Posts Tagged ‘terrorism’
 
May 13, 2013 0

Spotlight On Al Aqsa Television

al-aqsa-newseum

Al Aqsa TV describes Salama and Al-Kumi as “Martyrs”

Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV, a Trea­sury Depart­ment Spe­cially Des­ig­nated Global Ter­ror­ist entity, has been the focus of media scrutiny after a deci­sion by the New­seum to honor two Al Aqsa TV mem­bers as part of its ongo­ing memo­r­ial to jour­nal­ists who lost their lives in the line of duty in 2012.

On Sun­day, the Anti-Defamation League described the inclu­sion of Hus­sam Salama and Mah­moud Al-Kumi in the New­seum Jour­nal­ists Memo­r­ial as “a dark day for an Amer­i­can insti­tu­tion devoted to free speech and the First Amendment.”

Today, the New­seum issued a state­ment on its web­site indi­cat­ing that it has “decided to re-evaluate their inclu­sion as jour­nal­ists on our memo­r­ial wall pend­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.” ADL wel­comed the museum’s decision.

Al Aqsa TV was estab­lished by Pales­tin­ian Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil mem­ber and cur­rent Hamas Inte­rior Min­is­ter Fathi Ahmad Ham­mad. It began broad­cast­ing in the Gaza Strip in Jan­u­ary 2006.

Mod­eled after Al Manar, which is owned and oper­ated by the Lebanese-based ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion Hezbol­lah, much of Al-Aqsa TV pro­gram­ming reg­u­larly glo­ri­fies vio­lence and incites hatred of Jews and Israelis focuses on chil­dren or is geared towards children.

For exam­ple, at the begin­ning of Oper­a­tion Pil­lar of Defense in Novem­ber 2012, Al Aqsa TV inter­viewed the chil­dren of Hamas mem­bers who were killed in Israeli airstrikes. One of the boys inter­viewed said that he wants to fol­low in his father’s path, “I want to fol­low the path of Jihad like daddy and I want to be mar­tyred like daddy.”

Over the years, Al Aqsa TV has fea­tured music video aimed at rad­i­cal­iz­ing chil­dren. For exam­ple, a few years ago a music video aired by the net­work depicted a 4-year-old girl singing to her “mother,” iden­ti­fied as “mother Reem,” (an appar­ent ref­er­ence to Hamas’s first female sui­cide bomber Reem Riyashi).  Later in the video, the woman det­o­nates her­self and kills four Israeli soldiers. After her mother car­ries out the attack, the lit­tle girl holds an explo­sive and sings to the cam­era, “I am fol­low­ing Mommy in her steps.”

In April 2007, the show “Tomorrow’s Pio­neers” fea­tured a Mickey Mouse-like char­ac­ter called “Far­four” pro­mot­ing a mes­sage of rad­i­cal Islam, anti-Semitism and hatred for the West. The “Far­four” char­ac­ter and child actors on the pro­gram taunt West­ern lead­ers and urge chil­dren to take up AK-47 assault rifles to defeat Israel and the United States.al-aqsa-tv

The Newseum’s Jour­nal­ists Memo­r­ial pre­vi­ously included Ahmed Haidar, a cam­era­man for Al Manar who was killed in 1993. Al Manar was des­ig­nated a Spe­cially Des­ig­nated Global Ter­ror­ist entity in 2006.

This year’s memo­r­ial also plans to honor Maya Naser, a cor­re­spon­dent for Iran’s Press TV, Iran’s gov­ern­ment-run Eng­lish lan­guage satel­lite news net­work. Press TV has emerged as the Iran­ian government’s pri­mary pro­pa­ganda tool to pro­mote a wide range of per­ni­cious anti-Semitic con­spir­acy the­o­ries in Eng­lish to a world­wide audience.

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April 26, 2013 0

ADL Terrorism Update Newsletter Focuses On Boston Marathon Bombing

The April edi­tion of Ter­ror­ism Update, ADL’s newslet­ter pro­vid­ing news and analy­sis on inter­na­tional ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and their fol­low­ers in the U.S., is now available.

The fea­ture arti­cle high­lights the use of the Al Qaeda in the Ara­bian Penin­sula mag­a­zine Inspire by domes­tic extrem­ists moti­vated by rad­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions of Islam. Author­i­ties report­edly con­firmed that Dzhokhar and Tamer­lan Tsar­naev, the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, used bomb mak­ing instruc­tions found in the pages of Inspire.

The pro­file exam­ines the Tsar­naev broth­ers’ social media pro­files and online inter­ests, includ­ing their appar­ent fas­ci­na­tion with mil­i­tancy and Islam. Par­al­lels between Tamer­lan Tsar­naev, the dead Boston Marathon bomb­ing sus­pect, and an Aus­tralian preacher named Feiz Moham­mad are also explored.

