Al-Shabaab Video Threat Means Heightened Security at Mall of America

Reuters and other news outlets carry the news that the Minnesota's gigantic Mall of America is under heightened security after a video threat posted online by terrorist group Al-Shabaab. Also at CNN and CBS News. According to Reuters' version of the story: The U.S. homeland security chief said on Sunday he takes seriously a threat made by Somali-based Islamist militants against shopping malls, including the Mall of America in Minnesota, and urged people going there to be careful. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was reacting to a video released by al Shabaab appearing to call for attacks on Western shopping areas, specifically mentioning Mall of America, the West Edmonton Mall in Canada and London's Oxford Street. ... Mall officials issued a statement about the threat made by the group, saying they are monitoring events with the help of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. "Mall of America has implemented extra security precautions, some may be noticeable to guests, and others won’t be," the officials said.

Comments

visibility doesnt matter.

[nimbius]

impact is what counts, and groups like Shabaab understand that even if they are incapable of rendering an attack, its the threat that counts most. Commercial targets instituting checkpoints and screening are what these groups are going for, as these hallmarks serve as a consistent reminder that Shabaabs presence is taken seriously by america as a legitimate threat they cannot proactively reduce or mitigate through normal foreign policy to a level that would permit the american "way of life."

legitimate terrorist attacks have no source, no warnings, are unpredictable and incur large-scale casualties. The boston marathon bombing is an excellent example of a functional implementation of terrorism. One or two of these every 10 years and you dont need funding or training for anything else. just send a tweet or post a youtube, and the target entity will do all the work to ensure your message and intent are expressed.

Re:visibility doesnt matter.

[BarbaraHudson]

So the best way to frustrate them is to aggressively take down every video and communique they post. Lowers the audience they can reach to recruit, and reduces the incentive for them to do more and more extreme acts "to get attention" if it doesn't work.

Now some people will get up in arms about freedom of speech - however, i would point out that the people making these posts are non-citizens, and they certainly don't believe in freedom of speech (or other freedoms).

Re:visibility doesnt matter.

[khasim]

The problem is that our own government seems to WANT us to be terrified of the "terrorists".

Which is why spokespeople for our government are making sure that as many of our people are aware of the "threats" as possible.

The government should be posting videos of its own MOCKING them. And re-editing their videos.

And taking down the worst ones WITHOUT TELLING EVERYONE THAT YOU ARE TAKING THEM DOWN BECAUSE THEY ARE SO BAD AND HERE IS WHY THEY ARE SO BAD.

Re:visibility doesnt matter.

[TWX]

impact is what counts, and groups like Shabaab understand that even if they are incapable of rendering an attack, its the threat that counts most. Commercial targets instituting checkpoints and screening are what these groups are going for, as these hallmarks serve as a consistent reminder that Shabaabs presence is taken seriously by america as a legitimate threat they cannot proactively reduce or mitigate through normal foreign policy to a level that would permit the american "way of life."

Personally I think everyone's overreacting. I was curious so I did searches for "largest mall in America" and "Largest mall in Canada" and the two North American malls were the first hits. This is reminicent of the joke from the first Die Hard movie, where Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber is listing terrorist groups that he wants freed in exchange for releasing hostages; one of his mooks questions one of the groups and he quietly replies, "I read about them in Time Magazine." This seems more like someone looked up what the biggest malls are, and made a list, more than having significant targets.

London's Oxford Street is also listed as the largest shopping area in Europe, so I expect that it was similarly found through some kind of search. Granted, if terrorists are operating out of the Middle East then it's probably a little easier to get to London than it is North America, but even still, after The Troubles, the UK has a lot of experience dealing with terrorism even in its own borders, so I doubt that it's any more of a credible threat than the other two.

Re:visibility doesnt matter.

[bill_mcgonigle]

The problem is that our own government seems to WANT us to be terrified of the "terrorists".

Of course it does - they want people to give them more money and power.

You're eight times more likely to be killed this year by a cop than a terrorist, and that's including 9/11 (and let's not even discuss swimming pools and motor vehicles or the flu).

But do you see Obama scare monger mongering about any of that? Of course not - there's no play for more power on those. There's no campaign coffer to fill with deposits from the military industrial complex from those.

Understand the motivations and then the actions make perfect sense.

Re:visibility doesnt matter.

[penguinoid]

legitimate terrorist attacks have no source, no warnings, are unpredictable and incur large-scale casualties.

