Sunday, January 11, 2015

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Charlie Hebdo - The "Dust Will Never Settle Down"

According to The Intercept, a source within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has provided a full statement claiming responsibility for the recent attacks against Charlie Hebdo in Paris. 

Here is a short quote:

"Some ask the relationship between Al-Qaeda Organization and the (brothers) who carried out the #CharlieHebdo operation. Was it direct? Was the operation supervised by the Al-Qaeda wing in the Arabian Peninsula?

The leadership of #AQAP directed the operation, and they have chosen their target carefully as a revenge for the honor of Prophet.

The target was in France in particular because of its obvious role in the war on Islam and oppressed nations."

I had posted a summary of one of the articles found in the recent Winter 2014 edition of Inspire, AQAP's rather glossy online magazine that was released just before Christmas 2014, outlining the group's plans to attack the world's airlines using lone-wolf terrorists.  In looking through the magazine, I missed one key item as shown here:


In the upper right side of this two-page spread, you'll notice a French passport.  Was AQAP telegraphing that France would be the next target of al-Qaeda?  Right beside the passport is the sentence "EU security forces estimate that at present, 400 suspected "lone wolves" are operating and planning attacks in Europe.".

In AQAP's statement to The Intercept, they state that "...the crimes of the Western countries, above them America, Britain and France will backfire deep in their homes...".

Looking back in time to the first edition of Inspire from 2010, which supplies readers with the charming directions for making a bomb "in the kitchen of your Mom", as pictured here:


...the editor states that the purpose of Inspire is to making a Muslim into a mujahid in Allah's path.  

In that regard, Inspire offers this timeline of events pertaining to the cartoons of Muhammed that were published in a Danish newspaper on September 30th, 2005 as shown on these pages:



At the top of the second page, you'll notice that Charlie Hebdo is mentioned by name in this sentence:

"March 1, 2006: Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima, Nasrin, Bernard-Henry Levy, Irshad Manji, Ibn Warraq are among a dozen writers to have put their names to a statement in a French weekly Charlie Hebdo paper warning against Islamic "totalitarianism".  Charlie Hebdo reprinted the cartoons in France earlier on."

On the following page in the magazine, we find a page captioned "The Dust Will Never Settle Down" along with a list of nine names of magazine editors, anti-Muslim pundits who had defended the publishing of the Muhammed cartoons as well as Molly Norris, a Seattle, Washington-based cartoonist who, in 2010, created the artwork that reacted to the threats against South Park animators Matt Stone and Trey Parker who provided the television public with a depiction of Muhammed in an episode and ended up with a veiled death threat for their trouble.  At the bottom of the page, three is a partially shadowed handgun, just in case potential jihadists didn't get the message clearly enough.


Apparently, the organizers of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have very long memories.  They were right, the "dust didn't settle down".

3 comments:

  1. Helps Russia too - increases anti-Muslim feeling in Europe and increases popularity of extreme right wing parties; takes attention off Ukraine; shows Russia "battling a common enemy - terrorism - and therefore worthy of reduced sanctions.

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  2. Islam is everyone's problem. There is only 3 ways it plays out either everyone becomes Muslim or the world finally says enough and it gets banned in western nations and all of the west comes together for a total war that wipes it off of the Earth, or the third option is Muslims across the world decide that violence isn’t the answer and they police themselves and eliminate any hateful teachers or and actively promote only the peaceful parts of Islam.
    I suppose there could be a 4th option of where Europe and the West kick the Muslims out and it stays in the Middle East and Africa and Asia but this option would mean that trade and movement of people is severely restricted. Ei no more planes or boats sailing around much.

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  3. I forgot add that the timeline that these options are on is thousands of years. Maybe so the next 5000 or so for these to playout.

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