Entries Tagged 'AQ Leadership' ↓

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

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

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

Authenticity and timing

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

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

Religious texts

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

Dedication

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

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

(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.

The official al-Qa’ida media outlet al-Sahab has released a flurry of videos in the past two weeks featuring leaders of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), both living and dead, in what amounts to a media campaign announcing their open alliance with Pakistan’s deadliest militant network.  On September 28, Zawahiri’s video eulogy for the slain TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud – the “role model of the youth” (ritha’ qudwat al-shabab) – was posted to the forums, followed two days later by a similar video message on the “martyrdom” of Baitullah starring Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid.  On October 2, al-Fajr Media distributed a third al-Sahab video eulogy for Baitullah, but this time featuring Wali ur-Rahman, the new TTP commander for the Mehsud tribal areas (an English transcript of which can be downloaded from here; links to all three videos can be found here).  

This series of al-Sahab celebrations of Baitullah, released two days apart over the course of a week, is itself a rather unusual concentration of al-Qa’ida media attention on a single non-al-Qa’ida member, and is totally unprecedented in terms of the al-Sahab air time devoted to the TTP.  Prior to these developments, the closest that al-Qa’ida came to officially signaling its ties to the TTP was in the release of an al-Sahab interview with Mullah Nazir shortly after he and Gul Bahadur joined Baitullah Mehsud to form the Shura Ittihad ul-Mujahidin this February.  Aside from the brief mention of Baitullah in that video, these recent releases are to my knowledge the first official al-Qa’ida communiqués to give any significant attention to the TTP and its leadership.

But that’s not all, folks. Yesterday, an Urdu newspaper reported that Aqil, alias Dr. Uthman, the sole surviving attacker in this weekend’s dramatic assault on the Pakistani Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi , is the subject of an al-Sahab video released to a private television station in Pakistan, in which Aqil is shown receiving training in Waziristan and casing targets in Rawalpindi (Khabrain, 13 October 2009, pp. 6 and 8; article unavailable online, but there is an OSC translation).  And today, Pakistan’s ARY TV aired an al-Sahab video that they’d received, featuring TTP amir Hakimullah Mehsud, appearing alongside Wali ur-Rahman, in which both of them deliver statements to the people of Pakistan regarding their jihad against the state. (Ironically, both TTP leaders emphasize in the video that the TTP is not a servant of foreign masters, and that the TTP are “sons of Pakistan”).

While the close relationship between al-Qa’ida and the Pakistani Taliban has long been known, this release of multiple joint AQ-TTP messages from the al-Sahab production outlet is nonetheless extremely significant.  First of all, these developments indicate that al-Qa’ida has successfully seized the moment in the wake of the death of Baitullah to dramatically increase its influence over the TTP.  But this series of videos is perhaps also evidence of a decreasing willingness on al-Qa’ida’s part to remain in the shadows of its Pakistani partners as they unleash yet another bloody campaign of violence in Pakistan’s cities.  If so, this would represent a very important strategic shift in the thinking of al-Qa’ida’s senior leaders, who have thus far been content to provide largely anonymous guidance, training and force-multiplication assistance to their Pakistani jihadi allies.

UPDATE, 10/22/09: The video mentioned here as being aired in part by ARY TV on 14 October was distributed on the forums today by al-Sahab.  It is a little over thirty minutes long and, after opening invocations in Arabic, features Hakimullah and Wali ur-Rahman speaking in Urdu. There is no subtitling.

Allow me to briefly go back to the last Zawahiri interview, put on-line through Sahab media on 5 August 2009. To my knowledge, this is the first time Bin Laden’s deputy has expressed such articulate hatred for France:

“France claims secularism, while her heart pours grudge towards Islam. Napoleon Bonaparte announced his famous statement to the Jews in 1799 in Akka, in which he promised to support the Jews in stealing Palestine. France is the one whose soldiers went with their horses into al-Azhar University and stood on its Qur’anic Books, and they took it as a stable to their horses. France is the one who fought Islam and Arabs in Algeria, and France is the one who supplied Israel with a nuclear reactor, and France fights Muslims in Afghanistan, and France fights hijab, and France will pay for all her crimes”.

