Read al Qaeda Inspire Magazine 5

Click Here to Safely Access the Unredacted Magazine:

March 2011 Inspire Magazine

More analysis forthcoming, but a few items of interest:

"Terrorizing the enemies is a religious duty, and assassinating their leaders is a Prophetic tradition"

Call to individual Jihad:


Abu Mus’ab as-Suri starts discussing the practical steps of partaking in the individual jihad:
“The Islamic Nation is vast and so are the arenas in which targets and interests of the invader enemy are present. It is furthermore impossible for all the youth who want to participate in the Resistance to travel to
the arenas of [open] confrontation. It is even unlikely that such Fronts should emerge in the foreseeable future. Hence, our method should therefore be to guide the Muslim who wants to participate and resist,
to operate where he is, or where he is able to be present in a natural way. We should advise him to pursue his everyday life in a natural way, and to pursue jihad and Resistance in secrecy and alone, or with
a small cell of trustworthy people, who form an independent unit for Resistance and for the individual jihad.”

Speaking at GovSec 29 Mar/1000

Session DI-2,  Homegrown Terrorism and the Lone Wolf

Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Halls B and C
801 Mount Vernon Place NW
Washington DC 20001

Metro stop is Mt Vernon Place, there are 5 parking garages within several blocks.

My session is in Hall C, Theater 4.  Hope to see you there!

AQAP Set to Strike?

According to the National Security Council, al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, is "the most active AQ franchise." Unfortunately, growing instability in Yemen is interfering with U.S. intelligence efforts to monitor the group and gather information about a possible upcoming attack.

Yemen, the ancestral home land of Osama bin Laden, has been associated with al Qaeda since its official formation 22 years ago.  The AQ attack on the USS Cole in a Yemen Harbor in 2000 was the first indication that a branch of AQ was active in the area.  AQAP next carried out attacks in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in 2004 and 2005, before turning its attention to the United States.

Present day AQAP is led by Said Ali al-Shihri and Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaysh, both former Guantanamo Bay detainees, which the U.S. released to the Saudi deradicalization program. Unfortunately, they both escaped this program, made their way to Yemen, and joined 2 other escapees, Naser al-Wuhayshi and Qassim al-Raimi who fled from Yemen jails. Together, these 4 terrorists built AQAP into a formidable, transnational enterprise. 

AQAP has already had one successful attack in the U.S.  American citizen Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe, a Muslim convert who spent time in Yemen training with AQAP, used an assault rifle on soldiers in front of a recruiting office in Little Rock in June 2009, killing Private William Long, and seriously wounding Private Quinton Ezeagwula.

In  Nov 2009,  Army officer Nidal Hassan attacked soldiers in a murderous rampage at Ft Hood. He was in e-mail contact and inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, who is in Yemen and a spiritual leader of  AQAP. 

In May 2010, al-Raimi, the military leader of AQAP, warned Americans in an article published in an online militant magazine that the group "will blow up the earth from below your feet. You have attacked us in the midst of our household, so wait for what will attack you in the midst of yours."

An AQAP  plot almost succeeded with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his attempted 2009 Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit.

The UPS package bombs found on separate aircraft in the UK and UAE in late Oct 2010 was a plot instigated by AQAP.

Operation Hemorrhage, announced in al Qaeda's Nov 2010 Inspire magazine, is a new campaign by AQAP to carry out multiple small scale attacks in the U.S. to increase fear among our citizens.

Recent events: 

-  Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the chief bombmaker for AQAP, was sanctioned on 25 Mar by the State Department for his part in designing the bomb Abdulmutallab had in his underwear and in the attempted assassination of a Saudi official in 2009.  He is now wanted by the Saudi government and Interpol.

-  Intelligence officials are reporting there is a credible, current and serious threat against the West.  Unfortunately, our ability to gather information on this plot is hindered by the chaos unfolding on the ground in Yemen, which has been swept up in revolts in the Middle East.  

-  AQAP members have fled north from Sana'a to embed with tribal groups in the mountainous region.  

