American Jihadi

Ever since the first issue of Inspire magazine, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's English-language publication, released in late June 2010, Samir Khan became a household name in the counterterrorism community. His work in the jihadi community, though, started a decade earlier in the streets of New York City.
Khan, who was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen on Friday, Sept. 30, alongside his mentor, Anwar al-Awlaki, was not a religious authority. But he helped create the media architecture of the American online jihadi community, an Internet incubator for radicalization.
Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Khan's family moved to New York City in 1993 when Samir was 7. When he was 15, Khan attended a camp sponsored by the nonviolent yet fundamentalist Islamic Organization of North America. There he first came into contact with members of the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS), a rebranding of an offshoot of the British-based jihadi organization Al-Muhajiroun, that first expanded into New York in 2000. As such, the ITS is one of the longest-running organizations in the United States that sympathizes with the jihadi message -- though it does so through nonviolent aims such as "street dawahs." That said, the ITS has made many connections to the global jihad over the years.
Take, for instance, one individual who was at the founding of the New York Al-Muhajiroun, a man named Mohammed Junaid Babar. Al-Muhajiroun allowed Babar to travel to Pakistan and join al Qaeda, where he was instrumental in helping set up a training camp for the 7/7 London bombers. The ITS was also linked to a plot in 2004 to set off bombs at the Republican National Convention, and two members were arrested in June 2010 after plotting to travel to Somalia to join the jihad. Bryant Neal Vinas, a Dominican convert from Long Island who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Long Island Railroad on the orders of al Qaeda, also started out with ITS.
After connecting with ITS in 2001, Khan created his own blog, The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge, under the online handle Inshallahshaheed (God willing, a martyr). At times over the course of his online jihadi career, he also went by Abu Risaas and Abu Jabbal. His blog bounced around between a variety of hosts due to ISP violations. But Khan finally found an online home hosted by the Islamic Networking Forum (formerly called ClearGuidance), which was the brainchild of Sarfaraz Jamal.
This blogging and forum community spawned some of the most important figures in the American jihadi movement in the past five to six years...

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The Situationist City

From 1957 to 1972 the artistic and political movement known as the Situationist International (SI) worked aggressively to subvert the conservative ideology of the Western world. The movement's broadside attack on "establishment" institutions and values left its mark upon the libertarian left, the counterculture, the revolutionary events of 1968, and more recent phenomena from punk to postmodernism. But over time it tended to obscure Situationism's own founding principles. In this book, Simon Sadler investigates the artistic, architectural, and cultural theories that were once the foundations of Situationist thought, particularly as they applied to the form of the modern city.
According to the Situationists, the benign professionalism of architecture and design had led to a sterilization of the world that threatened to wipe out any sense of spontaneity or playfulness. The Situationists hankered after the "pioneer spirit" of the modernist period, when new ideas, such as those of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, still felt fresh and vital.
By the late fifties, movements such as British and American Pop Art and French Nouveau Ralisme had become intensely interested in everyday life, space, and mass culture. The SI aimed to convert this interest into a revolution—at the level of the city itself. Their principle for the reorganization of cities was simple and seductive: let the citizens themselves decide what spaces and architecture they want to live in and how they wish to live in them. This would instantly undermine the powers of state, bureaucracy, capital, and imperialism, thereby revolutionizing people's everyday lives.
Simon Sadler searches for the Situationist City among the detritus of tracts, manifestos, and works of art that the SI left behind. The book is divided into three parts. The first, "The Naked City," outlines the Situationist critique of the urban environment as it then existed. The second, "Formulary for a New Urbanism," examines Situationist principles for the city and for city living. The third, "A New Babylon," describes actual designs proposed for a Situationist City.
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On-U Sound Records and Rough Trade East presents...27.10.2011

Since 1981, with label boss and producer Adrian Sherwood at the helm, On-U Sound has released over 100 albums and singles and has launched the careers of, and inspired, an endless list of artists.
On-U Sound and Rough Trade East are excited to present a very exclusive London in-store special event.
A night not to be missed, Thursday October 27th 2011, will begin with a rare in-person Q&A between Adrian Sherwood and Steve Barker of the highly respected BBC radio show, On The Wire
This will be followed by a mind-bending DJ ‘head-to-head’ between Adrian Sherwood and reggae maestro musician/producer, Dennis Bovell.
On-U Sound and Rough Trade will also collaborate to release an exclusive and limited New Age Steppers 7” vinyl collectors’ item.
Featuring the track Fade Away, the A-Side of the first ever single to be released by On–U Sound in 1981, the single will be backed by a sneak preview track from the brand new forthcoming New Age Steppers album to be released in 2012.
The single will only be available to fans upon entry to the in-store event on the night.
Pre-ordering the single via the Rough Trade website events page on www.roughtrade.com, will guarantee entry to event (one per person) and must be collected on the night.
Otherwise entry is on a first-come, first-served basis.
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