Indian journalists in media firestorm

Indian media was itself a major news item as the Mumbai terror attacks came to a conclusion over the weekend.

Coverage of Mumbai terror attacks stirs frenzy
By PATRICK FRATER


Indian media was itself a major news item as the Mumbai terror attacks came to a conclusion over the weekend.

The country’s broadcasters were summoned Friday by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to deal with charges that the live saturation coverage had helped the terrorists. At the same time, however, traditional media were criticized as too slow and inaccurate by legions of “citizen journalists” using Internet services such as Twitter and photo site Flickr.

The deputy commissioner of police argued that the terrorists, who were holed up in two major hotels and became involved in floor-by-floor firefights with police, were gaining tactical information from TV. Using powers under Section 19 of the country’s Cable Television Networks Act, he ordered a blackout of TV news channels.

“Transmission of various clippings/live relay/coverage of the actions being taken by the police against the terrorists in South Mumbai is causing impediment in the police action … thereby endangering the lives of the police personnel as also of the hostages,” the order stated.

Cable and satellite channels went off air for nearly half an hour before the order was rescinded. Media chiefs present at a meeting between the MIB, the Indian Broadcasting Federation and News Broadcasting Assn. hit back by accusing the government information departments and ministerial interfaces of failing to keep up with developments in the media industry.

They said it was unclear which officials had authority to speak to the media, that government and media had never agreed to procedures for coverage of national emergencies, and that the Press Information Bureau is set up to handle print rather than broadcast and online media.

Through blogs, file-sharing and social networking functions on the Internet, dozens of eyewitness reports, some coming from within the two besieged hotels, delivered information faster than conventional media and challenged some of its reporting. Twitter, a user-generated service that delivers text message-sized “tweets,” for instance, reported that there was still gunfire inside the Taj Mahal long after Indian media had said it was finished. Others transcribed lists of casualties from the hospitals faster than mainstream media could access it.

While some hailed the online reporting as “a social media experiment in action,” much of the information on Twitter was woefully inaccurate. Reports of casualties in the thousands were wrong. So too, apparently, was a report that the government had asked Twitter users (aka “tweeters”) to stop reporting for fear that they too might help the attackers.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s media was furious with Indian coverage, too. One paper described Indian broadcasters as being in a “race for propaganda” and making assumptions and unsubstantiated charges about the origins and training of the attackers.
[...]
Still others criticized media coverage as helping create an age of “celebrity terrorism.” “The terrorists’ action must always be complemented by the target’s reaction in order to complete the scene,” security analyst Paul Cornish, chairman of the Chatham House Intl. Security Program, told the BBC. “The terrorists might have assumed, quite correctly as it happens, that the world’s media and the terrorism analysis industry would very quickly fill in any gaps for them.” [...]

Snop's Commentary:

Most telling in this article is the comment by Paul Cornish about media creating the age of "celebrity terrorism".

Cornish grasps the vital organ upon which militant Islamic terror survives-lungs. Deprived of the oxygen that media provides for terror (Margret Thatcher's words not mine) it would sufficate. The effects of terror would never able to move past the local tactical level to the global strategic level that it enjoys today thanks to the artifical lungs of the Internet and Satellite TV .

In this not so brave new world, we have all become victims of the psychological component of mass mediated terror transmitted to our homes, places of work, recreation and into the palms of our very hands.

No government is really prepared to deal with this new phenomenon.

EGYPT: Former militant condemns Zawahiri as 'bloodthirsty'

Babylon & Beyond
LA Times Blog

—Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Ayman Zawahiri. Credit: Wickimedia

Al Qaeda second in command Ayman Zawahiri is a bloodthirsty militant who exerts all possible effort to justify the killing of innocent civilians, according to his former partner with whom Zawahiri co-founded a notorious Islamic militant organization in Egypt three decades ago.

“Zawahiri finds it legitimate to kill anybody whose country fights Muslims,” said Sayed Imam, an iconic ideologue of the Egyptian group Islamic Jihad, on Monday in his new jailhouse treatise quoted in the independent daily Al Masry al Youm. Imam added that Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri are “bloodthirsty and remain determined to commit mass killings.”

The scathing treatise, published in sequels in the local press, seeks primarily to renounce violence and bash Al Qaeda. In today’s installment, Imam, who is serving a 25-year sentence, tears apart the logic of the religious fatwas Al Qaeda uses to rationalize the killing of civilians.

“The killing of civilians in blocks, trains, markets, mosques or elsewhere is a declaration of impotence to face armies of enemy states and cowardice. Their impotence drew them to kill civilians who Islamic Sharia said should not be killed,” said Imam.

Imam also criticized Al Qaeda’s condoning attacks on tourists visiting Muslim countries: “Zawahiri and his friends call for the killing and kidnapping of tourists; however, Zawahiri himself went to a number of European countries and the U.S. and came out of these countries safe and nobody harmed him there. Nobody kidnapped or killed him.”

In the 1970s, Imam and Zawahiri formed the first cell of Islamic Jihad, which orchestrated the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the attempts on the lives of many Egyptian ministers in the 1990s. Last year, the number of jailed Islamic Jihad members was estimated at 2,000.

State retribution forced many militants to flee the country to Pakistan and Afghanistan. From there, the group is believed to have plotted several terrorist operations, including the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in 1995 and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

In the late 1990s, many Islamic Jihad leaders including Zawahiri joined Al Qaeda in a fatwa, or religious edict, against Americans that was issued under the banner of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders.

Imam’s treatise marks the latest in the ongoing war of words between him and Al Qaeda. Imam threw himself in a head-on confrontation with Al Qaeda leaders after he drafted his first treatise from his prison cell last year announcing the departure from the group’s initial ideology, renouncing the use of violence and opening fire on Al Qaeda for its killing of civilians. His words elicited a prompt response from his former partner Zawahiri, who released a rebuttal alleging that “crusaders and Jews” inspired Imam’s treatise.

Al Qaeda greets Obama victory with an insult

International Herald Tribune

by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

WASHINGTON: In Al Qaeda's first response to the American election, Osama bin Laden's top deputy condemned President-elect Barack Obama as a "house Negro" who will continue a campaign against Islam begun by President George W. Bush.

