MUST READ: AL-QAEDA URGES IRAQ'S INSURGENTS TO CONSOLIDATE VICTORY OVER AMERICA

Al-Qaeda Urges Iraq’s Insurgents to Consolidate Victory Over America

Nearly a month since Osama bin Laden published his message to “our people in Iraq,” it is worth taking a look at what bin Laden really said versus what the media, Western leaders and some prematurely mirthful pundits claim he said (IntelCenter, October 23). In the most obvious sense, bin Laden’s October 23 statement is a post-Iraq war statement and a further development of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s 2005 message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (www.dni.gov, July 9, 2005). From al-Qaeda’s perspective the war is over and Islam has won; Washington’s announcement last week that it intends to begin the withdrawal of 3,000 troops, as well as Congress’s recess without renewing war funding, will bolster this perception. Bin Laden’s message is, however, a warning to all Iraqi mujahideen—Sunni and Shiite—that the hardest task is yet to come: namely, the creation of an Islamist state in Iraq. Bin Laden’s October 23 message builds on the July 2005 letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi. At that time, al-Zawahiri told al-Zarqawi that the mujahideen had beaten the U.S.-led coalition and urged him to prepare for U.S. withdrawal, which might, he added, be “precipitous.” Bin Laden’s October message mirrors al-Zawahiri’s in concluding that the U.S. coalition has been beaten, and in stating that the only unknown is the precise moment of its withdrawal. There is nothing in bin Laden’s statement that criticizes the mujahideen for not fighting well—indeed, he refers to “magnificent victories” that make Americans “prisoners of their bases and the Green Zone”—much less anything that suggests they are losing. “The world has stood stunned, amazed, delighted and wonder struck” over the Iraqi mujahideen’s effectiveness and perseverance, the al-Qaeda chief said.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Al-Qaeda Urges Iraq’s Insurgents to Consolidate Victory Over America