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5 Responses to “Call and response?”

1. Charles Cameron Says:
   April 3rd, 2012 at 5:49 pm

   Interesting.  Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has a piece at Gunpowder & Lead on the forum graphic of NYC, in which he argues, persuasively in my view, that it is most unlikely to represent an actual plot in progress — a point then bolstered by this significant addendum:

   The lack of threat represented by this photo is even clearer now than it was last night, when I wrote my analysis on a rather tight deadline. If you look at the Arabic-language introduction where this photo was posted on jihadi forums, it specifies that the graphic is a lesson in Photoshopping; it wasn’t intended as a threat in the first place, but the media ended up reporting it that way. Thanks to Rusty at The Jawa Report for drawing this to my attention; here is his writeup.

   I also liked this Jawa Report comment:

   That’s how psychological warfare works. Al Qaeda does a silly photoshop, and America holds its breath.

2. Charles Cameron Says:
   April 3rd, 2012 at 10:13 pm

   Another excellent piece from JM Berger — @intelwire — who writes:

   I recently asked a number of intelligence analysts working the forums whether any of the hundreds of threats and wishful plots they had tracked on jihadist forums had ever been realized in an actual terrorist attack. The answer was stark. No plot ever begun on the forums had ever culminated in a successful attack, and only one person was willing to cite one plot that became operational (unsuccessfully).

   and:

   There’s a first time for everything, but volumes of venom are spewed on the forums every day. Most of them will never amount to anything. The challenge for counterterrorism professionals is figuring out where the needles lie in a very large haystack.

3. J. Scott Shipman Says:
   April 3rd, 2012 at 10:34 pm

   Hi Charles, 

   Good post. I would submit many of those writing in these jihadi forums are wannabes and talkers. Much like the venom of political discourse here in the USA, where folks talk, but rarely act. The internet is ideal for venting one’s spleen—particularly if operating under a pseudonym. Just a thought. 

4. Scott Says:
   April 4th, 2012 at 10:04 pm

   I’d say they’re just talking to spread fear.  I mean al Quaeda and DHS.  Fear is good for business for both.

5. Charles Cameron Says:
   April 5th, 2012 at 1:44 am

   … “threats and rumors of threats” …

   .
   In this case it’s pretty clear the image was from a Photoshop lesson, and not intended as anything more than that — it’s just that journalists who saw the image but didn’t read the accompanying Arabic didn’t know that, and blew it up into a threat.