headland

There is growing anticipation in Islamic-jihadist circles of an imminent cataclysmic terrorist strike against a major urban center within the United States. That is the report of Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, Global Information System, in a special report in today's Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily.

Bodansky reports that a communique was disseminated throughout the Islamist-jihadist elite of Western Europe and the Arab world before it was first publicized on November 9 by an "Abu-Hamzah al-Filastini" on an Islamist website. The message was allegedly from the "Al-Shaykhayn Brigade" of the "Al-Qaida Organization," and contained a warning that the U.S. would face the consequences of "Allah's wrath" in the form of a nuclear strike against a U.S. city.

"Let everyone know," the communique warned, "that we shall not hesitate to strike against the Americans and the rest of the Crusaders in their own countries. Their dens, their towers, and their hideouts will not be of use to them. The towers of New York continue to bear witness to that and continue to stand in silence dumbfounded by the intensity of the tragedy and the horror of death."

"We, in the Al-Qaida Organization, are in the process of preparing operations that will be more than painful," read the translation of the communique. The author(s) then proceeded to warn the U.S. and the West that "after they refused the truce offered by our Sheikh and the advice given by our leader Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, in his latest oral message in which he advised the Americans not to elect the reckless Bush and to contemplate the outcome of the enmity against the Muslim world, we say that by this refusal they warrant the wrath of God."

The form of the threatened attack was also identified. "We conclude by bringing the Islamic Nation good news by saying that nuclear and atomic production and enrichment is not a monopoly limited to the Crusaders and the Romans or the tyrants of the world, and that we are moving forward with the production of small but very powerful bombs.... the first target and application will be inside the U.S., which has gone too far with its tyranny and oppression, and [against] the American people who refused the advice of our Sheikh and accepted humiliation and enmity towards us and crushed the bones of our children in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, and Muslim countries as a whole."

Bodansky reports that when the authenticity of this communique was questioned on the forum to which it was posted, a "Liwa al-Shaykhayn" identified the source on November 11 as follows: "the Al-Qaida Organization, Europe and America Branch. [The] Media Official in Charge [is] Abu-Ans al-Maghribi."

One would trust, and should expect, that the leaders of the Mideast states should be no less terrified by these threats.

Labels: al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, jihadists, Yossef Bodansky