The following is the 41st edition of the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Weekly Digest. It includes exclusive reports and items from the past week on Jihadist websites.
THE WEEK IN JIHAD
An Al-Qaeda-linked organization has claimed that it attacked the Japanese oil tanker M Star in the Strait of Hormuz last week. The organization is the 'Abdallah 'Azzam Brigades, whose only active unit up to now has been the Lebanon-based Ziyad Al-Jarrah Division. However, as we reported in April, one of the commanders of the Brigades is Salih Al-Qar'awi, a wanted Saudi Al-Qaeda terrorist, who asserted that there are other units in the Brigades and that targets outside of Lebanon would be attacked "in the very near future." Until now it had not been clear that the incident on the M Star was a terror attack at all, but the Brigades appear to be a serious organization and the claim deserves to be investigated. If there was an attack, it would mark an attempt to return to maritime terrorism as a means of targeting the global economy. The incident also raises the issue of what relation exists, if any, between the 'Abdallah 'Azzam Brigades and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has on occasion threatened maritime terror.
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