Notes from chapter 16

1. Author’s interview with Abdallah Anas, Kabul, 8 December 2017.

2. al-Haddushi, ‘nubdha mukhtasira’.

3. fi ‘uyun mu‘asira, p. 76. Ibid., p. 390.

4. ‘The Abdullah Azzam of Syria: A Profile of Abdallah Muhammad Bin Sulayman al-Muhaysini’, Jamestown.org, 7 February 2017.

5. FBIS, ‘Compilation’, p. 125.

6. al-Zawahiri, The Exoneration, pp. 32–37. ‘Abdullah Azzam: the Wounds of al-Quds on the Peaks of the Hindu Kush’.

7. al-Filastini, ‘shaykh al-jihad’.

8. Miller, The Audacious Ascetic, p. 87.

9. ‘Bin Laden’s Bookshelf’. ‘November 2017 Release of Abbottabad Compound Material’.

10. ‘Jihad in Pakistan’.

11. For example, in late August 2018 the channels Sham’ul Melahim, Livet i Sham, shabakat al-fida’, Umm Ammara, and Mujahidah all posted Azzam materials, such as his book Signs of the Merciful (in both Arabic and English) and videotaped lectures (with English and French subtitles), in addition to memes featuring his picture and selected quotes.

12. ‘The Dr. Abdallah Azzam Academy’, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 6 April 2009, pp. 10–12.

13. Aymenn J. al-Tamimi, ‘The Islamic State Billboards and Murals of Tel Afar and Mosul’, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi’s Blog, 7 January 2015 (last accessed 10 April 2018).

14. fi ‘uyun mu‘asira, pp. 501–598.

15. Abd al-Rahman al-Ashmawi, ‘risala ila al-shahid ‘abdallah ‘azzam’ [Letter to the Martyr Abdallah Azzam], 17 February 2017. fi ‘uyun mu‘asira, p. 197.

16. Maliach, ‘Abdullah Azzam, al-Qaeda, and Hamas’, p. 89; Abu Hilala, awwal al-afghan al-arab.

17. Twitter message from @Weissenberg7 (Caleb Weiss), 5 February 2019.

18. Lucas Winter, ‘The Abdullah Azzam Brigades’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34, no. 11 (2011): 883–895.

19. Anja Freudenthal, ‘Abdallah Azzam Brigades’, HS-community.org, 28 February 2016 [last accessed 4 April 2018].

20. Video statement posted on Youtube on 13 September 2014.

21. al-Safir (Beirut), 11 August 1998.

22. Shafika Mattar, ‘US Ship Attacked in Jordan Port’, Washington Post, 20 August 2005.

23. ‘New Group Takes Credit for Pakistan Blast’, UPI.com, 11 June 2009; Iftikhar Firdous, ‘Suicide Attack on Peshawar Police Station Leaves Four Dead’, Express Tribune, 24 February 2012.

24. ‘Japan Tanker was Damaged in a Terror Attack, UAE Says’, BBC News Online, 6 August 2010.

25. ‘The Dr. Abdallah Azzam Academy’, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

26. Christopher Anzalone, ‘al-Shabab’s Tactical and Media Strategies in the Wake of its Battlefield Setbacks’, CTC Sentinel 6, no. 3 (2013): 12–15; Christopher Anzalone, ‘The Rise and Decline of al-Shabab in Somalia’, Turkish Review 4, no. 4 (2014): 386–395.

27. Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, ‘The Factions of Abu Kamal’, Brown Moses Blog, 18 December 2013.

28. ‘shahid takhrij dawra li-jabhat al-nusra min mu‘askarat ‘‘abdallah ‘azzam’ fi dana bi-rif idlib’ [Watch the Graduation of a Jabhat al-Nusra Unit from the Abdallah Azzam Training Camps in Dana in the Idlib Countryside], Youtube, 8 May 2016..

29. Twitter message by @Raqqa_SL on 2 November 2015. Twitter message from @obretix on 19 May 2018 (camp location map). Twitter message from @jenanmoussa, 13 May 2018.

30. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Seamus Hughes, and Bennett Clifford, The Travelers: American Jihadists in Syria and Iraq (Washington, DC: George Washington University Program on Extremism, February 2018), p. 60.

31. ‘In Southeast Asian Recruitment Drive, IS Posts Video of Malay-Speaking Child Members’, Malay Mail Online, 17 March 2015.

32. [No reference].

33. ‘al-Qaeda Founder’s Name Given to Istanbul’s Street in Turkey’, soL InternationaL Online, 17 July 2017.

