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Architect of Global Jihad<\/strong> <\/a>by Brynjar Lia<\/strong><\/p>\n Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of al Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri <\/strong>is Brynjar Lia’s<\/strong> definitive biography of the shadowy\u00a0terror theorist, Islamist intellectual\u00a0and sometime jihadi, Mustafa bin Abd al Qadir Sitt Maryam<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Sitt Maryam, who went by al-Suri in jihadi circles, was a red haired, fair-skinned\u00a0Syrian renegade from the Muslim Brotherhood<\/strong> who was trained in military tactics and explosives in\u00a0Saddam Hussein’s<\/strong> terrorist camps, passing on his skills to fellow “Arab Afghans” during and “A born critic” with a\u00a0grim and unsmiling demeanor\u00a0who entangled himself in acrimonious\u00a0personal feuds with leading jihadis, including Osama bin Laden<\/strong>, al-Suri failed to win many adherents to his insightful “system not organization” (nizam la tanzim<\/em>) theory of jihad until his arrest caused his writings, especially his magnum opus The Global Islamic Resistance Call<\/strong>\u00a0to go viral in the Islamist darknet.<\/p>\n A true intellectual, widely read in western literature and military writings, al-Suri crafted a stategy of jhad that adapted\u00a0arguments of 4GW, “leaderless resistance” and classical Maoist insurgency to suit\u00a0Islamist purposes and conditions while rejecting secret, hierarchical, organizations and al-Qaida’s<\/strong> “Tora Bora mentality” as historical failures. Self-radicalization and “sudden jihad syndrome” among alienated Western Muslims was the stuff from which al-Suri hoped to build a massively decentralized, open source, self-sustaining campaign of terrorism.<\/p>\n A hundred and forty some pages of text in Architect of Global Jihad<\/strong> are devoted exclusively to excerpts from al-Suri’s 1,600 page treatise on terrorism operations and strategy. He was a serious and determined opponent of Western civilization’s core values, despite having enjoyed long stretches of reasonably comfortable Western exile in Spain and “Londonistan” to such a degree that al-Suri was in no particular\u00a0hurry to rejoin the jihad and even acquired the unenviable (and inaccurate) reputation of only being a “pen jihadi”.<\/p>\n Musab al-Suri, who is likely dead at the hands of Baathist jailers, is best described as an Islamist parallel to Vladimir Lenin<\/strong> before the Bolshevik Revolution. The similarities are striking, the irascible temperment, formidible intelligence, the frustrating politics of exiled revolutionary communities, the ideological marginalization both men endured as radicals\u00a0in a community of already extreme activists and the embrace of terrorism (tactically in Lenin’s case, strategically in al-Suri’s). al-Suri and Lenin, despite wide ideological differences,\u00a0as revolutionaries represent the psychological type Eric Hoffer<\/strong> termed “true believers” – pitiless, absolutely committed, intellectually rigid on matters of principle but tactically flexible and creative\u00a0in terms of method.<\/p>\n Such men are dangerous, to themselves as well as to society.<\/p>\n Strong recommendation:<\/p>\n ADDENDUM:<\/strong><\/p>\n Related posts on or including\u00a0Abu Musab al-Suri<\/p>\n Lexington Green<\/strong> – Abu Musab al-Suri: Theorist of Modern Jihad<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Networked Jihad: Parasitic on Developed World Technology, Information, Ideas<\/a><\/p>\n Charles Cameron<\/strong> –A Terrorist’s Call to Global Jihad: Deciphering Abu Musab al-Suri’s Islamic Jihad Manifesto<\/a><\/p>\n John Robb<\/strong> – SURI<\/strong>: nizam, la Tanzim (system, not organization) – Global Guerrillas<\/a><\/p>\n The Jamestown Foundation<\/strong> –The Jamestown Foundation: Al-Suri’s Adaptation of Fourth …<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0, The Jamestown Foundation: Al-Suri’s Doctrines for Decentralized …<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and The Jamestown Foundation: Abu Mus’ab al-Suri and the Third …<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Jihadica <\/strong>–Abu Mus`ab Suri: Architect of Global Jihad Neglected?<\/a>\u00a0and Training for the Lone Jihadi<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.the-american-interest.com\/images\/issues\/v3\/n5\/Brooke2-LG.jpg\")
after the Soviet War. Attracted to secular military theory, guerrilla warfare tactics\u00a0and strategy rather than theological disputes, hating the West but despising Salafist radicals, Lia’s Abu al-Suri is an isolated and\u00a0anomalous figure in “the jihadi current” of the 1990’s and post-9\/11 era.<\/p>\n