New jihadist mag hopes to bomb

A page of the online magazine Inspire, a recruitment tool for jihadists that touts itself as the first magazine to be issued by al Qaeda in English. It appears to be the brainchild of radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a target of the Obama administration.

Story Topics

• Politics
• Entertainment_Culture
• Anwar Al-Awlaki
• al Qaeda
• United States Of America

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Call it the new journalism … for a niche market.

Should your interests veer toward articles like “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” written by authors such as “The AQ Chef” and “Terrorist,” there’s a new magazine for you.

Dubbed Inspire, the 67-page glossy of photos and text is an online recruitment magazine for English-speaking jihadists. It’s the brainchild of U.S.-Yemeni radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is targeted for assassination by the Obama administration.

Published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the magazine offers messages from Osama bin Laden on “the way to save the earth,” from his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri to the “people of Yemen” and from Mr. al-Awlaki to “the American people and Muslims in the West.”

And it touts itself as the first magazine to be issued by al Qaeda in English.

However, its launch has been far from smooth. Because of technical glitches, only the first three pages are available online.

The fact that the magazine is in English indicates al Qaeda’s attempt to reach potential recruits who do not speak Arabic. A letter from the editor notes that in the “West; in East, West and South Africa; in South and Southeast Asia and elsewhere are millions of Muslims whose first or second language is English.”

Mr. al-Awlaki himself, who was born in New Mexico, is fluent in English.

Juan Carlos Zarate, a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration and currently a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he had sufficient reason to believe the publication is authentic. He said he sees Mr. al-Awlaki’s fingerprints all over the project.

But Mr. Zarate said the most significant development is that the publication is produced by AQAP rather than As-Sahab, al Qaeda’s media arm, saying it indicates a shift of focus of the global terrorist movement to Yemen.

“In some ways, it starts to move the center of gravity of English-language recruitment to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Anwar al-Awlaki,” Mr. Zarate said, noting that Yemen is becoming “a centerpiece of recruitment for English-speaking individuals drawn to the siren song of Anwar al-Awlaki’s message.”

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said he sees the jihadi publication as a symbol of the threat posed by AQAP to the U.S.

“Inspire symbolizes the rise of AQAP as a threat to the American homeland,” Mr. Riedel said. “Awlaki is focused on inspiring more Fort Hoods and Inspire is one of his means to do so. He only needs to find one good bomber to succeed.”

Mr. al-Awlaki has been linked to various acts of terrorism directed against the U.S. by intelligence officials.

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in November, had been in contact with Mr. al-Awlaki before the massacre. Mr. al-Awlaki later described the attack as a “heroic act.”

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