Inside a Terrorist PR Offensive
An article on MSNBC.com last week took a peak into Al-Qaeda’s communications machine as the terrorist organization continues to tweak and grow its media operations capabilities. Al-Qaeda is becoming increasingly sophisticated in its communications tactics, recently releasing highly polished video and audio messages, and developing a larger web presence as a recruiting tool. There is no doubt Al-Qaeda is PR-minded. Its media wing was established in the late 1980s, but was revamped in 1998 as the group renewed its anti-western agenda. At the same time, Al-Qaeda recruited a technically minded Adam Gadhan (27), who has since become a major player in developing terrorist propaganda material.
Al-Qaeda’s first big revamped foray into higher quality media came in 2000 as Osama bin Laden ordered the creation of a full-length film featuring actual footage of the attack on the USS Cole. Although unable to record the attack, production moved forward. From MSNBC.com:
In early 2001, al-Qaeda recruiters in Europe began to distribute an unusual new video from Pakistan titled “The Destruction of the USS Cole,” created by a mysterious entity known as the “As-Sahaab (‘Clouds’) Foundation for Islamic Media.” Not only did As-Sahaab’s first video release contain startling and unprecedented footage of bin Laden, al-Zawahri and al-Qaeda’s military training camps in Afghanistan, it was demonstrated that the propaganda arm was capable of producing remarkably high quality video and carefully scripted cinematic effects. Oddly, the nearly two-hour long video was even subtitled in near perfect English.