Terrorism: Al-Qaeda's ranks diversify

The Islamic version of equality of the sexes: blow yourself up while murdering innocents.  All in the name of the religion of peace, of course.

FROM ADNKRONOS.COM:

Terrorism: Al-Qaeda's ranks diversify

Rome, 14 June (AKI) - The number of women being recruited to Al-Qaeda is growing exponentially and European and American converts to Islam are swelling their ranks. These so-called "mothers of terror" are taking up the armed struggle to prove their devotion to their new-found faith, according to a report due to be presented in Rome on Monday to Italy's interior minister, Roberto Maroni.

The women believe they are fighting "Crusaders and Zionists" but actually, most of the victims of Al-Qaeda's attacks are Muslims.

Besides the "mothers of terror", the numbers of "Jihad nomads" is growing and Al-Qaeda's organisation is becoming looser-knit. There are armed groups which are still affiliated with the terror network while others are simply inspired by it and there are also autonomous cells operating.

Al-Qaeda has however retained ideological leadership and control over propaganda, while attacks are carried out by "hybrid groups", according to the new report, entitled Al-Qaeda 2010', which was prepared by the ICSA Foundation.

Diplomats and security experts and researchers contribted to the report.

The report describes how "Jihad nomads" have often grown up in the West but have Asian or Middle Eastern origins. Today they're in New York, the following month they're in Oslo and then they'll turn up in Peshawar.

The indoctrinate themselves with radical Islamist ideology, often gleaned from the Internet, and feel they don't belong. They feel isolated from the world or rejected by it.

New-Mexico born imam Al Awlaki of Yemeni descent is an example of the kind of lone radical preacher the "nomads" look up to.

The female jihadist converts follow a similar path to the nomads, whether they are Europeans and Americans or from Muslim families from Asia and the Middle East.

Groups carrying out attacks have a local agenda, such as opposition to a regime or separatism. They most carry out local attacks, but also seek international action when possible.

The attacks can be led by a well-trained command as in India's deadly Mumbai attacks in 2008. Or they may be carried out by a sole attacker, as in the case of the attempted airliner bombing above Detroit last December.

Sometimes the attacker has material help as did the Libyan would-be bomber Mohammed Game when he tried to attack a military barracks in the northern city of Milan in 2008.

Other times, the individual bomber has a network of individuals helping him. This can be small and even be made up of family members. The suspected attacker in New York's recent Times Square bombing, Pakistan-born Faisal Shahzad, appears to be in this category.

And then there are the individuals who want to wage Jihad in the war zones of Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan's tribal areas. Dozens of such jihadists, many of them German and American, have gone to fight in these countries.

Some of these jihadist 'hotheads' have achieved martyrdom and been killed in action. Others have been been sent back to their home countries by their recruiters and told to await further orders, according to the report.

'Al-Qaeda grooming Muslims for Mumbai-style attack in UK'

File this under Enemy Within.  Wherever Muslims congregate in the Western world, some of them work to overthrow their host countries with any means available.  The west can expect a Mumbi style attack at any time.


FROM HINDUSTANTIMES.COM:

'Al-Qaeda grooming Muslims for Mumbai-style attack in UK'

June 12, 2010
First Published: 20:34 IST(12/6/2010)
Last Updated: 20:40 IST(12/6/2010)

Young British Muslims are being groomed by al-Qaeda for a Mumbai-style attack on targets in Britain, the country's spy agency has warned.

Britain's internal intelligence agency MI5 has warned that a new generation of British extremists is being radicalised by Middle East-based Anwar al-Awlaki, who recruited the Detroit plane bomber.

They are concerned that Awlaki's followers could unleash a wave of easily planned guerrilla-style terrorist attacks similar to the massacre in Mumbai, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Such small-scale attacks could be carried out cheaply by individuals with little terrorist training and without the need for the support of a large organisation, it said.

According to the report, al-Awlaki caught the headlines with one of his statements in March, in which he said: "Isn't it ironic that the two capitals of the war against Islam, Washington DC and London, have also become among the centres of Western Jihad (holy war). Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea."

