The Islamic State magazine that has published tutorials on vehicle, knife and arson attacks as a tool of lone jihad is now encouraging terrorists to acquire guns at shows and shops and take hostages not for ransom but “to create as much carnage and terror as one possibly can.”
The latest issue of Rumiyah magazine, distributed online in 10 languages including English, offers another installment of the “Just Terror Tactics” series, praising lone jihadists including U.S. terrorists who have “set heroic examples with their operations.”
The objective of taking hostages, would-be jihadists are told, is “not to hold large numbers of the kuffar hostage in order to negotiate one’s demands,” but to sow terror with “the language of force, the language of killing, stabbing and slitting throats, chopping off heads, flattening them under trucks, and burning them alive, until they give the jizyah [tax] while they are in a state of humiliation.”
“The scenario for such an attack is that one assaults a busy, public, and enclosed location and rounds up the kuffar [disbelievers] who are present. Having gained control over the victims, one should then proceed to slaughter as many of them as he possibly can before the initial police response, as was outstandingly demonstrated by the mujahidin who carried out the Bataclan theatre massacre during the course of the blessed Paris raid,” the article instructs.
Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen “superbly demonstrated this scenario” of taking hostages simply to delay police while killing them “when, having armed himself with an assault rifle and a handgun, he single-handedly slaughtered 49 sodomites.”
Jihadists are told that Europeans should try to acquire guns in conflict zones or from underground dealers, and “much like its Crusader European counterparts, the UK faces a gun control dilemma as it feebly attempts to fend off the influx of weapons, but to no avail” so attackers are advised to find guns “readily available for purchase on the streets of Britain.”
In the United States, “anything from a single-shot shotgun all the way up to a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle can be purchased at showrooms or through online sales – by way of private dealers – with no background checks, and without requiring either an ID or a gun license,” ISIS states. “And with approximately 5,000 gun shows taking place annually within the United States, the acquisition of firearms becomes a very easy matter.”
They include a picture of an unidentified gun show with the caption, “Gun conventions represent an easier means of arming oneself for an attack.”
Jihadists are advised to refrain from casually asking people where they can get guns, lest they end up “bringing upon oneself unnecessary suspicion.”
Another suggestion for gun acquisition in the ISIS article is staging a ram-and-grab burglary driving a car into a gun shop when it’s closed.
“Alternatively, after some simple reconnaissance, one could follow the shop owner after he’s closed for the day, ambush him or run him over with a vehicle, and then take his keys in order to gain access to the store’s arsenal and any other location where he might be storing firearms and ammunition,” the advice continues. “Such targets, though potentially offering a considerable gain in terms of ghanimah [booty], are ambitious in nature and should be pursued while keeping in mind that tactical and gun shop owners are normally the type who arm and train themselves and would not be as averse to engaging in a firefight when attacked.”
Still, the terror group added, a “faint-hearted kafir shop owner in the West” can “be taken by surprise if one takes the means available to him and plans his attack carefully.”
Locations suggested for public hostage-taking operations include malls, movie theaters, nightclubs, ice-skating rinks, restaurants and college campuses — any peak-traffic, preferably low-light environment that “allows for one to take control of the situation by rounding up the kuffar present inside and allows one to massacre them while using the building as a natural defense against any responding force attempting to enter and bring the operation to a quick halt.” Operations with fewer jihadists taking part are encouraged to pick a target with fewer exits.
ISIS advises jihadists to consider attacks on “days on which police and other security forces might be pre-occupied with national or local events,” and begin killing hostages “as quickly as one can before the initial police response” while leaving a few alive as human shields.
“Using deception as a tactic of warfare in order to lure one’s target or trick them into believing that they are safe before killing them or inconspicuously assassinating them is divinely approved,” the article asserts.
Those who can’t acquire firearms are told to not let that stop them, and try hostage-taking and killing armed with a knife.
ISIS suggests luring targets by placing an ad at an unemployment center for a job Muslims would not take, then “subdue” each victim as they arrive at the interview site, even if that means renting a fake office, before murdering en masse.
Another suggested lure is advertising a studio apartment for rent, small enough to not “attract large families,” and capture and kill the interested tenants. “It might even help to include in the ad that the apartment is ‘ideal for students,'” ISIS adds.
Jihadists are also encouraged to place some stuff for sale on “buy and sell websites such as Craigslist, Gumtree, eBay, the Loot, and others” and “specify that collection and payment is only available in person and that only cash is accepted. Also, the item being advertised should be something that requires the victim to enter one’s property.”
“It is likewise important to be realistic when advertising and not advertise something far below its valued price, as this can attract the attention of authorities searching for stolen goods or possibly attract other suspicions,” the article states.
ISIS tells terrorists using these lure scenarios to space out arrivals and have “a room specifically reserved for the disposal of the bodies… for the obvious reason of not alerting those intended victims entering the property after them.”
“One should not initiate his attack until the target has fully entered the property and is comfortable, so as to avoid any struggle and prevent the chance of him fleeing.” The terror group also says a loud TV and staging the attack in busier daylight hours can help conceal screams.
“However, in order for the operation to gain wide publicity and more effectively plant terror into the hearts of the disbelievers, one can keep some of his victims alive and restrained, making for a more lengthy and drawn-out hostage scenario. One may then notify the authorities, explaining to them that he is a soldier of the Islamic State and informing them of what he has just done,” the article concludes. “…The intention of this delay is therefore only to prolong the terror, as the ideal scenario is that they storm the location and he is killed as a shahid – inshaallah – after having inflicted upon the kuffar a just massacre.”
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