Since the murderous terrorist attacks perpetrated by Mohammed Al-Merah in Toulouse, France some three weeks ago, a trend has been visible of increased threats against targets in Western Europe, made by members of both jihadist Internet forums and jihadist groups, including Al-Qaeda.

In March 2012, three French soldiers, a professor and three students of a Jewish school in Toulouse (South of France) were shot and killed. The suspect of these shootings, Mohammed Merah, is a 24 years old French citizen from Algerian background. He was under the French intelligence radar since traveling twice in Pakistan and Afghanistan for operational training in 2010 and 2011. In 2011, Merah was arrested in Kandahar (Afghanistan) and deported to France. Mohammed Merah claims to be a Mujahideen, who belongs to al-Qaeda and wanted to "avenge Palestinian children" as well as "strike against the French military due to their foreign military operations". According to various French sources, Merah is linked to Forsane Alizza, a radical Salafist group that operates in France and that was disassembled in January 2012. This report discusses the ideology, modus operandi and structure of  Forsane Alizza

One of the most difficult challenges faced by Al-Qaeda is the ongoing loss of a large part of its first-, second- and even third-generation leadership, some of whom have been assassinated or arrested, and others of whom have dissociated themselves from Al-Qaeda and its terrorist methods. If we add to this the fog with which Al-Qaeda enshrouds the people who comprise its leadership, we encounter difficulty understanding who those people are. Nevertheless, and despite this heavy fog of secrecy, we can identify one unusual and important figure, whom Al-Qaeda has nurtured over the past five years, and who has received widespread attention from the jihadist media. He serves as Al-Qaeda's main spokesman and on its Shari’a Council. He is Abu Yahya Al-Libi, once considered to be the third most important and, since the death of Osama Bin Laden, the second most important of Al-Qaeda’s leaders after Ayman Al-Zawahiri, one held in high esteem by many of the mujahideen. 

Jihadist Web forums are the leading propaganda mechanism of the jihadist organizations currently huddled under the umbrella of Al- Qaeda. These forums are a well-oiled means of sending jihadist messages that have widespread resonance, and of imparting the security and self-defense measures necessary to ensuring their dissemination. The desire to continue to transmit the message of jihad has alerted the people behind these forums to the efforts of foreign intelligence services to infiltrate them, in an attempt to shoot down adherents to jihadist ideology and stop potential suicide attackers in their tracks. It is this that has led to the extensive dialogue on how to protect oneself and maintain security, technologically and through increased awareness, which in turn has kept jihadist Web forums alive, despite all obstacles.

This document summarizes a number of articles and new material which appeared in the Arab media at the end of 2011. These articles brought the following points to light:
• Al-Qaeda's upsurge occurred at the same time as the decline of Yemen’s central government, an increase in opposition forces, and increased laxness in general security in Yemen.
• Ansar al-Shariah, which is tied to Al-Qaeda in Yemen, now controls a number of regions in Southern Yemen: the cities of Azan and Habban in Shabwa Governorate; most of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan Governorate; and additional areas in Shabwa and Abyan Governorates. These two provinces are the organization's strongholds in Yemen.
• Al-Qaeda has been fighting protracted battles against the Yemeni army for several months. It has a large number of fighters and is entrenched in city centers. This pattern of behavior differs from Al-Qaeda’s image as a small terrorist organization that holes up in mountains and caves to which access is difficult, out of fear of the Yemeni forces. In provinces where the government has strong control, Al-Qaeda intends to continue with its previous practice of using sleeper cells to perpetrate terrorist attacks.
• In addition to fighting the Yemeni army, Al-Qaeda carries out various activities in place of the government, in those areas which are under its control: protecting the inhabitants' personal security, aiding the needy, maintaining infrastructure, conducting criminal trials (obviously in accordance with Islamic religious law [shari'a]), and establishing a media and propaganda arm.
• Al-Qaeda obtains boatloads of arms and activists from Somalia, and is recruiting a significant number of activists, for what appears to be expansion of armed conflict with the Yemeni army and security forces. 

As is known, the paramount aspiration of Global Jihad is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the lands once under the dominion of Islam and its rule of Sharia. Once this aspiration has been fulfilled, it will be possible to focus on a second-most important goal: the expansion of the caliphate to additional territories, which are under the control of non-Muslim “infidels”. This goal is not unique to the Global Jihad movement; it is shared by additional Islamic movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. However, Global Jihad has a different plan of action than do these other movements, a violent, bellicose one exemplified by an aggressive, offensive (as opposed to defensive) Jihad.

“Islamic Emirates” – functioning nation-states under the rule of Islamic law – in effect represent an interim stage in the process of realizing this overarching vision of establishing an Islamic caliphate. Abu Saed Al-Amili, a Salafi Jihadist Sheikh who has a notable presence on Jihadist forums, sees these Emirates as successful to a certain extent, for having progressed from being part of an ideological movement to actual statehood. In other words, they have made the transition from being part of a narrow organizational framework to becoming ruling powers that control actual territory or territories, which have been forcibly freed from the rule of secular infidels.

