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Barnes & Noble Had Al-Qaeda Bomb-Making Instructions as a Free Download (and So Does the Internet Archive)

Remember when everyone was scandalized that Amazon (and actually, a bunch of other retailers) was selling Holocaust denial books?

Get ready to clutch your pearls, because B&N has been hosting a copy of bomb-making instructions from al-Qaeda since at least 2011.

From PJ Media:

Key propaganda texts from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are posted for free download on the Barnes & Noble website, including the inaugural issue of a magazine linked to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Reviews posted on the e-books indicate that they’ve remained on the bookseller’s website for years, despite clearly indicating in the titles that al-Qaeda materials are being offered.

There are two listings for "Al-Malahem Media Foundation presents A Special Gift to the Islamic Nation The first Magazine issued by al-Qaida in the English language." That refers to the 2010 debut of AQAP’s English-language Inspire magazine; the site notes that the free Nook book is "digitized from 2010 volume."

The first issue of Inspire includes the infamous "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" article from "The AQ Chef" that sparked the trend of publishing detailed, open-source instructions to jihadists on constructing explosive devices.

The step-by-step picture instructions walk would-be jihadists through constructing an explosive device with ingredients including matchstick heads and sugar, details how to fill it with projectile shrapnel, and shows how to wire it up with a timer.

Yes, those books are available from B&N, but I am less that horrified.

The ebooks in question are so badly formatted that you can’t honestly call them effective propaganda tools. (I would expect the copies found in Kobo’s store are just as garbled, although the copies on the Internet Archive are probably PDFs, and more legible.)

And as for the bomb-making instructions, the al-Qaeda instructions are so badly garbled that you can’t actually use them to make a bomb. (They have also been removed from the B&N website.)

The Anarchist Cookbook might be able to help you there (or so I assume from its reputation), and this book can be found on Amazon.com, from B&N, and just about all other booksellers.

And that is really why I am not all that appalled at the news. It is not like this information is hard to find online, so the wringing of hands over B&N having copies is at best disingenuous.

Next!

image by cometstarmoon

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Comments


Name (Required) January 19, 2018 um 2:27 am

Yes, the famous Anarchist cookbook and their recipe for making drugs from banana peels 😉

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananadine
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2389/will-smoking-banana-peels-get-you-high/


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