ji·had·ica

Abu al-Qassam: Zarqawi’s right-hand man who stayed loyal to al-Qaida

Tore Hamming November 20, 2017

Everywhere Abu Musab al-Zarqawi went, Abu al-Qassam was with him. Even to prison. Abu al-Qassam was al-Zarqawi’s childhood friend, later his companion and finally his deputy. After spending more than 10 years in Iranian captivity, he was released in March 2015, but despite the Islamic State claiming to be the heirs of al-Zarqawi, it is now with al-Qaida that Abu al-Qassam’s loyalty lies.

Originally from Ramallah, Abu al-Qassam grew up in Zarqa, just north of Jordan’s capital Amman. It was here, in one of the city’s mosques – most likely al-Hussein bin Ali Mosque – that he one day as a young man met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who eventually would become the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq, the Islamic State’s predecessor. The two would go on to become close, even family.

He was born as Khalid Mustafa Khalifa al-Aruri in 1967, but it was as Abu al-Qassam or Abu Ashraf that he eventually became known in Jihadi circles. Little is known about his early years and the information available is conflicting. One story is that he worked for a Saudi organization, the IIRO, in 1991 before returning to Zarqa a year later. Perhaps it was then that he stumbled upon al-Zarqawi, one year his senior and who was back from Afghanistan after his first battlefield experience. Another account is that he in fact joined al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan. In any case, from 1993 the two were inseparable.

Like al-Zarqawi, Abu al-Qassam was imprisoned in Jordan on 29 March 1994 until March 1999 (another account is that Abu al-Qassam was released early as there was not enough evidence against him) in the ‘Bay‘at al-Imam’ case, referring to the group al-Zarqawi had established upon his return together with his mentor Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. As soon as they were released, however, it was not long before the two young Jordanians left for Afghanistan for a second time.

Zarqawi’s companion, deputy and brother-in-law

Upon arrival in Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi was approached by the senior al-Qaida member Saif al-Adl, who saw a great potential in the Jordanian. Al-Adl immediately wanted to start cooperation with al-Zarqawi, through logistical assistance and funding, but al-Zarqawi needed time to think it over. He had to consult with Abu al-Qassam. Some days later, Abu al-Qassam and Abdul Hadi Daghlas, Zarqawi’s other close companion, gave their blessing to Saif al-Adl’s proposal and from then on al-Qaida started to finance and support al-Zarqawi’s camp in Herat in western Afghanistan.

It was in Afghanistan at the camp in Herat that Abu al-Qassam married al-Zarqawi’s sister and assisted his emir in establishing a small Jihadi community, a mini society, that would lay the foundation for what is today known as the Islamic State. Abu al-Qassam not only acted as al-Zarqawi’s deputy but was also a commander at the camp. The two were so close that al-Maqdisi allegedly described Abu al-Qassam as al-Zarqawi’s shadow – everywhere he went, Abu al-Qassam went too.

The strikes against the US on 9/11 would eventually change that, however. In the aftermath of the attack, al-Zarqawi and his entourage were forced to flee in November 2001 as it became impossible to remain at the camp after the US invasion. But first the Jordanians had to go on a strenuous three-day trip to Kandahar to attend a meeting of high-ranking Jihadis that nearly cost their lives as the Americans bombed the building where the meeting was taking place. After intense battle in Kandahar and later in Tora Bora, al-Zarqawi’s group was forced to leave for Iran and it is likely that Abu al-Qassam was part of the group traveling to Iran at this point.

Whether Abu al-Qassam stayed on in Iran or followed al-Zarqawi to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002 remains unknown, but it has been reported that he served as al-Zarqawi’s key liaison with Ansar al-Islam, the al-Qaida-affiliated group in Kurdistan that assisted with the relocation of al-Zarqawi’s group to Iraq. This work, however, probably took place in Iran and not in Kurdistan. Reportedly, Abu al-Qassam participated in an important meeting with people close to Mullah Krekar in August 2003 in Tehran, where it was agreed to set up training camps in Kurdistan. Interestingly, a Moroccan investigation into the March 2003 bombings in Casablanca claimed that Abu al-Qassam had helped finance the attack, thus indicating a role in the Iraq-based group’s external operations as well.

Abu Al Qassam

As is now well-known, the Iranian authorities were rather accommodating of Jihadi activities in their country and this was also the case with al-Zarqawi’s group, but for some reason this would suddenly change. Iranian police entered several hotels in Tehran, where al-Zarqawi’s people were known to reside, and it is likely that Abu al-Qassam was arrested as part of this crack down.

In Iranian prison, or house arrest, Abu al-Qassam would meet several familiar faces, among them Saif al-Adl, who had been responsible for the liaison between al-Qaida and al-Zarqawi’s group in Afghanistan. Several other senior al-Qaida figures and members of Usama bin Laden’s family were also in Iranian captivity.

Relocating to Syria

Abu al-Qassam spent approximately 12 years in prison before being released in March 2015 as part of a prisoner exchange deal. Besides Abu al-Qassam, four senior al-Qaida members were released, namely Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Saif al-Adl and Sari Shihab. Initially there was doubt over the location of the five senior figures and even over how engaged they remained after so many years in prison. Al-Zarqawi’s death in 2006, while Abu al-Qassam was imprisoned, only raised questions regarding his dedication to Jihad. On several occasions, it was reported that the released al-Qaida senior members had relocated to Syria at the directive of Ayman al-Zawahiri to support Jabhat al-Nusra and the so-called Khorasan group. We now know that these reports were only partly true.

The first rumours surrounding Abu al-Qassam emerged in September 2015, saying that he had been chosen to lead a new al-Qaida group in Iraq (see here and here). This, however, was not correct and it is unlikely that Abu al-Qassam stayed long in Iraq if at all. Instead, we know that Abu al-Qassam relocated to northern Syria, but when exactly is unclear. A Jabhat al-Nusra supporter disclosed in September 2015 that a senior member released from Iranian house arrest had arrived in Syria on the orders to al-Zawahiri, but whether it was Abu al-Qassam or Abu al-Khayr is still a mystery.

Abu al-Qassam’s first appearance in Syria was reported in December 2015. This was at the same time as high-ranking Jabhat al-Nusra leaders Sami al-Uraydi and Iyad al-Tubaysi (aka Abu Julaybib) relocated from southern Syria to the north, possibly to meet up with Abu al-Qassam. According to al-Maqdisi, Abu al-Qassam joined the Coordination Committee in Syria (lajnat al-mutaba’a fi-l-Sham), which allegedly was responsible for the link between al-Qaida and its Syrian affiliate, although not under direct supervision of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

It would take some time before Abu al-Qassam himself would confirm his presence in Syria, but that he did in early 2017 in an eulogy for Abu al-Khayr, al-Qaida’s deputy and his longtime friend from their time in Iran. In his statement, Abu al-Qassam praises his fallen friend, extends his blessings to al-Zawahiri and promises to work to keep the Syrian Jihad on the right path.

