68.Loveday Morris, “Islamic State Seizes Town of Sinjar, Pushing out Kurds and Sending Yazidis Fleeing,” Washington Post, August 3, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islamic-state-seize-town-of-sinjar-pushing-out-kurds-and-sending-yazidis-fleeing/2014/08/03/52ab53f1-48de-4ae1-9e1d-e241a15f580e_story.html.
69.“Who, What, Why: Who Are the Yazidis?” BBC Magazine Monitor, August 7, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28686607.
70.Jane Arraf, “Islamic State Persecution of Yazidi Miniority Amounts to Genocide, UN Says,” Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 2014, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0807/Islamic-State-persecution-of-Yazidi-minority-amounts-to-genocide-UN-says-video.
71.Ivan Watson, “ ‘Treated Like Cattle,’ Yazidi Women Sold, Raped, Enslaved by ISIS,” CNN World, November 7, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/world/meast/isis-female-slaves/.
72.Dan Wilkofsky and Osama Abu Zeid, “US-Backed SRF ‘No Longer’ in South Idlib After Nusra Victory,” Syria: Direct, November 4, 2014, http://syriadirect.org/main/30-reports/1653-us-backed-srf-no-longer-in-south-idlib-after-nusra-victory.
73.Aron Lund, “Syria’s Ahrar al-Sham Leadership Wiped Out in Bombing,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 9, 2014, http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=56581; Email interview with Charles Lister.
74.Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Statement by the President on ISIL,” September 10, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1.
75.Ashley Fantz, “Who Is Doing What in the Coalition Battle Against ISIS?” CNN World, September 17, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/14/world/meast/isis-coalition-nations/.
76.Martha Raddatz and Luis Martinez, “Airstrikes in Syria That Targeted Khorasan Group Disrupted Plots Against US, Gen. Dempsy Says,” ABC News, October 7, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/International/airstrikes-syria-targeted-khorasan-group-disrupted-plots-us/story?id=26030142.
77.Wilkofsky and Abu Zeid, “US-Backed SRF ‘No Longer’ in South Idlib After Nusra Victory.”
78.Charles Lister, “In Syria, a Last Gasp Warning for U.S. Influcence,” Brookings Institution, December 5, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2014/12/05-syria-united-states-losing-last-gasp-at-leverage
79.Aron Lund, “The Levant Front: Can Aleppo’s Rebels Unite?,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 26, 2014 http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=57605.
80.“Islamic State: Fighting Intensifies in Syrian Town of Kobane,” BBC News Middle East, November 29, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30260834; Ben Hubbard, “ISIS Wave of Might Is Turning into a Ripple,” New York Times, November 5, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/world/middleeast/isis-wave-of-might-is-turning-into-ripple.html?_r=0.
81.Brian Katulis, “Good News from Iraq: ISIS Setbacks,” Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/11/17/good-news-from-iraq-isis-setbacks/; “Thirty U.S.-Led Strikes Hit Islamic State in Syria’s Raqqa: Monitoring Group,” Reuters, November 30, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/30/us-mideast-crisis-syria-raqqa-idUSKCN0JE07020141130.
82.Charles Lister, “Assessing Syria’s Jihad,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 56, no. 6 (2014): 87–112.
83.Patrick Cockburn, “ISIS Consolidates,” London Review 36, no. 16 (August 21, 2014), http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n16/patrick-cockburn/isis-consolidates.
84.Lister, “Assessing Syria’s Jihad.”
CHAPTER 3. FROM VANGUARD TO SMART MOB
1.Descriptions of al Qaeda’s founding in this chapter derived from al Qaeda internal records obtained by J. M. Berger. Translations of most of the documents can be found in Beatings and Bureaucracy: The Founding Memos of Al Qaeda, ed. J. M. Berger (Intelwire Press, 2012).
2.Paul Klebnikov, “Who Is Osama Bin Laden?” Forbes, September 14, 2001, http://www.forbes.com/2001/09/14/0914whoisobl.html.
3.For a fuller discussion of Omar Abdel Rahman and al Qaeda see J. M. Berger, “The Death Dealers (1990–1993),” ch. 3 in Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2011).
4.Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 370.
5.For a fuller discussion see J. M. Berger, “War on America (1991–1999),” ch. 6 in Jihad Joe.
