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Monday, November 29, 2010

The Portland Christmas Tree Bomber: An Update

From Jihad Watch:

Oregon jihadist in failed bomb attempt made "Osama-style" pre-attack video, railed against parents who "held me back from Jihad in the cause of Allah"


Obviously, the folks had a few extra reasons not to let Junior borrow the car on a Friday night. "Six 55-gallon drums [of explosives] with detonation cords and plastic caps," for example.



In the end, Allah's own orders in the Qur'an to "fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)" (9:5) clearly took precedence for Mohamud. Funny how that keeps happening. "Words from the Oregon Bomb Suspect," by T.C. Baker for IndieProPub, November 28:



Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, behind the planned bomb in Portland told an undercover agent in August that he "had found the perfect location for a terrorist attack: the city's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony".

He said during the hotel meeting he had "dreamed of carrying out an attack for years, and the city's Pioneer Courthouse Square would be packed with thousands. A huge mass that will...be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays."

Mohamud, scheduled for court on Monday, has been followed for four years. When he was 15 and a student at Beaverton's high school, he told undercover agents about a prayer he made for guidance "about whether I should...go, you know, and make a jihad in a different country or to make like an operation here."

In one meeting, Mohamud told an agent, posing as an extremist, ways he could help "the cause" from "praying five times a day" to "becoming a martyr". But, he "thought of putting an explosion together but that he needed help doing so."

When he was warned several times of that women and children could die, he declined to back out.

Mohamud also made a video dressed in what he called "Sheik Osama style" which included a white robe, red and white headdress and camouflage jacket. In the video, he went on to "read a statement on his dream of bringing a dark day on Americans and blamed his family for getting in the way".

In his statement, Mohamud said, "To my parents who held me back from Jihad in the cause of Allah. I say to them...if you - if you make allies with the enemy, then Allah's power...will ask you about that on the day of judgment, and nothing that you do can hold me back."...Posted by Marisol on November 28, 2010 8:56 AM
 
 
And this, also from Jihad Watch:
 
Failed Oregon jihadist claims to have written articles for "Jihad Recollections," submitted one to al-Qaeda's "Inspire"


Publish or perish? Well, per Qur'an 9:111, "publish and perish" may be more what they're encouraging. "FBI: Suspect claimed he wrote jihadist fitness article," from CNN, November 27:



A Somali-American teenager arrested Friday on suspicion of plotting to bomb a holiday ceremony in Portland, Oregon, told an undercover FBI employee that he wrote articles published in an English-language jihadist magazine, including a story on fitness, an FBI affidavit says.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, told the undercover operative last summer that he had written articles for the online magazine Jihad Recollections under a pen name, according to an FBI affidavit filed with Mohamud's arrest warrant.

One of the articles Mohamud claimed to have written was "Getting in shape without weights," which was published in the inaugural issue of Jihad Recollections in April 2009, according to the affidavit.

In the article, the author - identified as Ibn al-Mubarak - writes that jihadists must prepare their bodies for war and "train as hard as possible in order to damage the enemies of Allah as much as possible."

The article implores readers to train without weights, in part because using them is "unrealistic for the Mujahid in the front lines anywhere in the world today," and because gyms are not Islamic environments, with their "music, semi-naked women [and] free mixing."

The piece describes stretches and warm-ups before instructing on ways to sculpt one's legs (suggestions include walking at least 90 minutes a day, doing interval runs, crawling long distances and sitting against a wall for long periods) and strengthen one's arms (100 to 150 push-ups per day, pull-ups, walking on hands).

"We find that [weights are] ... a major setback for the Americans and the NATO Crusading army as they cannot go to any battlefront without carrying along with them their bench, squat sets and sometimes even their machines," the article says. [...]

That fitness regimen has helped produce a fighting force that the jihadists cannot defeat fighting openly like men. So the pious thugs hide behind women and children to conduct asymmetrical warfare (just as Mohamud didn't care that his own attack would kill women and children) and create needless casualties for propaganda points. The valiant mujahedin! Alhamdulillah!



Mohamud said he wrote two other articles for Jihad Recollections, and that he also sent an article to another jihadist publication, Inspire, according to the affidavit. The court document does not identify those articles.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have said Jihad Recollections was produced by former North Carolina resident Samir Khan, who those officials now say they believe is living in Yemen. Intelligence officials also suspect Khan is the driving force behind Inspire.

He may get a publication after all, as a consolation prize for his abject failure, having taken the kuffar law enforcement's bait -- hook, line and sinker. Perhaps he'll get an "E" for Effort. It will be cold comfort inside the Portland jail.

