Brian Fishman

A report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC), which launched the Harmony Project in order to release and analyze documents from DoD¿fs classified Harmony Database. The Harmony Project unearths and releases documents that reveal the inner¿]functioning of al¿]Qa¿fida, its associated movements, and other security threats. This report introduces new documents and new analysis to provide a better picture of al¿]Qa¿fida in Iraq¿fs operations and its prospects for the future. Illus.

Al-Qa-ida's Road in and Out of Iraq

Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout

Assaf Moghadam

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.

Organizational, Strategic, and Ideological Fissures

Fault Lines in Global Jihad

Joseph H. Felter

Jarret Brachman

On 16 December 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri invited journalists and Jihadist enthusiasts to ask him questions via the primary Jihadist web forums. Zawahiri promised to personally answer some of those questions in a subsequent statement. On 2 April 2008, As-Sahab Media released the first part of Zawahiri's response in the form of a one hour, forty-three minute audio statement, which was accompanied by Arabic and English transcripts. The following analysis of Zawahiri's Part I response is broken into three sections. The first evaluates the most important themes that Zawahiri addressed on 2 April, namely HAMAS, the killing of innocents, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Lebanese Jihadist group Fatah al-Islam, and Zawahiri's dispute with Sayyid Imam Sharif, the former Emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The second section explores the issues that Zawahiri mentioned but failed to actually answer, namely al-Qa'ida’s relationship with other insurgents in Iraq and al-Qa'ida’s position toward Iran. Because Part II of his responses is forthcoming, we can only assume that Zawahiri is saving more complete answers on those questions. In the third section, we are pleased to offer our analysis of 1,888 questions that were posed to Zawahiri on the password-protected Al-Ekhlass and Al-Hesbah websites. As discussed above, the CTC acquired these questions as part of its ongoing effort to identify and release relevant information for scholars, researchers and the global public that is contained in U.S. government databases. Additionally, we have made these questions available, in their entirety, on the CTC website (http://ctc.usma.edu/).

Questions for Ayman Al-Zawahiri

The Power of Truth

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.

Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

Brian Fishman

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