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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 between killing for the sake of eliminating enemies without drawing attention to themselves (cold terrorism) vs. killing to provoke a response against themselves (hot terrorism). The following quotes are from a recent English translation:

* Can we afford not to take the responsibility of the operation?

* Does the safety of the performers take precedence over the attack or otherwise?

* The ease of performing the operation and the available means

* Are we ready to tackle the retaliation of the enemy or not?

If the aim is to get rid of the enemy without looking on to any other goal then it is preferred to use cold terror.

As for if the aim is to terrorize the enemy only, then it is preferred to use hot terror, even though the security situation and the safety of the performers currently calls for the cold terror as it gives the performers the chance to retreat and escape.

Faqir concludes with some aphorisms on where hot and cold terrorism fit into real and symbolic war:

In the actual war, cold terror is used, as it helps us in avoiding the retaliation of the enemy and enables the performers to withdraw safely.

In the symbolic war, hot terror is used because it causes more stir and more terror and is more effective in the media.

In the actual war, the reason behind attacking the enemy is getting rid of it.

In the symbolic war, the reason behind attacking the enemy is to terrorize it.

Document (English): 9-3-08-ekhlaas-real-war-vs-symbolic-war cold vs hot terrorism

Although I was away on vacation for the last week and a half, I read all of the excellent posts from everyone who guest blogged during my absence.  Chipotle Mystery, Scott Sanford, and Mike Honcho: I owe you one.  (By the way, make sure to check out Mike Honcho’s blog, The Tel’nik.  It’s a great resource for Caucasus-related analysis.)

I’m temporarily adding three members to the Jihadica roster while I’m on vacation the next week and a half: Scott Sanford, Chipotle Mystery, and Mike Honcho.

• Scott is an Arabic speaker who covers the forums and specializes in Lebanon, Palestinian territories, and Syria, so expect a lot of good stuff on Jihadi activity in the Levant.
• Chipotle Mystery is an Urdu speaker who works on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.  He reads tons of fascinating stuff but never writes about it because he believes (wrongly) that it’s already common knowledge.  You’ll have to bait him.
• Mike Honcho knows Russian and other languages with funny alphabets.  He’ll be keeping us posted on what’s going on in the Caucasus.

A Pashtu television station reported on July 29 that Zawahiri was killed in the same attack that killed Abu Khabab in South Waziristan. The news broke in the U.S. this afternoon via Stratfor.  CBS reported this evening that Zawahiri was badly wounded in the attack.  (See the news summary here.)

Bill Riggio is right to urge that the report of Zawahiri’s death be treated with extreme caution since it is based on the word of an anonymous Pakistani official.  Pakistani intel previously lied about the death of Abu Khabab and Zawahiri.

I did a thorough search of Ekhlaas and turned up nothing.  I’ll check other forums tomorrow.  By way of comparison, the news of Abu Khabab’s death surfaced on Ekhlaas only a few days after the U.S. missile strike in South Waziristan.

This morning Reuters reported that U.S. missiles had struck a madrasa in Wana, South Waziristan and killed six people. At that time, the reporters did not know who had been killed.

On the forums this afternoon, there were several rumors that Abu Khabab, a senior al-Qaeda bomb maker and chemical weapons expert, had died in the strike. Now Taliban officials have confirmed it.

Abu Khabab was supposedly killed in 2006, but he survived. If you’ve read Omar Nasiri’s Inside the Jihad, you’ll remember Abu Khabab’s ominous appearance at a training camp in Afghanistan (hat tip: AC).

The fact that the U.S. has killed so many high-profile al-Qaeda members recently suggests greater penetration of the militant network in Pakistan or greater cooperation of some tribes in the region.

Given all of the hullabaloo surrounding Iran’s weapons testing, it’s a good time to announce a new blog on the IRGC and Iranian politics by a close friend of mine, who shall remain nameless for the time being.  The blogger is one of America’s few, true experts on the IRGC and his site is an extremely welcome addition to the blogesphere.

I’ll be offline for a few days, but should be back in business early next week.

