Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : TALIBAN & AL QAIDA PROPAGANDA (including the 'bin Laden Tapes' & AQ statements) with analysis
Lights, camera, terror: the al-Qaida propaganda campaign by K Gannon 
Irish Examiner, 03 July 2006 Lights, camera, terror: the al-Qaida propaganda campaign By Kathy Gannon THE bitter winter winds were howling through the Afghan mountains when, cameraman Qari Mohammed Yusuf says, a courier brought a summons from al-Qaida's number two: "The emir wants to send a message." The emir, meaning prince or commander, was Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. He wanted to send a message to the world that he had safely survived a US attempt to kill him. So Yusuf, following the courier's directions, says he travelled to al-Zawahri's Afghan hide-out last January and shot the tape that would become another addition to al-Qaida's propaganda campaign. "There was just myself and the emir," said Yusuf. "I used a small Sony camera. It lasted just half an hour. They chose the place. They fix it and then they just say to me to come, and my job is only to record it. These are their rules, and no one asks any questions." The video aired on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV network, on January 30, less than three weeks after the US airstrike on a building just across the border in eastern Pakistan that targeted al-Zawahri but instead killed 13 villagers. Pakistan said four al-Qaida militants were also killed in the attack, but their identities were never proven. Yusuf, an Afghan, said he is one of a half-dozen cameramen used by al-Zawahri, depending on who is physically closest at the time. Most are Arabs, and not all are known to each other, he said. For the past five years or so, al-Qaida has used its own media production company, As-Sahab, Arabic for cloud, listed as producer on al-Qaida videos or compact discs. Internet access now allows al-Qaida to post its messages directly on a militant website or send them electronically to a TV network. In another advance, the messages now use graphics sequences and English translations. Their sophistication contradict Bush administration claims that Bin Laden presides over a debilitated organisation, says Bruce Hoffman, a counter-terrorism expert and director of the Rand Corporation's Washington office. "Even though we are given an image here in the US of them on the retreat, an image of a movement that has been weakened, in fact that is not true and their ability to communicate is almost the oxygen with which they can breathe. "The mini-cam and the editing suite have become essential weapons of terror, as the gun and bomb, and just as routinely used." Bin Laden Message AL-QAIDA leader Osama bin Laden issued a message on the internet yesterday addressing Islamist militants in Iraq and Somalia. Speaking to Iraqi fighters, he said in his fifth statement this year and his second in two days, that the Islamic community was depending on them. He called on all Somalis to support the Islamic courts, which he said were building an Islamic state in the Horn of Africa. Bin Laden lashed out at the president of Somalia's secular interim government, Abdullahi Yusuf, calling him a "traitor" and a "renegade". The Islamic courts group took over most of Somalia in June |