Periodical Review: Summary from the Jihadi Forums – The First Half of December 2011
This report summarizes the most prominent events brought up in the Jihadi online forums in the first half of December 2011. Following are the main issues raised in this report:
• A new audio file by Ayman Al-Zawahiri is issued, in which he addresses the isolationist trends of the Egyptian Coptic Patriarch Pope Shenouda III, officially announces the death of Attiya Allah for the first time, and sets conditions for the release of an American hostage.
• Abu Yahya Al-Libi entreats Libyan revolutionaries not to lay down their arms, and to impose Shari’a [religious law] as national law.
• An audio file of Anwar Al-Awlaki’s father is issued.
• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb announces the kidnapping of five Western citizens.
• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb tries to enlist the support of the Berber population in Algeria.
• The Taliban in Afghanistan publish new volumes of three magazines (Al- Somood, In Fight, and Nawai Afghan Jihad), which cover the jihadi arena in Afghanistan.
• Ibrahim Al-Rubaysh calls on Muslims to help the Sunni population of Dammaj, Yemen, who are besieged by Houthis.
• Increasingly, the discourse on jihadist Web forums is devoted to the release of Salafi Jihadist prisoners.
