Thaindian News

London, June 24 (IANS) Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden wanted to change the name of the organisation because the West was winning the public relations fight, a media report said Friday.

He was concerned that the group was killing too many Muslims, and all his old comrades were dead and he barely knew their replacements, The Telegraph said.

Osama believed Al Qaeda lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims that they are in a holy war with the US.

As Osama saw it, the problem was that the group’s full name, Al Qaeda al-Jihad, for The Base of Holy War, had become short-handed as simply Al Qaeda, the daily said. Lopping off the word “jihad” allowed the West to “claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam”, Osama wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, the report said.

The letter, which was undated, was discovered among Osama’s recent writings, it said. US Navy Seals stormed his compound and killed him May 2 before any name change could be made.

The letter was described by senior administration, national security and other US officials only on condition of anonymity because the materials are sensitive, the daily said.

The documents portray Osama as a terrorist chief executive, struggling to sell holy war for a company in crisis, it said. Bin Laden wrote his musings about renaming Al Qaeda as a letter but, as with many of his writings, the recipient was not identified.

Intelligence officials have determined that Osama only communicated with his most senior commanders, including his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and his No.3, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, according to one US official.

Because of the courier system Osama used, it’s unclear to US intelligence whether the letter ever was sent, the daily said.