Islamic Jihadi Union Talking Smack

Looks like these clowns skipped Jihadi 101.

First rule: Don't talk smack until you've actually accomplished something.

Islamic Jihad Union Threatens Attacks Outside Germany

A known militant Islamist group has announced that it was behind the terror plot foiled in Germany last week. The Islamic Jihad Union claimed Tuesday it had intended to hit US and Uzbek targets in Germany by the end of the year and that it plans to attack other countries.

The German government is taking seriously claims by a militant Islamic group that it was behind a foiled terror plot. The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that an Internet announcement by the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) that it had plotted to bomb US and Uzbek targets in Germany was being treated as genuine. Three men were arrested on Sept. 4 in Germany (more...) on suspicion of planning to attack US and other facilities.

Now the authorities know that the specific targets were the US military air base at Ramstein and US and Uzbek consular facilities in Germany, and that the attacks were to have been carried out at the end of 2007. The aim of the planned bombings was to put pressure on Germany to close its air base at Termez, Uzbekistan, near the Afghan border. The base provides logistical support to the 3,000 German soldiers serving with NATO forces in the Afghanistan.

The IJU message was published at around 5 p.m. C.E.T. on Tuesday on a Web site that has been used by the group before. German intelligence agents quickly translated the announcement, which was in Turkish. According to SPIEGEL ONLINE sources, the document says that the United States and Uzbekistan had been targeted because of their "injustice and brutal policies toward Muslims and Islam." It also warned that other attacks were being planned outside of Germany: "What the three brothers intended to do is also being planned in other places in the world."

I'm hesitant to declare them a nonfactor in the terror war, but you can probably assume if the authorities rolled up the three suspects last year after surveilling them for two years, it's likely others are being tailed.