Colbert Report | 1 July 2010

Al Qaeda Starts Inspire Magazine

Is this some twisted American Psy-Op — sorry, MISO (Military Information Support Operation), as it is now called — or just some disaffected American Muslim hounded as a terrorist, who lost his job, and decided to live up to his tormentor’s expectations? It is hard to say. An online search for this alleged Al Qaeda magazine doesn’t yield quick results.

Molly Grantham of WBTV, Charlotte, NC, however, who seems to have broken the story, claims to have found the magazine online (see video posted at WBTV site: here; the video also shows her harrassing Samir Khan in a parking lot outside his place of work after which, she reports, he lost his job for unknown reasons).

It seems that Vanity Fair was not as lucky as Molly Grantham; they too were unable to find this well-concealed propaganda website. But this didn’t stop Vanity Fair from running the story, Al-Qaeda Launches Inspire, Its First English-Language Magazine, complete with a graphic (on right, below), with a cute sub-title, “Probably a different Inspire magazine. Probably”.

The Atlantic had better luck (see the centre cover, above), but they say they obtained the magazine from a “private researcher” and do not claim to have found it online. On the authority of Fox News, The Atlantic reports that the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, disclosed at a security forum in Aspen, CO, that the cover of this issue of Inspire includes a damning a quotation from Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American who has been cleared to be assassinated by U.S. Special Forces on the orders of President Obama. The quote (see above) presumably is: “May our souls be sacrificed for you!” Yet, to their credit, the folks at The Atlantic aren’t entirely gullible:

“It is possible, although not likely, that the magazine is a fabrication, a  production of a Western intelligence agency that wants to undermine Al Qaeda by eroding confidence in its production and distribution networks. The U.S. is engaged in direct net-based warfare with jihadis; this sort of operation would not be too difficult to pull off.”

Samir Khan, a 24-year-old North Carolina man who left for Yemen last October, is believed to be editor-in-chief of Inspire, a newly launched online magazine that seeks to recruit members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (FoxNews.com).

Sources:

• Colbert Report | Colbert Report – Al Qaeda Starts Inspire Magazine | 1 July 2010
• Vanity fair | Al-Qaeda Launches Inspire, Its First English-Language Magazine | 1 July 2010
• WBTV | Charlotte man reportedly running new al-Qaeda online magazine | 20 July 2010
• The Atlantic | Al Qaeda’s First English Language Magazine Is Here | 30 June 2010
• Fox News | N.C. Congresswoman Calls for American to Be Stripped of Citizenship Over Al Qaeda Website | 20 July 2010
• Times of India | American citizen behind al-Qaida’s terror magazine? | 21 July 2010