No, legitimate terrorist attacks are an attempt to force political change by use of intimidation or force (and a threat is intimidation). This doesn't work if the targets don't know the attacker or what the attacker wants.

This won't end well

[schwit1]

The feds will start using license plate readers at the mall so they can cross check vehicle owners with potential terrorists.

All delivery vehicle drivers will have to have be fingerprinted and pass federal background checks.

The TSA will be at all entrances doing bag checks.

Re:This won't end well

[Grishnakh]

Now it is nothing but clothing stores and bad restaurants.

What else has there ever been at a mall?

Even back in the 80s when I was a kid, almost all the stores were clothes stores and fast-food restaurants ("food court"). The few exceptions were things like bookstores (like Waldenbooks), software/game stores (Electronics Boutique), arcades, Radio Shack, music/video stores, and tobacco stores. Book stores are mostly gone now, with Barnes and Noble being the sole survivor (besides odd little used book stores) (B&N sometimes does have mall locations though), most malls still have a game store (GameStop), some malls do have an arcade, Radio Shack just recently went under, music/video stores are mostly gone thanks to Netflix and Amazon and iTunes, and tobacco stores were forced out of malls ages ago.

But the point is, I can't remember a time when malls weren't mostly clothing stores and bad restaurants.

Culture Jamming

[Tokolosh]

These terrorist groups have slowly realized that the the biggest damage is not from bombs or airplanes, it is the self-inflicted damage that results. The DHS apparatus, multiple foreign wars and entanglements, loss of liberties, police militarization, "papieren, bitte" and a collective nervous breakdown are draining away the treasure and economic and social vitality of the USA. This is achieved at no cost beyond posting a video on the internet, and beheading any Americans who are stupid enough to visit them.

This is as asymmetric as warfare can get. You may say things are ok in America, but in reality it could have been much, much better..

Re:I want a picture

[ls671]

Can they mount Linux partitions on these mount points?

Can this be fixed with technology?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I've seen a joke, maybe on a t-shirt, along the lines of "Every day a vegan skips meat, I'll eat three extra burgers." It's interesting because it exposes the question of whether the vegan is really trying to minimize animal deaths, or just seeks personal sanctity.

I wonder if a similar thing could be made with a Koran-burning machine. The machine is configured so that every time the internet has a new message from Islamicists, the machine automatically dips a Koran in pig blood, burns it, posts the video on YouTube, and sends a Tweet giving credit to the Islamicists who triggered that action.

Re:Can this be fixed with technology?

[OzPeter]

I wonder if a similar thing could be made with a Koran-burning machine. The machine is configured so that every time the internet has a new message from Islamicists, the machine automatically dips a Koran in pig blood, burns it, posts the video on YouTube, and sends a Tweet giving credit to the Islamicists who triggered that action.

So your solution to extremists boasting about what they dream they could do, is to do something tangible that will piss off said extremists and give them grounds to point the finger at the west and say "See, they are a bunch of infidels that deserve what they get!". Which will do no less more than to push more people into extremism.

Have you ever heard of a positive feedback loop? Because that is what you are suggesting for "solving" the problem of terrorists.

Re:Can this be fixed with technology?

[aliquis]

As a vegan myself I just accept that bought food sources will kill so maybe that argument doesn't hold and moral and ideas are subjective.

So I don't accept the notation that "this is good and that is bad" as a scientific / complete truth.

However I don't feel responsible for whatever stupid others participate in and I won't take responsibility for whatever someone else do regardless of what they claim was the reason for it and I'm claimed to be it.

Re:Can this be fixed with technology?

[khasim]

On the other hand, there are lots of people that are only nominally religious until the religion that they only barely believe in and participate with is visibly threatened or demeaned, then they go off the deep end in its defense.

Kind of ...

But more like the non-crazies suddenly have to explain WHY the crazies are wrong when we are doing exactly what the crazies are claiming. So the crazies get louder while everyone else gets quieter.

As in the GP post. And it is sad that it was mod'ed to +5.

Pigs are NOT magical animals. Muslims do NOT believe that pigs are magical animals. So there is NOTHING that smearing a Koran with pig blood would accomplish EXCEPT showing that you are actively trying to be offensive to the non-crazies WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING them.

IF you chose to use religion against someone, it has to be personal, and even then, you have to be very careful, such that your choice doesn't motivate others to rally to the cause of the person whom you used it against.