Zawahiri has long be known for his French-bashing. In the late eighties, when he launched a vicious campaign against Ahmad Shah Mas’ud among the jihadi community in Peshawar, he accused the Tajik leader to be a French agent and to be surrounded by French women (in fact humanitarian workers who had walked their way up to Panjshir).

In his pamphlets, he repeatedly branded colonial France for carving up the Middle East through the Sykes-Picot agreement. During the Algerian civil war, he endorsed the attacks against the “French party” (hizb Fransa), as the secular camp came to be known in the jihadi propaganda. And he listed consistently the French among the “enemies of Islam”, along with the Americans, the Jews and the British. He was the first one to threaten France in February 2004, after a law banning the veil at government schools was passed.

What is fascinating in Zawahiri’s recent outburst against France is his ideological focus on Napoleon Bonaparte, who was only a general at the time he invaded Egypt in 1798. He insists on the sacrileges perpetrated by the French revolutionary armies (although they were probably more respectful of the Arab mosques than of the European churches) and he gives utmost credit to a “famous” letter to the Jews of Palestine, a standard of anti-Zionist propaganda, that French historians have proved to be a forgery (originating from European messianic Jewish circles). The key to the argument is that Napoleon embodies the innate hostility of France against Islam, in its two secular and Zionist dimensions. France becomes in Zawahiri’s rhetoric a new brand of Crusader state, more “secular” than Christian.

Apart from Zawahiri’s Egyptian obsessions, two other developments could have contributed to this aggressive emphasis against France. First, Barack Obama’s Cairo speech on 4 June makes it more difficult to portray America as waging an all-out war against Islam, no matter how hard jihadis propagandists try, so France provides a welcome alternative target for his secular commitment (that even Obama indirectly criticized in Cairo).

Second, and probably more important, the merging of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) into Al-Qaida as its branch for the “Islamic Maghrib” (AQIM) has introduced more anti-French content to the global jihadi propaganda, with Zawahiri himself taking the lead. (Incidentally, a similar process occurred after the incorporation of Zarqawi’s network in Iraq, when al-Qaida’s media coverage included more anti-Shi’a rhetoric). Drukdal, AQIM’s emir, went as far as labeling France “mother of all evils”, on 30 June this year. And those are not just empty words, since Zawahiri’s “Napoleonic” interview was followed, three days later, by a foiled AQIM suicide attack against the French embassy in Mauritania.

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.

Adam Gadahn aka Azzam al-Amriki has appeared in a new videotape focusing on Palestine. This is the latest in a massive 6-month media offensive by al-Qaida central to lay claim to the Palestinian cause and to discredit US president Obama.

It is not clear when the 35-minute tape was made; it mentions Obama’s April speech to the Turkish parliament, but not his recent Middle East tour. The 35-minute tape was probably recorded some time in April, for it is dated Rabi al-Akhir, which ended on 25 April, and there are no references in the speech to events after that. Gadahn looks as serious as ever; his beard has grown and his spoken classical Arabic has improved (although he is clearly reading from a teleprompter).

It is worth noting that he is speaking on a general topic (Palestine) as opposed to a US-specific one, and that he is introduced as Adam Yahya Gadhan and not Azzam al-Amriki. This suggest al-Qaida is trying to promote him as an ideologue in his own right, and not just as “the American guy”. Both Jarret and Evan both seem to think this is a bad idea seen from AQ’s perspective. I am not so sure.

Many have highlighted Gadahn’s anecdote about his Jewish grandfather and relatives in Tel Aviv. What I find more interesting about the tape is the way in which Gadahn goes “back to the basics” - outlining the principles of global jihadi doctrine in very clear terms - while offering original arguments and examples.

