Al Qaeda Talking Heads

BRONXVILLE, NY

Only days after Iraqi leaders selected a new prime minister and president, AlQaeda launched a media blitz. Never before had the network’s top three figures– Osama bin Laden; his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri; and their commanderin Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – so synchronized their messages. In the spaceof a single week, they fell over one another urging resistance in Iraq as partof the greater global war with the West.

To what do we owe this dash for media time?

The new volley of messages from Al Qaeda leaders near and far is undoubtedlya response to tentative political progress achieved by Iraqi leaders towardforming a national unity government. In the eyes of Al Qaeda's leaders, apolitical settlement in Iraq would be disastrous for Al Qaeda. Its base in thecountry’s Sunni population would evaporate if Sunni Arabs, who lead theresistance, laid down their arms to take their place in a coalition government.Al Qaeda’s leadership knows their very existence in the war-torn countrydepends on Sunni consent and support; they cannot survive, politically ormilitarily, if Sunni Arabs turn against them. In a letter to Zarqawi, head ofthe network branch in Iraq, intercepted by US authorities in October 2005, AlQaeda No. 2 Zawahiri, chided him for indiscriminate killings because that riskedalienating Sunni Arabs. In the absence of this popular support, Zawahiri wrote,"the jihadist movement would be crushed in the shadows."

In their messages, Al Qaeda’s leaders trumpeted their "accomplishments."Hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have "broken the back" of the USmilitary, boasted Zawahiri in his 16-minute video posted on an Islamist website. Zawahiri – bespectacled and wearing his customary black turban and whiterobe, sitting in front of a white curtain with rows of lace embroidery –asserted that American and British forces, bogged down in Iraq, "have achievednothing but loss, disaster and misfortune."

Just days earlier, the shadowy Zarqawi had made his first appearance onvideo. Raising his profile after months of laying low, he dismissed theembryonic Iraqi government as an American "stooge" and a "poisoned dagger"stuck in the heart of the Muslim world. His turn of phrase – in contrast withthe workmanlike terminology of bin Laden and Zawahiri – is often chillinglyevocative. He addressed President Bush personally: "By God, you will have nopeace in the land of Islam. Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by ourbodies. What is coming is even worse." Zarqawi promised more attacks againstIraqi police and army who serve the foreign occupiers: "We will have ...battles that will turn children's hair white."

The Zawahiri and Zarqawi videos followed by only days an audiotape from binLaden exhorting Muslims to support Al Qaeda in the fight against foreigners,particularly in Iraq. "Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their warsand a beginning to the receding of their Zionist-Crusader tide against us. Yourmujahedeen sons and brothers in Iraq have taught the US a costly lesson duringthe fourth year of the Crusaders’ invasion," said bin Laden in an audiotapebroadcast by Aljazeera television network. He also urged sympathizers andsupporters to block the peacekeepers in Sudan – possibly indicating the searchfor new fertile jihadist pastures as Iraq becomes more problematic.

Al Qaeda’s leadership considers the Iraq war the most important step sinceSeptember 11 in establishing their long-awaited Islamic state in the heart ofthe Muslim world. Before the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, theglobal war had not been going well for bin Laden; not even the ummah, theworldwide Muslim community, supported his cause. Al Qaeda had suffered cripplingmilitary blows and, with the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,lost its refuge and political patron. Bluntly put, Al Qaeda was in a coma.

The war in Iraq revived Al Qaeda and provided the bin Laden network with anew cause, a second generation of recruits. Equally important, the Americanoccupation of an Arab country in the heart of the Muslim world enabled Al Qaedato make an ideological sales pitch to Muslims worldwide.

According to bin Laden, Iraq, seat of the historic Muslim caliphate, is thecentral battle of a Third World War, launched by the Crusader-Zionist coalitionagainst the Muslim community: "The whole world is watching this war,"offering "a golden and unique opportunity" to bloody America and spread theconflict into neighboring Arab countries like Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and thePalestinian-Israeli front.

Little wonder, then, that bin Laden and his lieutenants are alarmed at earlysigns of political progress bringing Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders togetherto assemble a unity cabinet. Such a new political day would spell ruin forforeign militants like Al Qaeda; conceivably, Sunni Arabs would turn on theZarqawi network. It’s happened already: In some towns, Sunni tribes killedscores of Zarqawi's men and chased others away.

President Jalal Talabani has reportedly met with representatives of sevenarmed Sunni groups and believes they could be persuaded to lay down theirweapons – it remains to be seen if such a meeting produces any useful resultsin the short term.

Of course, Iraq remains in the midst of social, political and militaryupheaval. Iraqis remain deeply splintered over the future direction of theircountry. The sectarian divide has become deeper and wider, with increasedsectarian killings on daily basis. There are alarming reports of steady flow andmovement of Sunnis and Shiites from mixed communal areas to the safety of theirown sects and tribes. But contrary to what may appear in daily reports, eventsare turning against Zarqawi and company.

The Zarqawi network has become a liability to Sunni tribes who suffereconomically, feel marginalized politically, and resent being lumped togetherwith Al Qaeda. They want to participate in political and economic reconstructionof the country and set their own agenda.

For example, Sunni leaders are engaged in intense political negotiations withtheir Shiite counterparts to give their community adequate and fairrepresentation in the new cabinet being formed. Some leading Sunni leaders havealso publicly distanced themselves from Al Qaeda in Iraq and called for itsmilitary defeat.

It is within this shifting political context in Iraq that the new media blitzby Al Qaeda must be understood. In his video Zarqawi warned Sunnis in andoutside of Iraq that their community was in danger of being overwhelmed by "theCrusaders and the evil Rejectionists," referring to Americans and Shiites,respectively. His words of inspiration might also be read as words ofdesperation: "God almighty has chosen you to conduct holy war in your landsand has opened the doors of paradise to you."

Zarqawi’s mentors, bin Laden and Zawahiri, echoed the same sentiment andappealed to Muslims over the heads of their rulers. Zawahiri, the most vocalspokesman for Al Qaeda, denounced the leaders of Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, SaudiArabia and Jordan as "traitors" and called on Muslims to rise up to "confrontthem."

There is a pronounced urgency in the new propaganda blitz by Al Qaeda’sleaders. They sense danger in Iraq. By approaching the media, they hope toreaffirm their existence and inspire their sympathizers to continue the fight inIraq and elsewhere. Although bin Laden and his men are waging a global struggleagainst the US and its allies, Iraq has emerged as the most pivotal theater. AlQaeda barely survived the loss of its Afghan base; the loss of Iraq could proveto be more devastating.

Fawaz A. Gerges is the author of the recently published "Journey of theJihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy," published by Harcourt Press in 2006. Heholds the Christian Johnson Chair in Middle East and International Affairs atSarah Lawrence College. Rights: © 2006 Yale Center for the Study ofGlobalization. YaleGlobalOnline.