← The Watch Floor with Sarah Adams
Loading summary
Transcript6 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the watch floor. I'm Sarah Adams. Before we dive in, I want you to think about something familiar. I want you to think about, like, those old grainy military films, you know, like the heroic music, the stories of brave men who came before us. Now, none of those were to teach you, like, tactics. They were to, like, evoke an emotion or a feeling in you. They were. So you ask the question, am I worthy of this? Do I measure up? Now set that aside for a moment and think of a terrorist group taking advantage of these same emotional triggers. That's exactly what we saw last month in a new terrorist video. You know, Al Qaeda in the Indo subcontinent. AQIS released a video. It was actually pretty short. It was only six minutes long. But buried in it was this 10 seconds that told us so much more about kind of their strategy and future plans than anything we've seen in years. Those 10 seconds were to really not message anything to us at all. It was to hit their supporters in the gut to say, you've gotten soft, you've drifted, you don't measure up, but you need to. Today in the watch floor, we're going to unpack this. We're going to talk about what's in those 10 seconds, why they matter, and what they're telling us about where AQIS is headed next. This is not just another propaganda video. It was really kind of like a window into how these modern and jihadist movements are going to target their next set of recruits. Thanks for being here. Before we jump into this propaganda video, I'm going to give you a quick backgrounder on aqis, because even in the national security circles I come from, there are plenty of people who don't know pretty much anything about aqs, why it formed, what its purpose is. So I'm just going to give you kind of the quick down and dirty. So AQAS was formed in 2014. We really found out about it because then Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri probably put out a 55 minute video just walking through the formation of the group. The purpose was actually very strategic. If you remember, at the time ISIS was surging in Iraq and Syria, they had massive recruitment drives and they were pulling recruits, as you can imagine, from South Asia, which really was one of Al Qaeda's strongholds. And Zawahiri was worried that the group was taking a little bit of prestige away from Al Qaeda. So he thought, hey, let me put this AQIS group together, will make it a little bit more of an umbrella organization. And Bring in a bunch of different fighters across South Asia. And so they focused on like different members within the Pakistani Taliban factions, Al Qaeda members who were based in Pakistan, Bangladeshi jihadist groups, like Indian operatives, you know, Afghan veterans who fought over the years with the Taliban and then foreign fighters who'd really already moved to the region and like put down RO and stayed there. The goal of the group was very, very simple. It was expand Al Qaeda's reach into Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. So pretty much all the countries in South Asia that are east of Afghanistan. So very simple. Today, the leader of AQIS is Sheikh Osama Mahmoud. Right. He's harbored in Afghanistan. He's actually an Indian national. He's been in Al Qaeda long before AQIS was form. He took over from the prior emir who in 2019 was killed in a joint US Afghan operation in Helmand. His name was Asim Umar. So the interesting thing with Mahmoud is he's not flashy in any way. He's really patient, he's disciplined. He relies on a lot of guidance from kind of like Al Qaeda senior leadership and he's really focused, focused on long term stability, indoctrination, growing the group. So you're not going to see them claiming a bunch of attacks. They really like to stay under the radar. Analysts misread this as dormancy, and that is not the case at all. They're actually in a very large training and recruitment stage because they have some massive plots coming up. And India, they're probably a year or so out, but they're very focused on that. And there is this problem where when we see terrorists go quiet, that means they're preparing. But a lot of people take this patience as them being gone or something, when it's actually really like a strategic silence. And I think that gets forgotten a lot now. Even just last summer in July, Indian authorities actually ended up resting for people who were part of aqis. Now, they weren't putting together some like, spectacular plot at the time. They were running like online recruitment efforts, Right. They were using Instagram and encrypted apps and they're pushing out jihadist propaganda. We sometimes forget a lot of this administrative stuff happens behind the scenes to bring in these recruits. You know, I mean, AQIS has probably about 6,000 members right now, you know, just inside of Afghanistan, for example. So this isn't really a small group. But they have been smart about their messaging and their tone and they've done a really good job of keeping the focus off of them. So let's Talk about this video. The video was released December 6, 2025 and it was titled From Dashti Layi to the Victory in Kabul, which is just simply a reference to the fall of Kabul in 2020. At face value, this just looks like your standard Al Qaeda memorial video. Okay, so you see like battlefield footage, you see like these old Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders that you've seen thousands of times. You hear poems about sacrifice, you see the different martyrs from US drone strikes in the