October 5, 2005

Al Qaeda: Rebooted

One result of the news media’s constant coverage of the war on terror is that the names Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have achieved an above-the-fold status quo while somehow remaining as mysterious and dangerously elusive as ever. On September 28, 2005, with the fourth anniversary of September 11 in the recent past, New York University School of Law’s Center on Law and Security began its series of open forums with a panel discussion entitled “Al Qaeda Now: The Media and the War on Terror” to create a dialogue about how media outlets (mainstream and web-based) are being used by terrorists and newsmakers alike.

The distinguished panel, introduced by the center’s executive director Karen Greenberg, and moderated by New York University’s Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law Stephen Holmes, consisted of several leading experts on terrorism and the media. The panel also seemed like a reunion of sorts; an assemblage of few of the esteemed writers and experts featured in Greenberg’s latest book, Al Qaeda Now: Understanding Today’s Terrorists. Peter Bergen, adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University; Yosri Fouda, London Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera; Salameh Nematt, Washington Bureau Chief of Al Hayat; and David Ensor, CNN’s national security correspondent took turns addressing three key issues: What do we mean by Al Qaeda now? What role does the global media play in worldwide terrorism? And what do we do about it?

From left: The forum's moderator Professor Stephen Holmes with panelists Salameh Nematt and David Ensor

Ensor, the most patrician of the panelists, peered over the rectangular reading glasses perched on his nose as he explained the difference between “Al Qaeda 1.0” and “Al Qaeda 2.0.” New York and Washington, D.C. in 2001, and more recently Madrid and London, were not targeted by the same Al Qaeda, he said. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the work of what Ensor labeled Al Qaeda 1.0—a hierarchical and structured group headed up by Osama bin Laden. According to Ensor, this group has largely been destroyed since the routing of its training camps in Afghanistan.

The Madrid and London bombings, however, were executed by an evolved version of the original, or Al Qaeda 2.0—a diffuse hydra of terrorist cells, many of which are neither directly connected to each other, nor to bin Laden himself. These maverick factions adhere to fundamentalist ideology rather than an organizational chart. They include not only people who are willing to die for Allah, but those with posters of bin Laden on their walls, “rather in the way students used to have Che Guevara on the wall when I was a college student,” said Ensor. “It’s Al Qaeda 2.0 that is on a roll in the world media.”

Through its ability to reach millions with politically driven ideology, internet-based media plays a key part in fostering this new form of Islamic terrorism. Web broadcasts now serve instead of orders directed through a chain of command. Members of Al Qaeda 2.0 carry out the bidding of bin Laden without ever meeting anyone directly connected to him.

The implications of this were brought forth by Judge Baltasar Garzón, who holds the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair at New York University. He referenced the conviction of an Al Jazeera journalist (found guilty in Spain on September 26) for sympathizing with Al Qaeda, and described the MO of the Madrid bombers. The terrorists who attacked Madrid were not Afghani guerrillas, Garzón said, but sophisticated people who have been “radicalized in Europe.” They are “second generation people who have been in Europe some time.”

Judge Baltasar Garzon

The panel discussion also touched on Al Qaeda’s use of the media to reach a broad audience. “They are using the language of the news business,” said Ensor. “They are using the language we use.” Two days earlier, reports of Al Qaeda’s first internet news broadcast reached the American media. In an attempt to “end-run” the official news media, a man wearing a balaclava and holding a gun sat behind a desk while he presented terrorist rhetoric in the style of a mainstream news update, referring to ‘briefs’ and ‘dispatches’ throughout the broadcast. “Make no mistake, young Muslims are generally the targets of this type of presentation,” Ensor added.

Salameh Nematt, whose sturdy build and close-cropped salt and pepper hair gives him the look of a retired rugby player, listened to Ensor with a furrowed brow and his chin in hand. He then explained the political and historical context of Al Qaeda, and asked why, after 1400 years of the Islamic faith Islamic terrorism has only existed for the past three or four decades?

Nematt elaborated that with Israel’s victory in the Six Day War of 1967, and the fallout from colonialism, Islam has suffered an unprecedented degree of humiliation during the second half of the twentieth century. Added to this was the predominance of Western-supported autocratic secular Arab states that crushed all dissent outside the mosques. The result, Nematt concluded, was a radicalized, violent, fundamentalist Arab population that harbored deep distrust of both their secular governments and of the West.

According to Nematt, the state-run media in many Arab countries also plays a critical role in fomenting anti-western sentiment. News services funded by Islamic dictatorships have had a vested political interest in depicting democratization as an evil process. “There is not a single Arab leader until today who condemned Zarqawi by name,” Nematt said. “There is not a single Arab leader who condemned bin Laden by name.”

Hopkins’ Peter Bergen drew attention to the potential “blowback” from the war in Iraq, the result of which is that young Muslims are being trained in the techniques of guerrilla warfare and low-tech terrorism. “When they go back home, they aren’t going to go open coffee shops. They are gong to be the new shock troops of the jihadi movement,” he said. 

— Dan Bell