Bombing suspect’s journal suggests ISIS, al Qaeda inspiration

Entries in the journal of the man accused of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey over the weekend suggest that he may have been inspired by prominent Islamic extremists.

Ahmad Khan Rahami “looked for guidance” from a spokesman for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and a radical American cleric, according to a bloodstained journal found on him when he was arrested this week.

{mosads}The guidance said to “clearly attack the kuffar [disbelievers] in their backyard,” he added, according to excerpts released by federal prosecutors and the House Homeland Security Committee.

Rahami mentioned “Brother Adnani” and “Sheikh Anwar,” presumably references to late ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who joined al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. Adnani was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month, and Awlaki was killed in 2011.

The references are the first evidence of any motivation for Rahami’s alleged acts, which left dozens of people injured in Manhattan but caused no deaths. According to federal prosecutors, Rahami planted bombs at two points each in Manhattan and New Jersey, before being arrested following a shootout on Monday morning.

“It’s clear from this journal that Mr. Rahami was receiving inspiration from the ISIS spokesman, Mr. Adnani,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, told reporters.

According to federal charging documents, Rahami’s journal also contained references to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and “Brother Osama bin Laden.”

The U.S. government was engaged in a “slaught[er]” against freedom fighters in the Middle East and Afghanistan, he added in the journal, while begging for martyrdom.

There remains no public evidence that the bombing plot was in any way orchestrated by ISIS or any other extremist organization. But the group has been eager to conflate attacks that it inspires and those it personally directs as part of an effort to increase its perceived strength.

Adnani himself encouraged followers around the globe to take up arms against their own communities, even without directly consulting ISIS’s headquarters first.  

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” he said in 2014, in one of his most famous declarations.