Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi

Victory in Death: The Political Use of Islamist Martyrs

By Michael Scheuer

05/13/2008 - The past week once again saw the international media intensely focus on the capture and death of prominent Islamist leaders. On May 8, hundreds of reports appeared that al-Qaeda’s commander in Iraq Abu Ayub al-Masri (a.k.a. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir) had been captured by U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul; this claim proved false (Telegraph, May 9). Then on May 11, Western media flocked to an al-Qaeda internet communiqué announcing that one of its senior field commanders, Abu Suleiman al-Otaibi, had been killed in Afghanistan in a “fierce battle with the worshippers of the cross” after returning from fighting in Iraq (Reuters, May 11). On the same day, the British media focused on the arrest at Manchester airport of an Islamist named Hassan Butt, who is reputed to have helped “200 British Muslims train for jihad” (Guardian, May 11).

Maulana Sami ul-Haq

The Father of the Taliban: An Interview with Maulana Sami ul-Haq

Maulana Sami ul-Haq is the director and chancellor of Pakistan's famous madrassa, Darul uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak. He has served in this post since the death of his father, Maulana Abdul ul-Haq, the founder of the madrassa, in 1988. Darul uloom Haqqania is where many of the top Taliban leaders, including its fugitive chief, Mullah Omar, attended. It is widely believed that the madrassa was the launching pad for the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, which is why Sami ul-Haq is also called the "Father of the Taliban." Besides running his madrassa, Maulana Sami has a long political history as a religious politician. He was among the founders of Pakistan's Muttahida Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) coalition of six Islamic religious parties. He recently spoke with Jamestown analyst Imtiaz Ali.

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