Next up on al-Qaeda hit list: the West’s freedom-loving trees

◼ The latest issue of the al-Qaeda propaganda publication Inspire contains the usual dose of narcissism, delusional threats and overwrought tributes to dead terrorists but what is striking is the space it devotes to an unexpected target: trees. - Stewart Bell/Canada National Post

Eleven pages of the online magazine are handed over to discussions about starting forest fires in NATO countries, providing both a tactical and religious justification for it, and an illustrated step-by-step guide on how to do it using a device made out of gasoline and a washing machine timer.

“Fire is one of the soldiers of Allah,” it says....

The idea gained traction in 2008, during Australia’s wildfire emergency. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security bulletin noted “growing interest in ‘forest jihad’ among terrorists” but found no credible evidence it was a genuine threat to the U.S. “Considering the appeals posted in al-Qaeda forums, the possibility exists for arson to be used as a terrorist tool,” it allowed.

◼ Al Qaeda's Inspire Magazine Returns, Recommends Forest Fires As Next Great Terror Innovation - Huffington Post

When we last left the genius who apparently thought that what al Qaeda's global death cult needed most was to embark on a print media enterprise, he was ... well, he was dead, actually. Samir Khan, the "Saudi-born, New York-raised" propagandist behind Inspire, the Lapham's Quarterly for bomb-mad terrorist weirdos, had been killed in one of those fun extrajudicial drone strikes that have become all the rage. Prior to that, Khan and his editorial team had commemorated the 9/11 attacks in "sour grapes" fashion.

Anyone looking for evidence that al Qaeda had been organizationally degraded in the decade since 9/11 would have found it in abundance in the pages of any issue of Inspire. Its debut issue urged young jihadis to "make a bomb in the kitchen of [their] mom" -- a sort of menacing version of the advice Alton Brown dishes out on the Food Network. Another issue featured a story suggesting that a good way to strike fear in the hearts of infidels would be to trick out your pickup truck to make it "the ultimate mowing machine," and terrorize sidewalk pedestrians.

Basically, these are the sort of convoluted, outlandish plans for villainy and mayhem that South Park's Professor Chaos would have deemed to be clownish.

Nevertheless, despite recent setbacks (that whole having your editor-in-chief killed thingy), Inspire is back, and it has new ideas for al Qaeda wannabes, chief among them ... uhm -- setting forest fires?