Osama bin Laden, in a letter recovered from his compound in Pakistan, wrote that the name al-Qaeda lacked a religious element, something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America. He considered using Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad, meaning Monotheism and Jihad Group. Another candidate was Jama'at I'Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida, meaning Restoration of the Caliphate Group.Bin Laden was unhappy that the group's full name, al-Qaida al-Jihad, for The Base of Holy War, had become known simply as al-Qaida. Removing the word "jihad," bin Laden wrote, allowed the West to "claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam." The letter, which was undated, was discovered among bin Laden's final writings.
At the White House, the documents were taken as reinforcement for Obama's effort to eliminate religiously inspired words from the government's language of terrorism. "The information that we recovered from bin Laden's compound shows al-Qaida under enormous strain," Obama said Wednesday in his withdrawal from Afghanistan speech, "Bin Laden expressed concern that al-Qaida had been unable to effectively replace senior terrorists that had been killed and that al-Qaida has failed in its effort to portray America as a nation at war with Islam, thereby draining more widespread support."
In a letter sent to Zawahri within the past year, bin Laden said al-Qaida's image had been damaged because of attacks that have killed Muslims, particularly in Iraq. In other writings, bin Laden wrote that he was frustrated that so many of his trusted longtime comrades had been killed or captured.
Using his couriers, bin Laden could still exercise some control over al-Qaida. But increasingly the men he was directing were younger and inexperienced. Often, the generals who had vouched for these young jihadis were dead or in prison. And bin Laden, stuck in his walled compound, was annoyed that he did not know so many people in his own organization.