Al Qaeda's Track Record of Empty Threats

Ace is busily trying to calculate the date of the latest threatened Al Qaeda strike against the US (he's figuring August 10 or 11). Not to diminish the threat or his efforts, but we've heard this sort of thing so many times before. Let's take a little stroll down memory lane:

• "A man describing himself as an American member of al Qaeda says a new wave of terror attacks against the United States could come "at any moment," according to a videotape obtained by ABC News." (10/28/04)
• "If you continue your politics against Muslims, you will see, God willing, such horror that you will forget the horrors of Vietnam." . . . "If you don't leave today, certainly you will leave tomorrow, and after tens of thousands of dead, and double that figure in disabled and wounded." (8/4/05)
• "In an apparent Sept. 11 communiqué broadcast on ABC News, an al Qaeda operative threatens new attacks against cities in the U.S. and Australia." (9/12/05)
• " In his first public communication since December 2004, Osama bin Laden says in an audiotape broadcast that al Qaeda is preparing attacks inside the United States." (1/19/06)
• "Al Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, called President George W. Bush a "butcher" and threatened a new attack in the United States in a videotape aired on Arab television Monday, his first appearance since an American airstrike against him this month in Pakistan." (1/30/06)
• "Get out of Muhammad's peninsula, get out of all Muslim lands, stop supporting the Jews in Palestine, halt supporting Christians in Muslim lands, or else you'll have nothing but killing, destruction and explosions." (3/16/06)
• "It is a jihad for God's sake and will last until [our] religion prevails. We will attack everywhere." (7/27/06)
• "Al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri has appeared in a new video urging Muslims to step up their attacks as the United States marks the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 strikes. . . . CNN has quoted Zawahri as saying that "new events" are on the way." (9/11/06)
• "The new al-Qaida field commander in Afghanistan is calling for Muslims to leave the U.S. – particularly Washington and New York – in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, according to an interview by a Pakistani journalist." (9/17/06)
• "Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam who has been indicted for treason by a US jury, issued a list of demands and warned they were not up for negotiation. "Your failure to heed our demands means that you and your people... will experience things that will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Virginia Tech," he said in the video posted on Tuesday." 30 May 2007