Awlaki, born in America but of Yemeni descent, is in hiding in Yemen, where he spent his teenage years. He is known for his English language sermons delivered over internet.

In the past few weeks, al-Qaeda has released a 45-minute interview with him in which he admitted involvement in 14 plots in the US, Canada and Britain, the report said.

The British security forces have become so worried about Awlaki's rising influence that they have alerted ministers to their fears. He is being regarded as one of the world's most wanted terrorists, the report said.

Iraq: Al-Qaeda used 24 child suicide bombers in last two years

Big bad al-Qaeda, using mentally ill and homeless children in their attempt to impose sharia on the world. What a bunch of craven cowards.

FROM ADNKRONOS.COM:

Iraq: Al-Qaeda used 24 child suicide bombers in last two years

Baghdad, 1 Oct. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda has over the past two years used 24 children to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq, the director of military operations for the Interior Ministry, Abdelaziz Mohammed Jasim, told pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

"Of the 24 children, five had a mental disability. From analysing the others' remains, we established that they were homeless," said Jasim.

American soldiers stationed in Iraq have reported that the insurgency has armed children as young as 11 to fight against them.

Al-Qaeda is targeting orphans, street children and mentally disabled children as suicide bomber recruits as well as women, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
There have been at least 16 suicide attacks carried out by women in recent months in the volatile Al-Qaeda stronghold of Diyala province, north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraqi children in general make up 20 percent of the civilian victims of bomb attacks in the country.

Al-Qaeda's sinister creep into North Africa

This is to be expected. Squeeze terrorists in one local and they'll move elsewhere. Those who believe that exterminating them in one place will solve the problem don't recognize the long term goals or global extent of the jihad.

FROM TIMESONLINE.CO.UK:

Al-Qaeda's sinister creep into North Africa

As the jihadists face defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are moving stealthily into a new power base

Amir Taheri

On Monday the Iraqi Army launched a large-scale offensive in Diyala north of Baghdad to wipe out al-Qaeda's last remaining hideouts in the country. Since the tide of the war turned last winter, thousands of al-Qaeda jihadists have fled Iraq.
Some returned home and resumed normal life. Others, looking for new places to pursue their holy war against “Zionists and Crusaders”, ended up in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Thailand and helped to reignite the fires of jihad.
However, North Africa appears to have attracted the largest number of returnees. According to the buzz in jihadist circles, confirmed by officials and analysts, a new arc of terror is taking shape in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania - the five countries of the so-called Arab Maghreb in North Africa.
Algeria was first struck by Islamic terror in 1986. Seven years of violence were triggered by the Front for the Islamic Salvation (FIS) in 1992, but by 2000, the Army and groups of armed citizens had crushed the FIS and its more violent offshoots. In 2006 Algerian jihadists announced a merger with al-Qaeda to create al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. Since then they have received huge sums of money and quantities of arms from al-Qaeda sympathisers in the Gulf states, enabling them to make a timid - though no less deadly - comeback.
By all accounts, Algeria may be facing a new round of the War against Terror as it faces mounting political and economic problems. In the first phase of the war, Algerian jihadists never used suicide tactics. In recent months they have carried out at least four such operations, indicating total adoption of al-Qaeda tactics. They have also tried to kill President Bouteflika on at least four occasions. The latest plot was uncovered last week, 24 hours before a provincial visit.
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Child Bomber Kills 23 In Iraq

More barbarism and sub human savagery as al-Qaeda continues to follow the great jihad.

This time they used a 12 year old boy to carry out a suicide bombing.

STOP ISLAM.