Appealing to the "weak and oppressed" around the world, Ayman al Zawahiri sought in a video to dampen enthusiasm for Obama's election around the globe by saying that the "new face" of America only masked a "heart full of hate."

American officials dismissed the new video as spin control and a desperate tactic by a terror group that suffered a defeat in the global war of ideas when the United States elected a black president with a Muslim name.[...]

[...] in a blunt personal attack on the new president, Zawahiri painted Obama as a hypocrite and traitor to his race, unfavorably comparing him to "honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s black Muslim leader.

The Qaeda video drew extensively on archival footage of Malcolm X, and much of the message juxtaposes a still picture of Obama wearing a yarmulke during a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem with a photo of Malcolm X kneeling in prayer at a mosque.[...]

Lawrence Wright, the author of a book on Al Qaeda, "The Looming Tower," called the tape an attempt by Al Qaeda at "spin control" as it struggles to assimilate an election that challenges its worldview.

Wright said both radical and mainstream Muslim commentators had predicted that Senator John McCain would win the presidential election and that little would change. "I'm sure Al Qaeda has been struggling over how to react to the Obama election, and this is the result," he said.

Wright said that for more than a year, messages from Qaeda leaders had included positive messages about Malcolm X in what he described as "a desperate and ineffective strategy" to appeal to African-American Muslims.

Wright, [...], said Qaeda leaders closely followed Western news and polling, and he said he believed they might be reacting to a Pew Research Center poll last year showing that African-American Muslims are the subset of American Muslims least hostile to Al Qaeda. The poll showed that 63 percent of foreign-born Muslims in this country had a "very unfavorable" view of Al Qaeda, compared with 36 percent of African-American Muslims.[...]

Walters said that if the tape was an attempt to reach black Americans or the Third World, it was "ham-handed" and futile.

"You're talking about someone who looks like the rest of the world, and that's got to be threatening to them," he said. "On 9/11, Al Qaeda didn't make any racial distinctions in who it killed, and people remember that."

(The Full Article)

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Snop's Commentary:

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Zawahiri is really grasping for straws with this outrageous insult. The election of Barack Obama threatens Al Qaeda's designs on power undercutting many of its arguments against the West and could prove to be the antibiotic that kills the Al Qaeda bacteria.

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The goal of the ideological battle is to win the support of the undecided and uncommitted in the world. Al Qaeda depends on radicalizing the young and impressionable to fill their ranks. The radicalization process is dependant on stoking a sense of grievance, pitting one race against another, one class against another, one religion against another. Al Qaeda operates on the seams of humanity provoking, manipulating and inspiring young and impressionable people to follow their murderous path.

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Regardless of internal US politics, President elect Obama offers a unifying symbol with a powerful narrative wrapped in the flag of hope and freedom pitting itself against the anti-narrative of despair and subjugation.

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This makes for the perfect eschatological battle between light and darkness.

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Who in the West will pursue the counter-narrative?

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Will President elect Obama use his media prowess to engage militant Islam ideologically on the flat planes of the Internet and open skies of transnational TV?

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Can he turn the legions of digital-warriors and cyber-evangelists into a counterveiling force to push back militant Islamic inspired hate and nihilism?

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Will YouTube, Twitter, the blog sphere and Web 2.0 virals become the 21st century swords and shields smashing and slashing across resurrected virtual battle fields from Acre to Poitiers?

Obama: Surfing the Internet Tsunami

Picture by Andrew Buckley/Reuters

Web sites foretell a YouTube presidency

Washington Times Christina Bellantoni Friday, November 7, 2008

CHICAGO The Web address won't change, but WhiteHouse.gov will never look the same. The Chicago-based team that made the Internet such a force in helping Barack Obama win the presidency is moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.[...]

Mr. Obama communicated with his supporters directly via e-mail and text messaging before claiming victory Tuesday night, an early indicator that the first YouTube candidate will become the YouTube president.[...]

"The most interesting thing to watch will be what do they and how do they reinvent the way a president speaks to the American people... [...]Mr. Obama will inherit a Web operation that has improved over the years but is sterile - a press release clearinghouse with no blog and which shares little in common with the vibrant graphics- and video-heavy BarackObama.com that attracted millions of supporters.[...]

The size of the president-elect's e-mail and text message list is a closely guarded secret in Chicago, but a source said it was large enough to mobilize people into taking action.[...]

The frequent communications helped his supporters remain engaged in the election and inspired more than 1 million people to volunteer and help the senator from Illinois win the White House on Tuesday. It also creates the potential to get Americans to participate in multiple ways. During the campaign, Mr. Obama encouraged people on his site to aid hurricane victims, a request that yielded an impressive response. [...]

The Internet has transformed dissent as well, and members of the netroots think they are one reason Mr. Obama did not select Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat, as his running mate. They organized to tell the campaign that Mr. Bayh was sending the wrong message. [..]

Mr. Rosenberg noted the president-elect can communicate with the world through the Internet in a way the Bush administration has not, saying that he hoped and thought that Web videos coming out of the White House would be translated into Mandarin, Spanish, Farsi and Arabic. [...]

Through the course of the campaign, the Obama team communicated directly with supporters from specific demographic groups, from college students to Jewish voters using new media. [...]The Obama blogger thank-you note concluded: "You shattered every record and expectation, and you changed our politics."

(The Full Article)

Snop's Commentary:

Surfing the Internet Tsunami, Barack Obama is the first national political leader to tap into and successfully harness the power of Internet driven new wave media politics. He bypassed the traditional centers of Black Democratic Party power by anglin away from the negative pull of of civil rights veterans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

To his credit, he was also able to ride the barrel wave past the Clintons once and for all leaving Billary to crash on the rocks.

Obama: The Cognetic President

On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain

By Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, October 22, 2008; A13

Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.
And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had "exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy." It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.

