I am travelling this week so coverage of the forums will be limited. In the meantime you can read this Q&A with yours truly in Bellum, a very interesting blog affiliated with the Stanford Review. The jihadis have been doing Q&As for ages, so it was about time we here at Jihadica did one.
i thought the idea you employed here was very strong although they should correct it:
‘A professor costs much less than a solder ‘
What do you make of Abu Sufyan al-Azdi’s statement(yesterday?)? Why is he expressing fealty to Mulla Omar as opposed to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi? Are there two rival Al-Qaeda’s active in the “Arabian Peninsula, one following the jihad in Iraq, and another following the jihad in Af-Pak?
NK: sorry about the late reply. Your question is excellent and I don’t have a good answer. However, I do think that since 2003, there have been two semi-distinct jihadi communities or networks on the Peninsula: one supporting the jihad in Iraq, and the other (the QAP) supporting jihad on the Arabian Peninsula itself. The latter has been closer to the AQ central leadership than to AQI.