ji·had·ica

Hijazi Comments on New AFPAK Strategy – 2

Scott Sanford August 18, 2009

In his series titled “The Power of God in the Great Empires,” jihadi blogger Akram Hijazi has criticized President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy and questioned the actual US commitment to this strategy. In the third installment titled “Strategic Crisis and NATO’s Humiliations,” he claims that multinational forces in Afghanistan are suffering severe coordination problems and Europeans are beginning to question the utility of the war.

Hijazi believes that Americans understand the time commitment for the new strategy, but are unsure about the strategy. He states that if there is not progress by next summer, the Obama administration will lose support for the war.

Hijazi claims that like the United States, the British government has been concealing the realities of the war from its citizens, who are just now starting to consider the war seriously. He posits that the British are facing higher costs in blood and financial strain, causing many to question the ability to win and the war’s affect on Britain’s military readiness.

Likewise, Hijazi mentions that NATO forces are facing increased loses and costs from the fighting. As a result, other NATO allies are questioning the war as well. He claims that Afghanistan is another NATO failure after the alliance’s failure to gather enough troops for Iraq or Afghanistan, to use Turkey as a staging ground for Iraq, to coordinate between the various represented countries, and to protect its troops.

In short, Hijazi insinuates that British and NATO support for Afghanistan is reaching its end due to increased causalities and financial costs. Whether or not he is correct remains to be seen.  However, jihadis appreciate his reasoning because he makes the arguments as them, using all English-language sources, which, in jihadi eyes, adds credibility to the argument that the Taliban are winning in Afghanistan.

Hijazi Comments on New AFPAK Strategy

Scott Sanford August 16, 2009

On 28 July 2009 the popular jihadi blogger Akram Hijazi initiated a series of articles under the title, “The Power of God in the Great Empires.” He titled the first installment “The American Strategy in Afghanistan,” the second “Dismembering the Strategy,” the third “Strategic Crisis and NATO’s Humiliations,” and the fourth, which is the last and not yet published, “The Realities of the Taliban’s War.”

In the first article, Hijazi questions if there ever really was an American strategy in Afghanistan and he asserts that observers will have to wait and see how the new strategy will play out given Afghanistan’s history as the “Graveyard of Empires.” However, his tone is not optimistic. He then continues to describe the evolution of the US Afghanistan strategy by quoting from US public officials and Western media. The strategy he describes is basic counterinsurgency, increased troop levels, and eliminating safe havens in Pakistan.

Hijazi’s second article starts by stating that the old strategy was to destroy al-Qaida and the Taliban, but instead they have become stronger. He claims that the strategic logic for the US is “killing and destruction, nothing else. This is barbarism, not strategy…. This barbaric logic is what the US and its allies have implemented, through targeting civilians, in frantic attempts to eliminate al-Qaida and the Taliban from [their] popular embrace.” Hijazi continues that after seven years of failure the US decided to change its strategy from killing civilians to protecting them in addition to helping the Afghan government impose its will in Afghanistan. Finally, he states that the new strategy is an attempt to plug the holes in the old strategy, which respected nothing about Afghanistan and built a corrupt central government lacking institutions, infrastructure, a military, or capabilities.

He cites the debate (see here) in the US on whether or not US forces should continue its counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. He mentions calls for a withdrawal from the AFPAK region because al-Qaida is no longer a strategic threat to the US, which means Afghanistan and Pakistan also are not strategic threats. With this he implies that the US is engaged in the region for ulterior motives, which are to divide Muslim lands. Supporting his first implication, he makes a second point stating that the fight against al-Qaida is futile because it is not a nationalist organization or political entity controlling territory.

He also attacks other Arab and Islamic organizations, claiming that for the global jihadi movement, the age of patriotic, nationalist, leftist, and Islam-nationalist battles is over because they have failed. He adds that the “great powers” will not return to Muslim lands because if they do, “domesticated Arab armies or those who claim ‘Islam is the solution’” [the Muslim Brotherhood], will not oppose them; rather, the jihadis will.

