The human cost of jihad
Category Archives: Al Qaeda
10-year journey of deepening radicalism turned Paris brothers into hardened killers
The New York Times reports: In the year after the United States’ invasion of Iraq, a 22-year-old pizza delivery man here couldn’t take it anymore. Sickened by images of American soldiers humiliating Muslims at the Abu Ghraib prison, he made plans to go fight United States forces. He studied a virtual AK-47 on a website. Then he took lessons from a man, using a hand-drawn picture of a gun.
It was an almost laughable attempt at jihad, and as the day of his departure approached, the delivery man, Chérif Kouachi, felt increasingly unsure of himself.
When the police arrested him hours before his 6:45 a.m. Alitalia flight on Jan. 25, 2005, he was relieved. “Several times, I felt like pulling out. I didn’t want to die there,” he later told investigators. “I told myself that if I chickened out, they would call me a coward, so I decided to go anyway, despite the reservations I had.”
A decade later, Chérif Kouachi, flanked by his older brother Saïd, no longer had any reservations, as the two jihadists in black, sheathed in body armor, gave a global audience a ruthless demonstration in terror.[Continue reading…]
France: 19,000 websites hacked since Charlie Hebdo attack
Mashable: Hackers have attacked 19,000 French websites in the aftermath of the raid on the office of Charlie Hebdo, according to France’s cyberdefense chief.
The attacks were carried out by “more or less structured” groups, including some well-known Islamic hacking groups, Adm. Arnaud Coustilliere, head of the French Army’s cybersecurity department, told reporters on Thursday.
Coustilliere defined them as “defacement,” referring to common attacks in which hackers take control of a site and replace its content.
“That’s never been seen before.
It’s the first time that a country has been faced with such a large wave,” he said.
Turkish military says Turkey’s intelligence service shipped weapons to al Qaeda
Fehim Taştekin reports: Secret official documents about the searching of three trucks belonging to Turkey’s national intelligence service (MIT) have been leaked online, once again corroborating suspicions that Ankara has not been playing a clean game in Syria. According to the authenticated documents, the trucks were found to be transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition. The Gendarmerie General Command, which authored the reports, alleged, “The trucks were carrying weapons and supplies to the al-Qaeda terror organization.” But Turkish readers could not see the documents in the news bulletins and newspapers that shared them, because the government immediately obtained a court injunction banning all reporting about the affair.
When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was prime minister, he had said, “You cannot stop the MIT truck. You cannot search it. You don’t have the authority. These trucks were taking humanitarian assistance to Turkmens.”
Since then, Erdogan and his hand-picked new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have repeated at every opportunity that the trucks were carrying assistance to Turkmens. Public prosecutor Aziz Takci, who had ordered the trucks to be searched, was removed from his post and 13 soldiers involved in the search were taken to court on charges of espionage. Their indictments call for prison terms of up to 20 years. [Continue reading…]
In order to circumvent the ban imposed on the publication of the leaked MIT documents they have been posted by Anonymous.
NYT reporters parrot unsubstantiated statements from U.S. counterterrorism officials. What’s new?
A report in the New York Times claims in its opening paragraph:
The younger of the two brothers who killed 12 people in Paris last week most likely used his older brother’s passport in 2011 to travel to Yemen, where he received training and $20,000 from Al Qaeda’s affiliate there, presumably to finance attacks when he returned home to France.
The source of that information is presumably the American counterterrorism officials referred to in the second paragraph.
Reporters Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, too busy scribbling their notes, apparently didn’t bother asking these officials how they identified the money trail.
That’s an important question, because an alternative money trail has already been reported that has no apparent connection to AQAP.
French media have reported that Amedy Coulibaly — who in a video declared his affiliation with ISIS — purchased the weapons, used both by him and the Kouachi brothers, from an arms dealer in Brussels and that he paid for these with:
a standard loan of 6,000 euros ($7,050) that Coulibaly took out on December 4 from the French financial-services firm Cofidis. He used his real name but falsely stated his monthly income on the loan declaration, a statement the company didn’t bother to check, the reports say.
