Last month, a jihadi Telegram user called “And Rouse the Believers” leaked a series of documents related to the Islamic State’s internal ideological rift. As discussed in a previous post, this dispute revolves around the doctrine of excommunication (takfir), and specifically whether those hesitating or refusing to excommunicate unbelievers are themselves to be excommunicated. Heading […]
Archive for the ‘Islamic State’ Category
A House Divided: Origins and Persistence of the Islamic State’s Ideological Divide
Posted: 5th June 2018 by Cole Bunzel in Ideological trends, Islamic State, Jihadi media0
Abu al-Qassam: Zarqawi’s right-hand man who stayed loyal to al-Qaida
Posted: 20th November 2017 by Tore Hamming in Afghanistan, AQ Central, AQ in Iraq, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Syria, ZawahiriEverywhere Abu Musab al-Zarqawi went, Abu al-Qassam was with him. Even to prison. Abu al-Qassam was al-Zarqawi’s childhood friend, later his companion and finally his deputy. After spending more than 10 years in Iranian captivity, he was released in March 2015, but despite the Islamic State claiming to be the heirs of al-Zarqawi, it is […]
Caliphate in Disarray: Theological Turmoil in the Islamic State
Posted: 3rd October 2017 by Cole Bunzel in Ideological trends, Islamic State, SyriaOn May 31 of this year, Turki al-Bin‘ali, one of the Islamic State’s foremost religious authorities, was killed in Mayadin, Syria in an airstrike carried out by the U.S.-led coalition. Three weeks later, U.S. Central Command confirmed the death of “Turki al-Bin’ali, the self-proclaimed ‘Grand Mufti,’ or chief cleric, of ISIS.” His supporters online bemoaned […]
The Video of Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker
Posted: 23rd December 2016 by Nico Prucha in Islamic State, Jihadi mediaVia Telegram channels operated by IS, the Amaq Agency released a brief video featuring Anis Amri (his name is in Arabic Anis ‘Amari) pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and vowing for more revenge operations. The video is entitled “testimony of the soldier of the Islamic State who undertook the attacks in Berlin and Milano”, […]
Jabhat al-Nusra’s Rebranding in the Eyes of the Islamic State
Posted: 22nd September 2016 by Cole Bunzel in AQ Central, Islamic State, Nusra Front, ZawahiriWhen Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, the leader of al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, announced on July 28, 2016 that he was dissolving his group and setting up a new one, Jabhat Fath al-Sham (JFS, “the Front for the Conquest of Sham”), that would not be subordinate to al-Qaida, he put to rest more than a year […]
Analysis of the current situation in the global Jihad total war
Posted: 13th September 2016 by Tore Hamming in AQ Central, Islamic State, ZawahiriThis is the first Q&A of the interview series with Ahmed Al Hamdan (@a7taker), a Jihadi-Salafi analyst and author of “Methodological Difference Between ISIS and Al Qaida“. Al Hamdan was a former friend of Turki bin Ali, and a student of Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi under whom he studied and was given Ijazah, becoming one of his […]
“Come Back to Twitter”: A Jihadi Warning Against Telegram
Posted: 18th July 2016 by Cole Bunzel in Islamic State, Jihadi mediaIt is hard to avoid a feeling of déjà vu. Back in 2013, an established al-Qaida ideologue lamented the decline of the jihadi web forums, warning users against migrating to social media platforms Twitter and Facebook and calling for a revival of the forums as the “main theater” of internet jihad. The appeal of course […]
The Islamic State of Decline: Anticipating the Paper Caliphate
Posted: 15th June 2016 by Cole Bunzel in Islamic StateIt is still too early to predict the collapse of the Islamic State, but it is telling that the group’s own media, which usually keep to a narrative of unstoppable progress and battlefield success, have begun signaling decline. Last week, an editorial in the most recent issue of the Islamic State’s weekly Arabic newsletter, al-Naba’ […]
[Welcome to Tore Hamming, a PhD candidate at the European University Institute working on inter-movement dynamics within Sunni Jihadism with a special focus on the al-Qaida-Islamic State relationship. You can follow him on Twitter @Torerhamming.] In a chapter titled “Destructive Doctrinarians,” the author Brynjar Lia describes Abu Mus’ab al-Suri’s critique of Salafi rigidity in doctrinal […]
Has al-Maqdisi Softened on the Islamic State?
Posted: 11th May 2016 by Cole Bunzel in AQ Central, Ideological trends, Islamic State, SyriaTwo months ago, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the leading Jihadi-Salafi scholar known for his fierce opposition to the Islamic State and support for al-Qaida, released an essay that was widely interpreted as a softening of his position toward the Islamic State. As Hassan Hassan recently pointed out, al-Maqdisi has made other pronouncements of late that would […]