According to Hijazi, the US will attempt to implement its strategy on three levels. First, on the military level, Hijazi indicates that the US prompted Pakistan to engage the Taliban in the Swat Valley in order to isolate the area from Afghanistan and deprive the movement of people and supplies between the two counties. Additionally, he states that US analysts believe the Iraq model is appropriate for Afghanistan despite historical, geographic, and environmental differences. Hijazi maintains that efforts to turn tribes against al-Qaida and the Taliban are evidence of this belief, which is really an effort to turn the tribes against each other. He concludes that the changing US military strategy is an indication of increasing Taliban power.

Second, on the civilian or cultural level, he posits that the US has no civilization or history and is not aware of the history of other nations or civilizations such as Afghanistan. As such, the US only knows how to revert to violence and force in dealing with others. He adds that the US military is undergoing a cultural shift from traditional concepts of warfare to counterinsurgency. He concludes with two questions that imply the supposed brutality inherent in the American psyche: 1) If the US does not achieve its goals through protecting populations, will it use force against all who oppose its goals? 2) Will the US also use this force against civilians under its protection?

Finally, on the political level, Hijazi states that the US wants stability and change. However, he believes it will fail in achieving these goals because the US is like someone who “prepares for the trip but misses the train.” He adds that the US wants a “non-centralized” government where every Afghan state would be like its own country and that non-centralization is really an attempt to sow local discord.

Hijazi concludes his report with several statements confirming supposed military, civil, and political gains the Taliban have made recently, which, he states, are indications of the Taliban’s rising power.

Hijazi’s overall message is that the US continues to blunder, while the Taliban are making great strides. His subtle assertions that al-Qaida and the Taliban are better at protecting Muslims indicate that his audience is politically minded Muslims who have not yet aspired to global jihad. Hijazi’s references to common anti-American grievances, such as the perceived use of excessive force and sowing of discord among Muslims, support this assumption. Moreover, he says nothing of al-Qaida’s targeted campaigns against civilians.

Finally, Hijazi’s remarks on the public debate regarding counterinsurgency and the future structure of the US military are interesting. His insistence that the real US strategy is creating discord among Muslims may be an indication that the shift in US policy is worrying jihadis. Similar statements by other jihadi ideologues would add credence to the effectiveness of the new plan.

My next posts will outline part three and, if available, part four of Hijazi’s report.

The Posts That Never Were

Thomas Hegghammer July 13, 2009

Apologies for the slow publication pace here at Jihadica, but deadlines and an upcoming house move mean I can only dream about serious blogging these days.

This does not mean forums are quiet. Every morning this past week I found things on the forums that deserved commentary. In a dream world, here’s what I would have written about had I had the time:

–    France is taking heat. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb published a statement declaring “France the mother of all evils”, and other posts fumed over the recent French plans to ban the niqab or the burka. I suspect the Americans and the Brits (who of course have long argued that France is the mother of all evils)  are happy to share the burden of jihadi attention. Unfortunately for the Anglo-Saxons, however, I don’t think the veil weighs nearly as heavy in the jihadi basket of grievances as military occupations.

–    Another one bites the dust. Exiled leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group told al-Quds al-Arabi on 2 July they are laying down their arms. The declaration is now being spun in the media as the first case of a group leaving al-Qaida. This is a misrepresentation of what’s happening but I can see why people want to spin it that way.

–    The non-strategic “Special strategic study”. The “Department for Historical Studies and Strategic Advice” of the “Falluja Think Tank” released a widely publicized “special strategic study” of the war between America and the jihadi movement. The title and the high-profile advertising had raised my expectations, but I was a little disappointed, mainly because it’s not a proper strategic study. It is a political analysis which stays at the macro-level and doesn’t offer much in terms of meso-level considerations and concrete recommendations that I associate with classics of jihadi strategic studies. It is still worth reading, though, and there is an intriguing note on AQ and nuclear weapons at the end. Scott might be covering the study it in more detail later this week.

–   Jihadis “twittering” about Swat and Helmand campaigns. The jihadi commentary and analysis of battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan is coming out so quickly it is close to twittering. Within days of the Helmand offensive there was a long Faluja thread reporting news from the frontline. The Swat debacle has been followed closely for a while, and there is now already a strategic study of the campaign. I haven’t read it yet but it looks very interesting.

