al-Qaeda's Hobbyist Bombers - Why go to Pakistan when you can learn in your own home?

Qaeda's Hobbyist Bombers - Why go to Pakistan when you can learn in your own

home?

http://www.andmagazine.com/content/phoenix/12922.html               

 

After 30 months of relative quietude, terrorist bombers literally burst back

into the news with the Apr. 15 attacks in Boston, which killed four and

wounded about 200 with blasts from BB-packed devices made from

pressure-cookers.

 

Where did they learn to make such bombs? And where did they get pressure

cookers, a kitchen item that's been out of fashion for decades--yard sales?

 

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Republican Rep.

Michael McCaul of Texas, said he suspected that the Tsarnaev brothers had

help from a "trainer or trainers...overseas in the Chechen region or...in

the United States." Others suggested the Tsarnaevs had merely web-surfed to

"Inspire," al-Qaeda's online terrorism hobbyist magazine, for instruction.

 

In any event, no one was talking about Ibrahim al-Asiri, reputedly al

Qaeda's master bomb-maker, which must have made him jealous.

 

Not much has been heard from al-Asiri in recent years. Many will remember he

was credited with designing the so-called "underwear bomb" that Umar Farouk

Abdulmutallab tried to detonate in a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit

on Christmas Day 2009.

 

Al-Asiri is also said to have constructed two bombs hidden in printers that

were intercepted en route in a cargo plane from Yemen to Chicago and

Philadelphia.

 

Al-Asiri was one of the first explosives engineers to ride the "body bomb"

wave, inserting one such device into the rectum of his own brother, Abdullah

Hassan al-Asiri, in an attempt to kill Saudi deputy minister of Interior

Muhammed bin Nayef. Bin Nayef survived with minor injuries, but not the

brother.

 

While core Al-Qaeda members continue to train and work with bomb-makers on

their own turf in places like Yemen and Pakistan, they are increasingly

turning to the Internet to implement the strategy of "leaderless jihad." 

 

From such will arise the "lone wolves," AQ hopes. In a recent issue of

"Perspectives on Terrorism," Anne Stenersen, a research fellow at FFI's

Terrorism Research Group, described how AQ leaders have been known to

frequent online "Jihadi e-learning" courses in bomb-making.

 

Osama Bin Laden's putative successor Ayman al-Zawahiri posted a video in

2011 encouraging would-be jihadis to think globally, act locally, with

whatever means available.

 

While "the video does not instruct the would-be terrorist in how he should

train or what weapons to use against the preferred targets," Stenerson

writes, "it suggests that jihadists based in the United States should attack

with firearms, as these are assumed to be easily accessible."

 

While Al-Qaeda has relied on face-to-face training in the past, the security

risk posed by members traveling to training sites and then successfully

returning to their base countries is high.  Therefore leaders such as

al-Zawahiri suggest potential terrorists to attack their base countries

rather than go abroad.

 

Only a handful or two of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims have taken up

Zawahiri's call to arms, at least in the West, judging by the successful

disruption of plots in recent years.

 

During 2005 and 2005, three men in Ohio used al-Qaeda's e-learning bomb

courses in a plan to travel to Iraq and fight U.S. forces there, according

to the FBI.  While their 'trainer' was a former Special Operations Forces

soldier, he was also a FBI undercover agent.

 

In 2011, a user with the forum name Adnan Shurki began posting on the

Shumakh al-Islam forum under the thread, "I am a beginner in the science of

explosives and poisons, from where should I start? (Special course for the

beginner mujahid)." According to Stenersen, Shurki was the "middleman

between the forum's members and Abdullah Dhu al-Bajadin, the main instructor

of the course."

 

Online traffic to such e-learning courses is low, Stenersen says, but the

"Internet stands out as a crucial resource for Al-Qaeda to use to train its

operatives without risking compromising their security, due to ease of

access anywhere in the world, and the possibility of remaining anonymous."

 

As if to make his point, just last week in London four British jihadis were

handed long sentences for plotting an attack with eight bomb-filled

rucksacks.

 

The group's key bomb-maker, Irfan Naseer, had trained the old fashioned way,

in Pakistan.

 

==========================================

(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this

message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to

these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed

within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with

"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.

The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The

Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain

permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials

if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria

for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies

as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four

criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is

determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not

substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use

copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you

must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 

THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS

PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.