Car Bomb Cartoon: al-Qaida, the Animated Series

[Feuer Frei!]

Saturday morning just got real, kids. A jihadi forum member claims he’s prepping a new cartoon about al-Qaida just for the little ones. G.I. Joe, meet G.I. Jihadi.
The news comes via Jihadica, the gold standard in militant studies. On Monday, Jihadica’s editor Will McCants noticed that a user on the elite terrorist forum Shumukh, had posted teaser art for a forthcoming al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula-themed cartoon.
The work was first posted on Sunday by a user named ”Abu al-Layth al-Yammani,” according to McCants, who translated the artwork and forum discussion for Danger Room. The project is aimed at making kid-friendly jihadi propaganda that can serve as an alternative to secular children’s programming — kind of like a grittier, much more disturbing version of Veggie Tales or Davey and Goliath. Yammani says it will be “missionary work for us to raise our children and youth in the blessed life in the shade of the sharia of Islam, rather than what is being transmitted to our children and youth on the poisonous channels.”

So buckle up. Action and tales of daring-do await you with the al-Qaida Super Friends. Yammani promises that it tells an “exciting story and clarifies truths like the weakness of some in their religion, defending the Prophet, the collaboration of rulers with the West, and other Islamic matters.” If the animated depiction of al-Qaida’s geopolitical narrative hasn’t gotten your adrenaline pumping already, then the “operations surrounding real events among the heroic deeds of the mujahids in the Peninsula of Muhammad, including incursions, clashes, and assassinations” should have you glued to the screen. Take that, Thundercats!


Yammani says he’s putting the “final touches” on the cartoon. One thing that might have to get fixed in post-production: the characters glowing red eyes.. McCants notes that fellow posters in Shumukh have said the demon glare of the mujahideen might scare kids a bit too much.
Just who’s behind the cartoon production is a little hard to say. Yammani has labeled it a project by the “helpers of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” which sounds a bit like fan art project. McCants says Yammani announced plans to submit the cartoon to al-Malahim, AQAP’s media arm, and religious scholars, to get official sanction and theological approval for the cartoon. The snapshots posted Sunday bear the al-Malahim logo.
AQAP has experimented a tiny bit with animation before. In 2009, the group released a video, “Grandson of Muhammad bin Maslamah,” that contained a short computer animated recreation of its assassination attempt against Saudi Arabia’s deputy interior minister, Muhammad bin Nayef. The animation was pretty crude and stiff, though — not at all like the anime-style toons that Yammani’s post previews.
The cartoon may not be entirely original, though given al-Qaida fanboys’ penchant for mashups, says McCants. “For example, jihadis have claimed to make video games before and then it turned out to be some creative photoshopping or mods of existing games.”


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