ji·had·ica

“The Iran Crisis and Its Effects on the Global Jihad”

Scott Sanford June 23, 2009

How will the Iran debacle affect al-Qaida? This was the question raised yesterday in a short strategic study titled “The Iran Crisis and Its Effects on the Global Jihad by Abu al-Fadl Madi (أبو الفضل ماضي), a Falluja forum member with so-called “great writer” status. He briefly outlined the situation in Iran claiming that the protests mark the end of the second period in Iran’s modern history, with the first ending in 1989. He called the new period the “Termination of the Rule of the Jurisprudent Theory.” He argued that the crisis could alter regional “balances, priorities, and strategies” and the “Global Jihadi Current” cannot ignore these events.

He described four possible outcomes of the Iranian protests. The first was the possibility of the regime defeating the opposition by force. He argued that this would increase Ahmadinejad’s power, giving him more leeway to negotiate with the West, but due to the protest he will fail in obtaining Western recognition of Iran as a regional and nuclear power. Abu al-Fadl believed that the West could try to help the opposition by striking Iran, which would create a 2003 Iraq-like scenario. He stated, “This is the best scenario possible for the jihadi movement” because they could benefit from the chaos and security void.

The second possibility was the opposition bringing down the current Iranian regime, which would lead to a new period of improved relations with the West. He argued that there would be better cooperation between the West and Iran on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and nuclear issues. That is in addition to more cooperation with President Obama vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Finally, he fretted about the greater pressure al-Qaeda would face in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This is ostensibly the worst-case scenario for the jihadi movement.

The third option is the possibility of a stalemate between the two sides. He believed that in such a situation, not much would change for the “global jihad” and Iran would continue to support its current foreign proxies. This is also not an ideal situation for al-Qaeda espousing terrorists.

Finally, the fourth option he mentioned is the possibility of a settlement between the two sides. In this scenario, he believed that Khamenei would weaken considerably and Rafsanjani would emerge as the “Godfather of the Regime.” He estimated that Iran’s foreign policy would be more restrained and pragmatic in this scenario. Like options two and three, this option is unlikely to make the jihadi movement happy.
If, as Abu al-Fadl suggests, the geopolitical nature in the Middle East changes because of the Iran crisis, the question will become how will the jihadi movement react to the possibility of a weakened Hezbollah, Syria, or Hamas?  If the United States or Israel attacks Iran to help the protesters, handing al-Qaeda “the best scenario possible,” will the jihadi movement be strong enough to exploit that opportunity?  As events continue to develop on the ground in Iran, it will be interesting to watch the jihadis’ response.

Weekend Reading: “The Second Foreign Fighter Glut”

Scott Sanford May 29, 2009

Longtime Jihadica friend Clint Watts recently published an article at the Small Wars Journal titled, “Countering Terrorism from the Second Foreign Fighter Glut.” This article is the third in a series he has authored using data from the Sinjar records (Part 1 and Part 2 of the series). He concluded, “The key to success for future CT strategies will be the disruption of terrorist recruitment in foreign fighter source countries using a mixture of cost effective, soft power tactics to engage local, social-familial-religious networks in flashpoint cities – cities that produce a disproportionately high number of foreign fighters with respect to their overall population.” It is a good analysis and is definitely recommended reading.

Jihadists Study Jihadi Studies

Thomas Hegghammer April 29, 2009

At the risk of seeming omphaloskeptic, I will add a few more observations about jihadists citing western scholars, because this phenomenon taking larger proportions than I expected.

Since my last post on the subject, both the Militant Ideology Atlas and the RAND study mentioned by al-Maqdisi have been posted on al-Maqdisi’s own website, Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad (MTJ). Maqdisi’s readers can now enjoy the original version, the original executive summary as well as an Arabic summary of both reports. As many of you know, MTJ is the largest online library of jihadi literature, so this means that the CTC and RAND are now part of the official jihadi literary canon.

It also means we now know which RAND study al-Maqdisi was referring to in last week’s statement:  Building Moderate Muslim Networks by Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell Schwartz and Peter Sickle.

