Human Resources

Al Qaeda Has Expense Reports

Memos reveal frustration with “most difficult employee.”

Apparently the inner workings of Al Qaeda are a lot like the movie Office Space. The Associated Press dug through a trove of memos (yes, al Qaeda has memos) about the terror network’s North African wing’s “most difficult employee”: he never filed expense reports on time, didn’t answer phone calls, ignored meetings, and did not undertake any spectacular operations. Pointing out that despite being given "a considerable amount of money," Moktar Belmoktar had yet to buy any weapons, the al Qaeda chapter asked, "So whose performance deserves to be called poor in this case, I wonder?" Belmoktar then carried out every disgruntled employee’s dream: he quit and went out on his own and achieved infamy. Here is where things get deadly serious: Belmoktar is credited with killing 101 people in operations that include the takeover of a BP gas plant in Algeria and bombings just last week at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger.