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!