Osama bin Laden provides the West the very countermessages necessary to discredit the leadership’s sense of righteousness and legitimacy and dissuade potential recruits from joining. Following the anger and misery he brought to Africa and the West through his brutal, indiscriminate, purposeless terrorism through 9/11, bin Laden ended up declaring war on the rest of the world, including and especially on Muslims: on Shia in Iraq in 2005, then on Muslims he considered apostates in 2006, then on fellow Sunnis who cooperated with the new Iraqi government in 2007.
Al Qaeda at first afforded noncombatants immunity; today, not only are noncombatants (including Muslims) targeted, but bin Laden’s narrative — that the West is at war with Islam — has been flipped on its head. Al Qaeda is at war with Muslims and the world.
