Several people in the UK have been arrested and jailed for possessing the magazine Inspire, reportedly published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Written in English, the magazine targets (so to speak) British, Australian and American readers and encourages them to carry out terror attacks on the soil of their homelands. The original editorial team of Inspire was American born, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan; both men were killed in a 2011 US drone attack in Yemen. However, the magazine continues to publish, including a May 30, 2013 issue that praised the Boston Marathon bombings.
The online magazine (readers need to download PDFs of each issue) is not banned or illegal in the US. In fact some scholars don’t believe the AQAP connection is very strong. When the first issues came out in 2010, The Atlantic writer Max Fisher provided five reasons why he believed the publication was a hoax. However, more recently, in May 2013, after arresting Terry Lee Loewen (a Kansas man who regularly read Inspire) for trying to bring a car bomb into a Wichita airport (“for the sake of Allah”), Kansas US Attorney Barry Grissom told students at Wichita State University “Do not go to this website,” he said. “You will be on our list.”