Posted by Marisol on November 28, 2010 8:26 AM
 
 
And this, also from Jihad Watch:
 
Former classmate recalls failed Oregon jihadist: "the main thing was, the way he said he hated Americans"


Gratitude: Mohamed Osman Mohamud came to the United States from Somalia and became a naturalized citizen, which entails taking this oath:



I hereby declare, on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

"Details emerge about Mohamud, Westview / OSU student," by Frank Mungeam for KGW, November 27:



PORTLAND, Ore. -- Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the suspect in Friday night's plot to explode a car-bomb during Portland's Christmas tree lighting celebration, is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Somalia in 1991.

During elementary school, Mohamud moved 9,000 miles from the war-torn streets of Mogadishu to the suburbs of Portland.

He graduated from Westview High School in 2009 and then enrolled at Oregon State University.

Westview classmates told KGW he often joked about being a terrorist, but no one took him seriously.

A classmate who didn't want to be identified remembered Mohamud's odd choice for a physics project. Mohamud detailed how a rocket-propelled grenade worked.

"It was just weird about how someone would choose that, you know," the classmate said.

In an affidavit obtained by KGW, Mohamud recently told the FBI he had been thinking of committing some form of violent jihad since the age of 15.

Another of Mohamud's former classmates remembered a fight the two had over a messy locker. "The main thing was, the way he said he hated Americans," said Andy Stull. "It was serious. He looked me in the eye and had this look in his eye, like it was his determination in life - 'I hate Americans!'"

Stull says he was scared enough at the time to get school counselors involved, but that was the end of it.

In the fall of 2009, Mohamud started his freshman year at O.S.U. He took classes part-time, with a focus on engineering.

He also attended the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center near campus. His Imam told KGW Mohamud did not voice any radical views. The Iman said Mohamud grew reclusive recently, and described the teen as "relaxed" in his religious practice.

"I had to say he did a number of things against the religion. He had a lifestyle that was against the religion. I can't really say that he was in a position to represent Islam," said Imam Yousef Wanly.

And Mohammed Atta drank like a fish. But we all know how that ended. The bottom line is that both took the commands and promises (see Qur'an 9:111, 56:12-40, including vv. 22-23, 35-37) of the Qur'an seriously in the matter to which it devotes so much of its space: waging war against unbelievers.

Posted by Marisol on November 28, 2010 10:21 AM
 
 
And lastly, this, also from Jihad Watch:
 
Divorce causes jihad: Oregon jihadist "embraced militant Islam not long after his parents split up"


The search for some explanation, any explanation, for Mohamed Mohamud's attempted jihad mass-murder other than the texts and teachings of Islam has now begun in earnest. The first entry: Mohamud became "radicalized" after his parents split.



And it's true: the divorce of parents has driven many an unhappy child to try to set off a bomb in a crowded place and murder hundreds, if not thousands, of people, hasn't it?



Of course, many more terrorist attacks have been committed by Islamic jihadists who read and took seriously the Qur'an's commands to wage war against infidels than by children traumatized by their parents' divorce, but never mind: when it comes to exonerating Islam of any responsibility for motivating violent jihadists, government, law enforcement and media officials join Islamic spokesmen in grabbing hold of any alternative explanation, no matter how implausible.



"Neighbors say wannabe Christmas bomber Mohamed Mohamud embraced extremism after parents split," by Lukas I. Alpert for the New York Daily News, November 28:



[...] Neighbors say Mohamud was doted on by his family but embraced militant Islam not long after his parents split up.

"He was a quiet kid, but with his folks splitting up, who knows?" Adam Napier, who lived next door to Mohamed Osman Mohamud for years told the newspaper.



Mohamud's family moved to the U.S. when he was just 5 and were described as friendly and modern.



Mariam Barre did not wear a hijab and her husband, Osman Barre, reportedly worked as an engineer for Intel. Mohamud appeared to be particularly close to his mother, neighbors said.



"She always talked so good about him. He was just a good kid," said Adam Napier's mother, Stephanie.



In 2009, Mohamud parents split up, not long after he turned 18, the paper said.



Omar Jamal, first secretary to the Somali Mission to the United Nations, told KPTV that Mohamud's father had remarried a woman in Minneapolis, which has a large Somali population and has been a hotbed for jihadist recruitment.



Later in 2009, Mohamud began communicating with jihadists abroad, and wrote articles for a website called "Jihad Recollections," authorities said....



Posted by Robert on November 28, 2010 5:29 PM

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