Whereas the New York Times reports receipt of the money and its amount as fact, CNN — no doubt briefed by the same officials — makes it somewhat clearer that this information is quite speculative:
U.S. officials have told CNN it’s believed that when Cherif Kouachi traveled to Yemen in 2011, he returned carrying money from AQAP earmarked to carry out the attack. Investigators said the terrorist group could have given as much as $20,000, but the exact amount has not been verified. [Emphasis mine.]
This isn’t a money trail — it’s speculation. And even if AQAP did put up some seed capital, that was four years ago. In the intervening period, the gunmen seem to have been busy engaged in their own entrepreneurial efforts:
Former drug-dealing associates of Coulibaly told AP he was selling marijuana and hashish in the Paris suburbs as recently as a month ago. Multiple French news accounts have said the Kouachi brothers sold knockoff sporting goods made in China.
Another gaping hole in the NYT report is its failure to analyze the AQAP videos — there were two.
The first video, released on January 9, praised the attacks but made no claim of responsibility. Were its makers restrained by their own modesty? The second video, which does claim that AQAP funded and directed the operation, provides no evidence to support these claims.
The top spokesman for the Yemen branch of al-Qaida publicly took credit Wednesday for the bloody attack on a French satirical newspaper, confirming a statement that had been emailed to reporters last week.
But the 11-minute video provided no hard evidence for its claims, including that the operation had been arranged by the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directly with the two brothers who carried it out before Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.
The video includes frames showing Awlaki but none of him with the brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, nor any images of the Kouachis that haven’t been shown on Western news broadcasts for days.
So it seems premature for the New York Times to start talking about how the attacks might:
serve as a reminder of the continued danger from the group [AQAP] at a time when much of the attention of Europe and the United States has shifted to the Islamic State, the militant organization that controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq and has become notorious for beheading hostages.
The NYT report also makes a claim that I have not seen elsewhere:
In repeated statements before they were killed by the police, the Kouachi brothers said they had carried out the attack on behalf of the Qaeda branch in Yemen, saying it was in part to avenge the death of Mr. Awlaki.
Are we to suppose that Awlaki was funding an operation to avenge his own death before he had been killed?
Based on the information that has been reported so far — and obviously, new information might significantly change this picture — the evidence seems to lean fairly strongly in the direction that the Paris attacks should be seen to have been inspired rather than directed by Al Qaeda.
And to the extent that Anwar al-Awlaki played a pivotal role in these attacks, the lesson — a lesson that should be reflected on by President Obama and the commanders of future drone strikes — is that Awlaki’s capacity to inspire terrorist attacks seems to be just as strong now as it was when he was alive.
Indeed, the mixed messages coming from AQAP might reflect an internal debate on whether it can wield more power as an inspirational force or alternatively needs to sustain the perception that it retains control over operations carried out in its name.
Media coverage of Charlie Hebdo and the Baga massacre: a study in contrasts
By Ethan Zuckerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Consider two tragic events that took place last week.
A small cell of Islamic terrorists attacked cartoonists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shoppers in a Paris supermarket, killing 17 people and sparking international outcry, solidarity and support.
The hashtag #JeSuisCharlie trended globally, and world leaders took to the streets to march in support of Parisian resilience.
In northern Nigeria, meanwhile, an army of Islamic extremists razed the village of Baga, killing as many as 2,000 people – mostly women and children who were unable to flee the attacks.
Later in the week, the same army – Boko Haram – introduced a horrific new weapon of war in the nearby city of Maiduguri. They strapped explosives to the body of a ten year old girl and sent her into the city’s main poultry market. The girl was stopped by guards and a metal detector at the market’s entrance, but the bomb detonated and killed at least 19.
There has been no global hashtag campaign or march for the victims of these most recent Boko Haram massacres.
More reasons to question AQAP’s claims about the Paris attacks
According to this report #AQAP is lying about many things surrounding the #CharlieHebdo attack in its new video.
http://t.co/8m6sQUqxAQ
— Das Kuffar (@kufr666) January 14, 2015
Haaretz reports: The terrorists who perpetrated the attacks in Paris last week got their weapons from an arms dealer in Brussels.
