An article published recently in The New Republic, the American journal, by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank – both respected experts on terrorism – outlined a radical change in thinking on Al-Qaeda’s strategy among some of the most respected thinkers in the Islamist world.

For the first time, they reported, men whose previous pronouncements had been used as a justification for jihad were speaking out against it. They were not embracing the West, by any means, but they were questioning the ideological basis upon which Al-Qaeda, as a scattered movement, relies. In the battle for “hearts and minds” the group appeared to have scored an own goal. LINK