countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan … will not extend its hand to jeopardize others, as it itself does not allow others to jeopardize us.”  A week later, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, one of the most influential living Salafi jihadi ideologues, released an angry rebuke to these “dangerous utterances” of the Taliban amir, pointing out that they were of the same order as Hamas leader Khaled Mashal’s statement that the Chechen struggle is a Russian “internal matter.” For a person of Maqdisi’s stature to equate the Taliban with Hamas, especially in light of the recent jihadi media onslaught  against Hamas for its “crimes” against the Jund Ansar Allah, is an extremely serious charge.  Maqdisi ends his statement with the hope that he has misunderstood Mullah Omar’s message and that some clarification from the Taliban leadership will be forthcoming; more on this below.

A week after the Maqdisi message was posted, al-Sahab issued Ayman al-Zawahiri’s eulogy for Baitullah Mehsud (on which, see my earlier post). Midway through that speech, Zawahiri turns to the Palestinian issue, arguing that the mujahidin in Palestine should destroy the “laws of Satan” being imposed upon them, among which he singles out the notion that there should be “national unity with the traitors and those who sold out the religion and the homeland.” He goes on to lambast Hizbullah as representing a model of “turning jihad into a national cause,” a model which “must be rejected by the umma, because it is a model which makes jihad subject to the market of political compromises and distracts the umma from the liberation of Islamic lands and the establishment of the Caliphate.”

On October 6, Abu Yahya al-Libi’s al-Sahab video, “East Turkestan: The Forgotten Wound,” was released, which calls for support for the defensive jihad in northwestern China, one of those neighbors with whom Mullah Omar expressed a hope for “good and positive relations.” As in Zawahiri’s Baitullah eulogy, al-Libi emphasizes the dangers of dividing the umma into nations and ethnicities. He says that “East Turkestan [Xinjiang, China] is part of the Islamic lands that cannot be divided”; that it is the duty of all Muslims to support the Uighurs in their fight against the Chinese state; and that all who would appease China are “apostates.”  In these messages, then, both al-Libi and Zawahiri are denouncing, in the strongest possible terms, a political strategy being enunciated by the Taliban’s supreme leaders.

A week later, on October 12, Jordanian jihadi writer Ahmad Bawadi posted an exchange of correspondence that he’d recently had with the editors of the Taliban’s al-Sumud magazine. Bawadi, without naming names, points out that Mullah Omar’s ‘Eid message had engendered significant controversy, leading some to say that the Taliban supported making the same sort of compromises as Hamas.  The “clarification” sent in response by al-Sumud and posted by Bawadi pretty much dodged the question. Amid some tortuous sophistry about words being like a double-edged sword, the al-Sumud editors defended Mullah Omar’s position by comparing it to the Prophet Muhammad’s divide-and-conquer strategy of distinguishing between different groups of enemies: What’s wrong, as-Sumud asks, with saying we don’t want to fight the Buddhists (read: China) now, since the aim is to divide them from the Christians (read: ISAF/NATO forces) in order to weaken the latter?  Regardless of how one reads the al-Sumud  “clarification,” any doubts that the controversies were causing the Quetta Shura to rethink its public relations strategy were laid to rest the following day, when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan issued an open letter to the Shanghai Cooperation Conference, reiterating verbatim the “neighborly” sentiments from Mullah Omar’s ‘Eid message.  The SCO, it should be pointed out, includes China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all countries that are directly targeted by al-Qa’ida-allied groups based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