Since the last post I have also learned that Joas Wagemakers has been cited before; In fact, both Muhammad al-Mas’ari and Abu Humam al-Athari have mentioned him in the past. The latter notes on p. 94 of his book The Exalted Declaration that “A Christian from one of the European countries has written a PhD thesis on al-Maqdisi in which he speaks about our sheikh al-Maqdisi and the sayings of his opponents and supporters. Curiously, this Christian has read all the books of our sheikh al-Maqdisi and he has an article in which he responds to the claim that al-Maqdisi has revoked his positions.”

At FFI we have been watching all these references to colleagues in the field with a mixture of jealousy and relief. We seemed to have escaped the scrutiny of the jihadists. Or so we thought.

A few days ago a scanned PDF version of Brynjar Lia’s book Architect of Global Jihad turned up on the al-Faloja forum as well as on Archive.org . It soon also appeared on Thabaat where it was applauded as “objective” (hat tip: Adam R.)

But the icing on the cake was the appearance, on Minbar al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad, of an Arabic translation of my colleague Hanna Rogan’s FFI report on Jihadism Online. The translation is the work of the MTJ itself and is accompanied by an introduction to the report, to FFI and to Hanna’s bio. The fact that al-Maqdisi’s assistants took the time to translate Hanna’s 38-page report into Arabic is quite extraordinary. I have not seen this honour bestowed on any other recent academic publication.

What’s next, the Infidel Scholar Atlas?

Document (Arabic): 04-29-09-minbar-new-articles-inventory
Document (Arabic): 04-29-09-minbar-atlas-summary
Document (Arabic): 04-29-09-minbar-rand-summary
Document (Arabic): minbar-translation-of-hanna-rogan-ffi-report
Document: 04-27-09-faloja-architect-of-global-jihad

Update (30 April): Jihadica’s reporting inspired a frontpage story in the New York Times today.

Jihad Recollections

Thomas Hegghammer April 7, 2009

We usually don’t cover English language jihadi media here at Jihadica, but the recent release of a new magazine entitled Jihad Recollections (JR) attracted my attention because it is produced by Fursan media and because it is so well done. The magazine fills a gap in the world of jihadi media, as the editorial states:

“We have acknowledged that the Arabic Jihadi media have surpassed the English community by light years. Many of our hard working brothers in the English Jihadi community – may Allah reward them with mountains of good deeds – usually limit themselves to translating works rather than developing their own. Henceforth, we have decided to take it upon ourselves to produce the first Jihadi Magazine in English.”

It is not quite true that this is the first jihadi magazine in English, but this is indeed the most serious one I have seen. It is seventy pages long and very nicely designed – in many ways it resembles an English version of Qadaya Jihadiyya. JR contains a lot of original material, including several articles in the strategic studies genre. Top stories include an analysis of “Obama’s questionable economic stimulus package” and “The political implications of the CIA’s scandal in Algeria”. There are also articles on “the science behind night vision technology”, “EMP grenade technology becoming a reality” and “The principles of guerrilla warfare”. This is not to mention “Staying in shape without weights” – essentially an introduction to Pilates training.

Articles are mostly in perfect idiomatic English and are quite well edited. One can only guess where it is produced, but the American spelling, the interest in the stimulus package and the frequent references to US sources suggest to me that this is the work of people who either live or (more likely) have lived in North America. The target audience is presumably Muslims in Europe and the US, perhaps also in Africa and Asia.

Jihadi Recollections sets a new standard for jihadi propaganda in English and it will be interesting to see how long they can keep going. It is hard to tell whether it will have big readership, but generally I think the importance of English-language propaganda tends to be overestimated by western analysts. I guess one indication would be if European jihadis suddenly start getting slender, flexible bodies.

PS:If you want more details, Jarret Brachman plans a 71-part article series on JR – one for every page of the magazine.

PPS: On the Arabic language magazine front, the 34th issue of Sumud and the 52nd issue of Hasad al-Mujahidin came out last week.

Update (8 April): The good news is my instinct was right, the bad news is I didn’t do my homework. Rusty at Jawa Report identified the editor of JR several days ago as a guy named Samir Khan who is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rusty adds further details here.

