Status Update: 12/24/24
New research, upcoming content, cut content, account disruption
I mentioned this on my Twitter account, but since that was suspended, it’s worth repeating here. I have been recovering from pneumonia for the past few weeks, which has made it difficult to do proper writing. No articles have been prepared since my last post. Instead, I’ve completed the final draft of the third major part of my Iraqi Insurgency Study. This will be published on Cosmonaut Magazine, so keep an eye out. There have been some important revisions since the ‘Notes’ were posted. I’ve also reflected on my recent research on African jihadism. Consider this hypothesis:
There is a jihadist supra-network across Africa. Overall, this network is somewhat AQ/IS agnostic, but there are pro-AQ and pro-IS sub-networks. This supra-network is highly embedded in transnational, perhaps transcontinental, organized crime, and it is well-connected to the Arab world. If this network exists, then the most likely nodes of it are Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Madagascar, and the littoral states of West Africa. Yemen and Algeria belong to the pro-AQ sub-networks. Madagascar belongs to the pro-IS sub-network. Libya and the littoral states are AQ/IS agnostic.
There is evidence for every claim here, but nothing conclusive or solid. I will investigate this in the new year. This hypothesis could be totally bogus, but the investigation will lead to unintended answers and open more useful questions. This is the process of discovery, which brings me to my next point.
Some of you have likely noticed that I stopped publishing translated parts of Zarqawi: The Second Generation of al-Qa’ida by Fu’ad Husayn. This was intentional. It came to my attention that the book was likely manipulated by Jordanian intelligence, under whose auspices it was written. In Nibras Kazimi’s words:
The first question we need to ask our- selves is why did this book, authored by a Jordanian journalist, come about? These kinds of investigations do not happen organically in the Middle East, not with policing outfits such as the GID [General Intelligence Directorate, Jordan’s secret police] lurking around. And if the account purportedly attributed to al-Adl about his experiences with Zarqawi as well as the provenance of the master plan are as accurate as the book claims, then how can we square that with the information we now have of al-Adl being in Iranian custody and under surveillance at the time? [Brian] Fishman cites a 2010 private letter of Bin Laden’s where the latter suggests that al-Adl’s biography of Zarqawi, published in Hussein’s book, had been manipulated by Iranian intelligence (18). Not enough caution has been applied to the notion that we are only seeing what the Jordanians or Iranians may have wanted us to see in this account, and that the agendas of intelligence outfits benefit from massaging the message.1
In lieu of Husayn’s book, I will soon begin publishing translations of another book, Memoirs of a Mujahid by Abu Hafs al-Iraqi. This text covers the earliest days of the Iraqi jihad, including the formation of the Rawah Camp, before even Zarqawi’s entrance into the Iraqi scene. It was written by a jihadist veteran and co-founder of the Camp who was killed in around 2010. The book was entrusted to the jihadist sympathetic journalist Husayn al-Ma’adhidi, who edited and transmitted it to the public in its current form. The translated sections will be annotated. Where necessary, I will include separate sections of my own analysis of the events described by Abu Hafs or of Ma’adhidi’s own pro-jihadist commentary.2 This book and the Kazimi piece cited above have sparked my interest in the pre-war and embryonic jihadist networks in Iraq. Kazimi notes that Middle Eastern jihadists were clearly seeding Iraq with their own networks in the event that an opportunity (like the Coalition invasion) presented itself. He observes that a similar process may be taking elsewhere, which makes analysis of this earlier network in Iraq that much more important. I agree with him and hope to take on this challenge. I am not sure where to begin with this subject, but I’m sure I’ll find something interesting. Once I do, you’ll know–stay tuned.
The suspension of my Twitter account causes issues for promoting my Substack and posting my ongoing research. I am currently trying to have my account reinstated, but in the meantime, you can find me at RashmanTheHorse. I don’t expect the appeal to work given how Nazified Twitter has become.
Lastly, my humblest thanks to all of you for supporting my writing. I sincerely appreciate it.
Kazimi, ‘“What Was That All About?” Flawed Methodologies in Explaining the Origins of ISIS (2003–2013),’ Bustan: The Middle East Book Review 8, no. 2 (2017). Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.8.2.0151
The latter is a fascinating character in his own right. Ma’adhidi later wrote another book, titled Here, the Land of the Caliphate, which is his account of the Islamic State ‘Caliphate’ in all of its supposed glory.