All of this has sparked a great deal of heated argument and anxious hand-wringing on several jihadi forums, but for reasons of space I’ll just single out one thread from the al-Hisbah forum. On October 14, “al-Najjar,” in a post entitled “Mullah Omar and Zawahiri Diametrically Opposed: A plan, a problem, or…?!,” contrasts the neighborly outreach of Mullah Omar’s ‘Eid message with the aforementioned statements about the “laws of Satan” in Zawahiri’s Baitullah eulogy, and ends by asking Zawihiri, “Oh our Shaykh, how is it that these are ‘Satanic laws’ when they are essentially the same as what has been mentioned by Mullah Omar, the Commander of the Faithful, to whom the mujahidin in Afghanistan and Pakistan have pledged their allegiance?”  A later poster, “Abu Azzam 1,” adds that Mullah Omar’s messages imply some level of recognition of the United Nations, an organization which al-Qa’ida has unequivocally labelled as “infidel,” and that these opposing moves seem to him to signal “the beginning of the end of relations between al-Qa’ida and the Taliban.”  Another forum participant, “Abu Salam,” agrees, writing yesterday that “this is a clear indication that al-Qa’ida and the Taliban movement are not of one mind, and that al-Qa’ida may turn on the Taliban in the near future.”  We shall see.  But one thing is clear: the recent shift in the Quetta Shura’s strategic communications is not to al-Qa’ida’s liking, and it is raising serious concerns among the broader Salafi jihadi movement about the religio-political legitimacy of the Afghan Taliban’s leadership.

(Editor’s note: I am delighted to introduce our next guest blogger, Vahid Brown from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Vahid is a linguist and historian with deep knowledge of the history of al-Qaida and the jihadi movement. He is the author of Cracks in the Foundation and the co-author of several well-known CTC reports. Vahid and I share many research interests, so I am thrilled that he will be with us for the next month or so.)

Mustafa Hamid Abu’l-Walid al-Masri, once a senior member of al-Qa’ida, has re-emerged lately after several years of relative silence and is once again chronicling, critiquing and offering strategic guidance to the jihadi movement.  He began posting new “editions” of his voluminous early writings to a blog in 2007 and ‘08, and this July he began to add newly-written articles on the Afghan insurgency, one of which has already been covered by Leah Farrall on her blog and in the Australian.

The October issue of the Taliban monthly al-Sumud reveals that Abu’l-Walid, author of at least two of the articles in the latest issue, has taken up one of his old jihadi jobs: official Taliban propagandist and media strategist.  His recent output also leaves little doubt that Abu’l-Walid is still at odds with the al-Qa’ida senior leadership over a wide range of ideological and strategic issues, and that he has every intention of continuing to publicly air al-Qa’ida’s dirty laundry.

All of which makes the timing of Abu’l-Walid’s appearance in al-Sumud very interesting, and for two reasons. First of all, the writings that Abu’l-Walid has posted to his blog are among the most damning criticisms of al-Qa’ida in existence, and his newer articles continue to ridicule Bin Ladin; in this one from September, for instance, UBL is singled out as the spokesman of the Salafi jihadi movement, which Abu’l-Walid slams for its do-it-yourself approach to Islamic jurisprudence. That such a vociferous critic of al-Qa’ida has been given an official platform by the Taliban, in their flagship Arabic magazine, clearly sends an important signal.

Second, as documented by Farrall, Abu’l-Walid broke his operational silence, so to speak, in July, by publishing an essay giving strategic advice to the Taliban – advocating a concerted campaign to kidnap American soldiers.  Aside from a lot of rather predictable anti-ISAF propaganda, the only piece of strategic guidance in Abu’l-Walid’s two al-Sumud articles appears in the one titled “They are Killing NATO Soldiers… Are They Not?,” (al-Sumud vol. 40, pp. 40-3), where he writes, “I say again that the mujahidin need direct guidance from their political leadership to the effect that taking prisoners is of far greater importance than capturing weapons or war booty.” That Abu’l-Walid’s guidance on this issue has moved from a blog to an official Taliban organ is obviously an important – and disturbing – development.

Also interesting is that on October 2, the same day that the latest issue of al-Sumud was released online, “Hawadit,” the pseudonymous administrator of Abu’l-Walid’s blog, posted there two letters written that day to the editors of al-Jazeera and to al-Quds al-‘Arabi, respectively, taking both papers to task for relying on Leah Farrall’s aforementioned piece in the Australian in their reports on Abu’l-Walid’s pro-kidnapping essay.  Why cite a counter-terrorism security official, writing in a “Zionist” newspaper, when they could have referenced the available writings of Abu’l-Walid himself – “one of your own former correspondents,” al-Jazeera is asked.  Most interesting, though, is the one and only detail that “Hawadit” takes issue with Farrall about: her description of Abu’l-Walid as a “senior al-Qa’ida figure.”  Both letters are emphatic on this point: Abu’l-Walid is most certainly not a member of al-Qa’ida at this time.

