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.

The following review will present the content appearing on the website of the Al- Maqreze Center for Research, and information on the head of the center, Sheikh Hani Al-Siba'i. Sheikh Al-Siba'i, who resides in Britain after being granted political asylum, is a former operative of the Egyptian Jihad movement and was close to various terrorist operatives from amongst the Egyptian movements. In addition, he is still in contact with Al-Qaeda to this day. Al-Siba'i uses his website, as well as other internet services, to take an active part in the general Jihadi discourse and to spread his fundamentalist beliefs.

Abdullah Azzam believed that following the end of the war in Afghanistan, focus should shift to Palestine as the next theater of Jihad. This aspiration did not come into fruition in his lifetime and not in the two decades following his death due to Sheikh Osama bin Laden's preference, as well as that of his partner Ayman Al-Zawahiri, to act against the “distant enemy”, the US.
The American lead Western invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) only contributed to Al-Qaeda's increasing focus, while pushing Israel to the sidelines of the Jihadist discourse. However, it is important to emphasize that Israel has continued to be a target for Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks
It seems that Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in January 2009 contributed to the escalation in the Jihadist discourse regarding Israel. In 2010, threats to attack strategic targets in Israel increased in Jihadist forums.
In January 2009, for example, Osama bin Laden called to carry out Jihad operations against Israel, following Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip. Bin Laden condemned the Arab regimes for preventing their people from acting “for the liberation of Palestine [...] the way to liberate Al-Aqsa requires leadership that is true, dedicated, independent, strong, and mindful of the ideas of reality and the ideas of Islamic Sharia”.
It remains to be seen whether the increase in the number of statements made by Al-Qaeda's leadership and especially by the Jihadist forums regarding Israel are a response to the events or an Al-Qaeda strategic master plan in which Israel is the target, or maybe a combination of both.
This paper aims to examine the awakening seen in the Jihadist discourse regarding Israel towards the end of 2010 and will try to examine whether there was a change in the strategic plan of global Jihad organizations towards Israel.

The Al-Fajr media center published the book “Why Jihad? The Urgent Need”, authored by the late Sheikh Abu Al-Hassan Al-Filistini, Al-Qaeda in Iraq's former religious leader. The book was published in February 2011 in collaboration with the Al-Hima library of the Islamic State of Iraq. This is the sixth book in a series of publications titled “With their blood they advise”. The authors of this series are distinguished men and leaders from the elite of the founders of the Islamic State of Iraq, such as Sheikh Maysarah Al-Gharib, Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir; who was the organization's Minister of War until his elimination in April 2011 and Sheikh Abu Al-Hassan Al-Filastini.

On May 1st 2001, an American commando force eliminated Al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A few days later, after an official announcement on behalf of the organization's general leadership, Al-Qaeda affiliates worldwide published official announcements containing eulogies over his death and praises for his path, alongside general calls for retribution. In total, 18 official announcements by global Jihad organizations and leaders were published on Jihadist forums and the internet, in addition to the announcements made by media institutes of global Jihad organizations, the Jihadist forums and prominent writers on these forums. A month and a half following the assassination, on June 16th 2011, the Jihadist forums published an official announcement on behalf of “Qaidat Al-Jihad – the General Leadership”, officially proclaiming Ayman Al-Zawahiri as Al-Qaeda's leader, replacing Bin Laden. The message itself was published without a specific date and without detailing the names of the leadership's members (see more details on the message later on in the document).