The radical Islamic militants of Central Asia. OSW Report, November 2013

Radical Islamic militants from Central Asia have ceased to be a local phenomenon. The organisations created by those groups (the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union) engage in propaganda, recruitment, fundraising and terrorist operations in states distant from their traditional area of interest, such as European Union countries, South Asia and the United States. Their ranks contain not only Central Asian Islamists, but also those from other countries, such as Russia, Pakistan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey and even Myanmar. These organisations’ current activities and forms are multidimensional and complicated, characterised by combat versatility, structural amorphism, operational mobility and simultaneous operations in different fields and theatres. As a result of the universalization of Islamic terrorism, these organisations have been intensifying contacts with other international Islamic terrorist organisations based in Waziristan (mainly al-Qaida, Taliban and the Haqqani Network). A specific system of mutual cooperation has developed between them, involving the specialisation of various terrorist organisations in particular aspects of terrorist activity. The IMU and IJU specialise in the recruitment and training of Islamic radicals from around the world, and have thus become a kind of ‘jihad academy’.

Análisis de las relaciones bilaterales entre Pakistán y Estados Unidos en materia de seguridad (Periodo 2007 - 2010)

Después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre de 2001, Pakistán se ha convertido en uno de los principales aliados de Estados Unidos para combatir las fuerzas terroristas de Al-Qaeda y los talibán en el centro y sur de Asia. La alianza bilateral no ha manifestado resultados determinantes para aliviar los problemas de seguridad en Pakistán, por el contrario, la yihad islámica se ha fortalecido en su población y los ataques terroristas que atentan contra la población civil y el aparato estatal se vuelven cada vez mas frecuentes, en razón de lo anterior, los grupos insurgentes en Pakistán han fortalecido su capacidad operativa y expandido su escenario de influencia.

Jihad vs The New Great Game: Paradoxes of militant Islamic threats in Central Asia. OSW Point of View (Policy Brief), January 2010

Threats linked to Islamic fundamentalism have been hanging over Central Asia for almost two decades. Many believe that militant Islam has played a significant part in each major political crisis in the region, and Central Asia is perceived as an almost perfect environment for its further development. Such a picture of this region is a result of serious abuses and manipulations. The real threat posed by militant Islam seems to be rather limited, and its roots lie outside Central Asia. This region is unlikely to become a key front of global jihad. Nevertheless, this does not guarantee peace and safety in Central Asia, as the Islamic threat remains an element of the geopolitical rivalry in the region – the ‘New Great Game’.

The death of Osama bin Laden - the end of Al-Qaeda's Pan-Islamic ambition?

This paper evaluates the implications of Osama bin Ladin’s death for the future of al-Qaeda’s global jihad. It critically examines the debate as to the make-up of the group and identifies bin Ladin’s primary role as chief ideologue advocating a defensive jihad to liberate the umma. The rationale and appeal of bin Ladin’s message and Muslims’ reaction to both his statements and al-Qaeda’s increasing use of sectarian violence are assessed in the context of Pan-Islam as political ideology. The paper concludes that while the ideal of Islamic unity and the sentiment of Muslim solidarity are unlikely to vanish, al-Qaeda’s violent jihad has not only failed to achieve these goals but has worked against it, thereby confining it to the political margins.

How Islamic is al-Qaeda? The politics of Pan-Islam and the challenge of modernisation

This article investigates the contested ideology of al-Qaeda through an analysis of Osama bin Ladin’s writings and public statements issued between 1994 and 2011, set in relation to the development of Islamic thought and changing socio-political realities in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenging popular conceptions of Wahhabism and the “Salafi jihad”, it reveals an idealistic, Pan-Islamic sentiment at the core of his messages that is not based on the main schools of Islamic theology, but is the result of a crisis of meaning of Islam in the modern world. Both before and after the death of al-Qaeda’s iconic leader, the continuing process of religious, political and intellectual fragmentation of the Muslim world has led to bin Ladin’s vision for unity being replaced by local factions and individuals pursuing their own agendas in the name of al-Qaeda and Islam.

