Al-Qaida pondered name change: ‘Rescue and Revitalization of the Nation Group'?

— -- In the horrifying aftermath of a spectacular terrorist attack, a bearded jihadist appears on a grainy video message to claim credit on behalf of ... "The Rescue and Revitalization of the Nation Group"? According to a letter seized at Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound one year ago and made public Thursday, that was one of the possible options if his al-Qaida network changed its name.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, which published the letter among 17 documents seized in the May 2011 raid, said the author of the letter was unclear. But President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser at the White House, John Brennan, said in a speech Monday that it was bin Laden himself who pondered a name change away from al-Qaida, the Arabic term for "The Base."

"This name reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them, and allows the enemies to claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam and Muslims, but they are at war with the organization of al- Qa?ida, which is an outside entity from the teachings of Islam and this is what was raised repeatedly in the past as indicated by Obama, that our war is not on Islam or on the Muslim people but rather our war is on the al-Qa?ida organization, so if the word al-Qa?ida was derived from or had strong ties to the word Islam or Muslims; or if it had the name Islamic party, it would be difficult for Obama to say that," the letter's author writes.

"It is clear from the past also that they (the enemies) have largely stopped using the phrase 'the war on terror' in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims, because they felt that saying the war on terror could appear to most people to be a war on Islam, especially after they unjustly spilled the blood of innocent Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan," the author says.

The writer then proposes a few alternative names: - Monotheism and Jihad Group

- Monotheism and Defending Islam Group

- Restoration of the Caliphate Group

- Support of Islam and al-Aqsa Group

- Muslim Unity Group

-  Jihad Organization for Unification and Rescue of the Nation

- Jihad Organization to Liberate al-Aqsa and Unify the Nation

- Islamic Nation Unification Party

- Al-Aqsa Liberation Group

- Rescue and Revitalization of the Nation Group

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