ji·had·ica

Information War in Gaza

The “Department of Documents and Research” from the “Jihadi Media Elite,” a jihadi media production entity, has recently announced its “Series for God and then for History” publications. These productions are intended to “document the important events” in the jihadi world “that are considered historical turning points in the Ummah’s path and in the circle of conflict between truth and falsehood.” The first installment is a book titled, “The Ibn-Taymiyyah Mosque Incident.” It deals with the violent August 2009 clash in Gaza between Hamas and Jund Ansar Allah, a group espousing salafi-jihadi ideology. The book is divided into several sections including jihadi “Statements” and “Hamas Statements” about the attack, “Articles Justifying Hamas’s Crime,” “Articles Regarding the Event,” “Photos,” and “Video.” The book is a salafi-jihadi attempt to capitalise on the event and ensure the jihadi storyline of events is the dominant version. Including the statements from Hamas and various other

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Scott Sanford October 13, 2009

Tajdeed is Back

While conducting some research today, I found that as of August 2009, the jihadi forum Tajdeed.org.uk is back. The website was one of the most prominent – if not the most prominent – jihadi discussion forum until it went down about a year and a half ago. The website’s administrator was and remains Muhammad al-Massari. After Ekhlaas and Faloja, it seems it is all the rage to bring back shut down jihadi forums.

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Scott Sanford September 19, 2009

Faloja and Jihadi Libraries

On 14 September 2009, the Faloja Forums announced their return after they were knocked off the Internet three days previously. It seems the administrators have been researching methods to avoid permanent banishment from the Internet so the cat and mouse game will continue. Additionally, Boraq has opened a new library dedicated to preserving statements of jihadi leaders. It currently houses over 150 documents organized by the entity that published the statements. The new site also has links to nine different Faloja addresses, six of which work. This site could become a valuable resource for researchers.

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Scott Sanford September 16, 2009

Ikhlaas Speaks Out, but Questions Remain

The Ikhaas forum that recently resurfaced just issued an explanation for its reappearance, only to close down again shortly afterwards. Site administrators claimed they kept the website down for the past year in order to “prevent the crusaders from entering and manipulating it.” They decided to go public again in commemoration of 9/11, but there was poor cooperation between the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) and the Fajr Media Center, who “produced dirty lies against our beloved site.” The statement insisted that the site was not fabricated. Instead it counterattacked, stating, “It is not possible to guarantee the honor of the Fajr Media Center and the Global Islamic Media Front because they … initiated a campaign against our beloved site.” The statement concluded saying that Ikhlaas would remain “concealed” until Fajr and the GIMF can confirm their honor, but it stated that the Ikhlaas “network” is prepared to call upon “the

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Scott Sanford September 15, 2009

Al-Maqdisi’s Online Library of Translated Jihadi Material

On 2 August 2009, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi announced the opening of an English version of his jihadi library. In the announcement, he requested that Falluja Forum members spread the word regarding his new website and to send him any trustworthy translations. The English website is similar to the Arabic site but it currently does not contain the same amount of content. It has translations of several of al-Maqdisi’s books, articles, and interviews such as the book “Democracy … A Relegoin [sic],” downloaded 45 times, and the article “Balancing Between Negligence and Paranoia,” downloaded 13 times. It also has several non-attributed articles like “Advice for the Seeker of Knowledge,” downloaded 13 times, an interview with Abu Qatadah al-Filistini regarding Islam and democracy that was downloaded 11 times, and several books and articles by different authors under the headings “Paradise People Creed” and “The Absent Obligation.” Additionally, it has a series of

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Scott Sanford August 2, 2009

New Sada al-Jihad and Islamic Turkistan Journals

A couple of Jihadi journals have been released recently. To get an idea of what they cover, I have roughly translated their tables of contents. The Global Islamic Media Front released the 35th volume of “Sada al-Jihad” or “Echo of Jihad.” The table of contents includes: “The Jihadi Movements and the Sweet Harvest – The Fruits of the Siege” “Obama: A Repeat Copy of Bush” “So We Understand the Balances of the Apostate Regime in Algeria” “The Pakistani Regime and the Conflict with the Taliban: The Flight Forward” “The Iranian Elections and Signs of the Iranian Program’s Regression” “The Tragedy of the Muslims in Egypt’s al-Wadi al-Jadid Prison” “The Fate of Karzai will be Worse than his Traitor Forefathers” by Qari Muhammad Yusuf the spokesman for the Taliban “The Abandoners of Loyalty” “Civil Strife: The Adaptation of Reality” “Security Warnings (Negatives)” The Turkistan Islamic Party released the fourth volume of

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Scott Sanford July 28, 2009

Are the Uzbeks Going Global?

[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 many people produce world-class research as summer interns, so this guy is really someone to look out for in the future.] The Turkic peoples have until now played a fairly peripheral role in global jihadism. They have not attracted much academic attention, and apart from the 2003 Istanbul bombings and the 2008 American Consulate attacks, operations carried out by Turkics have gained little attention. The Waziristan-based group Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) seems to be trying to change this (as Jihadica has suggested before). The IJU broke off from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 2001,

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Einar Wigen June 17, 2009

Why is al-Sahab Called al-Sahab?

This excellent question was raised in a comment to an earlier Jihadica piece. Since it probably interests a wider audience, I figured I should devote a separate post to it. Most readers probably know that the word sahab means “clouds” and that it emerged as the name of al-Qaida’s media production company around 2002. But why would al-Qaida name the mouthpiece of global jihad after something as wishy-washy as a cloud? The answer is that the word figures in a common epithet of God, namely مجري السحاب (mujri al-sahab) meaning “Mover of the Clouds”. The name usually features in the expression منزل الكتاب ومجري السحاب وهازم الأحزاب (munzil al-kitab wa mujri al-sahab wa hazim al-ahzab), “Revealer of the Holy Book, Mover of the clouds and Defeater of the clans”. This expression in turn occurs in a famous night prayer uttered by the Prophet Muhammad during one of his military expeditions.

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Thomas Hegghammer June 15, 2009

Jihadi reactions to Obama

We have heard Bin Ladin and Zawahiri’s comments, and Marc Lynch and others will tell us how the Arab mainstream reacted. But what are the grassroot jihadis saying about Obama’s Mideast tour in general and his Cairo speech in particular? Let me begin by lowering your expectations. For a start, we should not expect to see any positive reactions to Obama’s initiative, for anybody thus inclined would not be on the forums in the first place. Second, there is no tradition among jihadi strategists or pundits for parsing presidential speeches. They might pick up on a phrase (like Bush’s reference to a “crusade”) and use it for their own purposes. But generally these guys don’t listen to what America says – they watch what she does. I should also add that Faloja, the main jihadi forum, has been down since this morning (as has Shuraa), so our ability to gage

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Thomas Hegghammer June 4, 2009

Falluja Analytics

[Editor’s note: I am pleased to introduce another new contributor, Scott Sanford, who is a graduate student at George Washington University specialising in jihadism in the levant. Scott has guest blogged for Jihadica in the past, but now he is joining us on a more regular basis.]   “What is the Secret of the Falluja Forum’s Success?” This was the intriguing title of a recent post on Falluja presenting a detailed analysis of the web traffic to the forum itself. The contributor, named “Song of Terror”, broke the article into two parts: the first supplying the web analytic data and the second providing strategies and further analysis.  While he claimed that jihadi propaganda efforts on the Internet are successful, the data does in fact not support his analysis. Using data from Alexa.com, Song of Terror started by asserting that Fallujah is the most “successful” jihadi forum.  Fallujah’s “Daily Reach”, the percent

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Scott Sanford May 11, 2009
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