First, he places the United States on the top of the enemy hierarchy. “Responsibility for the continuation of suffering of the Palestinian people begins in the White House and ends in the palaces of the [Muslim regime] leaders who collude with the Jews and Christians.” In an interesting new line of argument, Gadahn blames Obama for the Gaza campaign, pointing to the fact that the campaign occurred after his election and that president-elects have access to classified briefings during the transition period.  Another original point is that Obama’s conciliatory speeches expressing good intentions toward Islam mean nothing, because even Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made a famously conciliatory speech in 1996.

Second, Gadahn explains the need for global operations and dismisses the nationalist approach to the Palestinian struggle. It is wrong, he argues, to distinguish between Zionist-Crusader interests within Palestine and Zionist-Crusader interests in the rest of the world. Why should Muslims limit their operations to Israel/Palestine when Israel attacks wherever she wants, such as in Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere?

Third, he dismisses the distinction between Israel, the United States and Europe. “How can we differentiate between those who kill Muslims in Palestine and those who defend those who kill Muslims in Palestine? [..] And how can we differentiate between those who kill Muslims in Palestine and those who kill Muslims in other places on earth, like Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya?” Aiming at Palestinian nationalists, he blasts the strategy of “ingratiating ourselves with [the US and Europe] in the hope that they will back our national cause, as some like to call it.” As far as Europe is concerned, the involvement of NATO in Afghanistan and the choice of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish prime minister at the time of the cartoon controversy, as NATO secretary general, show that Europeans are enemies of Muslims. By the way, Fogh Rasmussen is mentioned no less than three times, thus setting new Danish record for the number of times referenced in an AQ statement.

Gadhan’s speech is relatively succinct, clear and commonsensical. What we are seeing here is basically Anglo-Saxon rhetorical principles applied to jihadi propaganda. We are also seeing new examples and arguments brought in to refresh the somewhat repetitive global jihadi rhetoric. Gadahn, in other words, is doing more for al-Sahab than improving their English translations.

This morning al-Jazeera aired segments of a Bin Ladin audiotape which most international media are reading in the context of Obama’s Middle East tour, which started today. This is despite the fact that the statement seems to say nothing at all about the President’s tour, but talks instead about the Swat campaign in Pakistan. Bin Ladin argues the hostilities in Swat have caused immense civilian suffering for which the United States is ultimately responsible. The message is essentially that Swat shows that Obama is no better than Bush.

For once, however, the most interesting aspect about the statement is not what it says, but how it surfaced. While most statements by AQ Central in recent years have been posted directly on the Internet, this one was distributed “the old way”, in a physical copy delivered by courier to al-Jazeera. As of 2pm EST, the statement has not yet appeared on the forums. Moreover, the absence of references to recent events suggests the tape was recorded several weeks ago.  Finally the length of the tape is reportedly only around four minutes, which is unusually short. In all these respects, the latest tape differs from UBL’s three previous statements this year, on Gaza in January and on Gaza and Somalia in March.

What we have here is a short, outdated tape delivered manually following a series of longer, up-to-date statements distributed online. This suggests to me that Bin Ladin’s personal situation has changed in the past few months. He may have moved to a new location, and/or he is taking much stricter security precautions than before.

By contrast, today’s statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri was completely different. It was distributed “the usual way” on the forums, it was longer (11 minutes), and it was tailored in content and timing for Obama’s arrival in the region. Al-Zawahiri declared Obama unwelcome in Egypt and argued that the current president’s policies, especially toward Israel, are no better than those of his predecessors. For a transcript, see here.

The differences between the two statements suggest first of all that Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri are not in the same physical location. Moreover, Bin Ladin’s situation clearly lends itself more badly to media production than that of al-Zawahiri.

We should of course be careful not to overinterpret individual messages like this, especially since there have been occasional aberrations to established distribution patterns in the past. But – at the risk of sounding like the 43rd president - my gut tells me this is quite significant.

