Monthly Archives: October 2011

Imagine that you’re a wannabe hacker in Mexico. You self-identify as a member of Anonymous (there’s no entrance exam), you may blog and tweet and hang out in IRC. You might even have a Guy Fawkes mask and a rep around school as a “hacker” even though you really don’t know exactly what you’re doing. Cool huh? So imagine your surprise when you discover those “Anonymous Threatens Mexican Drug Cartels” headlines spreading like wildfire across the globe. Ay, caramba! Feeling a little nauseous?

That’s how Anons in Mexico must have felt because they couldn’t distance themselves from this threat fast enough – reportedly posting disclaimers on the web, Twitter, and Facebook. Now there’s even speculation that the threat was a hoax. Getting to the bottom of this may not be entirely possible due to the decentralized nature of the group. Anyone can claim membership, publicize a target, even carry out their own attacks. This may trigger internal debates, even wars, but it’s not like that hasn’t happened before.

In the end, this is a dangerous game whatever the intent. Even if it is a hoax it could still get some Mexican script kiddies preemptively slaughtered. If it isn’t a hoax and cartel members, or their associates, get doxed (exposed) even more people will die.

So, it’s not a good time to be a talkative wannabe hacker in Mexico. My advice? Lay low and stay low.

Recommended on Twitter: @Sm0k34n0n. Anonymous account and original source of the threat against the cartels.

Americans have been taking part in jihadist terrorism for more than 30 years. Hundreds have served in virtually every imaginable capacity, from top leaders to recruiters, foot soldiers to ideologists. But until very recently, American jihadists were notably absent from one field of endeavor – suicide bombing.

No longer. Since 2008, at least four Americans have killed themselves during terrorist bombings, all on behalf of Al Shabab, the insurgent group fighting to establish an Islamic state in Somalia.

The most recent , according to a Web site that publishes Al Shabab news releases, was Abdisalan Hussein Ali, who reportedly killed himself bombing African Union peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu on Saturday.

The FBI in Minnesota is trying to confirm that Ali was a Minnesota Muslim with the same name who was already under investigation, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

I’m often asked why Americans jihadists don’t seem to be inclined toward suicide attacks, and I don’t have a good answer. But there may be a clue in the fact that all of the suicide bombers to date were men of Somali descent or immigrants from Somalia.

In contrast, American-born terrorists and more assimilated immigrants have not, so far, demonstrated any inclination toward suicide attacks. The answer may lie in cultural benchmarks and expectations concerning death. American cultural myths tend toward survivors rather than martyrs; heroes who can stroll through a hail of bullets and emerge unharmed.

Whatever the reasons, success breeds imitation, helped along by propaganda. Before his death, the latest bomber made at least one audio recording, an excerpt from which has already begun to circulate online.

“Our goal is not to capture a country, or a place or a city, or a town, or to do other things,” Ali said. “Our goal is to die as Muslims.”

J.M. Berger is editor of INTELWIRE.com and author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, available in hardcover and on Kindle.

There is a bit of a spat unfolding between the Kenyan military and Doctors Without Borders:

“Kenya’s military spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir blamed an al-Shabab fighter for civilians deaths, saying he drove a truck of ammunition into the camp where it exploded. Chirchir says the air force hit the truck as it drove away from an al-Shabab training camp and it caught fire. He said it proceeded into the camp to use the refugees as a human shield from being bombed again.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF, said 52 people were wounded, mostly women and children, when an aerial bombardment hit the camp for displaced people in the town of Jilib on Sunday. About 1,500 families had fled to the area amid Somalia’s famine earlier this year.”

Two important issues are emerging here. One is ability of the Kenya Defence Forces to conduct precision operations in civilian areas. That is a difficult task for even the most advanced military. However, failure to minimize civilian impact could fuel a capable al-Shabaab PR machine. I also expect to see increasing tension between NGOs and the greater counterterrorism effort. Neither of these issues will slow the offensive but they could slow the very long term process of bringing some degree stability to the area.

Recommended on Twitter: @MajorEChirchir. Major E. Chirchir. Kenya military spokesman. Not yet confirmed by Twitter but referenced in several media reports about the Major.

No details on exactly what was found or where but that’s just fine. Those details really don’t need to be circulating in the media anyway. The news is somewhat encouraging in that the NTC appears to be cooperating closely with the U.S., the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and others to get this material out of country.

What remains troubling though is the shear magnitude of this problem. Former Secretery of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote comes to mind:

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

Weapons proliferation in Libya is all about the “unkown unknowns”. We may have some idea of what is floating around out there, or where it is stored, but in this environment that is not sufficient. Actors of questionable intent continue to roam a country with little official infrastructure in place to secure stored weapons. One lucky find, or succcessful smuggling operation, is all that’s needed to trigger a very serious problem in North Africa or even Europe. Covert attempts to secure weapons and limit smuggling are underway on a scale that I think will prove to be quite large but only time will tell if we’ve done enough.

Recommended on Twitter: @opcw. Official twitter account of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.