Guantanamo, Boston, and al-Qaeda's Inspire Magazine
May 9, 2013 by Bruce Wallace, 121Contact
You may have thought, “Whatever else is wrong with Guantanamo prison, it is making us safer.”
Think again. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have been using the torture chambers of Guantanamo as a recruiting tool for years. (Yes, indefinite detention after charges have been dropped is torture. So is forced feeding; especially when administered roughly with oversized feeding tubes.)
The Boston Marathon bombers were readers of al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, and the captured brother claims that they were self-radicalized partly by reading internet inducements to violence, including Inspire. Guantanamo is referenced 20 times in the first 10 issues. It is a powerful cognitive symbol.
Guantanamo conjures up images of torture, humiliation, injustice, and hypocrisy. It reminds readers of Abu Ghraib and all the other black sites used to torture people with no regard for the law.
President Obama can order the closing of Guantanamo.
It will take courage on his part, but we will all be safer for his valor.
The Boston bombers were not the only terrorists known to have read Inspire. The following list will indicate its recently broad influence:
• On April 15, 2013 Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly exploded 2 devices at the annual Boston Marathon. They had allegedly assembled at least four types of improvised explosives from plans they read in Inspire magazine.
• In March, 2103, three men in the United Kingdom pleaded guilty to terrorism charges related to attending terrorism training camps in Pakistan. The men allegedly were motivated by Inspire.
• On Nov. 29, 2012, two brothers from Florida, Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, were arrested and charged with plotting attacks in New York. Prosecutors noted that the pair had been motivated by Inspire magazine.
• On Oct. 17, 2012, Bangladeshi national Quazi Nafis was arrested as part of an FBI sting operation after he attempted to detonate a vehicle bomb outside New York's Federal Reserve Bank. Nafis reportedly was an avid reader of Inspire magazine.
• On Sept. 15, 2012, Adel Daoud, another avid Inspire reader, was arrested after he parked a Jeep Cherokee outside a Chicago bar and attempted to detonate the bomb he thought it contained. His was also an FBI sting operation.
• On April 25, 2012, four men were arrested in the British town of Luton and charged with plotting attacks against a British army base. The four were also charged with downloading and possessing six editions of Inspire magazine. They pleaded guilty March 1, 2013.
• July, 2011, PFC Jason Abdo was arrested trying to assemble a bomb from Inspire instructions. He intended to blow up a restaurant that was popular with soldiers from Fort Hood.
• November, 2011, Jose Pimental was arrested in Manhattan as he was constructing a bomb from Inspire instructions.
• November 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people. A second soldier who was plotting an attack was found to have copies of Inspire.
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