Download or read book Nationalist Movements and Transnational Jihad written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-07 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By focusing on the case of Chechnya, this study analyzes how transnational jihadists gain influence in nationalist movements. Chechens united to support the separatist cause during the 1994 Russian invasion of Chechnya. However, after the first Russo-Chechen War, the new Chechen president was unable to unite the Chechen elites, and rebel field commanders sought patronage elsewhere, particularly with groups connected to transnational jihadist networks. This study argues that the fractionalization of the Chechen separatist movement allowed transnational jihadists to gain influence in local politics and finds that strong, centralized political parties or leaders can curb jihadist influence, as seen in the case of Hamas in Palestine. In a broader view, this research analyzes why transnational jihadists are able to co-opt various local struggles in the Muslim world, which we see in places such as Syria and Iraq today. Identifying the conditions that allow transnational jihadists to co-opt a local conflict points to policy considerations for how to prevent the spread of global jihad in future conflict zones. Since the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the mobilization of Muslim foreign fighters is a persistent factor in many of the local conflicts and wars in the Islamic World.1 In Syria during the Arab Spring, secular protests quickly took on sectarian tones and radical Islamist groups became major players in the conflict to oust Bashar al-Assad. In Chechnya, the separatist movement increased in religious rhetoric and rebel elites embraced alliances with transnational jihadist networks. Nationalist movements in the Islamic world such as these have sought assistance and alliances with transnational jihadist groups. However, other movements have discouraged the involvement of foreign fighters. What causes nationalist struggles to be co-opted by transnational jihadist groups? This research paper focuses primarily on the case of the Chechen nationalist movement from its inception to the start of the second Russo-Chechen War in 1999. In Chechnya, local rebel elites welcomed Muslim foreign fighters, who increased in influence during the inter-war years (1997-1999) and led Russia to represent the second war as a "war on terror." FRAMING THE CHECHEN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT: ISLAM AS AN OPPOSITIONAL IDENTITY * PERIOD OF INCREASING ISLAMIZATION: FROM THE FIRST TO SECOND RUSSO-CHECHEN WAR * AL-QAEDA AND HAMAS: A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP? CONTENTS * I. INTRODUCTION * A. LITERATURE REVIEW * 1. Foreign Fighter Literature * 2. Civil War Literature * 3. Movement Fragmentation * 4. Social Mobilization Literature: Framing * 5. Literature Review Conclusion * B. HYPOTHESES * 1. Hypothesis 1: Resource Mobilization * 2. Hypothesis 2: Movement Structure * 3. Hypothesis 3: Collective Identity and Framing * C. THESIS OUTLINE * II. FRAMING THE CHECHEN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT: ISLAM AS AN OPPOSITIONAL IDENTITY * A. WHO ARE THE CHECHENS? * 1. Ethnic Identity * 2. Religious Identity * B. CHECHNYA UNDER THE SOVIETS * C. THE CHECHEN EXPERIENCE OR THE NORTH CAUCASUS EXPERIENCE? * D. GLASNOST AND THE RISE OF CHECHEN IDENTITY * E. VAINAKH IDENTITY * F. CHECHEN SEPARATISM * G. CHECHEN NATIONALIST FRAMING: 300 YEARS OF GENOCIDE * H. SYMBOLS OF CHECHEN NATIONALISM * I. ROLE OF RELIGION IN CHECHEN NATIONALISM * J. ANTI-DUDAEV OPPOSITION

