The Al-Qaeda Media Nexus

It is an interesting study of the virtual network behind the global message of Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that uses the modern media with a medieval mindset. Mr. Daniel Kimmage finds out in this study that the "original" Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden accounts for a mere fraction of jihadist media production.

In the wake of NATO attack on Afghanistan followed by the U.S. assault on Iraq Al-Qaeda has seized to exist as a centralized organization; it has metamorphosed into real hydra-headed monster. Many small organizations with presence in remote corners of countries like Pakistan have hitched themselves to the Al-Qaeda bandwagon.

Many of them work under the cover of charity organizations. These so-called charity and welfare organizations have their own newspapers, magazines and other publications that openly espouse jihadist agenda. Pakistan has one of the largest chain of publications which promote a warped world view.

These publications try to demonize the Western world and glorify jihad (sacred war) against non-Muslims everywhere. Some of these newspapers have entered the ranks of mainstream Pakistani press with large circulation. These publications proliferated especially after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States as an “alternative” to the mainstream Pakistani media.

Every school of thought as well as every jihadist group in Pakistan has its own newspaper or magazine to promote its respective ideology and to present its own world view on different issues—both national and international. The distinctive feature of these newspapers and magazines are their very names, which are themselves militant or religious in connotation, like Zarb-i-Momin [the blow of the Muslim], Ghazwa [holy war], Shamsheer [sword] and Islam etc.

These publications do not publish human pictures, which are considered un-Islamic. They do carry pictures but of inanimate things like buildings, roads and tanks etc. The editorial contents of these newspapers are mostly religious in nature or concerning Muslim hotspots the world over like Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Chechnya etc.

The jihadist newspapers often engage in advocacy journalism, which takes a position on the issues of the day by editorializing them and promote specific religious or sectarian views. Such newspapers reinforce the prejudice or bias of the readers. This levels ground for Al-Qaeda to have a voice of its own in different garbs.

If the scope of Kimmage's study is extended to print media too, the Al-Qaeda media nexus may come out to be a mesh-mash of a wide network that spans both the landscape of media and geography.