34. Twitter message from @SeamusHughes, 22 June 2016.

35. Twitter message from @RomainCaillet, 30 June 2017.

36. In September 2015 the user of the Twitter account @nightwalker_54 included in his biography a link to the IS media repository Isdarat while at the same time having a background picture with an Azzam quote (“Jihad and the Rifle Alone,” in English) (accessed 20 September 2015).

37. Twitter message from @SeamusHughes, 13 January 2016.

38. Maliach, ‘Abdullah Azzam, al-Qaeda, and Hamas’, p. 90.

39. ‘fi dhikraihi al-27 . . . ‘abdallah ‘azzam sha‘lat jihad la tuntafa’, www.alqassam.ps, n.d. Thanks to Chris Anzalone for alerting me to this source.

40. ‘The Dr. Abdallah Azzam Academy’, p. 14.

41. Azzam, al-duktur al-shahid, pp. 5–9.

42. ‘bayan na‘iyan li’l-‘allama al-da‘iya ‘abdallah ‘azzam’ [Death Notice for the Prominent Preacher Abdallah Azzam], 26 November 1989.

43. ‘risala min al-ikhwan al-muslimin: muqawama rashida wa basha’ir al-‘awda’ [Message from the Muslim Brothers: Rightly Guided Resistance and Tidings of Return], Ikhwan Online, 20 November 2018.

44. Author’s interview with Yonathan Fighel, Hertzlia, 8 September 2013.

45. Kim Cragin, ‘Al Qaeda Confronts Hamas: Divisions in the Sunni Jihadist Movement and its Implications for US Policy’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32, no. 7 (29 July 2009): 576–590.

46. Dore Gold, ‘Hamas and al-Qaeda are the Same’, Israel National News Online, 6 January 2010.

47. Anas Altikriti, ‘Hamas is not al-Qaida’, The Guardian Online, 21 September 2009.

48. ‘Muslim Publics Share Concerns about Extremist Groups’, Pew Research Center, 10 September 2013.

49. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 193–194.

50. al-Awadh, afghanistan: tahaddiyat al-jihad al-akbar, p. 68.

51. Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban.

52. Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn, An Enemy we Created.

53. ‘Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Maulana Fazlullah Faction) Citing the Late ‘Abdullah ‘Azzam’, http://ibnsiqilli.tumblr.com/post/120043010192/tehrik-i-taliban-pakistan-maulanafazlullah (last accessed 27 May 2015).

54. Author’s interview with Iqbal Khattak, Peshawar, 17 March 2008.

55. Daud Khattak, ‘The Complicated Relationship Between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban’, CTC Sentinel 5, no. 2 (2012): 14–15; Fernando Reinares, ‘A Case Study of the January 2008 Suicide Bomb Plot in Barcelona’, CTC Sentinel 2, no. 1 (2009): 5–7.

56. Sam Heller, ‘Ahrar al-Sham’s Revisionist Jihadism’, War on the Rocks (blog), 30 September 2015.

57. Ben Hubbard, ‘In Syria, Potential Ally’s Islamist Ties Challenge US’, New York Times, 25 August 2015.

58. Hudhayfa Azzam on Facebook, 13 August 2015; Heller, ‘Ahrar al-Sham’s Revisionist Jihadism’.

59. ‘fi dhikra al-shahid ‘abdallah ‘azzam’ [In Memory of the Martyr Abdallah Azzam], n.d., http://www.ikhwan-jor.com (last accessed 25 November 2013). I thank Joas Wagemakers for bringing the al-Sabil articles to my attention.

60. Maréchal, The Muslim Brothers in Europe, pp. 87–88.

61. The Azzam section in the online bookstore Beyaz Minare Kitap.

62. al-Madkhali, ‘munadhara’.

63. Moazzam Begg, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (New York: New Press, 2006), p. 81.

64. Miller, The Audacious Ascetic, p. 87.

65. Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi, p. 137.

66. William McCants, ed., Militant Ideology Atlas: Executive Report (West Point, NY: United States Military Academy, 2006), p. 13.

67. William McCants, Militant Ideology Atlas: Research Compendium (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2006), pp. 8–20.

68. Donald Holbrook, What Types of Media Do Terrorists Collect? An Analysis of Religious, Political, and Ideological Publications Found in Terrorism Investigations in the UK (The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, September 2017), p. 28.

69. Muhammad al-Salim, 39 wasila li-khidmat al-jihad wa’l-musharaka fihi [39 Ways to Serve Jihad and Take Part in it] (Sawt al-Jihad, 2003), p. 37.

