American focus on the NSA “leaks” diverts attention from real existential threats and economic devastation that for now affects mostly the West.The fire raging in Colorado Springs forced William (Bill) Scott and his wife Linda to evacuate their home. Last we spoke, Bill didn’t know if they’ll have a home to return to.
As of Saturday afternoon, June 15, the apparent arson that set Colorado’s Black Forest on fire last Tuesday killed at least two people and destroyed and damaged more than 388 homes. The fire that burned 15,500 acres led to the evacuation of 38,000 people. The six-hour delay of federal air tankers to help extinguish the fast spreading fire didn’t help. All the while, local law enforcement and firefighters have been collecting whatever evidence they can find to identify the arsonist(s).
Bill Scott, a senior fellow at ACD, warned about such a scenario last July, speaking at the ACD/EWI Economic Threats briefing on Capital Hill. An expert on aerial firefighting, he presented a sobering analysis of the devastating Waldo Canyon Fire, pointing out that the striking rise Western U.S. wildfires may be caused by elements other than nature.
He noted that in spring 2012, 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.”
Fire wars are not limited to Europe and the U.S. Palestinan jihadists have been setting fire to Israel’s modest forests for many years. However, political correctness seems to override Israeli and Russian warnings of that jihadist modus operandi. How many Tzarnaevs are hiding in Colorado’s woods?GO READ THE WHOLE THING.