Many Jihadica readers probably follow the academic journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, but I still want to highlight a couple of new articles that I found especially interesting:
The Internet in Indonesia: Development and Impact of Radical Websites – Jennifer Yang Hui
Jihadi Operational Art: The Coming Wave of Jihadi Strategic Studies – Dima Adamsky
There is a new blog in town: On War and Words. It is produced by military historian Mark Stout, who is probably best known to our readers as the lead author of the Terrorism Perspectives Project (the most comprehensive treatment available of the genre “jihadi strategic studies”). I am very excited that he has decided to blog. Do not be fooled by his understated autobiography – this man really knows a lot about jihadism and an insane number of other subjects.
The Jihadica crew would like to wish all our readers a very happy new year. 2009 was an exciting year for the blog. Our readership grew, and some of our postings made news. One post even inspired a front page story in the New York Times. Other posts were widely noted in the policy community. Posting was irregular in the second semester, but at least we kept afloat, much thanks to our guest bloggers. Our readership is not enormous, but it seems to be loyal, something for which we are extremely thankful. We are also very grateful for all your comments and emails. We probably don’t respond as often as we should, but we read them all.
I suspect 2010 is going to be an eventful year in the world of jihadism. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a major breakthrough against AQ Central in Pakistan. AQ in Yemen will be put under severe pressure in the next six months; exactly what the fallout will be I dare not predict. In Algeria, I think AQIM will continue to weaken. I am less optimistic about Somalia, and I am nervous about Iraq. As for attacks in the West, all we can say is that they will be few, but they might be big. (There is so much contingency involved that predictions are impossible). On the jihadi Internet, I don’t expect much to change, except that we will hear from new jihadi ideologues and we will probably see more experiments with government cyberattacks against major jihadi websites.
Whatever happens, Jihadica will be there to report and reflect on it. See you in the new year!
I’d like to draw our readers’ attention to several interesting new academic publications have come out in the past few weeks:
Nelly Lahoud – In Search of Philosopher-Jihadis: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi’s Jihadi Philosophy
A Aaron Weisburd – Comparison of Visual Motifs in Jihadi and Cholo Videos on YouTube
Stig Jarle Hansen and Atle Mesøy – The Muslim Brotherhood in the Wider Horn of Africa
Although not central to the Jihadica portfolio, I also strongly recommend the following indispensable contributions to the AfPak debate.
Marc Sageman – Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan
Nir Rosen – Something from Nothing
Yours truly also has a new article out, entitled Jihad, Yes, But Not Revolution: Explaining the Extraversion of Islamist Violence in Saudi Arabia
The al-Qaida media offensive against Germany earlier this fall turned out to be just a scare. But at a recent conference, German authorities said there was more to the threat than the September statements. Peter Neumann has interesting details over at FREEradicals.
I feel bad posting so many secondary sources and even worse plugging my own stuff, but I hope you will agree that this article is quite relevant to the issues Jihadica was set up to cover.
As for the media coverage, Haganah has a good bibliography. Personally I found yesterday’s interview with Anwar al-Awlaki to be the most interesting newspaper report so far.
Apologies to everyone whose articles I missed. Please post links to other pieces in the comments.
The journal Current Trends in Islamist Ideology has devoted its forthcoming issue to the Muslim Brotherhood, and some articles have already been released. They are available here. Of particular interest is this piece by Jihadica alumnus Jean Pierre Filiu.
If you are even remotely interested in this question, you simply have to read this post by Aaron at Haganah.
Al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula has a published the eleventh issue of its magazine Sada al-Malahim. Naturally, Greg over at Waq al-Waq has it covered (see also here).
The 36th issue of Sada al-Jihad is also out, and it is as chunky and well-produced as ever. The front page reads “Hamas continues its war on the Sunni Mujahidin”, and judging from the table of contents, almost the entire issue is about the recent events in Gaza.