region. And then you hear these like historic grievances of Al Qaeda. So it's almost like this recycled history. A lot of this footage has already been seen. It's got some nostalgia, some martyrdom, but it's really camouflage for what the video is actually doing. So again, this was six minutes and then there now is this 10 second reel just kind of like dropped in the middle of the video. And I'm going to roll it for you because I want you to see how Norma this is and how it's not about any sort of jihadist activities. So let's roll that. That's an interesting clip, isn't it? So we see for example, like you know, students walking at a university. That's a university, like in the central Punjab of Pakistan. It's actually in Lahore, right? Just a normal activ. Any college student. We actually then see the Saudis celebrating their 2022 FIFA World cup video over Argentina. We see people skiing at ski Dubai in the Mall of the Emirates. We see people riding the metro in Doha and then they travel over to kind of the World cup zone, you know, when it was held there. Very normal everyday activities. But at the bottom of the screen it reads, we were short sighted and we strayed from the path. So if you don't know what this is, this is an identity collapse. It is to evoke a reaction. Not a reaction from you and I, but from the followers of Al Qaeda. This is supposed to hit them in the gut, right? It's a psychological lever. You know, they want their followers to question their purpose but wonder, hey, is the way I'm living my life really aligning with my beliefs? Right? So Al Qaeda in this case isn't yelling like attack and fight to get you kind of back in the game. They're wanting you to focus a little bit on your own like self reflection, right? Like, am I where I'm supposed to be? So when you see simple things like the students walking at the university and that's you, it wants you to think, should you even be at the university? You're at this university, it has men and females, right? Are you really getting the Islamist teachings you need? Why aren't you just training and at a camp and learning the way of jihad, right? Then when you see the celebrations for FIFA, it's like, why are you watching these sports and spending your time on these type of things? There is a real mission out there that you need to be a part of. Ski doobie Dubai is its own issue, right? They're like, this is just pure absurdity. This is like some Western thing. You're skiing in a desert, right? They just want to show the foolishness of it. And then it's kind of the same, you know, in Doha with the World cup, it's like you are wasting your life on kind of following kind of these Western ideals and this Western thinking, and it's taking you away from the real cause. It. It's doing a few things psychologically, too. And I want to talk through them quick. So there's that contrast, right? You have kind of this everyday comfort versus all those martyrs you see, right? People who struggled for the cause. There's this guilt and shame, right? It's like the silent accusation. These fighters are dying and you're out cheering in a soccer stadium. Like, what are you doing? How can you enjoy life when others are dying for you? There's this internal tension, right? It's trying to put pressure on you. Like, okay, I know what my faith is, right? But what is my commitment to my faith? And then there's kind of the feeling of, hey, just give a recommitment oath. So Al Qaeda doesn't want to say, hey, you went off course, you were banned. They want to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you got off track. Let's take a step back, let's reflect. And then now get focused and come back to us and let's, you know, do this jihad together, right? Like, that life needs to be behind you and you need to move forward with us. So it's a very, very interesting way. They really throw this at you, but in such a small section. And a lot of people who really aren't in these jihadist circles aren't even gonna feel what. Of course, the terrorist sympathizers and the recruits and, you know, members of Al Qaeda feel when they see that montage. Now, this identity collapse and its reaction are very important. But of course, we don't all sit around and watch Al Qaeda propaganda all day long. And if you do, you really need to question your life choices. So I wanna show you how this works in the real world. Because we see this in a lot of places, right? We see it in politics, in corporate scandals, cults use this a lot. And then of course our nation state adversaries will use this against us. And it's really important to understand. I'm going to read a little simple definition so you understand it clear. Identity collapse happens when a group's core story about itself breaks. Instead of adjusting, learning or recalibrating, the response becomes emotional. Reality starts to feel threatening and the message shifts. You move away from explanation and toward self preservation. The interesting thing is when you can see this and understand it, propaganda isn't going to work well on you because you're going to be like, I see what's happening here. A really, really great example of when I saw this was if you remember, you know, Elizabeth Holmes, she was the CEO of Theranos. It started to come out and trickle out that she was really covering things up and it was actually a fraud. And then she had to kind of do the media circuit and go defend herself. And there's a really great scene, it's on CNBC's Mad Money where she comes on to discuss this. I'm gonna play it quick, so. Cuz I think it's really important for you to watch. So here we go.
