I'd like to see the entire message translated, but here are some thoughts:
1) Does anybody really care if we capture this guy dead or alive? People are problaby torn on this since capturing him and holding him prisoner, getting info from him would be nice. He likes the sound of his own voice so he'd be the kind of guy that would say a lot of things he thought would be confusing or lecturing, but would end up giving up info.
2) He offers a long term truce? He's not a state or nation. We wouldn't dane to recognize him as anyone legitmate to negotiate with so that's out. Why would we or he need a long term truce? I can only think of a few reasons. He's stuck in a corner and needs time to coordinate. He sees that his group has been damaged by the stupid mistakes of arbitrarily killing people of their own faith and would like to be able to back off and repair the damage, regain some of the lost support. He's worried about the continuing unrest in Iraq and the region has given his rival Islamist the Shia's an in to become the new, legitimate leaders of the pan Islamist movement, with a state, an army, money and assets. Something he doesn't have and is considerable behind in regards to creating his Sunni version. His continuing actions and our following him is giving Iran the possibility of hegemony over the region, even Saudi Arabia.
Frankly, I'd rather he just died. Martyrdom or not, as long as we got his body and put it on display. Then everyone would know that the Robinhood of the ME was dead and not a legend that could go on forever.Bin Laden Vows Never to Be Captured Alive - Yahoo! News
Also, recommend this site, the Feb 8 comment seems to be urging people to come join the cause. Pretty much a basic recruiting statement, hawking "success" of AQ in Iraq and telling people to come join them. I don't know how often these statements appear. If it was regular, then this would be nothing really except propaganda and recruiting. If this isn't a normal statement, or the statements aren't usually that direct, then I'd say they feel the need to be more direct because recruitment has fallen off which might account for the fewer VBIED/suicide bombings we've seen lately.
Check out the Jan 9 statement which seems to be lecturing people that they are either a Muslim who will commit to fighting or totally supporting jihad, without reservations or doubts, or you are with the "others" whom the comment says are the "Jews", re-enforcing the idea that America and the rest of the world is under the control of the Zionists.
The Path to a Better Syria
2 days ago
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