“Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”

Thanks to National Public Radio magazine for the following:

A new issue of the online magazine Inspire — from the Yemeni group al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula — has some alarming advice for would-be terrorists: Open fire on lunch-hour crowds in Washington, D.C., to “knock out a few government employees.”

After making a splash with the first issue of Inspire, an English-language magazine that grooms readers to become radical jihadists, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula released a second edition this week, complete with essays by Anwar al-Awlaki, suggestions about bombing Washington, D.C., restaurants and tips for using your pickup truck to “mow down the enemies of God.” In the magazine’s introduction, the editors celebrate “recent U.S. assessments” that have designated AQAP “one of the most dangerous branches of al-Qaeda,” and tell readers that they can expect more to come: “[Y]ou haven’t seen anything yet.” Inspire is believed to be spearheaded by Samir Khan, a 24-year-old former North Carolina resident who attracted attention in 2003 by running one of the Internet’s most popular—and radical—al Qaida sites. After Charlotte’s Muslim community staged an intervention, Khan boarded a flight to Yemen, and six months later, the first issue of Inspirewas published. In the October issue, Khan is credited with an essay titled “I Am Proud to be a Traitor to America,” in which he lambastes the U.S. for “kill[ing] millions of Muslims around the world” and “get[ting] away with it wearing a tuxedo.” Counterterror experts worry that the magazine’s Western-friendly attitude—it features articles like “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,”—”will appeal to kids who have never really been very interested in violent jihad before,” one official tells NPR. “The magazine seems to make it fun and accessible. It used to be to get into this you needed to speak Arabic. Now you don’t—English subtitles, English translations of extremist videos, that’s the norm now.”