Expert warns terrorists may be setting wildfires across American West

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld of the New York-based American Center for Democracy's Economic Warfare Institute warns that last July "al-Qaeda's English-language online magazine, Inspire, published an article called 'It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb,' which featured instructions on how to build an incendiary bomb to light forests on fire. "A few months later, Russia's security (FSB) chief, Aleksandr Bortnikov warned, 'al-Qaeda was complicit in recent forest fires in Europe' as part of the terrorists' 'strategy of a thousand cuts.' Bortnikov spoke of 'extremist sites [that] contained detailed instructions of waging the forest jihad and stressed that such a method had proved itself effective as it inflicted both physical and moral damage, needed little training or investment and it was extremely hard for police to find and apprehend the arsonists.' "Since then, more fatwas advocating that 'Fire is cheap, easy and effective tool for economic warfare' have been issued. They've included detailed instructions for constructing remote-controlled 'ember bombs, and how to set fires without leaving a trace.'" Ehrenfeld notes that, while many of the recent wildfires in the U.S. have been attributed by law enforcement officials to arsonists none have pointed to al Qaeda as being responsibility for any of them...more