Download or read book Chechnya written by James Hughes and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sheer scale and brutality of the hostilities between Russia and Chechnya stand out as an exception in the mostly peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union. Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad provides a fascinating analysis of the transformation of secular nationalist resistance in a nominally Islamic society into a struggle that is its antithesis, jihad. Hughes locates Chechen nationalism within the wider movement for national self-determination that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. When negotiations failed in the early 1990s, political violence was instrumentalized to consolidate opposing nationalist visions of state-building in Russia and Chechnya. The resistance in Chechnya also occurred in a regional context where Russian hegemony over the Caucasus, especially the resources of the Caspian basin, was in retreat, and in an international context of rising Islamic radicalism. Alongside Bosnia, Kashmir, and other conflicts, Chechnya became embedded in Osama Bin Laden's repertoire of jihadist rhetoric against the "West." It was not simply Russia's destruction of a nationalist option for Chechnya, or "Wahabbist" infiltration from without, that created the political space for Islamism. Rather, we must look also at how the conflict was fought. The lack of proportionality and discrimination in the use of violence, particularly by Russia, accelerated and intensified the Islamic radicalization and thereby transformed the nature of the conflict. This nuanced and balanced study provides a much-needed antidote to the mythologizing of Chechen resistance before, and its demonization after, 9/11. The conflict in Chechnya involves one of the most contentious issues in contemporary international politics—how do we differentiate between the legitimate use of violence to resist imperialism, occupation, and misgovernment, and the use of terrorism against legitimate rule? This book sets out indispensable lessons for understanding conflicts involving the volatile combination of nationalist insurgency, jihad, and terrorism, most notably for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Download or read book Global Jihad written by Glenn E Robinson and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A tour de force on the evolution of jihadism. . . . essential reading.” ―Mehran Kamrava, author of Inside the Arab State Most violent jihadi movements in the twentieth century focused on removing corrupt, repressive secular regimes throughout the Muslim world. But following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a new form of jihadism emerged—global jihad—turning to the international arena as the primary locus of ideology and action. With this book, Glenn E. Robinson develops a compelling and provocative argument about this violent political movement's evolution. Global Jihad tells the story of four distinct jihadi waves, each with its own program for achieving a global end: whether a Jihadi International to liberate Muslim lands from foreign occupation; al-Qa’ida’s call to drive the United States out of the Muslim world; ISIS using “jihadi cool” to recruit followers; or leaderless efforts of stochastic terror to “keep the dream alive.” Robinson connects the rise of global jihad to other “movements of rage” such as the Nazi Brownshirts, White supremacists, Khmer Rouge, and Boko Haram. Ultimately, he shows that while global jihad has posed a low strategic threat, it has instigated an outsized reaction from the United States and other Western nations. “[A] remarkably comprehensive account.” —Foreign Affairs

Download or read book Jihad vs McWorld written by Benjamin Barber and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-04-21 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jihad vs. McWorld is a groundbreaking work, an elegant and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart--and bringing together--the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad vs. McWorld is the term that distinguished writer and political scientist Benjamin R. Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces. In this important new book, he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic for democracy. A work of persuasive originality and penetrating insight, Jihad vs. McWorld holds up a sharp, clear lens to the dangerous chaos of the post-Cold War world. Critics and political leaders have already heralded Benjamin R. Barber's work for its bold vision and moral courage. Jihad vs. McWorld is an essential text for anyone who wants to understand our troubled present and the crisis threatening our future.

Download or read book The Far Enemy written by Fawaz A. Gerges and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-13 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition shows that not only have the jihadists split ranks, but those who previously supported al Qaeda are condemning its tactics.

Download or read book Nationalism and Islamism written by David Seddon and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Landscapes of the Jihad written by Faisal Devji and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the motives behind Osama bin Laden's and Al-Qaeda's jihad against America and the West? Innumerable attempts have been made in recent years to explain that mysterious worldview. In Landscapes of the Jihad, Faisal Devji focuses on the ethical content of this jihad as opposed to its purported political intent. Al-Qaeda differs radically from such groups as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah, which aim to establish fundamentalist Islamic states. In fact, Devji contends, Al-Qaeda, with its decentralized structure and emphasis on moral rather than political action, actually has more in common with multinational corporations, antiglobalization activists, and environmentalist and social justice organizations. Bin Laden and his lieutenants view their cause as a response to the oppressive conditions faced by the Muslim world rather than an Islamist attempt to build states. Al-Qaeda culls diverse symbols and fragments from Islam's past in order to legitimize its global war against the "metaphysical evil" emanating from the West. The most salient example of this assemblage, Devji argues, is the concept of jihad itself, which Al-Qaeda defines as an "individual duty" incumbent on all Muslims, like prayer. Although medieval Islamic thought provides precedent for this interpretation, Al-Qaeda has deftly separated the stipulation from its institutional moorings and turned jihad into a weapon of spiritual conflict. Al-Qaeda and its jihad, Devji suggests, are only the most visible manifestations of wider changes in the Muslim world. Such changes include the fragmentation of traditional as well as fundamentalist forms of authority. In the author's view, Al-Qaeda represents a new way of organizing Muslim belief and practice within a global landscape and does not require ideological or institutional unity. Offering a compelling explanation for the central purpose of Al-Qaeda's jihad against the West, the meaning of its strategies and tactics, and its moral and aesthetic dimensions, Landscapes of the Jihad is at once a sophisticated work of historical and cultural analysis and an invaluable guide to the world's most prominent terrorist movement.

Download or read book The Universal Enemy written by Darryl Li and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 William A. Douglass Prize: A new perspective on the concept of international jihad and its connection to the 1990s Balkans crisis. No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-called jihadists seem opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the topic, The Universal Enemy argues that transnational jihadists are engaged in their own form of universalism: These fighters struggle to realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity, transcending racial and cultural difference. Anthropologist and attorney Darryl Li reconceptualizes jihad as armed transnational solidarity under conditions of American empire, revisiting a pivotal moment after the Cold War when ethnic cleansing in the Balkans dominated global headlines. Muslim volunteers came from distant lands to fight in Bosnia-Herzegovina alongside their co-religionists, offering themselves as an alternative to the US-led international community. Li highlights the parallels and overlaps between transnational jihads and other universalisms such as the War on Terror, United Nations peacekeeping, and socialist Non-Alignment. Developed from more than a decade of research with former fighters in a half-dozen countries, The Universal Enemy explores the relationship between jihad and American empire to shed critical light on both. “[Li] effectively confronts the demonization of jihadists in the aftermath of 9/11, particularly in the US. . . . The author’s linguistic skills and the depth of the interviews are impressive, and the case selection is intriguing. Recommended.” —Choice “This important book offers many insights for scholars and students of political thought, anthropology, and law. Li’s breadth and acumen in navigating these different fields of study is impressive.” —Political Theory

Download or read book Road Warriors written by Daniel Byman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, fighters from abroad have journeyed in ever-greater numbers to conflict zones in the Muslim world to defend Islam from-in their view-infidels and apostates. The phenomenon recently reached its apogee in Syria, where the foreign fighter population quickly became larger and more diverse than in any previous conflict. In Road Warriors, Daniel Byman provides a sweeping history of the jihadist foreign fighter movement. He begins by chronicling the movement's birth in Afghanistan, its growing pains in Bosnia and Chechnya, and its emergence as a major source of terrorism in the West in the 1990s, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Since that bloody day, the foreign fighter movement has seen major ups and downs. It rode high after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when the ultra-violent Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) attracted thousands of foreign fighters. AQI overreached, however, and suffered a crushing defeat. Demonstrating the resilience of the movement, however, AQI reemerged anew during the Syrian civil war as the Islamic State, attracting tens of thousands of fighters from around the world and spawning the bloody 2015 attacks in Paris among hundreds of other strikes. Although casualty rates are usually high, the survivors of Afghanistan, Syria, and other fields of jihad often became skilled professional warriors, going from one war to the next. Still others returned to their home countries, some to peaceful retirement but a deadly few to conduct terrorist attacks. Over time, both the United States and Europe have learned to adapt. Before 9/11, volunteers went to and fro to Afghanistan and other hotspots with little interference. Today, the United States and its allies have developed a global program to identify, arrest, and kill foreign fighters. Much remains to be done, however-jihadist ideas and networks are by now deeply embedded, even as groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State rise and fall. And as Byman makes abundantly clear, the problem is not likely to go away any time soon.

Download or read book Beyond al Qaeda Part 1 The Global Jihadist Movement written by Angel Rabasa and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2002-10-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines al-Qaeda??s evolution and the emergence of the broader global jihadist movement-groups affiliated, associated, or inspired by al-Qaeda-and the threat that they pose to the United States and U.S. allies and interests. The authors conclude by setting out a four-pronged strategy to counter the jihadist threat.

