Adam Yahya Ghadan Slams Mardin Declaration And Urges Muslims in The West to Follow The Example of Nidal Hasan

 Jihadist Forum Monitor - 22 October 2010

www.arabicmediamonitor.com

On 22 October 2010, a video-address lasting nearly 50 minutes from Adam Yahya Ghadan was released onto jihadist forums produced by al-Qaeda Central’s media division, as-Sahab, entitled: ‘The Arabs and the Muslims:between the Conferences of Desertion and the individual Duty of Jihad’.  The production is dated Shawal 1431, which covers the period of 10 September to 8 October 2010, and Ghadan delivers his address in Arabic with accompanying English subtitles. 

The main focus of his address is on the illegitimacy of the mainstream religious establishment in predominantly Muslim countries and the obligatory duty of waging jihad for all Muslims.

With regards to the former, he particularly focuses on the Mardin Conference convened by the Global Centre for Renewal and Guidancein Mardin, Turkey in March 2010, which brought together

leading Muslim scholars, theologians and academics from around the world to refute religious justifications for acts of terror in the name of waging jihad.  The attendees examined a fatwa written by the medieval Islamic scholar ibn Tamaima known as the ‘Mardin fatwa’, which has been used by Islamist extremist groups, particularly al-Qaeda and its affiliates, to support their call for the so-called ‘global jihad’.

The new Mardin declaration was also criticized in article by Anwar al-Awlaqi featured in the second edition of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) English-language Inspire Magazine released on 11 October 2010.

With regards to the duty of jihad, Ghadan particularly addresses Muslims residing in the West and urges them to carry out individual acts of jihad against the enemy on its own soil.  Incidentally, the dominant theme prevalent in many of the articles featured in AQAP’s Inspire 2, mentioned above, was also the importance of supporters in the West to opt for conducting independent attacks in their home countries, rather than travel to one of the so-called ‘jihad fronts’, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen etc.

The video also features clips from the Mardin conference and parts of a previously-released interview conducted by AQAP’s media division, al-Malahim, with Anwar al-Awlaqi in which he praises acts of individual jihad, particularly the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas carried out by Nidal Hasan in November 2009.  The second half of the production also features a number of clips focusing on sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, particularly ‘massacres’ allegedly carried out by Christians against Muslims. 

A full English transcript of Ghadan's address will be published by Jihadist Forum Monitor upon its expected release onto jihadist forums.