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| Britain |
| Academic Study of Al-Qaeda Manual Stirs Debate in Britain |
| 2008-08-01 |
| For $11.96 you can buy a copy of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual in paperback on Amazon.com. One such order was recently placed by staff members at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom to make a point about academic freedom. Earlier this summer Rizwaan Sabir, a 22-year-old M.A. student at the university, and Hisham Yezza, an administrator, were arrested by British police for possession of the training manual and held for nearly a week under the sweeping powers of the U.K.'s 2006 Terrorism Act. The manual, which contains fairly unimaginative prescriptions for terrorist warfare, first came to police attention almost a decade ago after a raid on the Manchester home of an al-Qaeda suspect. It has since made the rounds of various websites, including the U.S. Department of Justice's, from which Sabir downloaded it for his research thesis into terrorist tactics. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 They are misreading the survey results, which strongly suggest that at least a third of the Muslims on British university campuses are already extreme enough to be dangerous. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-08-01 13:24 |
| #3 But what may be more disturbing about such police tactics is their worrying ability to drive Muslims towards extremism. Because nothing in their doctrine, history or examples on the world stage too numerous to count would suggest "extremism" without the help of the police. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-08-01 10:24 |
| #2 Nicely written McZoid. In a demented I just got out of the nuthouse sort of way. |
| Posted by: .5MT 2008-08-01 08:36 |
| #1 Parts of the Manual have been on "Smoking Gun" for years. There isn't too much of tactical value. UK terrorists are more likely to be inspired by the Guardian and the Independent, that that publication. Production of C4 requires only 3 chemical compounds, and instructions can be found on the internet. My take on what the terrorists already have is: Western Civilization needs to adopt life-boat ethics, and replace habeas corpus rights with show cause obligations. There have been science fiction treatments of the problem of the presence of persons who are too dangerous to live free. I believe that ideological subscription to Islamism is unconscionable in itself, and that Gitmo SOP - which led to water-boarding, etc - were only Act 1. It's time for Act 2. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-01 04:59 |