 | |
| Editor | Unknown; former editorSamir Khan[1] |
|---|---|
| Categories | Propaganda |
| First issue | July 2010 |
| Country | Yemen |
| Language | English |
Inspire is an English-language online magazine published by the organizational-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The magazine is one of the many ways AQAP uses the Internet to reach its audience. Numerous international and domestic extremists motivated by radical interpretations of Islam have been influenced by the magazine and, in some cases, used itsbomb-making instructions in their attempts to carry out attacks.[2] The magazine is an important brand-building tool, not just of AQAP, but of all al-Qaeda branches, franchises and affiliates.[3]
The magazine is aimed at young British and American readers and provided translated messages fromOsama bin Laden. The first issue appeared in July 2010.[4][5] Various articles in the second issue encouraged terror attacks on U.S. soil, suggesting that followers open fire at a Washington, D.C. restaurant or use a pickup truck to "mow down" pedestrians.[6]
The October 2010 issue included an article penned bySamir Khan, in which he wrote, "I am proud to be a traitor to America".[7] Samir Khan was killed on 30 September 2011, in the U.S.targeted killing Predator drone attack in Yemen.[8]
The magazine's aim is to inform and persuade a committed audience by distributing internal communications called "auto-propaganda" to strengthen morale, reduce dissent, or justify and legitimize an attack or controversial doctrine. It was also used to target an uncommitted audience to eventually win sympathy and support. Therefore, AQAP has the ability to represent themselves and their actions exactly as they wish. The controlled message is unfettered from the scrutiny of the local and international media.[9]
Bruce Riedel of theBrookings Institution described the magazine as "clearly intended for the aspiringjihadist in the U.S. or U.K. who may be the nextFort Hood murderer orTimes Square bomber".[10] It was described byMichelle Shephard, author ofGuantanamo's Child, and a reporter for theToronto Star, as being an extension of the online Arabic magazineSada al-Malahim (Echo of the Battle).[11]
The magazine was thought to be the work ofAnwar al-Awlaki, an English-speaking cleric and al-Qaeda leader based inYemen. Awlaki was on the United States' "kill or capture list".[12][13][14][15] An editorial by al-Awlaki, entitledMay Our Souls Be Sacrificed For You appeared in the first issue.[16] In the article, al-Awlaki called for attacks against all those who had slandered theIslamic prophet,Muhammad, including all Western targets.[17]
The magazine stated that its title came from a verse in theQur'an, "Inspire the believers to fight"[18] and described itself as "A special gift to the Islamic Nation".[11] The magazine was first "discovered" online by theSITE Institute. When the first issue of the magazine was initially released, a technical error prevented most of the magazine's pages from loading properly.[15]
The magazine encouraged its readers to submit their own material for publication: "We also call upon and encourage our readers to contribute by sending their articles, comments and suggestions to us."[16] The magazine's production users were able to use multiple third-party sources (photos, videos, etc.) to create content with ease. The use of mass media was also capable of doctoring content. The separation of form and content of the media and then the ability to "mash" content together with little effort had the ability to create persuasive presentations that would catch the attention of the intended audience.[19]
This sort of crowd-sourcing has been influential in motivating extremists. Mohamad Osman Muhammed, for example, who was implicated in a plot to bomb the Portland Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2010, had previously been published in a different English-language magazine calledJihad Recollections.[20]
Declarations were made for Muslims to rise in defense of their Muhammad, families, justice, and the umma. AQAP propagated the U.S. bombing of Yemen and categorically targeting women and children. Thus they used this alleged targeting as justification ofOmar al-Faruq'sattack as retaliation. "Al-Qaeda says that violence is just retribution for Western injustices and that Islam authorizes this position."[21]
The articles in Inspire were designed to incite hostility toward non-believers and the West. Its recruitment strategy was rooted in conspiracy theories and the ideology of defensive jihad. The magazine outlined expectations for jihad, discussing both open-front and individual jihad. It argued that engaging American forces directly or traveling overseas for jihad was increasingly difficult. As a result, it promoted individual obligatory (fard'ayn) jihad as the necessary course of action while the Islamic nation remained strategically weak.
[S]pontatenous [sic] operations performed by individuals and cells here and there over the whole world, without connections between them, have put the local and international intelligence apparatus in a state of confusion, as arresting the members of aborted cells does not influence the operational activities of others who are not connected with them.[22]
Inspire promoted "open source jihad". This shifted away from al-Qaeda's traditional terrorist attacks to simple attacks by individuals using common items for weapons. The Summer 2010 issue advised making apressure cooker bomb using everyday materials ("How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom").
The Fall 2010 issue encouraged using one's car to "mow down" people in crowded places ("The ultimate mowing machine"). The Winter 2010 issue discussed how to blow up buildings. These provided individuals with simple ideas for terror attacks, without direct ties to al-Qaeda or its affiliates. It had become too great a threat to travel abroad and receive training in al-Qaeda training camps, and direct contact with al-Qaeda members endangered the member and the aspiring terrorist. Therefore AQAP's "open source jihad" promoted attacks without the support of a physical community. Marc Sageman, a leading expert in the field, described this phenomenon as "leaderless Jihad".[23] While he considered this threat as "self-limiting" and one that would quickly die out, the difficulties in stopping the lone wolf attackers were great.
"Open source jihad" emerged as a necessary tactic as al-Qaeda leadership steadily vanished in the ten years since 9/11. With leaders either dead or in jail, al-Qaeda had to consider new ways to attack its enemies.[24] Al-Qaeda first splintered into "franchises" by country or region, then further degenerated into solo operators, mostly of dubious capabilities.[25]Inspire became an important al-Qaeda brand tool for recruiting, informing, and motivating these open source jihadis.
