Wannabe Pop Star

Usama bin Laden has released a new recording, urging Iraqis to boycott the upcoming election. When someone puts up an actual story about it, I'll link to it.

UPDATE: Fox News has the following blurb.

The Arabic-language satellite television channel al-Jazeera said Monday it had received a new audiotape in which Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden appeared to call on Iraqis to boycott the upcoming elections.

Al-Jazeera had not yet broadcast the audiotape, but said the voice proclaimed Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) as his deputy in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi, at one time seen as a potential rival to bin Laden for the leadership of the international jihad movement, declared his allegiance to the former Saudi citizen several months ago and renamed his Monotheism and Holy War group "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

My guess? Usama bin Laden is desperately trying to get people to pay attention to him, because he knows that he's grown increasingly irrelevant. Whether he realizes that we're winning in Iraq or not is up for debate; he's getting regular news from somewhere, though, and he's got some facility to transmit his voice. If I had to make a semi-educated guess, I'd say that he's in Iran. I could very well be wrong but the way he's been acting lately suggests to me that it's unlikely that he's still in Waziristan.

Every tape he releases, while not a propaganda victory for him, is a propaganda defeat for us. He's operationally useless, but strategically valuable, and he needs to be dragged out of whatever mud hut he's hiding in, and it should be broadcast live on international television.