- [13:43]
B
Elizabeth, I have to tell you, in all my years, I can't recall a private company that I have to. Candidly, many have never heard of getting this kind of attention and scrutiny. What do you think's going on here?
- [13:56]
C
This is what happens when you work to change things. And first they think you're crazy, then they fight you and then all of a sudden you change the world. And I have to say I personally was shocked to see that the Journal would publish something like this when we had sent them over a thousand pages of documentation demonstrating that the statements in their piece were false. But we're doing things differently and we're working to make a difference. And that means people raise questions and that's okay. But in this case, it was pretty disappointing to see that after every single one of the sources that we spoke with, who the Journal had contacted, told us that, that the statements that were being attributed to them were false or misleading. And the only sources who were left were ones who wouldn't speak with us, who on their own website say that they now do business with LabCorp in their office or in the other case demanded in writing that we pay them in cash upfront, $2,500 for an hour to talk to them about their statements to the Journal. Did the Journal know.
- [15:04]
B
Did the journal know everything that you just said before they wrote the article?
- [15:08]
C
Of course.
- [15:09]
A
See this, this is interesting, right? There's no real engagement between her and the host. She doesn't really talk about data in any measurable way. She doesn't discuss kind of accountability at all. She uses vague language to reference kind of the concrete answers of what's happening. You know, she focuses on her ideals, her vision, you know, that they're going to lead to results. Right. It was really the piece of her innov that's collapsed, right? And now she's having to like defend it. And she's using kind of emotional framing in this case. And then she gets accusatory saying, I can't even believe the press would put something out like this. So it's a very interesting thing to watch because it is exactly an identity collapse. Now it's being done very different than Al Qaeda's doing it. But, you know, she's doing this intentional and it's very smart. And, and it was actually even aired in the court case against her to show, hey, this woman knows what she's doing and she's in charge and she really was in control of these narratives. So I just wanted you to see that's very important. Now let's just jump back in really quickly to the AQIS video. There is still five more minutes of content. We're not going to talk through each piece of it, but I do want to highlight some interesting things we saw in it. So of course there's a section on martyrs like we talked about. And you see the standard martyr. You see Abu Yaqu Libi, who we spend a lot of time talking about. Right, because that's the terrorist after he was killed. That led to Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri deciding to do a plot in Benghazi against the US Ambassador. You see Abu Laith Al Libi, you see Muladhaduta Lang, you see a clip of Mullah Omar, et cetera. The interesting thing though is there is a clip of what I would call second generation fighters. Okay? So these aren't like senior commanders. So everyone else I already named is kind of like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You know, in Al Qaeda or in the Taliban, these other individuals are like, you know, in their 20s and their 30s and they were on the battlefield and they fought dying. It's an interesting thing AQIS is doing here. It's saying, hey, now that you're recalibrating and getting back to the cause, right? You need a role model now. Your Role model can be the old historic figures, right? If your role model is Mula Dadula Lang, great good news, right? But now his son could be your role model. I mean, his son is actually very involved right now in Al Qaeda. He's one of the key leaders in Al Qaeda's Afghanistan branch. He's working on US Homeland plotting, right? This second generation of terrorists have a say. They're going to be great leaders, and they are going to build this new legacy. Do you want to step up and be a part of it? And if you want to be a part of it and need martyrs to follow, here's a list of terrorists in recent years who died on the battlefield in honor of Al Qaeda, but they weren't like number two of the organization. So I thought that was a very, very smart move by aqis. The other thing that's really fascinating is they talk about Dash Di Lai, right, Because it's in the title. And then Kali Giangi, right? That's very famous here in the United States because it's unfortunately where we lost, you know, CIA officer, you know, Johnny Michael