Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. [more inside]
posted by Skygazer on Sep 24, 2008 - 73 comments

The Clarion Fund has been placing DVD advertisements in newspapers. That, in itself is not terribly new. What's new is that they are advertising fear and propaganda, and they're only targeting swing states. [more inside]
posted by tomierna on Sep 18, 2008 - 37 comments

Is Xinjiang Province The Islamic Jihad Battlefront in China? China detains 82 'terrorists' targeting Olympics and police have shot Uighurs dead. Meanwhile people from the Uighur minority call on the international community to boycott the Beijing Olympic games. What side of the Jihad is China on? Previously there was The Al Qaeda - China Tie. The oil and petrochemical sector account for 60% of Xinjiang's local economy.
posted by adamvasco on Jul 16, 2008 - 21 comments

NewsFilter: Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID - Conn.) strikes a decisive blow against another Islamic terror front group: YouTube.
posted by digaman on May 19, 2008 - 96 comments

Islamic terrorists are more likely to be engineers than members of any other profession--and not because engineers possess superior technological skills. That's the conclusion of a controversial Oxford University study that has the engineering community buzzing. (PDF) The study's disturbing finding blames what it calls a universal engineering mindset, which it describes as one drawn to structure and rules plus clear, single solutions to complex problems. When coupled with the harsh realities of life in many Islamic countries, terrorism can be the result, the study says. ~ Via EETimes [more inside]
posted by infini on Mar 10, 2008 - 68 comments

The Spy of the Heart - The story of an American's exploration of Islamic spirituality within the turmoil of Afghanistan. Full book (PDF) available free onsite.
posted by Burhanistan on Apr 16, 2007 - 5 comments

A Good Morning Coffee Read (or Tea or Grass Juice or Gammel Dansk ; ). The warden of Fallouja.
posted by MapGuy on Mar 6, 2007 - 27 comments

Kent State Professor alleged terrorist? Some say yes, some say no.
posted by sadie01221975 on Mar 2, 2007 - 65 comments

The Master Plan. For the new theorists of jihad, Al Qaeda is just the beginning.
posted by semmi on Sep 14, 2006 - 37 comments

Who are the jihadists? Marc Sageman on the global Salafi jihad: its goals, its history, who the jihadists are, how they're drawn to the jihad, how the movement is organized. [more inside]
posted by russilwvong on Jun 30, 2006 - 38 comments

Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF)
If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete. - Sun Tzu

In 2005 Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies & West Point's Combating Terrorism Center worked together to translate what appears to be one of the most important works defining al Qaeda's strategic goals & methods, Management of Savagery (PDF) by al Qaeda strategist Abu Bakr Naji. Then they analyzed it along with three other al Qaeda works: Knights Under The Banner of The Prophet by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Between Two Methods by Abu Qatada and Observations Concerning the Jihadi Experience in Syria by Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. The result is Stealing al-Qa`ida's Playbook (PDF) (also Google cached HTML). If you want to understand more of al Qaeda than the simplistic cant that "they're evil", these two books are the place to start.
posted by scalefree on Jun 27, 2006 - 26 comments

Depictions of Mohammed Throughout History This page is an archive of numerous depictions of Mohammed, to serve as a reminder that such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages -- and to serve as a resource for those interested in freedom of expression.
posted by Postroad on Feb 4, 2006 - 168 comments

...With the end of the cold war and the emergence of global networks in which goods, ideas and people circulate outside the language of citizenship, the fundamentalist fight for ideological states has lost influence... Muslim radicalism, by contrast, has moved beyond the language of citizenship to assume a global countenance, joining movements as different as environmentalism and pacifism in its pursuit of justice on a worldwide scale. Such movements are ethical rather than political in nature: they can neither predict nor control the global consequences of their actions...

Spectral brothers: al-Qaida’s world wide web  
Snapshots of Faisal Devji's Landscapes of the Jihad are to be seen within
posted by y2karl on Dec 8, 2005 - 17 comments

Jihad, terrorism and asylum - in rhyme and iambic pentameter (small QT movie, some profanity) A Middle-Eastern chef and a xenophobic Northern English cook argue about war, bombs and asylum seekers - in the kind of flowing verse one might expect from Shakespeare. It's from British indie director Sally Potter and quite apposite, representing the kind of debates which are going on following the London bombings.
posted by tobyslater on Aug 3, 2005 - 6 comments