Document: 04-07-09-ansar-jihad-recollections

Document (Arabic): 03-31-09-shamikh-sumud-34

Document (Arabic): 03-30-09-shouraa-hasad-mujahidin-52

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”

New Issue of Sada al-Malahim

Thomas Hegghammer January 19, 2009

Al-Qaida in Yemen (AQY) has released the seventh issue of its magazine Sada al-Malahim (SM), adding to the mounting evidence that the group is thriving. The slick 44-page publication contains no less than 30 articles by 23 different pen names. Many of the latter are no doubt invented, but the issue must be the work of a well-run media cell of a certain size. An undated picture on p. 16 showing 20 people training in the desert, as well as note on p. 12 inviting readers to submit questions to the journal’s gmail address, suggest that AQY is not about to collapse any time soon.

The front page story, “Gaza under siege by Arab rulers”, is quite interesting. The article hardly mentions Israel and America, but instead lashes out at the Arab regimes and government clerics for facilitating the siege by repressing the mujahidin. “[The rulers] incriminated anyone who merely thinks about liberating the holy sites, which can only be liberated by toppling these governments” [my emphasis] (p. 4). Heard this before? This is basically the good old “near enemy first” argument of the kind found in Ayman al-Zawahiri’s classic article “The road to Jerusalem passes through Cairo”. The statement adds to a number of other indications that AQY is considerably more regime-critical (and thus less pan-Islamist) than its Saudi counterpart al-Qaida on the Arabian Peninsula.

At the same time, AQY also advocates direct confrontation with the far enemy. In the text accompanying the magazine release, the Emir of AQY, Abu Basir, is quoted as saying “we are preparing to open training camps to send you [Palestinians] a generation of reinforcements.” There is in other words a tension in AQY’s ideological production between two strategies: one advocating confrontation with the near enemy and the other with the far enemy. A similar ambiguity, or hedging of bets, is also found in their operations, which have targeted both Westerners and the government. This lack of ideological clarity makes the group less predictable in the short run. But it may also constitute a liability in the long run, as it leaves prospective recruits in the dark as to what AQY is actually fighting for.

Here’s the table of contents (excluding poetry and purely theological pieces):

  • Gaza under siege by Arab rulers
  • Seven years of Crusader wars
  • The ruling on the soldiers and helpers of the Pharaoh of our time
  • The ruling on escaping from the tyrant’s prison and its persecution
  • The ruling on fighting the occupier
  • A dialogue among the deaf (who is debating whom?!) [on interreligious dialogue]
  • Stances on judges
  • How to reach [us]
  • The duty to confront or flee
  • Three years since the escape
  • The power is in firing [on firearms]
  • A word from sheikh Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri
  • The departure of Bush and the arrival of Obama
  • North Africa and the coming hope
  • The message of Shafiq Ahmad Zayd “Abdallah al-Yamani”
  • The Lion of Jawf: Amir Huraydan
  • Victory over the investigators
  • The Mujahid sheikh Nassar al-Marsad
  • Al-Tayammum [Dry ablution] [on life in prison]
  • I would behave if let out of prison
  • Letter from the daughter of a mujahid
  • Preventing and treating colds
  • Letters from the readers

Document (Arabic): 01-19-09-faloja-sada-al-salahim-7

Analyses of U.S. Economic Crisis

Will McCants October 6, 2008

Husayn b. Mahmud and Akram Hijazi, two influential voices in the jihadosphere, have opined on the U.S. economic crisis.

Husayn, a pundit on Hesbah, argues that the U.S. financial crisis is happening because the U.S. spent too much money fighting wars in the Middle East and too little on domestic projects that would have created jobs and driven demand for materials.  The U.S. is fighting these wars to safeguard oil and oil pipelines but it did not count on the fierce “Jihadi resistance.”  Now it and its allies will pay the price.

Akram Hijazi, a Jordanian professor and blogger, takes a different tack.  Rather than argue that U.S. military intervention in the Middle East is the root cause of the crisis, Hijazi asserts that the real cause is America’s unbridled capitalism based on usurious loans that benefit the few at the expense of the many.  The government’s recent intervention will permanently destroy an important pillar of capitalism–that the state should not intervene in markets.

Arab governments who have pegged their currencies to that of the U.S. will suffer.  They are silent about it now but they will not escape the maelstrom.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, we heard no criticism of capitalism.  Now the world is talking about the need for a new global economic system.   The question to ask is not how the U.S. economy will collapse, but when.

