Zawahiri- Bin Laden “Tender and Kind When Not Killing Thousands”

New Al-Quaeda leader Ayman Al- Zawahiri has released a video claiming that his predecessor was a “kind and sensitive man”, a fact so often overshadowed by his being responsible for large scale airplane-based murder. Also a whole mess of suicide bombings.

The video, entitled Days with the Imam: Part One sees the terrorist leader extol the virtues of the misunderstood Bin Laden. Zawahiri claims that he created the video to show Bin Laden’s human side in what appears to be one of Al Quaeda’s first attempts at PR, an area many argue they have very little feel for.

“He was a sensitive man, a loyal man and (unless you were an infidel or your death could conceivably aid the demolition of western culture) he almost never murdered anyone he was truly friends with.” Claims Zawahiri.

Osama Bin Laden: “Just a really genuine, lovely dude.”

“Maybe his biggest fault was when he instructed those zealots to fly planes into towers. Sure. Or maybe- just maybe- his biggest fault was caring too much.”

“He was a beautiful dancer too. He could move with a lithe grace combined with a feral sensuality. He was a gifted organist and played a masterful game of Buckaroo. He had soulful eyes and animals were simply put at ease with his presence. When the mood took him, he had a beautiful singing voice, deep and oaky, with a plaintive quality ideal for the celtic ballads he would pen late at night when he wasn’t dreaming up some new way of delivering a dirty bomb into the U.S to kill as many indiscriminate people as he possibly could. He was a workaholic. He was an enthusiastic watercolour painter. He was many things. But I suppose he will chiefly be remembered for one thing. Well what kind of terrorist leader would I be if I let people speak ill of the dead? A sub-par one.”

The video seems to have had mixed success. Many people that we interviewed simply refused to accept the premise, let alone watch the video, but others did eventually heed al-Zawahiri’s words. Mike Fisher, a New York based firefighter who was initially verbally aggressive on the subject of the controversial Bin Laden says that the video made him re-evaluate the man he knew entirely through the deaths of his colleagues. “What a beautiful soul, “ he said through tears, “that bit where Zawahiri’s family are murdered and Bin Laden hugs him? That really lifts the lid, y’know? You can see how after witnessing bloodshed like that, you’d want to make thousands of people die in a fire because they live in another country. I know next September eleventh I’ll be mourning the dead. One noble dead man in particular”

Bin Laden was also reportedly kind to children and dedicated to their education, an advocate of sharia law, he thought that all homosexuals should be killed. He was an excellent cook. He had a knack for organization.

Though Bin Laden was and is, at best,a divisive figure, the re-evaluation of notorious criminals is not uncommon. Several years ago memoir of Peter Sutcliffe was published that stressed his flair for interior design instead of all those dead women. It is thought that while the people of Iraq do not miss the dictatorial style of Saddam Hussein, they do look back fondly on his dapper dress sense and photogenic nature.

In the wake of the terrorist leader’s stirring tribute to his dead friend a petition is being organised to have a grave, or some mark of respect laid at Ground Zero. “It’s what he would have wanted” insists Fisher. The request is for a simple black tombstone with only, Bin Laden’s name and the epitaph “We hardly knew ye.”

Felix Prenderghast,

Senior Features Correspondent