Fault Lines in Global Jihad

Fault Lines in Global Jihad
Author: Assaf Moghadam
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2011-05-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136710582

This book deals with the causes, nature, and impact of the divisions within the jihadi movement, and the splits between jihadis and other Islamic groups. Fault Lines in Global Jihad offers a systematic and comprehensive examination of the broad range of divisions that contribute to the weakening of the jihadi movement. It separates these divisions into two broad categories, namely fissures dividing jihadis themselves, and divisions separating jihadis from other Muslim and Islamist groups. The first part of the book covers intra-jihadi divisions, highlighting tensions and divisions over strategic, tactical, and organizational issues. The second part of the book addresses several important case studies of jihadi altercations with other Muslim and Islamist groups of non-jihadi persuasion, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Shii community. More than simply an enumeration of problems and cracks within al-Qa’ida and its cohorts, this book addresses critical policy issues of relevance to the broader struggle against the global jihadi movement. The editors conclude that these divisions have and continue to weaken al-Qa’ida, but neither in an automatic nor in an exclusive fashion—for these divisions render the global jihadi movement simultaneously vulnerable and more resilient. This book will be of much interest to students of jihadism, terrorism and political violence, Islamism, security studies and IR in general.

Horn, Sahel, and Rift

Horn, Sahel, and Rift
Author: Stig Jarle Hansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787382788

The 1998 attaThe 1998 attacks against US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam attest to al-Qaeda's durable presence in Africa, yet Islamist-inspired radical organisations in the continent have gained much attention of late, the result of their campaigns of insurgent and terrorist violence directed against the state in Algeria, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti and Kenya. These groups include Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Harakat Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine. This book explains why the Idea of Jihad is alive and well in sub-Saharan Africa, even after more than thirty years of Western and global efforts to curtail it, and how most important organisations are formed by the interaction between the often under-estimated local and global dynamics. Stig Jarle Hansen has been researching African radical violent Islamism for more than fifteen years and is well placed to explain how and why such groups emerged, whether they manifest any specific traits compared with other violent Islamists, and what is likely to be their impact beyond the African continent. He also discusses the response of African and Western governments to this phenomenon cks against US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam attest to al-Qaeda's durable presence in Africa, yet Islamist-inspired radical organizations in the continent have gained much attention of late, the result of their campaigns of insurgent and terrorist violence directed against the state in Algeria, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali and Kenya. These groups include Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Harakat Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar Dine. Evidence has emerged to suggest that beyond shared political objectives they are also collaborating in terms of finance, propaganda, arms transfers and training, while Western governments believe some of them maintain links with Al-Qaeda "central." Stig Jarle Hansen has been researching African radical violent Islamism for more than ten years and is well placed to explain how and why such groups emerged, whether they manifest any specific traits compared with other violent Islamists, and what is likely to be their impact beyond the African continent. He also discusses the response of African and Western governments to this phenomenon.

Nexus of Global Jihad

Nexus of Global Jihad
Author: Assaf Moghadam
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2017-05-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231538154

Leading jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State dominate through cooperation in the form of knowledge sharing, resource sharing, joint training exercises, and operational collaboration. They build alliances and lesser partnerships with other formal and informal terrorist actors to recruit foreign fighters and spread their message worldwide, raising the aggregate threat level for their declared enemies. Whether they consist of friends or foes, whether they are connected locally or online, these networks create a wellspring of support for jihadist organizations that may fluctuate in strength or change in character but never runs dry. Nexus of Global Jihad identifies types of terrorist actors, the nature of their partnerships, and the environments in which they prosper to explain global jihadist terrorism's ongoing success and resilience. Nexus of Global Jihad brings to light an emerging style of "networked cooperation" that works alongside interorganizational terrorist cooperation to establish bonds of varying depth and endurance. Case studies use recently declassified materials to illuminate al-Qaeda's dealings from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula and the informal actors that power the Sharia4 movement. The book proposes policies that increase intelligence gathering on informal terrorist actors, constrain enabling environments, and disrupt terrorist networks according to different types of cooperation. It is a vital text for strategists and scholars struggling to understand a growing spectrum of terrorist groups working together more effectively than ever before.

The Globalization of Martyrdom

The Globalization of Martyrdom
Author: Assaf Moghadam
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2011-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1421401444

2009 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice This groundbreaking volume examines the rise and spread of suicide attacks over the past decade. Sorting through 1,270 terror strikes between 1981 and 2007, Assaf Moghadam attributes their recent proliferation to the mutually related ascendance of al Qaeda and its guiding ideology, Salafi Jihad, an extreme interpretation of Islam that rejects national boundaries and seeks to create a global Muslim community. In exploring the roots of the extreme radicalization represented by Salafism, Moghadam finds many causes, including Western dominance in the Arab world, the physical diffusion of Salafi institutions and actors, and the element of opportunity created by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He uses individual examples from the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and Europe to show how the elite leaders of al Qaeda and affiliated groups and their foot soldiers interact with one another and how they garner support—and a growing number of converts and attackers—from the Muslim community. Based on over a decade of empirical research and a critical examination of existing thought on suicide attacks, Moghadam distinguishes the key characteristics separating globalized suicide strikes from the traditional, localized pattern that previously prevailed. This unflinching analysis provides new information about the relationship between ideology and suicide attacks and recommends policies focused on containing Salafi Jihadism.