Abu al-Qassam is arguably a man of action rather than of writing. His closeness to Zarqawi could testify to that, but we can also take Abu al-Qassam at his word. He begins several of his writings by saying that he is not at ease with a pen in his hand and unlike many of his Jihadi colleagues not a fan of writing on the internet. That said, since the beginning of 2017 – and corresponding with Abu al-Khayr’s death – Abu al-Qassam has become increasingly active.

In May, in a brief analysis of the situation in Syria authored together with his friend Sami al-Uraydi (who posts Abu al-Qassam’s statements on his Telegram channel), Abu al-Qassam outlined the role of Iran, Russia and Turkey in Syria, noting that Turkey is broadening its influence in Idlib and that the mujahideen needs to adapt to the situation. The best way of fighting the enemy, he claimed, is to initiate a guerilla war, which he defines as the next stage (al-marhala al-muqbila) in the struggle. Uraydi, also a Jordanian, added that the Jihadis in Syria are critically affected by the ongoing confusion, referring to the Jihadi infighting and the split with al-Qaida, and emphasizes that this has to be resolved immediately.

The following month, Abu al-Qassam was forced to his keyboard once again. The war of words between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra and Jabhat Fath al-Sham, and his good friend and senior ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi were threatening the bond with al-Qaida sympathizers in Syria. Abu al-Qassam’s intervention, in which he argued that problems should be solved and not allowed to escalate and that al-Maqdisi should be respected despite one’s disagreement with him, was – as he promised Abu al-Khayr – an effort to safeguard al-Qaida’s Jihadi project in Syria.

Loyalty to al-Qaida

In early 2014, Abu al-Qassam was still imprisoned in Iran and could only witness the split between al-Qaida and the Islamic State and the ensuing fragmentation within the Jihadi environment from a distance. Ever since the rupture, the Islamic State has emphasized its ‘lineage’ from al-Zarqawi as a way to capitalize on his authority and legacy. According to the Islamic State itself, it is different from al-Qaida as it continued in the footsteps of its founder al-Zarqawi (and Usama bin Laden) while al-Qaida deviated after al-Zawahiri assumed control. Thus the Islamic State, and not al-Qaida, is the Zarqawist side in the intra-Jihadi civil war.

Is it surprising, then, that al-Zarqawi’s most loyal remaining companion chose to ally himself with al-Qaida and not the Islamic State after his release from prison? Initially it could be questioned whether Abu al-Qassam was still devoted to Jihad, and if so what group he remained loyal. This is no longer the case, however, as his recent involvement in the debate over the split between al-Qaida and its Syrian affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham attests.

Both Abu al-Qassam’s own testimony and that of Sami al-Uraydi give the impression that he is indeed an active player on the Jihadi scene and that this loyalty is unequivocally with al-Qaida and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In his statement, Abu al-Qassam explains how he initially sanctioned Jabhat al-Nusra’s desire to split from al-Qaida, but later reversed after he became familiar with the position of two of al-Zawahiri’s deputies (Abu Muhammad al-Masri and Saif al-Adl). As is now well-known, Jabhat al-Nusra went ahead and separated from al-Qaida against the will of the group’s senior leaders. The testimonies provide valuable insights into the dealings with such issues within Jihadi groups and not least the role played by Abu al-Qassam, who participated in several of the meetings that were held prior to the decision.

Peace initiative

Of course, Abu al-Qassam’s closeness to al-Zarqawi and his later opposition to the Islamic State are not unique. Other people, such as Abu Julaybib, spent time in al-Zarqawi’s Herat camp and married one of al-Zarqawi’s sisters before eventually siding with Jabhat al-Nusra in its contest with the Islamic State. But the fact that Abu al-Qassam was Zarqawi’s very close friend and deputy, and now ranks as a senior al-Qaida member, can only be seen as a victory for al-Qaida.

While Abu al-Qassam’s exact role has not been revealed, it appears likely that he will try act as a unifying actor between the conflicting parties in the future. One recent example of such a role is his support to the scholarly peace initiative that was presented in late October, though so far this has produced no results.

 

Tore tweets at @torerhamming

The Caliphate’s Scholar-in-Arms

Cole Bunzel July 9, 2014

With the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, or Caliph Ibrahim, seeking to displace al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri as the leader of the global jihadi movement, a parallel displacement effort is taking place in the more recondite realm of jihadi ideology. The old guard of jihadi intellectuals—Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada al-Filastini, and Hani al-Siba‘i, among others—has come out unanimously against the Islamic State and its caliphal pretensions, denouncing the “organization” as hopelessly extremist and out of touch with reality. Their reproach has left a younger generation of pro-Islamic State jihadis no choice but to take up their mantle. One in particular, decrying his jihadi elders and their fierce opposition to his beloved caliphate, appears to be peerless in this effort. He is also the Islamic State’s most prominent and prolific resident scholar, based in Syria since at least February 2014.

Known previously to Jihadica readers by his pseudonym, Abu Humam al-Athari, this young ideologue from Bahrain now uses his given name, Turki al-Bin‘ali (@turky_albinali), or kunya, Abu Sufyan al-Sulami.

The Caliph’s cause

While few outside jihadi circles have probably heard of the young Turki al-Bin‘ali, the twenty-nine-year old Bahraini has played the role of ideological lodestar for the Islamic State since at least 2013. In April of last year, for instance, when Baghdadi announced the expansion of his emirate to Syria, it was Bin‘ali who penned the first monograph in support of his move. Entitled “Extend Your Hands to Give Bay‘a [loyalty] to Baghdadi,” it called on all Muslims in the vicinity of the Islamic State to pledge loyalty to its emir. Moreover, the work anticipated Baghdadi’s caliphate in no uncertain terms: “We ask God for the day to come when we will see our shaykh seated upon the throne of the caliphate!” In addition, Bin‘ali’s biography of Baghdadi, included in this tract, is the most frequently cited by jihadis; already in July of last year he had detailed the future caliph’s lineage going back to the Prophet Muhammad, establishing the crucial caliphal qualification of descent from the Prophet’s tribe.

More recently, at the end of April 2014, Bin‘ali authored another essay portending the Islamic State’s caliphate announcement of June 29, 2014 (Ramadan 1, 1435). In this work, on the permissibility of declaring the caliphate before the achievement of full political capability (al-tamkin al-kamil), Bin‘ali set forth the very legal arguments and scriptural evidence that the Islamic State’s official spokesman would use in his Ramadan announcement—most importantly, the gloss of Q. 24:55 by the Andalusian scholar Abu ‘Abdallah al-Qurtubi (d. 1275). Bin‘ali had identified the Islamic State as “the kernel of the anticipated, rightly guided caliphate.” “Doubtless,” he wrote, “the caliphate requires some measure of power, might, and political capability, and this is present in the Islamic State.” Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Bin‘ali’s former teacher, claims to have remarked upon hearing the title of his pupil’s work: “The announcement declaring their organization the caliphate must be imminent.”