Document (Arabic): 10-5-08-faloja-husayn-b-mahmud-on-us-economic-crisis

Document (Arabic): 10-4-08-faloja-akram-hijazi-on-global-economic-crisis

The Strategic Effects of 9/11, Part 5: The Jihadi Domino Theory

Will McCants September 23, 2008

Continuing…

  • Why did al-Qaeda attack the U.S.?  Was it to drive the U.S. out of the Middle East?  Or was it to strike the far enemy for the sake of destroying the near enemy (i.e. regimes in the Arab and Islamic world)?
  • Regardless of the intent of al-Qaeda’s leaders, the sequence of events gives weight to the second possibility, which could also be termed the Domino Scenario.
  • According to a 2007 article by George Friedman, Bin Laden saw a rare opportunity after the fall of the USSR to begin re-establishing the worldwide caliphate.  But, says Friedman, armed groups can’t establish empires.  They can, however, seize a state and use it to begin to establish an empire.  UBL realized that Afghanistan wasn’t the ideal place for this because of its geographical position and its weakness.
  • Based on Zawahiri’s pre-9/11 writings, Friedman believes that UBL wanted to topple local regimes and replace them with Islamic ones.  He was looking to do this in Egypt because it leads the Islamic world.
  • Friedman says the two goals of the attacks were 1) to prove to Muslims that the US could be attacked and suffer great harm, and 2) to provoke a U.S. response.  Whatever the U.S. chose to do in response, Muslims would win.  If the U.S. failed to respond, it would look weak.  If it attacked, it would be engaged in a crusade.
  • The authors of a report from Decision Supports Systems, Inc. written two months after 9/11 understood al-Qaeda’s intent.  The study says that before 9/11, AQ attacked three targets without sufficiently provoking the US: civil, diplomatic, and military.
  • Based on al-Qaeda’s statements before 9/11, DSSI wrote that al-Qaeda was trying to provoke the U.S. into a conflict with it.  After the 9/11 strikes, the U.S. responded in the manner planned by al-Qaeda.
  • According to DSSI, AQ wanted to provoke the U.S. into a large military invasion of the Middle East so AQ could destroy its military and upset the geopolitical balance of power.
  • The DSSI report argues that the greatest indicator that this was AQ’s strategy is the fact that its operatives assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander of the Northern Alliance.  AQ knew that when the US retaliated for 9/11, it would work through tribal proxies because the U.S. does not like to get its hands dirty.  Thus, AQ had to kill the most effective leader of those trbies.
  • As the DSSI study concludes, as long as the U.S. continues to behave in predicable ways, al-Qaeda can anticipate its responses and plan accordingly.
  • According to the DSSI study, there are three possibilities after 9/11.  1) The U.S. intervention in the Middle East provokes uncontrolable violence in the Middle East which will make it ungovernable in the long term.  2) The U.S. sends more troops to stabalize the situation but its presence polarizes Muslims and puts strain on its allies in the region, particularly the Gulf states and Pakistan.  The government of Pakistan could become unstable and AQ or its allies could get control of its nukes by infiltrating the security apparatus or overthrowing the government.   The collapse of these states will create security vaccuums that AQ or its allies will fill, giving them control of oil and nukes.  3) AQ could choose to destroy oil production in the MIddle East, forcing the U.S. to look elsewhere to meet its energy needs.

[Update: All of DSSI’s publications can be found here.]

Issue 2 of Qadaya Jihadiyya Released

Will McCants September 22, 2008

Like last month’s debut, the second issue of Qadaya Jihadiyya is slick.  It also has a lot of interesting material:

  • “Crisis of Terminology” discusses the contentious meanings of “Salafi” and “Jihadi.”
  • The strategic studies section has three articles: “Seven Years After September, Has al-Qaeda Achieved Its Goals?”, “Bin Laden and the Globalization of Jihad,” and “The Effect of the New York and Washington Attacks on Many Youth in Groups in Palestine.”
  • “The Jihadi Media Uncovers the Falseness of the American Empire.”  The article surveys the developments in jihadi media, particularly online, and Western responses.

