The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM).
On June 4, 2012, top jihadi forums opened an online "workshop" presented by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) "military committee," aimed at locating and recruiting possible candidates for lone-wolf attacks in countries around the world.
The workshop, titled "The Convoy of Martyrs: Rise Up and Board with Us," is a translation into Arabic from a previously published article from the ninth edition of AQAP's English-language magazine, Inspire, issued in May 2012. The workshop materials were posted on the Shumoukh Al-Islam and Al-Fida' jihadi forums by a person using the handle "Katibat Al-Ahwal" ("The Horrors Brigade"), who apparently belongs to AQAP's military committee. This name did not appear in the original article in Inspire IX.
Following is an overview of the workshop and the original Inspire where the article appeared:
The ninth issue of the English-language magazine Inspire, issued by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on May 2, 2012, includes an article titled "The Convoy of Martyrs: Rise Up and Board with Us," which provides instructions for individuals wishing to carry out lone wolf jihad attacks.
The article instructs candidates to send basic information about themselves to AQAP's military committee, which will help them in planning and executing the attack, and will also take responsibility for it and provide media coverage.[1] The article includes a list of conditions that the candidates must meet, a list of possible targets, and instructions for contacting the committee securely by using encrypted emails.
The new Arabic translation of the original English article is poor. The text includes numerous misspellings and grammatical mistakes. This suggests that the person (or persons) behind the translation has a good grasp of the English language, but is not equally proficient in Arabic. The images below include some of the linguistic errors and inconsistencies (highlighted in yellow) found in different parts of the Arabic translation. The phenomenon is rather unusual for AQAP's official Arabic publications, which generally demonstrate high diction and are free from error.
Endnotes:
[1] For the original JTTM report on this article as it appeared in Inspire IX, see MEMRI JTTM Report No. 4689, "Inspire IX Article Offers Help in Carrying Out One-Man Jihad Operations," May 3, 2012, http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report.htm?report=6324¶m=GJN.
