Special Dispatch | No. 2168 | December 31, 2008
Alerts and Threats: Material from the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project (JTTM)
The following are reports from MEMRI's new JTTM (http://www.memrijttm.org). For future access to material on this website, you must register and pay a membership fee. Instructions can be found below.
Islamist Websites Call to Attack American, Israeli Interests
In response to the Gaza offensive, Islamist websites have posted many messages calling to attack Israeli and American interests worldwide. A member of the Shumukh Al-Islam forum, for example, called to attack American and Israeli embassies around the world, and asked for information about these embassies – especially in Europe, Asia and Arab countries – and for pictures of them. Fellow members explained how to find the embassies using Google Earth, and posted links to websites of U.S. embassies, among them the one in Maskat, Oman. A member of the Islamist forum Al-Fallujah urged Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to attack the Israeli embassy in Mauritania and the Israeli representations in Morocco and Tunisia.
Website of the U.S. embassy in Oman (one of the links supplied on Shumukh Al-Islam)
Posted at: December 29, 2008
IRGC Commander Threatens Takeover Of U.S. Diplomatic Representation
The Iranian news agency Fars reported on December 26 that during a conference of senior officials of the student Basij, held the previous day at the former U.S. Embassy facility in Tehran, Mohammad Ali 'Aziz Jafari, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who is also in charge of the Basij militia, announced: "We want to prepare the ground so that if there is a need, the student Basij will take a step identical to that of 13 Aban [i.e. the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy by Iranian students]."
An attack on a U.S. diplomatic representation is an important subject of statements by senior Iranian officials. Although this statement at the conference can be viewed in the context of the possibility of the opening of a U.S. interest office in Tehran, which has been postponed for the present, it can also be seen as intimating at possible activity by Iranian forces against U.S. diplomatic representations worldwide.
Posted at: December 30, 2008
Islamist Websites Post Addresses of US and Israeli Embassies Worldwide; Call to Target Jewish Advisor of Moroccan King
In the wake of calls to attack U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide (1), the addresses of many of the US and Israeli embassies were posted in a threaded discussion on the Islamist forum Shumukh Al-Islam (hosted by TMIDC-MY, Malaysia). Among the potential targets mentioned by the forum members were the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Oman, and the Israeli embassies in Angola, Belgium, Cameroon, Egypt, Eritrea, France, India, Jordan, Mauritania, Nigeria and Turkey. In addition, a forum member posted a picture of André Azoulay, the Jewish advisor of the King of Morocco.
Furthermore, an article on the official Hamas website (hosted by Emirnet, UAE) called on Muslims to target "Zionists" all over the world, since "a Jewish adolescent boy in an Australian synagogue, a Jewish minister in the Georgian government, a Jewish businessman at the New York Stock Exchange, and an illiterate Jew from the Ethiopian desert… they all belong to the same gang and the same nation, apart from the rest of humanity."
Posted: December 31, 2008
Report: AQIM Plans New Year Kidnappings Of Foreigners Vacationing in Algeria
The Algerian daily newspaper Ennahar El-Djadid reports from "high-level sources in the security forces" that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is planning to kidnap foreigners vacationing in the south of Algeria over the New Year holiday.
The suspicions center on Illizi province in the Sahara desert, and specifically the city of Djanet, which draws thousands of vacationers from France and elsewhere every New Year's.
The brigade of the organization thought to behind the plans is commanded by Abdelhamid Abou Zaid, who was involved in the 2008 kidnapping of Austrian tourists and in the 2003 kidnapping of a group of European tourists.
Algerian security forces are taking measures to thwart any new kidnapping attempt.
Posted: December 23, 2008
Somali Jihad Fighter: 'We Will Establish Islamic Rule From Alaska and Chile to South Africa, Japan, Russia... To Iceland... Be Warned, We Are Coming'
An armed group battling Ethiopian forces in Somalia has told Al-Jazeera it will take its fight beyond the country once it defeats its rivals.
"We are fighting to lift the burden of oppression and colonialism from our country ... We are defending ourselves against enemies who attacked us," Abu Mansoor, the leader of al-Shabab, said.
"Once we are successful with that we will fight on and finish oppression elsewhere on earth," he said.
Al-Shabab, meaning youth, split last year from the Islamic Courts Union which controlled much of Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, until it was pushed out by government and Ethiopian troops in 2006.
It has since retaken large areas of central and southern Somalia and is putting increased pressure on the transitional government, which exercises little control from its base in the town of Baidoa.
In Marka, just 90km from the capital Mogadishu, Ibrahim Almaqdis, one of the fighters, told Al Jazeera: "We wish to tell Bush and our opponents our real intentions.
"We will establish Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, Japan, Russia, the Solomon Islands and all the way to Iceland, be warned, we are coming."
Abu Mansoor said that Al-Shabab's ranks had been bolstered by foreign fighters and urged others to join, saying that a core principle of the group was that all Muslims be citizens of Somalia.
"Many have already died fighting our cause and many others are here with us," he said.
"We shall welcome any Muslim from any part of the world who wants to join us. We will allow him to wed our daughters and share our farms."
The group was created in 2001 by four Somali men who had trained in Afghanistan and is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Source: Aljazeera.net, December 19, 2008
Posted: December 19, 2008
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