My new 92-page booklet has been published: “The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”

Abstract:

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group previously linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and to al-Qaeda, has evolved in ways that challenge accepted views of “jihadism.” Now ruling over territory in Syria’s northern Idlib and western Aleppo governorates, it functions more like a government than a nonstate actor, and HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani is seeking the group’s removal from the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. But HTS is hardly anodyne. The group still espouses extremist beliefs that glamorize terrorism abroad, and its fighters fire rockets into civilian areas controlled by the Assad regime. Moreover, HTS hosts other designated groups in its territory, including Jamaat Ansar al-Islam, Katibat Imam al-Bukhari, and Katibat al-Tawhid wal Jihad.

In this thought-provoking Policy Focus, illustrated with photographs of HTS personalities and personnel, jihadism expert Aaron Y. Zelin digs deep into the group’s past before reckoning with the implications of Jawlani’s request. Whatever the U.S. decision, he suggests, political jihadism is here to stay.

Click here to read the 92-page booklet.

Early Reviews:

Check out my new article for the ISIS Reader website: “Tunisians of the Iraq Jihad and How That Set the Stage for the Syrian Jihad”

Nestled into the ISIS Reader: Milestone Texts of the Islamic State Movement is a brief mention of a Tunisian that went by kunya Abu Usamah al-Tunisi. Based on primary source research for my own book, Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, Abu Usamah came to Iraq at the latest in early 2004 and fought in the Battles of Fallujah where his close relationship with both Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi and Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir led to his rise in the organization: first as the military leader of Baghdad’s southern belt and later as the leader of Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin (MSM)/the Islamic State of Iraq’s (ISI) entire foreign fighter operation. His closeness to al-Zarqawi and al-Muhajir might also help explain why Abu Usamah appeared as one of the masked individuals in the video that showed the beheading of the American Nicholas Berg in May 2004. More importantly, the fact that Tunisians held high-level positions, especially ones related to foreign fighting, helps explain why so many Tunisians would later become connected to these networks that helped recruit people to fight in Iraq, Libya, and Syria after 2011. Abu Usamah would eventually be killed in a U.S. airstrike in the city of Musayyib, in Babil Province, on September 25, 2007, along with a number of other senior ISI leaders.

Although many Tunisians partook in jihadism prior to the Iraq war, the war inspired a new generation and cadre of individuals. For example, Hasan al-Brik, who would become Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia’s (AST) head of dawa after the 2011 Tunisian revolution, traveled to Iraq in 2003. Like many others, he did not actually make it into Iraq, but rather took charge of a safe house in Syria where individuals were vetted before travelling to Iraq. For the Tunisians who survived, many, including al-Brik, would be arrested in Syria (and elsewhere) and rendered back to Tunisia to be placed into its prison system. Tunisia’s prisons in the seven to eight years before the revolution would be crucial for bringing together the first generation of Tunisian jihadis associated with Afghanistan and Europe-based networks and the second generation more associated with Iraq and the GSPC/AQIM networks. This prison exchange between the first and second generations of Tunisian jihadis would provide AST’s base for activities after the 2011 revolution and later the foreign fighter mobilization to Iraq, Libya, and Syria to either join Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, Jabhat al-Nusrah, or the Islamic State.

My book provides a lot of details on the Tunisians that joined the Iraq jihad, around 5,000 words in all. Due to that length and the focus of the ISIS Reader on primary sources, this post will highlight some details based strictly on research derived on this network from primary sources. However, if you want the entire picture, chapter four of my book gets into the entire history and story in full.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Minbar al-Tawḥīd wa-l-Jihād presents a new statement from Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī: “This Is Some Of What I Have and Not the Whole Of It"

UPDATE 7/27/14 8:26 PM: Here is an English translation of the below Arabic statement:
Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī — “This Is Some Of What I Have and Not the Whole Of It” (En)
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī — “This Is Some Of What I Have and Not the Whole Of It”
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New statement from Jaysh al-Ṣaḥābah in Bilād al-Shām: “Statement #4: Bay'at of the Khalīfah"

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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Jaysh al-Ṣaḥābah in Bilād al-Shām — “Statement #4- Bay’at of the Khalīfah”
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To inquire about a translation for this statement for a fee email: [email protected]

al-Furqān Media presents a new audio message from the Islamic State’s Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al ‘Adnānī al-Shāmī: "This Is the Promise Of God"

UPDATE 6/29/14 10:21 PM: Here is an English translation of the below Arabic audio message:
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al ‘Adnānī al-Shāmī — “This Is the Promise Of God” (En)
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Shaykh Abū Muḥammad al ‘Adnānī al-Shāmī- “This Is the Promise Of God”

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Check out my new research paper for the Washington Institute: "The War Between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement"


Abstract:
The recent insurgency in Iraq has spawned fresh questions about what interests the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) represents and how exactly the organization relates to al-Qaeda. Indeed, although the groups have found tenuous common cause in military engagements such as Iraq, their relations have been characterized by distrust, open competition, and outright hostility. The final break came with ISIS’s recent expansion from Iraq into Syria, spurring al-Qaeda to disavow the group earlier this year. In the battle for global jihadist supremacy, ISIS now holds the upper hand, with al-Qaeda struggling just to fend off its own decline.
In this new Institute Research Note, Aaron Y. Zelin examines the history and evolution of relations between ISIS and al-Qaeda, detailing factors that could help or hinder each group in their battle for domination of the global Jihadi arena.
Click here to read the entire paper.