In the Race
Now, here, you see, it takes all the blogging I can do to keep in the same place.
If I want to get somewhere else, I must blog twice as fast as that!
You see, I'm in
the Red Queen's Race...
A Change In The Wind For Al Qaeda
By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Aug 13 2008, 11:50 AM
There has been a change noticed regarding the attitude of al Qaeda over the past year.
It is a subtle change.
They have been noticed to be in a more defensive mode in their communications.
The questions is, does this mean anything in the long run?
It does appear to be a positive sign.
But what next?
We will have to see what happens during the next presidency, also.
Will al Qaeda test the waters?
Only time will tell...
“A senior Bush administration counterterrorism official said Tuesday that an analysis of public statements by al Qaeda in the past year shows that nearly half the verbiage is devoted to justifying the group's legitimacy.
The terrorist group seems to be adopting a more defensive tone in its public pronouncements, indicating that its leaders may be concerned that criticism from former allies and the increasing civilian death toll from attacks are undermining support. Al Qaeda senior leaders this year "have devoted nearly half their airtime to defending the group's legitimacy," said senior U.S. intelligence official Ted Gistaro.
"This defensive tone continues a trend observed since at least last summer and reflects concern over allegations by militant leaders and religious scholars that al Qaeda and its affiliates have violated the Islamic laws of war, particularly in Iraq and North Africa."
[...]
Sheik al-Oadah was one of the first religious leaders to preach against the presence of U.S. forces in the desert kingdom back in the early 1990s and was an early inspiration for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In an open letter to bin Laden last September, the cleric accused him of having the blood on his hands of "at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions."
"Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders?" he said. In a lengthy treatise faxed to Arab media outlets from an Egyptian jail earlier last year, Dr. Fadl wrote: "We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that."
Al Qaeda leaders, and in particular the group's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, have addressed these criticisms in several ways, analysts said.
"Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?" al-Zawahri asked in an al Qaeda video message after Dr. Fadl's fax appeared. "I wonder if they're connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines."
Lawrence Wright, author and longtime specialist on al Qaeda, speculated earlier this year that "this sarcastic dismissal was perhaps intended to dampen anxiety about Fadl's manifesto ... among al Qaeda insiders."
But, according to the Jamestown Foundation, al-Zawahri also sought to deal substantively with Dr. Fadl's detailed critique, publishing a 188-page rebuttal of his thesis in March this year.
The rebuttal was "comprehensive," wrote Jamestown analyst Abdul Hameed Bakier, "using religious arguments and logic to refute and highlight weaknesses in the document.
"On the other hand," he continued, "the lengthy response demonstrates that al Qaeda is seriously alarmed by the possible negative consequences the document might inflict on their ideology and the jihadi movement."
Read the complete article from the Washington Times
HERE
