WASHINGTON — Yemen’s al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is offering chilling magazine tips to would-be militants on how to kill Americans.
“A random hit at a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C., at lunch . . . might end up knocking out a few government employees,” writes one of the authors in the second edition of the group’s English language magazine, according to the private SITE Intelligence Group. The SITE group studies, tracks and analyzes the global jihadist network and terrorism financing.
The article in the 74-page October issue of Inspire, launched in July, came just in time for the 10th anniversary of the USS Cole bombing. It shows the group “is not under significant pressure,” says Brookings Institution terrorism expert Bruce Riedel.
The magazine’s content reveals the group’s evolving strategy of rejecting easier-to-stop spectacular attacks in favor of one-man operations, using everyday objects.
That shows the organization is “increasingly agile, lethal and opportunistic,” according to Yemeni scholar Christopher Boucek from the Carnegie Endowment.
The first edition included an article called “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” This new edition includes “The Ultimate Mowing Machine,” which describes how to use a pickup truck “as a mowing machine, not to mow grass, but mow down the enemies of Allah.”
The magazine includes two articles by renegade U.S. cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is on a U.S. government kill-or-capture list for his alleged roles in the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing and inspiring the Fort Hood shooting of 13 troops. Army Major Nidal Hassan has been charged in the killings.
An American, Samir Khan, describes how he went from online jihadist in North Carolina to full-time terrorist in Yemen. The article is titled, “I Am Proud to be a Traitor to America.”
