Counterterrorism Blog

As of early this evening, ABC News and the Drudge Report are running a headline claiming that "al Qaeda operatives will post a new video on the Internet in the next 24 hours, calling for what one source said is 'jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.'" The ABC News report quotes FBI spokesman Richard Kolko as acknowledging that "there have been several reports that al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians."

For the record: there is no indication whatsoever that Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation is preparing to release anything in the next 24 hours. There has been no notification posted on the usual channels, there are no glitzy advertisements, and there is no credible electronic chatter, period. Rather, the intel community appears to have (once again) fallen victim to poorly researched open source news reporting. In recent days, several fringe media organizations have published stories about a video recording posted by anonymous Al-Qaida miscreants on extremist Internet chat forums. The video consisted of a remarkably amateurish mash-up of Discovery Channel documentaries, widely published sermons by radical clerics, and stolen propaganda footage. While it is perhaps true that the video offered subtle encouragement for nuclear attacks on the United States, it featured no original content and could have been clumsily strung together with little more than two VCRs. The video was meandering, boring, and difficult to follow--and it certainly was not the product of Al-Qaida.