New York City, USA - As my colleague Peter Banker reports, one of the documents found in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, last year suggests that Al Qaeda’s leadership seriously considered changing the group’s name to make its connection to Islam more explicit.
According to an English translation of the document, which is part of a letter of unknown authorship that was declassified and made available to scholars at West Point, the proposal was floated some time after Barack Obama became president of the United States, since the idea was presented as a response to Mr. Obama’s statements that America was not at war with Islam but with Al Qaeda.
The excerpt from the letter — one of 17 documents released on Thursday, along with translations and analysis, by the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point — lays out the reasons that a name change might be in order and proposes 10 ideas for a new and improved name that would “difficult for Obama to say” that America’s battle against the group was not a war on Islam or Muslims. (The original Arabic versions of all of the documents are available for download from West Point Web site.)
The complete English translation of the excerpt from the letter below shows that the author was aware of, and irked by, the way that news organizations — like the Saudi-owned satellite network Al Arabiya — routinely used shortened versions of the group’s name, and that of an affiliated movement in Somalia, Al Shabaab. Before proposing a list of possible new names, the author wrote to his fellow Qaeda leaders: “it would be nice if you could discuss and come up with appropriate names that would not be easily shortened to a word that does not represent us.”
And before closing: I make mention to you [plural] of a very important matter that came to me, which is changing the name of [Qaeda al-Jihad], because there are several necessary and attention-worthy reasons to change it, of them:
1. This name [Qaeda al-Jihad] was abridged by the people and only a few people remember this name; it has come to be known as [al-Qaeda] and this name reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them, and allows the enemies to claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam and Muslims, but they are at war with the organization of al-Qaeda, which is an outside entity from the teachings of Islam and this is what was raised repeatedly in the past as indicated by Obama, that our war is not on Islam or on the Muslim people but rather our war is on the al-Qaeda organization, so if the word al-Qaeda was derived from or had strong ties to the word Islam or Muslims; or if it had the name Islamic party, it would be difficult for Obama to say that.
It is clear from the past also that they [the enemies] have largely stopped using the phrase “the war on terror” in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims, because they felt that saying the war on terror could appear to most people to be a war on Islam, especially after they unjustly spilled the blood of innocent Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. We ask God the Almighty to have mercy on our Islamic brothers.
For example, the name of our brothers in the Shabaab organization, Al-Arabiya [news network] often identifies them with the Shabaab movement, only it avoids the name al-jihad or al-mujahidin.
2. The name of an entity carries its message and represents it. Al-Qaeda describes a military base with fighters without a reference to our broader mission to unify the nation.
Building on what is presented, it would be nice if you could discuss and come up with appropriate names that would not be easily shortened to a word that does not represent us. It would help if the name is a method of delivery of our message to reach the sons of the Umma [Muslim nation].
These are some suggestions:
Taifat al-tawhid wal-jihad
[Monotheism and Jihad Group]
Taifat al-tawhid wal-difa‟ „an al-Islam
[Monotheism and Defending Islam Group]
Jama‟at i‟adat al-khilafat al-rashida
[Restoration of the Caliphate Group]
Jama‟at nasr al-Islam wal-aksa
[Support of Islam and Al-Aqsa Group]
Jama‟at wihda al-Muslimin
[Muslim Unity Group]
Tanthim al-Jihadi li-tawhid al-Umma wa-inkathiha
[Jihad Organization for Unification and Rescue of the Nation]
Tanthim al-Jihadi litahrir al-aksa wa-tawhid al-Umma
[Jihad Organization to Liberate Al-Aqsa and Unify the Nation]
Hizb tawhid al-Umma al-Islamiya
[Islamic Nation Unification Party]
Jama‟at tahrir al-aksa
[Al-Aqsa Liberation Group]
Jama‟at inkath wanahdat al-Umma
[Rescue and Revitalization of the Nation Group]