Freelance Jihad. Save that title for it may be come the political wave of the future, says Hossam al-Halawamy:

Last January, authorities announced the arrest of 43 alleged Jihadis, and accused them of trying to blow up Western interests using homemade explosives, carried by pigeons, to be flown to their targets. Al-Qa'eda literature, downloaded from the Internet, was found in some of the houses of the suspects, but the government acknowledged they don't have any "organizational" links to bin Laden's network. None of the arrested had previous political records.

Freelancers like those 43 Jihadis could well be the future of armed politics, suggests Dia Rashwan, a researcher with Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "This can happen through individuals, spontaneous initiatives, neighbors who know each other, or a group of friends who pray together at a local mosque," he said citing the al-Waad group trial--which rights activists said was a sham--as an example. "It was a group of zealots with no political history. Aggravated by the events in the Islamic world, they tried to raise funds to support Muslim causes." Full story>>