Al-Qaida faction calls its new English magazine ‘Palestine’

Magazaine contains section entitled "Selected Jihadi Operations From 1980-2014 In Against Israeli & America’s Interests."

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
AL-QAIDA’S new publication. (photo credit: MEMRI)
AL-QAIDA’S new publication.
(photo credit: MEMRI)
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has published a new English-language magazine called “Palestine.”
The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) exclusively provided The Jerusalem Post with a report published on Monday that looks at the publication released on August 16 by Al-Malahem, the media arm of AQAP.
“While this magazine is not an official issue of AQAP’s well-known Inspire magazine, it is similar in appearance, contains almost exclusively content previously published by it, and refers to it repeatedly,” said the report.
“Its slickly produced 24 pages are introduced by a table of contents page that states ‘Palestine in Focus – Focus on Palestine from previous Inspire issues.’” Steven Stalinsky, MEMRI’s executive director, told the Post on Tuesday that the quality of this magazine is lower than Inspire’s, perhaps because there was a rush to release it.
It is noteworthy, said Stalinsky, that there is “a lack of ‘contact’ information, including details on how to send encrypted emails to AQAP. Such direct contact has been one of the main purposes of such al-Qaida magazines, and its omission here marks the legacy left by the Snowden leaks – al-Qaida and other terrorist groups learned that governments were able to read those encrypted emails and that this means of communication was no longer safe.
“However, the most significant part of the magazine is a time line titled: ‘Selected Jihadi Operations From 1980-2014 In Against Israeli & America’s Interests,’” he said.
“For the year 2014 – it has a series of question marks about where and when an attack will happen,” said Stalinsky. “Anytime AQAP hints to a possible attack, it should be taken seriously, as they have in the past attempted to attack the US and other international targets.”
The timeline, according to the report, includes “details and photos of the attacks or their perpetrators, begins in 1985 with the ‘Suleiman Khater Operation’ targeting ‘trespassing Israeli soldiers’ at the Egyptian border, which it states was in retaliation for the ‘massacre of Muslims in Jerusalem.’ “It then moves through the 1995 World Trade Center bombing, the September 11, 2001, attacks, the [2009] Fort Hood shooting, the failed Christmas Day 2009 airplane bombing attempt [over Detroit], the failed 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.”
Other selected magazine articles include: “Irrational Alliance [by] Abu abdur-Rahman ar-rumi,” about unconditional US support for Israel and calls for attacks on the countries’ interests around the world; “Hatred Has Already Appeared From Their Mouths – Kuffars’ confession of their hatred,” in which supposed anti-Islamic quotes by Western public figures such as US President Barack Obama appear; and “Liberating Palestine – Sheikh abu baseer nasir al-wuhaishi,” that includes excerpts from a previously released speech published by Al-Malahem.