(For background on Abu’l-Walid, see the brief biographical profile I wrote for the CTC a couple of years ago; Muhammad al-Shafi’i’s excellent series of articles on Abu’l-Walid in al-Sharq al-Awsat, including this one in English; and Sally Neighbour’s Mother of Mohammed (Melbourne University Press, 2009, and forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania Press), which tells the story of Rabiah Hutchinson, an Australian woman who married Abu’l-Walid in Afghanistan in 2000.)

UPDATE: Leah Farrall has provided some excellent additional analysis to this issue, here, here and here.

On 25 August 2009, the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) published a plea by Dr. John Boutros for Muslims to aid the jihadi cause. He stated, “Do not mourn because the Islamic Caliphate is imminent… Trust me, the US is one or two thrusts” away from crumpling. However, in order to make this happen Muslims must give aid to the jihadis.

Boutros claimed that the United States is weak due to the financial crisis, which is allegedly causing the rich states to consider separating from the Union. He stated that militarily the United States is vulnerable because it has so many soldiers in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the suburbs of Baghdad, who are easy targets. In regards to the United States homeland he continued, “Hundreds of thousand of soldiers stationed in the streets of Washington and Los Angeles wait for a martyr to cross the continents carrying a nuclear, biological, or chemical bomb.”

He alleged that from al-Qaida’s viewpoint, things are much better. Somalia is becoming more peaceful and prosperous because the Shabab al-Mujahidin are instilling sharia law and in Afghanistan the Taliban control 80% of the country while coalition forces only leave their bases in armored vehicles in the other 20%. However, the Islamic State of Iraq has made many sacrifices, as has Ansar al-Islam, who gave up their bombs, snipers, and bases.

He then stated that given the current state of affairs, if the United States fell, “In a short period, the Taliban Emirate will be a great state encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Turkistan, and a large part of Iran.” In the western area of the Islamic world, the Shabab al-Mujahidin will control all of Somalia, Djibouti, and Sudan after the US fall. Then, he maintained, there will be justice in the Afghanistan and Somali Emirates and in other areas like Iraq, Chechnya, Algeria, and Nigeria where things will either turn around for the already established emirates or the mujahidin will prevail.

He then gets to the point of his fairytale, “After your mujahid brothers sacrifice themselves and their funds on this path, will you be stingy in support and assistance? Will you be stingy in spreading the word? Will you be stingy in financial support after many operations are canceled because of a shortage of materials like what happened during operations within Denmark?”

The fanciful nature of this report is striking even for the GIMF and I am not sure what to make of it. Is this an indication that something structurally has changed within the GIMF? Or, is it simply an attempt to garner support and the editorial staff did not realize how unrealistic it sounds? Regardless of its meaning, if this is the grand strategy of budding al-Qaida strategists, I am not worried.

In his series titled “The Power of God in the Great Empires,” jihadi blogger Akram Hijazi has criticized President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy and questioned the actual US commitment to this strategy. In the third installment titled “Strategic Crisis and NATO’s Humiliations,” he claims that multinational forces in Afghanistan are suffering severe coordination problems and Europeans are beginning to question the utility of the war.

Hijazi believes that Americans understand the time commitment for the new strategy, but are unsure about the strategy. He states that if there is not progress by next summer, the Obama administration will lose support for the war.

Hijazi claims that like the United States, the British government has been concealing the realities of the war from its citizens, who are just now starting to consider the war seriously. He posits that the British are facing higher costs in blood and financial strain, causing many to question the ability to win and the war’s affect on Britain’s military readiness.

Likewise, Hijazi mentions that NATO forces are facing increased loses and costs from the fighting. As a result, other NATO allies are questioning the war as well. He claims that Afghanistan is another NATO failure after the alliance’s failure to gather enough troops for Iraq or Afghanistan, to use Turkey as a staging ground for Iraq, to coordinate between the various represented countries, and to protect its troops.

