بين مفهومي الجهاد والإرهاب: دراسة في المفهوم والأهداف لحركة القاعدة وتنظيم داعش أنموذجا

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Islam has fell victim to the allegation that relates it to terrorism. This is due to the rise of terrorist movements such as al-Qaeda and ISIS that claim to be representing Islam and pursuing the holy war (jihād) to establish an Islamic caliphate (al-khilāfah al-Islāmiyyah). These terrorist movements also used the same terms and concepts that can be found in the traditional Muslim scholarship, such as the abode of Islam and the abode of war (dār al-Islām wa dār alḥarb), loyalty and disavowal (al-walā’ wa al-barā’), and excommunicating Muslims (takfīr). Thus, this study seeks to analyse these two concepts of jihād and terrorism (irhāb) to locate both their similarities and differences. Comparison is made from several aspects such as etymology and history and lastly its application in our contemporary reality in relation to other relevant terms and concepts as mentioned above. This study finds that there are substantial differences between jihād and irhāb, and it is the failure to grasp the ever evolving and developing nature of Islamic law (fiqh) and the contemporary reality that led to this confusion.

Religious Conflict in Iraq and the Operation of Shiite Militias in the Country after the Expulsion of ISIL

The paper deals with the religious aspect of the Iraqi conflict, exploring chiefly the dynamics of the conflict between the country’s Sunni and Shia communities. Should the conflict between the Sunni and Shia of Iraq be religiously motivated, we will find several characteristics, that would clearly demonstrate the religious or sectarian dimension of the conflict. The paper uses the methods of analysis, synthesis as well as the descriptive method. We have found that the conflict between the Shia and the Sunni has been purposefully escalated, firstly by Nouri al-Maliki (whose sectarian politics alienated the Sunni Arabs) and ISIS (which was even criticized by al-Qaeda for being too brutal against the Shia). Further we found that the Iraqi army under Shia command lacked motivation to defend Sunni areas from ISIS. Lastly, it was the PMF militias, forming after a fatwa by a Shia cleric, and bearing references to Shia symbolism in the names of their units. We conclude, that at the current phase, the conflict in Iraq has a strong sectarian dimension, while lacking a coherent Iraqi identity.

Twenty-First-Century Torture

Immediately following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, members of the George W. Bush administration signaled that current rules regarding intelligence, detention, and interrogation were too confining. With approval from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), the president declared that the Geneva Conventions’ detention and interrogation guidelines would not apply to Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. The problem with Geneva, administration lawyers argued, was that it would tie interrogators’ hands. The CIA and the military wanted an explicit legal blessing for their interrogation programs. They got it in the form of a series of memos by the OLC and military lawyers, who defined torture in exceedingly narrow terms. The result was “enhanced interrogation,” which the administration claimed did not amount to torture but was still a sufficiently “tough” program to break hardened terrorists.

The Jihadi Current and the Lay Thinking: A “Re-Anchorage” Process Hypothesis

The Jihadi-salafist doctrine which is at the Islamist terrorism origin that affects several countries since the emergence of Al Qaeda in the late 80's, gave birth to the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham/Levant (ISIS/ISIL) established as a Caliphate in 2014. Despite the ISIS official military defeat in 2019, the Jihadi-Salafist current - whose history goes back a long way, is currently behind a number of attacks whether collective or individual, claimed by known organizations or committed in isolation. In our perspective, we try to apprehend the attraction power of the Jihadi narrative issue taking the Theory of Social Representations as a paradigmatic framework. This implies that we dont consider the Jihadi current membership as the manifestation of a deviation from normality or optimal rationality, but as the expression of a certain common sense resonance. More precisely, and taking the case of the Tunisian context, the success of the Jihadi narrative is explained by its effectiveness as an interpretive grid and as a guide for action, making it possible to re-anchor a reality lacking in meaning. This hypothesis of a re-anchoring implies that anchoring as described by Moscovici as one of the two processes at the origin of the social representations formation (with the objectification process), could be not only as a familiarization of the strange by inserting it in an already known pre-existing frame, but by substituting to the frame itself, a new one, in order to be able to insert familiar objects which would have lost their sense precisely because of the old frame itself. This hypothesis could offer a theoretical and heuristic perspective allowing the anchoring process to be conceived as a circular and non-definitive process.

retorno del talibán:

La vuelta al poder del régimen del Talibán en Afganistán en agosto de 2021 ha causado hondas preocupaciones en la comunidad internacional en función de su experiencia como gobierno en el período 1996-2001 y por su alianza con organizaciones terroristas. Tras la intervención militar liderada por los Estados Unidos como consecuencia de los atentados del 11-S, perpetrados por Al-Qaeda, los talibanes se refugiaron estratégicamente durante años sin deponer sus aspiraciones de poder alcanzadas. Tuvieron que pasar veinte años de resistencia para su regreso al gobierno, aprovechando el acelerado proceso de retirada de las tropas norteamericanas anunciado por Trump y continuado por Biden. En este contexto de incertidumbre y expectativa, algunos países de Occidente han suspendido proyectos de cooperación internacional que tenían hasta entonces con Afganistán, mientras que otros como China y Rusia han buscado incipientes canales de acercamiento. Este trabajo busca abordar cómo la experiencia de gobierno del Talibán en el pasado ha generado nuevas inquietudes en la comunidad internacional tras su vuelta al poder, a punto tal de congelar los proyectos de asistencia a la espera de guiños favorables.

11 de setembro: das Reformas aos atentados

O presente artigo pretende mostrar as ideias e acontecimentos que serviram de base ao líder da Al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden. Através da Escola Hanbali e das Reformas no mundo islâmico, surgiram teóricos que são peças fundamentais para entender os desdobramentos de grupos como a Al-Qaeda. Dessa forma, o artigo se debruça sobre os aspectos históricos e religiosos que perpassam esse meio. Através das obras do teórico Sayyid Qutb, faz-se uma abordagem a respeito do conceito de jihad, sobre o seu significado e como a questão é abordada pela Al-Qaeda.