The first 48 hours after the death of Osama bin Laden were grounds for relief in the United States, its allies, and those who condemn violent extremism, but they have also been fraught with speculation and rumors concerning the operation. Is bin Laden really dead? Did he really use his wife as a shield? Was he really armed and did he fire at the Navy Seals? Why have there been no pictures of his body released? Why was he buried at sea?

Extremists have attempted to pounce on these seeming inconsistencies in the tale of bin Laden’s demise. The Indonesian branch of Hizbut Tahrir emphasized the inconsistencies to cast doubt on the American version of events. Going even further, extremist blog Prisoner of Joy posted a story attributed to Ruslan Sinbarigov of the Kavkaz Center (an Eastern European Islamist website) that claimed – based on the purported tweets of a nearby Pakistani – that the helicopter did not malfunction but rather was shot down, that the operation took two hours and not forty minutes, that the DNA test took too little time to be believable, and others. The implied conclusions?

1. Bin Laden was not in the house that was attacked by the Americans.
2. Bin Laden was indeed killed, but the body was so badly damaged, or the Americans so desecrated his body by doing some of their kufar rituals, that it was not possible to identify him visually.

The Voice of al-Islam parrots these claims: according to the Taliban, Osama bin laden is not dead. Adding fuel to the fire is the presence of fake Osama bin Laden “death photos,” which began circulating just after his death. A simple Google image search brought up these images, but after they were exposed as fake, this became proof of a conspiracy for extremist sites such as Hizbut Tahrir and Prisoner of Joy. The fact that the White House has decided (at this point) not to release images of a dead Osama bin Laden means that these rumors will most likely live on since they haven’t been effectively countered.

Curiously, one above-ground Islamist group in Indonesia, the Islamic Defender’s Front, chose to hold a “service of gratitude” for bin Laden, apparently taking reports of his death at face value. This is curious because the group shares no theological affinity with the salafist al Qaeda, and despite its publicized attacks on specific targets it deems antithetical to Islam, it does not promote the kind of violence – bombings, for example – that al Qaeda does.

The struggle over the image of someone – living or dead – is of course nothing new. I was reminded of this Washington Post article of last year, which described CIA plots to portray both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as gay. The plan to film a Hussein impersonator in compromising actions was shelved after analysts reached the conclusion that a film showing him bragging of sex with young boys would do little to damage his credibility. The plan against bin Laden actually made it to the filming stage. One CIA employee remarked that “some of us dark skinned employees” were used to portray bin Laden and his cohorts around a campfire, drinking liquor and reminiscing about their homosexual conquests. This plan was scrapped as being “ridiculous.”

There is a history of such plans. In the 1950s, the CIA hatched a plan to make a pornographic film starring a look-alike of Indonesian President Soekarno, using an actor wearing a Soekarno mask. The film, entitled “Happy Days” was apparently shot but not circulated, although still photographs were. The plan was purportedly canceled after some thought that it might actually enhance Soekarno’s reputation among Indonesians (Soekarno was a well-known philogynist). A similar plan was hatched – and later shelved – to film Soviet Premiere Nikita Kruschev in flagrante delicto with a comely spy.

Sometimes, however, rumors and sexual innuendo win the day. As my colleagues Daniel Bernardi, Pauline Hope Cheong, Scott Ruston and I describe in our  book Narrative Landmines: Rumor, Islamist Extremism, and the Struggle for Islamic Influence (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming), the Indonesian government successfully floated a rumor to taint the legacy of Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Noordin Top (comops blog post here). Following a forensic exam, a police spokesman and a University of Indonesia forensics expert claimed that a physical deformity in Top proved that he was gay or bisexual, antithetical to his puritanical brand of Islam and rendering him a munafiq or hypocrite. The mainstream news reported it, and it soon spread to the Indonesian blogosphere, YouTube, and elsewhere. Despite the fact that the rumor was based on demonstrably false forensic science from the 19th century, Top’s legacy appears to have been successfully tainted: jihadist websites that normally laud killed extremists as martyrs were strangely silent following the announcement.

