Suspected Pipeline Bomber Has Anti-Government Extremist Ties, Admired Joseph Stack

Anson Chi on YouTube

Anson Chi, the north Texas man authorities suspect bombed a natural gas pipeline station in Plano, Texas, on June 18, is an anti-government extremist active in the tax protest movement.

Chi, 32, a former engineer who claimed to have “retired” but was living with his parents, supported many causes, including environmental and animal rights causes, but the convictions he expressed most strongly in on-line writings were anti-government ones. He routinely posted anti-government comments to his Facebook Wall, collecting them from both the right and left.

However, statements by Chi in recent years reveal a strong connection with the right-wing “patriot movement,” especially its tax protest branch. The tax protest movement claims Americans aren’t required to pay federal income taxes and a government conspiracy is hiding this fact. “There is no law for the average American to pay the income tax,” Chi claimed in 2010, “as stated over and over again by the Supreme Court—case closed!”

In 2010, after fellow tax protester Joseph Andrew Stack flew his plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, in a suicide attack, Chi posted a link to Stack’s suicide note while proclaiming, “Bring down the IRS!”

Chi’s postings reveal familiarity with the movement’s pseudo-legal arguments, as well as key figures. Chi easily rattled off the names of tax protest gurus and court cases involving tax protesters. Saying he was a “paralegal,” Chi claimed to be friends with tax protest movement attorneys Tom Cryer and Larry Becraft, and to have attended the trial of Sherry Jackson, a former IRS employee who joined the tax protest movement and was convicted in 2007 of failing to file income tax returns.

Chi was also familiar with the pseudo-legal arguments of the sovereign citizen movement, proclaiming in late 2010 that he knew “all about admiralty maritime law and the strawman theory.”

Chi’s other fixation was on the banking system; like many anti-government extremists, he was obsessed with “international bankers” and the Federal Reserve. “Your life is under control by greedy private bankers,” he told visitors to his Facebook page, “especially since they print YOUR money based on nothing but thin air!”

Chi liked the movie Zeitgeist, as well as other recent popular on-line movies that combined New World Order and Federal Reserve conspiracy theories with New Age concepts. Chi’s postings reflected the theories advanced by such movies. “The private central bankers like the Rothschilds—changed from Jewish name Bauer, like Henry Kissinger changed from Heinz Loeb,” he wrote in 2010, “are…a bunch of con artists, working as the financial gatekeepers…for the Vatican.”

May Not So Merry For White Supremacists

April ended with a shock to the racist world, as prominent Arizona white supremacist and border vigilante J.T. Ready fatally shot four people before turning his gun on himself.   White supremacists would not be given a chance to catch their breaths, however, as the month of May continued to serve them setback after setback.

Christopher Brooks of American Front

On the heels of the Ready murder-suicide came a high profile incident in Florida in early May, in which law enforcement officers rounded up almost the entire Florida contingent of the hardcore racist skinhead group American Front on weapons, paramilitary training, and hate crimes charges.  To date, authorities have made 14 arrests.  According to court documents, the group allegedly conducted paramilitary training to prepare for an “inevitable race war” and discussed possible acts of violence ranging from shooting at a house to attacking an anti-racist group.

This just set the stage for a wave of arrests and setbacks to the white supremacist movement in May, including:

• In mid-May, Virginia neo-Nazi Bill White became a fugitive, announcing that he had “left the country,” though authorities think otherwise.  White, who had been released from prison in April, missed a re-sentencing court hearing and possibly feared he might be sent back to prison.

•  On May 17, court documents revealed that a Minnesota white supremacist, Joseph Benjamin Thomas, arrested with another white supremacist a few weeks earlier on drug and weapons charges, respectively, had allegedly planned to attack the Mexican consulate in St. Paul.

• On May 19, anti-racist activists crashed a Chicago-area white supremacist event billed as an “economic summit,” attacking attendees and sending three to the hospital.  Police arrested five anti-racists on charges related to the attack.  Adding insult to injury, police also arrested two of the attendees of the white supremacist event—one for child pornography and the other for unlawful possession of weapons by a felon.

• On May 30, Joliet resident Brian Moudry, a long-time Chicago-area white supremacist associated with the Creativity Movement, was arrested on federal arson and civil rights charges in connection with the 2007 arson of an African-American family’s house a few doors down from Moudry’s.

• Also on May 30, agents from the Washington, D.C., Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Virginia white supremacist Douglas Howard Story for allegedly attempting to obtain a fully automatic AK-47.  Story had a track record of on-line comments about responding with violence to encounters with police and about how President Obama might be assassinated.

