June 11, 2008
Propaganda Videos Show al Qaeda in Iraq Defeated
The Guardian admitting al Qaeda in Iraq defeated? File under: pigs fly.
We've been noting the incredible decline in the number of al Qaeda propaganda videos coming out of Iraq over the past six months. In fact, many of the "new" videos are simply repackaged footage of old attacks. New video did appear to be coming out of Mosul, but after the arrest of an al Qaeda propagandist there the stream of jihad videos has all but vanished.
Now The Guardian cites the drying up of propaganda as part of a larger body of evidence that al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated:
Dia Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on radical Islamists, says recent al-Qaida propaganda footage from Iraq is old and cannot mask the crisis it is facing. “They have not got new things to say about Iraq though they are trying to give the impression that they are still alive. The material isn’t convincing.” Nigel Inkster, former deputy head of MI6, now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, agrees: “Al-Qaida is starting to prepare their people for strategic failure in Iraq.”There's more, including worry over the new al Qaeda hotspots that we've been warning about in Somalia, Algeria, and--- lest we leave out our newest rock star Jane from a post-- Yemen.
Go check out Ed's post for the bigger picture, but I just wanted to point out the propaganda angle by itself. Propaganda is important for victory for many reasons, especially given that people are much less inclined to fight in losing causes. As al Qaeda in Iraq's propaganda becomes less and less convincing, fewer jihadis are willing to travel to that country in a cause they now think is lost.