In the uncertainty and secrecy inherent in operations such as those that killed bin Laden, rumors and doubt will surface and swirl, and sides will jostle for control of the narrative. Although the changes in the American portrayal of the fight are understandable due to its chaotic nature, it nevertheless left some room for extremists to attempt to influence the narrative. At this point, however, it seems a lost cause, especially as these attempts begin to float toward the ridiculous.

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For Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s communication strategy, its been a year full of ups and downs. Individually, the mishaps seem like minor blips in an otherwise burgeoning online presence, but when combined, they could point to Zawahiri’s diminishing abilities as a skilled communicator and principal figure of al-Qaeda’s online media strategy.

Earlier this year, Zawahiri held an extensive online Q&A session, soliciting questions from anyone who wanted to ask. It was initially thought of as a strategic move to engage directly with followers and teach them about al-Qaeda, or to show an ability to respond intellectually to critics. However, the Q&A revealed serious shortcomings in Zawahiri’s ability to defend the realities of al-Qaeda’s extremist ideology and provide clear justifications for their worldwide operations.

Questions were submitted from exasperated followers, wondering why al-Qaeda hadn’t focused more attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and questioning al-Qaeda’s tactics of targeting civilians. Zawahiri’s answers were vague and roundabout, and he provided few clear answers or new ideas. According to Brian Fishman, Director of Research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, the Q&A was a mistake. In an interview with NPR, he said that

Al-Qaida is an organization run top down with people that don’t want to share power. And in that kind of an environment, it’s dangerous to expose yourself to too many questions. It reveals the amount of discontent within the movement. And one of the things that al-Qaida needs to do, especially from a religious perspective, is that they try to funnel people into a specific set of beliefs. And the more debate that clouds that picture, the weaker al-Qaida is going to be.

In a message released in April, Zawahiri confidently stated that “backing the mujahidin in Iraq is…the most important task of the Islamic nation today.” He sarcastically asked:

So where are the Awakening Councils, which Petraeus announced six months ago that they will achieve victory in Iraq? Were not these Awakening Councils supposed to expedite the date of the US forces’ withdrawal?

Well, it turns out that the Awakening Councils showed up after all. This plus increased levels of U.S. troops in Iraq greatly helped to stabilize the nation, making an expedited withdrawal more possible. And so, like any other embarrassed politician would have done in his position, Zawahiri tried to change the subject and focus on other areas of conflict.

A message released in August was addressed explicitly to Pakistani citizens and members of the Pakistani military and government. This one was decidedly NOT a strategic communication failure. It was skillfully executed and honed in on issues that are naturally contentious for most Pakistanis, namely their government’s alliance with the U.S. and India. In light of the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, this message is particularly interesting. He concludes the statement with:

Finally, I request every Muslim in Pakistan to ask himself seriously: Does he want Pakistan to truly become Pakistan? Or is he going to stand by idly and passively until it becomes part of Greater Hindustan?

The relationship between al-Qaeda’s calls to action and specific attacks around the world is still unclear. One could suppose that there is some connection between this particular message and the recent attacks in India. Perhaps an affiliate extremist group wants to answer Zawahiri’s call and help re-ignite the jihad in South Asia. But its more than likely a coincidence. Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani group suspected to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, doesn’t seem to take its cues from al-Qaeda central.

In November, Zawahiri taped a message in response to the election of Barack Obama. This message received a lot of attention in the press and online, mainly because Zawahiri essentially characterized President-Elect Obama as an African-American that is subservient to his white “masters”. Although the phrase abeed al-beit, translated as “house negro”, has been used in previous messages, this particular usage struck a chord for many people.