(The Full Article)

Snop's Commentary:

Again, Al Qaeda wants to manipulate our election and I don’t think it matters who wins. They will still have trouble with the US. BTW, I heard that Iran is backing Obama -interesting thing Shiites for Obama--Sunnis for McCain. Crazy! Our globalized media world allows all sorts of unsavory characters to weigh in on our domestic elections. Sadly, too many people expect problems with the Muslim world to go away, as if George Bush stirred all this up in the first place. I am very concerned about our ability to continue fighting the GWOT with a faltering economy. Al Qaeda rightly touts their strategy of exhaustion—they have the time—we don’t have the money. Talk about asymmetry, for every billion dollars we spend Al Qaeda spends a thousand. 9/11 cost 500k! We’ve spent well over 500billion in Iraq and Afghanistan already.

We need to find a stasis in the present struggle to regroup and refresh. Seven solid years of fighting is taking its toll on our equipment and people--not to mention our pocket books. I don’t agree with Al Qaeda’s assessment that Obama or McCain would act any different in the face of a massive terror hit. The American people would demand retribution. Its not like Obama could say sorry America I’m not George Bush so I’m going to start some dialoging with Bin Laden et al to understand their point of view –rubbish! The wheels of exhaustion will keep turning. Obama has already stated he would attack into Pakistan and McCain said he’d track Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

Sadly, I think we’re trapped by our own culture code and we are being played psychologically like a fiddle. Only a complete refocusing of our weight of effort from the physical struggle to the psychological/political struggle will we be successful in the end—me thinks. If it sounds like I’m contradicting myself, I probably am because there is a natural tension between the emotional and rational elements of conflict—especially this one. The emotional element in this day in age is amplified by the Cognetic Effect of global media. Look at the stock market—emotion. Look at media propagated terror—emotion; Bird Flu, SARS, climate change!!! Its all fear channeled through a hyperactive densely interconnected fabric that pulses, spikes and flows completely and utterly devoid of rationality. I’m starting to wonder if Globalization must die for us to live.

Militant Islam's Assault on Freedom of Expression

Abstract


The hypothesis of this study seeks to link exposure to political violence, via the Internet and Transnational TV (cable/satellite TV), in response to perceived affronts to Islam, with the increased ability of militant Islamist actors to coerce citizens of democracies into restricting their freedom of expression. The results show that freedom of expression is under a sustained assault by militant Islamists within Western Europe and from outside Islamist actors-- threatening the bedrock of liberal democracy.

A search was conducted by reviewing news reporting that fit the criteria derived from the hypothesis--starting with the murder of Theo van Gogh on 2 Nov 2004 through the 13 Feb 2008 reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons. Lexus-Nexus revealed nine separate events involving eight European citizens that when exercising freedom of expression lead to violence or the threat of violence in reaction to perceived offenses to Islam. One of the eight European citizens was assassinated. Five out of the remaining seven live under police protection, excluding Pope Benedict XVI. Additionally, three cases of self-censorship are reported (many more exist but were not included because of time constraints).

Self-censorship is on the rise with many artists, writers and politicians etc. choosing silence over engagement. Satellite TV and the Internet play an important role forming a conduit that allows terror to travel almost instantaneously from point to point making anyone with a modem or a satellite dish a possible victim. This enables Islamists to amplify and use political violence as coercive instrument intended to silence its critics and restrict the freedom of movement of its opponents out of fear of death.

(Read the full research Paper)

BBC denies interference in al-Qaida coverage

Osama bin Laden, left, with his top lieutenant Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, in one of al-Qaida's own propaganda videos. Photograph: AP

Oliver Luft and agencies
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday August 27 2008 11:09 BST

The BBC has denied that its editorial independence was compromised after it emerged that a Radio 4 documentary about Islamic extremism bore similarities to a programme described in a leaked Whitehall document as one at which anti-al-Qaida propaganda was put forward.

Concerns were raised after it became apparent that extracts of the leaked document published yesterday in the Guardian had a likeness to a BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme by security correspondent Frank Gardner titled al-Qaida's Enemy Within, which was first broadcast on August 7, after the leaked propaganda dossier was compiled.

However, the BBC was quick to deny that the editorial content of the programme was influenced in any way by the Whitehall report or that it had been fed stories.

(Full Article)

Snop's Commentary:

Whether or not BBC is working with Whitehall to undermine Al Qaida is beside the point. The point being that countering Al Qaida by exploiting the connective power of Main Stream Media to its vast audiences is very difficult. It is difficult, because once a relationship between MSM and the Government is exposed it threatens to undermine the credibility of the MSM outlet as seen in this Guardian article.

Point to ponder...MSM outlets are happy to run Al Qaida's latest diatribe laced with propaganda and incitement, but they are loath to be seen supporting democratically elected governments in their effort to counter the ideological justifications of Al Qaida and others. Where does this leave us? How can we (the West) level the playing field?

One last thought... what about the fairness doctrine that we hear democrats talking about with regard to the influence of the conservative radio talk show hosts? Seems to me, MSM needs to reconsider its role in preserving Western Civilization by giving equal time to our own governments by producing factual TV documentaries. Doing so may help undermine militant Islam's goal of dominating the West and get MSM some higher ratings.

Al-Qaeda At 20... ... Dead or Alive?

washingtonpost.com

Sunday August 17, 2008

By Peter Bergen

Two decades after al-Qaeda was founded in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar by Osama bin Laden and a handful of veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the group is more famous and feared than ever. But its grand project -- to transform the Muslim world into a militant Islamist caliphate -- has been, by any measure, a resounding failure.

In large part, that's because bin Laden's strategy for arriving at this Promised Land is a fantasy. Al-Qaeda's leader prides himself on being a big-think strategist, but for all his brains, leadership skills and charisma, he has fastened on an overall strategy that is self-defeating.

Bin Laden's main goal is to bring about regime change in the Middle East and to replace the governments in Cairo and Riyadh with Taliban-style theocracies. He believes that the way to accomplish this is to attack the "far enemy" (the United States), then watch as the supposedly impious, U.S.-backed Muslim regimes he calls the "near enemy" crumble.

This might have worked if the United States had turned out to be a paper tiger that could sustain only a few blows from al-Qaeda. But it didn't. Bin Laden's analysis showed no understanding of the vital interests -- oil, Israel and regional stability -- that undergird U.S. engagement in the Middle East, let alone the intensity of American outrage that would follow the first direct attack on the continental United States since the British burned the White House in 1814.

