Bin Laden Planned al Qaeda Name Change to Combat Image Problems

Oh well. That double-tap he got left these plans permanently on hold. Rumor has it he wanted to the change the name al Qaeda to The Democratic Party, but that might have caused a lot of confusion on the left.

As Osama bin Laden watched his terrorist organisation get picked apart, he lamented in his final writings that Al Qaeda was getting a bad reputation and needed a name change.

His group was killing too many Muslims and the West was winning the public relations fight.

Faced with this challenge, Bin Laden, who hated the United States and decried capitalism, considered a very American business strategy.

Like Blackwater, ValuJet and Philip Morris, Al Qaeda would start afresh under a new name.

The problem with the name Al Qaeda, he wrote in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, was that it lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.