In general, however, this message came up short. The target audience of most of al-Qaeda’s messages are the individuals unsure of whether or not they want to join jihad – the people on the fence. If you consider this, then you’d expect Zawahiri to make a dedicated and passionate statement about the need to continue with jihad, regardless of who leads the U.S. In the past, his rhetoric was fiery and convincing, self-assured and motivating. Yet the best he could come up with this time was a recycled racial slur and the same rhetoric we’ve heard for years, antagonizing fence-sitters who are hopeful about the changes Obama might bring and/or African-American Muslims in the U.S. who he had hoped to influence.

In this critical moment, Zawahiri’s job was to communicate to those individuals that were unsure how to react to Obama’s election so that al-Qaeda would remain steadfast in its battle against the U.S. and the West. Now, it’s understandable that he may be a little distracted lately, but it’s hard to understand why Zawahiri didn’t come up with a better response to Obama’s election than this message.

A strike against Zawahiri’s reputation came in November from Sayyid Imam, aka Dr. Fadl. He recently released his new book through a series in Al-Masry al-Youm (for summaries, start here), denouncing Zawahiri and challenging him to a sort of spiritual death-match. While this text was perceived by some as an inconsequential list of character attacks that won’t have an impact on the broader extremist movement, others claim that these sort of character indictments will have a negative effect on Zawahiri’s credibility and could influence al-Qaeda’s target audience. I tend to agree with the latter, because as one of the main faces of al-Qaeda, and thus the broader jihadist movement, Zawahiri’s success as a leader is dependent on whether or not he can gain trust and support.

In late November, in an interview produced by As-Sahab, Zawahiri expounded on some potential new tactics promoted by al-Qaeda (a translation, by the NEFA Foundation, was released on December 10). He spoke extensively about the need for Muslims who are unable to bear arms to join the fight in other ways, specifically via protests and strikes. Although he’s mentioned these tactics before, messages in prior years rarely devoted so much discussion on them. In effect, Zawahiri is suggesting an easier way to wage jihad.

Finally, last week, Zawahiri released another message, titled “The Death of Our Heroes and Betrayal of Our Rulers.” As the title suggests, he discusses the recent executions in Indonesia of the convicted perpetrators of the Bali bombing, and Saudi Arabia’s participation in an inter-faith conference held at the United Nations earlier this month (which included Israel).

These two latest messages discuss issues that people all around the world can rally around, not just the minor factions of extremists. They are umbrella issues, mentioned because of their ability to attract more moderate listeners who share some of al-Qaeda’s concerns and goals, but may not necessarily agree with their tactics. From a strategic communication perspective, this was a good move for Zawahiri. Focusing on issues that appeal to many more listeners is a way for al-Qaeda to get back to the basics of their ideology and mobilize support.

There are a lot of ways to spin this year’s developments. Maybe Zawahiri is being forced to take the helm in al-Qaeda’s communication strategy because bin Laden is otherwise unavailable. Or perhaps he worries that people will not put their faith in a leader who is an untrustworthy hypocrite (as Sayyid Imam would argue), and is struggling to repair his image. Maybe Zawahiri has largely ignored the issue of Iraq in the past few months because he knows al-Qaeda is losing there. Regardless of the explanation, there appears to be a golden opportunity for Zawahiri’s opponents to counter his successes and exploit his mistakes.

Last week, in an op-ed for the Small Wars Journal, Dalton Fury wrote about the need to methodically tear down bin Laden’s character. In light of the various mishaps that centered around Zawahiri this year, the time is ripe for a similar campaign against him. Fury writes that

Our country spent more time, energy, and money on digging up dirt on the Presidential candidates and quickly putting out short psychotronic movie clips than we do on targeting UBL’s character.

U.S. actions against the characters of bin Laden and Zawahiri could include anything from direct responses to al-Qaeda messages (a tactic that is much debated in strategic communication circles), to launching more targeted PSYOP campaigns that focus specifically on de-legitimizing these two al Qaeda leaders.

