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Um, so: Anyone want to interview al Qaeda?

Sky News reports that a new video, perportedly from the terrorist organization, includes an invitation for journalists to interview al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahri.

"If genuine, it represents the first such offer by the terror network to interview one of its leaders since the attacks of September 11, 2001," Sky notes.

Zawahri may be trying to cast himself not as a terrorist but a legitimate thinker and organizational head, one who should be treated with respect – a tall order, to say the least. The interview offer seems to be part of al Qaeda's public relations strategy: The organization's videos have gotten increasingly professional, and this week one was released showing "Zawahri in a classic, well-lit TV interview situation."

Interested parties are asked to send written questions to the web forums where al Qaeda's video production division, Al-Sahab, posts messages. (Al-Sahab means "The Clouds" in Arabic.)

Last year, Al-Sahab Media released a video called "An Invitation to Islam: An Al-Sahab Produced Video Featuring Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Azzam the American AKA Adam Gadahn."

According to a report posted at this discussion forum, "The majority of the video, nearly forty-five minute, features Azzam the American explaining the perceived benefits of Islam over Judaism, Christianity, and other religions, and criticizing Western leaders for their alleged presentation of Islam as barbaric and Muslims as bogeymen."

Here's what Zawahiri reportedly has to say:

“And as our brother Azzam the American talks to you, he talks to you as one concerned about the fate which awaits his people, and as a perceptive person who wants to lead his people our of darkness into the light. So listen to him, because what he is talking to you about is serious and significant. He is talking to you about the fate which awaits every human, an extremely grave issue in which there is no joking, procrastination or backtracking.”

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In light of the anniversary of 9/11, we're getting the usual media commemorations – with William Safire deconstructing the term itself and USA Today accusing us of not really caring about the date anymore. (Was I the only one insulted by that?)

And we also got an update about al Qaeda's new media prowess, courtesy of the Washington Post.

Since 2000, al-Qaeda has run its own media production company, al-Sahab, which means "the clouds" in Arabic, an allusion to the misty mountain peaks of Afghanistan.

Until two years ago, al-Sahab was dependent on broadcasters such as the al-Jazeera satellite television network to air its videos and could distribute only short clips on the Internet. But then it achieved a spectacular breakthrough. Taking advantage of technological advances and bandwidth expansion, it began posting videos directly on the Internet, relying on an anonymous global network of webmasters to shield their electronic tracks.
In 2005, al-Sahab released 16 videos. This year, it has produced four times that number. Quality has improved markedly, with most videos now including subtitles in several languages and sometimes 3-D animation.
"If you want to stop al-Qaeda on the communications front, you should concentrate on their IT manager instead of Osama," said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a research group in Lahore, Pakistan, that studies militant groups.

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In light of the anniversary of 9/11, we're getting the usual media commemorations – with William Safire deconstructing the term itself and USA Today accusing us of not really caring about the date anymore. Yeah.

And we also got an update about Al Qaeda's new media prowess, courtesy of the Washington Post.

Since 2000, al-Qaeda has run its own media production company, al-Sahab, which means "the clouds" in Arabic, an allusion to the misty mountain peaks of Afghanistan.

Until two years ago, al-Sahab was dependent on broadcasters such as the al-Jazeera satellite television network to air its videos and could distribute only short clips on the Internet. But then it achieved a spectacular breakthrough. Taking advantage of technological advances and bandwidth expansion, it began posting videos directly on the Internet, relying on an anonymous global network of webmasters to shield their electronic tracks.
In 2005, al-Sahab released 16 videos. This year, it has produced four times that number. Quality has improved markedly, with most videos now including subtitles in several languages and sometimes 3-D animation.
"If you want to stop al-Qaeda on the communications front, you should concentrate on their IT manager instead of Osama," said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a research group in Lahore, Pakistan, that studies militant groups.

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We're more than four years into the war, and the media may now be digging deeper into the brutal realities of Iraq than they ever have before. In recent weeks, reporters have been questioning whether Al Qaeda in Iraq is related to the Al Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11, as the president has implied. (The answer: Not really. Al Qaeda was not operational inside Iraq in 2001.) The media have also begun looking into the assistance that Iran is providing the Mahdi Army in Bahgdad as they fight American troops. And reporters have become more confrontational in presidential press conferences, with even Fox News folks starting to sound like Helen Thomas.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times took it to another level, asking: Who Are We Fighting? According to the blockbuster expose, very often it's an ally.

Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said …

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

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The theatrical release of "A Mighty Heart" – the story of Daniel Pearl's kidnapping and murder – has called to mind many Americans' first encounter with the grainy terrorist videos from non-descript locations that have become a grim, regular reminder of current affairs. But we're kidding ourselves if we think that the stereotype of low-tech tools and old school propaganda is the reality in Iraq and elsewhere. A new study from Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty today makes clear that we're not merely dealing with an occasional fuzzy hostage video:

Iraq's Sunni insurgency has developed a sophisticated media campaign to deliver its message over the Internet through daily press releases, weekly and monthly magazines, books, video clips, full-length films, countless websites, and even television stations. Part of the target audience for insurgent media projects are mainstream Arabic-language media, which often amplify the insurgent message to a mass audience.

The study is harrowing in its details. According to the Washington Post's coverage of the study:

"Top 20," produced by Ansar al-Sunnah, is a compilation video of attacks on U.S. forces, presented as a greatest-hits competition among "insurgent brigades" for footage of the most spectacular attack. It is made with the express intention to encourage "healthy" rivalry among cells of fighters.

"It is very fast-paced and clearly aimed at the video game generation," says [study author Harold] Kimmage, who is an Arabist and a regional analyst for the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts into Iraq.

From this pop culture-esque highlight show to more traditional media, it looks as if the Al Qaeda and other terrorist factions are have all the media niches covered. The battle for hearts and minds has gone online and multimedia – and the more the rest of us know this, the better.

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The Skinny Today: The Governator grabs headlines for his healthcare plan while doctors and insurers have coronaries over it. Plus, President Bush makes plans to sell his Iraq plan, while the country continues to disapprove of his handling of the war. Also, Manhattan smells funny.

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