On July 28th 2010 an explosion occurred on a Japanese oil tanker near the entrance to the Persian Gulf. One sailor was lightly injured as a result of the explosion.
The “M Star” tanker, loaded with nearly two million barrels of oil, was on its way to Chiba Port near Tokyo when the explosion occurred as the vessel entered the Strait of Hormuz, close to Oman.
The Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian Gulf and Oman, is considered to be one of the most important routes in the world. Close to 40% of the world’s oil supply passes through this strait.
After a few days of speculation regarding the origin of the explosion, the Jihadi forums announced on August 4th 2010 that the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

One of the most interesting and important phenomena yet to have received appropriate treatment in research literature is the de-radicalization process which several Islamic terrorist organizations have undergone and are still undergoing.
In the past decade we have been witness to attempts made by Muslim regimes to cope with the phenomenon of radicalization by formulating a policy and action strategy whose objective is to encourage a de-radicalization process. This approach has developed over the past decade and is attempting to provide an answer to all the elements of radicalization and its sources of development. Within this there are various and diverse methods of approach for coping with radicalization, thus far with no proven significant success.
This document wishes to examine the de-radicalization process undergone by the well-known Libyan terrorist group – the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) as of November 2006. Its peak was in September 2009 with the publishing of a new book written by members of the group during their stay in the Libyan prison. The book represents a turning point in the group’s way of thinking and in its path, constituting a new phase in the war on terrorism.

This document deals with an important publication written by Abu Obeida Abdullah Al-'Adm, a Salafi-Jihadi of Pakistani origin, who analyzes the chances of Pakistan's survival based on an estimate of the country's strengths and weaknesses.
The author points to a number of possible scenarios which can be expected to occur on the geo-political and operative plane in the aftermath of Pakistan's downfall. It would seem that the reason for this is to stimulate the Mujahideen into devising a flexible policy and a willingness to cope with the anticipated scenarios, or even to endeavor to influence them.
The author stresses that the demise of the Pakistani regime is not an impossible development, in light of the collapse of a number of power bases, such as the factor of religion, which will be discussed at length later on. However, he fears that its downfall will serve the interests of Western countries which seek to neutralize the Pakistani nuclear threat and, on the other hand, will create a new reality for the Mujahideen, who will be confined against their will to a much smaller operational area in Afghanistan.

There are accumulating indications to the fact that Sheikh Nazem Abu Eslim (called Abu Osama Al-Nasseri), the Imam of the Shihab Al-Din Mosque in Nazareth, and heading the “Jama’at Ansar Allah – Bayt Al-Maqdis – Al-Nasira” organization (“The Supporters of Allah Group – Jerusalem/Palestine – Nazareth”), tightens its affinity with the idea of global Jihad.
Following the assassination of the Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq on April 18th 2010, a prayer for the elevation of their souls took place at the Shihab Al-Din Mosque in Nazareth, with the participation of hundreds of worshipers. The reporting on the prayer was published on Sheikh Nazem Abu Eslim’s website, operating from Nazareth, which has obvious characteristics of global Jihad, simultaneously with leading Jihadi forums.
From an analysis of the contents on the website, it seems the organization and the Sheikh deal in “Da’awa activity” whose purpose is, apparently, to bring people closer to the idea of global Jihad and the radical Islamic organizations. This, by emphasizing radical ideology and praising Jihadi activity, such as the prayer conducted following the elimination of the Al-Qaeda leadership in Iraq.

Over the past year, a concentrated effort has been made by the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) to focus the attention of Global Jihad on the Chinese oppression, which according to contentions, is being waged against the Muslim population in eastern Turkistan. The TIP is a militant Islamic Jihadi group, mostly active in the Waziristan area and the north-west border with Pakistan, which is endeavoring to establish an independent Islamic emirate in eastern Turkistan. Seemingly, the aim of the campaign is to recruit Jihadi volunteers from all over the world, in order to expand the fighting framework against the Chinese regime.

The online Jihadi community constitutes a central component in the Jihadi propaganda array and is an important target audience for the messages sent by Al-Qaeda’s leadership and other Jihadi organizations.
The renowned Jihadi Sheikh, Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, recently discussed their great importance: “The Jihadi forums fulfill an important role in defending Jihad and the Mujahideen, in spreading their messages and documentary publications. They have become a true partner of the Mujahideen...”
This role does not go unnoticed by the forum managers, who work to strengthen the ties between the surfers and the forums, while at the same time expanding the boundaries of the forum’s “virtual community”. One of the main means for achieving that end is found in the allocation of an open forum to surfers for a predetermined period of time, through which they get the rare opportunity to address questions on various subjects directly to a senior Salafi-Jihadi Sheikh, who is a guest of the forum.
This document will focus on such an “open forum” with Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi.

The online Jihadi community constitutes a central component in the Jihadi propaganda array and is an important target audience for the consumption of messages from Al-Qaeda’s leadership.
One of the main means for the distribution of the ideology of Salafi-Jihadi Sheikhs is found in the allocation of an open forum for surfers for a predetermined period of time, through which they get the rare opportunity to address questions on various subjects directly to a senior Salafi-Jihadi Sheikh, who is a guest at the forum.
This document will focus on such an “open forum” with Sheikh Abu Abdullah Al-Maqdisi, the Sharia officer of the Lebanese "Fatah Al-Islam" organization, an Al-Qaeda branch in Lebanon founded in 2006.

It is no secret that the western countries enjoy a clear economic, technological and military superiority over Muslim societies in the modern post-colonial age.
The Islamists believe that renewed adherence to primal Islam, is the key to the rehabilitation of the power of Muslim society. According to them, the modernization process, secularism and the import of western ideology constitute a principal and significant cause of the decline of Muslim societies and in the deterioration in the power of Islam.
At present, this view is accompanied by the additional feeling of rage and discontentment amongst the Muslims, especially immigrant Muslims, in view of the wave of rising Islamophobia in the European continent. 
Following this atmosphere and in response to these trends, we are today witnessing the publication of articles in the Arab and Muslim papers, and not only in Islamic papers, on the persistent struggle the West is waging against the Islamic religion in various ways.
In the Jihadi forums, we are also witness to many publications focusing on the strained atmosphere in the relationships between the western cultures and Islam. At the beginning of November 2009 a booklet was published, containing a manifesto titled: “This is the way the conflict between Islam and the West should be conducted”.

Recently, Jihadi online forums have been focusing attention on the western marine forces' presence in the high seas and marking them as a target for terrorist attacks. This trend stems, in all probability, from the media resonance surrounding the success of Somali pirates in taking over western ships, looting their cargo and sometimes receiving high ransoms for the release of their crews.
The abduction or attack of a sea vessel is not a new trend characterizing global Jihad. Already, in the early days of Al-Qaeda's operations, the organization’s activists carried out terrorist attacks against vessels docked in marine ports.
Abu Musab Al-Suri, one of the most prominent Al-Qaeda ideologists, noted in his book “Global Islamic Resistance Call”, the need to target western sea vessels in the Mediterranean, in light of their strategic and economic importance, and also due to the West’s extreme sensitivity to the security of the marine cruise and commercial routes.