This string of mistakes and negative PR for Zawahiri could help strip away any credibility he may have with those individuals on the fence. Although al-Qaeda’s ideology has “gone viral” and spread into a worldwide ideological movement, the leadership of the organization is still the central mouthpiece of the global jihadist network. Their tarnished credibility could be used as a catalyst for further breaking down the ideology’s resonance and breadth throughout the world. After all, al-Qaeda’s leadership has gone to great lengths to criticize and insult America’s leadership in the past eight years – I can see no reason why the U.S. shouldn’t respond in-kind.

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Online PSYOP campaigns are a cheap and easy way for extremists to infiltrate U.S. public discourse about the fight against terrorism. The campaigns attempt to break the political will of U.S. policymakers and persuade the public to doubt the purpose and effectiveness of their government’s policies.

Does extremist propaganda have enough breadth and resonance with Western audiences to make them re-think their government’s actions? The extremists must think so, because these efforts remain a critical component of their broader strategic communication.

On August 4th, Steve Corman reported about a new trend in online extremist PSYOP campaigns: deliberately misrepresenting the content of YouTube videos in order to lure pro-American viewers into watching violent attacks or extremist messages.

Extremists also encourage their followers to engage in a “media jihad” against Western audiences to promulgate an anti-war sentiment. Last year, MEMRI reported that the “Al Mohajroon” website gave specific instructions to these virtual warriors to “break [Americans’] spirits” by posting on forums and sites popular with Westerners.

Specifically they suggested posting videos and images of American soldiers committing “crimes” like killing unarmed civilians, women, or children. They also encouraged fabricating stories about disaffected American soldiers that have turned against the war:

Obviously, you should post your contribution…as an American…You should correspond with visitors to this forum bringing to their attention the frustrating situation of their troops in Iraq…You should invent stories about American soldiers you have [allegedly] personally known…who were drafted to Iraq and then committed suicide while in service…Also, write using a sad tone, and tell them that you feel sorry for your [female] neighbor or co-worker who became addicted to alcohol or drugs…because her poor fiancé, a former soldier in Iraq, was paralyzed or [because] his legs were amputated…

Over the past several years, extremist media organizations, forums and bloggers have called on their multi-lingual readers to translate texts, videos, magazines, and statements into English. One of the more recent suggestions, was posted on al-Ekhlaas forum on Aug. 18. It called on media organizations and individuals to provide translations of popular jihadist e-journals like Sawt al-Jihad.

There is also a growing number of extremist websites in English, created by both official media organizations of extremist groups and individuals that adhere to their ideology. Countless sites, blogs, and discussion forums seek to engage the U.S. population and manipulate their opinion. The language barrier between the United States and its adversaries in the global extremist network has practically been rendered irrelevant by the prevalence of English language Islamist media.

So what, if anything, should be done about extremist Internet content? The Internet is famously difficult to control or regulate. Proposals to do so are almost always controversial.

Extremist videos posted on YouTube caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers earlier this summer. On May 19, 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman wrote a letter to the chairman of Google, Inc. (which owns YouTube) asking the company to develop a method to systematically remove extremist videos from YouTube. The senator notes, as Steve did, that “this should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance.”

The YouTube Team responded on their blog that same afternoon. They promptly removed 80 videos that featured explicit violence. However, they declared that in order to encourage a “healthy debate”, most of the videos identified by Sen. Lieberman would remain online. Despite their obvious affiliation with extremist groups, the videos were not considered in violation of YouTube’s policies.

Sen. Lieberman’s request sought to help counteract the threat of self-radicalization of individuals within U.S. borders, which may be fueled by readily-available extremist propaganda. In his response to Google’s actions, he stated that “no matter what their content, videos produced by terrorist organizations…should not be tolerated.”

One comment on the YouTube blog, by a user named “northshore83”, points out that the issue revolves recruitment:

If our country has designated al-Qaeda a terrorist group then how much of a difference is there between permitting them to recruit on this privately owned forum and recruiting at a privately owned building? Would you object to the al-Qaeda representatives being prevented from staging a fundraiser or recruitment meeting in your home town?

