Check out my new ‘Policy Watch’ for the Washington Institute: “Return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: The Jihadist State of Play”

The fall of Kabul raises a number of questions about the future of the jihadist movement, from the plans being pondered by global organizations like al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS), to the reaction of local actors such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian group that views the Taliban as a model. Answering these questions can help policymakers better understand where the current situation stands and how the environment could change going forward.

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New release from Hay’at Taḥrīr al-Shām’s Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Shāmī (‘Abd al-Raḥīm ‘Aṭūn): “Congratulatory Messages to the Mujāhidīn of the ‘Ṭālibān’ and To Our People in Afghanistan”

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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Shaykh Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Shāmī (‘Abd al-Raḥīm ‘Aṭūn) — Congratulatory Messages to the Mujāhidīn of the ‘Ṭālibān’ and To Our People in Afghanistan

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Source: Telegram

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Check out my new ‘Policy Watch’ for the Washington Institute: “From Global Jihad to Local Regime: HTS Builds Different Forms of Legitimacy”

This week, the Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) passed a notable milestone: it has now been active for longer than its predecessor, the al-Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). Although HTS remains an extremist organization, it attempts to derive legitimacy from different constituencies these days. As JN, the group based its legitimacy on where it stood within the global jihadist movement, but as HTS, it seeks to build its reputation within the local milieu of Syria’s Idlib province. The latter form of legitimacy is more difficult to burnish, however, since it depends on how the group attempts to govern millions of residents with differing aspirations and worldviews. Ironically, HTS now acts much like the Arab regimes it claims to oppose throughout the Middle East—from the way it mobilizes local support, to the abuses it commits against activists opposed to its rule.

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