Al Qaeda’s Invasion Of The Media

In a MUST READ TRANSLATED ARTICLE on the indispensible website Watching America, Christophe Ayad and Christophe Boltanski, writing in France’s Liberation, takes a look at how Al Qaeda’s bigwigs are adeptly using the media…and the Internet in particular.

A small part of it:

Within a week, bin Laden, Zarqawi and Zawahiri have all appeared on the Internet.

The Internet is now, more than ever, al-Qaeda’s favorite communications tool. Last week, its main leaders, Osama bin Laden RealVideo, Ayman Zawahiri RealVideo and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi RealVideo simultaneously hustled themselves onto the Web to encourage Jihad. Terrorism experts agree on one thing: this media offensive is unprecedented. Is this simultaneous offensive, which brings to mind a simultaneous attack – another typical signature of al-Qaeda – a well thought out action or a coincidence tied to the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion? For security reasons, the taping of the broadcasts, audio for bin Laden and video for the two others, were several days or even several weeks prior to airing.

Read all of it.