“Yeah, micro-managing. You know, `You can plant this crops and this crops. It’s very good. Oh and by the way, you know, stop beheading people and cutting heads. That makes me look bad. You know, I have a brand to protect.’ ”
Ali Soufan didn’t spell out why stopping beheading people would protect al-Qaeda’s brand. This is why: it would fool the ever-eager-to-be-fooled Western establishment counterterror analysts into thinking that al-Qaeda was becoming “moderate” in contrast to the Islamic State (ISIS), and could be worked with. And it worked: the Obama administration gave weapons and training to al-Qaeda groups in Syria, gulled into thinking that they were reliable moderates who would fight against both the Islamic State and the Assad regime.
Osama, had he lived to see it, would have been laughing at the credulity of the Infidel. And the Infidel hasn’t learned a thing since then.
“Osama bin Laden was obsessed with al Qaeda’s ‘brand,’” by David K. Li, New York Post, May 14, 2017:
Osama bin Laden knew image was everything — and micro-managed his worldwide terror operation with an eye firmly on al Qaeda’s “brand” name.
“Osama bin Laden was not just, you know, sitting in his house to avoid being captured or killed. He was in, some instances, micro-managing al Qaeda and its affiliates,” former FBI investigator Ali Soufan told “60 Minutes” in an interview aired Sunday night.
“Yeah, micro-managing. You know, `You can plant this crops and this crops. It’s very good. Oh and by the way, you know, stop beheading people and cutting heads. That makes me look bad. You know, I have a brand to protect.’ ”
US intelligence got an insider’s view of al Qaeda and bin Laden through documents seized at his compound in Pakistan when Navy SEALS killed him in 2011, according to Soufan.
Even as the 9/11 architect passionately preached hate toward the U.S. and the West, bin Laden was also keenly aware of the shortcomings of al Qaeda’s reputation.
In the years immediately after 9/11, bin Laden knew worldwide sentiment fell in favor of the United States so he spread al Qaeda’s mission of hate — all while avoiding using the words “al Qaeda.”
“Because he believed that the moment that they say the name al Qaeda, the United States, the West the local regimes will use it against them, and people won’t listen to the message. They just listen to the fact that they are `al Qaeda,’ ” said Soufan, author of “Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State.”
“So each one of the affiliates we start seeing calling themselves a totally different name that al Qaeda is not even part of the sentence.”
Soufan said he’s terrified that al Qaeda is close to pulling off another deadly attack on the United States.
“Absolutely. I mean look, you know, if you look at 9/11, al Qaeda had only about 400 members and they were based in Afghanistan,” he said.
“If you look at al Qaeda today they have thousands and thousands of members, all over the Middle East.”…