Bin Laden: Conquer Jordan after Iraq, or something

Osama bin Laden may still be alive, but he’s living in another world.  Adolf Hitler spent his final days moving phantom armies around a map in his bunker.  Likewise, bin Laden has sent a message to his nearly nonexistent terrorist bands in western Iraq to finish up their conquest, because he has another mission for them:

Bin Laden called on faithful Muslims to support militants in Iraq and said that country should be used as a departure point for attacks on Israel. He suggested fighters use a route from Iraq through Jordan and into the West Bank.

He said supporting fighters in Iraq was a “rare and precious chance” for ultimately taking control of Jerusalem. After taking control of Iraq, he said, fighters should then head to neighboring Jordan.

“Jordan … is the best and widest front, and from Jordan the second launching will be toward the West Bank and the borders will be forcibly opened,” he said.

Right now, those conquering forces have found themselves cornered in Mosul.  They’re not wiped out yet, and they still cause damage, but they’re on the endangered-species list.  Iraqis not only have rejected the bloodthirsty lunatics of AQI, they have rejected religious extremism in politics as a whole.  Islamist parties suffered across-the-board setbacks in provincial elections, and even the Dawa party has now de-emphasized its Islamic roots in favor of a more secular approach.

The choice of Jordan as the next “conquest” for nonexistent AQI forces is only a mild surprise.  I’d have expected Egypt, Ayman al-Zawahiri’s country of origin and a nation where the Muslim Brotherhood has a much stronger presence.  Jordan has a somewhat closer relationship with Israel, though, and borders western Iraq.   If Osama actually did have an army, that would make at least some logistical sense.

Otherwise, bin Laden’s message was mostly unremarkable.  He doesn’t appear to have much to say about the United States in this missive, which seems a little surprising, but the entire message may not have been released yet.  He also calls the deaths of 1300 Palestinians in Gaza, in a conflict they provoked with Israel, a “holocaust”, attempting to hijack a little of Israel’s moral authority on genocides.  What, then, does he consider the murder of 3,000 civilians in New York and Washington DC?  Oh, wait, I forgot … it’s only a holocaust if no infidels get killed.

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