-  AQAP is still carrying out attacks in Yemen, a nod to their continued ability to plan and execute operations. 


-  Awlaki, one of America's most wanted terrorists, is on the run and actively posting his rhetoric on the internet.


-  Two days ago, a British court convicted a Bangladeshi-born British Airways employee of terrorism charges, including plotting a "spectacular" airplane bombing.  This was an AQAP plot - terrorist Rajib Karim, went to Yemen to meet with Awlaki and the two communicated through e-mail.

The bottom line: AQAP is still active and dangerous, possibly more so now than ever.  We need to fight complacency, stay alert and engaged.

Libya: Interesting Facts about the Country and Its People

There are many interesting things about the country and culture of Libya which are worthy of review as we engage militarily to protect their citizens from the brutal assault received at the hands of its government.   

For instance, Libya's official name is:


Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Qaddafi coined the word "Jamahiriya", which means "State of the Masses."  


And the country's motto is an interesting grouping of words: "Freedom, Socialism, and Unity." 
 
A country of 6.5 million, Libya is 97% Arab and 97% Sunni Muslim, a very homogeneous populace. 

Facts that may surprise you:  over 90% of children attend school for the compulsory length.  This is very high, considering the high school graduation rate in the U.S. is only 86%.

Subsequently, the literacy rate is quite high, at 83% of the population over the age of 15.  The life expectancy far exceeds that of its neighbors in the region, at an average of 77 years -- compare this to the life expectancy in Afghanistan  (44 years) and Somalia (48 years).  The infant mortality rate is just 16 deaths in 1000 births, on par with many modern nations.  About 33% of the population is under the age of 15 (compared to 21% in the U.S.)

Libya's GDP is $85 B.  $32 B is reaped from oil exports to Europe, primarily to Italy.  75% of the food is imported, as Libya is quite a barren country.  

Italy relinquished its ownership of Libya in 1947. Things were fairly stable until 1969, when Qaddafi led a coup d'etat  against the King, who exiled to Egypt.  Through the 1970s, the country reorganized the government into "people's bureaus" and started forming a close relationship with the U.S.S.R.  This led to tension with the West, which escalated with Libya's carefully planned April 5, 1986  bombing of a disco in West Berlin that resulted in the deaths of 2 U.S. soldiers.  The U.S. retaliated with Operation El Dorado Canyon and the bombing of key targets in Libya.  Follow on economic sanctions put a tight squeeze on the economy and Gaddafi lashed out with the catastrophic terror attack in 1988,  the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland.  The horrifying images of the debris scattered over the countryside will always be with me.

The intervening years were filled with a variety of sanctions and UN demands on Libya to turn over evidence related to the Pan Am attack and comply with international demands to disengage.  The country turned inward and virtually disappeared off the radar.


In 2003, Libya announced that it was ending its WMD program and began cooperating with the U.S.  They briefly joined us in the fight against al Qaeda.  In 2006, the State Department took Libya off of the list of State Sponsored Terrorists.  Until the recent citizen unrest and harsh response by the government against its own people, there was actually a normalizing of relations between the U.S. and Libya.

What a difference a month can make.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5425.htm

Domestic Terror Groups Increasingly Violent : Spotlight on the Group "Sovereign Citizens"

 "We the People inhabiting the North American continent, free men and women convened under God, having been granted by the Creator dominion over all the earth, to restore the blessings of liberty for ourselves and the posterity, do hereby invoke our sacred right to alter or abolish destructive government as memorialized in The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, c. 1776 by declaring herewith this solemn declaration to the people of the earth and all governments and nations derived there from."  From the Sovereign Citizen Declaration of Independence.
 _______________________
Five people, including militia activist Schaeffer Cox, were arrested Thursday in the Fairbanks, Alaska for allegedly conspiring to kill multiple Alaska State Troopers and a federal judge. The group had stockpiled weapons and conducted surveillance on the homes of two troopers, according to Alaska State Troopers.
The arrests were made by the Alaska State Troopers’ Special Emergency Reaction Team, along with Fairbanks troopers, the FBI, U.S. Marshal’s Service and the Fairbanks Police Department. The five arrested Thursday face several state charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit arson, and tampering with evidence, according to troopers.