The dealer, a known figure in Brussels’ underworld, turned himself in to local police on Tuesday, according to Belgian media.
Federal police, who searched the suspect’s apartment, found papers linking him to a transaction with Amedy Coulibaly, the jihadist who murdered four Jewish men and held others hostage at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in east Paris on Friday.
According to the local press, the man sold Coulibaly the Skorpion submachine guns he used in the attack, as well as the rocket propelled grenade launcher and the Kalashnikov automatic assault rifles that Said and Cherif Kouachi used to perpetrate the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The weapons were purchased near the Midi railway station in downtown Brussels for less than 5,000 euros, according to the reports.
French media reports Wednesday morning said that the funding for the arms purchase was simply a standard loan of 6,000 euros ($7,050) that Coulibaly took out on December 4 from the French financial-services firm Cofidis. He used his real name but falsely stated his monthly income on the loan declaration, a statement the company didn’t bother to check, the reports say. [Continue reading…]
Al Qaeda claims French attack, derides Paris rally
Reuters reports: Al Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the Islamist militant group’s leadership for insulting the Prophet Mohammad, according to a video posted on YouTube.
Gunmen killed a total of 17 people in three days of violence that began when they opened fire at Charlie Hebdo last week in revenge for publication of satirical images of the Prophet.
This was the first time that a group officially claimed responsibility for the attack, led by two brothers who had visited the poor Arabian peninsula country in 2011.
“As for the blessed Battle of Paris, we … claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God,” said Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, a leader of the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda (AQAP) in the recording.
Ansi, an AQAP ideologue, said the “one who chose the target, laid the plan and financed the operation is the leadership of the organisation”, without naming an individual.
He added without elaborating that the strike was carried out in “implementation” of the order of overall al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who has called for strikes by Muslims in the West using any means they can find.
Ansi also gave credit for the operation to slain AQAP propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, a preacher cited by one of the gunmen in remarks to French media as a financer of the attack.
It was not clear how Awlaki, killed by a U.S. drone in 2011, had a direct link to the Paris assault, but he inspired several militants in the United States and Britain to acts of violence. [Continue reading…]
Both brothers behind Paris attack said to have had weapons training in Yemen
Reuters reports: Both brothers who carried out the attack against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo traveled to Yemen via Oman in 2011 and had weapons training in the deserts of Marib, where al Qaeda has a presence, two senior Yemeni sources said on Sunday.
This is the first confirmation by Yemeni officials that both Cherif and Said Kouachi, who carried out one of the bloodiest Islamist attacks on the West in years, had visited Yemen where al Qaeda’s deadliest franchise, AQAP, is based. U.S., European and Yemeni sources had previously confirmed a visit by Said Kouachi.
The Paris attack puts a fresh spotlight on the AQAP branch which has recently focused on fighting enemies at home such as government forces and Shi’ite rebels but still aims to carry out attacks abroad.
A concerted government campaign last year and repeated U.S. drone strikes on AQAP figures had also created a belief that it lacked the capability to launch any major attacks abroad. Al Qaeda-linked militants have managed however, to target Westerners, including a Frenchman, in Yemen in the past year.
“These two brothers arrived in Oman on July 25, 2011, and from Oman they were smuggled into Yemen where they stayed for two weeks,” a senior Yemeni security official, who declined to be named, said.
“They met (al Qaeda preacher) Anwar al-Awlaki and then they were trained for three days in the deserts of Marib on how to fire a gun. They returned to Oman and they left Oman on Aug. 15, 2011 to go back to France.”
A senior Yemeni intelligence source confirmed the brothers had entered Yemen via Oman in 2011, citing the ease with which they entered while the security forces were focused on the Arab Spring protests that were convulsing the country at the time.
The source also confirmed the brothers had met Awlaki “and trained in Wadi Abida” – which is between Marib and Shabwa provinces where Awlaki was known to move freely. [Continue reading…]
The birth of an international jihadi social movement?
