Product Description

With more than 35 years experience of jihadist activism, Abu Mus'ab al-Suri remains the foremost theoretician in the global jihadist movement today, despite his capture in Pakistan in late 2005. After having participated in the founding of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1988, al-Suri, whose real name is Mustafa Sethmarian Nasar, trained a whole generation of young jihadis at his camps in Afghanistan. When he moved back to Spain in the early 1990s, al-Suri took part in establishing Al-Qaeda networks in Europe. In the mid-1990s, he rose to prominence in jihadi circles as editor of the London-based bulletin of the Algerian Groupe Islamique Armee, the most deadly Islamist terrorist group operating in Europe at the time. Al-Suri later formed his own media centre and training camp in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan, to which he returned in 1998. Building on his extensive military experience from the Syrian Islamist insurgency in the early 1980s, he contributed decisively to formulating Al-Qaeda's global warfare strategy. Throughout his writings there is a desire to learn from past mistakes and rectify the course of the jihadi movement. His 1,600 page masterpiece, "The Global Islamic Resistance Call", outlines a broad strategy for the coming generation of Al-Qaeda, with a keen eye for the practical implementation of jihadi guerrilla warfare theories. His ideas of how to maximise the political impact of jihadi violence and how to build autonomous cells for 'individualised terrorism' have inspired many jihadi militants of today. The book includes a translation of two key chapters from al-Suri's seminal work "The Global Islamic Resistance Call."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #603657 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 550 pages

Review
'Architect of the Global Jihad is a compelling and meticulously researched biography of one of the most influential strategists and thinkers in Islamist circles. Abu Mus'ab al-Suri may not be a household name in the West, but his importance as a theorist, organizer and ideologue is difficult to overstate. For those seeking to understand Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, author Brynjar Lia's work is critical reading and highly illuminating.' -Craig Whitlock, Berlin Bureau Chief, The Washington Post'A groundbreaking analysis of the militant trajectory of one of the most important -albeit little known-jihadist ideologues of the post 9/11 era. It provides essential reading for any one eager to penetrate in-depth the intellectual environment and logics of radical islamist terrorist doctrine, thanks to Lia's remarkable mastery of Arabic language and Islamic culture.' -Giles Keppel, Professor and chair, Middle East Studies, Sciences-Po, Paris'Brynjar Lia's masterfully researched work remains the only known contribution to the terrorism studies field that parses the history and thought of al-Suri. Far beyond its utility as an historical analysis, Lia's work is extraordinarily timely as he extracts the finer points of al-Suri's now widely circulated theories that may have informed the conduct of the London and Madrid attacks.'-Jeffrey Cozzens, Intelligence and Terrorism Analysis Group at Applied Marine Technology, Inc.

London Review of Books, March 2008
'The Global Islamic Resistance Call is a military manual written in a strikingly secular - at times even avant-garde - idiom.'

About the Author
Brynjar Lia is a research professor at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). He was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University in 2001-2 and is the author of several books on Islamism and terrorism.

Customer Reviews

Advance praise
`Lia's masterfully-researched work remains the only known contribution to the terrorism studies field that parses the history and thought of al-Suri, a formidable ideologue by virtue of his pragmatism, rational approach to history and realistic, "egalitarian" view of the future of jihad (al-Suri is now apparently in US custody). Far beyond its utility as an historical analysis, Lia's work is extraodinarily timely as he extracts the finer points of al-Suri's now widely-circulated theories that may have informed the conduct of the London and Madrid attacks.'

- Jeffrey B. Cozzens, research associate at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), University of St Andrews and contributing expert for Counterterrorism Blog

The Theorist of Leaderless Jihad
Al-Suri is (was?)a Syrian opponent of the Assad regime. Going into exile he began a journey that saw him with the Afghan-Arabs in Peshawar in the 1980s, in Madrid and London in the 1990s back to Afghanistan in the years before 2001. Reported to have been arrested in Pakistan in 2005 with $5m bounty on his head. Although some have accused him of being behind the Madrid bombings his significance is primarily as a writer and theorist. In voluminous writings and lectures he unsparingly analysed the failures of jihadi groups and sought to develop strategies to overcome these failings.

Lia's book traces Al-Suri's journey and ideas based on his own writings, court documents and media reports. The book includes a 150 page extract from Al Suri's magnum opus The Global Islamic Resistance Call.

In the last couple of years Al Suri has attracted a lot of attention in the US counterterrorism/security/strategy community because his ideas about successful strategy for jihadis fit with the kind of model that Marc Sageman writes about in Leaderless Jihad - that is small groups operating autonomously. The extent to which the Al Suri model is actually being consciously applied to open to question.

One of the most interesting things about this book is that it gives a picture of the jihadi movement in the 1990s that isn't focused on Bin Laden. To an extent the story of the exiles is reminiscent of communist groups before the Russian Revolution with their personal feuds, factional differences and conflicting strategies. Interestingly Al Suri was one of those who was against 9/11 because he felt that Afghanistan was a good approximation of an Islamic state that would be threatened by the American response