Journalism Is Dead: As Al Qaeda Magazine Goes Quiet, Intelligence Analysts Also Lose A Valuable Resource

Greg Miller at the Washington Post writes an interesting piece on why U.S. intelligence officials miss the al-Qaeda online magazine Inspire.

Al-Qaeda’s glossy online magazine, Inspire, hasn’t been seen since its creators were killed in a U.S. drone strike last fall, but the terrorist group’s loyalists aren’t the only ones lamenting its demise.

U.S. intelligence analysts miss the publication, too, at least to the extent that it provided a window into the thinking of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen-based group is known.

“It was something that helped us gain insight into the group,” said a U.S. defense official involved in tracking AQAP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The publication’s apparent demise is “an intelligence loss for us,” the official said.   

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/us-intelligence-analysts-miss-al-qaeda-magazine/2012/02/09/gIQAlwRp1Q_blog.html