–    The other American.  The Somalia-based Abu Mansour al-Amriki has released a new audio statement in English entitled “The beginning of the end” It lambasts Obama along well-known lines in very articulate native English. I agree with Evan that Abu Mansour beats Adam Gadahn on presentation skills. Abu Mansour’s tajwid is really impressive. The message is clearly intended for the mobilisation of US-based Muslims. As interesting as the message itself was the accompanying pictures of three other alleged Americans in Somalia, not least given the New York Times story about Shabab recruitment in America. By the way, Evan has a fantastic post on the Shabab on the CTBlog today.

–    Happy birthday ISI. Last Thursday was the 1000-day anniversary of the foundation of the Islamic State in Iraq, and the occasion was marked with banners on all the forums, but not much more.

–    Good Qaradawi or bad Qaradawi? Marc Lynch had a great post the other day on Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s latest book on jihad, which he thinks will undermine al-Qaida, more so than the recantations of Dr Fadl and others. Rob at the Shack disagrees, saying the side effect of Qaradawi’s stance is more legitimacy for regular national liberation struggles, which might actually cause more problems for the US in the long term. They are of course both right.

Finally there is this gem from the CBS Terror Monitor (hat tip: Cecilie), by an analyst who has clearly had enough forum watching (here’s a pdf if they remove it). Hoda you have my sympathy – there have been days where I have felt the same.

Have a great week everyone!

Obama is more Dangerous than Bush

Thomas Hegghammer June 29, 2009

This is the title of the main story in the July issue of al-Sumud, the Arabic-language magazine of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The 56-page magazine has several articles devoted to Obama and the Cairo speech, and the front page features a particularly unflattering picture of the US president. But it is the lead article which I find the most interesting, because it confirms that jihadis feel threatened by Obama in their fight for Muslim hearts and minds.

The two-page article (pp-18-19) is written by the Saudi sheikh Abd al-Aziz al-Julayyil and is actually taken from the latter’s website, which says the text was written on 17 May 2009.

Al-Julayyil starts off by saying he was motivated to write this article after observing a lot of optimism among Muslims over the arrival of the new US administration. He says he realises  many will react to the headline, for how can the Satanic Bush, who invaded Muslim countries and whose planes and tanks killed Muslim children, be less dangerous than Obama, who has declared he is not at war with Islam?

The first reason, he writes, is that Bush’s follies actually benefited Muslims by inflicting significant damage to America. The most important fruit of Bush’s policies was the wake-up call it produced among Muslims in terms of realising the true nature of their enemy, reviving the creed of loyalty toward Muslims and dissociation from infidels, and raising the flag of jihad in several battlefields. Another benefit of the Bush era was the infamy suffered by America on the world stage and the demise of its false discourse on human rights; in the world’s eyes America itself became a proponent of oppression and a threat to human rights. Add to this the American economic and military decline.

All this happened because God duped Bush and made him act in the interest of Muslims. When the Americans realised what was going on, they tried to address their mistakes and improve their image. So they brought Obama, with his sly policies and his attempts to deceive the world, especially the Muslim world, with his professed love for peace and criticism of the policies of his predecessor. And many Muslims were duped by his sweet-talk and pinned their hopes on this man to lift the oppression from them. This is extremely dangerous, al-Julayyil argues, because it is weakening their enmity toward America and makes them more positively inclined toward her future policies. It is numbing them, reducing their hatred toward infidels, and making them stop fighting. There is great danger here for the creed of loyalty and dissociation (al-wala’ wa’l-bara’). The improvement of America’s image is not in the interest of Muslims; rather it is in their interest that the decline continue and that the drivers of [America’s] destruction and fragmentation multiply.

Second, American policies will not change. It is a mistake to believe that a single individual can change US policy, because it is institutionalised, with its own targets, centres and planners. Bush and Obama are two faces of the same coin.

Third, the only thing that has changed in America are the methods employed to getting to the same old ends. The American-Crusader aggression against Muslim countries and the support for the Jewish state has not changed since Obama took office. Meanwhile, Obama has been in the media cajoling the Muslim world. He has denounced the use of banned weapons against civilians in Gaza massacre, yet he originally gave them these weapons; he has declared before AIPAC that Jerusalem is the eternal and united capital of Israel; he has stepped up the missile campaign against civilians in Pakistan; and increased troop levels in Afghanistan. So what compassion does this infidel criminal declare with these acts and intentions?

