New York City bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami told police that he received orders from “terrorist leaders … to attack non-believers where they live” after he was charged with the use of weapons of mass destruction and questioned by police Tuesday night.
Rahami was captured with his personal journal intact Tuesday morning, which offered authorities some insight into the suspected terrorist’s motivations. Among various other jihadi ramblings, the bloody pages accuse the U.S. of murdering Islamist fighters across the Middle East. They also show that Rahami was deeply influenced by the teachings of the infamous Islamic hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki and Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani.
“I looked for guidance and alhumdulilah (praise be to God) guidance came, Sheikh Anwar [and] Brother Adnani. Dawla (state) said it clearly: attack the kuffar (unbelievers) in their back yard,” said the journal.
9. Now see this page, where he writes: “…. back to Sham,” a word used by jihadists including ISIS fighters to refer to Syria/Iraq. pic.twitter.com/KToXmVsAHI
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) September 21, 2016
References to the “dawla” or “state” in ISIS terminology refer to the so-called caliphate itself, meaning that Rahami clearly believed he was being ordered to engage in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. During its inception, ISIS encouraged followers to travel to its territory in Iraq and Syria, but eventually its orders changed, with ISIS propagandists telling followers like Rahami to engage in attacks where they were living.
The change in orders shows the extremely decentralized nature of ISIS as a terrorist organization. Unlike traditional Islamic terror groups like al-Qaida, ISIS has little to no direct communication with its followers abroad. Instead, the terrorist group uses mass media and propaganda to communicate with sympathizers world-wide, providing them with propaganda material to self-radicalize and encouraging them to engage in attacks on their own.
The more decentralized strategy followed by ISIS has often been referred to as a “lone wolf” strategy, but as terrorism expert Matthew Levitt noted recently in an article for Foreign Policy, this term is a misnomer.
“More often than not, evidence indicates that suspects thought to have been lone wolves might more accurately be described as known wolves — people whose radicalization, suspicious travel, and changes in behavior were observed by acquaintances,” wrote Levitt Wednesday.
Rahami was taken into custody Tuesday morning after a brief manhunt in New Jersey. He was then taken into surgery after being shot by police several times during his apprehension and charged with four counts by federal prosecutors that night.
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