Analysis: Zawahiri pledges online chat

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaida and one of the most hunted men on Earth, plans to stage an online interview session in which he will answer questions submitted to Jihadi Web sites "by individuals, organizations and all information media outlets," according to the group's media arm.

The as-Sahab Foundation, which publishes audio-visual messages from al-Qaida leaders and videos of the group's terror attacks, announced the plan at the end of a 90-minute TV interview with Zawahiri released over the weekend.

U.S. officials said this was a new technique for the al-Qaida leader and further evidence of the growing sophistication of the group's propaganda operation.

"It's a good PR move by Zawahiri," said Jarret Brachman, the director of research at the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center, comparing it to a Western politician going on MTV. "He's trying to show he knows where the kids are at."

He said it was the first time Zawahiri would engage directly with his followers in this way, although al-Qaida leaders in Saudi Arabia had held similar Q&A sessions before.

"You don't see it nowadays," he said of the technique, which is not a real-time online discussion. "He is trying to revive it."

Brachman said Zawahiri had previously attempted to address topical issues by answering questions posed by an as-Sahab interviewer, as he did in the lengthy interview released Sunday.

He warned tribal leaders in Iraq cooperating with the U.S. military that they would lose "both their religion and their life" when the United States left the country. "The Americans will soon be departing, God permitting, and won't keep defending them forever."

He called the leaders "treasonous … scum," and urged them to consider the fate of Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, the leader of the al-Anbar Awakening -- the first of the tribal militias to join the U.S.-led military campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq -- who was killed in a car bomb shortly after meeting President Bush earlier this year.

Zawahiri emphasized the importance of what he called "Jihadi information media," saying it was "waging an extremely critical battle against the Crusader-Zionist enemy."

He said the media "used to be the exclusive domain of … the official government media, and the … media which claim to be free and non-governmental."

"However, Jihadi information media have demolished this monopoly," he said, adding they "placed the facts in front of the world."

"The other media only rarely bother in the first place to try to reach the mujahedin to hear their voice," Zawahiri said, using the term for Islamic holy warriors. If ever interviews were given, he complained, their "fate is usually to be held and prevented from broadcast."

Zawahiri also weighed in on the dispute over the exact meaning of Osama bin Laden's last message about Iraq in which he criticized unspecified "mistakes" and sternly warned against the dangers of factionalism.

United Press International reported at the time that bin Laden was, in the words of one analyst, trying to "float above the fray" of increasing factionalism within the Sunni Islamic insurgency there.

But, beginning with the al-Jazeera Arabic TV news network, which first broadcast parts of the message, many other commentators saw bin Laden's words as a rebuke to his own followers, al-Qaida in Iraq -- or the umbrella organization they run, the Islamic State of Iraq.

Zawahiri angrily denounced al-Jazeera and others who had espoused that interpretation, saying, "The Sheik (bin Laden) directed his words to all the mujahedin in Iraq … and his advice about being slow to unify … doesn't cover the men of the Islamic State of Iraq."

He accused the network of "manipulating" bin Laden's message by only broadcasting parts of it and stacking the commentary with al-Qaida's critics.

Zawahiri also said that al-Qaida in Iraq had dissolved itself completely into the Islamic State of Iraq umbrella. "There isn't anything today in Iraq named 'al-Qaida,'" he tells the interviewer. "Qaida al-Jihad Organization in Mesopotamia has merged, by the grace of Allah, with other Jihadi groups in the Islamic State of Iraq … which is a legitimate emirate based on a proper legal methodology," and therefore deserving of the loyalty of all mujahedin.

At the conclusion of the interview, an announcement says that as-Sahab, in association with the Iraqi insurgent media arm, al-Fajr, "is pleased to announce the organizing of an open meeting" with Zawahiri, "in which he will reply to questions directed to him by individuals, organizations and all information media outlets."

Anyone wanting to ask him a question should send it in the next month to one of a number of specified Web sites.

The announcement asks questioners to be "brief and focused" and for "organizations and media outlets" to give their names.

"We request the brothers supervising the collection of questions to transmit them as is without any changes or alteration, whether they be friendly or hostile," continues the announcement, adding as-Sahab would do its best to publish Zawahiri's reply to "as many questions as possible at the nearest possible opportunity."

"Senior al-Qaida terrorists have been on one heck of a media blitz over the past year or so," a U.S. counter-terrorism official told UPI. He said the Q&A would be a "new format for their propaganda."

"Unfortunately for the U.S. and its allies," said Brachman, from the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, "Zawahiri is getting much better at this. … He is really setting the agenda in a way he hasn't been able to for a while."