Dual claim in Paris suggests some jihadis relate to IS/AQ like football teams. You can support different clubs and still watch game together
— Thomas Hegghammer (@Hegghammer) January 12, 2015
Clint Watts writes: The jihadi movement may have finally become what its original luminaries always wanted it to be – and in Paris of all places. The amorphous connections between the Charlie Hebdo attackers, the Kouachi brothers – who attributed their actions to “al Qaeda in Yemen” – and kosher market attacker Amedy Coulibali – who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a recently released online video – may reflect exactly what some early jihadi strategists intended: broad based jihad via a loose social movement. Terrorism researchers, obsessed with the writings of their academic adversary in jihad, Abu Musab al Suri, have for years suggested the social movement approach represented the ultimate vision of al Qaeda’s founding leadership.
This vision, however, does not seem to be shared by today’s al Qaeda chief, Ayman al Zawahiri, who for nearly a decade has sought to rein in the group’s disobedient affiliate in Iraq, which now also controls much of Syria in the guise of the Islamic State. Al Zawahiri also questioned the value of goofy self-recruits perpetrating attacks on behalf of al Qaeda without formal membership or direction from the group. Zawahiri’s resistance to freelance members may not be sufficient to quell the zeal witnessed by last week’s Charlie Hebdo attack. The manifestation of al Qaeda social movement theory may finally be realized by three forces: the growing development and global proliferation of social media, an unending call for jihad due to the intractable Syrian civil war, and the West’s failure to adapt to the wicked problem of non-state threats in a networked world.
Today’s jihadi threat, blended between al Qaeda and ISIS, networked by Facebook, and evolving based on conditions in hundreds of locations, produces attacks on three or more continents every day. On the surface this seems to indicate a stronger, unprecedented emerging jihadi threat to the West. Media coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attack and others suggest as much. We analysts and followers of jihadi activity, though, often give terrorists too much credit. Many, if not most, Western jihadis are deeply troubled souls, at times more confused about their intentions and motivations than we are – Omar Hammami, Zachary Chesser, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau are three of many such examples. Counterterrorism pundits, myself included, try to tease out order from chaos. But today’s counterterrorism landscape does not lend itself to such linearity. [Continue reading…]
Charlie Hebdo: Why not mock Al Qaeda and ISIS?
IBT reports: The next issue of Charlie Hebdo will feature cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed in the first copy of the satirical magazine to be published after the massacre of its cartoonists and other staff by terrorists enraged by previous cartoons of Islam’s most sacred figure.
Lawyers announced the typically combative move as they prepared a bumper issue of one million copies which will hit the news stands on Wednesday (14 January), exactly one week after gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaeda stormed Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices, killing 12 people.
“We will not give in to anything,” Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, Richard Malka, told Le Figaro. “The spirit of ‘Je suis Charlie [I am Charlie] also means the right to blasphemy”.
I understand that the magazine refuses to cower in the face of the most extreme form of intimidation, but satire is a precision weapon. It won’t have the right effect if it’s aimed at the wrong target.
Last week, no one in Paris got killed by the Prophet Mohammed. France is not under attack from Islam.
The killers were nihilistic, egotistical, young hotheads who by their own declarations acted in the name of Al Qaeda and ISIS and whose actions were applauded by the supporters of these two groups.
Satirists short on ideas for skewering those who deserve to be mocked, only need to turn to social media where an endless supply of often funny and often tasteless parody can be found from the likes of @CaliphIbrahimAR and @ISIS_Med.
Brothers held a protest for Sheikh Santa Claus, you 10 year old fucks better watch out! pic.twitter.com/k48yUdypVz
— Baghdadi (@CaliphIbrahimAR) December 17, 2014
The new spectacular terror attack
TSG IntelBrief: Recent unsophisticated attacks by individuals or very small groups of people have achieved what the original core of al-Qaeda (AQ) has failed to achieve for almost a decade: each of these lone wolves or wolf packs conducted a “spectacular” — the term AQ also used to describe a devastating attack along the lines of 9/11, the Madrid train bombing, or the London Tube attacks. The new attackers achieved this by simply changing the definition of “spectacular,” applying it to the reaction instead of the attack itself. The focus has shifted from a high casualty count to a high response count. These attacks involve planning but relatively little skill, and are never judged to be failures, meaning they are ripe for copycats.
