Terrorists Plotted Setting Forest Fires
Bash Note: I said Wednesday that I didn’t want to let this story go until I was sure that it was not terrorist related.
Check out this story:
WASHINGTON – While websites frequented by jihadis have been ablaze with claims of responsibility for setting the California wildfires, terror leaders also urged arson attacks as a tactic last summer, according to a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
In July, a post was made to numerous jihadist boards and then spread to a number of blogs citing a previously issued fatwa authorizing the setting of forest fires as a weapon of jihad. The post began “this is an invitation to the Muslims of Europe and America, Australia and Russia to burn forests.” It went on to state the justification under Islamic Sharia law for this action and to cite its benefits for jihadists.
The post, revealed in G2 Bulletin’s report, cites an undated video that shows Abu Mus’ab al Suri, author of “Call to Global Islamic Resistance” and advocate of the doctrine of individual terrorism, discussing the benefits to the jihad of setting forest fires.
Last year, the report points out, Maj. Robert Arthur Baird of the U.S. Marine Corps wrote in the May 2006 issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism: “The United States is at significant risk of a future pyro-terrorist attack – when terrorists unleash the latent energy in the nation’s forests to achieve the effect of a weapon of mass destruction – the threat, must be defined America’s vulnerabilities understood and action taken to mitigate this danger to the United States.”
In his master’s thesis, Major Baird also discusses arson as a terror tactic and sees it as a very real risk: “Instead of using expensive, complex and readily detectable nuclear or radiological bombs, a terrorist could easily ignite several massive wildfires to severely damage regional economies, impact military and firefighting forces and terrorize the American people.”
He goes on to state that a terrorist has the potential to “unleash multiple fires creating a conflagration potentially equal to a multi-megaton nuclear weapon.”
Is that what has happened this year?
California authorities have confirmed some of the wildfires were set deliberately, and a terror watch organization says the circumstances match terror plans the FBI alerted law enforcement to several years ago.
“In 2003 an FBI memo alerted law enforcement agencies that an al-Qaida terrorist being held in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States,” the National Terror Alert Response Center warned.
“It was reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country,” the advisory continued. “The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies.”
Rest of the story at WND here.
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a forest burning is not at what a terrorist thinks : not enough persons would die in a too long lap of time ; they are first cave personnalities : they weave their plot as hiding themselves ;
what is most of the time, a person who gets suddenly a mad idea or someone who is a fire “lover”, sometimes it’s a fireman himself, who want to get some bonus for going on duty
October 30th, 2007 at 10:28 amGlenn Beck did a spot about where criminal gangs hiding amongst the swarm from the south set fires to divert attention from their smuggling. Set a fire over there and run it in over there.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:38 amTHere are a lot of motives for starting a fire:
Out of work firefighters
Kids being idiots
Smugglers creating a diversion
Terrorists
What sets this fire apart is that it was so big and started in multipler locations. I think that is the biggest indicator that whoever did this was particularly malicious in their intent. Of the 4 above, I think only terrorism fits that bill. But we will have to see what comes of these investigations.
If it’s not terrorist related, I wouldn’t be suprised to see terrorists copycat it now that they see it’s destructive capabilities.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:54 am