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| Inspired to jihad | ||
| 2010-07-22 | ||
In three short years, Samir Khan went from blogging about jihad from his parents' North Carolina basement to editing al-Qaida's new online magazine in Yemen -- all under the FBI radar. The 24-year-old Khan is now helping America's Enemy No. 1 recruit Muslims to kill fellow Americans as Webmaster of al-Qaida's splashy new propaganda organ, which provides instructions in English on how to "make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."And the FBI and U.S. intelligence never saw it coming.
"How far does someone have to go before we take them seriously?" asked Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who warned about Khan in 2007, only to have her concerns brushed aside. Khan was exercising his free speech, she was told. Yes, he might have been promoting jihad, but technically, he wasn't soliciting violent acts. And he was viewed as a lone jihadist, unconnected to a terrorist group -- even though we now know he'd forged links with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula while he was here in the U.S. "That was not followed up with the intelligence community," complained Myrick, a House Intelligence Committee member. Authorities and the local media were also assured by Khan's family mosque, the Islamic Center of Charlotte, or ICC, that he wasn't a threat -- even though that assurance should have been discounted, given the mosque's terror ties. Turns out ICC is owned and controlled by the radical North American Islamic Trust, which the Justice Department has implicated in a plot to funnel millions to Hamas suicide bombers. Still, Khan was given a pass by the government -- literally. While posting video of attacks on U.S. soldiers that "brought great happiness to me," he even managed to land a job with a federal contractor, Convergys Corp., which was awarded a $2.5 billion deal to set up emergency communications centers in the event of terror attacks. Khan, a naturalized American from Saudi Arabia, was virulently anti-American and didn't try to conceal his hatred. He also wore a Taliban beard and Islamic skull cap, telegraphing his zealotry. Yet nobody seemed to think he was dangerous, save Myrick and a local TV news correspondent. (Molly Grantham of the Charlotte CBS affiliate staked out Khan's home and office. He then targeted her on his blog.) He was just another misunderstood young Muslim man practicing the "religion of peace." We know different now, but it's too late: Terror experts say Khan is safely (from his Yemeni redoubt) aiding al-Qaida in its new push to recruit English-speaking American converts to Islam to carry out attacks on the homeland. The terrorist group is successfully using the Web as a recruiting tool. Of last year's 15 al-Qaida or homegrown terrorist plots, nine defendants had downloaded jihad videos or English jihad publications from the Internet. Al-Qaida's ambitious new online recruiting tool, "Inspire," is a slick magazine with bright graphics splashed across 67 pages, which feature articles by bin Laden and Awlaki. U.S. intelligence suspects Khan's encrypting messages to suicide cells within the graphics. Treasury should freeze Khan's assets, including any accounts tied to his upscale parents, as it last week finally did with Awlaki. More, the CIA should add Khan to its hit list, alongside his pal Awlaki. To do less would allow Khan to keep inciting mass murder of fellow Americans. It would also send a message to recruits in the U.S. that we're not serious about punishing treason in a time of war. The Web-savvy, Americanized Khan is a plum for al-Qaida. Its latest recruit is our latest intelligence failure. | ||
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #1 "Political correctness" has gone from a mere propaganda tool to a weapon of Islamic terrorism. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-07-22 08:52 |