A day after the kidnappers of BBC journalist Alan Johnston released their video plea to what is effectively Hamas's military wing - the Izzeldin al Qassam brigades - the PR campaign continues.

First off was an interview in the Sada al Jihad online magazine with Mumtaz Dagmoush.

Dagmoush is from the infamous Gazan Dagmoush clan who had previously been suspected of being behind the hostage taking as part of a long running vendetta between the clan and Hamas.

In the interview Dagmoush acknowledges his involvement but he claims to be a involved in his capacity as a field commander for the Army of Islam- not as a Clan leader.

His comments in the interview are very much in keeping with the tone of the video posted on internet sites yesterday - an attempt to "out-Islam" Hamas.

He reiterated the Army's demands that Muslim prisoners in British jails be released and reiterated their clam that the hostage taking was Islamicaly sound "in keeping with the legacy of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)".

Dagmoush seemed to be using the interview - which claimed to "ask all the embarrassing questions you want to know the answers to" - as an opportunity to deny the accusations of criminality that dog his clan.

He even went a step further and announced a global call to Jihad for Muslims to support the Army of Islam's work, while taking care to press all the Jihadist buttons by announcing a scourge on Shia "rejecters", denying Iranian backing and paying tribute to Osama Bin Ladin and Musab Al Zarqawi.

So far so Jihadi but what is interesting is that their PR campaign seems to be two fold, while the Sada Al Jihad interview was building the Army of Islam up, postings on Jihadi websites were tearing Alan Johnston down.

Titled "The truth about Alan Johnston provokes questions about those who seek his release" the posting featured links to Johnston stories that the posters claimed proved he was on "the side of the enemy" in one instance accusing him of "adopting the Israeli army statement on the killing of innocents".

On the one hand this PR blitz encourages a sense that the Army of Islam is clearly feeling cornered but the level of debate this is engendering on the pro-jihad forums raises fears that with the Army of Islam piously positioning themselves as the only true Muslim stance in this, Hamas's faithful may start to question their leaders motives.

And with the movement so isolated internationally will there come a point when fear of losing home ground becomes a more pressing concern?