Daveed Gartenstein
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
In April 2011, a post appeared on the leading jihadist web forum Shumukh Al Islam authored by a little known writer called Abu Asma Al Kubi. The post itself was unimpressive. It argued that European support had been critical in keeping the US in Afghanistan, and thus “individual jihad” targeting Europe could cause America’s complete collapse “before the end of this year.” The BBC’s web monitoring service rightly described the post as “a poorly written and incoherent analysis of current events.”
Yet even at the time, the jihadist sympathisers who ran the web forum treated the post with a sense of importance out of step with its meagre intellectual heft. Shumukh Al Islam promoted it heavily, placing a banner advertising the article on its main page.
This was the second time that the forum had given such a prominent place to one of Al Kubi’s posts — the previous time, it was for an October 2010 post contending that then-ISAF commander General David Petraeus was preparing to negotiate a ceasefire with Al Qaeda. The author’s adopted name — Al Kubi, or “the Cuban” — suggested that he spent time at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, a hint that the man behind these posts may have been someone of significance.
Al Kubi would continue to post online for another couple of years, anonymously producing over a dozen long posts for a variety of jihadist sites. And when his identity was revealed, he turned out to be more influential than Western analysts could ever have imagined: He was Said Al Shihri, the deputy emir of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It was only after AQAP admitted in July 2013 that Al Shihri had been killed in a drone strike that forum members went public with his identity.
At a time when the risk of a major terrorist attack by AQAP has succeeded in disrupting US diplomatic work in roughly 20 countries, from Mauritania to Afghanistan, Al Shihri’s writings provide a unique glimpse into the thinking of the organisation’s leadership. And with AQAP leader Nasir Al Wuhayshi’s recent promotion to deputy manager of the global organisation, they may even provide readers with hints of the direction that the entire terror organisation will take.
Al Shihri’s writings reveal a thinker who preferred a strong, centralised jihadist organisation that nonetheless left ample room for individual initiative in carrying out attacks. At a time when some analysts still question whether Al Qaeda is capable of strategic thought, he offered a phased plan for expanding jihadist power in the post-Arab Spring world. Yet despite his emphasis on strategy, Al Shihri’s paranoia about Shiites — who were seemingly an even greater target for his animosity than the US — distinguished him even from other jihadist writers. Given the renewed Sunni-Shia sectarian animus over the Syria war, Al Shihri’s writings may even have been ahead of the curve with regard to jihadist thought. If such views are held by Wuhayshi, Al Qaeda may be poised to repeat some of the brutal errors it made in the past.
Al Shihri’s April 2011 post to Shumukh Al Islam claimed that “individual jihad” — attacks by individuals not guided by Al Qaeda’s central leadership — in Europe could cause the collapse of the US. It was a theme he would harp on repeatedly. Several scholars have also addressed this issue, with some — such as Marc Sageman in his 2008 book “Leaderless Jihad” — suggesting that such informal networks could eclipse the importance of Al Qaeda itself.
Al-Shihri, however, saw no contradiction between individual jihad and Al Qaeda’s central hierarchy. In a February 2012 post, he described individual jihad as “very important,” especially against the US, which he viewed as a paper tiger. He thought it shameful that the US had killed Al Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Atiyah Abd Al Rahman, and Anwar Al Awlaki without provoking even small retaliatory attacks, such as setting fire to forests or cars. Al Shihri stated that individual jihad could “harm, deter, and distract the enemy,” pointing specifically to the economic consequences of forcing the US to spend “billions to secure its inside.”
Al Shihri’s posts seem to differ with opinions that argue that either individual or regionalised jihad has eclipsed Al Qaeda’s organisational structure as the driving force in terrorism today. He sees no contradiction between the existence of many different Al Qaeda branches and a central jihadist structure. As he writes, God blessed the movement with “many jihadist organisations under one emirate.”
A jihadist need not wait to coordinate with the larger group, Al Shihri counselled. Rather, he should take his own initiative in gathering information “and whatever he can find... to benefit jihad.” That information should be passed along to the nearest leadership outpost, and “if there is an outpost in his country, he joins it or proposes to it the work that he can do.”
Al Shihri formulates a largely centralised model, but one that incentivises, encourages, and sets the direction for individual actions. This is consistent with the messaging and propaganda of AQAP, whose online English-language magazine Inspire consistently encourages readers to undertake individual jihad.
Lost in the often tired debate over whether the uprisings across the Arab world over the past few years damaged Al Qaeda is the manner in which these revolutionary events have changed it. Al Shihri propounded a clear vision for how jihadists should respond to the changes gripping the Arab world.
Salafist movements have struggled with how they should relate to the region’s new democratic systems, with some arguing that electoral politics, even if problematic, can be beneficial in helping to usher in Shariah (Islamic law).
Al Shihri delivered a sharp rebuttal to this view, arguing that Salafists erred by forgoing violence, which in fact was necessary to establish legitimate religious rule. In his view, efforts of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood to establish a religious polity through political participation was a fool’s errand. While most Westerners think elections confer legitimacy while violence does not, Al Shihri argued the opposite — that imposing a religious regime by violence is the only legitimate alternative, while elections would create illegitimate authority. Al Shihri believed that one important stage of the new period was undertaking dawa, or missionary activity. Interpreting Al Qaeda and its affiliates can be extremely difficult for Western analysts — the organisation remains so shadowy that we risk inferring broad trends from mere fragments of information. But as observers attempt to gain better perspective on Wuhayshi, they would do well to look at the online writings of “the Cuban” — whose work, although it started so incoherent, eventually came to map a body of thought from which we might learn.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
In April 2011, a post appeared on the leading jihadist web forum Shumukh Al Islam authored by a little known writer called Abu Asma Al Kubi. The post itself was unimpressive. It argued that European support had been critical in keeping the US in Afghanistan, and thus “individual jihad” targeting Europe could cause America’s complete collapse “before the end of this year.” The BBC’s web monitoring service rightly described the post as “a poorly written and incoherent analysis of current events.”
