Reflections on al-Maqdisi’s Arrest

Several days ago, it was reported that Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the Jordanian radical Islamist ideologue and former mentor of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, had been arrested again on 17 September. The news was quickly confirmed on his website and also picked up by Jordanian newspapers (see here, for example). It seems that the Jordanian Security Services had asked him to come to their offices, from which he apparently did not return. While this description of how it happened may well be correct (al-Maqdisi is said to have been summoned to their offices before without returning), the obvious question is why he was re-arrested.

Millat Ibrahim

Several newspaper articles mention that the Saudi authorities were angry about al-Maqdisi’s book Millat Ibrahim and that this somehow led to his arrest. Although this book was a clear indictment of Muslim governments for their perceived failure to apply Islamic law and Saudi Arabia is indeed mentioned a few times in the book, it seems unlikely that Millat Ibrahim caused al-Maqdisi’s arrest since that book was written in 1984 (and not 1982, as some articles state). Moreover, I doubt whether the Jordanian Security Services are at Riyadh’s beck and call and would simply arrest al-Maqdisi if they don’t have a reason of their own to do so.

The mentioning of Millat Ibrahim (The Religion of Abraham) in several articles may actually be a misunderstanding. While the original book by that title is more than twenty-five years old, al-Maqdisi recently released a document called Millat Ibrahim: Limadha Tukhifuhum? (Millat Ibrahim: Why does it Frighten Them?). In this treatise, al-Maqdisi compares the leaders of Saudi Arabia with the literary antihero Don Quixote, who keeps failing in his quest and always blames outside factors but never himself. This is similar to what Saudi rulers do, al-Maqdisi claims, when they criticise his book Millat Ibrahim while failing to realise what their real problem is, namely that the book merely cites Saudi Wahhabi scholars without saying anything new. If Saudi rulers really object to the book Millat Ibrahim, al-Maqdisi states, they actually object to their own Wahhabi tradition, which clearly shows that the state has deviated from the teachings of Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab and his followers. This unwillingness to face the facts and admit that they are infidels according to the religious underpinnings of their own state, al-Maqdisi maintains, is the real reason the Saudis are frightened by his book Millat Ibrahim.

One can argue over whether al-Maqdisi has really simply quoted the (Wahhabi) sources or has added and introduced ideas of his own that are not necessarily supported by the Wahhabi tradition, a topic I have discussed elsewhere. Al-Maqdisi nevertheless hits a sore point by referring to this subject since his writings (and particularly his book Millat Ibrahim) are indeed full of references to Saudi Wahhabi authors and he certainly makes it look as if the greatest adherents to Saudi Arabia’s own religious tradition would surely accuse the country of apostasy if they were still alive. If Saudi Arabia is indeed in any way involved in al-Maqdisi’s arrest, it is much more likely it was this recent reminder of the Kingdom’s alleged hypocrisy, not the original Millat Ibrahim, which precipitated his incarceration.

Deradicalisation?

Whatever the actual involvement of Saudi Arabia may be, al-Maqdisi’s recent arrest is probably best understood through the prism of Jordanian politics. As a radical scholar who has enjoyed a relatively free existence for the past two years, al-Maqdisi must be something of an irritant to the country’s security services. The fact that he has not been in prison for a long time and that his website is as accessible as ever obviously raises the question whether he might possibly be used by the Jordanian authorities for some purpose. Considering the fact that al-Maqdisi wrote several books and treatises in which he criticised what he calls “extremist” expressions of jihad and takfir (excommunication), one would be justified in thinking that the Jordanian authorities are quietly grooming him as a tool to deradicalise jihadist youngsters. While one cannot be 100% sure about these things, I believe this is probably not the case.