From Bahrain, with jihad

According to a short biography written by one of his students, Turki ibn Mubarak al-Bin‘ali was born in September 1984 in Bahrain, where he began his religious education at an early age. At some point he moved to Dubai for higher education in Islamic studies, but was arrested and deported for jihadi inclinations. Thereafter he studied in Beirut and again in Bahrain. The biography mentions numerous other detentions, both within and without Bahrain, and the fact that the shaykh has been banned from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, and others.

The greater part of the work aims to inscribe Bin‘ali within the larger Salafi and smaller Jihadi-Salafi networks, detailing his studies with both quietest scholars like the Saudi ‘Abdallah ibn Jibrin (d. 2009) and Syrian Zuhayr al-Shawish (d. 2013) and jihadis like the Palestinian-Jordanian al-Maqdisi and Moroccan ‘Umar al-Haddushi. A whole other biography is dedicated solely to detailing these scholarly connections.

The most celebrated of these is by far Bin‘ali’s link with al-Maqdisi, the biggest-name jihadi scholar alive. While the details of their relationship are not given, the two scholars’ writings bear witness to what was once a profound mutual affinity and extensive collaboration. Bin‘ali has several books in defense and praise of al-Maqdisi, while the latter has returned the favor by certifying his student’s religious knowledge. Al-Maqdisi provided Bin‘ali with a general ijaza authorizing him to teach all of his works. As he wrote in 2009 in the introduction to one of Bin‘ali’s books, “I provided him with an ijaza to teach all of my books when I saw in him extraordinary passion and support for the religion, for God’s unity (tawhid), for jihad, and for the mujahidin. Such passion as this ought not to be met but with backing and support and encouragement. If a shaykh has the right to take pride in any of his students, I am proud of this beloved brother.” In terms of collaboration, when al-Maqdisi set up a Shari ‘a Council on his website in fall 2009, he appointed Bin‘ali one of its muftis. And according to Bin‘ali’s own testimony, al-Maqdisi made him his successor at the council’s helm, presumably when al-Maqdisi was in prison.

In most of his writings for al-Maqdisi’s website Bin‘ali has used the name Abu Human Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari. Only in April 2014 did he finally clarify the matter of his pseudonym, noting that he has used several others as well (including Abu Hudhayfa al-Bahrayni and Abu Hazm al-Salafi), all with the intention of hiding his true identity from the “tyrants and oppressors” of Arab states. As the Islamic State has gathered strength, Bin‘ali has dispensed with the aliases. According to press reports, he arrived in Syria in late February 2014, though he may have been living there even earlier.

In April Bin‘ali wrote that the Bahraini government was threatening to withdraw the citizenship of all Bahraini citizens fighting in Syria unless they return home within two weeks. His response was to compose a poem disparaging the very notion of citizenship, and vowing to stay on in the Islamic State. “Is it reasonable,” he asked, “that we would return, having arrived in the Sham of epic battles and warfare?… A land wherein the rule is Islam is my home; there is my dwelling and there do I belong.”

The Refuter

Bin‘ali’s signature public role for the Islamic State has been to refute its many enemies, his refutations being the most wide-ranging and most publicized of any Islamic State shar‘i (shari‘a specialist). The sharpening of the pen began in December of last year, just before the January 2014 uprising against the Islamic State in northern Syria led by fellow Islamist groups angry at its refusal to submit disputes to third-party arbitration. The accusation—which seems to have been fair—inspired a number of key Islamist and jihadi thinkers to incite their followers against the Islamic State, on the grounds that it refused to submit to God’s law. Bin‘ali, leading the charge against this allegation, argued that the Islamic State was a sovereign polity with courts and a legal system sufficient for such matters.

Between December 2013 and March 2014, Bin‘ali took aim at fellow jihadi ideologues like the Jordanian Iyad Qunaybi and Syrian Abu Basir al-Tartusi, at Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and at more mainstream Islamists like the Saudi-based ‘Adnan al-‘Ar‘ur and a member of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham’s Shura Council. In the period April-June 2014 he put even larger targets in his crosshairs, refuting al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and the two biggest-name jihadi ideologues, al-Maqdisi and the Palestinian Abu Qatada al-Filastini. It is his refutation of al-Maqdisi that is most significant.

Issued June 7 and entitled “My Former Shaykh,” this refutation is Bin‘ali’s last in a busy six-month period. It came in response to a long document published on al-Maqdisi’s website on May 26 detailing the many efforts of the senior shaykh to mediate between the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Maqdisi’s plan was to sponsor a reconciliation initiative that would involve a third-party arbiter, much like other initiatives being proposed by different shaykhs at the time. Bin‘ali acted as his intermediary with the Islamic State leadership, whom al-Maqdisi threatened with dire consequences should they fail to participate.

In the event, his message to the Islamic State went unheeded, and so the shaykh did as threatened. His statement on “the obligatory position” to be adopted toward the Islamic State was harsh, describing it as “deviating from the path of divine truth, being unjust to the mujahidin, following the road of extremism…refusing arbitration, declining reform, [and] disobeying the commands of its senior leaders and shaykhs.” This last comment concerns the Islamic State’s disputed status as a former al-Qaeda affiliate. In the document, al-Maqdisi follows al-Zawahiri in claiming that it was indeed an affiliate and thus obligated to obey its leaders’ commands.

What really piqued Bin‘ali was the insulting approach his former teacher had suddenly adopted toward him. Al-Maqdisi had included in this document long excerpts from emails between himself, Bin’ali, and the administrator of the website, and thrown occasional grammatical errors into Bin‘ali’s excerpted writing. In his discussion of the correspondence al-Maqdisi had furthermore referred disparagingly to his Bahraini pupil as the Islamic State’s “most vaunted mufti” or “most vaunted shar‘i.”

The content of Bin‘ali’s response is not worth examining in great detail. The main points of contention are the Islamic State’s stubbornness in refusing arbitration—which they both acknowledge—and its alleged insubordination against al-Qaeda—which they do not agree on. What is noteworthy is Bin‘ali’s authorship of such a refutation to begin with.

Rejecting seniority

In another statement from early May 2014, al-Maqdisi had written critically of younger jihadi shaykhs dismissing their elders, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Qatada al-Filastini. “Take heed of seniority,” he warned his juniors, accusing them of “wanting to stand upon the shoulders of our best and brightest and then discredit their intellects.” Indeed, just days before this statement was issued, Bin‘ali had written that age was a likely cause of Abu Qatada’s “confusion” surrounding the Islamic State.