Yet even at the time, the jihadist sympathisers who ran the web forum treated the post with a sense of importance out of step with its meagre intellectual heft. Shumukh Al Islam promoted it heavily, placing a banner advertising the article on its main page.
This was the second time that the forum had given such a prominent place to one of Al Kubi’s posts — the previous time, it was for an October 2010 post contending that then-ISAF commander General David Petraeus was preparing to negotiate a ceasefire with Al Qaeda. The author’s adopted name — Al Kubi, or “the Cuban” — suggested that he spent time at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, a hint that the man behind these posts may have been someone of significance.
Al Kubi would continue to post online for another couple of years, anonymously producing over a dozen long posts for a variety of jihadist sites. And when his identity was revealed, he turned out to be more influential than Western analysts could ever have imagined: He was Said Al Shihri, the deputy emir of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It was only after AQAP admitted in July 2013 that Al Shihri had been killed in a drone strike that forum members went public with his identity.
At a time when the risk of a major terrorist attack by AQAP has succeeded in disrupting US diplomatic work in roughly 20 countries, from Mauritania to Afghanistan, Al Shihri’s writings provide a unique glimpse into the thinking of the organisation’s leadership. And with AQAP leader Nasir Al Wuhayshi’s recent promotion to deputy manager of the global organisation, they may even provide readers with hints of the direction that the entire terror organisation will take.
Al Shihri’s writings reveal a thinker who preferred a strong, centralised jihadist organisation that nonetheless left ample room for individual initiative in carrying out attacks. At a time when some analysts still question whether Al Qaeda is capable of strategic thought, he offered a phased plan for expanding jihadist power in the post-Arab Spring world. Yet despite his emphasis on strategy, Al Shihri’s paranoia about Shiites — who were seemingly an even greater target for his animosity than the US — distinguished him even from other jihadist writers. Given the renewed Sunni-Shia sectarian animus over the Syria war, Al Shihri’s writings may even have been ahead of the curve with regard to jihadist thought. If such views are held by Wuhayshi, Al Qaeda may be poised to repeat some of the brutal errors it made in the past.
Al Shihri’s April 2011 post to Shumukh Al Islam claimed that “individual jihad” — attacks by individuals not guided by Al Qaeda’s central leadership — in Europe could cause the collapse of the US. It was a theme he would harp on repeatedly. Several scholars have also addressed this issue, with some — such as Marc Sageman in his 2008 book “Leaderless Jihad” — suggesting that such informal networks could eclipse the importance of Al Qaeda itself.
Al-Shihri, however, saw no contradiction between individual jihad and Al Qaeda’s central hierarchy. In a February 2012 post, he described individual jihad as “very important,” especially against the US, which he viewed as a paper tiger. He thought it shameful that the US had killed Al Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Atiyah Abd Al Rahman, and Anwar Al Awlaki without provoking even small retaliatory attacks, such as setting fire to forests or cars. Al Shihri stated that individual jihad could “harm, deter, and distract the enemy,” pointing specifically to the economic consequences of forcing the US to spend “billions to secure its inside.”
Al Shihri’s posts seem to differ with opinions that argue that either individual or regionalised jihad has eclipsed Al Qaeda’s organisational structure as the driving force in terrorism today. He sees no contradiction between the existence of many different Al Qaeda branches and a central jihadist structure. As he writes, God blessed the movement with “many jihadist organisations under one emirate.”
A jihadist need not wait to coordinate with the larger group, Al Shihri counselled. Rather, he should take his own initiative in gathering information “and whatever he can find... to benefit jihad.” That information should be passed along to the nearest leadership outpost, and “if there is an outpost in his country, he joins it or proposes to it the work that he can do.”
Al Shihri formulates a largely centralised model, but one that incentivises, encourages, and sets the direction for individual actions. This is consistent with the messaging and propaganda of AQAP, whose online English-language magazine Inspire consistently encourages readers to undertake individual jihad.
Lost in the often tired debate over whether the uprisings across the Arab world over the past few years damaged Al Qaeda is the manner in which these revolutionary events have changed it. Al Shihri propounded a clear vision for how jihadists should respond to the changes gripping the Arab world.
Salafist movements have struggled with how they should relate to the region’s new democratic systems, with some arguing that electoral politics, even if problematic, can be beneficial in helping to usher in Shariah (Islamic law).
Al Shihri delivered a sharp rebuttal to this view, arguing that Salafists erred by forgoing violence, which in fact was necessary to establish legitimate religious rule. In his view, efforts of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood to establish a religious polity through political participation was a fool’s errand. While most Westerners think elections confer legitimacy while violence does not, Al Shihri argued the opposite — that imposing a religious regime by violence is the only legitimate alternative, while elections would create illegitimate authority. Al Shihri believed that one important stage of the new period was undertaking dawa, or missionary activity. Interpreting Al Qaeda and its affiliates can be extremely difficult for Western analysts — the organisation remains so shadowy that we risk inferring broad trends from mere fragments of information. But as observers attempt to gain better perspective on Wuhayshi, they would do well to look at the online writings of “the Cuban” — whose work, although it started so incoherent, eventually came to map a body of thought from which we might learn.
WP-BLOOMBERG
