Al-Qaeda keeping up-to-date with the technology

Jan 7, 2008 13:28 GMT  ·  By

"The elite jihadi media group presents the first batch of al-Sahab videos to be downloaded to cell phones", said the announcement posted late Friday by al-Qaeda's media wing, al-Sahab, on the websites commonly used by Islamic militants. On Saturday, eight previously recorded clips were made available, including a recent video tribute to Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, a former al-Qaeda leader from Iraq, who was killed by the U.S. forces in June 2006.

It's not as though this is the first time this has happened, the download for phones, I mean. It is based on the rising trend in the Middle East to swap video files between mobiles that has been basically soaring with the integration of Bluetooth technology in almost any handset. Nevertheless, there's been a stop being drawn from al-Sahab in providing clips for the telephones, between September and December of last year. Is this the new release for the public? Why else would they say that it's a "first batch"?

The purpose of the videos is to gather more followers and to get the ones that have already enlisted to be followers of the terrorist faction to spread the fear and the Islamic monotheism to those around them: "I asked God for the men of jihadi media to spread the message of Islam and monotheism to the world and spread real awareness to the people of the nations", second in command al-Zawahari said.

Talking about the phone videos, Ben Venzke, the head of IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors and analyzes militant messages, told Paul Schemm of the AP that it was not the first time al-Sahab had released videos designed for cell phones.

This comes in the heels of al-Qaeda inviting journalists and not only to send questions to the second in charge, the first ever "interview" since the September 11th tragedy.