In short, Hijazi insinuates that British and NATO support for Afghanistan is reaching its end due to increased causalities and financial costs. Whether or not he is correct remains to be seen.  However, jihadis appreciate his reasoning because he makes the arguments as them, using all English-language sources, which, in jihadi eyes, adds credibility to the argument that the Taliban are winning in Afghanistan.

On 28 July 2009 the popular jihadi blogger Akram Hijazi initiated a series of articles under the title, “The Power of God in the Great Empires.” He titled the first installment “The American Strategy in Afghanistan,” the second “Dismembering the Strategy,” the third “Strategic Crisis and NATO’s Humiliations,” and the fourth, which is the last and not yet published, “The Realities of the Taliban’s War.”

In the first article, Hijazi questions if there ever really was an American strategy in Afghanistan and he asserts that observers will have to wait and see how the new strategy will play out given Afghanistan’s history as the “Graveyard of Empires.” However, his tone is not optimistic. He then continues to describe the evolution of the US Afghanistan strategy by quoting from US public officials and Western media. The strategy he describes is basic counterinsurgency, increased troop levels, and eliminating safe havens in Pakistan.

Hijazi’s second article starts by stating that the old strategy was to destroy al-Qaida and the Taliban, but instead they have become stronger. He claims that the strategic logic for the US is “killing and destruction, nothing else. This is barbarism, not strategy…. This barbaric logic is what the US and its allies have implemented, through targeting civilians, in frantic attempts to eliminate al-Qaida and the Taliban from [their] popular embrace.” Hijazi continues that after seven years of failure the US decided to change its strategy from killing civilians to protecting them in addition to helping the Afghan government impose its will in Afghanistan. Finally, he states that the new strategy is an attempt to plug the holes in the old strategy, which respected nothing about Afghanistan and built a corrupt central government lacking institutions, infrastructure, a military, or capabilities.

He cites the debate (see here) in the US on whether or not US forces should continue its counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. He mentions calls for a withdrawal from the AFPAK region because al-Qaida is no longer a strategic threat to the US, which means Afghanistan and Pakistan also are not strategic threats. With this he implies that the US is engaged in the region for ulterior motives, which are to divide Muslim lands. Supporting his first implication, he makes a second point stating that the fight against al-Qaida is futile because it is not a nationalist organization or political entity controlling territory.

He also attacks other Arab and Islamic organizations, claiming that for the global jihadi movement, the age of patriotic, nationalist, leftist, and Islam-nationalist battles is over because they have failed. He adds that the “great powers” will not return to Muslim lands because if they do, “domesticated Arab armies or those who claim ‘Islam is the solution’” [the Muslim Brotherhood], will not oppose them; rather, the jihadis will.

According to Hijazi, the US will attempt to implement its strategy on three levels. First, on the military level, Hijazi indicates that the US prompted Pakistan to engage the Taliban in the Swat Valley in order to isolate the area from Afghanistan and deprive the movement of people and supplies between the two counties. Additionally, he states that US analysts believe the Iraq model is appropriate for Afghanistan despite historical, geographic, and environmental differences. Hijazi maintains that efforts to turn tribes against al-Qaida and the Taliban are evidence of this belief, which is really an effort to turn the tribes against each other. He concludes that the changing US military strategy is an indication of increasing Taliban power.

Second, on the civilian or cultural level, he posits that the US has no civilization or history and is not aware of the history of other nations or civilizations such as Afghanistan. As such, the US only knows how to revert to violence and force in dealing with others. He adds that the US military is undergoing a cultural shift from traditional concepts of warfare to counterinsurgency. He concludes with two questions that imply the supposed brutality inherent in the American psyche: 1) If the US does not achieve its goals through protecting populations, will it use force against all who oppose its goals? 2) Will the US also use this force against civilians under its protection?

Finally, on the political level, Hijazi states that the US wants stability and change. However, he believes it will fail in achieving these goals because the US is like someone who “prepares for the trip but misses the train.” He adds that the US wants a “non-centralized” government where every Afghan state would be like its own country and that non-centralization is really an attempt to sow local discord.

Hijazi concludes his report with several statements confirming supposed military, civil, and political gains the Taliban have made recently, which, he states, are indications of the Taliban’s rising power.