An interview with a British Jihadist. What he believes, how he came to his beliefs. An extended version of the interview from the latest issue of Prospect.
posted by biffa on Jul 29, 2005 - 93 comments

The next terrorist attack on America may be perpetrated by Europeans. Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West. They are dangerous and committed -- and can enter the United States without a visa.
posted by dsquid on Jul 8, 2005 - 33 comments

President Bush pledged in 2003 that "A free Iraq will not be a training ground for terrorists... A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East." This past January, the CIA's National Intelligence Council observed that Iraq had become "a training ground, a recruitment ground" for jihadists. Now the senior Marine commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. James Conway -- in a statement that has not yet been picked up by the media -- acknowledges that the war is furnishing a new "a training ground" for foreign fighters trained in urban warfare who will export terror all over the world, saying, "But there's not much we can do about it at this point in time."
posted by digaman on Jul 2, 2005 - 19 comments

...The presumption that there are 'good' Muslims readily available to be split off from 'bad' Muslims masks a failure to make a political analysis of our times. This book argues that political Islam emerged as the result of a modern encounter with Western power, and that the terrorist movement at the center of Islamist politics is an even more recent phenomenon, one that followed America’s embrace of proxy war after its defeat in Vietnam. Mamdani writes with great insight about the Reagan years, showing America’s embrace of the highly ideological politics of 'good' against 'evil.' Identifying militant nationalist governments as Soviet proxies in countries such as Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Reagan administration readily backed terrorist movements, hailing them as the 'moral equivalents' of America’s Founding Fathers. The era of proxy wars has come to an end with the invasion of Iraq. And there, as in Vietnam, America will need to recognize that it is not fighting terrorism but nationalism... Here is an excerpt of Chapter 1 of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, and with one review, two review, three reviews hereafter. And here is author Mahmood Mandmani interviewed by AsiaSource.
posted by y2karl on Apr 11, 2005 - 38 comments

I'm not much for the tin foil hat types out there, but does anyone else find it odd that the leader of the Islamic Jihad was killed [Reuters UK via Fark] and it's not being reported by anyone else? Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's nearing election time and the fact that it wasn't us who did it?
posted by twiggy on Oct 6, 2004 - 33 comments

Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam The call to jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered, counterterrorism officials say. In this former industrial town north of London, a small group of young Britons whose parents emigrated from Pakistan after World War II have turned against their families' new home. They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street.
posted by Postroad on Apr 26, 2004 - 52 comments

The Jihadi Who Kept Asking Why - An unlikely group of onetime religious jihadists have recently stepped into the midst of the debate on Saudi Arabia's future. They belong to a larger circle of liberals, intellectuals, professors, former Wahhabi scholars, judges and even women who are discussing subjects in the media that were taboo before 9/11 -- questions about terrorism, about Wahhabi discrimination toward Muslims of the Shiite and Sufi sects (whom they consider apostates), about alcohol, about AIDS, about the rights of women to drive and work. The ex-jihadists are fluent in Islam and, more important, in the lingo of the underground terrorists, and they've surfaced from the extremist subculture with a message for the Wahhabi official clerics, the royal family and even their complicit American allies: Wake up. It's you who created us. We are not an aberration.
From The Agonist--where the editorial comment this is an absolutely excellent article and a must read is quite indisputable. From entering Salafiyya in Google comes the fascinating polemic The Salafi Cult. better known as the Khawarij.
posted by y2karl on Mar 7, 2004 - 19 comments

Osama bin Laden writes today's comment in the Guardian. Is the Comment & Analysis section of a major national paper (and international website) the right place to publish a call for jihad?
posted by davehat on Jan 6, 2004 - 50 comments

Scribbling for jihad. Malvo case: defendant's trial exhibits.
posted by hama7 on Dec 12, 2003 - 16 comments

The Protean Enemy by Jessica Stern, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
What accounts for al Qaeda's ongoing effectiveness in the face of an unprecedented onslaught? The answer lies in the organization's remarkably protean nature. Over its life span, al Qaeda has constantly evolved and shown a surprising willingness to adapt its mission. This capacity for change has consistently made the group more appealing to recruits, attracted surprising new allies, and -- most worrisome from a Western perspective -- made it harder to detect and destroy. Unless Washington and its allies show a similar adaptability, the war on terrorism won't be won anytime soon, and the death toll is likely to mount. Other texts by Jessica Stern: How America Created a Terrorist Haven, Pakistan's Jihad Culture, Talking With Terrorists. Classical Reference: Proteus.
posted by y2karl on Nov 23, 2003 - 31 comments

