Al-Zawahiri Now Al-Qaeda's Chief Propagandist

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright June 8, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

            Hitting the airwaves for the first time since Osama bin Laden’s May 1 death, al-Qaeda’s No 2 man, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned that the U.S. faced a rebellion in the Muslim world.  Speaking fondly of “the Sheikh,” his nickname for Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri asked his followers to continue the jihad against Islam’s enemies, especially the United State and its allies.  “The Sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice,” said al-Zawahiri, proving that he’s al-Qaeda chief propagandist.  With Bin Laden on the run and settling in Abbottabad, Pakistan for the last six years, al-Zawahiri took over the main propaganda role from his fallen leader.  While al-Zawahir lacks Bin Laden’s charisma, he’s every bit the wordsmith.

            When you consider the blow to the jihadist movement, Bin Laden’s death increases desperation of al-Qaeda to prove its relevance.  Losing Bin Laden’s menacing image, leaves al-Qaeda with the bespectacled al-Zawahiri, an older, far less intimidating figure, though no les dangerous.  “Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or group . . .  but a rebelling nation which has awokend from its sleep in a jihadist resistance challenging it wherever it is,” said al-Zawahiri, pleading with the hoards of downtrodden youth to continue blindly following the movement.  For the millions of unemployed, disenfranchised youths, Bin Laden gave them false hope and a phony purpose.  Bin Laden’s genius was harvesting impoverished youths, brainwashing them and providing the money, shelter and weapons to fight a futile guerrilla war against the West.     

            Sending his programmed assassins around the globe, Bin Laden—and now al-Zawahiri—planned, like other genocidal lunatics, to dominate the globe, recreating a new Golden Age of Islam, where Muslims around the planet would rise up, follow in lockstep programmed instructions for a global guerrilla war.  When Sept. 11 hit, it threw the Pentagon and CIA for a loop, how a ragtag army of fanatics could commit suicide for Bin Laden’s cause.  Bin Laden had considerable experience recruiting, brainwashing and programming his mujahedeen warriors to suicide-bomb the Soviets during their 10-year long war in Afghanistan.  Al-Zawahiri threats must be top priority for the White House and Pentagon.  “You should wait what will befall you after every celebration,” said Zawahiri, warning the U.S. to stop gloating about Bin Laden’s death at the hands of the CIA and Navy Seals. 

            Al-Zawahiri made a strong connection between al-Qaeda and renegade Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, now leading the Afghan resistance.  “He terrified America when he was alive and is terrifying it as a dead man, to the point they shudder at the prospect of giving him a grave because of what they know of the love of tens of millions for him,” said al-Zawahiri, leaving no doubt that he’s now leading al-Qaeda.  Bin Laden’s over 20-year reign of terror against the U.S. started when he had a falling out with the CIA at the end of the Afghan-Soviet war Feb. 15, 1989.  While no one knows for sure what happened, Bin Laden was instrumental with his CIA-supported band of holy warriors in expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan—a 10 year battle the cost over 15,000 Soviet lives, eventually resulting in the collapse Berlin Wall Nov. 9, 1989 and Soviet Union Dec. 26, 1991.

            Promising to continue the fight against America, al-Zawahiri pledged to “haunt America and Israel and their crusader allies, their corrupt agents.”  Not occupying one inch of sovereign territory,” al-Zawahiri can only live in the shadows, between the cracks of an angry mob of disenfranchise souls, unable to find governments to provide them with stable employment.  Without a sound industrial base, Muslim countries have problems supplying enough jobs to a restive population, one-step from getting radicalized.   “He [Bin Laden’s] famous pledge that ‘you won’t dream of security until we live it as a reality and until you depart the last of Islam’ will continue to deprive them of sleep,” once said Bin Laden, determined to torment the West until America vacates Islamic lands.  Bin Laden’s first suspected terrorist attack June 5, 1996 in Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Towers opened the terrorist age.

            Bin Laden’s death doesn’t stop al-Qaeda’s relentless attack on Western targets.  Al-Zawahiri made it clear that the attack would go on, a kind of permanent legacy to Sheikh Bin Laden, whose hateful legacy continues to spur the war on terror.  Calling him the “emir of the faithful, al-Zawahiri’s pledged his loyalty Mullah Mohammed Omar, making him the next high-priority target.  “Shake off the dust of humiliation and overthrow those who have sold you in the slave market to the United States,” said al-Zawahir, proving, he’s officially taken over al-Qaeda’s propaganda lead.  Bin Laden’s wish for a worldwide jihad parallels the same calls by mass murderer Charles Manson to create “helter-skelter” around the globe, a kind of race war that would eventually cause Armageddon.  Bin Laden’s death sounds a loud gong that there can be no let up in the global war on terror.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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