Hijazi’s overall message is that the US continues to blunder, while the Taliban are making great strides. His subtle assertions that al-Qaida and the Taliban are better at protecting Muslims indicate that his audience is politically minded Muslims who have not yet aspired to global jihad. Hijazi’s references to common anti-American grievances, such as the perceived use of excessive force and sowing of discord among Muslims, support this assumption. Moreover, he says nothing of al-Qaida’s targeted campaigns against civilians.

Finally, Hijazi’s remarks on the public debate regarding counterinsurgency and the future structure of the US military are interesting. His insistence that the real US strategy is creating discord among Muslims may be an indication that the shift in US policy is worrying jihadis. Similar statements by other jihadi ideologues would add credence to the effectiveness of the new plan.

My next posts will outline part three and, if available, part four of Hijazi’s report.

Apologies for the slow publication pace here at Jihadica, but deadlines and an upcoming house move mean I can only dream about serious blogging these days.

This does not mean forums are quiet. Every morning this past week I found things on the forums that deserved commentary. In a dream world, here’s what I would have written about had I had the time:

-    France is taking heat. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb published a statement declaring “France the mother of all evils”, and other posts fumed over the recent French plans to ban the niqab or the burka. I suspect the Americans and the Brits (who of course have long argued that France is the mother of all evils)  are happy to share the burden of jihadi attention. Unfortunately for the Anglo-Saxons, however, I don’t think the veil weighs nearly as heavy in the jihadi basket of grievances as military occupations.

-    Another one bites the dust. Exiled leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group told al-Quds al-Arabi on 2 July they are laying down their arms. The declaration is now being spun in the media as the first case of a group leaving al-Qaida. This is a misrepresentation of what’s happening but I can see why people want to spin it that way.

-    The non-strategic “Special strategic study”. The “Department for Historical Studies and Strategic Advice” of the “Falluja Think Tank” released a widely publicized “special strategic study” of the war between America and the jihadi movement. The title and the high-profile advertising had raised my expectations, but I was a little disappointed, mainly because it’s not a proper strategic study. It is a political analysis which stays at the macro-level and doesn’t offer much in terms of meso-level considerations and concrete recommendations that I associate with classics of jihadi strategic studies. It is still worth reading, though, and there is an intriguing note on AQ and nuclear weapons at the end. Scott might be covering the study it in more detail later this week.

-   Jihadis “twittering” about Swat and Helmand campaigns. The jihadi commentary and analysis of battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan is coming out so quickly it is close to twittering. Within days of the Helmand offensive there was a long Faluja thread reporting news from the frontline. The Swat debacle has been followed closely for a while, and there is now already a strategic study of the campaign. I haven’t read it yet but it looks very interesting.

-    The other American.  The Somalia-based Abu Mansour al-Amriki has released a new audio statement in English entitled “The beginning of the end” It lambasts Obama along well-known lines in very articulate native English. I agree with Evan that Abu Mansour beats Adam Gadahn on presentation skills. Abu Mansour’s tajwid is really impressive. The message is clearly intended for the mobilisation of US-based Muslims. As interesting as the message itself was the accompanying pictures of three other alleged Americans in Somalia, not least given the New York Times story about Shabab recruitment in America. By the way, Evan has a fantastic post on the Shabab on the CTBlog today.

-    Happy birthday ISI. Last Thursday was the 1000-day anniversary of the foundation of the Islamic State in Iraq, and the occasion was marked with banners on all the forums, but not much more.

-    Good Qaradawi or bad Qaradawi? Marc Lynch had a great post the other day on Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s latest book on jihad, which he thinks will undermine al-Qaida, more so than the recantations of Dr Fadl and others. Rob at the Shack disagrees, saying the side effect of Qaradawi’s stance is more legitimacy for regular national liberation struggles, which might actually cause more problems for the US in the long term. They are of course both right.

Finally there is this gem from the CBS Terror Monitor (hat tip: Cecilie), by an analyst who has clearly had enough forum watching (here’s a pdf if they remove it). Hoda you have my sympathy - there have been days where I have felt the same.

Have a great week everyone!