6.The State of the Ummah, online video, As-Sahab Media Productions, 2001.
7.“Timeline of al-Qaida Statements,” NBC News, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4686034/ns/world_news-hunt_for_al_qaida/t/timeline-al-qaida-statements/.
8.Alan Cullison, “Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive,” Atlantic, September 1, 2004, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/09/inside-al-qaeda-s-hard-drive/303428/?single_page=true.
9.“Bin Laden on Tape: Attacks ‘Benefited Islam Greatly,’” CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/, last modified December 14, 2001.
10.Jane Novak, “Arabian Peninsula Al-Qaeda Groups Merge,” Long War Journal, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/01/arabian_peninsula_al.php, last modified January 26, 2009.
11.Gregory D. Johnson, The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 2013).
12.“Al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI),” National Counterterrorism Center, http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/aqi.html, accessed September 20, 2014.
13.“Al-Qa’Ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),” National Counterterrorism Center, http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/aqim.html, accessed September 20, 2014.
14.“Al-Qa’Ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),” National Counterterrorism Center, http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/aqap.html, accessed September 20, 2014.
15.“Al-Shabaab,” National Counterterrorism Center, http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/al_shabaab.html, accessed September 20, 2014.
16.“Al-Nusrah Front,” National Counterterrorism Center, http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/al_nusrah.html, accessed September 20, 2014.
17.Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Announcing a New Branch of Al Qaeda Al Jihad,” As-Sahab Media, September 3, 2014.
18.Zachary Abuza, “Balik-Terrorism: The Return of the Abu Sayyaf,” Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2005, 14–15.
19.For a fuller discussion see J. M. Berger, “Project Bosnia (1992–1995),” ch. 4 in Jihad Joe.
20.For example, House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, “Jihadist Safe Havens: Efforts to Detect and Deter Terrorist Travel,” July 24, 2014. A July 24, 2014, Nexis search for AQAP and “most dangerous” produced more than 1,600 results.
21.Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Peter Neumann, “Al Qaeda’s Most Dangerous Franchise,” Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2012, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304203604577395611014467928.
22.Special Agent Theodore James Peisig, “United States of America v. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,” Huffington Post, Big Assets, December 25, 2009.
23.“$4,200,” Inspire, November 2010.
24.Lia, Architect of Global Jihad, 422.
25.Louis Beam, “Leaderless Resistance,” http://www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm; Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Leadership vs. Leaderless Resistance: The Militant White Separatist Movement’s Operating Model,” Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, February 18, 2010, http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/leadership-vs-leaderless-resistance-the-militant-white-separatist-movement/.
26.Shane Dennan, “From ’Abdullah ’Azzam to Djamel Zitouni,” CTC Sentinel 1, no. 7 (2008), https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/constructing-takfir-from-abdullah-azzam-to-djamel-zitouni, accessed September 5, 2014.
27.Ayman Zawahiri, “Zawahiri’s Letter to Zarqawi,” trans. Center for Combating Terrorism at West Point, July 9, 2005, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/zawahiris-letter-to-zarqawi-english-translation-2.
28.Nasir al Wuhayshi to Osama bin Laden, August 27, 2010, in Don Rassler et al., “
Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 2012, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letters-from-abbottabad-bin-ladin-sidelined.
29.Bill Roggio, “African Al-Qaeda Leader Side with Zawahiri in Syrian Dispute,” Long War Journal, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/05/african_al_qaeda_lea.php., last modified May 1, 2014.
30.Aaron Zelin, “The War Between ISIS and Al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement,” Research Notes, Washington Institute, 2014.
31.Farouk Chothia, “Ahmed Abdi Godane: Somalia’s Killed Al-Shabab Leader,” BBC News Africa, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29034409.
32.Berger, Jihad Joe, 170–74.
33.J. M. Berger, “Me Against the World,” Foreign Policy, May 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/25/me_against_the_world; J. M Berger, “Omar and Me,” Foreign Policy, September 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/16/omar_and_me.
34.Berger, “Omar and Me.”
35.Aaron Zelin, “The State of Global Jihad Online: A Qualitative, Quantitative, and Cross-Lingual Analysis,” New America Foundation, 2013, http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Zelin_Global%20Jihad%20Online_NAF.pdf.
