Al Qaeda plans more Mumbai style attacks

CNN:

"Our objectives are to strike London with low-cost operations that would cause a heavy blow amongst the hierarchy and Jewish communities, using attacks similar to the tactics used by our brothers in Mumbai."

Those are the opening words of a document found on the body of al Qaeda's top East Africa operative when he was killed two years ago.

And the plans uncovered in the document are now even more interesting and relevant in light of the attack on the shopping centerin Nairobi, Kenya.

Among the targets identified: the famous Eton College, the five-star Dorchester and Ritz hotels, and the Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green in north London.

The Word document, written in English, which CNN understands was stored on a thumb drive, was found when Fazul Abdullah Mohammed -- architect of the U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998 -- was killed at a government checkpoint in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, one night in June 2011. Its contents were first reported by Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, who provided the document to CNN.

Read the document here on The Toronto Star

A senior Western intelligence source told CNN that while the plan outlined in the document was aspirational, it raised serious concerns.

It's not clear whether Mohammed wrote or had approved of the plan. Its style and content suggest that it may have been a "pitch" to him by another al Qaeda operative. Shephard says that it may have been written by a British jihadist in East Africa.

But after the Nairobi attack by the Somali jihadist group Al-Shabaab and other al Qaeda documents seen by CNN, it is further evidence that replicating the 2008 Mumbai, India, attackshas become a major priority for the terror group, aiming at "soft" targets such as hotels, shopping malls, resorts or even cruise ships.
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Engaging in mass murder of non combatants is a war criminal's strategy, but that is the enemy making war against us.  They want to stretch our resources in defending against attacks.  That is why reverting to the defgensive is a mistake.  We need to be pursuing the enemy where ever he tries to hide and destroy is bases and his leadership.