Firstly, al-Maqdisi has continued to write radical treatises even while criticising others who were even more radical. He has never stopped calling the leaders of the Muslim world “infidels” and “apostates”, for instance, and one may wonder whether the Jordanian authorities would want a man who holds these views to “deradicalise” their youngsters. Secondly, al-Maqdisi has spent considerable time in prison but was released every time because no evidence linking him directly to any crime or terrorist activity could be presented against him. In fact, human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch have frequently and explicitly protested the treatment al-Maqdisi received in Jordanian prison (see here, for example). The fact that Jordan has kept al-Maqdisi imprisoned for longer periods of time on several occassions but has encountered international protests every time, which in the end also caused him to be released again each time, may mean that the Jordanian authorities feel they have more or less exhausted the option of simply keeping al-Maqdisi permanently locked up for no reason. This could explain why al-Maqdisi has mostly lived in relative freedom for the past two years. Thirdly, it is not entirely correct to state that al-Maqdisi has been completely free since his release from prison in March 2008. Since then, he has reportedly been under house arrest (though certainly not all the time) and was even arrested for a  traffic violation some time ago. This suggests that the Jordanian authorities may not have him imprisoned but are nevertheless keeping him in their sights.

All of this means that al-Maqdisi’s recent arrest was most probably not, as reports have suggested, caused by sudden Saudi ire over Millat Ibrahim but – if Saudi Arabia was indeed involved – more likely over his sarcastic reminder that “the land of the two holy places” supposedly cannot even live up to its own Wahhabi credentials. In any case, the Jordanian authorities are probably keeping al-Maqdisi on a tight leash and may have used the release of his recent treatise as an excuse to arrest him in order to show him who’s boss again. As it’s been two years since al-Maqdisi’s latest long-time incarceration, the security services may well have felt that it was about time to arrest him again. All the better if it pleased a powerful neighbour in the process.

Still Alive

Apologies to our readers for the recent two-month hiatus. I had an extremely hectic summer which included an intercontinental house move and lots of other complications. Jihadica is now back in business, although posting will probably be somewhat irregular.

Good Insights

The latest issue of the journal Arab Insight has two particularly interesting articles: one on al-Qaida in Yemen by Abdul Elah Shayea (the guy who interviews AQAP people) and another on the decline of the global jihad by Murad al-Shishani.

Those of you who don’t know the journal should check out past issues; there are lots of very interesting pieces.

CIA Bomber a Jihadi Blogger?

UPDATE: 1/6/2010 – Al-Qa’ida has issued a statement on the forums this evening, signed by Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid on behalf of AQ General Command, and dated January 2, 2010, affirming that Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, “the famous propagandist and writer on the jihadi forums,” carried out the attack in Khost. The statement also claims that Abu Dujana left a martyrdom testament saying that he acted in revenge for the killings of Baitullah Mehsud, Salih al-Somali, ‘Abdallah Sa’id al-Libi “and their brothers.”  The statement also promises the release of further information in due course. AFP has more on the release here.

 * * *

The jihadi forums are in a frenzy today over breaking news that one of their own may have been the suicide bomber that killed seven CIA employees in Khost, Afghanistan on December 30, 2009. First reported by al-Jazeera yesterday, and picked up in the Wall Street Journal today, it appears that a spokesperson of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed that the suicide bomber at Forward Operating Base Chapman was Jordanian national Hammam Khalil Abu Milal, famous in the jihadi blogosphere as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. If true, this news is sure to galvanize the online jihadi community, and would represent the most dramatic case to date of the potential for virtual-to-actual jihadi activism.

Even before his alleged role in the Khost attack, Abu Dujana was well known to jihadis for having made the transition from keyboard to Kalashnikov earlier last year. He quickly rose to prominence – and eventually an adminstrator position – on the elite al-Hisba forum in 2007, and has long been widely regarded for a series of popular essays he wrote on the forums, especially on the course of the jihad in Iraq and in praise of al-Qa’ida in Iraq. In September of 2009, it was announced on the forums that Abu Dujana had joined the mujahidin in “Khurasan” (Afghanistan and western Pakistan), and the al-Qa’ida magazine “Vanguards of Khurasan” ran an interview with Abu Dujana about his jihadi career that same month in its fifteenth issue.  Another famous cyber-jihadi and former Hisba admin, Ziad Abu Tariq, posted a glowing encomium to Abu Dujana soon thereafter. In October, a compilation of his essays was produced in high-quality pdf format and distributed on the forums, an extremely unusual mark of distinction for an e-jihadi with otherwise no religious or military credentials.

