The jihadi forums have seen some rather heated and confused debate over the past several months after the publication online of a series of writings from senior leaders of the pre-9/11 al-Qa’ida organization whom we’ve not heard from in years, and which are bringing back into the open serious disagreements over strategy and ideology that [...]
Archive for the ‘AQ Leadership’ Category
Al-Qa’ida Revisions: The Five Letters of Sayf al-‘Adl
Posted: 10th February 2011 by Vahid Brown in AQ Leadership, Retractions7
Al-Qaida’s senior leadership (AQSL) is full of Egyptians, but they have yet to produce an official communiqué about events in their home country. Yesterday, a short message was published by a leading Egyptian jihadi figure. It is not from AQSL, however, but from someone we haven’t heard from for many years. The London-based Al Maqreze Center [...]
Jihadis Debate Egypt (1)
Posted: 4th February 2011 by Brynjar Lia in AQ Leadership, Egypt, UncategorizedWith Tunisia’s President Bin Ali tucked away in Jedda and the world’s attention fixated on the popular uprising in Egypt, al-Qaida may be about to lose one of its main ideological selling points: that only armed struggle can bring down the regimes in the region. Not surprisingly, the jihadi online community is captivated by the uprising, [...]
A Portrait of the Terrorist as a Young Man
Posted: 18th July 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in AQ in Iraq, AQ Leadership, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, terrorismOf 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 [...]
The Taliban, the UN and al-Qaida
Posted: 30th October 2009 by Anne Stenersen in Afghanistan, AQ Leadership, Taliban(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 [...]
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, TalibanMullah 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 [...]
Al-Qa’ida Publicy Cements Ties to the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan
Posted: 14th October 2009 by Vahid Brown in Jihadi media, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Pakistan, ZawahiriThe 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 [...]
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 [...]
Abu al-Yazid Mending Fences with Hamas
Posted: 10th July 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in Arab media, Hamas, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, propagandaIt’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 [...]
The Gadahn Factor
Posted: 14th June 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in AQ Leadership, Palestinian Territories, propagandaAdam 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 [...]