In what has turned out to be a rather prescient quip, the Arab journalist Abd al-Ilah Sha’i, who has conducted interviews for al-Jazeera with both Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Anwar al-Awlaqi and who is an occasional commentator on the jihadi forums, wrote last week on the Falluja forum that South Yemen was becoming the “Waziristan of the [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Earlier this month a new and expanded edition of a popular jihadi text collection was released on the forums (e.g., here). Called “A Mujahid’s Bookbag” (Haqibatu’l-Mujahid), the collection of over 2000 jihadi texts was compiled by Zubayr al-Ghazi, a functionary of the Falluja forums, and consists of searchable, indexed Word files. Some of these texts [...]
Qaradawi on Jihad (2 of 3)
Posted: 27th October 2009 by Nelly Lahoud in Islamic jurisprudence, Muslim Brotherhood, UncategorizedRead part 1 What does Youssef al-Qaradawi say about waging war against non-Muslims at least once a year as part of fard kifaya, a task some classical jurists believed was incumbent upon the ruler? Al-Qaradawi does not believe that the classical jurists reached a consensus on this matter. Instead, he believes that their opinions were [...]
Will AQIM Aim North or South?
Posted: 30th September 2009 by Jean-Pierre Filiu in Algeria, AQIM, France, UncategorizedIt appears that this year’s Ramadan was one of the least violent in the nearly two decades of jihadi activism in Algeria. While this period is hailed by militants and their leaders as the most propitious one for jihadi attacks, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was not able to wage a major operation. The [...]
The Somali Shabab al-Mujahidin just released its “Eid gift” to all Muslims: a video dedicated and pledging allegiance to Usama Bin Laden. (The video is also on youtube). The production is subtitled in English and features the now famous Abu Mansour al-Amriki. One of the targeted audiences is obviously the English-speaking one, which makes sense [...]
Jaysh-e-Mohammed on Madrasas
Posted: 3rd September 2009 by Qandeel Siddique in Jaysh-e Mohammed, Pakistan, UncategorizedIn the latest edition of al-Qalam, the weekly online magazine of the Pakistani militant group Jaysh-e-Mohammed, columnist Naveed Masood Hashmi lashes out at Hillary Clinton for linking madrassas, or religious seminaries, to suicide bombings. In an article entitled “Hillary, Madaris and Hanging/Execution,” Hashmi asks: “… who is she [Hillary Clinton] to accuse Pakistani madrassas of [...]
On the Bin Nayif Assassination Attempt
Posted: 28th August 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in Saudi Arabia, UncategorizedYesterday there was an assassination attempt on the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Muhammad Bin Nayif. An unidentified wanted militant, pretending to surrender to authorities, blew himself up as he was being searched. The blast occurred in Bin Nayif’s private office in Jidda, close enough to the Prince himself for the latter to be lightly wounded [...]
Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi Question and Answer
Posted: 28th July 2009 by Scott Sanford in UncategorizedThe Shamukh al-Islam forums have initiated an “Open Interview” with Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. For those unfamiliar with online jihadi interviews, the usual format is for readers to post questions on the forum and then the person being interviewed posts his responses, normally all at once after many questions have been posted. To process the questions, [...]
Jihadi reactions to Obama
Posted: 4th June 2009 by Thomas Hegghammer in Arab media, Dreams, Egypt, Jihadi media, propaganda, Saudi Arabia, tactics, UncategorizedWe have heard Bin Ladin and Zawahiri’s comments, and Marc Lynch and others will tell us how the Arab mainstream reacted. But what are the grassroot jihadis saying about Obama’s Mideast tour in general and his Cairo speech in particular? Let me begin by lowering your expectations. For a start, we should not expect to [...]
The al-Maqdisi controversy has taken a very interesting new turn. In a statement posted his website earlier this week, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi cited several Western scholars, including Dutch al-Maqdisi specialist Joas Wagemakers and Jihadica founder Will McCants, to make the point that his enemies understand him better than his detractors in the jihadi community do. [...]