It doesn't surprise me when al-Jazeera airs a bin Laden video, or al-Arabiya airs a Zawahiri video, or everyone airs a Zarqawi video - the newsworthiness and the market appeal seem obvious. But why al-Jazeera is lavishing so much attention today to a video by Gulbadin Hekmatyar, the repulsive Islamist Afghan warlord... that I don't get.
An Afghan Islamist praising bin Laden and Zawahiri and saying he wants to have one of their love children? That rates round the clock airings of the video and discussion in the prime time Behind the News slot? Maybe I'm missing something. It's not like a noxious hard-line Islamist Afghan warlord like Hekmatyar commands a vast Arabic speaking fan club. Or like he's saying anything new (America: still hates it). I suppose it might be related to the argument over whether or not al-Qaeda is still active in Afghanistan, if that's really an argument, or maybe it's to convey that bin Laden is alive. Or maybe it's meant to convey the impression of a surging jihadi momentum - a fourth in the sequence of jihadi communiques. I don't know. All I know is that it sure made me change the channel.
They're clearly kicking it up in Afghanistan: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?amp;en=0692a5a972d58a3a&_r=1&ei=5094&hp=&ex=1146628800&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
These videos are sort of like opposition (currently the Dems) weekly radio addresses or conf calls for quarterly reports. Hekmatyar, the leading Afghan rejectionist that speaks Arabic, is like some governor giving a guest radio address in Spanish, trying to target Hispanic voters.
Similarly, this could be part of a pitch to Gulf donors to the neo-Taliban and others active along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, trying to increase investor confidence. Perhaps they need some more money to make some big moves in Afghanistan this spring and summer.
Al-Qa'ida isn't a one-country pony. And with the reference to Sudan in the latest bin Laden tape and this Hekmatyar/Afghanistan tape, the idea is to remind friend and foe about their desire and ability to conduct operations on multiple fronts. They want to be the vanguard of the ummah, particularly the Arab world, and hence they've recently discussed with Hamas/Palestine and Darfur/Sudan issues as affronts to Arab/Muslim sovereignty, and then the Afghanistan thing was done in Arabic.
Posted by: The Polemicist | May 04, 2006 at 05:03 PM