WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Osama bin Laden’s message to America last week was the 74th video released this year by al-Qaida’s media arm -- an average rate of one every three days or so.
The as-Sahab Media Institute, as the terror network’s audio-visual production house calls itself, releases messages from and interviews with al-Qaida’s leaders, and propaganda films made by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to IntelCenter, a U.S. firm that tracks and analyzes Islamic extremist messaging, as-Sahab released just 16 videos in 2005 and 58 last year. In 2006 the releases averaged one every six days, about half the rate in 2007 so far.
The 26-minute speech bin Laden delivers on the video includes commentary on a wide range of current events, from global warming to the sub-prime mortgage crisis, revealing that the al-Qaida leader continues to closely follow the news.
The former CIA bin Laden hunter Michael Scheuer says the comments are part of “al-Qaida's now well-developed campaign of trying to support and deepen already existing anti-Americanism among non-Muslim groups -- such as anti-globalists, environmentalists, nuclear disarmament activists, anti-U.S. Europeans and other ‘oppressed people.’”