Bin‘ali’s refutation of “my former shaykh” (shaykhi ‘l-asbaq) is in its very title a rejection of the idea of “seniority” (asbaqiyya). It represents the assured spirit of a younger generation of jihadis ready and willing to break with an established cadre of jihadi intellectuals and carve their own path. It also represents the assured spirit of Bin‘ali himself, who for years has disputed the notion that he is too young to be a religious authority. Visited in prison some six years ago in Bahrain by a Saudi religious official, who was shocked that a twenty-three-year old was issuing religious opinions, Bin‘ali retorted with an essay on the inadmissibility of age restrictions on such practice in Islam.

Whether Bin‘ali can succeed in leading this younger generation of pro-Islamic State jihadi thinkers is yet to be seen. For the moment he remains the closest thing that the caliphate has, after the caliph himself, to a big-name religious authority.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever? Part 2 The release of صليل الصوارم الرابع‬‏

Nico Prucha May 21, 2014

As we outlined in a brief analysis in our first post, Ali Fisher and I will head into a more deeper analysis of our findings regarding the release of “The Clanging of the Swords, part 4”. In the next posting we will discuss and analyse the most important accounts that we will introduce in this part.

We do stress, however, that the reader should keep in mind that one of the key phenoma of jihadi Twitter activism in Syria is that most users engaged online are using mainly mobile platforms. This accounts for people inside Syria as much as outside – the preferred device to interact and Tweets are devices running Android  followed by iPhone, as we had detailed in this graph in the last post. This shows that word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, but mainly mobile devices.

The video was also reflected upon on by sympathizers on tumblr, with users in one case posting a picture of the title of the video on a big flat screen while holding a Dutch labelled pop corn bag in front of the camera. This affirms the users claim to be “just one of your beloved brothers from The Netherlands.” Tumblr has become another social media outlet used by Jihadists in the past years. A pioneer short study on this phenomena – “Tumbling along the straight path” – was published by Rüdiger Lohlker, available here.

The effect of jihadi videos in the past years, due to their outreach and the popularity showcasing real men who act and stand up against frames of injustice is thus further highlighted – with the audience trying to actively particpate by the very least of expressing sympathy and spreading the word of the video by all of their means possible – and thus they consider themselves as a media-Mujahid. This is a role model not only sanctioned by senior jihadist ideologues, but also highly approved since the death of bin Laden.

Most Important Users

The information sharing about the video created a network of 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges, some users were mentioned frequently. The graph below shows the frequency prominent users were mentioned.

To extend the analysis of prominent members of the network we created a representation of the network sharing the video via Twitter. It contains 6,428 Twitter users and 19,601 edges. The network had an average path length of 5.7 and a diameter of 15.

 

From the visual representation it is evident that there are a number of different users that were prominent in different sections of the network. Rather than the majority of the network orbiting one of a few influential accounts, in a series of hub and spoke structures, this network has multiple interconnected hubs through which information flows in multiple directions. This creates a level or redundancy providing the network with a degree of resilience that allows information to continue to flow in the event that some Twitter accounts may be suspended. This is because the interconnected hubs provide a level of redundancy so there are a number of other pathways through which information can flow. As Paul Baran’s calculations showed, distributed communications systems need a relatively low level of redundancy for the majority of the network to maintain communication in the event of major network disruption.

Viewing the network map in greater detail can show which users communicated with each other, which reached the same communities, and which were a bridge to specific communities. For example, in the network representation nodes of the same colour are within the same interconnected community. This means they are more likely to interact with other members of that community than the rest of the network. These can be assessed in greater detail in the online version where connections between specific nodes can be examined.

Through a refinement of the network image, to show only those users who have at least one mutual connection – meaning they have mentioned someone who has also mentioned them, a core group of users becomes visible.

This network of mutual connections contains 165 Twitter accounts (2.5% of the total network) including all of the top twenty five most mentioned users and on average a node in this core group has slightly more than five connections to other accounts in this group. This means the network has a density of 0.031 – meaning 3% of all possible connections exist. This is sufficient to provide the network with a level of resilience.

Resilience in this context is shown by impact on the network of losing important nodes, in the form of account suspensions.

With the loss of the five most connected nodes (ranked by times mentioned by others) every remaining node would still be connected to this network, with only a slight reduction in graph density to 0.027.  Similarly, the removal of the five most important nodes (ranked by Pagerank) leaves the graph density unchanged at 0.031 and again, every remaining node would still be connected to the network.  This means that the current occasional account suspensions are unlikely to have any practical impact on the ability of users to share information.

The identification of key actors in the network can provide greater insight into the way information travelled. For example, this can differentiate between those users that are important for reaching specific communities, from those users that are part of the core of the network. This analysis is important as not all users are influential in the same way. For example some will be influential within the core of the network while others are important as they form a bridge to wider communities.

Position on the scatter plot below is based on two network metrics pagerank and betweenness. Size is the number of times the account was retweeted or mentioned. Nodes with the same colour are in the same statistical community. If you are viewing the online version of this graph, mouse over dots to show each label, controls in the bottom left corner allow the user to zoom in on specific area of the chart.

When viewing the chart:

• Users in the bottom left of the graph tend to have no particular role and can be thought of as general users, although they may have high value to an often small and very specific group.

• Those in the top left of the graph tend to be in the core (or one of the cores) of the network. This indicates they are often those most invested in the network and have access to privileged information.

• Those in the bottom right of the graph fulfil the role of bridging between the core content producers and a specific community. The value of this role often comes from tailoring information to a specific ‘audience’ and as such these users are more valuable to that group but less important to everyone else.

• Users in the top right are rare. They have a dual function, as they have the same trusted status as those in the top left of the graph. They also fulfil the same ‘bridge’ role as users in the bottom right of the graph, reaching areas of the network which others do not.

In the case of the network disseminating information about the release Sas 4 the pagerank scores are particularly low which backs the earlier visual observation that the network is dispersed and has multiple interconnected hubs. The graph shows that @Minbar_s,  @Aahat9, and @kwatem0 were important conduits for the spread of information to communities that other accounts could not reach. Conversely, @furkan_om and @MoTweetry were hubs which were a core part of the information sharing about this video. Most importantly, @ISIS_1111 was the single node that was able to fulfil both core and bridging functions simultaneously, with other accounts such as @AberatAlkarat_5 fulfilling a similar role to a lesser degree.

In addition to the roles users played in the network, the time at which they were influential is also an important aspect of the analysis. This is known as their engagement profile, the extent to which other twitter users engaged with them over a given time period.

Taking the top five most mentioned users in the network the engagement profiles shows that there were two periods of particularly intense activity. It also shows that different accounts were prominent at different times. For example, @wa3tasimu and @turky_albinali were prominent in the first peak but not the second, while @AL3gneg and @Minbar_S were prominent during the second peak.

 

This analysis demonstrates the need for counter-strategies to be agile as accounts become important at different times during the dissemination of content. In addition, it provides additional context to the key actor graph as @Minbar_s was an important conduit for information to a particular community, and the engagement profile shows that this role was likely to have been fulfilled later in period in which the video was being actively shared.