Download or read book The Caravan written by Thomas Hegghammer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abdallah Azzam, the Palestinian cleric who led the mobilization of Arab fighters to Afghanistan in the 1980s, played a crucial role in the internationalization of the jihadi movement. Killed in mysterious circumstances in 1989 in Peshawar, Pakistan, he remains one of the most influential jihadi ideologues of all time. Here, in the first in-depth biography of Azzam, Thomas Hegghammer explains how Azzam came to play this role and why jihadism went global at this particular time. It traces Azzam's extraordinary life journey from a West Bank village to the battlefields of Afghanistan, telling the story of a man who knew all the leading Islamists of his time and frequented presidents, CIA agents, and Cat Stevens the pop star. It is, however, also a story of displacement, exclusion, and repression that suggests that jihadism went global for fundamentally local reasons.

Download or read book Nexus of Global Jihad written by Assaf Moghadam and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State dominate through cooperation in the form of knowledge sharing, resource sharing, joint training exercises, and operational collaboration. They build alliances and lesser partnerships with other formal and informal terrorist actors to recruit foreign fighters and spread their message worldwide, raising the aggregate threat level for their declared enemies. Whether they consist of friends or foes, whether they are connected locally or online, these networks create a wellspring of support for jihadist organizations that may fluctuate in strength or change in character but never runs dry. Nexus of Global Jihad identifies types of terrorist actors, the nature of their partnerships, and the environments in which they prosper to explain global jihadist terrorism's ongoing success and resilience. Nexus of Global Jihad brings to light an emerging style of "networked cooperation" that works alongside interorganizational terrorist cooperation to establish bonds of varying depth and endurance. Case studies use recently declassified materials to illuminate al-Qaeda's dealings from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula and the informal actors that power the Sharia4 movement. The book proposes policies that increase intelligence gathering on informal terrorist actors, constrain enabling environments, and disrupt terrorist networks according to different types of cooperation. It is a vital text for strategists and scholars struggling to understand a growing spectrum of terrorist groups working together more effectively than ever before.

Download or read book Jihad and Dawah written by Samina Yasmin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a detailed account of the emergence and metamorphoses of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its political arm, Jamat ud Dawah, since the early 1990s. Linking the group's narratives to the process of Islamization in Pakistan and divergent views on the country's Islamic identity, it is the first systematic analysis of how the organization, globally reviled as the perpetrator of the 2008 Mumbai Bombings, has developed its conception of da'wah (proselytizing) and jihad in response to regional and global developments. Samina Yasmeen makes extensive use of Urdu materials (pamphlets, books, ephemera) by Markaz Da'wah wal Irshad, the parent organization of LeT, to examine the 'insider's vision' of the dominant threats to Pakistan and the Muslim ummah, as well as strategies for countering these threats. She argues that while adopting an oppositional narrative vis-à-vis India and the West, LeT has increasingly turned its attention to da'wah narratives within Pakistan engaging with broader spectrums of society. Women have increasingly been assigned significant agency in this narrative, and JuD's activism in education and social welfare has helped it acquire social capital. This, in turn, prompts a re-imagining of the movement's relationship with the Pakistani military.

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda written by Fawaz A. Gerges and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author re-evaluates the threat posed by Al-Qaeda following a decade of war.

Download or read book The Dynamics of Radicalization written by Eitan Y. Alimi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The book comparatively investigates the processes of radicalization, focusing on questions of how and when such processes unfold, rather than on why they happen in the first place. Alimi, Bosi, and Demetriou argue that processes of radicalization develop primarily through the interplay of three specific mechanisms: "competition for power" among movement actors; "threat/opportunity spirals" between the movement and its political environment; and "outbidding" between movement actors and state security forces. Each arena or mechanism affects and is affected by the other two, creating a multilayered pathway of radicalization. Using the "most different case" logic, the authors argue their theory through three case studies: the Red Brigades in Italy (1968-1980), the Greek Cypriot Enosis-EOKA (1945-1960), and the Al Qaeda/Sunni-led Salafi Transnational Jihad Movement (1984-2001). Without losing sight of the significant differences between the cases, or of the way in which they influence the particular sequence of the process, the book provides an empirically proven and widely applicable analytic framework for understanding how political processes and different contexts drive radicalization"--

Download or read book Jihad written by Gilles Kepel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kepel has traveled throughout the Muslim world gathering documents, interviews, and archival materials, in order to give readers a comprehensive understanding of the scope of Islamist movements, their past, and their present. 7 maps.

Download or read book Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel written by Alexander Thurston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers unique insights into the inner workings of jihadist organisations over the past three decades in North Africa and the Sahel.