Al-Julayyil concludes: So beware of this cunning Satan, for he is more dangerous than the foolish Satan.

The author of this article is not a pro-Obama campaigner, but a hardline Saudi sheikh who has spent time in prison for his anti-American views and association with people like Nasir al-Fahd. At the same time, the view expressed in the article is not a completely marginal one, as evidenced by the responses on al-Julayyil’s website.

There are some interesting things to say about al-Julayyil and his recent activities, but I will save that for my next post.

Weekend Trivia

Thomas Hegghammer June 19, 2009

British soldiers found an Aston Villa tattoo on the body of a dead Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, British newspapers reported earlier this week. Of course, for Birmingham City supporters, this is reason enough to deploy nuclear weapons against the Taliban. It’s more unclear what this means for Taliban-al-Qaida relations, given that Bin Ladin is an Arsenal supporter. Jihadica is on the ball and will report any soccer-related chatter on the forums.

Jihadists have been more interested in fashion this week, with forum participants discussing the “Infidel” fashion label at length. I knew this stuff existed, but I didn’t realise quite how much there is. Some introspective forum participants got the irony and likened the phenomenon to jihadists embracing the label “terrorist”. Others saw it as a sign of the apocalypse. But most didn’t know what to make of it.

Thanks to Cecilie and Brynjar for the links. Have a great weekend.

PS The Arsenal story is nonsense, as are many of the claims in Adam Robertson’s book.

Are the Uzbeks Going Global?

Einar Wigen June 17, 2009

[Editor’s note: I am thrilled to introduce Einar Wigen, author of the recent FFI report on the IJU, as a guest contributor. Einar interned at FFI last summer and is currently a a student fellow at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI). A fluent Turkish speaker, Einar specialises in jihadism among the Turkics. Not many people produce world-class research as summer interns, so this guy is really someone to look out for in the future.]



The Turkic peoples have until now played a fairly peripheral role in global jihadism. They have not attracted much academic attention, and apart from the 2003 Istanbul bombings and the 2008 American Consulate attacks, operations carried out by Turkics have gained little attention. The Waziristan-based group Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) seems to be trying to change this (as Jihadica has suggested before).

The IJU broke off from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 2001, and went for a while under the name Islamic Jihad Group. When the name changed in 2005, the group also assumed a new strategy, one that looked beyond Uzbekistan and focused more on global issues. This may also have involved a merger with other groups, as indicated in the “Union”. What binds the group together appears to be language, and it is primarily made up of Turkic-speaking members.

The number of IJU fighters has been estimated at between 100 and 200, the bulk of which comprises Uzbeks, who remain relatively anonymous compared to the Turks and Germans arriving in the camps. This makes it much smaller than the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which operates in nearby Southern Waziristan and is hosted by Baitullah Mahsud.

Although smaller than the IMU, the IJU maintains a higher profile through its use of the website Şehadet Zamanı. It is unclear whether this website is run by the IJU itself, or by a sympathiser with privileged access to the group. The website is in Turkish and presents news on the group’s operations and on other issues relating to Jihad. It is the most important of the Turkish jihadi websites, and is frequently referred to on other forums and jihadi websites.

The IJU is based in Mir Ali in North Waziristan, where it is hosted by the influential tribal leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. Until the latter was killed in an American drone attack in January 2008, the group was in contact with the centrally placed Libyan al-Qaida member Abu Laith al-Libi. Abu Laith seems to have exerted considerable influence over the group, seemingly pushing it to take its struggle beyond Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

The group’s best known plot was the Sauerland Cell’s planned attack in September 2007. The group was led by a German convert called Fritz Gelowicz and consisted of at least one more German and two German Turks. The plan was to attack the Uzbek and the American Consulates and the Rammstein Airbase in Germany with hydrogen peroxide bombs, each equivalent of about 250kg of dynamite. The trial against the cell is still going on, and the four main suspects have pleaded guilty.