70. Vahid Brown, ‘A Mujahid’s Bookbag’, Jihadica.com, 21 December 2009, http://www.jihadica.com/a-mujahids-bookbag/ (last accessed 28 February 2018).

71. ‘Course of Islamic Study for Soldiers and Members’.

72. Omar Nasiri, Inside the Jihad: My Life with al-Qaeda (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2006), p. 151.

73. Fadil Harun, al-harb ‘ala al-islam [TheWar against Islam], part 2, 2009, p. 48, https://ctc.usma.edu/harmony-program/the-war-against-islamthe-story-of-fazul-harun-part-2-original-language-2/ (last accessed 13 September 2018).

74. Ebrahim, The Terrorist’s Son, p. 33.

75. Andrew Black, ‘Featured Profile: Mokhtar Belmokhtar: The Algerian Jihad’s Southern Amir’, Jamestown Terrorism Monitor, 8 May 2009.

76. Harun, al-harb, p. 39.

77. Romain Caillet and Pierre Puchot, “Le combat vous a été prescrit”: une histoire de jihad en France (Paris: Stock, 2017), p. 59.

78. Mark Kukis, “My Heart Became Attached”: The Strange Odyssey of John Walker Lindh (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), p. 24.

79. ‘An al-Qaeda Love Story: From Morocco to Bosnia to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, Via New Jersey’, MEMRI Special Dispatch, no. 984 (9 September 2005).

80. Fernando Reinares, al-Qaeda’s Revenge: The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), pp. 60 and 82.

81. Peter R. Neumann and Ryan Evans, ‘Operation Crevice in London’, in The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama Bin Laden’s Death, ed. Bruce Hoffman and Fernando Reinares (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 61–80, p. 64.

82. Sally Neighbour, ‘Operation Pendennis in Australia’, in The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama Bin Laden’s Death, ed. Bruce Hoffman and Fernando Reinares (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 163–191, p. 176.

83. Haroon Siddique, ‘Terror Suspect “Planned to Take Children on Suicide Attack”’, The Guardian Online, 23 April 2008.

84. Abdul Ghaffar El Almani, ‘Mein Weg nach Jannah’, 2010, p. 60, http://www.scribd.com/doc/31071994/Schaheed-Abdul-Ghaffar-al-Almani-Mein-Weg-Nach-Jannah (last accessed 20 November 2012).

85. Lori Lowenthal Marcus, ‘Dzokhar Tsarnaev Inspired by Hamas Founder, Indictment Reveals’, TheJewishPress.com, 28 June 2013.

86. David Thomson, Les Français jihadistes (Paris: LesArènes, 2014), p. 146.

87. Vikram Dodd, ‘Two British Men Admit to Linking Up with Extremist Group in Syria’, The Guardian Online, 8 July 2014.

88. ‘Exclusive Q & A with Junaid Hussain – British ISIS Fighter and Hacker’, 5PillarsUK (blog), 24 September 2014, https://5pillarsuk.com/2014/09/24/exclusive-q-and-a-with-junaid-hussain-british-isisfighter-and-hacker/.

89. ‘Canadian ISIL Fighter Wanted by RCMP May Have Been Killed in MissileStrike in Syria: Document’, NationalPost.com, 19 December 2016.

90. ‘Brownsburg Man Charged with Attempting to Provide Resources to Terrorist Group Pleads Guilty’, CBS4indy.com (CBS 4 Indianapolis News online), 23 May 2018.

91. Twitter message from @SeamusHughes, 13 January 2016.

92. Caillet and Puchot, “Le combat vous a été prescrit”, p. 44.

93. Prachi Vyas, ‘The Islamic State’s Married Ideology: Something Borrowed, Something New’, Lawfare Blog, 2 July 2017.

94. Azzam, al-duktur al-shahid, pp. 243–255.

95. Nico Prucha, ‘Celebrities of the Afterlife: Death Cult, Stars, and Fandom of Jihadist Propaganda’, in Jihadi Thought and Ideology, ed. Rüdiger Lohlker and Tamara Abu-Hamdeh (Berlin: Logos, 2013), 83–137, pp. 114 ff.

96. Marisa Urgo, ‘“Martyrs in a Time of Alienation” – Complete Blogger’s Cut’, 28 December 2010, http://www.makingsenseofjihad.com/2010/12/martyrs-in-a-time-of-alienation-complete.html (last accessed 20 July 2012).

97. Dominic Casciani, ‘Babar Ahmad: The Godfather of Internet Jihad?’, BBC News (online), 17 July 2014; Robert Verkaik, ‘The Trials of Babar Ahmad: From Jihad in Bosnia to a US Prison via Met Brutality’, The Guardian, 19 March 2016.

