Al Qaeda Threat a Prank. DRUDGE, ABC NEWS: Full of Fail

May 28th, 2008

That’s right. According to the counterterrorism blog:

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.

I win.