“Al Qaeda-Inspired Rhetoric”

In the case against the surviving Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defense has motioned to suppress information gathered early on in his  interrogation. In their response, federal prosecutors point out (rightly in my view) that they had every reason to believe that the Tsarnaevs were not acting alone and that other acts of terror may be imminent, thus necessitating the urgency. Citing their evidence for this conclusion, they point out key factors such as the type and manufacture of the explosives, as well as the tactics, techniques and procedures illustrated by Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups in previous attacks. This is an entirely logical.

Then, interestingly enough, they cite the content of Tsarnaev’s bloody writings, found inside the boat where the bomber was found hiding, which they describe as containing, “the hallmarks of Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric”:

I’m jealous of my brother who ha[s] [re]ceived the reward of jannutul Firdaus (inshallah) before me. I do not mourn because his soul is very much alive. God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions. I ask Allah to make me a shahied (iA) to allow me to return to him and be among all the righteous people in the highest levels of heaven. He who Allah guides no one can misguide. A[llah Ak]bar!

The US Government is killing our innocent civilians but most of you already know that. As a [UI] I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished, we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all. Well at least that’s how muhhammad (pbuh) wanted it to be [for]ever, the ummah is beginning to rise/[UI] has awoken the mujahideen, know you are fighting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, now how can you compete with that. We are promised  victory and we will surely get it. Now I don’t like killing innocent  people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [UI] it is allowed. All credit goes [UI].

Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.

Of course the reality is that Tsarnaev is not citing Zawahiri, Awlaki or Bin Laden here. There is nothing which makes these statements inherently “Al Qaeda-esque”. Tsarnaev is making classic Islamic references about the Ummah, jihad and martyrdom.

Consider the statement, “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.” Here Tsarnaev is referencing a traditional hadith (saying of Mohammed), regarding the brotherhood of Muslims as believers, and as members of a world-spanning collective body, the ummah. The same hadith is in fact, also implied in the scrolling pictorial, on the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, comprised of groups with well documented Muslim Brotherhood affiliations.

The FBI notes Tsarnaev’s use of we, to say the:

“fact that Tsarnaev used the word “we” (i.e. “We are promised victory and we shall surely get it. . . . Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.) suggested that others might be poised to commit similar attacks and that Tsarnaev was urging them on.”

The FBI concludes that Tsarnaev’s use of this “Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric” indicated that “that others might have radicalized them…” 

Not coincidentally , the Tsarnaev brothers attended a local area mosque, The Islamic Society of Boston, which has deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and founded by Muslim Brother and convicted Al Qaeda financier Abdurrahman Almoudi. Former mosque trustee Jamal Badawi, a known Muslim Brotherhood leader and supporter of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was recently in the news, after being named the individual referenced in the alleged “DHS Hands Off List” documents currently being investigated by Sen. Grassley and the DHS Inspector General. Other alumni of the mosque included Tarek Mehanna and Afia Siddique (aka Lady Al Qaeda).

Do the Feds genuinely believe that Tsarnaev’s language can only possibly be the product of “Al Qaeda”?  Or is the phrase “Al Qaeda inspired rhetoric” merely a euphemism to allow them to introduce statements which they know full well are relevant, but which they would be prohibited by DOJ regulations from introducing if they made clear they were mainstream Islamic references used to justify terror?