The Accused: Mohammed al-Massari
The Prosecution: al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula and the denizens of the al-Hesbah forum represent Allah in this matter.
Background: A bizarre statement from the administrators of the al-boraq.com forum accused the al-Hesbah forum of being some sort of intelligence operation and somehow responsible for the arrest of Irhabi007 and the apparent failure of two attacks by al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia against the al-Buqayq facility of ARAMCO. They also accused a number of specific forum members of being intelligence agents. To the best of our knowledge the accusations are without merit. The al-Hesbah forum was and remains, in point of fact, a reasonably secure place for jihadists to congregate online. Not content to let the truth stand in the way of a good story, and wanting to recover lost readership and mind-share after months of being offline, the accusations were picked up by the users and administrators of the Tajdeed site, which is operated by the Party of Islamic Renewal and lead by London-resident Mohammed al-Massari, a Saudi exile. These accusations came at a time when both al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia and the al-Hesbah forum staff had suffered losses due to arrests by various countries security services, thus adding insult to injury.
The Charge: The making of such accusations amounts to sowing Fitna or discord amongst the the Ummah, the Muslim community. Fitna is a condition that is enabled by the lack unity within the Ummah, and the lack of an Islamic ruler. It is also at the heart of the Sunni/Shia split, when each accused the other of creating such discord to serve the interests of the enemies of Allah. It is a serious charge to say the least, but in this case it seems to fit.
You will find reporting and analysis of this issue at jamestown.org. The coverage of this conflict by Stephen Ulph suffers mostly from his reliance on the comments of denizens of the Tajdeed forum. Our own experience with them is that their 'analysis' tends to be somewhat self-serving, their critique of the al-Hesbah forum totally misses the mark, and our demographic research calls into question just how representative the Tajdeedis are of the mujahedeen who are actually waging the global jihad. There maybe some genuine jihadis amongst the Tajdeed, but they strike us as mostly spectators of, rather than participants in, the jihad.
We'll give the al-Mohajroon forum the last word for now:
Picture featuring Mohammed al-Massari on a football while Khomeini and Bush smile down upon the scene.
