JWMG Desk

Recently, Hamza bin Laden has been mentioned in the media as a candidate with a very high probability of succeeding Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri as the next leader of Al-Qaeda. There are those who describe Hamza as “the representative of the new generation of Al-Qaeda” or as “the new face of Al-Qaeda” in light of his increased  speeches on audio clips published by the organization during the last year.

On March 23 an online fundraising campaign was launched by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, an umbrella organization composed of Salafi-jihadist rebels in Syria – including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham, in order for members of the organization to purchase weapons and ammunition. The campaign was welcomed by several prominent Salafi-jihadist clerics in Syria and members of the umbrella organization, including Sheikh Abdallah al-Muhaysani, Sheikh ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Mahdi, Sheikh Al-‘Ulayani, Sheikh Abu al-Fath and other sheikhs.[1]

Introduction

In 2015, in the framework of activities by the Salafi-jihadist movement in the Gaza Strip, the Dar al-Mujahideen publishing house published a volume containing all of the writings, speeches and notes of Sheikh Attiya Allah al-Libi, a senior member of Al-Qaeda, a prominent ideologue and one of the central figures in the world of jihad until his death in August 2011.

The mere fact that this volume was published four years after Attiya Allah’s death testifies to his importance in the jihadist thought and his influence on the Salafist thought and ideology of Al-Qaeda supporters even today. The publication of the volume by the Salafi-jihadist movement in Gaza indicates that members of this movement identify with Attiya Allah’s doctrine in particular, and with Al-Qaeda’s ideology in general.

This document includes a general review of the thick volume – which contains at least 2,000 pages – in an attempt to extract the central themes and issues that occupied Attiya Allah and that continue to occupy his supporters and readers.

In early March of the Islamic year, a Web surfer named Abu Hafsah published correspondence in English on a Telegram account identified with supporters of the Islamic State regarding the importance of increasing hacking activities for the Islamic Caliphate. According to him, weapons today are not limited to guns and tanks, but also include cyber warfare known as hacking. He called attention to China’s efforts to recruit hackers to breach American servers in order to steal information from them about advanced technology and master plans for modern weapons. According to him, the Chinese method is meant to serve as a model for Muslims and hacking software:

 “The Muslims will eventually need this sophisticated hacking capability so that we can have a technological head-start when we need to develop weapons to jam, track and perhaps even destroy drones and jet fighters. Especially jammers, radars, electronic warfare and other sophisticated technologies”.