Exactly. And the problem is that most of the crazies don't even care about their own religion. The same with the crazies in any religion. The religion is an excuse for them to associate themselves with other people. Otherwise they are just lone crazies.

Deal with them as lone crazies.

Do not try to piss off the people they CLAIM to represent. They don't represent anyone except themselves.

Re:Can this be fixed with technology?

[DaHat]

and give them grounds to point the finger at the west and say "See, they are a bunch of infidels that deserve what they get!".

Eating pork, drinking alcohol, not praying to Allah five times a day and allowing my wife to drive and not cover her face head while I draw a cartoon about Jesus, Moses and Mohammed walking into a bar is plenty enough reason for them already.

When you are dealing with hyper-sensitive people you have two choices:
1) Change your entire lifestyle so as to walk around on egg shells and hope and pray they don't get offended, or
2) Live your life normally and require them to develop a thicker skin.

There was a time in this country where #2 was actually the norm, alas people like you however keep trying to push us harder and harder towards #1.

But then, it's easy for me to say that... I am an adult, I simply do not get offended regardless of what someone says about me or something that I care about. It's part of being an adult.

Know what we call people who freak out at every little thing?

Children... and Democrats... but mostly children.

Re:Can this be fixed with technology?

[TWX]

That's something that bothered me about how fighting terrorism, with things like holding accused persons without trial at Guantanamo Bay and allegedly other sites, is that it seems to give importance to the terrorists beyond normal criminals. As far as I'm concerned, if we have this culture that's a form of, "welcome to the machine", let the machine take these accused, convict them, and sentence them like any other mostly anonymous criminal. Let the machine chew them up and spit them out like it does everyone else. Downplay their crimes to where they're just crimes. People like Osama bin Laden aren't Hitler, they're warlords, with a kernel possible actual reason and grievance surrounded by loads of crazy interpretations as to how to redress such grievances. Pumping them up to Hitler/Pol Pot/Stalin/Mao level actually gives them power, as opposed to downplaying it or diminishing it.

The terrorists win when we elevate them to being an equal enemy. We lose 10x more people annually to automobile accidents than we do to terrorism in the United States; other than the actual September 11, 2001 attacks we lose more people to GM faulty ignition switches than we have to terrorism.

Re:From Mall of America visitor rules:

[DeadDecoy]

Somehow I doubt having overconfident civilians in a chaotic situation with guns will help anything. Surprise is a key element of terrorism, and well-intentioned people with guns may not have the opportunity to respond when something bad does happen. You're more likely to get injured civilians shot in the crossfire from friendly fire or just poor aim. Heck, it's hard enough getting police to use/refrain-from-using firearms appropriately in crowded areas.

Re:The US gets back what it seeded

[Nostalgia4Infinity]

Islamic history that they don't teach at Harvard: When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost British Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria. In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain. During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam: "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.

Syrian refugees

[myid]

Meanwhile, President Obama and the State Department are trying to bring Syrian refugees into the US. Some US lawmakers and government officials are concerned that members of ISIS might slip into the US, along with genuine refugees. For example,

"You have to have information to vet,” FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach, said in a Feb. 11 House homeland security hearing. “Databases don't [have] the information on those individuals, and that's the concern.”

Terry Gilliam is a prophet.

[Anonymous Coward]

We are living in Brazil.

The movie is dated but poignant. I recommend it to everyone over the age of 12.

Re:It looks like

[Hognoxious]

According to what some captives who later escaped overheard, they don't talk much about strategy, politics or theology. More like "let's go rape some children, yay!"

Why hasn't it happened already?

[swb]

I wonder why it hasn't happened already. Despite the panopticon and run of the mill police misbehavior, America still seems like a place where you can move around pretty freely without many obstacles.

Obtaining weapons isn't hard and I doubt there is a terror group out there worth their jihad who wouldn't also know how to convert a semi-automatic-only assault rifle into full auto capable fire, either via either illegal trigger group replacement or modification.

Crowd events are frequent and places like malls are often crowded, providing ample targets for assaults on civilians. Many significant industrial sites like oil refineries or power plants aren't well guarded (nuclear plants may be an exception) and even if a handful of key infrastructures like bridges and tunnels are well guarded, many aren't.

It just doesn't seem like there would be many barriers, require that much skill or planning to do what they have threatened. In terms of terror, the payoff seems immense.

So why hasn't it happened? Is the panopticon that good? Are they just burying all the stories of thwarted attempts?

