INSPIRE, ISSUE 12 — AT FIRST GLANCE
INSPIRE, ISSUE 12 — AT FIRST GLANCE
By Michael S. Smith II
While looking for the Spring 2014 edition of Inspire magazine featuring “An Interview with Obama” and instructions for the manufacture of car bombs, one thing became quite clear: Although they are creative, the technical capabilities of those now managing the production of AQAP’s English-language jihadi e-zine may not be all that high. For it would seem they don’t understand how to reduce the file size of their latest image-intensive issue, an ostensibly safe copy of which may be accessed via the Internet Archive.
The following are among this issue’s feature articles:
- “Shattered: A Story About Change” by Abu Abdillah Almoravid;
- “Car Bombs Inside America” by The AQ Chef;
- “Car Bombs: Field Data” by The AQ Chef;
- “24/7 Terrorism” by Muhannad J.S.; and
- “Palestine: Betrayal of Human Conscience” by the late former Pakistani-American editor of Inspire, Samir Khan.
Also included:
- A Q&A with the late American-born al-Qa’ida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (transliterated as Aulaqi in The 9/11 Commission Report):
- A piece titled “The Jihad Experience: The Concept of Preparation, Its Cause and Goal” by Abu Musab al-Suri;
- A rather interesting short piece titled “Arson Jihad,” in which the author celebrates the attacks conducted by the brothers Tsarnaev in a poem;
- An article by Hafiz al-Uruppi titled “Sincere Advice from a Muhajir” seeks to persuade “those who for some reason are still residing in Europe and the USA” to “join the ever growing ranks of the Mujahideen in the lands of Jihad or do operations inside Dar-ul Kufr itself” (the author claims to have been born in Europe, where he lived for 30 years);
- A four-page montage titled “End of Safari,” which provides a list assessed to be likely targets for AQ operations, on which Uganda and Kenya are checked off, while the boxes adjacent to Burundi, Sierra Leon, Ethiopia, and Djibouti appear empty; and
- A piece by al-Qa’ida emir “Dr. Aiman Adh-Dhawahiry” (aka Ayman al-Zawahiri), titled “Iman Defeats Arrogance,” in which al-Zawahiri asserts, “The concerns of the US president, his regime and congress is no longer about winning the war but more of surviving and escaping from Iraq and Afghanistan,” and then goes on to claim that “The Boston incident proved to Americans the extent of their lies and deceptions on their selves.”
As noted, also included is a piece titled “An Interview with Obama.” This material is described as a “hypothetical interview with the White House gangster,” in which “all of Obama’s answers are directly quoted from the counterterrorism speech he gave on 23rd March 2013.” Prefacing this piece, the author explains, “The main idea here is to focus on the change of the American tone regarding the zio-crusader war waged on the Muslim Ummah and its Jihadi front. This change comes after years of fighting and massive losses on the enemy’s side to the extent that the American regime has realized it’s too difficult to achieve victory in such a long ferocious war.”
Following the piece, a full-page image of a subway car is overlaid with a short poem that concludes, “Assemble your bomb, ready for detonation.”
Finally, the “Open Source Jihad” section of the latest edition includes a multi-page tutorial on the production of car bombs. Writers also make suggestions regarding specific targets in the US, France, and the UK, such as sports facilities, hotels and museums. (Note: The reverse of this issue features a photo taken of a van at a busy intersection of W 47th Street in New York near Father Duffy Square that is overlaid with the following text: “The right man in the right place devastates the enemy / Choose Wisely.”)
Last updated 18 March 2014.