 

Interim Conclusions

 ·      Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies. 

·       The release of 4  صليل الصوارم was announced through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate indefinitely in spite of the current level of account suspensions.

o   On each platform there are clusters of mutually reinforcing accounts which create a level of resilience that allows jihadists to have a persistent presence on the platform.

·       The release of the 4 صليل الصوارم video highlights the multiplatform zeitgeist which has become a feature of the Jihadist social media phenomenon.

o   Accounts on one social media platform are used to reinforce the content on other social media platforms, creating mutually reinforcing connections across platforms. This means users could turn to Facebook or Google+ if a specific Twitter account is suspended to locate the replacement Twitter account. In reality most jihadists that take the propagation element of their activity seriously have back-up accounts already set up with users following their primary account directed to also follow the back-up in case of an account suspension. 

·       The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available. 

This is a network based challenge – identifying groups rather than individual accounts.

Is this the most successful release of a jihadist video ever?

Nico Prucha May 19, 2014

The release of the video Salil al-sawarim (SaS) by ISIS’s media department al-Furqan over the weekend demonstrated the sophistication of the jihadist use of social media to disseminate their video content. Al-Furqan’s sister department, al-I’tasimu had announced the release of the fourth instalment of Sas on Twitter on Saturday noon, March 17, 2014. A few hours later, it was published via al-I’tasimu’s high-profile Twitter account and the tier-one jihadist forums. The first three Salil al-sawarim videos had been very popular, high quality edited and showed a mix of extreme obscene violence and ideology at play.

This is the first part of the brief glimpse into the data collected on Twitter revolving around the  #صليل_الصوارم_الرابع Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha explore the data networks and outline in brief terms the ideological bearings at play. For a second post we will provide the readers with a more in depth analysis, outlining the context of this video in the jihadist virtual as well as the greater ideological cluster at play.

In the first twenty four hours after Sas (“The Clanging of the Swords”) was posted on YouTube the was viewed 56,998 times with an average user watching a little over 17 minutes of the hour long film. This means that collectively YouTube users spent the equivalent of 686 days watching this one video. It has subsequently been reposted a number of times on YouTube, and was published on other file sharing sites such as archive.org and links for download were broadcast via justpaste.it. It was published in different sizes and formats. A high-definition format, about one gigabyte in size, carries death and mayhem to the home and portable cinemas worldwide.

As of writing this post, the YouTube video has been viewed 124,704 times with 4,204 likes and 491 dislikes.

Delivering high levels of views in the first day after publication takes coordination across a range of social media channels. This briefing analyses that spread of information, and shows:

  • The volume of tweets about the video release.
  • An estimate of the size of the network which shared word of the video release.
  • The users most frequently mentioned in connection with the video.
  • The key actors in the Twitter network that allowed word of the video release to spread rapidly.
  • The platforms that users utilised to tweet.
  • The prominent languages used to spread word of the video release.

 

This shows:

  • Jihadist groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media and mobile technologies.
  • The release of the video on a Saturday may have been a deliberate strategy to pick the day when those employed to challenge or disrupt the propagation of information about the video were least likely to be available.
  • Information is shared through a resilient and dispersed network. This network has sufficient interconnection and redundancy to continue to operate despite the current level of account suspensions.

The video

In short the approximate one-hour long video is a mix of implementing ideological principles and executing framed enemies. The film starts with several ISIS Mujahideen who tear up their Kosovar passports and burn these. A ring leader outlines the principles of the true Islamic state citizenry in fluent Arabic – an element that was just recently broadcast in two al-Furqan videos where several international fighters tore up their passports to declare their identity and belonging to the Islamic State and not to some vassal or Crusader state entity. The opening of the video enforces the connection of Syria and Iraq: ISIS armed car convoys parading in cities such as Homs, Raqqa, switching to Fallujah where a drone, possibly an Parrot AR.Drone iPad controlled remote aircraft, is flown above the convoy, proving the audience with a 360 angle view of the city and the jihadi boots on the ground.

All operations in the video are allegedly in Iraq, in the notorious al-Anbar province, including the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah where the most severe attacks against the U.S. forces at the time occurred. Iraqi governmental officials are sought out at fake checkpoints and executed, off-duty soldiers are hunted down on the streets and killed for reasons varying from being an apostate of Sunni Islam to being a Shiite or of collaborating with the U.S. funded Sunni Sahwa councils at the time. ISIS, by these specific search-and-destroy missions claims to have insider information and conveys to the audience that all assassination operations are meticulously planned and carried out. Part of these cleansing operations include ISIS units searching the private houses of Iraqi governmental soldiers and officers, who often are visibly confused as ISIS dresses up just like legitimate governmental units. The surprised individuals are then tied up and shot, or beheaded, guilty based on TV-reports and uniforms etc. found in their house – a typical modus operandi often seen in this type of video.

Other parts of the video show how the element of repentance (tawba) is enforced on the local Sunni population of al-Anbar. This is a lesson learned that is already at play in Syria: why alienate the local Sunni people when they can be coerced into inclusion, forcing them to repent their former affiliation or sympathies with the local governments. ISIS gathered what appears to be several hundred men to mosques where preachers declare the Mujahideen are fighting for the Sunni people, demanding that those present dissociate themselves from worldly or Shiite rule etc. ISIS seeks to recruit and integrate by killing off individuals framed as responsible for grievances while empowering the ‘former victims’ by granting them forgiveness and a place among them.

 

Distribution

Word of the video release spread via Twitter with two distinct peaks in Tweeting. One peak occurred on the day of release (17th May) and a second during the following day (18th May).

Between the 17th May and 8am on the 19th May we observed a total of 32,313 tweets carrying the name of the video. There was an average of 807.825 tweets per hour, the median being 736.5.

Tweets contained a range of #tags in addition to the title of the video, the most common of which are shown below.

The first hash tag on the left is the Arabic reference to Salil_al-sawarim_four, followed by The_Islamic_State_in_Iraq_and al-Sham, and the al-Furqan Media department.

However, while all the prominent tags are in Arabic, not all the tweets were in Arabic. This demonstrates the reach of the video and shows that some multilingual users were proactively translating content allowing users to access the information in a range of languages.

Users were also using a range of different technologies through which to tweet but mobile technologies and particularly phones are dominant. The most common ways users tweeted about the video was an app on an Android mobile phone, (Twitter for Android) followed by an iPhone app, (Twitter for iPhone). The web and tablets are also important but to a lesser extent.

As the graph shows, word of the video on YouTube, and archive.org was spread using a range of different digital technologies, including mobile phones, desktop (web), and via other social media including Facebook. This last case emphasises the importance of understanding the jihadist social media phenomenon as a cross platform zeitgeist, as users were using Facebook to tweet about a video posted on YouTube.