In his interview with Vanguards, Abu Dujana described himself as in his early thirties, originally from the north of the Arabian Peninsula, married and with two daughters. He charts his jihadi trajectory in a familiar manner; outraged by the violent repression of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Pakistan (he specifically cites the summer 2007 attack on the Red Mosque in Islamabad), Abu Dujana felt increasingly alienated from mundane existence and nurtured a violent vengefulness. “How,” he asks, “after all of this [repression], can we be expected to just carry flowers and don festive clothes? No, by God! We will carry nothing but weapons and don naught but military vests and bomb belts!” He found a community of common sentiment in the online jihadi forums, meeting virtual “brothers” whom he came to “love more than some of my own family.” He says that his early postings on the Iraq conflict were noted by the Hisba adminstrators, who encouraged him to write more and eventually invited him to become an administrator himself. Ultimately, says Abu Dujana, devoting his time to inciting and recruiting for jihad left him facing the obvious question, “how can I urge others to the battle while I sit idly by?” By autumn of 2009, Abu Dujana had answered that question, and was somewhere on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

All of the major forums have active threads right now on this story, though no confirmation from anything resembling an “official” source has yet been released. The Pakistani Taliban source cited by al-Jazeera – one al-Haj Ya’qub – has promised to release a video that he claims will prove Abu Dujana’s role in the attack.  A number of well-informed sources, such as Abu al-Hawra, a functionary of the Falluja forum, have pointed out that Abu Dujana represented himself online as having come from the Arabian Peninsula, not Jordan, while in the same thread “al-Dusari,” a Falluja regular, writes cryptically that he has personal knowledge on which he cannot elaborate that leads him to believe that the bomber could not have been Abu Dujana. The Afghan Taliban, meanwhile, have issued claims that conflict with the Abu Dujana story. In press releases on the official Taliban-IEA website, as well as in their Arabic magazine al-Sumud, the Afghan Taliban have stated that the Khost suicide bomber was one Samiullah, a soldier in the Afghan National Army.  Given the symbolic and instrumental significance of the attack, a variety of interested parties, including the Taliban-IEA, the TTP, al-Qa’ida and the Haqqani Network (Taliban-IENW) will perceive an advantage in laying claim to this jihadi “victory,” and we can reasonably expect further claims and counter-claims in the coming days.

Happy New Year

The Jihadica crew would like to wish all our readers a very happy new year. 2009 was an exciting year for the blog. Our readership grew, and some of our postings made news. One post even inspired a front page story in the New York Times. Other posts were widely noted in the policy community. Posting was irregular in the second semester, but at least we kept afloat, much thanks to our guest bloggers. Our readership is not enormous, but it seems to be loyal, something for which we are extremely thankful. We are also very grateful for all your comments and emails. We probably don’t respond as often as we should, but we read them all.

I suspect 2010 is going to be an eventful year in the world of jihadism. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a major breakthrough against AQ Central in Pakistan. AQ in Yemen will be put under severe pressure in the next six months; exactly what the fallout will be I dare not predict. In Algeria, I think AQIM will continue to weaken. I am less optimistic about Somalia, and I am nervous about Iraq. As for attacks in the West, all we can say is that they will be few, but they might be big. (There is so much contingency involved that predictions are impossible). On the jihadi Internet, I don’t expect much to change, except that we will hear from new jihadi ideologues and we will probably see more experiments with government cyberattacks against major jihadi websites.

Whatever happens, Jihadica will be there to report and reflect on it. See you in the new year!

Al-Qa’ida in Arabian Peninsula Issues Claim of Responsibility

The Malahim Foundation, the media wing of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has issued a statement on the forums today claiming responsibility for the attempted attack on a Detroit-bound commercial airplane on Christmas Day. 