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST.COM:

Child Bomber Kills 23 In Iraq
Suicide Attack Targets Family Members of Fallujah Police Chief

By Ernesto Londoño and Uthman al-Mokhtar
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 15, 2008; A11

BAGHDAD, May 14 -- A youthful suicide bomber killed at least 23 people Wednesday in an attack against relatives of Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie, a U.S.-backed police chief and former insurgent who has turned against his onetime comrades.
Zobaie, the police chief of Fallujah in Anbar province, said a bomber of about 12 years of age attacked the funeral of Zobaie's uncle. He said insurgents had seized his uncle, a school principal, on Tuesday, demanding to know whether the police chief was his nephew.
"When he said yes, they killed him in front of his students," said Zobaie, the subject of a Washington Post profile in March that chronicled the stern methods he employs against members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group responsible for sectarian violence and attacks against U.S. targets.

Abu al-Laith al-Jubori, a leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, asserted responsibility for the attack at the funeral. He said in a telephone interview that the group was "proud that we carried out this operation by one of our youngest soldiers" and said it targeted leaders of the Awakening or Sawha movement -- predominantly Sunni groups that have joined with U.S. forces.
"Today's operation is a message to the Sawha members . . . who were gathering at the funeral of the uncle of the infidel" Zobaie, Jubori said.
The bomber entered a funeral tent in the Zobaa area west of Baghdad at approximately 6 p.m., Iraqi police officials said. "When he got to the funeral everyone expected that he had sneaked in for dinner," said Col. Issa al-Marawi, the deputy police chief of Fallujah. The bomber wore jeans, a red T-shirt and running shoes.

Zobaie said he didn't attend the funeral because he feared insurgents would attack him there. "I was their target; they wanted to kill all my relatives," he said.
Iraqi officials said 25 people were wounded in the bombing in addition to a death toll of at least 23. The U.S. military said in a statement that "preliminary reports indicate" 14 people were killed and eight were wounded.
Another bombing Wednesday was carried out by a teenage girl who targeted Iraqi soldiers south of Baghdad, according to the U.S. military. Lt. Col. Randy Martin said at least one Iraqi soldier was killed and seven were wounded.
The bombings happened on a day when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to the northern city of Mosul to assess the progress of a military campaign launched over the weekend aimed at cracking down on Sunni insurgents.
The operation, dubbed Lion's Roar, has been described by U.S. and Iraqi officials as an effort to detain hundreds of insurgents who sought haven in Nineveh province in recent months as they were driven out of Baghdad and other provinces. Since the operation's launch on Saturday, more than 500 people have been detained in Nineveh, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a U.S. military spokesman, told reporters.
Maliki likened the effort to recent military operations in the southern city of Basra and in Baghdad. But unlike those, which began in March, the operation in Mosul has not led to sustained clashes.
Mokhtar reported from Fallujah. Special correspondents Zaid Sabah and K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Out of Africa: a growing threat to Europe from al-Qaeda's new allies

Al-Qaeda continues to spread into sparsely populated areas in order to make up for recent setbacks on other parts of the world. This is a pattern that will be repeated by other Islamic terrorist groups as the West hunts them down.

FROM TIMES ONLINE.CO.UK:


Out of Africa: a growing threat to Europe from al-Qaeda's new allies
David Sharrock in Algiers

It is a vast expanse of desert where conditions are so inhospitable that almost no one lives there. But for al-Qaeda – on the run in Iraq and under attack in Pakistan and Afghanistan – this stretch of the Algerian Sahara has proved fertile ground in its quest to open a new front on Europe’s southern doorstep.
Intelligence sources and Western diplomats have told The Times that a new force – an Algerian group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Land of Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – aims to create an arc of influence throughout North Africa by spreading Osama bin Laden’s “brand” through a fusion of disparate fundamentalist groupings.