Spann. But the terrorists evoke it for a very different reason. So at the time, this prison had, like, thousands of Taliban terrorists in it, but it wasn't really set to hold them. So unfortunately, it was run by, you know, General Dostum at the time. And it was decided, hey, these prisoners need to be moved, you know, for everybody's safety. It's overcrowded by the prisoners and also because they can kind of like, get together and potentially attack us, like what happened, you know, with Span, you know, we can't have this rest. So we need to move the terrorists in this prison to different detention facilities. Unfortunately, they move them basically in kind of like, metal shipping containers, and there is massive deaths during these transports. So they're saying somewhere between 1500 and 3000 died. So the thing you have in this case is it ended up being mass graves. This is a very emotional trigger, as you can imagine, for these terrorist groups, because they're like, well, they didn't die in the battlefield. They kind of suffered. And they view the west and their enemies as having caused this. And we have to pay attention when they're telling their fighters about this because they really want revenge for these type of things, right? There's a psychological impact that occurs. And so I want to make that very clear that they want to really make their supporters get recommitted to the cause. They want to frame the way they're living their life as some sort of betrayal to the cause. And they really want to reset the thinking of their audience psychologically. There are sometimes terrorist videos put out to message us or to tell us something or to threaten us. But this video is very interesting because that's not what it's focused on at all. It's basically saying, hey, AQIS is moving into its next phase. It's next phase requires a lot of commitment and a lot of recruits. Right? Are you going to step up and be one of those recruits? We want supporters and we want followers who feel morally obligated to this cause. And then we want people who will step up, come to the battlefield, honor those martyrs before them, and take part in operations. And as I said previously, they're recruiting right now for operations in India. So that's where they want you to be committed to take an attack. And then as you've seen in the video, they really want to kind of show that commitment as well. Like, hey, we're not just AQIs. We're also aligned with core central Al Qaeda, right? And that's why we showed you those martyrs. And we're definitely still aligned with the Taliban, who houses us and financially supports us and gives us a safe haven. And that's why, you know, we highlighted, of course, their sacrifices and the commanders they lost as well. So the interesting part is AQIS is also saying one thing to us. We're not paused, we're moving forward. But what we're focused on is getting this next generation to fight. And I think that gets lost a lot of times that, hey, the first generation is now over. So how the terrorists view a generation is about 25 years, 9, 11 was 25 years ago. So now we started this second generation. And the second generation is getting extremely excited. It's not the best word, but they feel operationally ready and they feel this is our time and this is our turn and get us ready because we want to take on this mantle and give it to the enemy. Right. In this case, the enemy is primarily focused on India. There'll be pieces on Pakistan and other places, of course, parts, you know, up in Bangladesh. But obviously the main enemy of them is us, the United States, as we close today on the watch floor. Remember, this terrorist propaganda isn't only words or videos. They try to craft like an engineered experience for their followers. Right. Those, those 10 seconds really invoked kind of this thought about a sense of self. It opened others up to influence and it potentially made others willing to act. You know, as we watch from home, we have to remember that this enemy is their patient, they're strategic, but that they also do these psychological operations. You know, a lot of people think of like, CIA is doing them or Russia is doing them, but I even showed you like a businesswoman doing them. Right. We talked about how politicians will do cult leaders. So this is something that's occurring every day, and people miss it because it's sometimes, like, small moments or subtle messaging or it's just a way you can easily get people to question themselves or their beliefs. So we'll keep tracking all these different signals, you know, talk about the different terrorist messaging being put out, and then show you what this next next phase, if, you know, jihadist propaganda looks like. And as always, thank you for being here on the watch floor.