Alabama Jihadist Omar Hammami Resurfaces Online

Update: An audio lecture by Hammami posted online on May 25 may provide insights into his apparent rift with Al Shabaab.  In the 45-minute lecture, originally posted online in January but quickly removed, he criticizes jihadist organizations with a local focus, likening them to a “cancerous tumor.” He also calls for all Muslims to unite in a “jihad of the entire Ummah [Muslim nation]” under the banner of restored Caliphate. 

Amid rumors of his death and his own declaration that his “life may be endangered by” the terrorist organization he joined in Somalia, Omar Hammami, an Alabama native who became the public face and voice of Al Shabaab, announced that he is still alive in part 1 of his autobiography.

In the autobiography, disseminated online on May 16, Hammami describes his journey from Alabama to his involvement in the creation of Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist group.

He calls joining jihad “the dream of any Muslim who has the love of the religion burning in his heart” and maintains that it is “truly an individual obligation upon all of us.” Hammami portrays himself as “a man with no regrets” despite his apparent falling out with Al Shabaab’s leadership.

In describing his role as a terrorist propagandist, Hammami advises that “being casual, when possible, is a better approach when reaching out to those like myself in the West… my peers can smell a poser from a mile away.” He also stresses the importance of media to the jihadist movement. “The war of narratives has become even more important than the war of navies, napalms, and knives.

Hammami also discusses his relationship with Daniel Maldonado, an American currently serving 10 years in prison for receiving militant training in Somalia with him after they traveled together to the Middle East.

Hammami concludes part 1 by urging others to emulate him. “Not that I’m extremely special, but then again I haven’t seen too many middle class ‘white’ guys from Alabama in Jihaad these days. Hopefully others will say to themselves: ‘I can do that too!’”

On May 22, a photo of Hammami posing with a computer displaying the autobiography was released online, ostensibly to confirm that he is indeed still alive and that the autobiography is authentic.

Al Qaeda’s Inspire Magazine Resurrected!

Two new issues of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s English-language Inspire magazine were released today. The release of the magazines demonstrates AQAP’s recognition of the propaganda value of the Inspire franchise and serves as a reminder of the group’s continued effort to target western audiences. 

They are the first issues to be released since Samir Khan, believed to be the principal author of the magazine, was killed in a September 2011 drone strike along with popular jihadist ideologue and magazine contributor Anwar al-Awlaki. At the time, their deaths led to speculation of the media franchise’s demise.

Inspire 8, dated fall 2011, focuses on the legitimacy of “targeting populations of the countries that are at war with the Muslims.” The feature article, written by al-Awlaki, appears to be a piece promised in a previous issue of Inspire. “The populations of the nations that are at war with the Muslims and especially those who are at the lead such as the U.S., Britain and France,” al-Awlaki wrote, “should be targeted by the mujahidin in operations that employ explosives, poisons, firearms and all other methods that lead to inflicting the greatest harm on them…”

Inspire 9, dated “winter,” focuses on AQAP’s success in building a stronghold in Yemen. The issue also features pieces eulogizing al-Awlaki and Khan. Both issues were edited by “Yahya Ibrahim,” which some observers previously suggested was a possible pseudonym taken by Khan.

Both new issues of Inspire solicit reader involvement, welcoming “correspondence, contributions, photographs and illustrations” and provide contact information for readers to submit materials. Issue 9 also calls for disseminating the magazines as broadly as possible and speculates that the FBI “might be trying to bring down sites that host the magazine.”

Jihadists Solicit Help Online to Craft Their Message

The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), an umbrella organization that distributes videos, literature and other messages for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, has apparently posted a submission form on Google’s blog service soliciting “participation, comments or suggestions” for its propaganda.

The form includes instructions in both English and Arabic for contacting the group, with reminders not to “mention your real name, address..etc. [sic]” and to include an email address “so we can reply to you.” The page also includes instructions for sending encrypted messages.

GIMF’s call for “participation” not only demonstrates the continuing effort by Jihadist propagandists to exploit mainstream social media platforms to communicate with potential followers (Al Shabaab, for example, started using Twitter in December 2011), but also how Jihadist media entities continue to rely on the skills and efforts of individual followers to help craft their message.

For example, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s English-language magazine Inspire regularly encourages readers to contribute articles, quotes and images. It has also provided contact information for readers “interested in contributing to this magazine with any skills – be it writing, research, editing or advice” and suggested that individuals use the same encryption program referenced by GIMF “in order to avoid detection from the intelligence services [sic].”