(Read the Full Article)

Surrender!

Snop's Commentary: What has come of Britain and the riches of its hard fought place among the leading lights of the world?
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First it was Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, principle leader of Church of England--now it is Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips--head of the judiciary of England and Wales. Both are ready, willing and able to open the door to Sharia Law.-but why? It is incomprehensible to imagine that Britain will be better off under a dual legal code system.

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by Cal Thomas

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

So this is how it ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

The most senior judge in England has declared that Islamic legal principles in Shariah law may be used within Muslim communities in Britain to settle marital arguments and regulate finance. Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law."

In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips said Muslims in Britain could use Islamic legal principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - comply with English law. Shariah law does not comply with English law. It is a law unto itself.

And so the English who gave us the Magna Carta in 1215, William Blackstone and the foundation of American law are slowly succumbing to the dictates of intolerant Islam and sowing seeds of their own destruction.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organization (IKWRO), an umbrella group of activists who work in Muslim countries to liberate women from the dark side of this oppressive force, according to Womensphere.wordpress.com, identifies Shariah family law as the fundamental basis for discrimination against women in the Muslim world, including communities in the United Kingdom.

Here are just some of the "benefits" British Muslim women can look forward to if Shariah law replaces English law: The Muslim woman cannot marry without parental approval, worsening the problem of forced marriage; marriages can be conducted without the presence of a bride, as long as the guardian consents, creating a climate for underage and early marriage; Muslim women may only marry Muslim men.

It gets worse. A Muslim man can divorce his wife by repudiating her; he has no obligation to support a former wife, or her children after the divorce; women are prohibited from divorcing a husband without his consent; abuse is not grounds for a woman to end a marriage; in matters of inheritance, sons are entitled to twice as much of an estate as daughters.

Divorced women must remain single. If they remarry, they can lose custody of their children. There is no similar requirement for a man. Child custody often reverts to the father at a preset age, even if the father has been abusive.

It is impossible to reconcile this antiquated "law" with English law, so what could Lord Phillips mean when he says Shariah law can be used in Muslim communities so long as such laws comply with English law? This will mean English law must become subordinate to Shariah law. This is Dhimmitude, an Islamic system of religious apartheid begun in the seventh century that forces all other religions and cultures to accept an inferior status once Muslims become the majority.

Maryland's Court of Appeals recently denied a Shariah divorce to a Pakistani man. The man's wife of 20 years had filed for divorce. To circumvent having to share their $2 million estate and other marital assets, he went to the Pakistani Embassy and applied for an Islamic divorce. The man wanted to invoke what is known as talaq, in which the husband says, "I divorce you" three times and it's done.

The Maryland court said, "If we were to affirm the use of talaq, controlled as it is by the husband, a wife, a resident of this state, would never be able to consummate a divorce action filed by her in which she seeks a division of marital property" and the talaq "directly deprives the wife of the due process she is entitled to when she initiates divorce litigation. The lack and deprivation of due process is itself contrary to [Maryland's] public policy."

British Muslims who wish to live under Shariah law might have stayed in the countries from which they came - or return to them. But their objective appears to be domination of England, not assimilation. This also seems to be the goal for Muslims in other countries with large and growing Muslim populations.

There is no due process under Shariah law. Lord Phillips has signed the death warrant for his nation if his opinion becomes the law of England. It's one thing to fight a war and lose it. It's quite another to willingly surrender without a struggle.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Get Osama Bin Laden before I leave office, orders George W Bush

The Sunday Times
June 15, 2008

Sarah Baxter

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President George W Bush has enlisted British special forces in a final attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden before he leaves the White House.

Defence and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source.

Bush arrives in Britain today on the final leg of his eight-day farewell tour of Europe. He will have tea with the Queen and dinner with Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah before holding a private meeting with Brown at No 10 tomorrow and flying on to Northern Ireland.

The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.

The hunt was “completely sanctioned” by the Pakistani government, according to a UK special forces source. It involves the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to take out specific terrorist targets.

One US intelligence source compared the “growing number of clandestine reconnaissance missions” inside Pakistan with those conducted in Laos and Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam war.

America rarely acknowledges the use of Predator and Reaper drones, but the most recent known strike was on a suspected Al-Qaeda safe house in the Pakistani province of North Waziristan earlier in June. Villagers said the house was empty.

Intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden is sketchy, but some analysts believe he is in the Bajaur tribal zone in northwest Pakistan. He has evaded capture for nearly seven years. “Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope of scoring a home run,” said an intelligence source, using a baseball metaphor.

A Pentagon source said US forces were rolling up Al-Qaeda’s network in Pakistan in the hope of pushing Bin Laden towards the Afghan border, where the US military and bombers with guided missiles were lying in wait. “They are prepping for a major battle,” he said.

The main operations in Pakistan are being undertaken by Delta, the US army special operations unit, and the British SBS.

Special forces are being sent to capture or kill Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters based on intelligence provided by the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and its US counterpart, the Security Co-ordination Detachment.

The step-up in military activity has increased tensions between Pakistan and the US. A senior Pakistani government source said President Pervez Musharraf had given tacit support to Predator attacks on Al-Qaeda.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said last week that the US would “partner [the Pakistanis] to the extent they want us to” to combat insurgents.

Pakistan lodged a strong diplomatic protest last week over what it claimed was an airstrike on a border post with Afghanistan that killed 11 of its troops.

The United States declined to accept this version of events. “It is still not exactly clear what happened,” said Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser.

New Al Qaeda Cell A Growing Threat To U.S.

CBS NEWS

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2008

(CBS) The new faces of terror are militants inside an emerging al Qaeda cell, which U.S. officials warn presents a clear and growing threat to America.

Based in North Africa, the group calling itself "Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" specializes in kidnappings and suicide attacks, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

A car bombing last September of an Algerian military barracks killed 28 people. But, follow-up bombings of a United Nations building and a diplomatic office signaled that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has bigger plans.

"They have devoted an enormous amount of their energy and their resources to try to build this up as a base to try to carry out attacks, not just in North Africa, but ultimately into West Europe and someday against North America," says Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institute.

