This paper explores a corpus of extremist Islamist texts for the period from 2007 to 2012, covering transcripts of audio and videos created by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib (AQIM). Employing narrative assay, it explores the way AQIM employed mythic discourse to spread its ideology to audiences and to uphold its actions and focus on the deployment of long-established culturally-embedded ‘master narratives’ in fragmentary forms as sense-making devices. In the process, it is asserted that narrative assay can supply insights into ideologies and organizations in the Middle East and North African region that may evade other analytical methods.