Al-Qaida publishes hit-list of influential Americans

Al-Qaida affiliated website lists names of specific Americans; calls on jihadists world-wide to target and kill them.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Zawahri 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Zawahri 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
An al-Qaida website has posted a hit-list of American businessmen, diplomats, thinktank executives and military officials, according to a report by NBC New York.
Along with the hit-list is an invitation for jihadists worldwide to take matters into their own hands and target the named individuals.
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The FBI has notified those individuals listed, as well as law-enforcement agencies nationwide.
According to the NBC New York report, the hit-list names 40 individuals – 26 with photographs – and a request to add home addresses in order to send parcel bombs.
While the FBI acknowledges that al-Qaida often posts threats on its websites which are not actualized, “what’s scary about this is how specific the individual information is,” said former New York State Homeland Security Director Michael Balboni in the NBC report.
“What you don’t know is: When does aspirational become operational in cases like this, involving a possible lone actor here inspired by a website... Part of this is a necessary precaution. You don’t want to scare people,” Balboni said. “But there is much more specific, individual targeting than we’ve seen before.”