Strengths and fragilities of Jihadism

A primer on leading "Salafie Jihadist" movements

by Kumar David-April 4, 2015, 3:55 pm 

The literature on Islamic Jihadism (also called Salafi Jihadism) is huge; more on the web as an outpouring of opinion pieces, rather than in print, as movements rise and decline, split or fuse and disappear as new ones surface. Al-Qaeda seems no longer to be in command and the Taliban only has regional clout in Afghanistan and the mountains of Pakistan though army sponsorship endows it with alarm for India. This rapid turnover and rise and fall of fortunes of jihadists motivate this taking stock exercise at the end of Q1 of 2015. It is not my intention to compete with full length books which I have mined, nor can I be as up to date as the staccato reporting of wire services. Rather I blend ideological exploration with an update of the state of play in the troubled world of Islam.

Strengths and Fragilities of Jihadism by Thavam Ratna