New Photos of KSM

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is known to Americans as a) the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and b) the terrorist with the extremely hairy shoulders in this photo. That photo was taken during his capture in March 2003 and is so unattractive that it presented a bit of a problem to other jihadists who want to glorify him. Now, al Qaeda researcher Jarret Brachman has uncovered a new photo of KSM circulating among the jihadists in which he is virtually unrecognizable—wearing a red turban and a flowing white robe. Brachman points out that this means al Qaeda is likely gearing up to glorify KSM: “Al Qaeda has a new brand, and it came from the bottom-up. This was, in my read, a grassroots, self-organizing campaign for al Qaeda to put KSM back on the map, to add him back into the Founding Myth.”