Twice this week AlertsUSA subscribers were notified of the release of statements from the al Qaeda terror organization celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, which they describe as the "blessed Manhattan invasion."
The first message praises recent attacks by jihadists in such locations as East, Central and West Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and central Asia, including attacks on U.S. and French forces. The terror organization states that troops from both the U.S. and France remain on the target list.
On Friday, AlertsUSA subscribers were notified of Al Qaeda's release of an English translation of an updated December 2019 issue of "One Ummah" magazine, within which the terror organization again celebrates the attacks of September 11, 2001 (see this, this, this and this), as well as includes a recently written editorial threatening the nation of France, and the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, with new attacks.
Readers are reminded that Charlie Hebdo is a French newspaper that features cartoons, reports, polemics and jokes. The publication is strongly secularist and publishes articles that mock Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and various other groups. The magazine frequently published illustrations, cartoons and nude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, whose depiction is forbidden in most interpretations of Islam. Each issue containing such material sparked outrage across the Muslim world.
In 2011, the newspaper's office was firebombed. In 2013, al Qaeda added multiple members of the publication's staff to its most wanted list.
On the 7th of January 2015, two brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the newspaper in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which formally claimed responsibility for the attack. Over the next two days, several related attacks were carried out across Paris, as well as northwest of the city. These included 19 people held hostage in a kosher supermarket, of whom four were killed.
Why New Threats?
So readers may be asking why Al Qaeda is again threatening France and the publishers of Charlie Hebdo? The answer is that criminal trials for 14 individuals involved in the 2015 attack began last week in Paris. Charlie Hebdo marked the start of the trial by reprinting the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
In a separate communique released on Thursday, Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula lashed out and called for lone wolf attacks on the publication's staff for republishing the cartoons, as well as on other Europeans who blasphemed against Islam.
The Battle Continues
AlertsUSA reminds readers that the battle with radical Islam continues worldwide.
Followers of the "religion of peace" have been responsible for more than 37,600 separate terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11. The majority are incidents like attacks on schools and churches, suicide bombers on buses and subways, bombings of marketplaces, hotels and housing complexes, AK spray-downs of synagogues, crucifixions, execution or disfigurement for either not being Muslim, not being the right kind of Muslim or not being Muslim enough, beheadings for being Christian and refusing to convert to Islam, and on and on and on.
While it would be politically incorrect to say that America is fighting a religious war, make no mistake about it: The other side is doing just that.
While there may be lags in attack tempo and methodology, sweeping changes in organizational leadership, as well as variations in the methods and intensity of propaganda efforts, remember that the forceful spread of Islam has been underway since before Mohammad's death in 632 AD.
AlertsUSA continues to monitor the domestic and international threat environment around the clock and will immediately notify service subscribers, via SMS messages to their mobile devices, of new alerts, warnings and advisories or any developments which signal a change the overall threat picture for American citizens as events warrant.