Re:Why hasn't it happened already?

[ColdWetDog]

The payoff isn't immense, however. If they do blow up a mall, then you risk getting the Wrath of the Great Military Industrial Complex upon your head. We can stomp ISIS into the ground should we be so inclined - but we're not so inclined.

If ISIS just rattles scimitars it's a no-cost way to get effective propaganda. Blowing things up entails real risks of escalations. Just ask Japan how well Pearl Harbor worked out for them in the long run.

Re:Why hasn't it happened already?

[Grishnakh]

We can stomp ISIS into the ground should we be so inclined - but we're not so inclined.

No, we can't. We have no such capability.

The problem is that ISIS is not a uniformed, traditional military force. It's supported by the cities it rules over. It's one and the same with the local population of Sunnis. The only way you're going to stomp ISIS into the ground is to level Sunni cities, and kill ALL the people living in them. The west is not willing to do that.

Re:Why hasn't it happened already?

[walterbyrd]

Tell the Boston bombing victims that nothing like this has happened, or the victims at Fort Hood. This stuff happens in Europe all the time.

Some Muslim clergy talks some crazy into some such attack. Then the media, and the politicians, fall all over themselves to tell the public that the attack has nothing to do with Islam. Then the big story will be that Muslims fear a backlash - as if the Muslims are the victims, and not the aggressors.

We need to stop the PC bullshit. Pull our heads out of our asses, and see Islam for what it is.

Re:From Mall of America visitor rules:

[Roger W Moore]

How about removing that rule as a first step? 'Gun free zones' are instant targets.

You might possibly have had a point if we were considering an armed robbery of the mall, although the fact that countries with strict gun control laws have murder rates that are a tiny fraction of the US suggests that the downsides far, far outweigh any small benefit.

However I really don't understand how a civilian armed with a gun will stop a terrorist bomb. Having armed civilians wandering around a shopping mall shooting anyone with a backpack, bag or briefcase who looks "suspicious" frankly sounds like a far more terrifying prospect than a terrorist with a bomb and one likely to result in far more deaths. What we need is a plan to stop them from causing "terror", not one where you do it for them

Re:It looks like

[MightyMartian]

Oh come on. Even during the Blitz, Britons made jokes about the Germans. Humor is how people cope with stressful situations, and it is a hell of a lot better a way to deal with terrorist threats than running around screaming your fool head off, or worse, in some ways, become a hyper-serious worry wort believing at any moment you're going to die in some terrorist bomber's explosion.

Re:Do armed Americans factor into terror planning?

[aliquis]

a terrorist event could be considered a "success" just from emptying an AK magazine into a crowd at a mall, even if the attacker(s) were killed immediately after opening fire.

Denmark:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Such fucking stupidity it's allowed into Europe.

In the case of France as I've understood it there was no escape plan. Of course there will be others with similar ideas who will still think it was a success and good.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

Don't understand why we have to destroy our countries. Guess the good part which can come from it is that more of them actually like the freedom and rather than the agenda they want to pull that "west is struggling to uphold its values" or whatever it will be the Islamic majority countries which will lose their fundamentalistic ways and go secular and humane or whatever.

Who knows.

Crap.

Re:The US gets back what it seeded

[swb]

From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Re: From Mall of America visitor rules:

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the own article you mentions

"This chart does not use the very latest data due to differences in how intentional homicide is defined and calculated for each country."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

When you pull out the wars it drops

Re:The US gets back what it seeded

[OzPeter]

Why didn't they land a bit closer? Seems Americans' awesome knowledge of geography isn't a new phenomenon.

Because if you read First Barbary War you learn that the expeditionary force consisted of 8 Marines and 500 local mercenaries. Given that the US navy was only about 7 years old at the time, I doubt that they had the ships available to transport all those people.

Re:From Mall of America visitor rules:

[DaHat]

Why are you limiting it to just terrorist attacks?

At last check, with the exception of the Gabrielle Giffords's shooting... every single mass shooting in this country since the 1950's where there have been more than 3 deaths have taken place at a location where people were not able to carry a firearm.

This applies not only to every single school K-12 shooting you can think of, but the Aurora theater prohibited firearms on their premises, Ft Hood only allowed MPs to consistently be armed, Virginia Tech prohibited students (even with CPLs) from carrying... the list goes on and on.

Let me turn that Q around for you... when in the history of a world has a person hell-bent on doing evil, walked up to a door that said "Gun Free Zone" and said "Damn, I guess I'll have to find another place to create carnage?"