The statement claims that the “martyrdom-seeking mujahid brother ‘Umar Faruq” attempted the attack “in coordindation with mujahidin in the Arabian Peninsula” in retaliation for US airstrikes on AQAP targets in Yemen.  The message boasts that Faruq’s successful negotiation of airport security in getting on the plane was further proof that the AQAP had perfected its detection-resistant bomb technology, claims that a technical fault frustrated Faruq’s attempt, and vows that “we will continue on this path with God’s permission until we have obtained our objective.”

The message then addresses appeals to various audiences to take up arms against Americans and American interests. “All Muslims of fervid faith and belief” are called upon to help expell infidels from the Arabian Peninsula, by killing “Crusaders” in their embassies or elsewhere.  All soldiers and others employed by Crusader and Crusader-puppet governments are called on to follow the example of Nidal Hassan, who “won a victory for the religion of God” by seeking to “kill the Crusaders will all available means.”  Americans are warned of retribution for the killing of Muslims by their leaders, ominously promising that women and children are fair targets, for “as you kill so shall we kill.”

The message ends with calls on God for the safety and release of Umar Faruq and all Muslim prisoners everywhere, and is signed Qa’idat al-Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula, 9 Muharram 1431 (12/26/2009).

Waziristan of Arabia

In what has turned out to be a rather prescient quip, the Arab journalist Abd al-Ilah Sha’i, who has conducted interviews for al-Jazeera with both Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Anwar al-Awlaqi and who is an occasional commentator on the jihadi forums, wrote last week on the Falluja forum that South Yemen was becoming the “Waziristan of the Arabian Peninsula.” This comment was made in connection with the US-supported airstrike on an alleged AQAP training camp in Abyan, Yemen, early on December 17, corresponding with the Islamic calendar’s New Year’s day (1 Muharram 1431).  Events that have unfolded since then have unfortunately only strengthened the aptness of the comparison.

This past Wednesday, December 23, Abu ‘Umayr Muhammad Ahmad bin Salih ‘Umayr al-‘Awlaqi, described variously as a “mid-level figure” in AQAP, or as the “al-Qa’ida leader for Shabwa Province,” appeared in an al-Jazeera video taken at a protest rally in Abyan, seeking to stoke the audience’s ire against “America and its lackeys”[1].  The following morning, a second US-backed airstrike against what were reportedly AQAP targets was carried out, this time in the Rafd valley of Shabwa Province.  Early reporting suggested  that Anwar al-Awlaqi and the top two leaders of AQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Sa’id al-Shihri, were among the thirty or more people killed in the strike, but local sources only mention five victims [1]; [2].

Aside from an urgent request for prayers for the mujahidin of AQAP, the only confirmation from jihadi sources about AQAP losses in the Shabwa strike came in a “tidings of martyrdom” post that appeared on the Shamikh and Falluja forums late on Friday.  This post confirmed what had already been reported in Arab news sources: that the Shabwa strike killed Abu ‘Umayr al-‘Awlaqi and two of his younger kinsmen.  This and many subsequent posts have refered to Wuhayshi and Anwar al-Awlaqi with the traditional invocation may God protect him, indicating that they survived the strike.

The first official communication from AQAP regarding these events was released via al-Fajr Media this morning on the forums, but the statement, entitled “A Message Regarding the Massacre of Muslims in the State of Abyan,” is about the December 17 Abyan strike and says nothing about the Shabwa attack.  The statement asserts that around fifty civilians were killed in the airstrikes; expresses condolences to the Bakazim tribe, identified as having suffered the worst losses; charges that a conspiracy between the governments of the US, Yemen, Egypt and Saudi Arabia is behind these current instances of a “war on Islam” in the Arabian Peninsula, which the statement links to broader conflicts in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Waziristan; says the strikes show up the Yemeni authorities as un-Islamic puppets of America; and vows that the blood of Muslims killed in the strikes will not go unavenged.

