By Faisal | Published:
November 17, 2009
A shortened version of this article has been published on Comment is Free
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It is now clear US Army Major Nidal Hasan had a series of connections to the Islamist cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki . For those of us who have studied, with increasing concern, the extreme teachings of this cleric, this tragedy is the inevitable consequence of un-checked Islamist radicalisation. This situation has been made all the more distressing by the apparent lack of concern shown by the US Intelligence and Military authorities in taking Awlaki’s influence seriously.
Even before Major Nidal had fired a single bullet in Fort Hood, the US authorities knew about his increasingly vocal radicalisation and that he had attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virgina at the time Awlaki was its head Imam. Nidal had also been the subject of an FBI investigation after it was discovered that he made communication with Awlaki by email. There was certainly no lack of overt clues.
Posted in Islamism | Also tagged Anas al-Tikriti, Anwar al-Awlaki, Azad Ali, Cageprisoners, Cordoba Foundation, East London Mosque, Inayat Bunglawala, Islamic Forum Europe, Moazzem Begg, Muslim Association of Britain, Osama Saeed |
By Houriya | Published:
June 23, 2009
The leader of al-Qaeda (AQ) in Afghanistan, Abu al-Yazid (aka Abu Saeed al-Misri – the Egyptian), has said they would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to fight against the ‘Serpent’ United States of America.
God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans
Oh no…
Interviewed by Al-Jazeera, Abu al-Yazid also commented on AQ’s future strategy:
The strategy of the … organisation in the coming period is the same as in the previous period: to hit the head of the snake, the head of tyranny — the United States.
That can be achieved through continued work on the open fronts and also by opening new fronts in a manner that achieves the interests of Islam and Muslims and by increasing military operations that drain the enemy financially.
By Faisal | Published:
June 2, 2009
Sadiq Khan, Minister of Cohesion, visited Saudi Arabia last week and became the first western minister to make the pilgramage to Mecca. He also visited Medina, where he had this to say about the University of Medina:
“I was encouraged by the university’s obvious commitment to ensure that the students have sufficient expertise and knowledge to stand in the way of violent extremism.”
Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was equally impressed with Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for former militants and its newfound committment to tackling anti-extremism at home and has been helping Pakistan in its efforts to contain the Taliban insurgency there.
By Faisal | Published:
May 27, 2009
The Art of Recruitment
Since its ‘publication’ last year, users have been able to download a PDF called A Course in the Art of Recruitment, by the suitably named Abu-Amr al-Qaidi (al-Qaidi means ‘of al-Qaeda’), after it was made available on various jihadi websites.
The 51-page Arabic manual has been described by Brian Fishman and Abdullah Warius in the CTC Sentinel as a guide “designed to provide less-skilled jihadist recruiters operating independently of any cohesive terrorist organization the tools to effectively recruit secular and moderate Muslims into the global jihadist movement.”
Although we do not know for sure whether the techniques explained in the book are being actively applied by al-Qaeda franchises to harvest fresh recruits, it does however provide an insiders look into the, thankfully, difficult practices used to turn individuals into violent jihadis.
Posted in Islamism, Terrorism | Also tagged Jihad |
By Retired | Published:
May 14, 2009
Jamie Bartlett, leader of Demos’s violent radicalism project “From Threat To Opportunity”, has a piece in Prospect Magazine this month. In it he makes some interesting observations:
[M]embers of terrorist cells tend to be young men with little religious knowledge other than a few cut-and-paste lines from the rockstars of jihadi literature, like radical Egyptian cleric Sayed Qutb. In comparison to such founding fathers of modern Islamic terrorism, this generation has suffered no serious repression.
He also argues, on the back of research from McGill University, that:
Ultimately it is not the ideas of al Qaeda that need dismantling; it is the idea of al Qaeda. This is tough. As has been proved by counterproductive anti-drug warnings, anything government proscribes can become more exciting for young people. The key is to strip al Qaeda of its mystique, and show that the average day of an Islamic extremist is more like that of a petty criminal than a secret agent. (This happens to be true: seven out of ten European militants in al Qaeda training camps return home because of tough training and being treated like skivvies.)