Ernst Uhrlau, the head of the German foreign intelligence agency, said recently: “We are watching the activities of al-Qaeda in North Africa with great concern. A handful of groups have become ensconced there, largely unobserved, and are strengthening bin Laden’s terrorist network. What is evolving there brings a completely new quality to the jihad on our doorstep.”
In Tunisia this week the French President echoed this nervousness. “Who could believe that if tomorrow, or after tomorrow, a Taleban-type regime were established in one of your countries in North Africa, Europe and France could feel secure?” President Sarkozy asked.
In 2006, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat – a fundamentalist group that has rejected an Algerian offer of an amnesty and pardon – announced its “merger” with al-Qaeda and an oath of allegiance to bin Laden. “Since then they have adopted wholesale the tactics, techniques and procedures that al-Qaeda has successfully used against coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq,” an intelligence source said.
Intelligence sources contacted by The Times in London, France, Spain, Germany and the US as well as in North Africa show a remarkable uniformity when describing the threat posed by AQIM. At present it is not the size of its membership that is causing alarm – one Western intelligence source said that its hardcore numbered about 200 fighters – but the speed with which it has reorganised itself in a region emerging from a conflict that has claimed up to 200,000 lives in the past decade.

While it has continued to attack Algerian forces AQIM has widened its range of targets – including Westerners – using tactics honed in Iraq: suicide attacks and a variety of bombing techniques. “They are definitely growing in sophistication and, taken as a whole, this presents us with a very disturbing picture,” the source said.
“They’ve done all this in a relatively short time, some of it through the use of the internet where they can organise, download training videos, recruit via encrypted forums.
“There are disturbing trends that suggest they have been training others from both the Sahel and the Maghreb countries: Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.”
Although the emir of AQIM, Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, was hiding in the mountains of the Kabylie region, the strategic base of the group was far to the south, across the lightly guarded border with Mali, the source said. “It’s that ungoverned space across the Sahel. You don’t need a cave to hide there, all you need is to keep on the move – it’s a vast, empty space.
“If you’ve got a small group of four to five trucks with fifteen to twenty men, a few indigenous people, in a huge area all you have to do is keep on the move.”
Chemicals for making bombs – such as those used in the double suicide attack in Algiers in December, which killed 41 people in a UN compound – are arriving in Algeria along traditional Saharan smuggling routes from West Africa. These routes are bringing nomadic Tuaregs into AQIM’s sphere of influence, a relationship described by the intelligence source as a marriage of convenience.

A big part of this trade is drugs, with cocaine featuring ever more strongly as a financial source for the terrorists.
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Jihadinets

A look at the Jihadis next weapon of choice: the internet.
FROM COUNTERRORISMBLOG.ORG
Jihadinets
By Roderick Jones
This piece was co-authored with Michael Schrage who is senior advisor to the MIT Security Studies program and a Sloan School adjunct lecturer.

Terrorists are early adopters of new technologies - especially if they're cheap and easy to acquire. Al-Qaeda's global embrace of the Internet was no surprise. The virtual world of jihadi chat rooms, online recruitment and networked proliferation of deadly terrorist techniques has entered the public consciousness. No serious security observer now doubts that radical Islamist groups are adept at exploiting online environments. Therefore, the most visible recent advances in the realm of online collaboration -virtual worlds and social networking sites - will likely be adapted for use by extremists. The benefits these platforms provide for military training and operational command & control sharing are clear. The inevitable adoption of these systems by extremists will likely mirror past online developments: quiet experimentation across a number of platforms and mainstream systems, followed by the creation of password-protected digital enclaves that incubate future destruction.
The real-world Afghanistan may be gone as a terrorist training safe-haven but creating virtual Afghanistans is literally and figuratively child's play. From the Provisional IRA to al-Qaeda terrorists have traditionally relied on pliant host governments to conduct their necessary face-to-face training. That may no longer be necessary. Geographically dispersed terrorist groups could easily come together to learn the complex technical tradecraft of terror, such as bomb making - but within a virtual environment. Training camps have also traditionally played a significant role in terrorist movements, by indoctrinating recruits into their new cause. This essential discourse will be replicated, virtually across voice-enabled worlds. Systems such as the virtual world Second Life are unlikely to be used in this way, as potential jihadis will seek to operate behind private protected systems. However, password protected environments do become compromised over time as the monitoring of jihadi forums by the SITE Institute clearly shows. Unfortunately, terror has a dangerously clever and elusive option. A practical and shockingly accessible pathway to this future exists today. The same criminal gangs that use 'malware' and ‘spybots’ that secretly ‘recruit’ tens of thousands of unsuspecting home PCs and laptops into digital ‘zombies’ will ultimately become subcontractors to terror. Untraceably cheap and disposable 'just-in-time' virtual worlds that fuse the benefits of virtual worlds like Second Life with the criminal effectiveness of zombie botnets are inevitable. They will be where tomorrow's bin Ladens educate, train and coordinate their aspiring killers.
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Jailed Terrorist: I Want My Walkman

