Fall of Rome
An Islamist magazine from Algeria, Al-Jama'a, proposing a list of targets for Islamic attack, includes a number we are familiar with because they outline the Islamic empire at its greatest extent - places which Muslim thought can plausibly identify as already "given" to Islam and due to be retaken: Constantinople, Andalus, Tours (the "Pavement of the Martyrs"), Vienna. Rome, however, has never been taken (nor even approached, as was Vienna) by Islamic forces, and its presence here therefore begs the question: why is it listed?
The answer, I'd suggest, is to be found in the hadith or tradition of the prophet quoted in the second "bead" of this doublequote: the fall of Rome has been promised to the believers by their Prophet, as an event which will take place before the returning Christ's war against the Dajjal (the Islamic Antichrist).
This in turn raises the broader issue of Tradition and Strategy, or the degree to which intelligence aanalysts are reading the hadith of the Prophet with an eye towards their possible strategic interpretation. In an analytic piece that I am currently putting together, I hope to show that predictions of the Mahdi's activities may be of importance in understanding bin Laden's strategic objectives.
It is worth mention that in the interpretation of apocalyptic texts, place names are sometimes used in a purely symbolic manner, as when Martin Luther remarks "The papacy is indeed nothing but the kingdom of Babylon and of the true Antichrist" -- associating Babylon (as named in the Book of Revelation) with Rome.