This is the title of the main story in the July issue of al-Sumud, the Arabic-language magazine of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The 56-page magazine has several articles devoted to Obama and the Cairo speech, and the front page features a particularly unflattering picture of the US president. But it is the lead article which I find the most interesting, because it confirms that jihadis feel threatened by Obama in their fight for Muslim hearts and minds.

The two-page article (pp-18-19) is written by the Saudi sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Julayyil and is actually taken from the latter’s website, which says the text was written on 17 May 2009.

Al-Julayyil starts off by saying he was motivated to write this article after observing a lot of optimism among Muslims over the arrival of the new US administration. He says he realises  many will react to the headline, for how can the Satanic Bush, who invaded Muslim countries and whose planes and tanks killed Muslim children, be less dangerous than Obama, who has declared he is not at war with Islam?

The first reason, he writes, is that Bush’s follies actually benefited Muslims by inflicting significant damage to America. The most important fruit of Bush’s policies was the wake-up call it produced among Muslims in terms of realising the true nature of their enemy, reviving the creed of loyalty toward Muslims and dissociation from infidels, and raising the flag of jihad in several battlefields. Another benefit of the Bush era was the infamy suffered by America on the world stage and the demise of its false discourse on human rights; in the world’s eyes America itself became a proponent of oppression and a threat to human rights. Add to this the American economic and military decline.

All this happened because God duped Bush and made him act in the interest of Muslims. When the Americans realised what was going on, they tried to address their mistakes and improve their image. So they brought Obama, with his sly policies and his attempts to deceive the world, especially the Muslim world, with his professed love for peace and criticism of the policies of his predecessor. And many Muslims were duped by his sweet-talk and pinned their hopes on this man to lift the oppression from them. This is extremely dangerous, al-Julayyil argues, because it is weakening their enmity toward America and makes them more positively inclined toward her future policies. It is numbing them, reducing their hatred toward infidels, and making them stop fighting. There is great danger here for the creed of loyalty and dissociation (al-wala’ wa’l-bara’). The improvement of America’s image is not in the interest of Muslims; rather it is in their interest that the decline continue and that the drivers of [America’s] destruction and fragmentation multiply.

Second, American policies will not change. It is a mistake to believe that a single individual can change US policy, because it is institutionalised, with its own targets, centres and planners. Bush and Obama are two faces of the same coin.

Third, the only thing that has changed in America are the methods employed to getting to the same old ends. The American-Crusader aggression against Muslim countries and the support for the Jewish state has not changed since Obama took office. Meanwhile, Obama has been in the media cajoling the Muslim world. He has denounced the use of banned weapons against civilians in Gaza massacre, yet he originally gave them these weapons; he has declared before AIPAC that Jerusalem is the eternal and united capital of Israel; he has stepped up the missile campaign against civilians in Pakistan; and increased troop levels in Afghanistan. So what compassion does this infidel criminal declare with these acts and intentions?

Al-Julayyil concludes: So beware of this cunning Satan, for he is more dangerous than the foolish Satan.

The author of this article is not a pro-Obama campaigner, but a hardline Saudi sheikh who has spent time in prison for his anti-American views and association with people like Nasir al-Fahd. At the same time, the view expressed in the article is not a completely marginal one, as evidenced by the responses on al-Julayyil’s website.

There are some interesting things to say about al-Julayyil and his recent activities, but I will save that for my next post.

British soldiers found an Aston Villa tattoo on the body of a dead Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, British newspapers reported earlier this week. Of course, for Birmingham City supporters, this is reason enough to deploy nuclear weapons against the Taliban. It’s more unclear what this means for Taliban-al-Qaida relations, given that Bin Ladin is an Arsenal supporter. Jihadica is on the ball and will report any soccer-related chatter on the forums.

Jihadists have been more interested in fashion this week, with forum participants discussing the “Infidel” fashion label at length. I knew this stuff existed, but I didn’t realise quite how much there is. Some introspective forum participants got the irony and likened the phenomenon to jihadists embracing the label “terrorist”. Others saw it as a sign of the apocalypse. But most didn’t know what to make of it.

Thanks to Cecilie and Brynjar for the links. Have a great weekend.

PS The Arsenal story is nonsense, as are many of the claims in Adam Robertson’s book.