Ayman Al-Zawahiri Quotes

For governments at war, the media is an instrument of war or an element in war that is to be controlled.

We studied Western journalists' reporting methods, fed them story ideas, steered them toward sympathetic interviewees, and supplied them with the revolutionary movement's facts and figures.

Osama bin Laden is a better propagandist than Karen Hughes …. It is not enough to win a war on the ground any more. You have to win the battle of perceptions.

The military has been determined to control the images of war since Vietnam. They're convinced that they lost the war because of loss of political support back home, because people saw what was going on.

We're in a world of propaganda. Some of it is all to effective.

Al Qaeda is very media-savvy and very focused on what goes on in the global media.

All governments in all wars have used all the means at their disposal to put their own motives, decisions and actions, and the actions of their military forces, in the best possible light.

The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media.

The key battleground in the war on terrorism, therefore, is in the minds of the American public.

The presentation of an issue can no longer be controlled.

… losing hearts and minds can mean losing a war …

The media can be a megaphone for terrorists to communicate their message. The media should put things in perspective and context and not instinctively do what the terrorists want the media to do.

Public opinion wins war. I have always considered as quasi-staff officers, correspondents accredited to my headquarters.

I avoid continuously writing or tweeting about ISIS, as it centres them in the narrative and we end up reacting to them and reacting to the agenda they set.

I'm not for one second condoning the actions of terrorists at all, but I do think there's a kind of terrorism that the media carries out on its own citizens, certainly in this country - and it's fear.

In order to win the war on terrorism, we have to win the war of information. Information is so very, very valuable. This is an important tool in gathering up information.

If you believe that this war will be decided on the home front, then you must believe that radio used as an instrument of war is one of the most powerful weapons a nation possesses.

People see whatever the media first reports.

A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system.

An information operations team was sent to Afghanistan to conduct various psychological operations on the Afghans and Taliban. The team was then asked not to focus on the Taliban but on manipulating senators into giving more funds and troops [to the war].

In a sense, terrorism blossomed in the advent of television. Television promotes terrorism in religion and in politics.

Which suggests something about media and war: it's not just that events happen and the media documents and presents them. There is a third element: what the public is ready to accept, what the public wants to know.

For an event that was wholly created in the poisonous psychological warfare kitchens of the Second World War, run by the ministries of propaganda in many countries, not just by the British or the Americans, but also the Russians and undoubtedly the world Jewish organizations.

The battle against terrorism is not only a military fight but primarily a battle of information.

I think sometimes we underestimate just how vulnerable Israel is on the public-relations front. That's why they spend so much money on propaganda. And that's why they panic every time they feel like they're losing the propaganda war.