In addition to the article above on Palestinian youth, there is an article on fasting in Gaza.  This, coupled with the pictures of slain Hamas leaders on the last page, indicate that the journal is being produced by someone in the Palestinian territories or Jordan.  Perhaps a younger member of the Qassam Brigades.

One final note: The article on the “Globalization of Jihad” is a reworked version of an article by the same title I summarized in May.  The authors’ names are different, but it’s the same piece of work.

Document (Arabic): 9-22-08-shamikh-new-issue-of-qadaya-jihadiyya

The Strategic Effects of 9/11, Part 4: The Strategy of Laudable Terrorism

Will McCants September 16, 2008

Continuing…

  • The meaning of “terrorism” is extremely contentious.
  • Terrorism is a type of political violence.  Western researchers say that political violence is of four types: violence between states, state violence against its citizens, violence between individuals, and the violence of citizens against the state.
  • State violence against citizens is of two kinds: violence to compel obedience to laws and extrajudicial violence to compel political opponents to submit.
  • The most common form of violence between citizens is criminal acts that have no political motive.  Other types can be social or political, like ethnic or ideological violence.
  • The violence of citizens against a state can be organized or spontaneous.  The latter may not have political goals.  But organized violence against the state is classified as a rebellion that aims to overthrow the government.  The forms that these rebellions take reflect different strategies.
  • Terrorism and guerrilla warfare are usually used synonymously because they both have similar goals.  The difference is that guerrilla warfare tries to control territory, even if it’s partial control, whereas terrorism does not.
  • Terrorism as a strategy depends on psychologically influencing the target audience.  It lacks the material elements of guerrilla warfare.
  • Another difference is the desired effect.  When terrorists attack, they do not intend to remove a government but rather increase the government’s repression, which will alienate the wider population and increase support for the rebellion.
  • Then there is the strategy of chaos.  When a government is unable to confront terrorism, it demonstrates the government’s inability to impose law and order.
  • There is also the strategy of attrition.  Some rebel movements think terrorism is one such strategy.  But if terrorist groups use terrorism as their major strategy, they won’t take power as long as the state security apparatus retains control.
  • In some cases, terrorism is an emotional response without strategic goals.
  • Although terrorism is not essential in guerrilla warfare, some guerrilla groups use it.
  • Terrorism is not different from other kinds of war that target civilians.  But terrorism is more violent and it systematically violates Western rules of war.  There is a consensus in the West that terrorism is the action of groups, not states.
  • There is also an academic consensus that there is no definition of terrorism because it is impossible to criminalize the violence of groups without condemning the violence of states, which are more capable of harming societies.
  • Ariel Merari, in “Terrorism as a Strategy of Insurgency,” acknowledges that the three common elements in definitions of terrorism–1) using violence 2) for political aims 3) by spreading fear in targeted societies–are not enough to formulate a single definition.  Merari observes that if the term can equally apply to conventional war and guerrilla war, then the term loses any useful meaning.  It is just a synonym for violent intimidation in a political framework.  If that’s so, then there’s no such thing as good terrorism or bad terrorism.
  • Although terrorism has a long history, the modern use of the term has been influenced by events in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Terrorism first emerged as a term in during the French Revolution in which the state used violence to maintain its revolutionary government.  In the second half of the 19th century, the meaning of terrorism shifted in the hands of anarchists and, later, nationalist groups.  It was used to push for social and political change and usually entailed the assassination of government officials.  Terrorism again became the tool of state repression in the first half of the twentieth century (e.g. Nazis and Soviets).  In the second half of the 20th century, it was taken up by anti-colonialists and separatists.  These latter groups disassociated themselves from the term because of its growing negative connotations.
  • After 9/11, people said that al-Qaeda attacked because its members came from poor countries.  But academics have found that the poorest countries produce few terrorists.
  • David Kilcullen reformulated the U.S. response to the Jihadi Movement.  He argues it should be treated as a counterinsurgency, not as a conventional police response to terrorism.  But he also notes that classical counterinsurgency strategy was designed to deal with an insurgency in a single country, whereas the new threat requires a comprehensive strategy. [Abu al-Fadl is citing Kilcullen’s “Countering Global Insurgency.”]

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