From MEMRI:
Statements made by bin Laden in an October 2007 audio recording provide further evidence that the notion of infallibility has taken root among the jihadis. Bin Laden condemns this new trend, saying:
I [address] the jihad fighters [in Iraq] in order to oppose the growing [tendency] that has appeared among them, [namely the tendency] to assign great weight to the orders of the group and its commanders, to the extent that some of them have come to regard these orders as [representing absolute] truth. In practice, they regard [these orders] as infallible, even though they believe, in theory, that infallibility is a virtue that only Allah’s Messenger possesses. A person [who holds such a view] becomes a fanatical [follower] of his group and its commanders, instead of obeying a Koranic verse or a hadith from the Sunna of Allah’s Messenger.
http://memri.org/ftp/publicdocs/InfalliableJihadists_final.pdf, p. 9.
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Note that this is in effect a call for religious obedience, which is promoted as more significant than [military] obedience to the orders of a superior officer.
Theocratic command and control.
