In his summary of a massive manifesto written by Anders Breivik, the alleged terrorist who carried out Friday’s horrible attacks in Norway, Blake Hounshell observes that although Breivik wants to purge Europe of Islam, he also deeply admires al-Qaeda. Indeed, Breivik is inspired by the organization’s quest for cultural purity in the Middle East and [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
As you can see, Jihadica is going through a redesign. I’m going to be tweaking the features too. If there’s something you’d like to see added, please drop us a note in the comments section.
There are going to be loads of conferences this September looking back on 9/11. This is the one I plan to attend: “10 Years Later: Insights on al-Qaeda’s Past and Future through Captured Records” sponsored by the Conflict Records Research Center (CRRC) at the National Defense University on Sept. 13-14. The CRRC has picked up [...]
Sayf al-’Adl and al-Qa’ida’s Historical Leadership
Posted: 18th May 2011 by Vahid Brown in AQ Central, AQ Leadership, Uncategorized, ZawahiriIn light of the widely reported news that Sayf al-‘Adl (also spelled Saif al-Adel) has taken the reins of operational leadership within al-Qa’ida in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, I thought it would be useful to Jihadica’s readers to provide a bit of context about this man and about the significance, [...]
Two years, an underwear bomber, an Arab Spring, a new war, and many memos later, I’ve returned to the private sector and blogging. At the Department of Defense I tried to find ways to persuade academics to write about terrorism. At the Department of State, I tried to find ways to persuade angry youth not [...]
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 [...]
Jihadis Debate Egypt (1)
Posted: 4th February 2011 by Brynjar Lia in AQ Leadership, Egypt, UncategorizedWith Tunisia’s President Bin Ali tucked away in Jedda and the world’s attention fixated on the popular uprising in Egypt, al-Qaida may be about to lose one of its main ideological selling points: that only armed struggle can bring down the regimes in the region. Not surprisingly, the jihadi online community is captivated by the uprising, [...]
Several days ago, it was reported that Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the Jordanian radical Islamist ideologue and former mentor of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, had been arrested again on 17 September. The news was quickly confirmed on his website and also picked up by Jordanian newspapers (see here, for example). It seems that the Jordanian Security Services [...]
Apologies to our readers for the recent two-month hiatus. I had an extremely hectic summer which included an intercontinental house move and lots of other complications. Jihadica is now back in business, although posting will probably be somewhat irregular.
The latest issue of the journal Arab Insight has two particularly interesting articles: one on al-Qaida in Yemen by Abdul Elah Shayea (the guy who interviews AQAP people) and another on the decline of the global jihad by Murad al-Shishani. Those of you who don’t know the journal should check out past issues; there are [...]