So far there has been little chatter on the forums regarding the news of a possible AQAP link in the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas, though Arabic-language news reports on these events have been posted to the forums.  Early this morning a regular on Falluja posted an open letter to Wuhayshi and AQAP’s media organization (the “Malahim Foundation”) urging them to capitalize on popular sentiment against the US and put out a short video on the strikes as soon as possible.  One can expect that the AQAP will be loath to pass up the opportunity presented by the week’s events to make Abu Basir Nasir al-Wuhayshi a household name worldwide.

A Mujahid’s Bookbag

Earlier this month a new and expanded edition of a popular jihadi text collection was released on the forums (e.g., here). Called “A Mujahid’s Bookbag” (Haqibatu’l-Mujahid), the collection of over 2000 jihadi texts was compiled by Zubayr al-Ghazi, a functionary of the Falluja forums, and consists of searchable, indexed Word files. Some of these texts are thousands of pages long, others are brief letters, fatwas or interview transcripts.  The list of authors whose works are compiled here is of note, and provides a useful benchmark for currently-influential ideologues in the Arabophone Salafi jihadi movement.  When cross-referenced to the Militant Ideology Atlas (MIA), our best benchmark of influence circa 2006, I found that 21 of the 53 named authors in this collection were not cited in the works we canvassed for the MIA. I also cross-referenced the list of 19 scholars identified by Zawahiri in the Exoneration as supportive of al-Qa’ida; 8 of those scholars are included in the Mujahid’s Bookbag.

Most of the prominent new names not found in the MIA research have emerged on the Salafi jihadi scene since 2006. These include Abu’l-Nur al-Maqdisi, the late ideologue of the Jund Ansar Allah jihadi tanzim in Gaza.  Several of the new names come out of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), indicating that al-Qa’ida’s Iraqi jihad has lead to the rise of some influential jihadi voices.  There are however no new voices here from AQAP, AQIM or the Horn of Africa, nor are any contemporary South Asian authors included. Note also that Mustafa Abu’l-Yazid is missing from this list, underlining his operational rather than ideological importance in the movement. Other al-Qa’ida senior leadership (AQSL) voices represented here include Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, Abu’l-Walid al-Ansari (not to be confused with Abu’l-Walid al-Masri), Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (AQI), Abu Yahya al-Libi, and Sulayman Abu’l-Ghayth (in GITMO); one could add a few more to this list, such as QAP’s ‘Uyayri, but of course the lines quickly get blurred in this select group of jihadists. The prominent presence of Dr. Fadl (as ‘Abd al-Qadir ‘Abd al-‘Aziz) underscores the continued importance of his massive literary output for the jihadi movement, despite the recent disavowal of his earlier positions; not surprisingly, his newer “revisionist” writings are not included in the Bookbag.

As in the MIA, three names stand out – here for their disproportionate share of the total volumes collected: Abu Basir al-Tartusi, with nearly 200 titles represented; Abu Qatada al-Filistini, with about 180; and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, with around 175 titles. Maqdisi continues to have the highest profile in the Salafi jihadi movement, and has emerged lately as a distinct pole of influence vying with AQSL within the larger Salafi jihadi milieu. Zawahiri’s recent output via al-Sahab has taken a noticably Maqdisian tone, and is very clearly echoing Maqdisi’s seminal work Millat Ibrahim in its articulation of an Abrahamic model for shari’a-state revolutionaries.  For instance, in both of his recently-released messages “The Idol of National Unity” and The Dawn and Lamp, Zawahiri prominently uses the opening verses about Abraham from Qur’an 60 (surat al-mumtahinah) to situate his position vis-à-vis the illegitimacy of constitutional politics, the same verses from which Maqdisi developed his ideologically innovative positions on these issues in Millat Ibrahim in mid-’90s Peshawar.

