Osama bin Laden & The Radical Islamic Mojo

I have believed for some time that despite the occasion fire-and-brimestone videotape, Osama bin Laden has pretty much lost his mojo as the grand wazoo of the Islamic jihad, is not as influential a figure as many people believe and that the international movement is far more nuanced than is portrayed by politicians and the media.

Now comes a new report by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy that more or less says the same thing:

OBL and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, have had a relatively minor influence on the terrorist movement’s intellectual foundation and are considered more as propagandists than strategic thinkers.

Because of this, the death or capture of the two would do little to slow the spread of the jihad.

“It would be a blow in terms of the emotional impact, but in terms of the larger movement that the foot soldiers are being recruited into, it wouldn’t put much of a dent into it at all,” said William McCants, the chief author of the new report, “The Militant Ideology Atlas.”

American officials say they fear that the next generation of terrorist attacks could be carried out not by militants trained in Al Qaeda camps but by fighters influenced by radical texts posted online.

As a National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism notes:

"The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely and more anonymously in the Internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint."

The military academy report found that Salafism, or radical Islam, is so deeply embedded in the Arab world that Salafis now constitute a significant portion of the Muslim population in the Middle East and North Africa.

More here.