September 21, 2001

2:51 PM

The Al-Qaeda manualon "Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants," including especially instructions on how to infiltrate "godless areas" and not stand out. There's also an "assassinations" section with instructions on how to kill with a knife.
posted by Steven Den Beste (8 comments total)

A manual Found last year?

lets assume in the future that if training manuals exist, they are serious about following the training.

and...the link in the sidebar on the right is more breaking news, Federal agent shot to death near U.S. courthouse in Detroit. Everything has a feeling of ominous connectedness these days.
posted by th3ph17 at 3:16 PM on September 21, 2001

This article is distinctly uninformative. It seems to do nothing more than give a generic racist stereotype of "the enemy". The suspspects "didn't have a beard" and "wore Western clothes". No shit! What did you expect them to wear, a turban and a t-shirt that says "watch out, I'm a terrorist!". With general dipictions like this it's no wonder why innocent Arab-Americans are getting beat daily.

Pretty soon the dipiction of a terrorist will be "any non-white person that wears Western clothes." Hell, I've even heard talk of anti-globalization protestors and anarchists being labeled as terrorists. I guess wearing black or gathering in socially aware groups means "terrorist" too.
posted by abulafia at 3:16 PM on September 21, 2001

TheSmokingGun.com has the excerpts of the actual text.
posted by phatboy at 3:29 PM on September 21, 2001

i don't think that was the articles intent was racist, it was merely pointing out that the way the suspects appear to have operated was clearly outlined in a manual the FBI had LAST YEAR. Big "Ooops" for the fbi. [note...more info on the shooting, appears unrelated to terrorists.]
posted by th3ph17 at 3:34 PM on September 21, 2001

phatboy...that is quite a link.
posted by th3ph17 at 3:58 PM on September 21, 2001

abulafia, note that the instructions in the manual were how to avoid being profiled, rather than instructions on how the average citizen can profile terrorists. And it's really no surprise at all that a general summary of the instructions is to blend in and attract as little attention as possible: this would be true of any covert operation.

One of the clear lessons of this article, in fact, is that stereotyping arabs or muslims as terrorists would be highly unlikely to find them. These guys aren't some kind of amateur hour two-bit bombmakers; they're a sophisticated military operation, originally trained by experts from the SAS and CIA, and have absorbed those lessons all too well.
posted by dhartung at 5:28 PM on September 21, 2001

including especially instructions on how to infiltrate "godless areas" and not stand out.

Ah, thus the stripjoint...
posted by rushmc at 6:17 PM on September 21, 2001

th3ph17: where was the “oops”? I don’t see how the FBI or anyone could have acted on this information – are you suggesting they should have rounded up all “westernized” middle-easterners for questioning?

It seems to me that the handbook is just more proof of what an impossible job it is to prevent attacks without some kind of massive military effort overseas.
posted by justkurt at 8:50 PM on September 21, 2001