98. Author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

99. Verkaik, ‘The Trials of Babar Ahmad’; Andrew North, ‘Pro-Jihad Website Draws Readers’, BBC News Online, 15 February 2002; author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

100. ‘Statement from Azzam.Com Regarding Closure of its Web-Site’, TalibanNews.com, 24 September 2002, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/756623/posts (last accessed 27 May 2017).

101. Author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

102. Author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

103. Hatina, ‘Warrior Saints’, Kindle version, location 4758.

104. Author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

105. Richard A. Nielsen, Deadly Clerics: Blocked Ambition and the Paths to Jihad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 122.

106. Fitzgerald, ‘The Son of the Father of Jihad’.

107. Author’s interview with Abdallah Anas, London, 28 March 2012.

108. Harun, al-harb, p. 53.

109. Twitter message from @sakti00sakti, 7 September 2017. Twitter message from @ToreRHamming, 27 March 2018.

110. ‘Jihad in Pakistan’, pp. 5–6.

111. Khattab bin Muhammad al-Hashimi, ‘al-mujaddidan. ibn ladin wa ‘azzam: naqidan am diddan’ [The Renewers. Bin Ladin and Azzam: Contrasts or Opposites?], Umma Wahida no. 1 (April 2019): 25–33; Karam al-Hafyan, al-jihad al-mu‘asir bayna ‘abdallah ‘azzam wa usama bin ladin [Contemporary Jihad between Abdallah Azzam and Usama Bin Ladin] (Istanbul: Egyptian Institute for Studies, 5 March 2019).

112. ‘liqa’ zawjat al-shahid’.

113. Author’s interview with Babar Ahmed, London, 31 May 2017.

114. Chris Heffelfinger, Radical Islam in America: Salafism’s Journey from Arabia to the West (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2011), p. 39.

115. ‘The Opinion of Shaykh Abdullah Azzam on the Issue of Taking Slaves’, https://almuwahideenmedia.wordpress.com, 28 January 2015. I thank Chris Anzalone for sharing this source.

116. Mansur al-Shihri, ‘ta’kidan lima asharat ilayhi ‘ukaz. “al-qa‘ida” ta‘lan hallak arwa baghdadi’ [Confirming Ukaz’s Indications: “al-Qaida” Announces (Responsibility for) the Destructive Arwa Baghdadi], ‘Ukaz Online, 8 February 2017.

117. ‘“ukaz” tasif ‘abdallah ‘azzam bi’“l-irhabi al-halik” wa’l-nashitun: al-aqzam tatatawal ‘ala ‘azzam’ [Ukaz Describes Abdallah Azzam as ‘a Destructive Terrorist’ and the Activists [Say]: The Midgets Dare to Attack Azzam], The New Khalij Online, 10 February 2017.

118. Twitter hashtag #al-aqzam_tatatawal_‘ala_‘azzam.

119. As‘ad AbuKhalil, ‘‘Abdullah ‘Azzam:Who Inspired Bin Laden and Scores of Other Terrorists’, The Angry Arab News Service, 9 February 2017; As‘ad AbuKhalil, ‘‘Abdullah ‘Azzam was a Reactionary Terrorist, and Idol of Bin Laden’, The Angry Arab News Service, 10 February 2017.

120. ‘“ukaz” tasif ‘abdallah ‘azzam bi’“l-irhabi al-halik”’.

121. Twitter messages (here and here) from @Azzam_Huthaifa, 24 April 2016.

122. ‘Jordanian Liberal Harshly Criticized for her Condemnation of University of Jordan for Naming Prayer Hall after al-Qaeda Ideologue ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam’, MEMRI Special Dispatch no. 7483, 22 May 2018.

123. Sean Yom and Wael Al-Khatib, ‘Islamists are Losing Support in Jordan’, Washington Post Online, 17 May 2018.

124. ‘liqa’ zawjat al-shahid’.

125. Fitzgerald, ‘The Son of the Father of Jihad’.

126. Author’s interview with Abdallah Anas, London, 28 March 2012.

127. Abdallah Azzam, ‘mas’uliyyat al-‘arab amam allah’ [The Responsibility of Arabs before God], al-Jihad no. 7 (3 June 1985): 4–5, p. 5.

128. Azzam, ‘maktab khidamat al-mujahidin’.

129. fi ‘uyun mu‘asira, p. 167.

130. Maliach, ‘Abdullah Azzam, al-Qaeda, and Hamas’, p. 86.

131. Bin Laden, Bin Laden, and Sasson, Growing up Bin Laden, p. 131.