The growing politicization of aspects of al-Qaeda?s communiqu?s and global terrorist agenda suggests a worrying shift in al-Qaeda?s strategic approach and may indicate that its leadership is attempting to entrench the network and its Islamic extremist philosophies more fully within the global security arena and the global political milieu as a militant religious-political movement.

As has been noted in these pages over the past year, and most recently on November 17, 2004 (WAR Report):