Al Qaida has launched a magazine for women, called Al-Shamikha, which translates to "Majestic Woman." The first issue is a 31 page glossy.

The magazine's advice to women: Cover up and marry a martyr. Al Qaida's rationale behind the project:

"Because women constitute half of the population – and one might even say that they are the population since they give birth to the next generation – the enemies of Islam are bent on preventing the Muslim woman from knowing the truth about her religion and her role, since they know all too well what would happen if women entered the field of jihad... The nation of Islam needs women who know the truth about their religion and about the battle and its dimensions and know what is expected of them."

The Daily Mail says the first issue contains beauty tips as well as The magazine includes exclusive interviews with the wives of martyrs, who praise their husband's suicide missions.

Is it a new day for the global marketing of Jihad? Al Qaida has had some sophisticated marketing campaigns in the past. But do they reach anyone but the disaffected? Sounds like a lot of preaching to the choir to me.

Dick Cheney and Glenn Greenwald think so. I think that is a severe exaggeration. I'll try and explain why later this week.

What do you think? Let's make this an Open Thread.

Danish police have arrested five men with alleged Islamic terrorist ties they say were planning an imminent shooting spree inside the newspaper offices of Jyllands Posten, the paper that published the 2005 cartoons that derided Muhammad.

Four of the five men reside in Sweden.

Danish media described the suspects arrested in Denmark as: a 44-year-old Tunisian national; a 29-year-old Lebanese-born Swedish national; a 30-year-old Swedish citizen of unknown ancestry; and a 26-year-old Iraqi seeking asylum in Denmark. A 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin was also arrested in Stockholm.

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Vice President Joe Biden was on Meet the Press this morning. Among his comments:‘We don’t believe they have the capacity to pull off a 9/11 type operation." His exact words:

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, you never say never. Okay? But we are-- our intelligence community is united in the view that the ability of Central Al Qaeda, that is Osama bin Laden and company, in the Af-Pak area, in those mountains, has been significantly degraded. And we don’t believe they have the capacity from there to pull off a -- a 9/11-type-- operation.

You can watch his interview here.

The suicide bomber killed in yesterday's bombing in Sweden has been identified as Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, a 29 year old married father and former student at Bedfordshire University in Luton, UK. His family lives in Sweden.

An Yemeni Islamist website, Shumukh al-Islam, published a photograph of Abdulwahab in dark glasses, saying: “It is our brother, mujahid Taymour Abdel Wahab, who carried out the martyrdom operation in Stockholm.”

With AQAP is praising the act, and since Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab also attended college in England, how long until Anwar al-Awlaki is mentioned as the one who radicalized Abdulwahab?

Update: Who's Mohamud? A rapping, teenage fitness guru.

Here's the FBI press release describing how Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, was set up and caught in an elaborate 6 month plan to set off a car bomb at a tree-lighting ceremony in Oregon. The FBI provided him with an inert device so the public wasn't in danger.

Apparently, Mohamud is not part of any group. He reached out (by e-mail)to a terrorist in Pakistan, who told him to contact someone else. Apparently, they weren't interested. The only response Mohamud got after that was from an FBI agent pretending to be an associate of the terrorist. [More....]

AQAP has released the third issue of Inspire Magazine. (Inspire is the "al Qaeda for Dummies" version of their propoganda releases.) You can read it here. (H/T Jihadology and IntelWire.)

In it, they explain how they made the cargo bombs and why. It wasn't to kill people. Their motives are economic. They want to cause a hemorrhage in the airline industry. They knew our predictable response would be to spend billions ramping up ineffective airline security measures. They are laughing at us, and on this point, with good reason. They also promise many more of these operations, by sharing their findings with their followers in other countries, so they can mail packages and get them on civilian planes going to the U.S. [More...]

Pro Publica and the Washington Post have a new report on the Mumbai bombings of 2008, focusing on Sajid Mir, aka Sajid Majid, who allegedly was put in charge of the attacks by Lashkar-i-Taiba. A second installment will be published tomorrow. According to the report, Mir trained David Coleman Headley for two years prior to the attack, and both active and retired Pakistani military officials were involved.

Mir and his victims are at the center of a wrenching national security dilemma confronting the Obama administration. The question, simply put, is whether the larger interests of the United States in maintaining good relations with Pakistan will permit Mir and other suspects to get away with one of the most devastating terrorist attacks in recent history.

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In the mail this week: Steve Hendrick's "A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial". It's detective vs. spy. From the inside cover:

A Kidnapping in Milan is at once a detective story, a history of the terrorist menace and an indictment of the belief that man's savagery against man can be stilled with more savagery yet.

The story focuses on the CIA's 2003 kidnapping of Muslim cleric, Abu Omar on the streets of Milan and his extraordinary rendition (via Ghost Air) to Egypt where he was tortured. Italian authorities, led by Magistrate Armando Spaturo, launched an investigation that exposed the embarrassing details of the covert CIA operation and indicted 26 CIA agents on charges of kidnapping. 23 were convicted and sentenced in abstentia.

Scott Horton at Harper's has an interesting interview with Hendricks about the book, which promises to be a great read.

For the past year, I've been writing about the sweetheart deal back in 1998 the DEA and DOJ gave David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, who this year pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks. (McClatchy has as well.) It's good to see more of the mainstream media now following this aspect of the story. Three weeks ago Pro Publica and the Washington Post obtained some new details, mostly about an ex-wife of Headley's who had reported in 2005 after their break-up that Headley had terrorist leanings.

The New York Times today breaks more new ground , having obtained the transcript of his Nov. 16, 2001 hearing for early termination of supervised release. My favorite paragraph is the one describing what happened at the hearing, which took place one month after the first of three of Headley's ex-girlfriends/wives reported she suspected he had terrorist leanings: [More...]

Via NECF Foundation, here's the English translation of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) ““Statement about the Liquidation Devices Operation””““Statement # 29””, claiming responsibility for the cargo bomb plot and the September 3 plane crash in Dubai (Arabic version here):

““Praise Allah and prayer and peace upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and companions:””

““We in al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula celebrate to the Ummah and give it the pleasant news and the anticipated surprise: Allah has graced us to bring down a jet that belongs to the American Company UPS, and that was on Ramadan 25th, 1431, corresponding with September 3rd, 2010, after taking off from Dubai International Airport.””

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Update: Yemen has deployed hundreds more troops to capture al-Alwaki.

Wanted, dead or alive: A Judge in Yemen has ordered Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and a relative arrested "by any means" to face terrorism charges in connection with the killing of French engineer Jacques Spagnolo last month. The order was issued as hearings got underway in the trial of a third man accused of the murder. [More...]