The Iraq Connection

Thomas Hegghammer December 15, 2010

A key question in the Stockholm investigation is whether Taymour Abdalwahhab was acting on behalf of the al-Qaida linked group “Islamic State in Iraq”. The question matters because if he was, then ISI is targeting Europe and can be expected to send more bombers.

First, let me stress that “acting on behalf of” means someting more than simply “training with”. Given Taymour’s Iraqi background, his recent trips to Jordan (and possibly Syria), and his own claim of having been to the Middle East for jihad, we can pretty much assume that he trained with Islamist militants in Iraq. What we are trying to find out is whether he was dispatched by ISI – i.e. whether the plot was initiated, directed and resourced by senior ISI operatives – or whether he simply attended a camp and then acted independently, in a manner comparable to Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.

There is some concrete evidence in favour of Taimour having a close ISI connection:

  • The photomontage on the Hanain forum presenting Taymour as “One of the knights [fursan] of the Islamic State of Iraq”
  • Taymour’s reference to “the Islamic State” in his martyrdom will
  • Taymour’s reference, in the same will, to having been a mujahid for “four years”

There is also some circumstantial evidence:

  • ISI leader Abu Umar al-Baghadi’s September 2007 statement calling for attacks in Sweden as punishment for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
  • The past involvement of other Swedish Muslims in ISI and its predecessors (see Brian Fishman’s excellent piece for details)

A more debatable piece of evidence is the early identification of Taimour Abdalwahhab on the Shumukh forum by a writer using the alias “Abu Sulayman al-Nasir.” As Aaron, Ibn Siqilli and Garbi point out in the comments to my previous post, the alias bears a striking similarity to the name of ISI’s War Minister Abu Sulayman al-Nasir li-DIn Allah. Could they be the same person? Personally I am sceptical. It is extremely rare (though admittedly not unheard of) for senior activists to use their real names on forums. Moreover, Abu Sulayman the forum writer has also issued audio statements threatening NATO. Why would ISI’s War Minister issue “rogue” statements outside of ISI highly streamlined propaganda framework?

On the other hand there is weighty evidence against Taimour acting on behalf of ISI:

  • The absence of a claim of responsibility from ISI proper, despite ISI being perhaps the world’s largest producer of jihadi propaganda
  • The absence of a post-attack martyrdom video, which is what groups with media wings tend to produce
  • The near absence of past ISI-directed plots in Europe. AQI was admittedly linked to the 2007 Glasgow and London attacks but the nature of those links have never been elucidated. Why would ISI conduct its first (or one of its first) major European attack in Sweden? Why not use Taymour to strike in Britain, a country that actually participated in the Iraq invasion and the country in which Taymour resided?

Of course it is still early, and an ISI claim or video could appear any time. However, in the absence of such documents, I lean toward the view that Taymour trained with Islamist militants in Iraq, but  was not on an ISI-directed mission. I share Aaron’s view that the case most resembles that of Faisal Shahzad, who trained in Pakistan but did most of the planning and organization himself.

This does not preclude the possibility that Taymour had a handful of helpers, in Sweden and/or in Britain. On this note, there is an interesting report in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet quoting the previous owner of the bombing vehicle as saying Taymour came to buy the car together with another man. The other man was a bit shorter, aged 45-50 and did not say very much.

A number questions remain, notably:

  • Who is the mystery man who came to buy the car with Taymour?
  • Is there a second person coughing on Taymour’s audio recording?
  • Why did Taymour choose to attack in Sweden when he lived in the UK?
  • Is it a coincidence that Taymour lived three streets away from Muhammad Qayum Khan?
  • Where exactly in the Middle East did Taymour travel between 2006 and 2010?
  • If ISI trained him, why are they not taking some form of credit?
  • If Taymour left a written message for his wife two weeks before the bombing, why does his wife say she didn’t know anything?

 

[PS: I am still unable to print forum posts to PDF, but I will do so as soon as I can] 

Stockholm (2)

Thomas Hegghammer December 14, 2010

Forum readers woke up this morning to find Taimour’s picture on the top banner of Shumukh (the main jihadi forum). The banner advertises a poem by a certain “Sha’ir al-Ansar” (Poet of the Ansar) praising Taimour Abdalwahab. At first sight this might seem like the work of an accomplice, but the poet explicitly states that he did not know Taimour personally.

More interesting is the posting of a new audio message by a certain Abu Sulayman al-Nasir titled “Warning to NATO Countries Following the Stockholm Raid.” The message echoes an earlier statement by the same person issued on 20 November.

What’s interesting here is not so much the messages as the messenger, because Abu Sulayman al-Nasir is the same person who first mentioned Taimour Abdulwahhab’s name on Shumukh. This obviously raises the possibility that he has some connection to the Stockholm attack.

The problem is that the earliest public reference to Taimour’s name was made on 11 December at 10.24 pm on a non-Islamist Swedish forum, based on private pictures on the license plate of the bombing vehicle. Abu Sulayman al-Nasir’s Shumukh post mentioning Taimour’s name was published at around 6pm on 12 December, ie almost 20 hours after the name had entered the public sphere. Al-Nasir could therefore very well have found Taimour’s name on the web. 

In this connection it is worth noting that Shumukh has a LOT of readers in Sweden. Aaron recently posted traffic data for Shumukh for the month of November, according to which a full 3.6 percent of non-proxy IP addresses were based in Sweden. If you adjust for population size, this means Sweden had over 20 times as many Shumukh readers per 1000 inhabitants, and over 33 times as many readers per 1000 Muslims as the United Kingdom. This is admittedly back-of-the envelope calculations using on population data from Wikipedia, (here and here), but the proportions are striking.

As expected, the freelance jihadi media machinery has started churning out material glorifying the Stockholm bomber. In addition to the abovementioned poem, someone posted a Youtube production of Taimour’s martyrdom will, along with a cheesy photo montage with Taimour surrounded by lightning.

Mainstream media has also started digging into Taimour’s life in Luton, showing, among other things, that he was radicalised by at least 2007, when he revealed militant anti-Western views to an imam in a local mosque.

There is also a lot of interesting commentary in the blogoshpere, with Aaron at Haganah providing the most interesting information, as usual.  Anyone who doubts the radicalising influence of Youtube should take a look at Taimour’s Facebook profile, retrieved by Aaron. Taimour wallowed in jihadi Youtube videos.

On a final note, let me clarify my view on the question of Taimour’s associations, as some readers seem to have misinterpreted my earlier post. I do not believe Taimour was a pure lone wolf. What I am saying is that he was most likely either alone or helped by at most two people in the final stages of – i.e. last few weeks before – the attack. The point here is that I think the initiative for the operation came from Taimour himself; I don’t think he was instrumentalised by a large, established organization. There could be a couple of people in Sweden or in Luton who were directly involved, but I would be very surprised if Taimour took orders from AQ in Pakistan or from ISI in Iraq.

