A recent Al-Qaeda conference call involving 20 high level participants was reportedly "a complete waste of our time" due to loud typing, crying babies, barking dogs, and slamming doors. Nobody on the call apparently could figure out how to use the mute function, even though clear instructions had been sent out with the meeting notice. There were even reports of a heavy breather at one point.
According to Muhamed G., who opened the telephone bridge 5 minutes early, many of the callers were late. Several other issues caused problems. The PowerPoint presentation done by the bomb makers was well over the 10MB email limit, so it could not be sent out ahead of time. Static and echoes were also heard throughout the call.
A few participants appeared to wander away from their phones during the hour-long meeting. Ahmed El-H. was repeatedly asked, "Ahmed? Ahmed? Are you on mute? Did you get that action item?". All very unprofessional, most everyone agreed afterwards. Ahmed later claimed that he got a "customer call that I had to take".
Ali M., one of the late arrivals to the call, explained that a lower level Al-Qaeda recruiting meeting had been set for the same time in Outlook with "High Importance, Death to Infidels!"
