What're You Reading, Jihadis?
Blood? Check. Evil? Check. To the point of bone-chilling absurdity? Check. But it's not the latest Halloween-timed horror flick. It's the second issue of English-language jihadi mag Inspire. Thomas Hegghammer at Jihadica flips through:
[...] most interesting is the set of articles that give specific operational advice to prospective activists based in the West (p. 51ff). There are suggestions for low-cost operations in the US soil, such as shooting sprees in restaurants catering for government workers (such as in Washington DC), and using trucks to mow down pedestrians on crowded streets. The latter tactic can be further refined, Khan suggests, by welding sharp blades to the front of the truck so as to create “the ultimate mowing machine.”
What's the good news?
Khan’s strategy presupposes that individuals can aquire the motivation to die for the cause almost in a vacuum. However, in most historical cases, individuals only acquired this motivation after interacting with other radicals, going abroad for jihad, or accessing jihadi propaganda - all of which are activities discouraged by Samir Khan. Of course there have been exceptions, such as the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hassan, but even he was not completely “clean”, as evidenced by his email correspondence with Anwar al-Awlaki. Decentralized jihad is indeed a scary concept, but it does not necessarily work.
"Necessarily" -- !
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: What're You Reading, Jihadis?
The way to battle the lone nut, who's had his violent impulses steered toward jihad, is to profile, profile, profile. Don't throw his rights out the window, but throw PC out the window. Israel does it that way because it works. And if it didn't work, they wouldn't waste their precious time and energy doing it.
Aug '10
Re: What're You Reading, Jihadis?
Organization is what is lacking. The atrocities committed by the Nazis or the Japanese during the 30s and 40s were the result of massive state directed programs ,resulting in cruelly efficient genocides. Ditto the collectivists, with much bigger numbers.
The lonely crazed imams who scratch these tactics onto the chalkboards and papyrus sheets can always find some eager student to enter them into a blog for the world to marvel over. That they reach out through the Alwakis to try and find martyrs shows the cellular structure and very small scope of their influence.
We are not facing an army, but the proverbial glowing sets of beady eyes in the dark. Scary ? Yes. Effective, No .
We have been successful in thwarting many plans, if we can thwart the PC now and cover our borders, we should be relatively safe. War in Afghanistan doing any good ? We can only hope and then try to get some good information as to the ground situation. The NYT and WaPo will work to dishearten us and try for some heroics for Obama, which can only mean appeasement and surrender. But to who ? I'm not scared today, but I am tomorrow without a change.
Sep '10
Re: What're You Reading, Jihadis?
Organization is what is lacking.
For a minute, I thought you said community organizing is what is lacking.
Jul '10
Re: What're You Reading, Jihadis?
Jihad, what jihad? The New York Times, writing about the Fort Hood murder spree of the Allahu Akbar shouting Major Hasan, epitomizes the official position: "the gunman and his motive remain an enigma." No idea whatsoever, not a clue.
Sadly, as long as we continue to ignore reality and accept Muslim talking points - the fault is not with Islamic imperialism financed by petro-dollars but with the existence of Israel, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Crusades, Andalusia, poverty, Western decadence, etc., etc.- we will continue to suffer casualties. It is frightening to think that it will be only when the numbers reach a critical point that we will resort to effective counter-terrorism measures ala Israel. Meanwhile, we will expand the already bloated Department of Homeland Security under the egregious Ms Napolitano and ponder the mystery of these man-made disasters.