Some scholars, such asThomas Hegghammer (of theNorwegian Defence Research Establishment) andJarret Brachman, argued that the magazine was an unexceptional example of jihadist online literature and did not deserve the media attention it received.[26][27] Hegghammer wrote that "there is nothing particularly new or uniquely worrying" about the magazine's content, and its connection to AQAP is likely weak: "Without signals intelligence it is extremely difficult to determine the precise nature of the link between the editors and the AQAP leadership. Judging from the amount of recycled material inInspire, I would be surprised if the AQAP connection is very strong."[26]
While theSITE Institute and at least one senior U.S. government official describedInspire as authentic, there was some speculation on jihadist websites and elsewhere that the magazine, due to its low quality, may have been a hoax.[28] This theory was advocated, in particular, by Max Fisher, a writer forThe Atlantic.[29] Fisher listed five reasons to suspect the publication was a hoax.[29] According to Fisher, theportable document format (PDF) file that contained the first issue also contained acomputer virus.Fisher noted that the magazine contained an article byAbu Mu'sab al-Suri, noting that al-Suri had been imprisoned inGuantanamo Bay since 2005, and that whether he was actually tied to al-Qaeda remained unclear. The article attributed to al-Suri was the beginning of a series that appeared in the next 5 issues ofInspire. These excerpts were all copied from a translation of Abu Musab al-Suri's"The Global Islamic Resistance Call" which was published in a 2008 biography of him.[30]
Peter Bergen, the national security analyst forCNN, describing it as "a slick Web-based publication, heavy on photographs and graphics that, unusually for a jihadistorgan, is written in colloquial English", on 31 March 2011 discussed the column of Yemeni-American clericAnwar al-Awlaki, a leader of AQAP, in its fifth issue.[31]
Inspire is a unique terrorist publication in that it is very specific in the audience in which it targets instead of publishing general ideological arguments to all Muslims. Studies in terrorism[32][33] have noted that most Islamic terrorist attacks on theWest are perpetrated by well-educated men living in the West, with an average age of 26 years.[32] AQAP also is aware of this, andInspire magazine targets this demographic.
One example is in the use of imagery and text in the operations ofAbyan in the Fall 2010 edition. The images are of operations directed against Yemeni troops at checkpoints, base ambushes, explosions, and "cleaning the streets" (killing the enemy). The photos show images of actions performed by themujahid against themurtad. The captions tell a story of victory for the holy warriors with few casualties. The images and text portray a story of invincibility and defeat of Yemen's Special Forces.
Al-Shamika (the high, elevated (feminine)) was a new fashion and lifestyle magazine for Muslim women and suicide bombers published online by al-Qaeda.[51][52]
Possession ofInspire without reasonable excuse has been successfully prosecuted under Section 58 of theTerrorism Act 2000.[53] Several people have been arrested and jailed for possessing the magazine, and copies have also been found in the possession of British terrorism suspects. One of theOperation Guava plotter's "key" assets were copies ofInspire.[54] Mohammed Abu Hasnath, 19, of east London, was arrested in October 2011 and sentenced in May 2012 to 14 months in jail for possessing several editions ofInspire.[55]
On 6 December 2012, Ruksana Begum, 22, ofIslington, north London was sentenced to one year in prison after two editions ofInspire were found on amicroSD card in her phone following an anti-terrorist raid in June of that year. Her brothers, Gurukanth Desai and Abdul Miah were sentenced to 12 and 16 years imprisonment respectively in February 2012 after pleading guilty to a plot to blow up theLondon Stock Exchange. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Fulford stated that Begum "is of good behaviour and a good Muslim" and there was nothing to suggest she was involved in terrorist activity.[56] He accepted that she gathered the material in an attempt to explore and understand the charges her brothers faced. After taking into account time spent on remand, Begum would be released in one month, after serving half her sentence.[57]
On 16 April 2013, an Australian man fromMelbourne was arrested for possessing and collecting editions of the magazine on aUSB drive.[58]
The magazine is not banned or necessarily illegal. In May 2013, U.S. AttorneyBarry Grissom told students during an event atWichita State University that authorities monitor extremist groups' websites, includingInspire.[59]
Circa June 2010,[60] anMI6 andGCHQcyberwarfare operation[61][62] replacedMake a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom byThe AQ Chef with a web page of recipes forThe Best Cupcakes in America written by Dulcy Israel, a staff editor[63][64] atEntertainment Weekly,[65] produced by Main Street Cupcakes,[66] Hudson, Ohio, and published byThe Ellen DeGeneres Show. MI6 and GCHQ also removed articles byOsama bin Laden,Ayman al-Zawahiri and an article,What to expect in Jihad.[67][68] Al-Qaeda reissued the magazine two weeks later.[68][69][70][71][72]
Al-Qaeda has opened a new front in war on the West, launching its own English-language Internet newspaper, which features articles such as "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom"
What's to make of Al Qaeda's first foray into the English-language magazine publishing business? To a lot of folks here, including our publisher, it reads almost like an Onion parody.
The articles by Al-Suri in Inspire have actually been taken word for word and translated directly from Brynjar Lia's 2008 book about him, Architect of Global Jihad. In the book, Lia, a research professor at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, included an English translation of two key chapters from Al-Suri's The Global Islamic Resistance Call. All the articles are part of a series titled "The Jihadi Experiences [The Schools of Jihad]."
In addition, Ahmad admitted three counts of collecting information likely to be of use to a terrorist, including the al-Qaeda publication Inspire.
Code-named Operation Guava, the investigation was part of a long-term effort to disrupt a domestic network [...] Key among their possessions was Inspire magazine
Scope is the annual research magazine of New York University.
SeanNock
J. Wilson, "Operation Cupcake: British Spies Hack Al Qaeda's Magazine to Replace Bombs With Cupcakes
