Many authors have tried to fill in the gaps in the historical account of how al-Qa’ida’s central leadership came to reside in Jalalabad for part of 1996, with mixed results. Yunus Khalis has become a fixture in these narratives largely because he was the best known person that Bin Laden interacted with in the summer [...]
Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category
Usama bin Laden Called Yunus Khalis “the Father Sheikh:” Weird But Possibly True
Posted: 21st May 2013 by Kevin in Afghanistan, AQ Central, AQ Leadership, Bin Laden, Jihad culture, Taliban, Uncategorized, Western Analysts, Western books0
Yunus Khalis’s Poem to a (Very) Young Wife: “I Am a Simple Man…”
Posted: 9th May 2013 by Kevin in Afghanistan, AQ Leadership, Bin Laden, Poetry, Uncategorized, WomenWestern authors commenting on various mujahidin leaders involved with Usama bin Laden often seem to go out of their way to make the individuals in question seem extra villainous. This has been especially clear in the case of Yunus Khalis. In English works on al-Qa’ida, we learn little about Khalis except that he a) helped [...]
Yunis Khalis and Social Justice: an early political discussion in Nangarhar
Posted: 18th December 2012 by Kevin in Afghanistan, Motivations, Uncategorized, Western booksMuch of the secondary literature in the West depicts Professor Ghulam Niazi as the progenitor of the mujahidin movement in Afghanistan in the 1960s. For a variety of reasons this contradicts primary sources that focus more on the various resistance efforts elsewhere in Afghanistan during this period. Of course, the primary sources are also influenced [...]
A Jihadi Homeopath
Posted: 4th December 2012 by Kevin in Afghanistan, Jihad culture, PakistanTags: Afghanistan, Mujahidin
[Editor's note: We are very pleased to welcome Kevin Bell to Jihadica. Kevin has lived in Afghanistan and Tajikistan for a number of years and recently wrote a master's thesis on Yunis Khalis for Princeton's Near Eastern Studies Department. He's hunting for a job in Afghanistan--probably not for long given his proficiency in Pashto. You [...]
Don Rassler and Vahid Brown have written one helluva report on the Haqqani network, the folks who have been providing aid and sanctuary to AQ Central for decades. Based on thousands of pages of primary source documents–many not previously released to the public–Rassler and Brown explain how the Haqqanis did (and do) it. Still not sure [...]
NYU Report on AQ and Taliban
Posted: 8th February 2011 by Thomas Hegghammer in Afghanistan, AQ Central, TalibanNYU’s Center on International Cooperation has just published a new report by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn on Taliban-al-Qaida relations and implications for US policy. Few people are better informed than Alex and Felix about this topic. How many Western civilians do you know who has spent the past few years living in Qandahar?
From the Pen to the Sword
Posted: 3rd January 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Afghanistan, AQ Central, Better Know a Forum, Jordan, propaganda, terrorismOne of the things that struck me about the Stockholm bomber, Taimour Abdalwahhab, was that he was apparently active on the internet as a radical before he decided to engage in actual terrorism (see Thomas’ posts below for more details). This transition reminded me of a similar but much more serious process by someone who [...]
Justifiying Martyrdom in German
Posted: 21st May 2010 by Nico Prucha in Afghanistan, Converts, Germany, Suicide bombingsEditor’s note: I am glad to introduce Nico Prucha as a new regular contributor to Jihadica. Nico is an German Arabist who has followed the jihadi Internet for a long time and has written several articles on the topic for Jane’s and other publications.] In mid-April Elif Medya published a 30-page document in German justifying [...]
Guest Post: The Story of Eric Breininger
Posted: 11th May 2010 by Thomas Hegghammer in Afghanistan, Germany, training camps, Travel Routes[Editor's note: This post was written by Christopher Radler and Behnam Said, who are intelligence analysts based in Hamburg, Germany. For links to the original document, see the comments to the preview post.] On 3 May a message announcing the death of Eric Breininger (b. 3 August 1987) and three of his fellow combatants was [...]
Preview: Autobiography of a German Jihadist
Posted: 5th May 2010 by Thomas Hegghammer in Afghanistan, Converts, Germany, PakistanThe memoirs of Erik Breininger, the German jihadist who was allegedly recently killed in Waziristan, have reportedly appeared online. I haven’t seen them myself yet, but if their authenticity can be established, we are dealing with an extremely valuable document. Jihadica will bring you more details soon.