How this came about is the result of the merging of several terrorism and geopolitical trend lines over recent years. To be certain, explosives remain the tactic of choice for terrorists in weak-state areas such as Yemen, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, or places that border theses areas, such as northern Lebanon and southern Turkey. But in places with well-established counterterrorism (CT) and law enforcement capabilities, the trend is to avoid plots that involve complicated steps such as mixing, preparing, and transporting explosives in favor of small arms attacks that are extremely difficult to detect or deter and that result in inordinately large responses and reactions. [Continue reading…]
In France, there is not a Muslim community, but a Muslim population
Olivier Roy writes: The attack against the Paris satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has re-launched an ongoing debate in France about the compatibility between Islam and the West. The issue is more fraught in Western Europe than in the United States because of the huge number of Muslims who are not only settled there, but who also have citizenship.
By a strange coincidence, on the same day of the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo, we saw the long awaited release of the most recent novel by the bestselling French author Michel Houellebecq, titled “Submission.” The book imagines the victory of a moderate Muslim party in the 2022 French presidential and parliamentary elections.
The issue of the compatibility between Islam and French or Western political culture is no longer confined to the usual suspects: the populist right, conservative Christians or staunch secularists from the left. The issue has become emotional and now pervades the entire political spectrum. The Muslim population — which does not identify with the terrorists — now fears an anti-Muslim backlash.
Roughly speaking, two narratives are conflicting: the dominant one claims that Islam is the main issue, because it puts loyalty toward the faith community before loyalty to the nation, it does not accept criticism, does not compromise on norms and values and condones specific forms of violence like jihad. For the adherents of this narrative, the only solution is a theological reformation that would generate a “good” Islam that is a liberal, feminist and gay-friendly religion. Journalists and politicians are always tracking the “good Muslims” and summoning them to show their credentials as “moderate.”
On the other side, many Muslims, secular or believers, supported by a multiculturalist left, claim that radicalization does not come from Islam but from disenfranchised youth who are victims of racism and exclusion, and that the real issue is Islamophobia. They condemn terrorism while denouncing the backlash that could in turn radicalize more Muslim youth.
The problem is that both narratives presuppose the existence of a French “Muslim community” of which the terrorists are a sort of “vanguard.” [Continue reading…]
Paris policeman’s brother: ‘Islam is a religion of love. My brother was killed by terrorists, by false Muslims’
The Guardian reports: Ahmed Merabet, the police officer gunned down in the Charlie Hebdo attack, was killed in an act of barbarity by “false Muslims” his brother said in a moving tribute on Saturday, where he also appealed for unity and tolerance.
Speaking for a group of relatives gathered in Paris, Malek Merabet said the terrorists who ignored his brother’s plea for mercy as he lay wounded on the street may have shared his Algerian roots, but had nothing else in common.
“My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims,” he said. “Islam is a religion of peace and love. As far as my brother’s death is concerned it was a waste. He was very proud of the name Ahmed Merabet, proud to represent the police and of defending the values of the Republic – liberty, equality, fraternity.”
Malek reminded France that the country faced a battle against extremism, not against its Muslim citizens. “I address myself now to all the racists, Islamophobes and antisemites. One must not confuse extremists with Muslims. Mad people have neither colour or religion,” he said.
“I want to make another point: don’t tar everybody with the same brush, don’t burn mosques – or synagogues. You are attacking people. It won’t bring our dead back and it won’t appease the families.” [Continue reading…]
Muslim worker saved kosher store hostages
RFI reports: A Muslim employee saved the lives of hostages at the Paris kosher supermarket taken over by armed Islamist Amedy Coulibaly on Friday. His mother joined the family of slain police officer Ahmed Merabet in an appeal against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Between 15 and 20 hostages held in the Hyper Cacher supermarket on Friday owe their lives to one man: Lassana Bathily.