John Walker Lindh, Hip Hop MC? Before John Walker Lindh became the American Taliban, he hid his whiteness, excoriating wack MCs on Usenet hip-hop bulletin boards. Attracted to Islam after listening to hip hop influenced by the Five Percenter movement, he later abandoned rap to denounce Nas as a fake Muslim. An interesting, but previously unexamined side to the American jihadist.
posted by jonp72 on Sep 3, 2003 - 13 comments

Jihad in textbooks: yesterday and today.
posted by troybob on Feb 20, 2003 - 4 comments

"God's boys on both sides of the Atlantic" It began back in February. Now, 6 letters, 350+ intellectuals later, the great debate rages on, though apparently and regrettably now censored in Saudi Arabia. Pity.
posted by Voyageman on Oct 27, 2002 - 11 comments

The "merger" of the Egyptian Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad and the Saudi Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda in 2001, based on the foundation of Qutb's book "Milestones", provide outlet for those who have no other way of expressing their objections to the authoritarian regimes of the countries they live in, and the reach of American power in the Middle East.
posted by semmi on Sep 17, 2002 - 19 comments

The veil:Female Form of Jihad???????
posted by bunnyfire on Feb 2, 2002 - 19 comments

Noam Chomsky's Jihad against America
posted by Steven Den Beste on Dec 19, 2001 - 47 comments

"They went to Afghanistan to fight Americans, and they ended up fighting their fellow Muslims" A backlash is rising against religious leaders in Pakistan who sent youths to their deaths with the fervor of jihad. As the Afghan Taliban supporters defect to the victorious rebels, Pakistani and other foreign Taliban fighters are left to die in the trenches in a war that is not theirs against an enemy different from the one they hate.
posted by mischief on Dec 3, 2001 - 13 comments

Hijack Suspects Looked for Hookers in Boston .. For real or PsyOps? What would you do on your last night on earth. In Boston.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 10, 2001 - 33 comments

From the essay by Ziauddin Sardar: Scroll 2/3 of the way down--it's from I.S.I.S. The Institute For Islamic Secularization A Call for Caution and Prudence * We need free inquiry of the religious premises of the growing conflagration. * We need rational debate of the questionable premises of a "holy war" or jihad. * We need a rational debate of the biblical call for retribution. * We call upon the United States not to act unilaterally and to petition the United Nations to establish a peace-keeping force. * All terrorists when apprehended should be brought to the World Court at the Hague and put on trial. * The basic constitutional civil liberties of America should not be abrogated. --Perhaps we're all best off with the godless making the rules?
posted by y2karl on Sep 30, 2001 - 8 comments

Fault Lines This piece counters the arguements of the self-laceration folks who blame the attack upon America as the result of our foreign policy, as though there can be no other explanation for Jihad. An apt title, since we are now seeing the split between far Right, Middle and far Left. Readers will, no doubt believe or argue with this relative to their perspective.
posted by Postroad on Sep 21, 2001 - 63 comments

The Al-Qaeda manual on "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants," including especially instructions on how to infiltrate "godless areas" and not stand out. There's also an "assassinations" section with instructions on how to kill with a knife.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Sep 21, 2001 - 8 comments

A four part tale(1993) of deception, covert operations and secret revelations, which covers :
How The Blind Sheikh Came To USA
CIA's Friends Against Soviet Union
Was Mossad Behind WTC 1993
How The CIA Won It's Jehad

Search These Terms
"Mossad World Trade Center", CIA, Hekmatyar, Hekmatyar Heroine, The Blind Shiekh, ISI, The Village Voice, Robert I. Friedman, Victor Ostrovsky
posted by adnanbwp on Sep 20, 2001 - 2 comments

Blair just made an address the the British people where he pledged once again his full support for the US, and also emphasised how almost all muslim groups were shocked and outraged by this tragedy and offered their thoughts and prayers to the US people. I was astonished and saddened yesterday by the BBC, who chose to represent UK muslims by AM, an extremist fundamentalist faction whose representative made comments like this was a perfectly legitimate target under jihad, and all muslims who believe this a tragedy cannot call themselves muslim. Jihad does not allow murder of civilians on pain of death.. This is not the first time the BBC has asked this group to represent us, please call 08700 100 222 to complain to the BBC if you feel as saddened by this as I do..
posted by Mossy on Sep 12, 2001 - 15 comments