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To inquire about a translation for this video message for a fee email: [email protected]
Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Anṣār al-Sharī’ah in Libya — “Sharī’ah Vision In the Conflict Fighting In the Libyan Fields”
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UPDATE 8/19/14 11:07 AM: Here is an Arabic transcription of the below audio message:
Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Lībī — “Statement and Publicity On the Ruling Of Use With the Infidels” (Ar)
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Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Lībī — “Statement and Publicity On the Ruling Of Use With the Infidels”
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To inquire about a translation for this audio message for a fee email: [email protected]
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To inquire about a translation for this video message for a fee email: [email protected]
UPDATE 8/6/14 9:03 AM: Here is an Arabic transcription of the below audio message:
Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Lībī — “Message From Anṣār al-Sharī’ah” (Ar)
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Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Lībī- “Message From Anṣār al-Sharī’ah”
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To inquire about a translation for this audio message for a fee email: [email protected]
NOTE: For prior posts in The Clairvoyant sub-blog on Jihadology, you can view an archive of it all here.
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Update on Shabab al-Tawhid and Creation of al-Midrar Media
By Aaron Y. Zelin
Twelve days ago, I finished writing my piece on Shabab al-Tawhid as a possible rebranding of Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) as well as a network that overlapped with Tunisia’s foreign fighter contingent with Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It was published online this past Friday. Since I completed writing it, a few things have changed. On the Shabab al-Tawhid front, there have been a number of other Facebook accounts established in different parts of Tunisia as well as a couple in Libya. Further highlighting potential overlap within these networks.
Here are the newest locations that now have dedicated Facebook pages for Shabab al-Tawhid: Tataouine, Djerid, al-Qab’ah, Menzel Bourguiba, Sijoumi, Mahdia, Meknassy, College of Law in Sfax, Kasserine, Bizerte, Science and Technology High School in Sousse, Magel Bel Abbès, Libya (overall), and al-Salmani neighborhood (Benghazi, Libya).
Of course, just because there are a number of accounts in many locations does not tell us anything about the potential support-level in these places, which in conjunction with field research would help better determine. Many of these newer ones also do not have many page follows. It does illustrate though that there is a tight network online invested in spreading this potential rebranding to other areas inside of Tunisia (and to a lesser extent Libya).
With these additions, here is a map that includes these locations along with the original ones, which can help better situate where these networks potentially are trying to be built up inside of Tunisia:
Map 1. Shabab al-Tawhid Facebook network
While it looks as though the Facebook network is expanding, the Twitter account Shabab al-Tawhid Media (STM) has completely transformed. The account that previously went under that name did not delete its account, rather it changed its handle and name to al-Midrar Foundation for Media Production. It also scrubbed all of the content it had previously posted under the STM name and started tweeting again on May 6, pretending as if it was a completely new account. Unlike the STM account, which I explained in my article originally focused on content related to jihad in Tunisia, AST, Tunisia’s foreign fighter network in Syria, and some ISIS content, now it is only posting ISIS-specific and sympathetic content thus far. It should be remembered that this account originally when it used the name STM, its purpose was to be the “pulpit of the Sunni people in Tunisia.” Why the shift? It is difficult to know at this point.
That being said, it is likely that those running the account are still the same individuals that originally it set-up under its original name of STM. Therefore, one might glean something through the new name of the account and try to make sense of it. Al-Midrar means abundant or plentiful. The term is located in three Qu’ranic verses (6:6, 11:52, and 71:11) with the same exact clause in all of them: “He [God] will send [rain from] the sky upon you in abundance.” In the context of these three verses and what was said prior and after this clause in all of the verses, it explains how prophets told the people to repent to God, yet they ignore him. The prophets then invite them to ask for God’s for forgiveness, which they will then get showers of rain and good crops/wealth. Therefore, those behind this account could be implicitly calling for those that have not joined up to their cause yet to repent and if they do, God will forgive them and then they will be rewarded.
Where this will all go for the ST Facebook network or al-Midrar Media is too early to tell. As with a lot of other trends within the broader global jihadi movement things are shifting and evolving rapidly and will likely no more in the coming months to year.
Eight months ago, the Tunisian government officially designated Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) as a terrorist organization. Since then, Tunis has cracked down on the group’s activities, going after both its dawa campaign (i.e., proselytization and social-welfare efforts) and any links members have to terrorist plots. On the whole, AST’s public response has been to keep relatively quiet. Yet recent developments indicate that the group may be rebranding itself as Shabab al-Tawhid (ST; the Youth of Pure Monotheism), a shift that would have important implications for efforts to counter Tunisian jihadists and their associates in Libya.
Within a week of the August designation, AST largely ceased releasing updates about its dawa campaign in Tunisia. The group may still be conducting lower-level dawa in rural areas outside the state’s reach, but if so, it is no longer publicizing such activity. The main messages it has put out via its Twitter account have been declarations of solidarity with arrested “brothers,” repeated calls for patience, and quotes from both traditional Islamic sources (the Quran and sunna) and ideological figures (e.g., Ibn Taymiyah, Sayyed Qutb, and Abu Qatada al-Filistini).
Indeed, AST has kept a low profile compared to its modus operandi before the designation; its only prominent announcement was leader Abu Ayyad al-Tunisi’s message of support for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the jihadist group deemed too extreme by senior al-Qaeda leaders and their official Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.
Until recently, this relative silence made it difficult to discern what was going on within AST, but new information indicates it might be rebranding itself under the Shabab al-Tawhid banner in Tunisia as well as Libya, where Abu Ayyad is now believed to be based. This shift could signal to exiled members in Libya that AST’s command structures are increasingly coming under the purview of its sister organization, Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL).
Click here to read the rest.
Within the academic literature on global jihadi organizations there has been a major lacuna on the issue of groups evolving to become more than just violent actors; many now act as social movements, too. While no one denies this change, little has been written about it, save for smaller non-academic pieces. Thus far, there have only been examples of localized dawa (calling people to the particular individual or group’s interpretation of Islam/proselytization), social services, and proto-governance efforts, even if the organizations profess a transnational ideology and goal. However, this trend is no longer true: New evidence suggests that Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) is conducting these types of activities not just in Libya, but also abroad.
ASL has a number of identities as an organization: On the one hand, it’s a charity, a security service and a health services and religious education provider. On the other hand, it’s a militia, a terrorist organization, and it trains individuals for foreign jihads. While many jihadi organizations are involved in the latter within transnational networks and a smaller percentage are active in the former on a local level, ASL is the only global jihadi organization that has an international dawa campaign. ASL’s unprecedented reach belies the notion that the organization has only local aims, while it is in fact attempting to cultivate an international constituency based on aid and proselytization to its strict legal interpretations of Islam.
Theoretically speaking, there is now a spectrum of jihadi organizations that can be described as purely focused on violent jihad on a local or global level and that use dawa as their main organizing principle, yet still utilize violence on a local or global level. There are also mixed cases in which neither violent jihad nor dawa take precedence over the other. These categories are not necessarily static for organizations and can change depending on endogenous and exogenous factors.
Table 1. Types of Jihadi Organizations
| Local | Transnationally | |
| Violent Jihad-First | Gamaa al-Islamiyya, Abdullah Azzam Brigades | Al Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham |
| Mixed | Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahidin | No known cases |
| Dawa-First | Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia | Ansar al-Sharia in Libya |
Click here to read the rest.
Abū Nadhir al-Lībī — “Absence of the Full Moon- In Eulogy for the Amīr of Anṣār al-Sharī’ah in Sirte (Libya)”
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