On Saturday 7 February 2009 when Victoria was beginning to reel under the impact of the worst natural disaster in modern Australian history, The Age in Melbourne ran an article which baldly stated: AUSTRALIA has been singled out as a target for "forest jihad" by a group of Islamic extremists urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror.
The group calling for this jihad is supposedly currently active and going by the name Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network and it allegedly posts on the Internet, presumably on a forum website hosted out of Malaysia and written in three or possibly four languages.
The earliest mention of this supposed forest fire jihad that I can find comes from WorldNetDaily in 2003, when it also mentioned: "Australian security authorities are aware of reports that al-Qaida has considered starting bushfires in the U.S. as a form of terrorist attack," said a spokeswoman Australian Attorney General Daryl Williams. "Arson attacks are just one of a wide range of scenarios which have been considered as part of our investigations into al-Qaida's ability to conduct attacks in Australia."
Specific mention of a jihad website occurred in April 2004 when it was reported that: Meanwhile, there is evidence terrorism was behind other wildfires in Europe and Australia last summer.
According to the wingnuts, so far this 'group' appears to be responsible for forest fires in France, Greece, Italy, Australia and the U.S.
It supposedly has a six-point plan which included: setting of fires in the forests – "especially those that provide the American market with the raw materials for the wood and paper and byproducts industries";
The entire forest fire jihad plot was rehashed in January 2008 when WorldTribune ran with it again .
Now there are only 18 terrorist groups officially listed on the Australian Attorney-General's departmental website and none of these are this supposed extremist group.
Indeed if you look for this group on the world wide web it is has a remarkably low profile.
So low in fact that it is only ever mentioned by secondary sources.
It seems to be nothing more than a blustering website, which is sometimes not even online.
A situation which should have alerted The Age reporter to the fact that he might have been building with straw and, that this Internet forum was unlikely to be a group nor a credible threat.
The supposed threat reads more like a post 9/11 urban myth and The Age looks as though it was attempting a potentially divisive, hurtful and downright dangerous beat up.
Snapshot is of The Age article as displayed 10.02.09
2 comments:
I found your blog via a Google alert for terrorism, which I study very closely.
I am guessing that you don't.
Your reference to the 18 listed terrorist groups negates the mutative nature of these organisations. "Al-Quaeda" (various spellings) is used as a catch-all by a fairly uninformed media, to describe dozens of splinter groups. This is also why after terrorist attacks you will often hear of "new" terrorist groups, the xxx brigade and so forth.
At their core however, they tend to share a common Islamist ideology. The name and the geography changes, however their actions do not vary substantially.
Personally, I do not believe the Victorian fires were started by Islamists. However you are too quick to dismiss 'forest Jihad', as there have most definitely been such attacks in the past. They are easy, require no skills or training, and (as you can see) have potentially disastrous mortal and economic consequences.
The Age is hardly a scholarly resource on anything to do with terrorism, however you would do well to expand your reading before summarily dismissing this threat.
"However you are too quick to dismiss 'forest Jihad', as there have most definitely been such attacks in the past."
Perhaps you would like to cite instances where this has actually happened in Australia?
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