Polis Under Construction

Al Qaida is as media savy as ever.

Al-Qaida video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

Of course, part of the reason may be decreasing sympathetic coverage elsewhere. Al Jazeera has been partially muzzled by a deal between the Qatar and the Saudis.

The new policy is the latest chapter in a gradual domestication of Al Jazeera, once reviled by American officials as little more than a terrorist propaganda outlet. Al Jazeera’s broadcasts no longer routinely refer to Iraqi insurgents as the “resistance,” or victims of American firepower as “martyrs.”

Suddenly found this quote while paging through an intriguing flickr album.

I found him at a pro-Hezbollah rally in Paris. I asked if I could take a photograph of his interesting face. He tapped his ear, looked sideways, and then said I could take his picture even though “you have the blue eyes.”

I hadn’t realised that political issues surrounding Hezbollah had made such a leap to ethnicity.