Know Your Terrorists: Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Bomb Maker

Rob Fox12 years ago

Ever wonder why America’s sky robots of death are laying waste to Yemen like John Connor is hiding out at a corner bazaar? It’s fairly common, albeit overlooked, knowledge that the United States has been carrying out drone strikes on the Arabian country for some time now. But who are the strikes intended for? Yes it’s true that Al Qaeda has a strong base in Yemen, but Al Qaeda is in a lot of different places, places we don’t bomb. So what makes the Al Qaeda militants in Yemen deserving of the cold, steely justice that only an Air Force officer sitting behind a joystick, drinking Mountain Dew Code Red, can deliver? Ibrahim al-Asiri, the bomb maker.

Ibrahim al-Asiri, a Saudi native, is that special kind of dangerous that combines intense and irrational hatred, focused genius, and two scoops of crazy. He’s essentially Al Qaeda’s mad scientist. Sort of like Doc Brown, if instead of inviting an impressionable neighborhood boy to the mall parking lot to watch his experiments Doc Brown invited the impressionable neighborhood boy to blow up the aforementioned mall.

“Marty, just drive this DeLorean packed with explosives 88 miles per hour directly into that Macy’s.”

“I don’t know Doc, this is pretty heavy.”

“I’ll tell you what’s heavy! The yolk that America and the West has put on the backs of Muslim world! Break free Marty! Break free!”

“Okay Doc…”

(*Marty gets in, drives into the Macy’s, and detonates the DeLorean car bomb*)

“Great Scott!”

Unfortunately for Marty, when he arrived in Paradise all 72 of the virgins were his teenaged mother.

The first thing to note is al-Asiri’s hatred. All the terrorists fighting against America hate us, they kind of have to. It takes a certain level of dedication to sit in a cave and await impending death delivered from any number of high tech weapons that, by themselves, cost more than your home country’s GDP. But al-Asiri’s hatred stands out even among his bearded cohorts. According to Seth Jones, a former senior advisor to the U.S. Special Operations Command, al-Asiri is as radically anti-American as they come.

“Ibrahim al-Asiri absolutely hates the United States … [He]hates what the U.S. culture has brought to the world. [He]’s a violent supporter of the ideology of Osama bin Laden and has tried desperately, as hard as he can, to put a bomb together that will detonate and kill as many American as he can. He hates American ideology. He hates Western values.”

If a terrorist’s hatred of America is noteworthy then the guy probably really hates America. But still, you can’t want to murder an entire country just because you don’t like what that country’s culture brought to the rest of the world. I mean, yeah, I think we all know how awful NFL Europe was, but it wasn’t “blood lust against America” bad. That’s where the crazy comes in, and al-Asiri is PLENTY crazy. In fact Ibrahim al-Asiri is SO crazy…

“How crazy is he?”

Ibrahim al-Asiri is SO crazy that he once recruited his own brother (Abdullah al-Asiri) to be a suicide bomber, made a bomb, put that bomb up his brother’s b-hole, and then sent him to the office of a Saudi official to detonate said rectal explosive. In case you’re wondering, the Saudi official lived, al-Asiri’s brother Abdullah did not, nor did his b-hole.

But giving his brother a farewell prostate exam before sending him to the next life was small potatoes for al-Asiri. Soon he was making better, cleverer bombs, and actually getting them onto airplanes. He was responsible for the bombs involved in the Christmas Day bomb plot of 2009 and the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot. According to intelligence al-Asiri is currently involved in the planning of several other plots to take down U.S. airliners.

Officials familiar with al-Asiri, who studied chemistry in college, say that the bomb maker is unfortunately as savvy as he is crazy. Not only does he create bombs that are nearly impossible to detect, and for his brother’s sake as rectum friendly as a bomb can be, he is also hands on with his suicide bombers. I assume that means that al-Asiri helped his baby bro lube up. What it also means is that not only does al-Asiri provide the bombs, he instructs the suicide bombers on how and when to best to detonate them.

Said Jones, “In other words he’s not just building the material himself, he’s interested in working with the operatives so that they can actually detonate it and kill as many Americans as possible.”

And as if the fact that al-Asiri is a clever son of a bitch wasn’t bad enough, his insanity directly informs his inspiration. Of the current bomb plots al-Asiri is a part of planning, intelligence officials believe that some may involve al-Asiri surgically implanting his handiwork directly into terrorists so that they can sneak the bombs onto planes without detection. So basically this:

Thankfully the U.S. drone program isn’t handcuffed by rules like Batman was.

Although surgically implanting bombs in humans is pretty messed up, at least those humans are volunteering for it. The puppies that al-Asiri wants to surgically implant bombs into don’t really have a choice in the matter. Yes, al-Asiri is also planning to sew his homemade bombs into the skin of dogs and then put them on commercial planes. If you’re at the airport and see a shifty eyed Arabic guy checking a Corgi, get the fuck out of there.

Ibrahim al-Asiri, Al Qaeda’s chief bomb maker, currently sits right near the top of America’s to-do list. Drone strikes have dramatically increased in Yemen during 2012 and show no signs of slowing down. According to reports, al-Asiri has already survived one drone attack in the past year. American intelligence efforts and drone strikes are closing in on al-Asiri, and I imagine it’s only a matter of time before our robot warriors send him to join his brother in paradise hell. Ibrahim al-Asiri: Al Qaeda’s top bomb maker… for now.

• [via ABC News]