No doubt Christine Fair means “2013”:
On September 30, 2014, the head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a video in which he declared a revivified and more ambitious al-Qaeda presence in South Asia. This ostensibly newly branded franchise of al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent is called the Jamā‘at Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Shibh al-Qārra al-Hindīya (the “Organization of the Base of Jihad in the Indian Sub-Continent” or simply Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS). The leader of AQIS is a well-known Pakistani Islamic scholar with long-standing ties to al-Qaeda known by the name Sheikh Asim Umar. Umar has long operated freely in Pakistan, where he has authored many tomes such as Teesri Jang-e-Azeem aur Dujjal (“The Third World War and the Anti-Christ”), Dujjal ka Lashkar: Blackwater (“Blackwater: the Army of the Anti-Christ”); and Burmuda Tikon aur Dujjal (“The Bermuda Triangle and the Anti-Christ”). Notably, all of these publications are in Urdu and are widely available in Pakistan and on the Internet. Helpfully, the online versions provide a list of bookstores throughout Pakistan (along with their phone numbers) from which one may procure the tomes in question.
According to Zawahiri, AQIS would raise the flag of jihad in the subcontinent and usher a return to Islamic rule, which was the law of the land until the “infidel army” took it over and divided it. Zawahiri anticipated that AQIS would be welcomed by the Muslims in “Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad, and Kashmir” and asserted that this new organization would liberate Muslims of South Asia from oppression and injustice.
What explains this move and its timing? How important is it?
Read on, at Lawfare Blog
FTA:
So, those who believe that jihad is popular to men who are disenfranchised or poor have fodder here in India.
Another issue touched on slightly in the article, but very important when it comes to men becoming jihadis, is that, when Muslims flee from one country (say, Buddhist Myanmar) into another (say Muslim Bangladesh) they are never given citizenship.
Ever.
Lots of stateless Muslims are all over the ME.
Millions.
The men cannot get state education, health care, even ID so as to get employment!
The failure of Islamic countries to welcome refugees as citizens is a primary mover in funneling many of these men into jihadi organizations.
This whole ”caliphate” concept is like Obama’s empty frame….a person can imagine whatever he desires being the end product of establishment of the caliph.
The fact that it will be entirely different from their paradisiac imaginings is lost on them in the fog of the war to get from here to there.