Does Latest Al-Qaida Message Signal U.S. Attack?
The man who led the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999 believes that al-Qaida has signaled to the United States that it is about to launch another attack.
In an article for the Jamestown Foundation, where he is now a senior fellow, Michael Scheuer looks at the role of Adam Gadahn -- the American from California now known as Azzam al-Amriki (Azzam the American). Scheuer believes that Gadahn, while only a member of the al-Qaida media committee (who knew they even had one), has become the third most important public spokesman for the terrorist group, especially in its occasional messages meant for the American public.
Scheuer sees Gadahn's most recent video message, delivered not in the strident tones of bin Laden, but in the slang and catchphrases of an American, as a blunt warning from al-Qaida that time is up for Americans.
Gadahn's words also have a note of finality about them, as if he is saying there will be no more warnings from al-Qaida, and the choice for Americans is between surrender and domestic attack. Again, this is out of character for the rhetoric of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, and it suggests that they ordered Gadahn to make a last-warning to Americans before al-Qaida attacks inside the United States.
But Gadahn's "warnings" are just a list of "implacable demands" that al-Qaida knows will never be met. Scheuer compares them to the type of demands the Austro-Hungarian Empire made of Serbia in 1914 just before it attacked.
10:35 AM ET | 06- 7-2007 | permalink
