Category: Online Jihad

I recently had an article published in the German publication Internationale Politik  for their September/October issue. The piece was titled “Debating the Global Jihad in Cyberspace.” I figured since it was published in German I would post the English version here. It should be noted, though, that parts of the article were edited in German following my final version of it written in English so there are some differences between the two copies. Also, this final English draft was completed August 8 so some of my own analysis of potential debates regarding 9/11 were future prognostications rather than content based on knowledge from the past week since 9/11. Additionally, for those wondering why I didn’t have anything about the debates on HAMAS and Hizbullah, I felt that they had already been treated fairly well in the literature and decided to leave them out of the piece due to the word limit.
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Since 9/11 and increasingly over the past several years, online jihad has become just as important to the global jihadi movement at the grassroots level as its military operations. There have been vigorous debates in the past decade amongst jihadis in forums and via official communiqués released online from popular ideologues as well as leaders.  However, there have been instances where such debate was purposely shut down by administrators at forums to keep a sense of ideological cohesion. As a result, because of a lack of mainstream coverage the global jihadi movement is viewed in monolithic terms even though there are indeed cleavages that arise every so often, although they do not create big enough rifts to endanger the movement.
It would not be surprising to see global jihadis writing ten-year retrospectives on the 9/11 attacks that turn into vile debates. This could certainly be a replay of global jihadi debates that immediately followed the 9/11 attacks about whether it made sense strategically to attack the United States versus focusing on the so-called near enemy. In light of the recent Arab uprisings and the potential opportunity to gain power, one might very well see the debates over the far and near enemy to re-emerge. Although there has been a so-called hybriditization of these strategic outlooks, as Thomas Hegghammer has argued, one could see a decoupling, with a return to the local battle since, in the current context, it may bear more fruit.
In a related fashion, the most recent of these debates has dealt with how global jihadis in Arab countries should react and/or participate in the continuing uprisings against unpopular regimes. Many online jihadi ideologues have been cautious because the peaceful demonstrations are a rebuke of the global jihadis’ strategy of using violence as the most effective way of bringing about change in those societies. For instance, in late July 2011, a joint statement was released by top-tier global jihadi forums (al-Fida al-Islam, Shmukh al-Islam, and Ansar al-Mujahidin) and online jihadi media apparatuses, calling for its followers on the ground in Syria not to carry out military operations.  Moreover, many global jihadi activists on the ground have been curious about the legitimacy of joining the protest movements going back to January 2011, when the Arab uprisings were in their genesis. For example, Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad’s Shari’ah Council regularly fields questions and publishes fatwa’s (legal rulings) in response. Questions from activists on the ground ranged from the legitimacy of self-immolation alá the Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi, who helped spark their revolution, or the efficacy of joining the street demonstrations in countries from Morocco to Egypt to Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and others. They also consider whether it is legitimate to join al-Nahdah, a Tunisian Islamist organization, or to participate in the Egyptian referendum and elections, or whether it is permissible to establish a political party. Another important question that has been raised is whether the demonstrations discredit the “mujahidin.” Also, many organizations, as well as other ideologues, caution the jihadis on the ground not to let deceitful protesters steal any progress in the jihad or establishing the shari’ah.
As far as participation goes, this debate echoes earlier debates, though in a different context – at the onset of the United States’ war in Iraq. ‘Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin, the deceased former leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – which at the time (2002-2006) was located in Saudi Arabia and a different entity than AQAP currently in Yemen – debated the legitimacy of having Saudi Arabians joining the jihad in Iraq. Muqrin believed that the jihad in Saudi Arabia and Iraq could be symbiotic, where they complemented and reinforced one another, instead of just focusing on one area of operation. This differed from the view of one of the key Saudi leaders in the Chechen theater (among others) who released an audio message online, arguing that fighting the Saudi royal family was a waste of time because it fed into the machinations of the United States; instead, he advocated that it was worthwhile to focus on the United States’ presence in Iraq. Following Muqrin’s death in 2004, much of the support for jihad in Saudi Arabia dissipated due to set backs and the success and notoriety Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq organization garnered by that time – in large part due to Zarqawi’s innovative and sophisticated online apparatus.
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