Det välinformerade nyhetsbrevet
Jihadica analyserar om bomb-
mördaren Taimour Abdulwahab
är en ensamvarg eller tillhör Al-Qaeda:
***
Forum readers woke up this morning to
find Taimour’s picture on the top banner
of Shumukh (the main jihadi forum).
The banner advertises a poem by a
certain “Sha’ir al-Ansar” (Poet of the
Ansar) praising Taimour Abdalwahab.
At first sight this might seem like the
work of an accomplice, but the poet
explicitly states that he did not know
Taimour personally.
**
More interesting is the posting of a new
audio message by a certain Abu Sulayman
al-Nasir titled
“Warning to NATO Countries Following
the
an earlier statement by the same person
issued on 20 November.
What’s interesting here is not so much
the messages as the messenger, because
Abu Sulayman al-Nasir is the same person
who first mentioned Taimour Abdulwahhab’s
name on Shumukh. This obviously raises
the possibility that he has some connection
to the
**
The problem is that the earliest public
reference to Taimour’s name was made on
11 December at 10.24 pm on a non-Islamist
Swedish forum, based on private pictures on
the license plate of the bombing vehicle.
Abu Sulayman al-Nasir’s Shumukh post
mentioning Taimour’s name was published
at around 6pm on 12 December, ie almost
20 hours after the name had entered the
public sphere. Al-Nasir could therefore very
well have found Taimour’s name on the web.
**
In this connection it is worth noting that
Shumukh has a LOT of readers in
Aaron recently posted traffic data for
Shumukh for the month of November,
according to which a full 3.6 percent of
non-proxy IP addresses were based in
If you adjust for population size, this
means
many Shumukh readers per 1000 inhabitants,
and over 33 times as many readers per
1000 Muslims as the
**
This is admittedly back-of-the envelope
calculations using on population data from
Wikipedia, (here and here), but the proportions
are striking.
As expected, the freelance jihadi media
machinery has started churning out
material glorifying the
In addition to the abovementioned poem,
someone posted a Youtube production of
Taimour’s martyrdom will, along with a
cheesy photo montage with Taimour
surrounded by lightning.
Mainstream media has also started digging
into Taimour’s life in
among other things, that he was rad-
icalised by at least 2007, when he revealed
militant anti-Western views to an imam in
a local mosque.
**
There is also a lot of interesting commen-
tary in the blogoshpere, with Aaron at
Haganah providing the most interesting
information, as usual. Anyone who doubts
the radicalising influence of Youtube should
take a look at Taimour’s Facebook profile,
retrieved by Aaron. Taimour wallowed
in jihadi Youtube videos.
**
On a final note, let me clarify my view
on the question of Taimour’s associations,
as some readers seem to have mis-
interpreted my earlier post.
I do not believe Taimour was a pure
lone wolf.
What I am saying is that he was most
likely either alone or helped by at most
two people in the final stages of - i.e.
last few weeks before - the attack.
The point here is that I think the initiative
for the operation came from Taimour
himself; I don’t think he was instrument-
talised by a large, established organization.
There could be a couple of people in
involved, but I would be very surprised
if Taimour took orders from AQ in
**
Moreover, I don’t believe Taimour
radicalised in a complete vacuum;
people almost never do, as I stressed
in my Canadian Senate testimony last
week. Taimour, like most other home-
grown militants, must have interacted
with other people during his radica-
lization process, even if the interaction
occurred mainly on the Internet or
in very small social circles.
Last night, Abu Suleiman al-Nasser,
the man who posted the will on
Shumukh al-Islam, issued another
statement that said: "It seems that
you haven't understood the message,
and you remain insistent in your stance,
and the battle of
but the start of a new era in our
Jihad; through which
will become the field for our battles."
