The al Qaeda-tied magazine “Inspire” is featuring in its spring issue a photograph of a shuttle train at San Francisco International Airport with the accompanying caption: “Assemble your bomb.”
Capitol Hill lawmakers aren’t amused, given the approach of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack anniversary.
Rep. Eric Swalwell said in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday that he was “disturbed” by the edition and its included photograph of a man on board what he believes is a “tram in San Francisco’s international airport,” SFGate reported.
The full caption read: “For how long will you live in tension? Instead of just sitting, having no solution, simply stand up. Pack your tools of destruction. Assemble your bomb, ready for detonation.
Mr. Swalwell said, in SFGate, that his concern is heightened because “this is one of the largest international airports in the world, certainly one of the largest on the West Coast, and thousands of passengers a day use the tram to connect from BART to the airport.”
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said similarly, telling other committee members that the photo and caption content set him on edge.
“It does bring concern to me,” he said, SFGate reported. “This kind of extremist propaganda on the Internet, if it’s not countered with something, does tend to create problems for us. When you see that type of picture in there, when you read about the attacks on the infrastructure around the transformers in California that were sniped at … it’s hard to figure what is real and what isn’t real.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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