Social Media Jihad: Tweeting a message to Zawahiri

Earlier today, I published an article on a letter signed by several jihadist ideologues addressed to their “sheikh,” Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda. The ideologues want Zawahiri to deliver more pointed criticisms of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS). At the time I wrote the piece, a few of the ideologues who signed the message had not yet tweeted it, even though they maintain active Twitter feeds.

Since I published the article, both Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini and Iyad Quneibi, who are signatories on the letter, have tweeted it. They are using a common hashtag associated with the letter. [Click on the hyperlink and you see the tweets.]

Sami al Uraydi, a sharia official in the Al Nusrah Front, had previously tweeted it. But now two other Al Nusrah Front officials who are also active on Twitter have done so as well. One is Abu Mariyah al Qahtani and the other Abu Sulayman al Muhajir, an extremist preacher who once lived in Australia, but is now with Al Nusrah. Sulayman announced his support for the message in the Tweet.

Together, Uraydi, Qahtani, and Sulayman are three of the most prominent Al Nusrah Front officials on Twitter. They have all been very active in the fight with ISIS and, therefore, have a significant interest in getting Zawahiri to say more on their behalf.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

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