Chechnya: Between a Caucasian Jihad and ‘hidden’ separatism. OSW Point of View, January 2007

1. Even though Chechnya remains the most unstable republic in the Russian North Caucasus, the open armed conflict known as the Second Chechen War, which broke out in the autumn of 1999, is gradually dying down. 2. Several years ago, the conflict in Chechnya could have been characterised as a war between Chechen separatists and the government of the Russian Federation. However, the nature of the conflict has changed significantly over the last four or five years. 3. Even though the intensity of fighting in Chechnya has abated in recent years, the conflict has spilt over to the other Caucasus republics such as Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. As a result, this is presently not so much a Chechen conflict as a regional clash between the authorities and the Caucasian (including Chechen) Islamists. 4. The Chechen militants are weaker now, and the conflict has changed from a struggle for national liberation into a fight for the Islamic cause; but this does not mean that Russia has ultimately solved the problem of Chechen separatism.

On the periphery of global jihad. The North Caucasus: the illusion of stabilisation. OSW Point of View Number 45, November 2014

The situation in the North Caucasus has stabilised, in comparison with previous years, mainly as regards the activity of the Islamic military underground. This is an effect of ideological changes among the militants which have led to a dilution of the Caucasian armed struggle and its marginalisation in global jihad, since top priority has been granted to the Middle Eastern front. The factors which have contributed to this stabilisation are the organisational crisis in the Caucasus Emirate and the outflux of militants to the Middle East, as well the successful ‘carrot and stick’ policy adopted by Moscow. However, the partial stabilisation in the Caucasus is inherently precarious, being a contingent outcome of the situation rather than the result of systemic change. The region’s pressing problems remain unresolved; and these problems are generating chronic instability and cauing the Caucasus to drift away from Russia in civilisational terms. An economic or political crisis in the Russian Federation may result in the conflicts in the Caucasus unfreezing, including a reactivation of the idea of Chechen independence as well as the idea of the Caucasus Emirate, which is a part of global jihad.

Jihad and Islam in World War I : Studies on the Ottoman Jihad at the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje's "Holy War Made in Germany" /

This books investigates the background and nature of the Ottoman Jihad proclamation, but also its effects in the wider Middle East. It looks at the German hopes and British fears of a worldwide rising of Muslims in the colonial empires. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State: A comparative study of the Jihadi narratives

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Islamismo e terrore: un grande Jihad contro il senso comune (essay)

What implies the conversion to fundamentalist Islam? What are the repercussions and implications of ‘political Islam’ in specific contexts? The relation between Islam, democracy and violence is often represented in a reductive or simplistic way. In order to contribute to a reasoned debate on these pressing questions, this essay covers some key dynamics stemming from long-term ethnographic observation regarding the conversion to neo Salafism among Arab Bedouin citizens in southern Israel, placing them in the context of contemporary developments of Islamic political thought. The ethnographic sensitivity, combined with the voices of some eminent Islamic intellectuals, allows to go beyond both the rhetoric of cultural complexity and the common-sense view that Islamic terrorism would be a kind of ‘anti imperialism of the losers’, arguments employed often to contest emerging neo-orientalist discourses. In this sense, the essay states the need to shed light on coordinates and interpretative categories that are not placed in an essentially different but in often unexpected ways.

The Islamic/Qur'anic concept of emancipation of women according to 'Bint al-Shati', 1913-1998

A presentation and an analysis of the Islamic concept of emancipation of women as it is proposed by Bint al-Shati (1913-1998), an Egyptian specialist of Qur'anic exegesis, will illustrate her exegetical method. thereafter, some difficulties of her interpretation will be raised, shedding light on contradictions that her exegesis, which seeks to be both Islamic and modern, cannot avoid.