The Qaeda Video Games

The past week saw the top leadership of Al-Qaeda featured on our TV screens. It is the first time that top the three operatives of the terror network came out with diverse messages but with the same tone and rhetoric as before. An audio tape of the Al Qaeda supreme Osama Bin Laden, criticized the West’s move to end funding to the Hamas led Palestinian Authority. This was a deliberate attempt by Bin Laden to show his ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinian people. For years, Al Qaeda has defended its attack on the West as a sort of reprisal attack for the West’s political and military support of Israel. The Hamas Government was quick to distance itself from the tape, for fear of not having Al Qaeda as its backers, and thereby vindicate the Wests’ stand that Hamas is a terror organization. Moreover, it was heartening to see the Palestinian people (hopefully a majority of them) also dismiss the tape as nothing more than a method by Laden to malign their cause for statehood. That Al – Qaeda is moving on to make political comments is evident, it is also noteworthy the increase in the frequency with which these tapes are appearing. More chillingly, unlike previous communications, Bin Laden has blamed the American people for their country’s foreign policy. Earlier attempts by Bin Laden saw him talking directly to the American people and asking them to tell their government to stop the war and oppression in Iraq and Afghanistan. Analysts fear that this warning call may lead to terror strikes on American soil.

The second tape, this time a video, was of the Al Qaeda number two and the chief idealogue of the movement, Ayman al Zawahiri. Apart from the other grand standing, now familiar with all such tapes, Zawahiri chose to speak specifically about the Indo-US nuclear deal and casting aspersions on it. It is indeed the first time that India has been featured in the terror ramblings of these tapes. Is no secret that Al Qaeda and its brand of Jihad have called the US, Israel and India as their major hits, for alleged ‘oppression’ of Muslims. While the Zawahiri tape will not succor the nuclear deal in anyway, this is the first time that India’s foreign policy and ties with the US has featured in the communication from Al Qaeda. Also, increasingly, Al Qaeda is moving from its terror fixation to passing sermons on foreign policy of Muslim nations, in a bid to make themselves the principal voice of Muslims the world over. The call by Zawahiri to the Pakistani Army to get rid of the American ‘poodle’ Musharraf is indeed a cause for concern. It is widely believed that rogue elements in the Pakistani Army who are ideologically close to the Taliban carried out the nearly successful assassination attempts on the President. The fact remains that love him or loathe him, Musharraf is our safest bet in Pakistan. The option of Muslim zealots taking over will only take the Indo-Pakistan peace initiative back a few notches and also threaten to escalate the Kashmir militancy.

The third tape, and by far the most interesting, featured the ‘Commander’ of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. An elusive figure, who became notorious for the brutal beheadings of Americans he carried out personally. The hunt for Zarqawi has seen the Americans devoting the 101st Airborne and Special Forces to kill or capture Zarqawi. In fact, last year’s virtual war to take back Fallujah had the clear intent of finishing Zarqawi off. But he proved elusive and managed to escape Fallujah “by a matter of minutes” according to American Generals in Iraq. There had been talk that Zarqawi had been replaced with an Egyptian terror suspect as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. This tape is an attempt by Zarqawi to reassert his authority amongst the minority Sunnis in Iraq and in the Sunni Triangle in particular. He senses that in the eventuality of a full scale Civil War breaking out, the Sunnis will need a figure head to fight the Iraqi establishment which is Shia in majority. To some it seemed like a desperate attempt to show his importance to the world. Either way it is evidently clear that whether he still commands the Al Qaeda in Iraq or is another foot soldier is of academic interest, what is important is that he still out and about and is the most dangerous terrorist in Iraq at the moment.

The glaring alacrity with which Al Qaeda has been able to produce and route its propaganda to the Internet shows some semblance of networking and hierarchy in Al Qaeda. Post the Afghan and Iraq war the terror network and organization of the Al Qaeda had been somewhat dismantled. But now they seem to have restructured and are fairly ‘comfortable’ in their new headquarters. With the North West provinces and Balochistan proving to be the new terror capital, Al Qaeda has reformed and operating with relative ease, with the tacit understanding of the Pakistani Army, the ISI and the local warlords. The question of whether the leadership of Al Qaeda is dead or alive has now been emphatically answered with the latter, the new question is when will the next tapes appear, or has the signal to launch a fresh spate terror attacks already been given with these tapes that the world saw last week.