Although no group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, a leading al-Qaeda ideologue last year recommended that jihadists in America include sporting events in their list of prospective terror targets.
Writing in the online magazine of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Inspire, the terrorist known as Abu Musab al-Suri listed what he called “the most important enemy targets.”
Al-Suri contended that civilians should be targeted “when responding to a brutal practice carried out by America and her allied forces.”
“This is done by targeting human crowds in order to inflict maximum human losses,” he wrote. “This is very easy since there are numerous such targets such as crowded sports arenas, annual social events, large international exhibitions, crowded market-places, skyscrapers, crowded buildings … etc.”
“It is possible for ordinary Resistance fighters among the Muslims residing in America and the allied Western countries to target them, in order to participate in the jihad and the Resistance, and to stretch out a helping hand to the mujahidun [Islamic warriors].”