This edi­tion also includes infor­ma­tion on recent terror-related arrests in Illi­nois, Ore­gon, and Vir­ginia, as well updates to ter­ror pros­e­cu­tions in Wash­ing­ton, Florida and New Jer­sey. 

To sub­scribe to ADL’s Ter­ror­ism Update newslet­ter, click on the below image:

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April 22, 2013 0

Inspire Magazine: A Staple Of Domestic Terror

Pres­sure Cooker Bomb From Inspire Magazine

Update — May 30: The eleventh issue of Al Qaeda in the Ara­bian Penin­sula’s Inspire mag­a­zine cel­e­brates the April 15 Boston Bomb­ing, praises the Tsar­naev broth­ers and encour­ages future attacks against the U.S.

Update — April 23: Fed­eral law enforce­ment offi­cials have report­edly con­firmed that Dzhokhar Tsar­naev and his brother got bomb-making instruc­tions from Inspire magazine.

Shortly after author­i­ties revealed that pres­sure cook­ers were used in the explo­sives det­o­nated at the Boston Marathon last week, numer­ous media out­lets began to report and spec­u­late that the bombs matched designs in Al Qaeda in the Ara­bian Penin­sula’s English-language ter­ror mag­a­zine, Inspire.

Let’s be clear, there is still no evi­dence that broth­ers Tamer­lan and Dzkhokhar Tsar­naev read the ter­ror­ist mag­a­zine or used its pres­sure cooker instruc­tions, which are not unique to Inspire. How­ever, the Tsarnaev’s online activ­ity and social media pro­files indi­cate some fas­ci­na­tion with mil­i­tancy and Islam that are con­sis­tent with other mes­sages of Inspire.

Numer­ous inter­na­tional and domes­tic extrem­ists moti­vated by rad­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions of Islam have been influ­enced by the mag­a­zine and, in some cases, report­edly uti­lized the bomb mak­ing instruc­tions in their attempts to carry out attacks. In the United States, for example:

  • In Novem­ber 2012, Raees Qazi was arrested along with his brother, She­heryar, for allegedly plot­ting a bomb attack against unspec­i­fied tar­gets in New York City.  Raees report­edly admit­ted hav­ing read Inspire mag­a­zine, and a search of his home turned up bomb-making com­po­nents con­sis­tent with instruc­tions that can be found in an issue of Inspire he had read.
  • In Novem­ber 2011, Jose Pimentel was arrested and charged with state-level ter­ror­ism offenses in New York after he allegedly came close to com­plet­ing three bombs based on an Inspire design. Pimentel’s web­site, “True Islam,” also reposted PDF copies of Inspire mag­a­zine. Pimentel appar­ently had planned to attack return­ing U.S. mil­i­tary per­son­nel, post office and police targets. He is still await­ing trial.
  • In July 2011, Naser Jason Abdo was arrested at a motel in Killeen, Texas, where author­i­ties claimed that he was plot­ting to attack a restau­rant fre­quented by mil­i­tary per­son­nel based at Fort Hood.  Bomb mak­ing com­po­nents were recov­ered from the motel room. The arti­cle “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” from the first issue of Inspire mag­a­zine was report­edly also found in his room. Abdo has since been sen­tenced to life-in-prison for his attempted attack.
  • Adel Daoud, who was arrested in Sep­tem­ber 2012 and charged with plot­ting to bomb a Chicago-area bar, sent his friends copies of the mag­a­zine in order to “brain­wash them,” and called Inspire “the best mag­a­zine I have read.”

Inspire’s solic­i­ta­tion for reader con­tri­bu­tions have also played a role in the rad­i­cal­iza­tion process of other would be bombers in the U.S.

  • Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who was con­victed of attempt­ing to bomb the 2010 Christ­mas Tree Light­ing in Port­land, Ore­gon, allegedly wrote and sub­mit­ted an arti­cle to Inspire, although it was not published.
  • Quazi Nafis, who pleaded guilty to attempt­ing to bomb the New York Fed­eral Reserve Build­ing in Octo­ber 2012, also wrote an arti­cle that he sup­pos­edly planned to sub­mit to Inspire after his attack in which he described his desire to “destroy America.”

Most recently, in Novem­ber 2012, four men from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia were arrested and charged with plan­ning to travel abroad to Afghanistan to fight along­side the Tal­iban and Al Qaeda. Accord­ing to the crim­i­nal com­plaint, the inves­ti­ga­tion began in Jan­u­ary 2012 when one of the men was searched as he crossed the U.S.-Mexico bor­der and was found to have a copy of Inspire in his possession.

Samir Khan, a 24-year-old Amer­i­can known for dis­trib­ut­ing ter­ror­ist pro­pa­ganda mate­r­ial online, was the prin­ci­pal author of Inspire before he was killed by a U.S. drone strike on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2011.

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