Riedel, a former CIA official, says a propaganda video - just posted on a jihad website - shows a sophisticated attack capability.

But, the most lethal aspect of AQIM - and its real value for Osama bin Laden's terror network - goes beyond firepower.

Says Ambassador Dell Dailey, a U.S. Department of State Counterterrorism official: "Leaders of al Qaeda and its affiliates are extremely interested in recruiting terrorists from and deploying terrorists to Europe, people familiar with our Western cultures that can travel freely." And that's exactly who's being drawn to the AQIM training camps - people who can easily blend in without raising suspicions in Europe or the U.S.

"Some of those people are second, third generation and they now have French, Belgian or Spanish passports and a French, Belgian or Spanish passport is exactly what al Qaeda is looking for because that's their mechanism to get into the United States," Riedel says. U.S. officials have long worried about British radicals using U.K. passports to bring terror to America. But, now the North African branch of al Qaeda presents a second pipeline - a doubled threat to the homeland.
(Story Link)

Snop's Commentary:

For more news and commentary about this increasingly important region to the struggle against militant Islam, check out the Magharebia website by following this link or the one posted on the upper right hand side of the page under Global Media.

"The Magharebia web site is a central source of news and information about the Maghreb in three languages: Arabic, French and English. The goal of Magharebia is to offer accurate, balanced and forward-looking coverage of developments in the Maghreb." --United States Africa Command

Speak No Evil: Un-Naming the Enemy

U.S. aims to unlink Islamic, terrorism

Washington Times
Article published May 7, 2008

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL - U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism.

"There' s a growing consensus [in the Bush administration] that we need to move away from that language," said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue.

Instead, in two documents circulated last month by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terror, officials are urged to use terms such as violent extremists, totalitarian and death cult to characterize al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. "

Avoid labeling everything 'Muslim.' It reinforces the 'U.S. vs. Islam' framework that al Qaeda promotes," according to "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication," produced last month by the center.

(Full Article)

Snop's Commentary:

I've been thinking about this issue for a couple weeks and wondering who really benefits and who doesn't. The simple answer is that the West is put at a disadvantage while Al Qaeda et al benefit.

More specifically, the West loses out because we desperately need a way to conceptualize the enemy. Doing that requires descriptive language. Neutralizing the language neutralizes our ability to think about the enemy. If we can't think about the enemy, we cannot devise plans to defeat the enemy, nor can we communicate how to carryout out such plans if we could think them up in the first place.

Similarly, former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich warned that: " If we cannot have an honest discussion about the nature of the threats against us , we cannot develop strategies to meet those threats"[...] "It is simply suicidal to treat the Al Qaeda network as simply 'an illegitimate political organization, both terrorist and criminal' while ignoring the radical religious foundation underpinning this and other groups that constitute an Irreconcilable Wing of Islam."

If the intended effect of adopting this language is to mollify segments of the Islamic world -what is the cost/benefit of doing so with regard to the ideological war? And who is responsible for making this call anyway?

Many questions need to be answered before we throw away what little gains we have made in confronting this already ambiguous threat.

As the monkeys above suggest...if we can't name the threat...we can't speak of the threat...if we can't speak of the threat...no one else will hear and learn of the threat...if no one else can hear and learn of the threat we won't be better off than a bunch of blind monkeys.

Al Qaeda Gets Dissed by Iran

Snop's Commentary: Iran trashes Al Qaeda's brand image by questioning the terror group's role in the 911 attacks through their Shiite surrogates in Lebanon. Hezbollah used its mouth piece, Al-Manar, to make the outrageous claim that Israel was behind the attacks.

From the LA Times Blog Babyon and Beyond:

MIDDLE EAST: Al Qaeda speaks again
Raed Rafei in Beirut12:29 PM PT, Apr 23 2008

Al Qaeda struggles to show that it still has its fingers on the pulse of the world, even as it hides out in the rocky mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The latest presumptive audio recording by Al Qaeda's No. 2 seems to suggest that the Islamist organization is striving to stay relevant.

In the extensive two-hour message posted on the Internet Tuesday, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, particularly lashed out at the Iranians for their ambitions in Iraq and the Arab region, as well as their attempts to discredit the Sunni Islamist group.

He attacked the Iranians for allegedly seeking out the takeover of southern Iraq and Shiite parts of Saudi Arabia.

He warned that if Iran achieves its goals, it will "blow up the situation in an already exploding region."

In answers to hundreds of electronic queries made by Al Qaeda supporters, he tried to exploit the Sunni-Shiite rift in the Middle East. He accused Iran's ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, of launching a propaganda campaign against the group.

According to the Al Qaeda official, Hezbollah's TV station Al-Manar has been propagating the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center:

The purpose of this lie is clear. [It infers] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America... Iranian media picked up this lie and repeated it... Iran's aim here is also clear, that is to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Zawahiri also lambasted the Palestinian militant group Hamas, another of Tehran's allies, for allegedly considering future peace treaties with Israel.

One New York-based analyst, Micah Halpern, commented on his website about the competition between Al Qaeda and Iran:
-
Al Qaeda and Iran hate one another. Zawahiri has spoken time and again about the intentions of Iran to hijack the Muslim agenda and take charge of the Muslim world… Through his audio preachings Zawahiri is promoting the good that Sunni al Qaeda brings to the Muslim word. It is al Qaeda, says Zawahiri, who is fighting against Western evil.

Lebanon featured prominently in Zawahiri's audiotape — the country was branded as a "Muslim frontline fort." The Al Qaeda official delivered a "bad omen" about Lebanon — as one Lebanese politician described his declarations — predicting a "pivotal role" for the country in future battles against Israel and the international peacekeeping troops stationed in the south of the country.

Zawahiri went even beyond his usual political issues by commenting on the deterioration of the world's environment. He blamed global warming on the "greediness" and "brutality" of the Western world with the U.S. on top, adding that this phenomenon "would make the world more sympathetic to and understanding of the Muslims' jihad against the aggressor America."

