Al Qaeda failed to make good on threats to strike U.S. diplomatic
outposts on this week's 9/11 anniversary, but in a new audio tape, the
leader of the besieged terror network renewed his plea to followers to
strike at American interests -- and to aim lower, if necessary, with
individual acts of violence.
However, speeches by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Al Qaeda's "emir" or
prince after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, are viewed as less
inspiring to potential homegrown terrorists in the West to terrorism
analysts including one who knew both al Qaeda leaders.
In the new Arabic-language tape, released Sept. 12 Zawahiri chortled
over the "blessed" 2001 strikes that left thousands of Americans dead,
as well as April's Boston Marathon bombings that killed just three
Americans, which he claimed was proof of a Muslim "uprising."
"Keeping America in tension and anticipation only costs a few disparate
attacks here and there," Zawahiri explained during his 72-minute
recording. "These disparate strikes can be done by one brother or a few
of the brothers."
That message was hardly new, even if the recording was.
Zawahiri endorsed acts of "individual jihad" two years ago at the peak
of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki's global influence as an al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader. Awlaki produced polished
English-language speeches and the online magazine Inspire to encourage
"lone wolf" terrorism. He was killed by a U.S. drone two years ago,
months after bin Laden.
The new tape "will have an impact upon the jihad global community, but I
doubt if it's going to be translated into violence," Noman Benotman of
London counter-extremism firm Quilliam told ABC News on Friday.
In a new Quilliam report, Benotman, who as a Libyan jihadi knew both
Zawahiri and bin Laden in Afghanistan before 9/11, assessed al Qaeda's
global movement as "resurgent."
Zawahiri, an Egyptian pediatrician-turned-terrorist -- who speaks
English fluently but hasn't taunted Americans in that language in many
years -- lacks the credibility of the current generation of holy war
commanders fighting in Syria, northern Mali, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia
and Nigeria, said another terror expert.
"It only resonates with those who already sympathize with Zawahiri,"
Aaron Zelin, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near-East
policy, told ABC News. "The people that are convincing those on the
ground are the ones actually fighting in Syria like Jabhat al-Nusra and
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria."
Inside the U.S., the FBI monitors approximately 100 individuals with
Islamist extremist leanings, who have expressed a desire to commit
violence, fund terror groups or otherwise communicate with known
terrorists overseas, ABC News reported exclusively this week. That number isn't
expected by the U.S. intelligence community to change in the coming
years, according to intelligence and law enforcement sources.
Many of those are radicalized in part or motivated by videos, statements
and jihadi chatrooms they found online, where al Qaeda's media wing, As
Sahab, posts Zawahiri's speeches. But those messages resonate with
westerners when they're from young, charismatic leaders like
Alabama-reared ex-Shabaab commander Omar Hammami who speak in English -- not Arabic --
which Al Qaeda and its affiliates has increasingly employed in its
propaganda, according to analysts.
In his 9/11 anniversary tape -- released the day after the actual
anniversary -- Zawahiri urged al Qaeda's followers to "monitor and lie
in wait and seize any opportunity to land a large strike on it, even if
it takes years of patience for this."
Former FBI agent Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Homeland Security
Policy Institute, said the timing of the message could be significant.
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