Document (Arabic): 06-03-09-faloja-zawahiri-on-obama-egypt-visit
Document (Arabic): 06-03-09-faloja-transcript-of-zawahiri-obama-speech

PS: Those of you who have followed the “hall-of-mirrors” phenomenon will note the following very interesting passage from Bin Ladin’s statement (translation from CBS):

“Some of the wise and fair people in the research centers and other institutions over there might deduct from what I say here the reasons that push people to want to attack and get their vengeance against America, at a time when the agents of the big companies at the White House don’t pay much attention to what we say.”

Update (4 June): Adam R. kindly sent me a full transcript of the UBL statement from the Open Source Center (to which I don’t have access). It turns out the recording is longer than I thought (25 minutes), but there are indeed no references to events other than the Swat campaign.

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

It’s interesting to compare Bin Laden’s new statement on Gaza with Zawahiri’s of last week.  Of course the overarching message–jihad now!–is the same.  But unlike Zawahiri, Bin Laden doesn’t mock Obama, he doesn’t echo Zawahiri’s call for demonstrations in Egypt (Bin Laden says demonstrations are useless), and he takes a slightly more conciliatory view of democracy (electing a president, yes; man-made legislation, no).  Bin Laden is also more explicit about how to raise money to finance the jihad (hit up rich businessmen).

Bin Laden does echo Zawahiri in one important respect.  Zawahiri said that the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is one of the “good omens” (basha’ir) of AQ coming to fight in the Palestinian Territories.  Bin Laden ends his message by saying that in this year there will be “omens” (tabashir, from the same Arabic root as basha’ir) of the receding of the Zionist-Crusader campaign.  Make of it what you will.

Here’s a summary:

• Jihad is the only way to solve the problem in Palestine.  Appealing to the Security Council or local rulers won’t solve it.  The former want to hurt Muslims and the latter are agents of the West.
• The leaders of Islamic movements who won’t call for a jihad in Palestine unless their rulers approve it are ducking their responsibility.  Jihad today is an individual duty, not dependent on the permission of rulers.
• Engaging in demonstrations without weapons is useless.
• You can win against the Zionist-Crusader alliance if you will just fight.  Look at what the mujahids did in Afghanistan against the Soviets.  Look at what the mujahids have done to the U.S., which is now bleeding human and financial resources.  It is in the midst of a financial crisis; its enemies don’t fear it and its friends don’t respect it.
• Israel had to launch an attack on Gaza to protect itself by replacing Hamas with the Palestinian Authority.  It has done so now because the power of its chief sponsor, the U.S., is rapidly waning and because its major backers, Bush and the neoconservatives, are about to leave office.
• Biden, Greenspan, and various world leaders have said the global economic system is on the verge of collapse.  The American intelligence community reports that U.S. influence will wane even more in the coming years.
• Americans can’t continue to fight Muslims for several more decades.  Most Americans are displeased with what Bush has done.  He has bequeathed two wars to his successor, who can’t win them no matter what he does.  If he withdraws, it’s a military defeat.  If he continues, it deepens the economic crisis.
• The open fronts of jihad “in the region” are Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Waziristan, North Africa, and Somalia.
• Muslims should support the jihad financially.  One wealthy businessman can pay for all the expenses of jihad on the open fronts.  I know many Muslim businessmen want to support the jihad financially, but they are worried about being discovered by America and its agents in the region.  This is not an excuse.
• You cannot secure your rights by voting; they can only be secured through force.  Western countries themselves took their rights by force.  Look at the French Revolution.  Look at the American Revolution.
• There can be no ballot boxes in our countries while tyrants rule them.
• Muslims believe in electing presidents and offering him council.  But we do not believe in electing legilatures that create man-made laws.
• We are in solidarity with you since we are fighting the same enemy.
• “God wills that this year will reveal the signs of dawn and the omens of deliverance through the receding of the Zionist-Crusader reach.”