Removing videos that simply propagate an ideology walks a fine constitutional line. However, YouTube is a private organization that is not bound by constitutional restrictions, and it is unlikely that those posting the material in question are even U.S. citizens. Since the promoters of the ideology advocate violence against YouTube’s home country, Sen. Lieberman’s request seems to many to be simple common sense.

Finding extremists online and removing their websites and postings is another contentious issue. Some go as far as accusing U.S.-based extremist bloggers of treason, claiming that they are actively propagating an ideology that promotes the destruction of America. Yet the hosts of many of these extremist websites are either unaware of their content, or are unwilling to remove them due to the volume of sites they support and legal protections of free speech.

U.S. government officials have been lukewarm to the idea of trying to stamp-out extremist messages online. Following the Lieberman – YouTube dialogue, a Washington Post article quoted a senior U.S. counterterrorism official as saying “Yes, we could go around shutting down Web sites, but it doesn’t really work as a strategic weapon against al-Qaeda,” because as soon as one site is shut down another pops up.

So, are Americans falling for the bait? The effectiveness of these extremist PSYOP campaigns is difficult to assess. The number of hits on a particular YouTube video may be an indication of popularity, yet it does not distinguish Americans from other viewers, and it says nothing about the impact of the message. Although minimizing the presence of extremist PSYOPs online might be a good idea, it should not displace another priority: Creating a counter-media strategy that can deconstruct extremist ideology and reduce demand for it on the Internet.

UPDATE:

On September 11, 2008, Sen. Joe Lieberman’s office issued a press release announcing Google’s decision to strengthen its policies regarding YouTube videos that incite violence. The new community guidelines will now target videos that include “predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people’s personal information, and inciting others to commit violent acts…” Although Google has removed hundreds of videos from YouTube since Sen. Lieberman’s initial request, extremist videos depicting and inciting violence remain prevalent on the website.

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The new encryption tool is called Mujahideen Secrets 2 and appears to be an updated version of easier-to-crack software that was released early last year, said Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing Corp. in San Jose.

Douglas Farah frets that this means the Bad Guys “have the technological wherewithal to take their communications to the next level.”

But in fact this “next level” has been freely available on the Web for years. PGP offers 1024 bit encryption, the same level speculated upon for the Mujahideen Secrets 2 platform. PGP has been described as the “closest you’re likely to get” to military grade encryption, and Wikipedia concludes that “To the best of publicly available information, there is no known method which will allow a person or group to break PGP encryption by cryptographic, or computational means.”

Well maybe, but it wouldn’t surprise me too much to learn that our personnel at Fort Meade have found a way to get around it. It would surprise me to learn that the Bad Guys have made some kind of fundamental innovation in cryptography.

The point is that this software isn’t really doing anything new, so its announcement is more notable as a PSYOP than as a sign of some new technological threat.

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At a government workshop some time ago I head someone describe a new tool that was described as the “voice of Allah.” This was said to be a device that would operate at a distance and would deliver a message that only a single person could hear. The story was that it was tested in a conflict situation in Iraq and pointed at one insurgent in a group, who whipped around looking in all directions, and began a heated conversation with his compatriots, who did not hear the message. At the time I greeted this story with some skepticism.

Lo and behold, today I saw this item on CNET News:

The folks who heard the ad for A & E’s TV show “Paranormal State” emitted from a billboard in New York City’s Greenwich Village must have thought it was pretty weird. As they walked into the targeted area they were exposed to highly focused sound, picked up not by their ears, but by their skulls. The otherwise inaudible sound waves are experienced via bone conduction–the sound resonates inside the passerby’s head.

The system is being developed for commercial use by Holosonic Research Labs which besides the billboard stunt has installed systems at the Seattle Space Needle, at museums, and at Disney EPCOT center.

Here is a clip of an ABC news story about use of the technology in a CourtTV promotional campaign that has reactions from, um, victims that are amazingly like the one recounted about the insurgent.

Memo to self: Don’t be so quick to doubt stories you hear from defense technogeeks at government workshops.

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