I know that this is not the first time AQAP has tried to attack in N America. It’s not even the second time. Both of these earlier plots are mini case studies for the last section of my thesis.

And with al Qaeda what is old inevitably becomes new again.

By the way, both of the earlier plots would have been much much bigger than this–had they come to fruition. What this shows is that AQAP has still not reached the capacity it had in its earlier campaign, when it was allowed by its HQ to launch external attacks.

Yes, I feel a bit guilty about this post. “Not new” is not the same thing as “not dangerous,” of course. Farrall: “in terms of IED’s, AQAP has always been on the sharp end of the stick when it comes to innovation. That’s because it has a great core of IED engineers who cycle in and out of the organisation.”