Tuesday, October 12, 2010

New York Daily News:

Terror threat to restaurants as Al Qaeda calls for attacks on government workers in D.C.
BY James Gordon Meek

WASHINGTON - The terror group tied to the Ft. Hood killings and the Christmas Day undies airbomber urge wannabe American jihadis to open fire on crowded restaurants in the nation's capital to massacre U.S. government workers.

The advice appears in "Inspire," the latest issue of a slick propaganda publication by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama Bin Laden's franchise in Yemen.

"A random hit at a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C., at lunch hour might end up knocking out a few government employees," Yahya Ibrahim writes in the 74-page jihadi how-to magazine.

"Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention," Ibrahim added.

Other trash talk came from "Samir Khan," an American who came to AQAP from North Carolina, who produces the publication and wrote that he is "proud to be a traitor in America's eyes."

"This guy is bad news, and given the fact that he helps publish AQAP trash, he certainly spreads a lot of it around, too," said a senior U.S. official.

According to a copy of the magazine obtained by the SITE intelligence group, AQAP also urged those bent on murdering for Islam to use everything from pickup trucks to improvised pressure-cooker bombs to kill.

The trucks can be fashioned into "the ultimate mowing machine," with steel blades welded to the grill to "mow down the enemies of Allah" by running down Americans on crowded sidewalks "to achieve maximum carnage" in a "martyrdom operation."

"This method has not been used before," advises AQAP in its "Tips for our brothers in the U.S."

Ibrahim praised the killings of a dozen victims at the U.S. Army post in Texas allegedly committed by accused homegrown terrorist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was in contact with and inspired by U.S.-born AQAP cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

In 1993, Pakistani killer Mir Aimal Kasi opened fire on CIA employees at a stoplight, who were targeted because their cars were in a turn lane for the agency's Virginia headquarters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Related? Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America; Will America Notice? via GLORIA Center
This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don't fit their policies; and by experts, because they don't mesh with their preconceptions.

This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decisionmaker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people's lives in every Western country.

OK, cnough of a build-up? Well, it isn't exaggerated. So don't think the next sentence is an anticlimax. Here we go: The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has endorsed (Arabic) (English translation by MEMRI) anti-American Jihad and pretty much every element in the al-Qaida ideology book. Since the Brotherhood is the main opposition force in Egypt and Jordan as well as the most powerful group, both politically and religiously, in the Muslim communities of Europe and North America this is pretty serious stuff.

By the way, no one can argue that he merely represents old, tired policies of the distant past because the supreme guide who said these things was elected just a few months ago. His position reflects current thinking.

Does that mean the Egyptian, Jordanian, and all the camouflaged Muslim Brotherhood fronts in Europe and North America are going to launch terrorism as one of their affiliates, Hamas, has long done? No.

But it does mean that something awaited for decades has happened: the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to move from the era of propaganda and base-building to one of revolutionary action. At least, its hundreds of thousands of followers are being given that signal. Some of them will engage in terrorist violence as individuals or forming splinter groups; others will redouble their efforts to seize control of their countries and turn them into safe areas for terrorists and instruments for war on the West.

When the extreme and arguably marginal British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary says that Islam will conquer the West and raise its flag over the White House, that can be treated as wild rhetoric. His remark is getting lots of attention because he said it in English in an interview with CNN. Who cares what he says?

But when the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood says the same thing in Arabic, that's a program for action, a call to arms for hundreds of thousands of people, and a national security threat to every Western country.

The Brotherhood is the group that often dominates Muslim communities in the West and runs mosques. Its cadre control front groups that are often recognized by Western democratic governments and media as authoritative. Government officials in many countries meet with these groups, ask them to be advisers for counter-terrorist strategies and national policies, and even fund them.

President Barack Obama speaks about a conflict limited solely to al-Qaida. And if one is talking about the current military battle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen that point makes sense. Yet there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West. If it doesn't involve violence right now it will when they get strong enough or gain power.
. . .