TERROR group al-Qaida is set to release a new English-language online magazine, Resurgence, in a move analysts believe is a fresh bid to radicalise young Western Muslims and regain control of the global jihad. Al-Qaidas official media-production house, as-Sahab, has released an 80-second promotional video clip, heralding the release of the magazine. Featuring a voiceover from a 1965 speech by American equal-rights activist Malcolm X, the slickly produced video contains a montage of images including the Boston bombings, the coffin of a soldier draped in a US flag and footage of what appears to be a truck bomb hitting a US base in Afghanistan. The voiceover, taken from a speech the day after Malcolm Xs house was fire-bombed, encourages its audience to talk the language that they understand. You cant ever reach a man if you dont speak his language, it says. If a man speaks the language of brute force, you cant come at him with peace. Why good night! Hell break you in two, as he has been doing all along. Resurgence is a clear attempt to build on the success achieved by Inspire, an online jihadist magazine produced by al-Qaidas Yemen-based affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Inspire was the brainchild of two senior al-Qaida members, Samir Khan, who edited the magazine, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the spiritual head of AQAP. Both were killed in a US drone strike in 2011. Inspire was highly influential among Western extremists. Its first edition contained an article titled How to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom, with instructions for a pressure-cooker bomb, believed to have been used by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in last years Boston Marathon bombing. Counter-terrorism expert Carl Ungerer, a former adviser to then foreign minister Bob Carr, said Inspire was emblematic of a debate within al-Qaida about the strategic direction of global jihad. He said al-Qaidas leadership group, led by Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri since Osama bin Ladens death, had wanted a centralised approach, but al-Qaida affiliates favoured a more atomised system. (Zawahiri) seems to accept the idea that the individual is just as important to the struggle as the organisation, he said. Dr Ungerer, who has conducted extensive research on jailed Indonesian Islamists, said the notion of individualised jihad preached by Inspire had clearly resonated. They talked about freelance mujaheddin - that they no longer had an organisational attachment, they would prosecute jihad against the west when and where they could, Dr Ungerer said. ASIO director-general David Irvine has spoken publicly about Inspire and its pernicious influence on would-be radicals. Police considered an attack from a home-grown jihadist using guns or a crude explosive device the most likely terrorist threat. Dr Ungerer said access to online radical material such as Inspire was monitored closely. The prevailing view is to leave the material online and to monitor it, he said. m.theaustralian.au/national-affairs/policy/alqaida-goes-online-to-target-youths/story-e6frg8yo-1226852962557
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:33:07 +0000
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