Fault Lines

Fault Lines
Author: Bharat Verma
Publisher: Lancer Publishers
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2009
Genre: India
ISBN: 9781935501008

Chiefly in Indian context.

Radicalization and De-Radicalization between National and Global Jihadism

Radicalization and De-Radicalization between National and Global Jihadism
Author: Sara Brzuszkiewicz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2023-12-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1666940119

At the turn of the Twenty-first century, a number of violent jihadi groups laid down their arms, as in the case of Egypt and Libya. Many of those former fighters ceased actual violence, and some of them took a step forward, initiating processes of ideological de-radicalization and doctrinal changes that deeply transformed their stance towards the State and active confrontation. How was it possible for those groups to disengage and de-radicalize? Why doesn’t this happen again, among other contemporary jihadists? Sara Brzuszkiewicz argues that the answer is simple, yet quite pessimistic: those who de-radicalized were national jihadists. Once jihad goes global it is no longer possible for an organic process of collective and political de-radicalization to happen. Radicalization and de-radicalization between national and global jihadism. From the first Egyptian national jihadists to Al Qaeda retraces the trajectory of the jihadists who de-radicalized and of those who went global, and measures the role of national jihadism and its characteristics in making de-radicalization a viable option.

Al Qaeda's Global Crisis

Al Qaeda's Global Crisis
Author: V. G. Julie Rajan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2015-01-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317645375

This book focuses on the crises facing Al Qaeda and how the mass killing of Muslims is challenging its credibility as a leader among Islamist jihadist organizations. The book argues that these crises are directly related to Al Qaeda’s affiliation with the extreme violence employed against Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the decade since 9/11. Al Qaeda’s public and private responses to this violence differ greatly. While in public Al Qaeda has justified those attacks declaring that, for the establishment of a state of ‘true believers’, they are a necessary evil, in private Al Qaeda has been advising its local affiliates to refrain from killing Muslims. To better understand the crises facing Al Qaeda, the book explores the development of Central Al Qaeda’s complex relationship with radical (mis)appropriations and manifestations of takfir, which allows one Muslim to declare another an unbeliever, and its unique relationship with each of its affiliates in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The author then goes on to consider how the prominence of takfir is contributing to the deteriorating security in those countries and how this is affecting Al Qaeda’s credibility as an Islamist terror organization. The book concludes by considering the long-term viability of Al Qaeda and how its demise could allow the rise of the even more radical, violent Islamic State and the implications this has for the future security of the Middle East, North Africa and Central/South Asia. This book will be of much interest to students of political violence and terrorism, Islamism, global security and IR.

Ten Years After 9/11 - Rethinking the Jihadist Threat

Ten Years After 9/11 - Rethinking the Jihadist Threat
Author: Arabinda Acharya
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135079048

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks this book reassesses the effectiveness of the "War on Terror", considers how al-Qaeda and other jihadist movements are faring, explores the impact of wider developments in the Islamic world such as the Arab Spring, and discusses whether all this suggests that a new approach to containing international, especially jihadist, terrorism is needed. Among the book’s many richly argued conclusions are that the "War on Terror" and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have brutalised the United States; that the jihadist threat is not one, but rather a wide range of separate, unconnected struggles; and that al-Qaeda’s ideology contains the seeds of its own destruction, in that although many Muslims are content to see the United States worsted, they do not approve of al-Qaeda’s violence and are not taken in by the jihadists’ empty promises of utopia.

Jihadi Culture on the World Wide Web

Jihadi Culture on the World Wide Web
Author: Gilbert Ramsay
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2013-10-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 144115812X

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2014 This volume examines "jihadi" content on the Internet by drawing on both Arabic and English primary source materials. After examining this content as digital media, the work looks at how it is productively consumed by online communities, including how "jihadi" individuals construct themselves online and how jihadism is practiced and represented as an online activity. The work also discusses the consumption of such jihadi media by those who are hostile to radical Islam and the relation between fantasy, pleasure, ideology, and ordinary life. This unique survey features case studies, such as the cyberjihadi "Irhabi 007," pro-US and Israeli "patriots" who are often openly Islamophobic, and "Infovlad" --a forum that became the meeting place for radical Islamists and radical freelance "counter terrorists." This innovative approach to studying violent content on the Internet is a significant contribution to the literature that will appeal to anyone interested in political violence, terrorism, and political communication.