The Sauerland Cell was trained by the IJU in Waziristan, and while in Germany it was in contact with the IJU via email. Since the attack became known, more German recruits have turned up in the IJU’s camps. In March 2008, Germany got its first suicide bomber when the Bavarian Turk, Cüneyt Çiftçi, blew himself up at an American base in Afghanistan. Another German in the IJU is the convert Eric Breininger, who has become something of a celebrity on the IJU’s webpages. He has made several appearances in videos. In his rhetoric, Germany should expect attacks because of its close cooperation with Uzbekistan and for its involvement in Afghanistan. Breininger’s picture now hangs at every point of entry to the EU, and publicly at all German airports. It was long speculated that he may become a suicide bomber, but that has not happened so far.

Through its use of the Şehadet Zamanı website the IJU is becoming a hub in the Turkic network of jihadists. The spokes go to Germany, Turkey and obviously also to Uzbekistan. Such a development would seem to give al-Qaida a foothold among radicals of the Turkic peoples.

Taliban’s View of the Upcoming Elections

Anne Stenersen May 5, 2009

Afghanistan’s next presidential elections have been scheduled for 20 August 2009, and Taliban’s media committee has already started its campaign. That is, a campaign to discredit the election process and defame its candidates. President Karzai is the most popular target, but the others are also starting to receive their portion of insults. This is of course in line with Taliban’s broader media campaign, described in detail in this International Crisis Group report.

The headlines in last months’ issues of al-Sumud are telling enough: The March issue featured an article entitled “The coming presidential elections, or an agreement to sell Afghanistan to the occupiers?” The May issue followed suit with a similar rhetorical question: “Will the replacement of Karzai with another agent solve the Afghan problem?” In both articles, the line of argumentation is simple: As long as foreign troops are present in Afghanistan, there can never be free and fair elections. The outcome is controlled by the Americans, and whoever will be elected will act as a US “puppet” just like his predecessor.

According to the Taliban, the solution is equally simple: Expel the “occupiers” first, and talk politics later. For those who have followed Taliban’s official propaganda this is not very surprising. Ever since the start of the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s leadership has, at least officially, consistently refused to make any kind of compromises with the Afghan regime, let alone taking part in the democratic process.

It remains to be seen whether and how these signals from the Taliban leadership will translate into actual action on the ground. The above-mentioned articles do not contain any details in this regard. In general, the aim of Taliban’s propaganda is not to discuss or suggest effective strategies to defeat the enemy, but rather, to project a worldview where Taliban’s victory is already seen as inevitable.

But the “war of words” is one thing, the war on the ground is a different matter.

Document (Arabic): 03-03-09-sumud33-al-intikhabat-al-riasiyya
Document (Arabic): 05-05-09-sumud35-hal-istibdal-karzai

 

Virtual safe havens and the war of ideas

Thomas Hegghammer March 31, 2009

Abu Muqawama has a great piece in the New Republic today. Given his very kind words for Will and myself, I am biased, but the article makes an extremely important point about the importance of virtual safe havens. Although I just posted and don’t really have the time to blog, I felt compelled to add a few thoughts.

There are at least two more reasons why there ought to be a virtual dimension to the new AfPak strategy. First, the Pashto and Urdu-language part of the jihadi cyberspace is growing rapidly, and very few people are keeping track of it. Those who do rarely know the Arabic sites and vice-versa. No analyst I know has enough Arabic and Pashto to connect the dots (except Mustafa Abu al-Yazid).

Second, the Internet infrastructure in Afghanistan and Pakistan is relatively poorly developed compared to the Arab world. This is very worrying, because it means that there is a huge untapped propaganda resource which will be exploited as the local infrastructure inevitably develops. This is unlike in much of the Arab world, where the Internet’s potential has been largely taken out by the local jihadi groups. We are seeing the signs of this trend in the spread, on the ground, of semi-virtual propaganda such as DVDs etc – see this brilliant ICG report for details.

Having said this, in the overall “war of ideas” we must realise the limits of the Internet and other media, because at the end of the day they are just that: media. In the debate about Abu Muqawama’s article, “MK” is spot on when he asks: “What exactly are we going to use for the substance of our digital message if we don’t actually try to deal with some of the real-world problems that render the jihadist narrative plausible or appealing?”

I couldn’t agree more. For several years people in Washington have been discussing public diplomacy in the misguided belief that it is somehow enough to tinker with the form and distribution techniques of “our message” to win the war of ideas. The elephant in the room (or in the Beltway) is that the war of ideas has to be waged on substance.