Al Qaeda Continues its Downward Slide in Iraq and Beyond

Snop's Commentary

More proof that Al Qaeda's stock is continuing to plummet.

Ayman al Zawahiri sounds like he is getting frustrated with the lack of Muslims willing to rally to the Al Qaeda banner in Iraq in order to embrace the terror group's goals as part of a wider global insurgency.

Moreover, To prove that all politics are local, Hamas flirted with ex-President Jimmy Carter's entreaties to work with Israel be it indirectly to settle their disputes. The mere thought of accommodating Israel in any way was enough to set off Al Qaeda's chief ideologue.

Maybe the ex-Pres did us a favor in spite of the Bush administrations calls for him to not to meet with Hamas' exiled chief Khaled Meshaal. If in fact, he caused a cleavage to open up or helped identify a preexisting one between the two terror groups-the ex Pres unwittingly discovered a weakness worth exploiting in order to promote inter-militant Islamic discord.

Read all about it here (Full Article)

Better Late Then Never: Zawahiri responds

Al-Zawahiri says al-Qaeda does not kill innocent people

Snop's Commentary: -say what?



Dubai, 3 April (AKI) - Al-Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has rejected criticism that the terror network's attacks have killed innocent people.

"Al-Qaeda does not kill civilians, if it does happens it's by mistake," said al-Zawahiri in a 90-minute audio message posted on the Internet late Wednesday night.

The message was in response to the hundreds of questions put to al-Qaeda on Islamic forums on the Internet between December and January.

"I have tried to group the questions with the aim of dividing them in terms of subject and importance," said the al-Qaeda leader in the audio message. "The first group of questions which I would like to start with refer to the theme of the killing of innocent people."

Al-Zawahiri began by addressing a question posted by a "Mudarrisu Geografia" which asked: "Dear Mr. Zawahiri, when killing Jews with your blessing such as those who were targeted with the attacks in Baghdad and Algiers, is it part of your Jihad to kill the children, women and innocent civilians who also die?"

Why not do this in Tel Aviv and carry out attacks in Israel instead of targeting Muslim countries?"

In response, al-Zawahiri said: "We do not kill civilians anywhere."

"If innocent people die in the attacks by the mujahadeen it is an unforseeable event and happens by mistake. We fight the enemies of Islam and if something like this happens in the process it is because the enemy uses the civilians as human shields," he said.

As for attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets, al-Zawahiri said that al-Qaeda has hit "the synagogue in Jerba in Tunisia, attacked a group of Jewish tourists in Mombasa in Kenya and launched missiles against the Israeli El-Al airline."

He also cited the last message released by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden when he said that once the war in Iraq has ended, the mujahadeen will head towards Jerusalem.

He also said that al-Qaeda has attacked the United States, Britain and Spain.

Al-Qaeda's No. 2 defended the attacks carried out on the United Nations offices in Baghdad and Algiers, saying the UN 's work "covers actions conducted against Muslims of the world".

"The UN is considered an enemy if Islam and so we can carry out attacks on its buildings," he said.

The attack on the UN office in Algiers last December killed 41 people while 22 people were killed in the attack targeting the UN in Baghdad in 2003.

Al-Zawahiri also spoke about the health of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Sheikh Osama is in good health," he said, adding that the news about his illness is "only propaganda".

Al-Zawahiri also called for attacks on Jews both inside and outside Israel.

"We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do our utmost to strike Jewish people in Israel and abroad with help and guidance from God," he said.

Reports say some 900 questions were posted to al-Qaeda through the websites linked to the group."

I would like to thank all of those who responded to the open debate with me by our production arm, Al-Sahab, and in particular those who operate within the media Jihad," al-Zawahiri said in the message.

The al-Qaeda leader apologised for taking so long to respond to the questions that had been posted to the group by al-Qaeda supporters and those curious about the terror network.

The Pope's Counter Narrative

International Analyst Network

24 Mar 2008

The Easter Sunday baptism of Madgi Allam, an Egyptian Muslim, by Pope Benedict looks to be a symbolic push back against militant Islam of the first order. Much of the symbolism seems to be lost on the media.

The peaceful images of the baptism beamed around the world form a powerful counter-narrative to the violent images associated with militant Islam of late. A head bowed in reverence vs. one about to be severed. Love vs. hate. Life vs. death. The contrast couldn’t be starker. Was it not Bin Laden himself that said something along the lines that you love life and we love death?

Pope Benedict XVI like his predecessor Pope John Paul II understands the power of global media and its ability to connect and move people to action. Choosing Easter Sunday was a master stroke in presenting contrasting perceptions without being overly provocative. While Europe is roiling over cartoons and the new anti-Islam movie “Fitna” by Dutch Politician Geert Wilders, the Vatican used one of its greatest rites to make a point.

By sending these images via satellite TV and Internet, the church was able to reach out and touch many of its 1 billion members--not to mention anyone else conscious on Sunday. That is important because a large portion of its members reside in the developing world where they are at odds with militant Islam. The Philippines, Indonesia, Sudan and Nigeria come to mind.

I find it interesting that Pope Benedict chose an Egyptian to make his point. The Coptic Christians and Chaldean Catholics are under increasing pressure throughout the Middle East. The Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul , Paulos Faraj Rahho, was captured and later found dead this month in Iraq. Pope John Paul II chose Poland as the starting point to push back against communism this Pope may have picked Egypt to begin pushing back against militant Islam.

Al Qaida's Stock Continues to Fall

Snop's Commentary:

The following article points to increased tensions between Al Qaida and the Taliban over the future of Afghanistan. It also indicates a much larger problem for Al Qaida and "the global jihadi movement".

Under great pressure in Iraq, Al Qaida has been effectively pushed out of Anbar province by local Sunni militia who turned against AQ after the price of supporting them got to high.

Currently, AQ is fighting a desperate battle against coalition and Iraqi troops up in Mosul. Much of its troubles stem from blow back caused by its indiscriminate use of extreme violence against civilians.

The daily global media diet of suicide bombings and its televised aftermath is beginning to take its toll.

