Al-Qaeda praises Garland, Chattanooga jihadis, calls for more “lone jihad” attacks
August 5, 2015 4:42 am By Robert Spencer 6 Comments
If and when lone jihadis murder more Americans, law enforcement and government officials will once again gather around and scratch their heads, saying they have no earthly idea what the killer’s motive could possibly have been.
“Al Qaeda branch calls for new attacks against United States,” by Dugald McConnell and Brian Todd, CNN, August 4, 2015 (thanks to Paul):
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Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, which officials have called the terror group’s most dangerous affiliate, has issued two threatening new communiques praising recent lone-wolf style attacks against the West and calling for more of them.
“We urge you to strike America in its own home and beyond,” says a letter attributed to Ibrahim al-Asiri, the master bomb-maker with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The letter, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, states, “America is first.”
CNN is unable to independently verify that Asiri himself wrote it, but the letter has drawn the attention of terror trackers such as MEMRI, Flashpoint and SITE.
A U.S. counterterrorism official described the letter as “consistent with rhetoric the new leader stated upon taking over al Qaeda’s most active affiliate that is known to threaten Western interests.”…
Intelligence officials say Asiri was a key player in the 2009 Christmas Day bomb attempt in which a passenger from Africa almost managed to detonate a bomb aboard a Detroit-bound plane that he’d hidden in his underwear. Asiri was also behind the placing of bombs in printer cartridges aboard planes headed for the United States that were intercepted before they reached their targets.
He even designed a bomb to be carried on the body of his own brother, Abdullah al-Asiri, in attempt to kill Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief in 2009. The bomb killed his brother, but the Saudi minister survived….
Another senior AQAP leader, Khalid Batarfi, is featured in a second threatening video.
He praises the July attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which a gunman killed five American servicemen at a military installation, as “a blessed Jihadi operation.” And he also praises two gunmen who tried to mount an attack in Garland, Texas, in May for their “sacrifice and heroism.”
“Blood for blood,” Batarfi says in a speech posted online.
He then encourages further lone-wolf attacks against America and the West. “To the warriors of Lone Jihad: may Allah bless and guide your efforts,” he says.…
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/08/al-qaeda-praises-garland-chattanooga-jihadis-calls-for-more-lone-jihad-attacks
