Pro Ikhwan-Muslim Brotherhood march in Ottawa Canada today at Parliament hill

Al-Qaeda militants kill 24 civilians near Ras al-Ain

H/T C.B. Sashenka.

Warning: This is an Iranian news site

Alalam.Ir

Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups operating in Syria, including the al-Nusra Front, are trying to capture Kurdish territories and make them part of a state they want to create in the region.

Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups operating in Syria, including the al-Nusra Front, are trying to capture Kurdish territories and make them part of a state they want to create in the region.

Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria have beheaded all 24 Syrian passengers traveling from Tartus to Ras al-Ain in northeast of Syria, among them a mother and a 40-days old infant.

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Repost of Wall Street Journal about Al-Qaeda train attack plans May 6 2011

C. B. Sashenka earlier today posted a comment with a now defunct link to the Wall Street Journal about secret documents gained from a raid on Al Qaeda prime. When I checked the link earlier it worked. Now a few hours later it does not. Searching normally gives the same WSJ URL but it doesn’t work. Then somehow I found this one:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576305691763033156.html

Which seems to work. Some of the text:

WASHINGTON—A set of handwritten notes picked up by the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden prompted the government to warn of potential al Qaeda threats to the U.S. train network, the first known use of intelligence gleaned from the raid.

[…]

In an “intelligence message,” the Department of Homeland Security alerted law-enforcement officials that initial analysis of evidence seized from bin Laden’s compound shows al Qaeda hoped to attack trains in the U.S., possibly on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to the DHS bulletin, the terror group in early 2010 envisioned sabotaging a railway to cause a wreck […]

Of train disasters, the media and Al-Qaeda

I just feel it bears repeating that a relatively recent issue of Al-Qaeda’s ‘Inspire Magazine specifically tells muslim readers to attack trains as opposed to aircraft as they are easier targets and tells them how. I have been opposed on principle to linking to Inspire or reproducing their material directly but here is a link to an NBC News piece on this issue. No special reason why I make this post at this time. Just call it a whim.

In the summer 2010 issue, headlines invited readers to check out an “Exclusive Interview with Shaykh Abu Basir.” Another advertised a piece about “Mujahideen 101.” At the bottom of the cover: “What to Expect in Jihad.”

Other articles have offered blueprints for destroying buildings and carrying out attacks against cars, trains and malls — particularly small operations to unnerve the enemy because “hitting him in his backyard drives him crazy.”

Speed of train not enough to cause derailment

H/T M

El Pais

(machine translation)

An engineer of ADIF, which acknowledged not the exact circumstances of the accident, explained on Wednesday that it is unlikely that a train derailed just speeding and although this circumstance increased the severity of the incident, there must have been some other cause concurring in or route the machine to be come out.

 

Vigilantes Armed With Machetes Fight Nigerian Islamists

This is an important story if you want to know the future.

H/T Ted L

Bloomberg:

Armed with machetes and clubs, vigilantes in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri are setting up roadblocks and conducting house-to-house searches to aid the army’s fight against Islamist militants.

While the military welcomes the public’s support in the battle against the Boko Haram Islamist group, human rights activists say vigilantes’ activities may worsen violence and lead to abuses against innocent civilians.

Enlarge image Vigilantes Armed With Machetes Fight Nigerian Islamist Militants
Joint Military Task Force patrols the streets of Maiduguri, Borno State. Photographer: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images

Enlarge image Vigilantes Armed With Machetes Fight Nigerian Islamist Militants
As many as 185 people were killed and more than 2,000 houses were burned down in Baga, near Lake Chad, after security forces responded to a militant attack on April 16, according to local officials and residents. Source: AFP via Getty Images

So far the vigilantes have seized more than 100 suspected insurgents in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital that has borne the brunt of Boko Haram’s violent campaign to impose Shariah law on Nigeria, according to Abubakar Malum, a leader in a group that calls itself the Civilian Joint Task Force.

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Mali manual suggests al-Qaida has feared weapon

H/T AMB

Yahoo News:

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In this March 29, 2013 photo provided by the French Army’s images division, ECPAD, a French soldier holds the launch tube of an SA-7 surface-to-air missile before its destruction in Timbuktu, northern Mali. The knowledge that the terrorists have the weapon has already changed the way the French are carrying out their five-month-old offensive in Mali. They are using more fighter jets rather than helicopters to fly above its range of 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) from the ground, even though that makes it harder to attack the jihadists. They are also making cargo planes land and take off more steeply to limit how long they are exposed, in line with similar practices in Iraq after an SA-14 hit the wing of a DHL cargo plane in 2003. (AP Photo/ECPAD, Olivier Debes)AP
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI 3 hours agoPoliticsMilitaryMali

 

TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — The photocopies of the manual lay in heaps on the floor, in stacks that scaled one wall, like Xeroxed, stapled handouts for a class.

Except that the students in this case were al-Qaida fighters in Mali. And the manual was a detailed guide, with diagrams and photographs, on how to use a weapon that particularly concerns the United States: A surface-to-air missile capable of taking down a commercial airplane.

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Here is the published part of the manual