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, accused of attempting to detonate a vehicle he believed was laden with explosives at an Oregon Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2010, is an example of someone who responded to such solicitations. Not only did he allegedly write and send an article to Inspire (which was not published), he also submitted pieces that were published in Jihad Recollections, the self-described “first English Jihad magazine” released by a collaboration of online terrorist sympathizers, including Samir Khan. Khan produced Inspire up until he was killed by a U.S. drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

Others have taken it upon themselves to create jihadist propaganda without necessarily utilizing established terrorist media outlets, relying on internet forums and other social media for distribution of their materials. For example, an April 2012 image of the New York skyline with the message “Al Qaeda Coming Soon Again in New York” attracted widespread media attention and prompted enhanced law enforcement vigilance. The image, apparently created by an individual member of a jihadist forum, demonstrated the propaganda value that can be created by individuals using commercially available software.

While these messages may lack the cachet of a “brand name” propaganda distributed by GIMF and similar terrorist media producers, the materials still attract attention, create fear and encourage others to play an active role in the creation of propaganda in support of terror.

Younes Abdullah Muhammad Pleads Guilty to Threatening “South Park” Creators

Update: On June 22, 2012, Muhammad was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison.

Younes Abdullah Muhammad, co-founder of the fringe extremist Muslim organization Revolution Muslim, pleaded guilty on Thursday for his role in threatening the creators of the cartoon “South Park.” 

Muhammad (a.k.a. Jesse Curtis Morton) was arrested by Moroccan authorities in May 2011 after being charged in the U.S. with communicating online threats. His threats targeted Matt Stone and Trey Parker for their satirical depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in an episode of their cartoon. In October he was placed into American custody and brought before a federal judge in Virginia to face charges.

Muhammad helped Zachary Chesser, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison on a similar charge, draft a statement containing language justifying “the death of those who insult Islam or defame its prophet…” The statement was issued on behalf of Revolution Muslim in response to the national attention garnered by Chesser after he threatened the “South Park” creators on a number of online platforms.

Under Muhammad’s leadership, Revolution Muslim distributed anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist propaganda at its street protests and online, which often included implicit and explicit threats of violence. The group was active mostly in New York until the end of 2010, when Muhammad moved to Morocco. Currently, it operates under the name Islam Policy.

Muhammad, who has a long history of justifying violence against anyone he views as an enemy of Islam, served as Revolution Muslim’s most prolific writer. In addition to his various posts on the group’s website, he contributed to Jihad Recollections, an online English language magazine created by Samir Khan. Khan, who is better known for editing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) English-language magazine, Inspire, was killed by a U.S. drone strike on September 30, 2011, two years after he moved to Yemen to align himself with Al Qaeda.

In the inaugural issue of Jihad Recollections, released in April 2009, Muhammad expressed support for Al Qaeda, writing that the September 11 terrorist attacks “…were, for the most part, positive and the results even better than expected.” He also called on like-minded Muslims to “exploit these results and advance the jihad... It is time to begin to think about the necessary next steps that must predicate the conquering of Rome.”

Chicago Taxi Driver Admits Supporting Al Qaeda

Update: One June 8, Khan was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for attempting to provide material support to terrorists.

Raja Lahrasib Khan, a Chicago taxi driver linked to senior Al Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri, pleaded guilty on Monday to attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, admitted trying to send funds to Kashmiri, the former operational chief for Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization, to purchase explosives to be used in an act of terrorism. According to the Department of Justice, Khan had previously "provided hundreds of dollars" to Kashmiri, whom he first met in Pakistan in the early to mid-2000's.

Kashmiri, who was reportedly killed in a drone attack on South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold, in june 2011, has been indicted in a separate case for allegedly helping two other Chicago residents plan a terrorist attack against the officers and employees of a Danish newspaper that previously print controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men, David Coleman Headley, pleaded guilty in 2010 to helping plan the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 170 people.

Tampa Terrorism Suspect Broadcast Anti-Semitism Online

Our take on the arrest earlier this month of Sami Osmakac, a Florida resident accused of plotting to attack various sites in Tampa in violent retaliation for America's “war against Islam,” was published in the Tampa Tribune. 

Although Osmakac is not alleged to have targeted Jews or Jewish institutions, a series of videos posted on YouTube reveal his intense hatred of Jews. Osmakac compared Jews to animals and accused them of worshipping the devil and corrupting all religions. He asserted that “Jews… killed all the prophets” and predicted that the antichrist will be Jewish politician who will unite the Christians and Jews against the Muslims.