Khattab (1969-2002)

Abstract : In May 2011, a member of the jihadi website Shumukh al-Islam initiated a survey designed to identify the main reason that made you [i.e., the online group s members] love jihad. Some of the available answers listed included: Family member, Internet, a friend or one of the Sheikhs. Of the eighty-seven Shumukh members who responded, ten of them credited Khattab, the subject of this biography, and the Arab jihad against the Russians in the Caucasus as the reason behind their commitment to jihad. Khattab s influence ranked second to religious upbringing in the survey, credited by eighteen members as their main motivation to love jihad. It is remarkable that Khattab s influence is ranked ahead of Usama bin Ladin s, credited by six members to have caused them to take up jihad. Khattab s role in and influence on the jihadi landscape is not limited to online members of jihadi websites. The jihadi intellectual Mustafa Hamid remarks in one of his books that Khattab s jihadi project was, in the 1990s, comparable to if not more ambitious than that of Bin Ladin s.