Al Qaeda

First it was the Taliban who jumped on the social media bandwagon and now it seems Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are joining in and going through a bit of a re-branding exercise to try to lose the negative "baggage" associated with the larger terror organization's identity.

The group is increasingly going by the name, “Ansar al Sharia” which means Army of Islamic Law. Apparently the al-Qaeda name doesn’t garner too much good will following the death of former leader Osama bin Laden, and to make matters worse for the group,  jihadi recruitment is down (except for the number of foreign fighters heading to Yemen - that’s on the upswing according to sources). 

Rick "Ozzie" Nelson, director of Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News that "moving away from the larger al Qaeda brand is something I think we're starting to see more of."  

With the death of bin Laden, it makes sense for groups to become more diffused from centralized leadership so they can focus on regional issues rather than brand-building, he said.

Would-be recruits are "finding that the al-Qaeda core is no longer beneficial to be associated with ... because their main leader is gone," Nelson said, noting that Osama bin Laden was a charismatic leader who offered a lot of financial backing and Ayman al-Zawahiri "is not an effective replacement."

Poor al-Zawahiri. He just doesn’t have that effervescent, je ne sais quoi, leader quality about him. Maybe he should take a leaf out of Ansar al Sharia’s book and consider getting himself a publicist to boost his public image a little. 

A video shot in an Al Qaeda camp shows boys as young as 3 years old being trained to wage war on British soldiers. These children are sons of Taliban “martyrs” being trained to replace their fathers. 

In Afghanistan, children are used as suicide bombers and human shields more and more. Similarly, there are reports that Hamas uses Palestinian children to carry out acts of terrorism against Israeli children. 

In radical Islamic countries, where the burning of a Quran in Florida and a cartoon in Denmark caused mass uprisings and violence, the use of tiny children for jihad generates no response.

Facebook bans hateful and violent content, restricting pages on terrorist organizations. But Jihadi media groups have found a way around this. 

As IPT News reports, such organizations are able to form Facebook pages and share videos and documents with their followers, because they are not well-known. 

A new Facebook page of Al-Kataib Media Foundation, a division of the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab, for example, glorifies the terror group’s campaign of suicide bombing. Al-Qaeda’s media group has a similar page.

Such pages can be used to directly recruit and indoctrinate followers via the largest social network in the world. 

Read more here. 

British intelligence has hacked into al-Qaeda’s English-language online magazine and replaced instruction on how to make bombs, with a recipe for cupcakes. 

The magazine, produced by Anwar al-Awlaki for terrorist-recruitment, originally included instructions on how to “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef”. Yet when followers tried to download the instructions, they were presented with recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

Read more here. 

While Americans celebrate in the streets over the death of the 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, we must remind ourselves that the "War on Terror" is in no way over. 

Al Qaeda, as well as the countless other global jihad players, will continue operating against the U.S. and the Western world, with or without Bin Laden. 

Go out and celebrate, but remember that global jihad is driven by radical Islamic ideology, and the demise of one (albeit evil) individual will not change this fact. 

Today, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) held his congressional panel on homegrown terrorism in America, in which he said the American Muslim community is not doing its part in stopping terrorism. 

Homegrown terrorism is rising in America, with al Qaeda inspiring American Muslims to commit acts of violence. 

However, the Obama administration has expressed concern that “general statements” about and entire religion play into al Qaeda’s belief that America is at war with the Islamic religion.

What do you think?

You can read more about the panel here. 

Where do the “bad” Muslim children in Britain go?

More and more Muslim parents are sending their “problem kids” to Islamic religious schools in Kashmir, and according to Wikileaks, these kids are at a “high risk of radicalization,” and are increasingly likely to be recruited by al Qaeda.  

And the threats of homegrown radical Islam in Britain continue to grow…

Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, announced he will not extend his presidency at the end of this term (which ends in 2013). 

Saleh is trying to avoid mass protests, similar to those in Egypt and Tunisia.

While Yemen under Saleh has slowly become a "failed state", with extreme poverty, hunger, and unemployment, leaving the country open to an al Qaeda take-over does not really seem like the ideal solution. 

Read more here. 

Today is the 9 year anniversary of the 2001 bomb plot on American Airlines flight 63. Richard Reid, a self-proclaimed member of al Qaeda, attempted to blow up an airplane mid-flight by detonating explosives hidden in his shoes.

Shoes. Kind of like hiding bombs in ink cartridges. Or underwear.

Also, it was discovered yesterday that al Qaeda members planned to poison salad bars and buffets at multiple U.S. hotels and restaurants over a single weekend.   

In terms of al Qaeda nothing has changed in the past decade. They will use whatever it takes - shoes, printers, underwear, salad - to harm innocent people!

This week, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit, which challenged the governments' right to assassinate Anwar Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and Al Qaeda member who was linked to the underwear bomber last Christmas, the Fort Hood shooting, the recent foiled cargo-plane bomb attempt, and is the "beloved sheikh" of Antonio Martinez, who attempted to blow up a military recruiting center yesterday in Baltimore. 

After the judge’s verdict, Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union stated: "We continue to believe that the government's power to use lethal force against American citizens should be subject to meaningful oversight by the courts."

I definitely hear his point, and in general, I would agree. But this is a terrorist who coordinated numerous attacks against America! If I have to choose sides on this one, I choose America.

For the full story, see: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-approves-obama-administrations-authority-targeted-assassination-al/story?id=12333259&nwltr=politics_topHead_pos2