It is very simple: 1) Say and do things on Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir that make Muslims feel less geopolitically deprived and humiliated. 2) Be nice to the locals in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and broadcast your good deeds, 3) Point out where the jihadis are wrong on substance, and 4) Let mainstream Muslim clerics take care of the theology.

In the meantime we can and should do things to limit the Internet’s effectiveness as a propaganda tool, but at the end of the day the Internet is just the messenger.

Update: Tim Stevens has an excellent in-depth post on this topic and Abu Muqawama has added further remarks.

Update 2: Tim reposted an extremely interesting DoD-sponsored study of safe havens relevant to the discussion. I should of course also mention Mike Innes’ book on safe havens – the only one on the subject as far as I know. His take on Abu Muqawama’s article is here (sorry for the delay).

Magazine Update

Thomas Hegghammer February 12, 2009

It has been a good week for jihadi magazine buffs. There are new issues of Qadaya Jihadiyya and Tala‘i Khurasan, as well as two brand new magazines, Sawt al-Qawqaliz (sic) and Markaz Ansar al-I‘lam.

The newcomers are not particularly impressive and I do not expect them to last long in the fiercely competitive world of jihadi media. Sawt al-Qawqaliz seems intended as a mouthpiece for the Caucasus Emirate, and it is clearly the work of non-native Arabic speakers, for the language is full or errors and low on idiom. Incidentally, I cannot figure out what “Qawqaliz” is supposed to mean (suggestions anyone?). It could simply be a misspelling of Qawqaz, but how could they get the very name of the magazine wrong? In terms of content, the 24-page publication is almost entirely focused on Caucasian issues and does not even mention Gaza. The Shabab of Somalia are the only outsiders to receive a mention, though only at the very end. The PDF file is clumsily assembled and reads from the bottom upwards.

The 21-page Markaz Ansar al-I‘lam is more difficult to place geographically and the editors claim independence “from any organization, foundation or media front”. But there is very little original material here. It is basically a cut-and-paste job with old articles from the jihadi Internet and the mainstream press. Articles by a “young man from Gaza” and by Abd al-Bari Atwan give the magazine a certain Palestinian focus, but that is not surprising given the current political climate.

The fifth issue of Qadaya Jihadiyya is considerably more impressive than the newcomers. With its high-quality photos and witty editorial style, this is the Vogue Magazine of jihadi media. QJ is affiliated with the al-Yaqin media center, but it is not easy to place geographically. My guess is that the editors are based somewhere in the Levant, but it’s just a guess. The latest 21-page issue is devoted to Gaza and has an interesting strategic study which concludes that there was no clear winner in the latest war, but the final outcome will be decided by the next Palestinian elections. If Hamas gains political ground vis a vis Abu Mazen, Israel’s strategy will have failed.

The thirteenth issue of Tala‘i Khurasan is also well produced, and with its 90 pages it is one of the chunkier publications on the market. As its name suggests, it is produced by Arabs in Afghanistan, and it has several high-profile contributors, such as Sheikh Atiyat Allah, Mustafa Abu Yazid and Abu Yahya al-Libi. As such, it is perhaps the jihadi magazine with the closest links to al-Qaida Central, although not to Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri. Interestingly, this issue does not have much material on Gaza. The cover story is a very interesting strategic study of the impact of 9/11 on Pakistan, and the rest of the magazine is devoted to either general jihadi culture or to Afghanistan-related developments. It is possible that most of the magazine was assembled before the Gaza debacle. The last issue came in October 2008, and many of the field reports in the current issue date from August and September 2008.

