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 [...]
Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category
Al-Qa’ida and the Afghan Taliban: “Diametrically Opposed”?
Posted: 21st October 2009 by Vahid Brown in Afghanistan, AQ Leadership, China, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jund Ansar Allah, Pakistan, Taliban13
Abu’l-Walid is Back… with the Taliban (and not al-Qaida)
Posted: 9th October 2009 by Vahid Brown in Afghanistan, Strategy, Taliban(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 [...]
Visions of Afghan and Somali Emirates
Posted: 27th August 2009 by Scott Sanford in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, propaganda, Somalia, StrategyOn 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 [...]
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 [...]
Hijazi Comments on New AFPAK Strategy
Posted: 16th August 2009 by Scott Sanford in Afghanistan, Pakistan, StrategyOn 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 [...]
The Posts That Never Were
Posted: 13th July 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in Afghanistan, France, Islamic State of Iraq, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Pakistan, Somalia, Strategy, USAApologies 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 [...]
Obama is more Dangerous than Bush
Posted: 29th June 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in Afghanistan, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Strategy, USAThis 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 [...]
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 [...]
Are the Uzbeks Going Global?
Posted: 17th June 2009 by Einar Wigen in Afghanistan, Germany, Jihadi media, Pakistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan[Editor’s note: I am thrilled to introduce Einar Wigen, author of the recent FFI report on the IJU, as a guest contributor. Einar interned at FFI last summer and is currently a a student fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI). A fluent Turkish speaker, Einar specialises in jihadism among the Turkics. Not [...]
Afghanistan’s next presidential elections have been scheduled for 20 August 2009, and Taliban’s media committee has already started its campaign. That is, a campaign to discredit the election process and defame its candidates. President Karzai is the most popular target, but the others are also starting to receive their portion of insults. This is of [...]