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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Marketing jihad: what goes well with explosions?

When the money flow begins to dry up, most successful enterprises use marketing and advertising to boost sales and increase market share.  Al-Qaeda needs a good P/R firm to bolster it's image and start the money again.  Maybe a mascot, say Ahmed, the Dead Terrorist.  How about a motto, something like "Islam; it's not your fathers religion anymore".  Maybe a new logo, on the lines of The old Sherwin-Williams paint logo where the earth is being covered with a rainbow of color, just change it to Islam green.  There are many possibilities for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, they just need to think outside the box.

It would not surprise me to find out some firm has taken up the challenge and is secretly putting together an ad campaign for AQI.  If successful would you post that as one of your successful clients?


From AP/Yahoo July 26 by Maamoun Youssef 

Al-Qaida in Iraq appeals for fundraising ideas


CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaida militants in Iraq made an online appeal Tuesday for new fundraising ideas, saying they are in dire need of money to help thousands of widows and children of slain fighters.
 
Insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq — an umbrella group for Sunni militants— have funded their operations in the past by robbing jewelry stores, banks and offices where the government pays out monthly salaries. But the group has seen its main source of money, funding from abroad, dry up, leaving the group strapped for cash.
 
In an Arabic statement posted on al-Qaida in Iraq's online forum, website administrator Seif Saad lamented the state of the group's finances and launched an urgent appeal for money to "feed the widows and the orphans" of mujahedeen, or holy warriors.
 
"A few days ago a brother was martyred, leaving behind a wife and children. There is no need to explain how we were running here and there to collect money for their minimum requirements of life," wrote Saad.
 
Among the new ideas to raise funds, Saad suggested insurgents find a way to extort money from foreign oil, construction, transport and cell phone companies, as well as international media agencies. If the companies refused to pay, insurgents would disrupt their operations. He did not elaborate.
 
He also said businessmen and wealthy families should be forced to pay annual zakat, or charity, which Islam stipulates should be roughly two percent of assets, and called for imposing fines on wealthy Shiites in Iraq "who receive aid from America and the West and steal the country's oil revenues."
 
Mohamed Abdel-Hadi, who identified himself online another administrator for the website, dismissed the idea of taking money from foreign companies, but said he strongly supports fining Shiites.
 
"All the Shiites, including merchants or government officials, are infidels and confiscating their money is part of jihad," he wrote.
 
Shi'ites are not the right kind of Muslims, thus their standing as infidels by the Sunni majority. 

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