Slain chief wanted to change the name of the terror outfit, as he felt it was suffering from a marketing problem and losing the PR battle against the West
Slain chief wanted to change the name of the terror outfit, as he felt it was suffering from a marketing problem and losing the PR battle against the west
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In need of a PR agent? Osama in one of his letters to Zawahiri said
that al-Qaeda's image was suffering because of attacks that have killed
Muslims. File pic/Getty Images
The problem with the name al-Qaeda, bin Laden wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America. Maybe something like Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad, meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group, would do the trick, he wrote. Or Jama'at I'Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida, meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group. As bin Laden saw it, the problem was that the group's full name, al-Qaeda al-Jihad, for The Base of Holy War, had become short-handed as simply al-Qaeda. Lopping off the word 'jihad,' bin Laden wrote, allowed the West to "claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam."
The letter, which was undated, was discovered among bin Laden's recent writings. The letter was described by senior administration, national security and other US officials only on condition of anonymity because the materials are sensitive. The documents portray bin Laden as a terrorist chief executive, struggling to sell holy war for a company in crisis.
"The information that we recovered from bin Laden's compound shows al-Qaeda under enormous strain," Obama said. "Bin Laden expressed concern that al-Qaeda had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed and that al-Qaeda has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam, thereby draining more widespread support."
In one letter sent to Zawahri within the past year, bin Laden said al-Qaeda's image was suffering because of attacks that have killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq, officials said.u00a0 In other journal entries and letters, they said, bin Laden wrote that he was frustrated that many of his trusted longtime comrades had been killed or captured.
Mobile clues
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, while living in Pakistan, kept in touch with a militant group linked to the country's spy agency, new clues indicate. The clues were obtained from the cellphone recovered during the May 2 raid. The cellphone clues indicate Harakat-ul-Mujahedin may have served as part of bin Laden's support network inside Pakistan.
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