Jihadists celebrate Navy Yard shooting as call from al-Qaida leader

September 17, 2013 by Janeen Capizola 0 Comments

Photo Credit: Screenshot CBS News

An intelligence group that monitors the jihadist threat around the world found Muslim extremists reacting with glee to Monday’s mass shooting at the U.S. Navy Yard.
Many of the writings on highly monitored jihadi Internet forums expressed hope that the Navy Yard gunman was answering al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recent call to strike America.
According to SITE Intelligence Group:

Users on the top-tier jihadi forums Shumukh al-Islam and al-Fida’ wrote, for example, “O blessings, your prayer O Sheikh Ayman [has been answered]… Here are the lone-wolves working from within the headquarters of the Marines,” and “Allah willing, this is a response to the speech of Sheikh al-Zawahiri”.
Recalling the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting by Nidal Hasan, one jihadist remarked: “In the Ummah [Muslim community] there are a thousand Nidals, Allah permitting”.

Other posts, interpreted by SITE, read:

Three armed men attack the headquarters of the Marines in America? Why? Did they not have work? O Allah, unless… O Allah, make what I’m thinking to be true.
We ask Allah that these acts are by the soldiers of al-Zawahiri.
Do you know O loved ones, that the number of searches on Google for the issue of Inspire magazine regarding the manufacture of explosives at home has increased in an astonishing way that cannot be imagined in America and Europe after the operation by Djohar Tsarnaev, may Allah accept him and his brother Tamer [Tamerlan]… And that is simply by the Western media saying that the brothers got inspiration from the magazine for this idea.

On September 12, al-Zawahiri released a speech where he called on jihadis to bring the “war” to America.
“These disparate strikes can be done by one brother or a few of the brothers. And with these strikes, we must monitor and lie in wait and seize any opportunity to land a large strike on it, even if it takes years of patience for this,” he said, according to SITE.
More from SITE Intelligence Group.