Al Qaeda experts report that the fundamentalist ideologues of terror, after conducting a cold-blooded doctrinal debate on the integration of decapitation in their “jihad” produced their judgment Thursday, October 10: Americans in Iraq, all foreigners, and their Iraqi collaborators fit “every Muslim religious and traditional criterion that permits their slaughter.” i.e. decapitation. The decree is divided into two long sections, each signed by a different group.

According to our experts, the first section addresses the questions and uncertainties stirred up in many parts of the Muslim world by the barbarous depictions of masked Muslim men snatching living human beings by the hair and slashing their throats with large knives. So monstrous are these images that even Arab TV stations are loath to air them.

The reluctant broadcasters are taken to task in this first section, accused of spurning “deeds sanctioned by Islam.”

Section two lays down the law: “The slaughter of infidels is compelled by religious precept and must be implemented in letter and spirit as determined by the Prophet Mohammed, who declared that decapitation is the most effective means of intimidation and deterrent against the enemy.”

Saturday, October 16, two days after publication of the two-part decree, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid Wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) announced the execution by beheading of 11 members of the Iraqi police and national guard. It was a form of Islamic salute to al Qaeda for coming around to Zarqawi’s norms of operation.

A few hours later, he took the critical step of vowing allegiance to Osama bin Laden as “the teacher of the generation.”

Zarqawi’s following in Iraq is under severe pressure from relentless US pummeling in Fallujah and in retreat from most of its Iraq bases. Yet inside bin Laden’s network, his path has triumphed. Al ! Qaeda’s parent body has bought his mode of operation as a tenet of its fundamentalist jihad doctrine, adopting his argument that to prevail in their holy war, adherents must abduct heretics and are bound to behead them.

The new al Qaeda decree represents a fresh policy twist for the entire network that portends stepped up brutality in its terrorist methods in Iraq and in countries where the group maintains active cells. Once the message is communicated to al Qaeda’s operatives everywhere, counter-terror experts foresee an upsurge in hostage-taking and decapitations spreading out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia and targeting Western civilians and anyone doing business, or maintaining military, personal or cultural relations with the West.

The first American victim to be slaughtered by al Qaeda was the Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in February 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan.

From April 2004, 22 have suffered his horrendous fate in Iraq.

Foreigners beheaded in Saudi Arabia: On May 29, Al Qaeda attacked foreign oil offices and installations in Khobar City and took hostages. An official news blackout was imposed and the number and names of the hostages taken and! murdered was never released. Sources estimate that 9 foreign employees were murdered by beheading after being identified as non-Muslims and separated from Muslim hostages. This group is believed to include one American, as well as Italian and Indian nationals.

Paul Johnson, American electronics engineer, was murdered June 2004 in Riyadh.

18 October: Al Qaeda experts report that the fundamentalist ideologues of terror, after conducting a cold-blooded doctrinal debate on the integration of decapitation in their “jihad” produced their judgment Thursday, October 10: Americans in Iraq, all foreigners, and their Iraqi collaborators fit “every Muslim religious and traditional criterion that permits their slaughter.” i.e. decapitation.

The decree is divided into two long sections, each signed by a different group.

According to our experts, the first section addresses the questions and uncertainties stirred up in many parts of the Muslim world by the barbarous depictions of masked Muslim men snatching living human beings by the hair and slashing their throats with large knives. So monstrous are these images that even Arab TV stations are loath to air them.

The reluctant broadcasters are taken to task in this first section, accused of spurning “deeds sanctioned by Islam.”

Section two lays down the law: “The slaughter of infidels is compelled by religious precept and must be implemented in letter and spirit as determined by the Prophet Mohammed, who declared that decapitation is the most effective means of intimidation and deterrent against the enemy.”

Saturday, October 16, two days after publication of the two-part decree, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid Wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) announced the execution by beheading of 11 members of the Iraqi police and national guard. It was a form of Islamic salute to al Qaeda for coming around to Zarqawi’s norms of operation.

A few hours later, he took the critical step of vowing allegiance to Osama bin Laden as “the teacher of the generation.”

Zarqawi’s following in Iraq is under severe pressure from relentless US pummeling in Fallujah and in retreat from most of its Iraq bases. Yet inside bin Laden’s network, his path has triumphed. Al ! Qaeda’s parent body has bought his mode of operation as a tenet of its fundamentalist jihad doctrine, adopting his argument that to prevail in their holy war, adherents must abduct heretics and are bound to behead them.

The new al Qaeda decree represents a fresh policy twist for the entire network that portends stepped up brutality in its terrorist methods in Iraq and in countries where the group maintains active cells. Once the message is communicated to al Qaeda’s operatives everywhere, counter-terror experts foresee an upsurge in hostage-taking and decapitations spreading out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia and targeting Western civilians and anyone doing business, or maintaining military, personal or cultural relations with the West.

The first American victim to be slaughtered by al Qaeda was the Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in February 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan.

From April 2004, 22 have suffered his horrendous fate in Iraq.

Foreigners beheaded in Saudi Arabia: On May 29, Al Qaeda attacked foreign oil offices and installations in Khobar City and took hostages. An official news blackout was imposed and the number and names of the hostages taken and! murdered was never released. Sources estimate that 9 foreign employees were murdered by beheading after being identified as non-Muslims and separated from Muslim hostages. This group is believed to include one American, as well as Italian and Indian nationals.

Paul Johnson, American electronics engineer, was murdered June 2004 in Riyadh.

Russian president Vladimir Putin never fully bought into the assumption that Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda carried out, alone and unaided, the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. In the two telephone conversations he held with President George W. Bush soon after, on September 13 and September 23, 2001, he put forward his conviction! that foreign intelligence services had taken a hand in the assaults. He also offered Russian military and intelligence assistance in the coming US invasion of Afghanistan.

Putin’s conviction rested partly on the Russian intelligence evaluation that doubted whether the hijackers who slammed the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon possessed the insider knowledge and expertise necessary for bypassing the US air defense codes protecting the airspace above the White House and the sprawling defense department complex.

This alone betrayed a helping hand by”International Terrorism”, said Putin.

The Russian leader revisited the theme in remarks he made Monday, October 18 in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

”I consider the activities of terrorists in Iraq are not aimed so much at coalition forces but more personally against President Bush,” Putin said. “International terrorism has set itself the goal of derailing President Bush’s election for a second term.”

Commentators swiftly seized upon the comment as a vote of support by Putin for Bush’s re-election bid. But seen in the context of his remarks three years ago, it is probable that the Russian president’s suggestion emanated from his longstanding belief in an international terror network which toppled New York’s twin towers and is now striving to abbreviate the Bush presidency.

Putin is consistent in viewing this force as a common and acutely dangerous enemy gunning for America and Russia alike. But since his post-9/11 telephone conversations with Bush, he rarely returns publicly to the theme. In late 2002, when he discussed terrorist threats with senior Russian military and intelligence officers in Moscow, it was noted that al Qaeda never again made use of the top-secret information on US air defense codes. Putin concluded from this omission that the fundamentalist group’s access to such top-secret data had been blocked by its provider.

On September 24, under the strain of the Beslan school hostage crisis, he stated: “International terrorism has indeed declared war on Russia. And I have already said that the aim was not just the destabilization, but the destruction of the Russian Federation.”

The plot as seen in the Kremlin hinges on a recurrent partnership of convenience between al Qaeda and certain intelligence entities. As a rule, al Qaeda and likeminded Muslim terrorist groups do not perceive themselves as part of any international terrorist movement. Their leaders also draw clear distinctions between their jihad and the causes of other terrorist groups.