In the past six months, Saudi Arabia has arrested around 700 suspected terrorists.  Yesterday, the Interior Ministry released a statement which claimed that many of those arrested were trying to implement the blueprint laid out by Abu Bakr Naji in his Management of Savagery.

Naji argues that if Jihadis want to take power, they need to abandon the idea of overthrowing governments in the Middle East.  Instead, they should focus on creating security vacuums.  They can do this by striking  a country’s crucial industries, like oil and tourism.  The government will respond by pulling in its security forces to protect the infrastructure.  This will open up the desired security vacuums (”regions of savagery” as he calls them) that Jihadis can move into and set up rudimentary governments.  These vacuums can be as small as city blocks or as large as a province.  Once they have gained control, the Jihadis can then network with other “administrations of savagery” and proceed to more complicated forms of government.

According to the Saudis, many of the people they arrested wished to carry out this plan, based on Naji’s book:

(The intention of these groups is to) plan, recruit, and equip themselves in order to revive criminal activities in all regions of the Kingdom in an attempt to change the internal security situation into a stage that resembles the situation in other unsettled regions since perverse groups like these are not able to intellectually find a place for themselves in societies that are stable. This (plan) is clearly evident from the confiscation of numerous documents in their possession, including a study they call The Management of Savagery, which articulates their sick dreams and hateful visions.

Since The Management of Savagery is still an obscure book in the Middle East, there were several articles published in Arabic newspapers today that explain its contents.  There are two good articles, one in al-Sharq al-Awsat and one in al-Watan. Strikingly, there are two bad articles in the same papers. First the good ones:

Mashari al-Dhaydi in al-Sharq al-Awsat:

• Dhaydi classes Management among the most important texts shaping the Jihadi Movement, along with Qutb’s Milestones, Faraj’s Neglected Duty, Juhayman al-`Utaybi’s writings, Zawahiri’s Knights, Sayyid Imam/Dr. Fadl’s three books, Suri’s “Syrian Experience,” and three books by Maqdisi.
• Management is odd because it does not have a traditional flavor or a title that rhymes in Arabic (which is usually the case for classically-oriented Islamic books). It is also strange in that it uses terms that are common in the media but not in traditional religious texts.
• He observes that an American (me) translated the book several years ago. [Like some other reporters, he wrongly attributes the sponsorship of the translation to West Point's CTC. The Olin Institute at Harvard actually funded it; both Olin and the CTC host a copy online.]
• Dhaydi quotes a Saudi security expert who says that the most dangerous parts of the book deal with how to vex (nikaya) the government and obtain power (shawka).
• The same expert thinks the book was written by a committee. Dhaydi notes that some people online say it is Sayf al-`Adl. Others say it is an unknown person.

Shakir Abu Talib in Watan:

• Shakir interviews Faris b. Hazzam, a journalist who specializes in terrorist groups. Faris relates that some people think the author of Management is Abu Qatada (recently released from a UK prison).
• He notes that someone at West Point translated the document and that the U.S. has already been studying it for two years.

Now for the two bad articles. The first is by `Ali al-Qahtani for Watan. He reports that Naji was one of those captured by Saudi security forces yesterday, which is very wrong. Next he quotes Salih b. Sa`d al-Luhaydan, an adviser for the World Association for Mental Health, who says that he has never heard of the book before. The author, Luhaydan says, has nothing new to say; he is irrational and puts emotion before reason; and he is obviously suffering from an early childhood psychological trauma. An anonymous article in al-Sharq al-Awsat is equally derisive, ridiculing the author as irrational.

If you’ve read Naji, you know that he is anything but irrational or emotional. Those who dismiss him as deranged might make themselves feel better, but they severely underestimate the cunning of him and his ilk–always a bad idea.

I’m relieved that the same papers that published such pap also published serious analyses. I’m also grateful that the latter highlighted my translation and that they acknowledged that the U.S. is well advanced in studying Naji’s work.  The U.S. government deserves a lot of the lumps it gets for cultural ignorance, but many would be surprised how far ahead of its Arab counterparts it is in understanding Jihadism.

As for the question of Naji’s identity, I am pretty sure that he is dead–a major Jihadi insider, Husayn b. Mahmud, said so online. So that would eliminate Abu Qatada and Sayf al-`Adl.