Sheikh Abu Bakr Al-Ghazi Al-Ansari, a Palestinian Salafi Jihadist, concurs that securing the territory is essential to establishing an Islamic Emirate. As of this writing, it is possible to identify a number of notable Islamic Emirates or “states”. In April 2010, the Jihadist propaganda center “Da’awat Al-Haqq Lil-Dirasat Wal-Buhuth”, which is under the auspices of Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen movement in Somalia, published a booklet titled “A Real, Living Model of the State Envisioned by Al-Qaeda” on various forums. As indicated by its title and stressed in its content, this booklet presents the state established by Al-Shabab as an ideal model of the future Islamic caliphate.

The Arabic-language press heralded the positive reactions of leaders of Arab countries to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, senior Saudi officials, and officials from countries such as Yemen and Iraq were among those condoning the act. For the most part, columnists in the established Arabic-language press aligned themselves with these Arab leaders. Some publicists expressed disapproval of Bin Laden’s actions and ideas, others strongly condemned him, and still others praised the assassination. However, the official Arab press is not the only arena for public discussion of matters concerning the Arab street. Open, online public opinion polls and discussion forums have made the Internet an additional public arena for lively discussion of such issues. Some say that this arena even allows for a freer discussion, in which legitimacy is accorded competing political, religious and cultural interpretations.

This article will attempt to identify the differences between these two arenas, as reflected in responses to the assassination of Bin Laden and attitudes towards his ideas. It contains both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the discussion in these arenas, in an attempt to divine the principle themes raised following Bin Laden’s assassination, and the extent of sympathy for the man and his ideas.

Recent months have witnessed upheaval in the Arab world, which has led to changes in governmental order. One by one, the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have fallen. Syria and Yemen are seeing increasing anarchy, accompanied by cries to topple their fragile regimes, and anti-government protests are escalating in other countries. Opposition movements from all corners of the ideological spectrum are rearing their heads. The media have dubbed this wave of protest the “Arab Spring”; in the Arab media, its consequences for the actions and the future of Al-Qaeda are being discussed.

For its part, Al-Qaeda has avowedly tried to ride this wave of protest and stand alongside the demonstrators against the regimes of the Middle East. Jihadist Web forums associated with Al-Qaeda have seen much lively discussion of how the organization should respond to the wave of protest. At the same time, it seems that these protests and the revolutions following in their wake are placing Al- Qaeda in an awkward position since it appears – perhaps correctly – that Al- Qaeda has not been the impetus behind them.

On July 18, 2010, a young Coptic woman from Egypt named Kamilia Shehata, the wife of a Coptic priest named Tadraous Sama’an, disappeared without a trace. About a week later, Egyptian security forces found her in the apartment of a relative and demanded that she explain her disappearance. Shehata told them that she had decided to run away from home because of a domestic dispute. This seemed to put an end to the affair. However, Shehata’s explanation for her mysterious disappearance and her absence from public aroused heavy suspicion that the truth was somewhat different, and generated a flurry of gossip that the reason for her disappearance was that she had converted to Islam. According to the rumors, the Egyptian security forces who had succeeded in finding her had agreed to immediately turn her over to the Coptic Church in Egypt, as the matter was an internal one which the Church wished to resolve by itself. One rumor further claimed that the Coptic Church had not taken kindly to Shehata’s conversion to Islam, and so decided to imprison her in a convent until she relented and returned to the Christian fold.

Many Muslims in Egypt interpreted the Church’s acts as defiance of the hegemony of Islam; they therefore turned out en masse to call on the Church to release Shehata and cease kidnapping Christian women who had converted to Islam. The feeble response of the Egyptian regime and the ineffectuality of Al-Azhar, perceived as being the official protector of Islam, only increased existing tensions, leading to more mass protests.

The Shehata Affair succeeded in arousing an extensive wave of public protests in Egypt, and led to a massive public relations campaign waged by Muslims through dedicated Web sites, videos uploaded to the Web, and social groups on Facebook. However, the Shehata Affair was only one more catalyst of religious tensions in Egypt.

The increase in religious tensions in Egypt played into the hands of Al-Qaeda, which wished to take advantage of it for its own ends. As will be elucidated in the document, Al-Qaeda has quickly become yet one more cause of this tension.

Between December 19th and 30th 2010, the “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” newspaper published a series of investigative reports on southern Yemen, including impressions from a tour in the remote region and interviews with the tribal leaders in the area. This series of articles demonstrates that the press has good access to the area, to the tribal leaders there, and to the leaders of the local militias affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The following document presents a summary of these reports.