Re: It looks like

[Grishnakh]

Because attacking the Army directly would lead to instant loss. Attacking civilians is a much more successful strategy.

Malala Yousafzai

[westlake]

legitimate terrorist attacks have no source, no warnings, are unpredictable and incur large-scale casualties.

There are few things which irritate me more than the geek who thinks he has won his argument by quoting from a dictionary of his own invention or an etiquette guide like Emily Post.

That is what makes "legitimate" the key word here.

In real life, terrorists often telegraph their attacks, make a point of being easily identifiable by their victims. and choose targets both great and small.

Malala: The girl who was shot for going to school

Re:It looks like

[PopeRatzo]

I'm not joking but what the hell are they going to get by attacking a mall for god sakes!

Mentioned on Slashdot?

Seriously, I think it's all about being as shitty as possible. It's like 8chan with religious self-justification.

Re:It looks like

[Guy From V]

C'mon dude this whole Islamic Caliphate isn't anything...

(_)

( _)>-

(_) ...to lose your head over.

Re:It looks like

[walterbyrd]

> what the hell are they going to get by attacking a mall for god sakes!

To terrorize, an extreme form of intimidation.

Remember "Apocalypse Now" : "Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared."

The idea is to make people afraid of ever offending Islam. To be afraid of getting on an airplane, or shopping at the mall, or drawing a carton, or expressing an opinion. After a while, it because easier to submit to Islam than to live in constant fear.

And it works. It works like all hell. There are 57 Muslim nations, practically all taken by force. There are about 1.5 billion Muslims. No other ideology has grown so fast.

Mall

[Greyfox]

For you kids, a "mall" is a place where they have stores. Think amazon.com except you have to drive to it, and they never actually have what you want there. The concept might have been more successful if it wasn't for that last bit.

Re: It looks like

[Grishnakh]

This article describes it well.

They want to lure the western powers into a giant war in Syria because their religion tells them that this will lead to the End Times.

Where are all the "moderate" Muslims?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I hear that such folks exist, but they seem to be as rare as a transsexual US Navy SEAL riding a unicorn at the front of a 4th of July parade. Muslims will not listen to goddamned Methodists from Ohio. They will only listen to other Muslims.

Unless other Muslims take to the streets and condemn these threats and actions from the Islamic State . . . ain't nothing gonna happen!

So, if you are Muslim, will you tolerate these extremists in you Mosque . . . ? As long as that problem isn't solved, the rest of us will live in fear of you.

Re:I want a picture

[bmimatt]

Yes, they can, but it is limited to ReiserFS.

Re:It looks like

[Greystripe]

I understand that salted pork works even better.

Re:From Mall of America visitor rules:

[shutdown -p now]

An automatic weapon is generally the one that is capable of firing bursts. Getting a full auto weapon in US legally is possible in some states, but prohibitively expensive (on the order of $15,000K for a Vietnam-era M16), and puts you under ATF scrutiny and on their registry. There was exactly one legal full auto gun used in a crime in the past several decades, and that one was by a cop.

As far as terrorist attacks with firearms go, notice how it happened in France first - a place that's presumably pretty tight on their gun laws. Yet the guys who did it had no trouble sourcing a few full auto AKs (again, something pretty damn hard even in US) and even an RPG.

And I don't think that anyone says that more guns in the hands of citizens is going to solve the problem. But it will reduce the impact compared to what we saw in Kenya, for example. There's a difference between slaughtering unarmed civilians, and getting into a firefight, even when the other side has less effective weapons.

plate scanners

[banzairun]

MOA already has had some not-so-typical "security" in place -- they have had license-plate recognition cameras at all entrances and exits for a couple years now. The sleek-looking camera heads with two lenses, one for each lane, are fairly easy to notice as you're driving in, mounted about 12' up on poles or a wall. I've always found that sort of technology completely creepy in actual use. A government building, perhaps... but a mall in Minnesota?

How long are the records kept? Why were they installed? Are they sharing information with local police to try to catch people with an outstanding traffic warrant? ...or are they just trying to glean some more marketing information? We don't know.

I'd guess they'll take this opportunity to install facial recognition cameras in the transit station, so they can build themselves a database on who takes the light rail in from Cedar/Riverside and where they train their eyes while walking around in Camp Shoot Me. We'll be living in fear in no time, just the way we like it!