ji·had·ica

Al-Qaida Advises the Arab Spring: Yemen

Joas Wagemakers June 5, 2012

Uh-oh. Several jihadi scholars are engaged in some ideological infighting again and it’s not pretty. As long-time readers of Jihadica know only too well, several jihadi ideologues have participated in quite heated debates about jihad, violence and suicide bombings with the people who are supposedly their brothers in arms. The best-known among these are the accusations between Sayyid Imam and Ayman al-Zawahiri (see here for the first installment of Will’s series of posts on this subject, for example) and the conflict between Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and the supporters of his former pupil Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi (see here, for instance). This time, it’s the Syrian-British shaykh Abu Basir al-Tartusi who starts this discussion by criticising the Yemeni militant group Ansar al-Shari’a, which is responsible for several major attacks in Yemen in the past months and is said to have strong ties to al-Qaida. This discussion does not just tell us something about differences of opinion on one radical organisation, but also sheds light on highly diverging views on what the Arab Spring should be all about.

Brothers

As usual, Abu Basir starts his criticism of Ansar al-Shari’a by pointing out that his critique is simply brotherly advice. That’s about as far as his politeness goes, however, since he immediately starts accusing the group of using suicide bombings without taking the limits and conditions of such operations into account. He also asks: “What is your problem with the Yemeni soldier? You are dealing with him as if he is an American soldier!” Abu Basir states that Yemeni soldiers are against the regime too yet they apparently still constitute legitimate targets for Ansar al-Shari’a. “Is this the shari’a that you proclaim and on whose behalf you’re working?”, he asks rhetorically.

Abu Basir suggests that Ansar al-Shari’a change its strategy now that Yemeni President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih has left. He accuses the group of continuing their fight “as if the tyrant ‘Ali Salih hasn’t left […], as if the revolution never happened and no changed whatsoever occurred in Yemen!” This unchanged policy has resulted in alienating the protesters and demonstrators in Yemen and “a policy of aggression” that has left many innocent people dead. This only appears to strengthen the claim made by Salih that al-Qaida would fill the void he left. This leads Abu Basir to conclude that Ansar al-Shari’a is not serving the purpose of the revolution but is, in fact, doing exactly what “the tyrant” wants. Despite fighting for more than ten years, the group has not succeeded in implementing the shari’a at all, Abu Basir states. “Or do you think that the shari’a is only about raising slogans?”, he asks sarcastically. “What strategy is this that you are following?”, he adds, while pointing out that they should go and seek the advice of Yemeni scholars on what to do.

End and means

Abu Basir’s criticism was published on his website in March of this year and in that same month, Abu Hummam Bakr b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari wrote a still rather friendly refutation of his critique. He states that he excuses Abu Basir for his latest remarks because “what we have learned from him […] is more than […] what we criticise him for.” Nevertheless, al-Athari goes on to accuse Abu Basir of ignoring – not being ignorant of – two things: the goal that change must bring about and the means to bring about change. The former is to bring people from darkness to light and this is not going to happen, al-Athari states, through democratic reforms called for by the demonstrators; rather, it will be achieved by applying the shari’a, which is exactly what Ansar al-Shari’a wants. The means that will lead to this end has been provided by God himself, al-Athari states: jihad.

Al-Athari further wonders why Abu Basir would like the revolution to stop because President Salih has left. “[Ansar al-Shari’a] fought [Salih] because he ruled through something different than the shari’a.” His successor ‘Abd Rabbuh Mansur has only added to that, al-Athari states. “How can it be allowed to fight the former but not the latter?! Or [how can] the democracy of Mansur be Islamic but the democracy of Salih unbelief?!” They both ruled through “un-Islamic” laws and allowed their armies to fight on behalf of the Americans, which also shows you why Ansar al-Shari’a has “a problem” with Yemeni soldiers.

Scholars

Also in March, Abu l-Zubayr ‘Adil al-‘Ubab, a writer or ideologue who appears affiliated with Ansar al-Shari’a itself, wrote another refutation of Abu Basir’s letter. He specifically targets Abu Basir for his criticism of the supposedly reckless use of suicide bombings by Ansar al-Shari’a. He claims that, contrary to what Abu Basir says, the organisation does try to take the conditions and limits of suicide bombings into account and has only been involved in nine of them, which he describes in such a way that makes it seems like a very high number. We only use suicide bombings, he says, “if we have no alternative, if the alternative is very difficult or if it involves more losses”.

