Talk:Al-Qaeda/Archive 5

message: Recent news reports have been claiming that the Internet is full of Web sites in support of Al Qaeda.  For example, Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Washington Times claims (8/24/6): 
:Disillusioned Muslim youngsters are increasingly attached to the global Muslim community via the Internet -- and are angry at what they consider the anti-Muslim policies of the local government where they live. The estimated 5,000 pro-al Qaeda Web sites include recipes for mixing nail polish remover and hair bleach and detonating the explosive cocktail with the flash unit from a throwaway camera.
I find myself very skeptical of these claims.  For example, typing "nail polish", "hair bleach" and "camera" as search terms in Google gets 1240 results, of which the vast majority appear not to be radical Muslim sites.  I have seen too many reports of infringements on the free speech of ordinary American polemicists to believe that Al Qaeda enjoys free reign in Western countries or anywhere else.  But then again... that search wouldn't bring up pages in Arabic.  What's the truth here?Mike Serfas 03:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  NB You CAN mix acitone and a Base to make an explosive, but you need MUCH higher concentrations than are avalable to the genral public. You also need lab with cooling equipment and a blast proof vacume cabenet (so not you average school stuff) to get anything near a good reactant leval, and even if you did no sain person would do this by had because it is still very volitial, and you risk killing yourself. This is just scair mongering which all seems to come from one "security expert" on ITV news saying "it might be some sort of new bomb, like a liquid explosive, which we cannot detect" in relation to questions as to why airports were closed after a bomb threat when there is suposed to be bomb detecting equipment in the airports.
There is no such thing as a "binary bomb" where you mix two substances and they blow up. Houshold or otherwise. 62.232.65.170 15:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pro Al-Qaeda Web sites

message: According to the recent White House report, Al Qaeda has been "signifcantly degraded" but the opposition Democrats are claiming something like more than a doubling in it's size since its dispersion from Afghanistan.
Which is it?
A section on the grown or shrinkage of Al Queda might be helpful. 
--213.42.21.76 10:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  growth or reduction of Al Qaeda? 

message: This is all too convenient. Making us scared of an invisible enemy, we dont know where they are, we dont know when they will strike, we must remove your liberties, lock you up without evidence for your liberty and security.  what a load of bollocks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.94.6.30 (talk • contribs).
:This page is not for comments on the subject, or in this case something related to the subject. This is for listing ways to improve the article itself. Please remember this in the future. -- THL 03:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I understand.  When you say they are "not Sunni", do you mean to say they are Shi'a or some other denomination of Islam?  Or do you mean they are not true Sunnis, or something along those lines? —Morning star 23:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  General comment on terrorism 

message: It seems that there has been a lot of vandalism recently by unregistered users; does anyone think semi-protection is in order? Trojan traveler 03:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would second that. —Morning star 23:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Frankly I was surprised to find taht there wasn't any here already. Kc4 21:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-Protection

message: right now, the list only contains the names of those who participated in the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. surely we know the names of those who attacked the u.s.s. cole, the african embassies, etc. Parsecboy 19:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: more attack participants

message: We need to shorten them. They currently look ridiculous. Any suggestions?-Localzuk(talk) 11:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Giant section headings 

message: The second paragraph of the etymology section should be removed since the only cited source for it's information is Globalresearch.ca, an ideologically and politically biased website that promotes bizarre conspiracy theories involving the supposed New World Order and such. It also features articles penned by people who've written for a neo-Nazi newsletter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Professor28 (talk • contribs) 
:Do you know which neo-Nazi newsletter?—Morning star 23:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology section 

message: Can we please remove these lines (or at least stick them in a revised form later in the document) they lend a very non-POV air to the piece. "Al-Qaeda has been linked to multiple acts of terrorism against U.S. interests and is known for planning and executing the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and The Pentagon. In response, the United States launched a war against Afghanistan, whose government was providing safe haven to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda members."  When I began reading i got the impression this was more like a bio-article by the washington post on al-Qaeda rather than an encyclopeadiea article. Put the stated events in a section called actions or something. Thanks - --ISpyFace 13:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Focus 

message: I was going to edit this portion of the article out, but I figured I should say something here first.  I don't really think the entry about Pierre Henry Bunel belongs in this article; it makes sweeping claims about the al-qaeda organization (going as far as to say that OBL is an "American agent"), and its only source is a left-leaning Canadian website.Trojan traveler 16:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pierre Henry Bunel

message: --HanzoHattori 18:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request: al-Qaeda flag(s) 

message: There's no mention of cults on the page though it has been described as a cult and not as a cult by different sources. Should the article reflect this debate since this article links here for more information on the topic? raptor 05:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cult? 

message: I removed this phrase because it is both liable to misrepresentation and because its actually wrong.
The idea that AQ is unusual in not be centrally directed and coordinated is completely mistaken. Most 'organizations' that use guerilla tactics are actually loosely bound collections of independent groups who operate under a common name. The original Spanish guerilla during the Napoleonic wars was decentralized with independent bands of partisans operating autonamously with no central coordination.
The same was true of the modern terrorist movements such as Action Directe and The Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof gang). The original leaders were quickly rounded up and imprisoned. Other groups with little direct connection to the original used the same name. In the case of the RAF they continuously changed the name they operated under 'XYZ Commando' where XYZ was a recently killed terrorist, so the press and authorities used the name RAF.
AQ is an ideologically driven terrorist movement. It uses exactly the form of organization that ideologically driven movements use. Centrally directed and organized terrorist movements are much more common irridentist movements with long histories. The Provisional IRA had few Republican rivals because its the end product of a 150 year plus movement.
Incidentally even the PLO was organized in the same manner as AQ. Arrafat was the leader of Fattah, one of the factions that came together to form the PLO. Not only did the various PLO factions continue to operate independently after nominally joining together but they also spent a good bit of time killing each other. 
So no, this is not a new form of organization for terrorists unless you are a lazy journalist. --66.31.39.76 18:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'not terrorist organization in traditional sense' 

message: I'm surprised to see no new information incorporated in this article as yet from the recent Newsnight interview. I added a stub, based on the pseudonym used.
The programme was specifically stated to be his story told from his perspective (therefore not NPOV) although Newsnight stated they were able to verify the key details. Are there any editors with background knowledge of this area that would be able to extract suitable information from this to present in a NPOV? I'm curious about how much of the info in that programme was genuinely new information that was not previously known about Al-Qaeda, or about the assertions that the information on which the USA justified the Iraq war would have been specifically presented to the interrogators acting on behalf of the USA for the purpose of making them go to war.
--Stoive 05:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New information from "[[Omar Nasiri]]"?