Moreover, I don’t believe Taimour radicalised in a complete vacuum; people almost never do, as I stressed in my Cadadian Senate testimony last week. Taimour, like most other homegrown militants, must have interacted with other people during his radicalization process, even if the interaction occurred mainly on the Internet or in very small social circles.

[PS: the reason I am not posting pdfs of the forum posts is that I am using a different computer this morning which doesn’t allow me to print Arabic fonts to pdf. I’ll post pdfs later this evening.]

Shishani on Salafi-Jihadism in the Levant

Scott Sanford July 2, 2009

On 29 June 2009, the Jordanian journalist Murad Batal al-Shishani published an article in al-Hayat titled “Salafi–Jihadism: A New Face in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria’s Palestinian Camps.” The article talks about the new generation of “neo-Zarqawis” and the increasing radicalization of Palestinian refugees. This radicalisation, he argues, stems from the failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli Conflict, the deterioration of the PLO and its control over the refugee camps, the political ramifications of the Fatah-Hamas conflict, and rising poverty and unemployment. Al-Shishani states that attacks such as the 2008 incident in Jordan where Thaer al-Wahidi, a refugee from the al-Baq’ah refugee camp, assaulted a Lebanese classical music troupe, are emblematic of this phenomenon.

Al-Shishani argues that the Salafi-jihadi ideology in the refugee camps has come in three phases. The first was the establishment of the ideology in the mid-1980s. The establishment of ‘Usbat al-Ansar in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon was typical of this phase. According to al-Shishani, this period witnessed the beginning of nationalist groups using Islamic slogans and the establishment of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

Al-Shishani writes that the second phase was when the Salafi-jihadis started playing a larger role in sheltering and training non-Palestinian Salafi-jihadis. Al-Shishani cited the 2003 bombing of the McDonalds in Lebanon by the Yemeni Muammar al-Awami as an example of this development.

According to al-Shishani, the third phase is when the Salafi-jihadi ideology becomes the primary ideology for Palestinian youth in the camps. This phase is occurring now,  as individuals and small groups are increasingly taking up the ideology. Al-Shishani states that the members of this new generation “are described as ‘neo-Zarqawis,’” and are the legacy of the Levantine Salafi-jihadi current that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi started in his Afghan training camp in 2000. They believe the route to Israel is through Iraq. Al-Shishani maintains that this trend is regional, centering on Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, and it rejects the Salafi-jihadism of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (more on the al-Maqdisi dispute here and here).

In describing the Salafi-jihadi situation in Jordan, al-Shishani states that the refugee camp in Irbid has become a transit point for foreign fighters headed to Iraq and this is important because commentators normally associate Salafi-jihadism in Jordan with the cities of Zarqa, Salt, and Maan in addition to Palestinians not living in camps and East Jordanians. According to al-Shishani, Irbid is where the leader of al-Wahidi’s cell, Shakir ‘Umar al-Khatib, recruited al-Wahidi and called on Palestinians to join “the fighters in Iraq and Lebanon.”

For Lebanon, al-Shishani agrees with Omayma Abdel-Latif, a research associate at the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center, that Lebanon is “fertile ground” for radical Salafi organizations. The lack of official Lebanese control over the camps, due to a previous agreement between Palestinian factions and the Lebanese government, compounds this threat.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of information, al-Shishani does not provide many details of the situation in Syria except to say that there have been clashes between militants in the Yarmuk refugee camp and the Syrian government.

The study of Salafi-jihadism in the Levant often takes a backseat to that of Iraq and AfPak, and to that of Hamas and Hezbollah, but, as al-Shishani indicates, the ideology does have a persistent and dangerous following in the region. If the modicum of stability that Iraq currently enjoys holds after the US withdrawal, the next logical endpoint for the neo-Zarqawis would be the Palestinian Territories, where they could act as spoilers to any possible peace initiatives.

Al-Baghdadi Speaks

Thomas Hegghammer May 12, 2009

A quick addendum to Truls’s post about Abu Umar al-Baghdadi: The Islamic State in Iraq has now broken the silence over al-Baghadi’s alleged capture.  It released a brief statement this morning dismissing the reported arrest and denying any knowledge of the man depicted on the photograph circulating in the media.

Shortly afterwards, Furqan media released an audiotaped speech by al-Baghdadi himself. In the 17-minute recording, entitled “Lying Agents”, al-Baghdadi referred briefly to the rumours of his own capture before delivering a long tirade against the Shiite-led government of Iraq. For more on the statements, see here, here and here.

It seems, then, that the latest arrest report was yet another false alarm, and that we are back to square one with regards to the al-Baghdadi puzzle.

Document (Arabic): 05-12-09-faloja-isi-statement-on-baghdadi
Document (Arabic): 05-12-09-falluja-baghadi-speech

Falluja Analytics

Scott Sanford May 11, 2009

[Editor’s note: I am pleased to introduce another new contributor, Scott Sanford, who is a graduate student at George Washington University specialising in jihadism in the levant. Scott has guest blogged for Jihadica in the past, but now he is joining us on a more regular basis.]

 

“What is the Secret of the Falluja Forum’s Success?” This was the intriguing title of a recent post on Falluja presenting a detailed analysis of the web traffic to the forum itself. The contributor, named “Song of Terror”, broke the article into two parts: the first supplying the web analytic data and the second providing strategies and further analysis.  While he claimed that jihadi propaganda efforts on the Internet are successful, the data does in fact not support his analysis.

Using data from Alexa.com, Song of Terror started by asserting that Fallujah is the most “successful” jihadi forum.  Fallujah’s “Daily Reach”, the percent of global Internet users visiting Al-faloja.info, was up 42% from 0.00163% three months ago to 0.0022% on 27 April 2009.  A majority of Fallujah’s users, 36.5%, were in Iraq.  Algeria held the second spot with 9.1% followed by Egypt with 8.2%.  Al-faloja.info’s traffic rank was 220 in Iraq, 759 in Georgia, and 821 in the Palestinian Territories.

Song of Terror reported that 19.64% of Fallujah’s visitors came from Google.com, 5.89% from Muslm.net, an Islamic forum that many militants frequent, and 5.56% from Youtube.com.  He appeared to be disappointed with Youtube.com’s third place ranking and suspected that it would increase in the next “two weeks” because “a campaign to spread Fallujah’s link via [YouTube] continues in its infancy.”  In fact, YouTube now has a new channel called FallujahTube that appears to be connected to this “campaign.”  He also recommended that others who post videos on YouTube put the Fallujah link in the video description under the user name to make it more visible to users.  He also claimed that the percentage reported for YouTube is inaccurate because other websites take videos from YouTube and post them elsewhere, which would make its percentage higher.  As for Muslm.net, he stated that due to his own personal efforts posting Fallujah links on the website since 2007, it now holds the number two spot.

