SNIPPET - Quote:
www.jihadica.com/al-qa’ida-and-the-afghan-taliban-“diametrically-opposed”/
Al-Qa’ida and the Afghan Taliban: “Diametrically Opposed”?
Vahid Brown
October 21st, 2009 | AQ Leadership, Afghanistan, China, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jund Ansar Allah, Pakistan, Taliban
Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban and al-Qa’ida’s senior leaders have been issuing some very mixed messages of late, and the online jihadi community is in an uproar, with some calling these developments “the beginning of the end of relations” between the two movements. Beginning with a statement from Mullah Omar in September, the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta-based leadership has been emphasizing the “nationalist” character of their movement, and has sent several communications to Afghanistan’s neighbors expressing an intent to establish positive international relations. In what are increasingly being viewed by the forums as direct rejoinders to these sentiments, recent messages from al-Qa’ida have pointedly rejected the “national” model of revolutionary Islamism and reiterated calls for jihad against Afghanistan’s neighbors, especially Pakistan and China. However interpreted, these conflicting signals raise serious questions about the notion of an al-Qa’ida-Taliban merger.
The trouble began with Mullah Omar’s message for ‘Eid al-Fitr, issued on September 19, in which he calls the Taliban a “robust Islamic and nationalist movement,” which “wants to maintain good and positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect.”
SNIPPET - Quote:
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=jihad&ID=SP262109
Special Dispatch - No. 2621
October 28, 2009
Taliban Monthly Magazine Article Envisions Taliban-Russia-China Alliance Against U.S., Ignores Chechens, Uyghurs; Warns that Australia May Have to Be Conquered as ‘Lebensraum’ for Asian Settlement
The cover article of the latest issue of the Taliban’s official Arabic-language Al-Sumud monthly magazine envisions a post-war order in which a Taliban victory in Afghanistan sparks a pan-Asian anti-imperialist renaissance.
Strikingly, it endorses a vision of Asian identity and political unity over a pan-Islamic one.
The article promotes ties with China and Russia, and does not just pointedly ignore the Muslim Uyghurs and Chechens, but even rails against supposed Western plans to dismantle China and Russia. The author, also hints at one point that the Taliban will not let the Central Asian and Chechen jihadists stand in the way of its rapprochement with Russia. This pan-Asian outlook is constructed in opposition to the imperialist capitalist West; for instance, he writes that in the future white Australians will have the choice of either returning to Europe, assimilating into Asia, or being conquered as “lebensraum” for continental Asians.
ADDING to post no. 3:
www.jihadica.com/the-taliban-the-un-and-al-qaida/
“The Taliban, the UN and al-Qaida”
Anne Stenersen
October 30th, 2009 | AQ Leadership, Afghanistan, Taliban
SNIPPET: “(Editor’s comment: Anne tried to post a comment on Vahid Brown’s landmark post on Al-Qaida-Taliban relations. Given that she is one of the world’s foremost experts on this issue, there was no way I was going to let her remarks “disappear” into the comments section. So here they are. Her text begins with a response to an earlier comment about Taliban’s view of the UN).
“Mullah Omar’s statement should not be interpreted to mean that he or other Taliban leaders are ready to recognize the United Nations. In fact, the Taliban’s leaders have criticized the UN on a number of occasions, in addition to the one you mention. In 2006 Mullah Omar accused the UN of being nothing but a “tool for America” and Mullah Baradir echoed this in 2008, saying that “we regard all the decisions of the United Nations towards Afghanistan, as American orders.” I do not think their 12 Oct 09 statement was issued as a direct response to forum criticism, since it is pretty consistent with the Taliban’s past propaganda statements on the UN.
From the Taliban’s perspective, opposing the UN and wanting to have “good relations” with neighbouring countries are not necessarily contradictory. “