Blocking Inspiration

In: FP, Heft 211

Abstract

For two years, Nicholas Teausant was a member of the National Guard and also a student at San Joaquin Delta College. Around the spring of 2013, he considered becoming a 'lone wolf' terrorist after reading a letter written by Omar Abdel Rahman in Inspire, an English-language magazine published online by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Inspire offers how-to guides for building bombs and staging terrorist attacks, and it gives space to famous voices in the global jihadi movement, including the Blind Sheikh, as Abdel Rahman is known. Teausant's case also highlights what many terrorism experts and intelligence officials fear is a new threat over which they have little control: the growing influence of Inspire. The true threat comes from Inspire's ability to deliver to Muslims the message that they are under constant assault and the only thing left to do is to fight back wherever and however they can. Adapted from the source document.