Al-‘Ubab says things about Yemeni soldiers and the army that are similar to what al-Athari pointed out about them, but delves more deeply into the question of the scholars Abu Basir advises Ansar al-Shari’a to consult. He distinguishes three categories of scholars in Yemen. The first category consists of Sunnis, with whom they consult regularly and from whom they seek advice, except for those Sunni scholars who support the regime or want to go into politics. Then there the scholars of the Muslim Brothers, whom he dismisses as “politicians” and, finally, “the scholars of religious innovations like Sufism, Shiism (al-rafida), Zaydism and those who adhere to them”. Since it is obvious that the members of Ansar al-Shari’a will not ask the latter for advice, al-‘Ubab wonders what Abu Basir is talking about.

Disgusting

If the previous two refutations of Abu Basir were still rather friendly, this does not apply to Abu l-Mundhir al-Shinqiti’s refutation: “The Disgusting Deviations of the Critic of Ansar al-Shari’a: A Refutation of Shaykh Abu Basir”, which was published some two weeks ago. Al-Shinqiti is a formidable foe for Abu Basir since the former is one of the most active jihadi ideologues at the moment and seems to be almost the sole provider of fatwas on the Shari’a Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad. In fact, with other leading scholars such as Abu Qatada al-Filastini, Nasir b. Hamd al-Fahd and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi locked up, Abu Basir and al-Shinqiti may well be the most influential and most prolific radical scholars in the world right now.

Whatever the case may be, al-Shinqiti does not mince words. He accuses Abu Basir of not basing his views on real arguments and of simply wanting to slander the mujahidun. On top of this, he adds that Ansar al-Shari’a does consult with scholars in Yemen and that these are “more famous and knowledgeable” than Abu Basir. If the latter is so serious about his “advice” to Ansar al-Shari’a, al-Shinqiti says, does he not believe that the Yemeni government is an apostate government that should be fought? “Do you want to abandon the method of jihad and do democracy like the rest of the revolutionaries?”, al-Shinqiti asks. He gets even more direct with regard to Abu Basir’s question about why Ansar al-Shari’a targets Yemeni soldiers. “I don’t understand”, al-Shinqiti says. “Is it possible that you are really ignorant of the answer to this question?”  Al-Shinqiti deals with the same points mentioned above, but does so much more vehemently and elaborately, dismissing Abu Basir’s accusations as “fabrications”.

It is clear that Abu Basir’s criticism of Ansar al-Shari’a is quite unacceptable to several of his radical colleagues. His advice to lay down arms and take a more peaceful approach is not an exception, however, as we have seen in my previous posts in this series. Abu Basir consistently takes a more irenic approach towards certain remnants of the regimes that have been toppled and people who do not follow the right type of Islam and often condemns extreme violence. That major radical scholars such as Abu Basir and especially al-Shinqiti are more and more on a collision course is not just clear from the above but also from the fact that the latter ends his critique of Abu Basir by saying: “God willing, we will continue this conversation with shaykh Abu Basir in a forthcoming article entitled “The Enlightenment of the Truth of Shaykh Abu Basir’s Method”. We have not seen the last of this.

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.]

Stockholm

Thomas Hegghammer December 12, 2010

Scandinavia witnessed its first suicide bombing yesterday when a man blew himself up in Stockholm, killing nobody but himself. There is an excellent roundup here (Swedish only, i am afraid).  Key information points:

  • The bomber has been identified as Taimour Abdalwahhab al-Abdaly, a 28-year old man of Iraqi origin who moved to Sweden in 1992. He leaves a wife and three children. See here and here for profiles.
  • The bomber sent an audio statement to a Swedish news agency shortly before the blast. The recording is available here.
  • In the statement the bomber says he recently traveled to the Middle East “for jihad”. His Facebook page reportedly contained recent pictures of him in Jordan.
  • The bomber lived for a while in Luton, UK, a city with a well known community of radical Islamists.
  • The bomber’s facebook page reportedly carried gradually more jihadi videos starting in the spring of 2010
  • A Swedish explosives expert who examined pictures from the scene described the bomb as amateurish.
  • The jihadi internet forum Shumukh has several threads devoted to the incident (see e.g. here, here, here, here, here and here). The bomber is referred to by other forum members as “our brother“, but this is a standard phrase and does not necessarily indicate a prior connection. So far there are no claims of responsibility by a known organization or jihadi media entity.