Here are the tables of contents:

Sawt al-Qawqaliz
•    Commander Dawud: “This year was a successful one for us”
•    A word from the Chechen leader Dokka Umarov on the establishment of the Caucasus Emirate
•    Shaykh Sa‘id Buryatski: “How I went out for jihad and what I saw in the Caucasus”
•    Yudugov: “The key to security in south Caucasus is hidden in the north Caucasus”
•    The infidels crushed … because of the union of the Muslims in the Caucasus
•    Commander Hussain:  All the Mujahidin received the decision by Commander Dokka on the Qawqaz Emirate with great joy
•    Experiences of brother Abu Umran
•    Letter from the Chechen leader martyr Abd al-Halim Saidulayev on the preparation to announce an Islamic state
•    Kazbak, the “Lion of Cherkessia”
•    The freedom of Chechnya is a matter of time
•    Everything starts with the small things
•    Students of Daghestan want a life governed by Sharia
•    When Muslims leave jihad, God punishes us.
•    The theory of the unity of religions is a notion of infidelity, atheism and heresy
•    The Emirate’s agency obtains recording of the collaboration of Zakayev with the infidel Russians
•    Martyrdom of Commander Walid in Ingushetia
•    Greetings to the Shabab in Somalia

Markaz Ansar al-I‘lam
•    The bedouin and politics
•    When victory is slow (Sayyid Qutb)
•    And the martyrs are taken from you (Hussain bin Mahmud)
•    Memoirs of a young man from Gaza
•    The smuggling will continue until its targets are reached (Abd al-Bari Atwan)
•    The Pakistani Taliban
•    The raid of love for the Prophet
•    The power is in firing (Abu Umar al-Kurdi)
•    Memories of the assassination of the martyr leader Khattab

Qadaya Jihadiyya
•    Gaza under Zionist siege and anti-Islamic silence (Suhayb al-Ghazzawi)
•    To the honourable scholars of the Muslim nation (Abu Abdallah al-Shafi‘i)
•    The Battle of Gaza: Who wins and who loses (Khalid Abd al-Rahman al-Nubi)
•    Palestine between the diplomacy of Hamas and the viciousness of the Arab regimes (Muadh al-Khuwsti)
•    Gaza facing a war more dangerous than the military one (Abu Taha al-Miqdad)

Tala‘i Khurasan
•    The impact of 9/11 on the crusader assault and the internal Pakistani front (Husam Abd al-Ra’uf)
•    Spend at your leisure (Sheikh Atiyat Allah)
•    Divine directions (Mustafa Abu Yazid)
•    Al-Zarqawi and the speech of memories (Abu Ubayda al-Maqdisi)
•    In the shadow of the quranic verse (Sheikh Mansur al-Shami)
•    Signs of victory emerging in Afghanistan (Sheikh Abdallah Sa‘id)
•    Field reports
•    The Ansar (Shakir Allah al-Kuwaiti)
•    Frostbite (Dr. Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Makki )
•    Witticisms from literary books (Ja‘far al-Tayyar)
•    Messengers of Destinies (Abu Ubayda al-Maqdisi)
•    Mother of believers Khadija bint Khuwaylid (Atiyat Allah Abu Abd al-Rahman)
•    If I were Bin Ladin I would declare it: The success of the strategy – part 1 of 2 (Abu al-Futuh al-Maghribi)
•    Abu Abdallah al-Shami: Journey of martyrdom (Abu Yahya al-Libi)
•    Reviving the hope – and how sweet the feeling of hope (Mujahid)

Document (Arabic): 02-02-09-faloja-sawt-al-qawqaliz-1
Document (Arabic): 02-08-09-faloja-ansar-al-ilam-1
Document (Arabic): 02-07-09-faloja-qadaya-jihadiya-5
Document (Arabic): 02-11-09-faloja-talai-khurasan-13

A Unified Strategy towards Germany?

Anne Stenersen February 2, 2009

Over the past few months, several German-speaking jihadists have appeared in propaganda videos emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bekkay Harrach (aka Abu Talha al-Almani), who was recently featured in a production by al-Qaida’s official media arm al-Sahab, is only the most recent example. As described in this article, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and its offshoot, the Islamic Jihadi Union (IJU), also boast Germans in their ranks, and have actively used them in their media productions. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber, believed to be from the Taliban, attacked the German embassy in Kabul on 17 January 2009. All of this has been interpreted  as a sign that Germany is being targeted by al-Qaida.

The German focus is indeed intriguing. But what I find even more interesting are the differences between these productions and what they tell us about the landscape of jihadi groups in Afghanistan. Too often, groups like al-Qaida, IMU and IJU are looked upon as one and the same organization. There are certainly links and cooperation. But do they, in fact have a unified strategy against, let’s say, Germany?

