If al Qaeda were a corporation today, it would be roughly equivalent to Microsoft: A big name but an aging brand, one now strikingly out of touch with the 18–35-year-old-demographic. The group made its way back into the headlines this past January, after its affiliate—al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP—took credit for a deadly attack on the Paris offices of the French magazine
Charlie Hebdo. But the claim of responsibility came a week after the fact, and lacked the sort of insider accounts or video footage that typically accompany such announcements, leading some to conclude that al Qaeda may not have known about the attackers’ intentions.
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