Afghanistan: Al-Qaeda Bloggers' Sparring With Taliban Could Signal Key Differences
By Ron Synovitz
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

An Internet-fueled squabble between Taliban leaders and influential Al-Qaeda sympathizers over nonviolent tactics and foreign influence in Afghanistan hints at deep disagreements that could alter counterinsurgency efforts in that country.

Islamic extremists who regularly post messages to a pro-Al-Qaeda website in Egypt are accusing Afghanistan's Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad. Prominent Taliban have responded by lashing back with criticism of their own.

The development suggests a rift is emerging between the Taliban leadership and religious extremists in the Arab world -- including the Al-Qaeda network that the Taliban had hosted in Afghanistan while it planned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

(Full Article)

Is Al Qaida's Stock Falling?

Snop's Commentary:

A New book by top al-Qaida strategist rebuts jailed militants rejecting violence. Ayman al-Zawahiri seems to be fighting a rear guard action against ex-jihadists that have turned against al-Qaida's violent ways.

This reaction by ex-jihadists is exactly what is needed to help delegitimize al-Qaida "the movement". According to the Militant Ideological Atlas, "Denouncements of prominent Jihadis by other prominent Jihadis are particularly damaging and demoralizing. "

"The treatise is a tacit admission that Al-Qaeda is facing an unprecedented ideological challenge." -- www.MEMRI.org

This is exactly the type of internecine spat that needs to be exploited to weaken al-Qaida's support base and reduce its recruiting pool.

The Associated Press
Published: March 3, 2008

CAIRO, Egypt: Al-Qaida's chief ideologue and strategist, Ayman al-Zawahri, has published a 212-page book on militant Islamic Web sites slamming his former radical colleagues in Egyptian prisons for disavowing armed struggle and turning their backs against violence.

The book, released on the Web sites Sunday, is the latest salvo in an intellectual war between the ideological founders of al-Qaida and Islamic militancy, many of whom are have become disillusioned with the suicide bombings and attacks on civilians that have become the hallmark of the movement.

"This message that I present to the reader today is the most difficult, if not the hardest I have written in my life," al-Zawahri wrote in the introduction to "Exonerations," published by al-Sahab, Al-Qaida's media wing.

He slammed a series of "revisions" renouncing violence published by prominent jailed Islamist thinkers, saying "it serves the interests of the Crusader-Zionist alliance with the Arab leaders to drug the mujahideen and drag them away from the confrontation."

The most recent renunciation came in 2007 from Sayed Imam, who was once a top leader in Egypt's Islamic Jihad group and an associate of al-Zawahri. Imam's writings in the 1980s laying an Islamic legal basis for violent action against "infidel" regimes, were highly influential among al-Qaida militants.

But his "revisions" argue that such violence is banned under Islamic law.

Imam followed in the footsteps of other jailed thinkers over the years from Egypt's radical groups that once fought a bloody guerrilla war against the state that resulted in over a thousand deaths and the imprisonment of tens of thousands but now condemn armed struggle.

Experts on Islamist movements say that these revisions could rob militant groups like al-Qaida of the entire ideological basis for their violent actions.

A video praising recently slain al-Qaida in Afghanistan leader Abu Laith al-Libi issued Wednesday included an advertisement for the book, describing it as a way to counteract an image of the Islamic world as "helpless, submissive, fearful," the way al-Zawahri said America and the West want Islam to be.

In the book, al-Zawahri maintains that far from being an internal reappraisal of the movement, these revisions are instigated by the United States to weaken a movement that has inflicted so many defeats on them.

"The entire crime of al-Qaida and the mujahideen is that they have faced the Americans, the Jews and the agents and so American-made propaganda, such as this document, have been unleashed so that the world would forget and ignore the real criminals," he wrote.

Al-Zawahri seen by many counterterrorism experts to be al-Qaida's operational chief, rather than Osama bin Laden is believed to play a large role in directing al-Qaida's strategy on the ground and issues frequent videos an audiotapes, often laying out the network's doctrinal line.

The former doctor was originally part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1970s and was imprisoned and tortured by the Egyptian state before he escaped to Afghanistan and joined with bin Laden to form al-Qaida in the 1990s.

Prince Harry Fights the Taliban

(Picture From The Drudge Report)


You Tube 1

You Tube 2

Telegraph TV


Snop's Commentary:

The news of Harry's deployment to Afghanistan is bound to send a psychological bolt through the minds of ally and enemy alike. We learned of the deployment earlier today when Matt Drudge published the news having reportedly been tipped off by an Aussie or a German magazine.


Unfortunately, it sounds like Harry is being relocated from his forward base--if one is to believe the follow on reporting poping up in the English press.

This event demonstrates the inability of government and media, even when working together, from preventing operational security leaks given the 24/7/365 news hungry global media environment that we live within-- especially when it involves someone with such a high profile.

On the other hand, ten weeks is a longtime and this must be seen as a hugely successfull tactical deception operation of the first order. First the MOD head faked toward Iraq followed up by a silent "Infil" into Iraq--good show!

In addition to the tactical deception plan, it looks like there is a well coordinated information operation being executed with or without the active collusion of the media. An operation complete with iconic images of the Prince on patrol, firing a heavy machine gun and calling in air strikes on the Taliban.

It seems to me this whole thing could take a much greater meaning if one thinks about what is going on here. It may not be a war on Islam, but the Taliban in Afghanistan are Muslim. It may not be a crusade, but the Prince Harry is a royal Englishman and grandson of the Christian Sovereign who is also known as "Fidei defensor" or defender of the faith.

A Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that his presence in Helmand Province meant that the Royal Family had joined in the "aggression against Muslims".

Echos of the past are inescapable and unavoidable in the present. How the intersection of past and present will play out in this latest twist in the "War on Terror" is yet to be seen, but in any event, things are bound to get more interesting.

In the meantime, Al Qaeda and the Taliban must be frothing at the mouth with rage, while the rest of us are left to admire Harry's bravery and devotion to Queen and country--or is that Grandma and country?

Way to go Harry!

Taking a Page From the Cold War (Better Late Then Never)

Snop's Commentary:

Six plus years after 911, word has it, we have a plan... (read the full article)

By Walter Pincus Monday, February 18, 2008; A15

Two U.S. intelligence officials, in public appearances last week, outlined plans to join the ideological fight against radical Islam, much as the CIA worked behind the scenes during the Cold War in the battle against the creed of world communism.

