Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Self-Help for Terrorists

In the murky world of terrorism-watchers, the first port of call is often an unusual magazine called Inspire, a "self-help manual" for jihadis that is crammed full of dangerous advice, attractively presented.

So it comes as no surprise, in the wake of the Woolwich killing of an off-duty soldier, that the online publication's recommendations have included the use of a vehicle to mow down a target – apparently what happened outside the Royal Artillery barracks on Wednesday.

This 21st-century version of The Anarchists' Cookbook has a habit of turning up in unpleasant circumstances. In the wake of the Boston bombings in April, FBI investigators found that the explosive pressure cooker devices made by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were strikingly similar to a "recipe" in the first issue of Inspire, memorably entitled "How to build a bomb in your Mom's kitchen."


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