One of the things that struck me about the Stockholm bomber, Taimour Abdalwahhab, was that he was apparently active on the internet as a radical before he decided to engage in actual terrorism (see Thomas’ posts below for more details). This transition reminded me of a similar but much more serious process by someone who [...]
Archive for the ‘terrorism’ Category
From the Pen to the Sword
Posted: 3rd January 2011 by Joas Wagemakers in Afghanistan, AQ Central, Better Know a Forum, Jordan, propaganda, terrorism0
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 [...]
What’s the Minbar doing in Moscow? (Part 3)
Posted: 13th July 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Chechnya, Ideological trends, North Caucasus, Russia, terrorismIn the previous two parts of this short series (here and here), we saw that the Jordanian radical ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and his website, Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, have been closely involved in efforts to support the mujahidun in the Caucasus by offering advice, translating books into Russian and encouraging and praising their efforts. We [...]
What’s the Minbar doing in Moscow? (part 2)
Posted: 3rd June 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Chechnya, Ideological trends, North Caucasus, Russia, terrorismIn part 1 of this short series of posts, we saw that the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad website published a communique by the leader of the Islamic Emirate in the Caucasus, Dokku ‘Umarov, claiming responsibility for the attacks in Moscow on 29 March 2010. This was slightly odd since the Minbar mostly publishes books, articles and [...]
A new RAND report by Brian Jenkins provides a much-needed overview of jihadi radicalization cases and terrorism plots in the United States since 2001. The study pairs up very nicely with Petter Nesser’s equally indispensable overview of plots in Europe. Apart from offering a comprehensive list of cases, Jenkins makes a number of very pertinent [...]
What’s the Minbar doing in Moscow? (Part 1)
Posted: 4th May 2010 by Joas Wagemakers in Chechnya, North Caucasus, Russia, terrorismAlthough I’m awfully late in paying attention to it, there is an interesting dimension to the Moscow metro attacks that occurred just over a month ago that is relevant for jihad watchers but has not been dealt with in the media or blogs as far as I know. While attention has obviously focused on the [...]
A Note on Air France Flight 447
Posted: 10th June 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in terrorism, Western mediaPeople are now speculating that the tragic Air France Flight 447 accident may have been a terrorist incident. French authorities say two names on the passenger list match those of known al-Qaida affiliates, and intelligence agents are in Brazil to find out more. (see also here, here and here). I have looked around on the [...]
Weekend Reading: “The Second Foreign Fighter Glut”
Posted: 29th May 2009 by Scott Sanford in propaganda, Recruitment, Strategy, terrorism, Western AnalystsLongtime Jihadica friend Clint Watts recently published an article at the Small Wars Journal titled, “Countering Terrorism from the Second Foreign Fighter Glut.” This article is the third in a series he has authored using data from the Sinjar records (Part 1 and Part 2 of the series). He concluded, “The key to success for [...]
The Strategic Effects of 9/11, Part 4: The Strategy of Laudable Terrorism
Posted: 16th September 2008 by Will McCants in Strategy, terrorismTags: Strategy, terrorism
Continuing… The meaning of “terrorism” is extremely contentious. Terrorism is a type of political violence. Western researchers say that political violence is of four types: violence between states, state violence against its citizens, violence between individuals, and the violence of citizens against the state. State violence against citizens is of two kinds: violence to compel [...]
Cold vs. Hot Terrorism
Posted: 4th September 2008 by Will McCants in Strategy, tactics, terrorism, UncategorizedTags: decision making, Strategy, terrorism
Hesbah pundit `Abd al-Rahman al-Faqir has been writing a series of essays he collectively calls “Real War vs. Symbolic War.” The point of the essays is to explain the difference between terrorist attacks (symbolic war) and other types of military violence (real war). One of his essays, “Cold Terrorism,” examines the decision-making of groups choosing [...]