The FBI describes the Sovereign Citizen Movement as a domestic terrorism group. Numbering 300,000, Sovereign Citizens are anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or “sovereign” from the United States. As a result, they believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement. Members of the Sovereign Citizens group have participated in the following activities:

• Commit murder and physical assault;
• Threaten judges, law enforcement professionals, and government personnel;
• Impersonate police officers and diplomats;
• Use fake currency, passports, license plates, and driver’s licenses; and
• Engineer various white-collar scams, including mortgage fraud and so-called “redemption” schemes. 

In the last year, group members were prosecuted for running fraudulent insurance schemes; selling false diplomatic credentials; and money laundering.  

Cox has been on LE radar for many years. 
-  Previously appeared as a public figure as gun rights activist and a legislative candidate; unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2008
-  Leader of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia and the Second Amendment Task Force
-  Organized multiple gun-rights and personal freedoms rallies, including the 2009 “Freedom Fest”
-  A member of a “Liberty Bell network,” which sends out mass notifications to assemble a crowd of witnesses when a member believes his or her rights are being violated.

Cox has posted several videos on You Tube that provide insight into the mindset of anti[government extremists. 

Schaeffer Cox YouTube Video Channel

Here is a website for a branch of the Sovereign Citizens:


http://www.sovereign-citizenship.net/home.html

You can also listen to a sovereign society radio station online, it comes from Ireland
 radio channel

Sovereign Authority is an affiliate that runs Cop Watch, "Keeping Communities Safe from Public Renegades and Corporate Pirates"
http://sovereigncopwatch.ning.com/profile/sovereignauthority

The latest plot in Alaska illustrates the violent tendency of some group members and leaders.  We must keep an eye on these groups:  they are fueled by conspiracy theories, stockpile illegal weapons and now appear willing to use them to further their goals.

John Doe #2 in OKC Bombing Arrested for Assault

It is a fact that Hussain Al-Hussaini was seen with Timothy McVeigh in the weeks before - and on the day of the OKC Murrah Building bombing on April 19, 1995, the worst domestic terror event in our country's history.  Some accounts, although never proven, put him in the Ryder truck with McVeigh.  A former soldier in Sadaam Hussein's Republican Guard, Al-Hussaini was thoroughly investigated and cleared by authorities.  Today, he was arrested for slashing another man's face with a piece of glass at their homeless shelter in Quincy, Mass.  Hussaini has been living on the streets for several years. Hussain Al-Hussaini is John Doe #2, as verified today by law enforcement officials.  I supposed this will put down the conspiracy theory that Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber" was John Doe #2.   But it will give life to other theories about the OKC bombing, including a connection to al Qaeda. 

I am not a conspiracy theorist, I prefer to live in the factual, heavily footed-noted world, especially when it comes to the topic of terrorism.  But few would argue that the connection between McVeigh, a former Army soldier who served in Desert Storm, and Al-Hussaini, a soldier he theoretically fought against, is interesting, at the very least.

There are many disconnected pieces of odd information out there about the OKC bombing.  For instance, it is a fact that in late 1994, co-conspirator Terry Nichols traveled to the Philippines, visited a college campus in Cebu City (a school that teaches the radical Islamist ideology) and was there at the same time as Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, leader of the Abu Sayaaf Group and mastermind 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.  No one knows if they met, but some accounts have them passing by each other, perhaps by inches.  When in the Philippines, Nichols stayed at a house in Cebu City that was run by relatives of ASG terrorists.  He made multiple calls to Star Glad Lumber, a lumberyard also linked to members of ASG.  And the bombs used in the WTC and OKC bombings were very similar. 

Yousef was also the creative force behind the Bojinka plot to simultaneously detonate bombs on up to 9 airliners, a plot that was unraveled a few weeks before it could come to fruition on Jan 21, 1995.  Oddly enough,  Nichols had already obtained a visa to fly to the Philippines on Bojinka day.  He had an immediate return ticket on one of the flights into LA targeted by Yousef.  Nichols made sure his will was in order and had written a note directing how life insurance money should be spent in the event of his death.  He stated that he was going on a mission that could cost him his life. 

