According to an article in today's New York Times, a report from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has concluded that the long-dead "terrorist" Osama bin Laden and his so-called deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are losing control of the Islamic jihad movement. As the NYT puts it:Among the network’s ideologists, they have come to be seen more as propagandists than strategic thinkers.The article goes on to claim that
the death or capture of Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri would do little to slow the spread of jihadist ideology.Never mind that bin Laden's death was reported in December of 2001.
As the NYT reports:
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.To me this sounds more like the beginning of an attack on the Internet than a serious evaluation of the dead "terrorist's" influence on his "followers".
But then I am quite possibly jaded.