In regards to Google.com, Song of Terror claimed that Fallujah’s success is due to not requiring a login, which makes Fallujah searchable on Google.  The top Google search terms leading to Fallujah were “The Fallujah Forums” written in Arabic and “al-faloja” written in English.  He also noted that “proxy without installation” written in Arabic and “filezzz rapidleech” written in English lead visitors to the Fallujah Forums for technical advice.  Indeed, a 10 May 2009 Google search of “proxy without installation” in Arabic revealed that the third link on the page connected to a Fallujah post about surfing the Internet without a proxy.

After visiting Fallujah, 14.85% of the visitors returned to Google, 5.46% returned to YouTube, 4.61% each went to Hanein.info and Muslm.net, and between 3.92% and 2.9% visited the upload sites Zshare.net, Rapidshare.com, and Archive.org.  Song of Terror noted that this is evidence that Fallujah users use the website as a means to access videos.

In the second section of the post, Song of Terror outlined eight strategies and pieces of advice:

1.      “Determine Your Goal,” which is “Winning the Battle of Hearts and Minds,” “Planting the seed of jihad in the hearts of the general Muslim population,” and “Transmitting the mujahedeen voice to the general population.”

2.      “Choose the Means of Arriving to Your Goal,” which is using the Internet.

3.      “Study the Field Data and the Means of Influence,” where he again stressed the importance of YouTube to the jihadi propaganda effort because of the supposed rising popularity of the Internet in the Middle East and because YouTube is the second most popular site in the world according to Song of Terror.  He added that Falluja should not be the primary focus of propaganda efforts because many Arab countries ban the site.

4.      Properly distribute one’s efforts to endeavors that yield the most results.

5.      Remain flexible to adjust to the different characteristics of various websites.

6.      This section dealt with security issues and Song of Terror added a link to a Fallujah post on how to use the Tor anonymity software.  He also added links to several “Crusader websites” because they “distribute mujahedeen films”.  It is unclear why he added this, but possibly, it is because jihadis could use links to videos on these sites as safe links that government censoring would not prevent.

7.      The connection between the real world and the “hypothetical world.”  Here it appears that Song of Terror was attempting to prove a connection to jihadi Internet propaganda efforts and the number of foreign fighters entering Iraq.  In making his argument, he cited reporting from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, an unidentified Rand report, and al-Qaeda in Iraq reporting about their “martyrs,” which all supposedly concluded that most foreign fighters in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia, followed by Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Algeria.  While he did not make his point explicit, it appears that he was insinuating that the movement of foreign fighters to Iraq from these Arab countries was proof of jihadi Internet propaganda success.

However, adding this point contradicts his entire argument that the Fallujah Forums are successful.  Saudi Arabia placed tenth on the country list of Al-faloja.info users with only 2.5% of the site’s visitors being of Saudi origin.  If Song of Terror’s correlation between Internet propaganda and the number of foreign fighters were correct, we would expect the number of Saudis entering Iraq to be much lower or the number of Saudi visitors on the Fallujah Forums to be much higher.  Additionally, from the countries ranked above Saudi Arabia on the country list of Fallujah users – Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Libya, the UAE, Georgia, and Jordan – we would expect more of these nationalities to enter Iraq or less of them to visit the Fallujah Forums.  It is possible that many of Fallujah’s visitors have gone to Pakistan and Afghanistan instead of Iraq, but it is reasonable to assume, with the exception of Pakistan, that the numbers and nationalities of foreign fighters entering these countries would be similar to Iraq’s experience, which still negates Song of Terror’s analysis.  Finally, according Song of Terror, nearly 50 Yemenis entered Iraq, but Yemen is not even listed on the country list of Fallujah users.  According to his analysis, we would expect Yemen to hold a much higher position on the list.  In short, his data does not add up and it does not support the theory that jihadi Internet propaganda alone determines the flow of militants to war zones.

8.      “Strategies of Intellectual Penetration and Contradicting Psychological Conditioning.”  In this final point, Song of Terror encouraged jihadi propagandists to distribute documentary programs supportive of jihadi ideology and to learn about “psychological conditioning” by mainstream Arab satellite stations such as al-Jazeera.

Song of Terror attempted to apply some quantitative analytical reasoning to verify the success and usefulness of the Fallujah Forums and jihadi efforts at Internet propaganda.  However, the data does not support his analysis.  One might even use his data to make the exact opposite argument, that jihadi Internet propaganda has relatively little effect on radicalization and recruitment.

Document (Arabic): 05-01-2009-falujah-traffic-ranking-1
Document (Arabic): 05-11-2009-fallujahtube-2
Document (Arabic): 05-10-2009-without-a-proxy-post-4
Document (Arabic): 05-11-2009-how-to-use-tor-5

Emirate of Confusion

Truls Tønnessen May 8, 2009

Editor’s note: I am delighted to introduce a new contributor, Truls Tønnessen, who is a FFI research fellow as well as a PhD candidate in History at the University of Oslo. He works on jihadism in Iraq and will be covering Iraq for Jihadica.

 

The alleged arrest of the emir of al-Qaida led Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, has not incited a torrent of reactions on the jihadi web forums so far. Interestingly, the major Iraqi insurgent groups, including the ISI itself, have not commented upon the alleged arrest. 

There may be several reasons for this lack of reactions. One reason may be concern over security. A participant on the Falluja forum recently recommended his fellows not to comment on news concerning arrests of any leaders unless the information stems from reliable jihadi sources. One of his arguments was that their enemies may be putting forward a rumour in order to monitor the reactions on the jihadi websites, so as to determine whether they have arrested al-Baghdadi or not. 

However, the most important reason may be related to the confusion over the identity (and existence) of al-Baghdadi and his leadership role in the Islamic State of Iraq. I will not venture into the confusing debate over the identity of al-Baghdadi, but those interested in more details should check out these postings by the Long War Journal and Talisman Gate. 

Most of the reactions on the jihadi forums so far relate to the identity question. Several contributors have argued that the contradictory information from different Iraqi and US sources indicates that they don’t know who they have arrested. This is notably the view of Akram Hijazi who concludes that is it not possible to confirm Baghdadi’s arrest at this point. He writes that only a statement from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) may clarify the issue. However, Hijazi argues that it may take a while before ISI does so, especially if al-Baghdadi is in fact arrested, in order to protect his family and relatives.  

The question of al-Baghdadi’s identity is further complicated by his alleged position as Amir al-mu’minin or Commander of the faithful of the al-Qaida led Islamic State in Iraq. Al-Baghdadi has been presented as a member of the Quraysh (the Prophet’s tribe), presumably in an attempt to buttress his credentials. His alleged full name is Abu Umar al-Qurashi al-Husayni al-Hashimi al-Baghdadi. If al-Baghdadi has indeed been arrested, we will soon know his lineage. If he is not a Qurashi, the credibility of the Islamic State of Iraq will suffer. 

There is in other words much at stake here, which makes ISI’s silence all the more deafening.

 

Document (Arabic): 04-28-09-al-fallujah-baghdadi
Document (Arabic): 04-30-09-akram-hijazi

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