The following is the list of authors in the Mujahid’s Bookbag, in the table of contents’ alphabetical order of appearance. Authors not cited in MIA are indicated with an asterisk after their names, while authors appearing in Zawahiri’s Exoneration list are identified with a “(Z)”. The number of works by each author included in the Mujahid’s Bookbag are also indicated:

Abu Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Masri*
21 works

Abu’l-Ala al-Mawdudi
9 works

Abu’l-Nur al-Maqdisi*
3 works

Abu’l-Walid al-Ansari* (Z)
31 main works, 7 letters, 12 articles from a series of lectures

Abu Basir al-Tartusi
161 main works (with 12 smaller works of excerpts from these); 19 volumes of compendia of legal opinions on a variety of issues; 28 further collections of legal opinions on various issues.

Abu Bakr Naji*
4 works

Abu Jandal al-Azdi (sometimes Azadi)
20 works

Abu Hafs al-Jaza’iri*
6 works

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir*
4 works

Abu Sa’d al-‘Amili
42 works

Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Athari Sultan al-‘Utaybi*
10 works

Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Tunisi*
9 works

Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Sa’di*
13 works

Abu ‘Umar al-Sayf
15 works

Abu ‘Amr ‘Abd al-Hakim Hasan* (Z)
25 works

Abu Qatada al-Filistini (Z)
81 main works; 98 articles under the title “articles between the two ideologies” (maqalat bayn minhajayn); 13 collections of hadith

Abu Mariya al-Qurashi*
10 works

Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Z)
4 interviews; 18 collections of poetry; 35 collections of fatwas and polemics (rudud); 23 books and studies; 2 pamphlets; 60 articles and letters; 9 works drawn from Maqdisi’s prison diaries; 7 works of jihadi hagiography; 4 debates; 5 personal letters; 3 addresses to imprisoned comrades; 7 statements on ideology/methodology (minhaj) 

Abu Mus’ab al-Suri (‘Umar ‘Abd al-Hakim) (Z)
51 works

Abu Hajir al-Libi*
3 works

Abu Humam Bakr bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Athari*
23 works

Abu Yahya al-Libi* (Z)
32 works

Abu Yunis al-‘Abbasi*
40 works

Abi Anas al-Shami (‘Umar Hadid, ‘Umar Yusuf Jum’a)*
15 works

Ahmad bin Hammud al-Khalidi
11 works

Ahmad Shakir
4 works

Usama bin Ladin (“God protect him”)
26 works

Ayman al-Zawahiri (“God protect him”)
37 works

Bakr Abu Zayd
36 works

Jama’at al-Tawhid wa’l-Jihad and Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi*
4 works

Juhayman bin Sayf al-‘Utaybi
8 works

Hamid al-‘Ali
39 works

Husayn bin Mahmud
57 works

Hammud bin ‘Uqla al-Shu’aybi
59 works, 20 hagiographies about Shu’aybi

Khalid ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Husaynan*
3 works

Dr. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al ‘Abd al-Latif
19 works

Rifa’i Surur*
12 works (one of them – “On the Soul and Preaching” – broken out into nine separate files/parts)

Sulayman Abu’l-Ghayth*
9 works

Sulayman al-‘Alwan (“may God break his bonds”)
101 works

Sayyid Qutb
10 works (with “In the Shade of the Qur’an” broken out into 18 files)

‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Salih al-Jarbu’
20 works

‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil
9 works

‘Abd al-Qadir ‘Abd al-‘Aziz  (Z)
14 works (with al-Jami’ – “The Compendium” – broken into 8 files)

‘Abd Allah al-Rashud
13 works

‘Abd Allah bin Nasir al-Rashid
24 works

‘Abd Allah ‘Azzam
50 works

‘Ali bin Khudayr al-Khudayr
45 works

Muhammad Qutb
21 works

Muhammad Mustafa al-Muqri*
23 works

Nasir al-Fahd (Z)
46 works

Hani al-Siba’i
33 works

Wasim Fath Allah*
36 works

Yusuf al-‘Uyayri [sometimes ‘Ayiri, etc.]
30 works, and 13 biographies and hagiographies

[A further 197 miscellaneous works are then listed, many of them written anonymously]