Free Republic

terrorist mastermind behind the July 7 London bombings is reported to have been freed from a Syrian jail by President Bashar Assad's regime. Abu Musab al-Suri had been held in Syria for six years after being captured by the CIA in 2005 and transported to the country of his birth under its controversial extraordinary rendition programme. But he is now said to have been released as a warning to the US and Britain about the consequences of turning their backs on President al-Assad’s regime as it tries to contain the uprising in the country. Al-Suri, also known as Mustafa Setmariam...

The evolution toward smaller, more autonomous and decentralized organizational structures has been identified as a key trend in jihadi terrorism during the past few years [1]. Confronting amorphous structures and networks, which lack clearly identifiable organizational linkages and command structures and in which self-radicalization and self-recruitment are key elements, is a formidable challenge for security services [2]. The jihadi decentralization trend is clearly a result of counter-terrorism successes. These "defeats" have been scrutinized and digested in the writings of key jihadi theoreticians during the past few years. New roadmaps and operational concepts are being explored as the jihadis search for...