Just in time for Craig Whitlock’s helpful survey of Jihadi internet propaganda, Ekhlaas member Usud al-Tawhid (Lions of Monotheism) has posted a message about the Islamic State of Iraq’s method of media distribution. The message is by an Abu al-Zarqa’ al-`Iraqi, who claims to be a member of the ISI.

AZ warns forum members not to post media material from Iraq outside of official channels online. He relates that he once made this mistake when he published clips of an attack carried out by a certain “Dr. Fathi” (probably alluding to this). AZ’s action angered people in the ISI’s Media Ministry and resulted in AZ and another brother being hauled before a Sharia tribunal.

A brother informed AZ that Furqan is the only entity that can publish media material for the ISI. By this, AZ says, the brother meant that members of the ISI’s Media Ministry in al-Furqan were the only people allowed to upload material to the internet and send it to al-Fajr Media Center for distribution.

AZ explains to the brothers that there are several good reasons why the members of Furqan only want to publish media material through official channels:

1. They do not want to cause hardship for their videographers and those who expose themselves to danger. (Presumably, he means that publishing material through unofficial channels increases the security risks.)
2. They do not want to make things hard for people in the Media Ministry or Furqan.
3. When material is published unofficially, the infidels think that their efforts are succeeding and that the information specialists are not able to publish material on the Internet because of security constraints. This, AZ says, is a very important point. Publishing through official channels demoralizes the infidels because it demonstrates that their plan isn’t working and that mujahids are still able to communicate.
4. (Basically the same as point #3).
5. The videographers capture an operation and give it to the brothers who clip the important material. Then the material goes to brothers who produce a product. Then the product goes to the Media Ministry and through it to the Fajr Center to determine the right time for publication.

After going through the benefits of posting ISI material through official channels, AZ attaches a letter that explains how to post ISI material when you don’t know how to contact the ISI: Compress the material, password protect it with with a number, and save it to one of the online file sharing sites. Then contact the administrators of Ekhlaas, Boraq, Hesbah, or Firdaws and give them the link. The administrators will send the material to Fajr, and Fajr will determine the right time to publish it.

Download (Arabic): 6-24-08-ekhlaas-isi-media-distribution

The Jihadi Media Elite (Nukhbat al-I`lam al-Jihadi) has posted a notebook that Zarqawi dedicated to his sister, Umm Qudama, and to his brother-in-law, Abu Qudama. According to the colophon, Zarqawi finished writing the notebook on May 31, 1998 from Balqa’ prison in Jordan.

The Jihadi Media Elite posted images of the first five pages, which Zarqawi titled “the introduction,” but there are links to the rest. This is going to be a very important primary source for those interested in understanding Zarqawi’s psychological development and his time in prison.

Here’s a summary of the introduction:

• Part of the Sunna is that God’s servants are tested so they can be distinguished from the insincere.
• Suffering imprisonment and torture is the lot of God’s Messengers and those who follow them.
• Our tormentors have no power over us. If we survive, we will see God’s promises fulfilled. If we die, we will attain paradise.
• We do not walk this path alone. Our families walk it with us, especially our mothers and sisters.

Here’s one of the final passages:

O sister! How much you have suffered on account of my imprisonment for the sake of my religion. But be patient no matter what, tender sister. God willing, there will be an eternal meeting for us in the presence of a powerful King in the gardens of Eden, together with the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous–those are the best of friends.

Zarqawi ends with a poem:

I wrote you a letter, O my sister,

Which I made of my soul’s ardent desire.

The first thing I write is the fire of my heart

And the second is my love and longing.

The third is when my eye beholds you

And the fourth is the day of rejoining.

Document (Arabic): 6-20-08-ekhlaas-zarqawi-notebook-balqa-prison-19981

A new Jihadi magazine has been released: Munasir (Defender).  It’s mostly a rehash of old material posted online, which is becoming a common trend.  Several years ago, there were fewer magazines, but they had a lot of original content. Now there are plenty of magazines, but very little original content.

Document (Arabic): 6-19-08-monaser-magazine-issue-1