36.Philipp Holtmann, “The Different Functions of IS Online and Offline Pledges,” Jihadology, November 15, 2015, http://jihadology.net/2014/11/15/guest-post-the-different-functions-of-is-online-and-offline-plegdes-bayat-creating-a-multifaceted-nexus-of-authority/.
37.Berger, “Omar and Me.”
38.Tony Busch, “How Twitter Is Messing with Al-Qaeda’s Careful PR Machine,” Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/how-twitter-is-messing-with-al-qaedas-careful-pr-machine/275697/, last modified May 14, 2013.
39.Abdullah bin Mohammed, “Strategy Affairs,” Twitter account, https://twitter.com/Strategyaffairs.
40.Omar Hammami to J. M. Berger, Twitter message.
41.Hamsa Omar and Sarah McGregor, “U.S. Al-Qaeda Member Rebuked by Somalia Militia over Criticism,” Bloomberg, December 18, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/u-s-al-qaeda-member-rebuked-by-somalia-militia-over-criticism.html; hundreds of tweets to Hammami by Shabab members archived by J. M. Berger; many of these accounts are now suspended.
42.Majid Ahmed, “Open Letter to Al-Zawahiri Rocks Foundations of Al-Shabaab,” Sabahi, April 12, 2013, http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2013/04/12/feature-01.
43.Sa’eed Bin Jubayr, Twitter post, May 18, 2013, https://twitter.com/IbnJubayr/status/335786202542268417, accessed September 20, 2014.
44.Berger, “Omar and Me.”
45.Zelin, “The State of Global Jihad Online.”
46.Forum activity tracked over time by J. M. Berger; additional information was provided by two analysts who track online jihadist activity but spoke under conditions of anonymity.
47.Zelin, “The War Between ISIS and Al-Qaeda.”
48.Ayman Zawahiri. “A Testimony to Save/Preserve Blood of the Mujahideen in Sham,” Jihadology, Aaron Zelin, 2005, https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/dr-ayman-al-e1ba93awc481hirc4ab-22testimony-to-preserve-the-blood-of-the-mujc481hidc4abn-in-al-shc481m22-en.pdf; see also, Ayman Zawahiri, “Eulogy for the Martyr of the Fitnah Shaykh Abῡ Khᾱlid Al-Sῡrῑ,” Jihadology, Aaron Zelin, 2014.
49.Hashtag activity tracked and analyzed by J. M. Berger March 25–27, 2014.
50.Aaron Zelin, “Member of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shᾱm Leaks Unpublished Video Message from Adam Gadahan: ‘Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shᾱm: Extremists,’” Jihadology, March 29, 2014, http://jihadology.net/2014/03/29/member-of-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-al-sham-leaks-unpublished-video-message-from-adam-gadahan-islamic-state-of-iraq-and-al-sham-extremists/. On the forum infiltration, members of al Qaeda’s media team were identified by their activity uploading videos to popular file-sharing forums, including account information that could be correlated back to both Twitter and to the names used by prominent forum members; analysis of forum Twitter feeds over time pointed to shifting allegiances. Additional information was provided by two analysts who track online jihadist activity but spoke under conditions of anonymity.
51.Zelin, “Member of Islamic State”; Bill Roggio, “Al Qaeda’s American Propagandist Notes Death of Terror Group’s Representative in Syria,” Long War Journal, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/03/al_qaedas_american_p.php, last modified March 30, 2014.
52.For example, SayfulAdl, Twitter post, April 22, 2014, 1:28 p.m., https://twitter.com/SayfulAdl/status/458658509434146816.
53.“Amir of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham,” translated by Pieter Van Ostaeyen, http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-a-short-biography-of-the-isis-sheikh/, last modified July 7, 2013; Associated Press, “Mosul Video Purports to Show Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Head of Islamic State,” Guardian, July 5, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/mosul-video-purports-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-islamic-state; Martin Chulov, “Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Emerges from Shadows to Rally Islamist Followers,” Guardian, July 6, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-isis.
54.Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2002), xii.
55.“Iraq PM Calls Emergency after Mosul Seized,” Al Jazeera, June 10, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/iraq-calls-emergency-after-rebels-seize-mosul-2014610121410596821.html.
56.A more detailed discussion of content can be found in Chapter 5.
57.Patrick Kingsley, “Who Is Behind Isis’s Terrifying Online Propaganda Operation?” Guardian, June 23, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/who-behind-isis-propaganda-operation-iraq.
