Informed Comment
The USG Open Source Center summarizes the main points in the new video released by al-Qaeda's number 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri identifies Iraq as the primary field for jihad or holy war and defends the Islamic State of Iraq (radical Sunni Muslims in Iraq) from charges of having been especially vindictive and destructive. Zawahiri also again slams the the Shiites. He sees Iran as hypocritical and actually tacitly cooperating with the US. He dismisses Muqtada al-Sadr as an Iranian cat's paw. He attacks Hasan Nasrallah of Lebanon's Hizbullah. This sectarian approach is typical of the Salafi Jihadis' failures in Iraq, where only a pan-Islamic movement against US occupation could have had a chance of succeeding. Nasrallah is still very popular in the Arab world because his Hizbullah stood up to Israel's attack on Lebanon in summer of 2006, and al-Zawahiri clearly sees Nasrallah as a rival to himself. But Nasrallah has an extensive social welfare program and deputies in the Lebanese parliament, and leads a real if small political movement in a compact territory. Zawahiri is a fugitive whose organization is shadowy and tenuous and on the run. These are the rantings of a loser. The one worrisome thing in the video Zawhiri's conviction that the US presence in Iraq is keeping al-Qaeda alive as a cause, which may well be correct. A whole new generation of jihadis with key terrorism skills is being created by their struggle against what they see as US occupation. That US interests are held harmless from this development in the long run seems unlikely. Zawahiri also calls on the Pakistani military to make a coup against Pervez Musharraf, apparently in hopes that officers of a radical Muslim bent will come to power. (This development is highly unlikely, since Musharraf has by now purged a lot of those elements from the officer corps.)
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