Jihadis shop for targets

Editorial: Jihadis shop for targets

By Boston Herald editorial staff20 hours ago

There are probably few potential terrorism targets as unsettling to Americans as our precious shopping malls - havens not merely for shopping and dining, but movie-going and teen meet-ups, and for those of us in the north a place to browse when cabin fever threatens to overwhelm.

So the enormous Mall of America (complete with ferris wheel) in Bloomington, Minn., was an easy choice for the scary video message from the Somali-based al-Shabaab terrorists, who had earlier claimed responsibility for the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 67.

Al-Shabaab was seeking local recruits in the U.S., Canada and London to carry out attacks on its targets of choice. We have always known that terrorists are fond of soft targets, like shopping malls or, say, the Boston Marathon finish line. But we also have mercifully short memories - the kind that allow us to continue to live our lives and not be paralyzed with fear.

So it is unlikely this latest threat will change too many shoppers' habits. But it comes at a most inconvenient time in Washington, where congressional Republicans are once again determined to grab defeat from the jaws of their numerical victory in the 2014 election.

House Republicans have tied funding for Homeland Security to a provision overturning President Obama's executive orders on immigration. Senate Democrats, not surprisingly, have refused on several occasions to go along. Now some of the more sensible Senate Republicans, fearing the backlash of a partial Homeland Security shutdown, are asking for a "clean" Homeland Security funding bill.

Obama's ill-advised immigration orders are now a matter for the courts - and that's good news indeed. And while "essential" Homeland Security personnel wouldn't be impacted by a shutdown, the GOP is guaranteed to lose the public relations battle. It's time to pass a clean bill and be done with it.