The 24-year-old Malian born grocery store employee was working when the assailant Amedy Coulibaly stormed in and he quickly took everyone downstairs to the cold store. [Continue reading…]
In the new era of terrorism, Anwar al-Awlaki’s voice can still be heard
The New York Times reports: For more than five years now, as Western terrorism investigators have searched for critical influences behind the latest jihadist plot, one name has surfaced again and again.
In the failed attack on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, the stabbing of a British member of Parliament in London in 2010, the lethal bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and now the machine-gunning of cartoonists and police officers in Paris, Anwar al-Awlaki has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration.
Two of those four attacks took place after Mr. Awlaki, the silver-tongued, American-born imam who joined Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011.
In the age of YouTube, Mr. Awlaki’s death — or martyrdom, in the view of his followers — has hardly reduced his impact. The Internet magazine Inspire, which he oversaw along with another American, Samir Khan, has continued to spread not just militant rhetoric but also practical instructions on shooting and bomb-making.
Times reporters and editors are providing live updates from the march in Paris that comes in the wake of the attacks on a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery last week.
In effect, Mr. Awlaki has become a leading brand name in the world of armed jihad. [Continue reading…]
The road that led from tough Paris estate to radical Yemen training
Jason Burke reports: The path is well-trodden: from a tough housing estate in a western city, through a scruffy, colourful, traffic-choked capital 3,500 miles away, on to one of the country’s religious schools, and eventually into a violent extremist organisation.
The journey has been made by thousands of young western Muslim men over the two decades or more that contemporary Islamic militancy has posed a deadly international threat. Many are converts, including some of the most wanted militants today. Some are followers, rather than leaders. Some are already committed to an extremist agenda, even if they have yet to act. Many return with a dogmatic, sometimes hate-filled, world view, but remain non-violent. Others return with the skills and contacts necessary to implement their, or their new leaders’, ambitions to kill and maim.
This weekend at least one new name, probably two, have been added to the list: Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the brothers who killed 12 people in the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last week. Details of the Kouachis’ travels are still unclear but it appears both spent time in Yemen over the past five years.
Speaking to French TV channel BFM on Friday afternoon, as police commandoes prepared for the final assault, Chérif, 32, said he had travelled to Yemen in 2011. His expenses were paid by the American-Yemeni extremist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was influential within al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) and one of the most popular radical propagandists in the world. “It was a while ago, before al-Awlaki was killed,” he told BFM. Al-Awlaki died in a suspected US drone strike in September 2011.
Saïd, 34, had also travelled to Yemen, attending the Iman University, which is headed by fundamentalist preacher Abdel Majeed al-Zindani, whose name figures on a US terror blacklist, according to a former Yemeni classmate interviewed by AFP. The classmate said he had lost track of Saïd between 2010 and 2013, when local rebel Houthi militiamen, who are from the Shia minority strand of Islam, overran a religious school in the small town of Dammaj, to the north of the capital Sa’ana, run by conservatives from the Sunni majority. The school, well- known in jihadi circles and to security agencies, was a destination for hundreds of foreigners, former students have said. [Continue reading…]
Is Anonymous vow to avenge Hebdo massacre a real threat or bluster?
Michael Hughes writes: The hacktivist group called Anonymous told jihadists worldwide it would avenge the attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Yet it’s fair to question the feasibility of such an endeavor, given the group’s typical mode of operandi is disrupting websites, not conducting counterterrorist operations. Even if they could, some are asking if they should, for fear it might beget more violence and escalate a fringe culture war.
“We will track you down — every last one — and will kill you,” a spokesperson wearing the signature Guy Fawkes mask said, in French, in a YouTube video posted on Thursday.
“You will not impose your sharia law in our democracies, we will not let your stupidity kill our liberties and our freedom of expression. We have warned you; expect your destruction,” the Fawkes character added, while calling out the Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda by name, and mocking their sensitivity over derogatory images of The Prophet depicted in Hebdo cartoons. [Continue reading…]