Another weird twist  -  Al-Hussaini worked at Logan Airport in Boston before 9/11.  His roommates were also ex-Iraqi republican Guard, who owned a catering service that delivered food to the aircraft.  At one point, law enforcement believed the box cutters were inconspicuously placed on the aircraft at Logan along with the catered food.

Everything stated here is factual and taken from Nichols testimony and other official open source documents. Obviously law enforcement spent years and millions of dollars running down every lead in the OKC bombing.  If they say there is no connection between the OKC bombing and Ramzi Yousef, KSM and AQ, that is good enough for me.  Thankfully, McVeigh received the sentence he deserved and is taking the eternal dirt bath and Nichols sits in a prison serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.  Mission accomplished. Nothing will bring back the lives of 161 innocent victims. 

The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing  is a well documented book by reporter Jayna Davis for those who still "what-if" the OKC bombing.

Article from Quincy MA newspaper

                                                                  

John Doe #2

John Doe #2

Hussain Al-Hussaini

Free Webcast - Inside the Terrorist Mind

Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. ET

Register here:
http://www.amu.apus.edu/lp/webcast/inside-the-terrorist-mind/index.htm

After the attack of September 11th, the United States has spent billions of dollars to analyze and dissolve terrorist groups on a global scale. However, to be able to track down organizations such as Al Qaeda, one must understand the complexity of an individual's motivation to join. With the multitude of terrorist cells in the world, how do the United States and counterterrorist organizations classify these combatants in the context of their radical ideologies?
Join American Military University for an in-depth analysis of the terrorist mind and how the culture of terrorism fits into the rest of the civilized world. Our panelists will cover topics including:

• Root causes of terrorism
• Variations and history of terrorism
• Views on why individuals join
• The complexity of motivation
• Where do we go from here?

This webcast will also include a Q&A session with the speakers.

Shooting at Frankfurt Airport Kills Two Airmen, Injures Two Others

A 21 year old man from Kosovo shot and killed two Air Force personnel, injuring two others, outside of Terminal 2 at Frankfurt airport. Prior to the shooting, the gunman was engaged in a verbal altercation with the Airmen, who were en route from RAF Lakenheath, UK to deployed locations.  The guman **allegedly** shouted "Allahu Akbar" prior to shooting the unarmed Airmen.

Frankfurt International Airport is regularly used as a transit point for U.S. military to and from the theater of operations  - since the 2005 closing of Rhein Main Air Base, which was the primary military airlift hub in Europe.

Security inside Frankfurt Airport is robust and has been so for many years.  I regularly transited Frankfurt in the mid 1990s; everyone was subjected to a thorough pat down and soldiers patrolled the airport, carrying submachine guns.  After 9/11, security was bolstered.

However, under the current security laydown at airports, passengers are not protected until they are deep into the terminal, at the first security checkpoint.  The shooting at Moscow's airport last month illustrated the vulnerability of a large crowd gathered at baggage claim and the easy access by the terrorist.

Also recall the 2007 terror attack at Glasgow airport, in which a Jeep loaded with explosives was driven into the airline departure check in area, which was filled with summer travelers.  Thankfully the propane tanks/bomb did not explode and the Jeep merely burned.  However, this showed a vulnerability at the check in area, again, where large crowds gather.

What if airport security was pushed out, beyond the terminal building itself?   A facility to screen passengers and baggage away from the airport - then a secure route to bus travelers to their departure terminal.  No luggage is dragged into the terminal building, no visitors loitering outside, no errant Jeeps driving into the building, no suicide bomber at baggage claim.  No shooter approaching a busload of unarmed military personnel.  Some would say then the screening facility would be vulnerable, and there is no way to truly protect travelers. Would be interested to hear your thoughts!

Having been stationed at RAF Lakenheath twice, it holds a special place in my heart.  I would like to send my condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of these brave Airmen.