[Jihadica is pleased to welcome a guest post from Charles Lister (Charles_Lister), a London-based terrorism and insurgency analyst. The views expressed below are entirely his own and do not represent those of his employer.] An article recently released by EA Worldview claims to refute the widespread belief that Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) is an al-Qaeda affiliate; [...]
Archive for the ‘Syria’ Category
Jabhat al-Nusra: A Self-Professed AQ Affiliate
Posted: 8th May 2013 by Will McCants in AQ in Iraq, Syria5
Al-Qaradawi and the Help of the Unbelievers
Posted: 1st May 2013 by Joas Wagemakers in Ideological trends, Syria, USAYusuf al-Qaradawi, the famous Egyptian Muslim scholar who’s often described as the most influential Sunni scholar alive, is well known for his comments on politics, society and other practical issues that believers have to deal with. Yesterday, I read in an article that he has added a new comment of that type to an [...]
Al-Qaeda Advises the Syrian Revolution: Shumukh al-Islam’s “Comprehensive Strategy” for Syria
Posted: 25th February 2013 by Cole Bunzel in AQ in Iraq, Jihadi media, Strategy, SyriaThree weeks ago members of Shumukh al-Islam, al-Qaeda’s premier online forum, began collaboration on a “comprehensive strategy” for the ongoing Syrian jihad. In a thread started by a certain “Handasat al-Qaeda,” several dozen members of the access-restricted site set down a plethora of observations and recommendations. A week later, on February 9, the same member [...]
Jihadism’s Widening Internal Divide: Intellectual Infighting Heats Up
Posted: 29th January 2013 by Cole Bunzel in al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula, AQ in Iraq, SyriaLast year witnessed the outbreak of a major feud between two of the most prominent and active ideologues in the jihadi movement: the Syrian Abu Basir al-Tartusi and the Mauritanian Abu al-Mundhir al-Shinqiti. As Joas Wagemakers wrote in June and July of last year, the quarrel emerged in May 2012 following two perceived provocations by [...]
Al-Maqdisi and the Jordanian Jihadi-Salafi Movement
Posted: 1st December 2012 by Joas Wagemakers in Arab media, foreign fighters, Jordan, SyriaAs most readers of Jihadica will know, the famous Jordanian radical scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi was arrested in September 2010 on suspicion of aiding terrorists and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in July 2011. Since then, however, we have rarely heard anything from the man often described as the most important radical Islamic scholar [...]
Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: Abu Basir’s Scrapbook
Posted: 28th July 2012 by Joas Wagemakers in SyriaIn my previous posts on al-Qaida scholars advising the Arab Spring (here, here, here and here), we have frequently come across the Syrian-British Abu Basir al-Tartusi. His advice to the people of the Arab world trying to overthrow their dictators has often been at odds with that of his fellow radical ideologues, as we have [...]
Al-Qaida advises the Arab Spring: Syria
Posted: 19th November 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in AQ Central, AQ Leadership, Jihadi media, Syria, ZawahiriWith the Arab Spring going strong in several countries, al-Qaida (in a broad sense, so including ideologues and scholars supportive of the organisation) still finds it necessary to comment on what is happening. In a series of posts, I will deal with the advice al-Qaida is giving the people of several countries, starting with Syria. [...]
A few days ago, it was reported that Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the radical Jordanian ideologue, had issued a fatwa supporting the revolts in Syria (see here, here and here, for instance). This struck me as odd, since al-Maqdisi has been in prison since September 2010 and has been quiet ever since, presumably because the prison [...]
AQ Claims Bin Nayif Attack
Posted: 29th August 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula, SyriaThis Saturday evening, Al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula issued a statement claiming the assassination attempt on Muhammad Bin Nayif (hat tip: Evan). See here for an automatic translation. By the way, Michael Dunn has a good roundup of Saudi media reports on the attack. The statement identified the attacker as “Abu al-Khayr” alias Abdallah Hasan [...]
Shishani on Salafi-Jihadism in the Levant
Posted: 2nd July 2009 by Scott Sanford in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, SyriaOn 29 June 2009, the Jordanian journalist Murad Batal al-Shishani published an article in al-Hayat titled “Salafi–Jihadism: A New Face in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria’s Palestinian Camps.” The article talks about the new generation of “neo-Zarqawis” and the increasing radicalization of Palestinian refugees. This radicalisation, he argues, stems from the failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli [...]