Let us start with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, believed to be led by the Uzbek Tahir Yuldashev, a long-time affiliate of Osama bin Laden. A video produced by Jundullah (a media company associated with the IMU) dated September 2008 features several German-speaking jihadists (see English transcript here). They address German-speaking Muslims and urge them to come and fight in Afghanistan. One of the speakers encourages potential recruits to bring their families along, pointing out that “this has become a very family-friendly place”, with possibilities to live ”far away from the front” and with ”hospitals, pharmacies, doctors, and schools”. They do not, however, lash out against the German government or threaten with attacks inside Germany. Rather, the message is more in line with Abdallah Azzam-style “classical jihadism” where Muslims are encouraged to go and fight directly in the “occupied” Muslim lands, in this case Afghanistan.

This is in contrast to the propaganda produced by the Islamic Jihad Union, a group thought to have split from the IMU in 2002, and established itself under the protection of the Haqqani network in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The IJU claims to have several German members, and has been targeting Germany for a while now, both through propaganda and also with operations. In an IJU production from October 2008 entitled “A Call from Hindukush”, the German convert Eric Breininger (aka Abdulgaffar al-Almani) states that Germany’s policies towards Muslims, including its military engagement in Afghanistan, is “increasing the risk of attacks on German soil”. He also encourages the German people to ”approach their own government if they want to be spared from the attacks of Muslims in Germany”. Unlike the IMU, the Islamic Jihad Union has also shown a willingness and capability to actually support terrorist attacks in Europe. Last year the group was linked to the so-called Sauerland cell, whose members were arrested in the fall of 2007 suspected of planning attacks against targets in Germany. The IJU even took responsibility for the failed operation in Germany (see the article by Petter Nesser in this issue of the CTC Sentinel).

IJU’s local hosts, the Haqqani network, do not seem to share their foreign guests’ interest in targeting Europe. Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of the top commanders in the network, stated in an interview with the Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yousufzai in August 2008 that ”we are busy in our own war here in Afghanistan and it is not our policy to attack or carry out acts of sabotage in other countries”. They seem to have so far turned a blind eye to IJU’s international activities, possibly because the IJU are also active supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan (including an attack against a US guard post in March 2008 carried out by the Turkish-German jihadist Cueneyt Ciftci, described as “Germany’s first suicide bomber”). In combining international terrorism with local guerrilla warfare, the IJU’s approach is similar to that of the rest of the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan.

Finally, it has been reported that a German citizen named Bekkay Harrach (31) has risen to high ranks within “al-Qaida Central”. The news emerged after Harrach appeared in a propaganda video entitled “Rescue Package for Germany”. Harrach’s words largely echoed those of the abovementioned Eric Breininger. Harrach warned that if Germany continues its military engagement in Afghanistan, it will not “get away with it for free”, and therefore, the German people should “stand up and be reasonable” in the September 2009 Parliamentary elections. In other words: vote for someone who will pull the German troops out of Afghanistan, or face the consequences. It is not the first time that al-Qaida has threatened European countries engaged in Afghanistan, or encouraged Europeans to put pressure on their governments (see for example this bin Laden message from 2004, or this one from 2007). It is, however, the first time al-Sahab has tailored a message specifically to Germans. By using a German citizen to address Germans, al-Sahab strengthens the image of al-Qaida as a truly global organization. As we know, al-Qaida already has an American convert in their ranks: Adam Gadahn (aka Azzam al-Amriki), who has been featured in several al-Sahab productions.

However, the differences in IMU’s propaganda on the one hand, and that of IJU and al-Qaida on the other, seem to indicate that there is still no unified strategy among al-Qaida and their affiliates with regards to how to target Germany and other coalition members. The legality of targeting German troops inside Afghanistan, on the other hand, seems to be undisputed.

Document (English): 01-12-09-imu-video

Document (Turkish): 10-21-08-call-from-hindukush

Document (Arabic): 01-19-09-rescue-package-for-germany

For two other reports on the IJU, see Ronald Sandee, “The Islamic Jihad Union” , and Guido Steinberg, “A Turkish al-Qaeda: The Islamic Jihad Union and the Internationalization of Uzbek Jihadism”

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