Key questions:

1) Did the bomber have operational accomplices in Sweden?

Maybe, maybe not. One the one hand, it is true that solo acts are relatively rare, especially when they involve a suicide operation. Sweden does have a certain number or radicalized Muslims. Moreover, in the audio statement, the speaker uses the prononoun “we”. It also sounded to me like there could have been a second person on the recording; at one point there is a cough, and it sounds as if it is coming from someone who is closer to the microphone than the main speaker. On the other hand solo acts are becoming more frequent, and the operation itself does not seem to have been particularly sophisticated. It is perfectly possible that the bomber acted alone. Having said that, he cannot have radicalized in a vacuum. He must have been in touch with other activists at some stage, on the Internet and/or in the field.

2) Did he receive training somewhere in the Middle East, and if so, where?

I personally think it is very likely that he did, not just because he says so himself, but also because a suicide operation requires a very high level of radicalization, of the kind that usually develops through social interaction. If he did train, it was most likely in Iraq.

3) Was he in touch with known militants during his time in Britain?

It is not impossible, but you would think that this would have put him on the authorities’ radar long ago. Moreover, his reported Facebook activities suggest his radicalisation did not begin until this year.

4) Was he active on jihadi internet forums?

He was reportedly a consumer of online propaganda, but we don’t yet know if he was a very active contributor. He has not yet been tied to a specific online alias, but I would not be surprised if it turns out he has left a trail of writings. If he was a prominent contributor, we can probably expect his online buddies to out him in not too long.

If pressed to make a guess about what this whole thing is about, I would say the available evidence points toward a solo act or a very small cell. If a bigger group were involved, we wouldn’t have had the makeshift audiostatement before the incident, but a more elaborate video released some time afterward. The bombing device would also have been much more effective. My guess – and I stress that this is pure speculation – is that Taimour initially radicalised primarily on the Internet and then went on a short trip to Iraq to experience the real thing. In the field, he radicalized further, learned to make bombs, and decided to return home and blow himself up there, possibly with the help of a close friend or two.

I may be completely wrong, but in any case we will find out fairly soon. A lot more details will emerge in the coming days as the press jumps on this guy’s family and acquaintances, investigators pore over his computer, and intel agencies compare notes. That’s the downside to being a mujahid in the digital age.

To be continued.

Justifiying Martyrdom in German

Nico Prucha May 21, 2010

Editor’s note: I am glad to introduce Nico Prucha as a new regular contributor to Jihadica. Nico is an German Arabist who has followed the jihadi Internet for a long time and has written several articles on the topic for Jane’s and other publications.]

In mid-April Elif Medya published a 30-page document in German justifying martyr operations. The text is essentially a significantly expanded translation of an English-language document published by Tibyan Publications a few years ago and attributed to the Saudi ideologue Yusuf al-Uyayri (d. 2003). The Tibyan text in turn was based on an Arabic text that al-Uyayri wrote for the Sawt al-Qawqaz website in late 2000 following the first suicide bombing in Chechnya (perpetrated by a woman named Khava Baraeva).

Signed by “your brothers of the German Taliban Mujahideen”, the document has two parts. The first is a translation of the abovementioned Tibyan text. The second part presents writings on martyrdom by three other figures, namely Nasir al-Din al-Albani, Muhammad bin Uthaymin and Sulayman al-Ulwan. The latter is a notorious  Saudi jihadi cleric while the first two are more mainstream (and deceased) figures of Salafi Islam.

As a whole, the text provides a German-language assessment and justification for suicide missions. The treatise distinguishes between the concepts of “suicide”, “self-sacrificial” and “martyrdom” (istishahdiya) operations, highlights a definition by Yusuf al-‘Uyairi on who can be considered a “martyr” (shahid), and throws in a wide mix of historical sources to illustrate and support the argument.

The main significance of the document is that it is in German and thus accessible to German speaking audience. It is the latest addition to a very rapidly growing body of German-language jihadi literature. Of all these new texts, the jihadist defense of ‘martyrdom’ operations by Elif Medya and the German Taliban Mujahideen may well be one of the most important.

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