The poor dear. Boo freakin hoo.
FROM THESMOKINGGUN.COM:
Jailed Terrorist: I Want My Walkman
Convicted al-Qaeda murderer complains about life in federal prison
NOVEMBER 6--An al-Qaeda operative serving life in prison for his role in the bombing of American embassies in Africa contends that his rights are being violated by U.S. jailers who have denied him access to Arabic publications and religious books, limited his mail privileges, and no longer allow him to use a Walkman. Mohamed Al-Owhali, 32, claims that his incarceration at the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado has left him so severely depressed that he stopped eating for months, forcing Bureau of Prisons officials to feed him via a tube placed through his nose. In a new U.S. District Court lawsuit, Al-Owhali wants a judge to order prison brass to provide him with expedited mail services, expanded phone privileges, and access to radio and TV news broadcasts and English and Arabic newspapers and magazines. Currently, Al-Owhali claims, he is only provided with month-old copies of USA Today, "with several pages-sections removed." The convicted terrorist is held in virtual isolation in a special security unit at Florence, per Department of Justice guidelines known as Special Administrative Measures. Attached to Al-Owhali's handwritten October 19 lawsuit is a copy of an internal BoP complaint form filed by the inmate (a copy of which you'll find below) and a BoP memo to Al-Owhali detailing the SAM measures governing his incarceration. The Osama bin Laden disciple and three codefendants were convicted in 2001 for their roles in simultaneous car bomb attacks at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Those blasts killed a total of 224 people and injured thousands of

CIA Director Hayden Warns of New al-Qaida Attacks

In a rare public address CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden warned of new attacks by al Qaeda. (Getty)

FROM NEWSMAX.COM:
CIA Director Hayden Warns of New al-Qaida Attacks
NEW YORK -- In a rare public address CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden warned of new attacks by al-Qaida:
"Our analysts assess with high confidence that al-Qaida's central leadership is planning high-impact plots against the U.S. homeland."
Hayden's unusual public address was made at his request at the Council of Foreign Relations.
The newly minted CIA chief also took the unusual step of making his appearance in military uniform, though as CIA director he is not on active military assignment.
Hayden's address appears to be part of a coordinated White House public relations campaign leading up to the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks next week.
Hayden also told the Council that:
"Al-Qaida has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability. That means safe haven in tribal areas of Pakistan, operational lieutenants, and a top leadership engaged in planning ... al-Qaida's success in planting operatives in this country, is less certain."
The CIA director warned:
"We assess, with high confidence that al-Qaida is focusing on targets that would produce mass casualties, dramatic destruction and significant aftershocks."
Details on these warnings were not given, though the general was pressed for them by the audience.
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Al-Qaeda teach kids, 6, to kill

FROM THE SUNONLINE:
Al-Qaeda teach kids, 6, to kill
BRITISH troops in Afghanistan are facing a new enemy — child soldiers as young as SIX.
Recruitment of youngsters is the latest chilling tactic by ruthless al-Qaeda leaders.

The Sun has video evidence of boys barely old enough for school handling AK47 assault rifles.
Military expert Chris Dobson warned: “This is very worrying. Terrorist commanders are gambling on our troops fatally hesitating before pulling the trigger if confronted with a boy. Modern weapons are so light children would have no problem getting 30 or 40 rounds off. And these children are being brainwashed to kill."
A video of the child recruits was posted this month on an al-Qaeda website which has attracted ten million visitors since 2003.
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