[...]

The goal, Leiter said, is "to prevent the next generation of terrorists from emerging," and one approach he suggested is "to show that it is al-Qaeda, not the West, that is truly at war with Islam."

Hours earlier, at a hearing on worldwide threats before the House Armed Services Committee, John A. Kringen, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, spoke on the same theme, saying that while the United States and its allies have succeeded in "disrupting and dismantling terrorist organizations . . . the supply of people wanting to join those organizations continues and in some areas continues to grow."

Kringen then put the current ideological struggle "in the context of what we had to do within the days of the Cold War." Back then, the Soviet leaders set up the Cominform, an organization by which Moscow controlled communist parties throughout the world and, through them, the activities and propaganda of intellectual, artistic, labor and youth organizations that they established.

To meet that challenge, Kringen said the United States and its allies targeted "the soft side" of that conflict. The U.S. approach in the 1950s was to reach out to non-government organizations, including intellectual publications, labor unions and student groups, sometimes providing secret financial support, much as the Cominform did.

[...]

Leiter described the "global ideological engagement, referred to by some as the 'war of ideas,' " as "a key center of gravity in the battle against al-Qaeda, its associates and those that take inspiration from the group."

He described terrorist leaders who "aggressively employ messages related to current events, leverage mass media technologies and use the Internet to engage in a communications war against all who oppose their oppressive and murderous vision," adding: "We must engage them on this front with equal vehemence."

As acting director of the counterterrorism center, Leiter is hardly unconnected to the proposed ideological war. A little-publicized role of the director is to conduct strategic planning for the fight against terrorism for the entire U. S. government, a role in which Leiter reports directly to the president.

As Leiter put it publicly, the law creating the center "mandates that all elements of national power, not just the intelligence or military elements, be leveraged in the fight." President Bush approved the center's first strategic operational plan in June 2006, and though highly classified, it clearly includes a fight for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide.

Last week, Leiter would not describe tactics but said the struggle against extremist ideology would be won "not by attacking religious or cultural traditions, but by highlighting the poverty of extremist thought, by working together with mainstream adherents of all faiths . . . and by using all elements of national power -- diplomacy, foreign aid, non-government organizations and the like."

Madrid/London style attack in the works for Germany?

German fears over al Qaeda actvity

From CNN's Berlin correspondent Frederik Pleitgen

Story Highlights

- Al Qaeda has begun an online propaganda blitz on German-speaking Muslims
- Jihadist videos issue calls to join "Holy War", others show bomb-making workshops
- Three men arrested in Germany summer 2006 for alleged bomb plot on Americans
- German government says worried but no evidence of an imminent attack

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Al Qaeda has begun an online propaganda campaign, targeting German-speaking Muslims with increasing amounts of terror-related content, German security officials have told CNN.

And while there is no evidence of specific plans against Germany and Austria,German State Secretary of the Interior August Hanning has said he is worried that the authorities "will not be able to thwart all terror plots in the future."

Jihadist videos obtained by CNN, and narrated and subtitled in German, call on German-speaking Muslims to join the "Holy War" against what they call an "American led coalition against Islam that Germany and Austria are a part of."CNN has also seen excerpts of what German intelligence officials say is a 16-hour long, professionally produced bomb-making tutorial. Watch report on the terror videos.

While the video is narrated in Arabic, German officials say it is so well produced that even non-Arabic speakers can understand it. The tutorial instructs viewers in the production of various forms of homemade explosives; German officials say these bombs, if produced according to the instructions, would work and could be potentially devastating.

Last summer three men were arrested in Germany for allegedly plotting bomb attacks against Americans resident in the country. Two of the men were German converts to Islam and one was a Turk living in Germany.

The German Interior Ministry has said since that it is worried al Qaeda might be preparing to make attacks in Germany, although it does not want to create panic and believes there is no evidence of an imminent outrage.Germany has so far escaped the type of large-scale al Qaeda terror attack that has hit other parts of Europe such as Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Terrorism expert Guido Steinberg, from the Berlin-based Center for Research and Politics, told CNN al Qaeda seemed to think that attacks on German soil could provoke Berlin to withdraw its 3,000 soldiers from northern Afghanistan.

"Al Qaeda has identified Germany as one of the weakest links in Afghanistan," Steinberg says.

Snop's Commentary:

-

In the 17 Dec 07 Post "Is the BattleField Moving to Europe" Walid Phares makes the observation that Al Qaeda is "preparing the psychological terrain for an escalation on European soil". The Washington Times carried his OpEd article titled Osama Targets Europe on the 6th of Dec 07. Its worth a read because it makes the case for a shift in Al Qaeda's efforts from Iraq to mainland Europe.

-

It is also worth repeating the following comments from the 17th...

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"From a Cognetic point of view, Bin Laden is setting the stage to pit the strength of media amplified violence against a weakening Europe. A Europe that lacks a central unifying principle or ideology needed to counteract the determined Salafist's and their bloody interpretation of Islam.

-

Osama wants to peal back the onion and pit Europe against America, European nations against one another and the islands of Muslim angst against a sea of secular indifference throughout the continent. See Dawn of the Cognetic Age: Looking through the lens page 104 and Bin Laden Attempting to Strip US Allies from the Anti-Terrorism Coalition."

Jihad TV (Cognetics Brought to Life)

Snop's Commentary:


The following British Ch4 news special "Jihad TV" gives us a glimpse at how miltant Islam uses global media as a weapon of war and by doing so helps bring the concept of Cognetics to life.


Warning: Creepy and disturbing to watch but well worth it.


From Dawn of the Cognetic Age...

"Unable to attack the United States directly since 9/11, al-Qaeda uses global media to bypass the strength of our homeland defenses, follow the path of least resistance through our open society, and attack our psychological center of gravity.

Because we do not censor the Internet or transnational television, images of death and destruction from terror attacks speed unimpeded [...] directly to our TV screens and computer monitors, delivering a mental blitzkrieg attack measured not in explosive weight but in the weight of perception"