As we saw in the previous installment of this short series on jihadis in the Gaza Strip, the leader of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi, was pretty defensive about his organization’s actions in his answers to questions from visitors of the Shumukh al-Islam forum. The rest of his answers indicate that the group [...]
Archive for the ‘Palestinian Territories’ Category
Defending Failure in Gaza (Part 2)
Posted: 9th September 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Territories2
Defending Failure in Gaza (Part 1)
Posted: 18th August 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Hamas, Israel, Palestinian TerritoriesWill’s latest post suggested that at least one jihadi is quite critical of what al-Qa’ida is doing regarding the Palestinian question. Well, he’s not the only one. Late last year, the Shumukh al-Islam forum published a book of its Q&A sessions with a jihadi leader from Gaza, namely Abu l-Walid al-Maqdisi, the amir of the Jama’at [...]
Reasons for the Strategic Failure of al-Qaeda in Palestine
Posted: 9th August 2011 by Will McCants in AQ Central, Palestinian Territories, StrategyIn an essay provocatively titled, ”Reasons for the Utter Strategic Failure of al-Qaeda to Threaten the Security of the Zionist Entity,” Ansar forum member Qandil al-Bahr is at pains to explain why al-Qaeda is advancing the Palestinian cause by focusing its attention in the United States: There is no doubt that al-Qaeda is incapable of undertaking a single [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 4)
Posted: 14th February 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesAs we saw in the previous parts of this series, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza wrote a book that can be described as a “crash course” in jihadi theory. In part 1, I described how the council used the term taghut (idol, pl. tawaghit) to accuse the rulers of the [...]
Jihadis Debate Egypt (3)
Posted: 7th February 2011 by Brynjar Lia in Egypt, Palestinian Territories, UncategorizedTwo other pieces may deserve some attention. Both of them have been flagged as very important on Shumukh. Yesterday, “the Mas’adat al-Mujahidin in Palestine”, a jihadi media outlet claiming to speak on behalf of Palestinian jihadis, issued a statement on Shumukh in support of “the Brothers of Monotheism in Egypt”. It calls upon them to [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 3)
Posted: 24th November 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesIn the first part of this series on a book written by the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, we saw that its authors were highly critical of the rulers of the Muslim world and employed their Islamist terminology to accuse these rulers of kufr (unbelief), the details of which are dealt [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 2)
Posted: 26th October 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesIn the first part of this series on a book describing what every jihadi ought to know, we saw that the authors of the book, the Shari’a Council of the Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad in Gaza, initially seemed to give a purely religious description of things but quickly moved on to the political relevance of what [...]
A Crash Course in Jihadi Theory (Part 1)
Posted: 21st September 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Palestinian TerritoriesThroughout the years, the number of jihadi writings has grown enormously. Nowadays, books and fatwas on any given subject related to jihadi thought can easily be found and downloaded from the internet. As a service to those who can’t see the forest for the trees anymore or to those people who simply want a brief [...]
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 [...]
A Jihadi-Salafi Case against Hamas
Posted: 23rd March 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Hamas, Ideological trends, Palestinian Territories, propagandaIn the past few years, an increasing number of news items have focused on the clashes between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and more radical Jihadi-Salafi groups. (For a recent example, see here.) Analyses of these groups have mostly concentrated on their alleged ties with al-Qa‘ida and their criticism of Hamas as being soft (see [...]