58.Mosnen, JustPaste File Upload, justpaste.it/Mosnen, accessed September 20, 2014; “Nursing Homes in the State of Nineveh,” forum post, http://www.hanein.info/vb/showthread.php?t=383739, accessed September 20, 2014.
59.Abu Naji, The Management of Savagery, translated by Will McCants, http://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/abu-bakr-naji-the-management-of-savagery-the-most-critical-stage-through-which-the-umma-will-pass.pdf, 51.
60.Anwar al-`Awlaqi, “Constants on the Path of Jihad,” audio lecture, 2005; J. M Berger, “The Enduring Appeal of Al-`Awlaqi’s ‘Constants on the Path of Jihad,’” CTC Sentinel 4, no. 10 (2011): 12–14.
CHAPTER 4. THE FOREIGN FIGHTERS
1.“Eid Greetings from the Land of Khilafah,” video, August 2014.
2.William McCants, “Militant Ideology Atlas,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, November 1, 2006, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/militant-ideology-atlas, 44, 47.
3.The gun, a World War II–era MP40, was likely a toy or a replica. Aside from its antiquity, the weight would probably have been too great for a small child. Other children in the video brandished guns that were clearly toys.
4.Megan Specia, “Westerners Among Knife-Wielding Militants in ISIS Beheading Video,” Mashable.com, November 17, 2014, http://mashable.com/2014/11/17/foreign-fighters-isis-video/; “Danish Jihadist ‘Possibly’ in ISIS Beheading Video,” Local Denmark, November 18, 2014, http://www.thelocal.dk/20141118/danish-jihadist-possibly-in-new-isis-video; Jenny Booth and Charles Bremner, “Security Services Race to Identify ISIS Killers,” Times (London), November 17, 2014, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4270040.ece.
5.Joshua Holland, “Why Have a Record Number of Westerners Joined the Islamic State?” BillMoyers.com, October 10, 2014, http://billmoyers.com/2014/10/10/record-number-westerners-joined-islamic-state-great-threat/.
6.Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, “Foreign Fighter in Iraq and Syria: Where Do They Come From?” infograph, http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/infographics/26584940.html, accessed December 11, 2014.
7.Mohanad Hage Ali, “Meet ISIS’s New Breed of Chechen Militants,” Al Arabiya, August 31, 2014.
8.Scott Pelly, “FBI Director: We Know the Americans Fighting in Syria,” video, produced by
Robert Anderson and Pat Milton, October 5, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-director-james-comey-we-know-the-americans-fighting-in-syria/; “FBI Tracking 150 Americans Who Traveled to Syria, Perhaps to Fight,” Reuters, November 18, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/us-usa-fbi-syria-idUSKCN0J22HG20141118; “Intel Believes 300 Americans Fighting with Islamic State, Posing Threat to US,” Washington Times, August 26, 2014, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/26/us-citizens-joining-islamic-state-pose-major-threa/?page=all.
9.“FBI Director: Americans Fighting in Syria Hard to Track,” CBS News, August 11, 2014, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-director-americans-fighting-in-syria-hard-to-track/.
10.Data collected from Facebook and Twitter, December 2013–November 2014.
11.Harriet Alexander, “Jihadists in Syria Write Home to France: My iPod is Broken, I Want to Come Back,” The Telegraph, December 2, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11268208/Jihadists-in-Syria-write-home-to-France-My-iPod-is-broken.-I-want-to-come-back.html.
12.“Two Thousand Britons Fighting with Terrorists in Iraq and Syria,” Sunday Telegraph, November 23, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11248114/Muslim-MP-2000-Britons-fighting-for-Islamic-State.html.
13.Patrick Wintour, “Jihadis Who Travel to Syria Could Be Barred from UK Return for Two Years,” Guardian, November 14, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/13/british-jihadis-syria-bar-from-uk-two-years; Martin Robinson, “The Homegrown Jihadists Fighting for ISIS: How one in four foreigners who have signed up for Islamic State is British—and how half of them are ALREADY back in the UK,” Daily Mail, August 21, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730602/The-homegrown-jihadists-fighting-ISIS-How-one-four-foreigners-signed-Islamic-State-British-half-ALREADY-UK.html.
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