Everyone, including myself, is writing about it – the “doctrine of individual jihad”, the age of the lone-wolf terrorist – the jihadist taking action in their homelands.
In recent months, discussion on this topic has increased dramatically, with imams like Anwar Awlaki encouraging this activity, Inspire, the internet magazine published under the name Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula providing ideas on how to get the job done, and in recent days with last week’s words from Adam Gadahn in an As Sahab message released Friday:
Let's take America as an example. America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?
Yet this is not a new concept for Al Qaeda. Individual jihad has long been part of the “action plan” of Osama bin Laden and his leadership team in charge of the “Global Jihad”.
In 1998, Bin Laden issued his now-famous fatwa calling for Muslims to rise up and attack Christians and Jews
On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
Let’s look at those words from Bin Laden again: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it”
Nothing has changed, has it? Al Qaeda’s message remains the same. The only difference is the messenger.
Since the release of that Fatwa in 1998, there have certainly been a significant number of acts of terror – the USS Cole, the French tanker Limberg, the nightclub in Bali, and so many more. None of us alive that day will ever forget September 11, 2001, just like those in Madrid at the time will ever forget the March 11, 2004 train bombings, and London will always remember the July 7, 2005 bombings. 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7 are days that have been engraved in our respective national consciousness.
There have been scores, if not hundreds, of plots disrupted – plots which could have let to the loss of considerable numbers of souls if Bin Laden’s devotees would have had been allowed to continue. Others have thankfully failed. Some have succeeded.
There has been a move towards decentralization of the jihad; of empowering individuals to take action in their own countries at a time of their choosing.
This trend isn’t accidental. This trend is something that was described by Abu Mus’ab al Suri in his 1600 page treatise “Call to Global Islamic Resistance”, where he described what he called “Individual Terrorism”, seeing it as the direction in which jihadist “resistance” would by necessity evolve. (Al Suri’s writing career was cut short in 2005 when he was arrested.)
Even before the release of Al Suri’s book, there was a trend towards exploiting internet resources for the sake of jihad.
Detailed “how-to” guides were released in Arabic, such as Moaskar al Battar, an internet publication which covered the full spectrum from military strategy to physical fitness. In recent years, similar guides have been released; the most recent iteration is the Inspire series in English, out of Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s interesting to note that two of the most infamous publications of jihad, Sout al Jihad and Moaskar al Battar, also were released by Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula back in 2004 and 2005.
Videos and PDF files showing how to create any kind of weapon including cyanide bombs, suicide bomb vest, cell phone detonated bombs, VBIED’s – Car and Truck bombs often using propane tanks, and many other types of IED’s. The “Mujahideen’s Poison Handbook” was a detailed “encyclopedia”, detailing how to produce many kinds of poisons, including ricin and botulinum.
It is undisputed that there is a wealth of information out there on the web that is readily accessible in Arabic and much of that information is also in English.
It appears that a growing number of youth are being radicalized, not only in street corner mosques, but in also cyberspace, in forums, chatrooms, YouTube, and on Facebook.
Each year, the number of youth migrating to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Yemen and Somalia to participate in the jihad grows.
So what is the next step?
Young who don’t hesitate to go to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia and die on the battlefield of jihad seem to be a little less anxious to blow themselves up on the US homeland, and even in Europe.
When Inspire magazine called upon Muslims to attack in the US, suggesting how to modify a truck with blades to mow down civilians in Washington DC, there was a tremendous outcry in the media.
Last week, when Adam Gadahn called for Muslims in the US to take up arms and carry out attacks in their home country, the reaction was likewise swift.
Yet these are not new calls; they are readily visible in Bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the United States.
So what makes these calls different? Is there really any difference? Or is it simply that the Al Qaeda message has failed.
Certainly Al Qaeda has succeeded in attracting those misfit souls who, like mosquitos seeking light, clinging to any message or movement that can fulfill their innate need for belonging, for fitting in with something or someone.
Yet Al Qaeda has not succeeded in reaching the masses.
Over recent years, Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Gadahn began to incorporate video clips from Malcolm X in their messages, in an attempt to gain a foothold in the communities where Malcolm X’s legacy remains strong. These not-so-subtle attempts to foment racial strife in the US are almost certainly largely driving by Adam Gadahn, whose views are warped by his own personal experiences.
Gadahn is one of those misfit souls; if he had not been attracted to radical Islam, he would have been attracted to some other fringe group or cult. Gadahn is quite simply not mainstream anything. This is obvious when you go back and review the open source news reports. There are interviews with Gadahn’s immediate family, his aunt, a few people who knew him at the mosque. I have yet to find a single interview with a girlfriend or even a close friend. He is a loner, painting American society, which he was unable to fit into, as the bogeyman.
People like Gadahn are drawn to Al Qaeda, not because they deeply believe in that specific ideology, but because they need to believe something that gives them a feeling of belonging. It doesn’t matter to them what they belong to – they just want to be a part of something. Al Qaeda knows this.
This is what makes internet radicalization so dangerous. Charismatic cyberimams offer that degree of instant intimacy that the internet provides so well. It has been said many times that you can be anything on the internet. It is easy to email and chat online with someone you’d never be able to tolerate in the real world. We see this every day as young teens get head over their heels in trouble in romantic encounters with adults 20, 30, and 40 years older – people they never would have been attracted to in the real world.
This is also readily apparent in the cyberjihad world. This is a world where a self-taught imam with a history of vice arrests, who is barely competent as an imam, can become a celebrity.
This is a world where a misfit from Orange County can draw the attention of law enforcement and news media worldwide, just by going on camera and spewing vague threats.
There are only a handful of things setting Anwar Awlaki apart from Adam Gadahn. First, Awlaki answers emails; at least he did until the last year. Secondly, Awlaki has a fan club on the internet that uploads videos of his sermons; Gadahn doesn’t have any sermons videotaped to be uploaded – just a short article that he wrote as a teenager when he was at USC.
The bottom line is both have warped visions of American society. Neither can make it in American society; both have retreated to remote locations, making their only incursions into the world through the internet.
Neither has the understanding, insight, or ability to appeal to the mainstream American – which is what Al Qaeda would like to do.
All they can do is reach out to those disaffected individuals who like them never fit in.
These cyberjihad celebrities really believe that they are having their 10 minutes of fame. They really believe they are special. It’s even sadder to think that people are destroying their lives following a couple of narcissistic warped minds.
And the worst part of all is that innocent civilians have died and will continue to die because of it. | 
