Australian busfires - the work of al-Qaida? No shit!
Yeah, no shit! Here's an article from one of your
favoured rags (i.e. pro Labor)
Al-Qaeda urges firebombing Australia Date May 6, 2012
The Sydney Morning Herald
National Times
Political News
Natalie O'Brien
From the Inspire magazine and website. AL-QAEDA has named Australia as a prime target for terrorism by firebombing in an online terrorism and bomb-making magazine.
A picture of the Sydney Opera House with smoke clouds behind it - captioned ''Sydney city on fire'' - has been used to illustrate a story that promotes using bushfires as a weapon of terrorism.
The article in Inspire magazine, titled ''It is of your freedom to ignite a firebomb'', gives a step-by-step guide to building an ''ember bomb'', which it advocates as the best way to start destructive fires, and details the best times of the year to start fires in different parts of Australia.
The article was condemned yesterday by Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, who reassured the public that there was no imminent terrorist threat against Australia.
However, Ms Roxon said it was a timely reminder, one year since the death of Osama bin Laden, that the threat of violent extremism in Australia remained. ''I have instructed my department to draw this material to the attention of relevant authorities, including the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Communications and Media Authority,'' she told The Sunday Age.
The article provides examples and statistics of devastating bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland but makes no specific mention of Black Saturday.
It talks up the devastation caused by fires, saying of past blazes: ''These fires ruined the dry before the green, exhausted lives and properties, wiped out a lot of farms and houses, destroyed thousands of trees that are used in manufacturing and created an atmosphere of terror and panic.''
Inspire is an English-language magazine published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is based in Yemen and is believed to have been involved in many high-profile terrorist attacks, including an attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010.
In July last year, the magazine also featured a photo of the Sydney Opera House alongside a six-page article on bomb-making.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute research director Anthony Bergin said the idea of using natural hazards as weapons had been around for some time, ''but up until now the attraction has remained with bombs and bullets''.
Dr Bergin warned that it would be easy for authorities to discount a bushfire as a work of terrorism and harder for terrorist groups to claim glory. But he said that Australian authorities had adopted a more sophisticated approach to firefighting including surveillance and land-clearing measures.
Under Australia's anti-terrorism laws, anyone found guilty of inciting a terrorism offence faces up to 10 years in jail. Anyone found guilty of urging violence faces up to seven years' jail.
Former volunteer firefighter Brendan Sokaluk, 42, who lit one of the Black Saturday bushfires that killed 10 people, was last month sentenced to 17 years and nine months in jail.
Read more:
www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/alqaeda-urges-firebombing-australia-20120505-1y62t.html#ixzz2OJTPUMz5Knew you'd have to bring in some moral equivalence bullshit like all good loony lefties who are losing the plot - and the argument. Let's bash the Christian
fundamentalists for some of their loony ideas which are largely ignored by most of the population. Got any articles where the Catch the Fire mob advocate martyrdom by suicide bombers?? Do Catch the Fire mums breed little jihardists from infanthood?
More importantly, do we really have anything to fear from the Catch the Fire mob? I mean,
really. < sigh >
