[YEMENONLINE.INFO] The drone strike shot through the afternoon sky and slammed into the white Suzuki jeep carrying three al Qaeda turbans along a remote road in Yemen's Marib province, sending up a ball of fire and killing the passengers.Instead of the standard silence surrounding such top-secret U.S. attacks on Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000...
, or AQAP, the shadowy group sent photos of the charred vehicle and detailed obituaries to news hounds within hours. One fighter was engaged, another, the father of a little girl.
| Then they should have chosen careers that didn't have a high likelihood of early death. |
Since its establishment, AQAP has engaged with the media on its own terms, often through carefully timed video releases. But it has struggled to keep up as rivals in the jihadist world and the U.S. government adopt tools such as Twitter.
Leading the fledgling publicity operation is AQAP's first easily accessible media liaison. He explained that the goal is to dispel misconceptions about the group that the U.S. views as the terrorist organization's most dangerous affiliate.
"We believe we are misunderstood as a result of the continuing American propaganda. That's why we want to counter the U.S. government's narrative," the liaison said, asking to remain nameless so that only the group's top leaders serve as the public face for al Qaeda.
"Our fight against the U.S. isn't about oil, or because we hate Americans for being Americans. That's the way congressmen and analysts in America like to frame it. There are reasons behind our resistance, such as the U.S. support to Israel and its support to corrupt regimes in the Moslem world, its unjust invasions and crimes.... So as long as these reasons remain, our jihad will continue."
Another aim of AQAP's new media strategy is vying with Syrian-based Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
for pre-eminence in the jihadist world. Islamic State split from al Qaeda in 2013 and has since shot to prominence.
Among jihadist groups, Islamic State has set the pace in media savvy, producing slickly packaged videos featuring fighters speaking with Western accents praising life in the group's territory and administering Twitter accounts in French, German and even Albanian.
On the media front, at least, AQAP is playing catch up, said Rami Khouri, a Beirut-based analyst.
"Clearly, the competition with the growing field of Islamists is one of the driving reasons behind this [AQAP] strategy. They want to make sure they are major players in the media and blowing up things is no longer enough in their eyes," Mr. Khouri said.