MUSLIM INTERNET
U.S. Seizes 92 Websites Run by Iranian Intel
Services
Adam Kredo - OCTOBER
8, 2020 10:15 AM
Washington
Free Beacon
The Department
of Justice on Wednesday seized the domain names of 92 websites that it says
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was using to spread propaganda and
disinformation to American audiences.
Iran and the
IRGC used these websites to "spread propaganda covertly" and
"sow discord" among the American public ahead of the 2020
presidential elections, according to John Demers, assistant attorney general
for national security. Iran has spent great resources trying to influence the
election in favor of Democratic challenger Joe Biden, and its operation of
these websites violates U.S. sanctions.
At least four
of these websites were set up to appear as news outlets. They were, however,
actually controlled by the IRGC, Iran's paramilitary fighting force responsible
for conducting cyber operations on the Islamic Republic's behalf. This behavior
violates the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which mandates that foreign
governments disclose their activities in the United States. Visitors to these
websites will now only see a Department of Justice notice about the domain name
seizure.
Internet and
technology giant Google assisted the Trump administration in its investigation,
according to FBI special agent in charge John Bennett.
"This
case is a perfect example of why the FBI San Francisco Division prioritizes maintaining
an ongoing relationship with a variety of social media and technology
companies," Bennett said in a statement. "These relationships
enable a quick exchange of information to better protect against threats to the
nation's security and our democratic processes."
Saudi Arabia Makes App to Stop Women from
Traveling Without Consent
Absher is designed to stop women from leaving the
country without their male guardian's consent.
By Zakaria Oudrhiri
Feb 5, 2019
Morocco World News
Rabat – The Saudi National Information Center has developed a mobile
application called “Absher” (Arabic for “Enjoy”) that
allows male guardians, usually husbands and fathers, to monitor women’s
movements.
The app, available on iOS and Android, is designed to help guardians with tasks
like renewing a driver’s license or paying fines, but also to monitor women and
stop them from leaving the country without their consent.
The app sends a notification when a woman presents her passport at border
control. Border police will deny the woman travel if her guardian says so.
In early January, a Saudi teenager named Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun
tried to flee to Australia with a connecting flight in Thailand. In Bangkok, a
Saudi official met her to take her back to Saudi Arabia, but she refused to
return. After a days-long standoff, Canada finally granted the teenager asylum.
Over the past two years, Saudi Arabia has lessened several restrictions on its
female citizens. Women are now allowed to drive with their guardians’
permission, go to sports stadiums, and start their own business without the
permission of a male guardian.
Google Approves App For Muslims To Report
People Who Commit Blasphemy
By Laura Loomer
Dec 9, 2018
Bigleaguepolitics.com
A new Android app has launched with the focus of allowing Muslims to report
individuals who commit blasphemy, or insult Islam.
No, this is
not a joke. The app, “Smart Pakem”, which launched in
Indonesia last month at the request of the Indonesian government, will allow
users and government officials to uphold Sharia law and target and report
people who hold “misguided” beliefs in violation of Islamic law, which forbids
insults of Islam, insults against the Prophet Mohammed, or the recognition of
any other religion besides Islam.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, with an estimated Muslim
population of 207 million.
Indonesia’s criminal code prohibits blasphemy,
which is defined as “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or
sacred things”.
The Code’s Article 156(a) targets those who deliberately, in public,
“express feelings of hostility, hatred, or contempt against religion”. The
penalty for violating Article 156(a) of Indonesia’s criminal code is a maximum
of five years imprisonment.
Rajan Anandan, who
serves as the VP of Google in south-east Asia, has not shown any resistance to
the app, which is available in the Google app store.
The National Secular Society (NSS) has since written to Anadan requesting the Google not stock the app in the app
store, arguing that the app will have negative consequences for religious
minorities and will further minimize freedom of expression.
According to Human Rights Watch, 125 people
were convicted of blasphemy in Indonesia between 2004 and 2014. 23 additional
people have been convicted since 2014.
Stephen Evans, who serves as the chief executive of NSS said said Google’s decision to stock the Sharia app was
“incongruous with Google’s mission statement” and “runs directly contrary to
the democratic ideals which Google says it stands for”. Evans also said the app
will “normalize restrictions on freedom of expression in Indonesia and
elsewhere”.
NSS, which works to repeal blasphemy laws around the world, strongly
condemned Indonesia’s blasphemy law.
Since the app’s launch in the Google app store, it has been flooded with one star reviews and criticisms by anti-Sharia and human
rights advocates.
On November 29, 2018, investigative journalist Laura Loomer
handcuffed herself to Twitter HQ in NYC after she was banned from Twitter for
criticizing Sharia law. While handcuffed, Loomer
argued “Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google, Instagram, they are essentially
upholding Sharia. Silicon Valley is essentially upholding Sharia when they
decide to ban me for posting facts about Islam, when they decide to ban me for
posting facts about Sharia law and criticizing an anti-Jewish Muslim
Congresswoman.”
Extremist Islamic Web site founder admits to postings supporting
terrorist attacks
By
Matt Zapotosky, Published: October 30, 2013
The Washington Post
A New Jersey man who prosecutors say used his Islamic Web site to advocate
violence against those whose ideals he found offensive to his religion pleaded
guilty Wednesday to using the Internet to put another in fear of death or injury,
admitting that he posted material supportive of various terrorist attacks and
hinted that his followers should target a Jewish organization in Brooklyn.
Yousef Mohamid al-Khattab, 45, an American-born man
with dual citizenship in Israel, told a federal judge in Virginia that he wrote
the posts “out of my stupidity.” Yet he vigorously disagreed with prosecutors’
assertion that he intended to incite violence.
“I never intended to physically hurt anybody,” Khattab said. “I think they
could prove it, but that’s not my intention, Your Honor.”
Khattab, who court records show also used the names Joseph Cohen and Joseph
Kaplan, spoke extensively during a hearing in U.S. District Court in
Alexandria. The former culinary student who has a son in New York and a wife in
Morocco went through his plea agreement almost line by line, questioning
portions, clarifying others and saying that he signed the document because it
was “the best I think I’m going to get out of this.”
“I can’t agree with every law that I have to keep, but I have to keep the law,”
he said.
Khattab admitted that he helped found the “Revolution Muslim” organization in
2007 and that he wrote offensive and incendiary posts on the group’s
now-defunct Web site, RevolutionMuslim.com. In a November 2009 post, for
example, Khattab referred to Nidal M. Hasan — an Army psychiatrist who opened
fire on dozens of soldiers at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 — as an “officer and
a gentleman” who “was injured while partaking in a preemptive attack,” court
records show.
In a January 2009 post, he told viewers to seek out leaders of Jewish
Federation chapters in the United States and “deal with them directly at their
homes,” court records show.
In another post that year, Khattab, who lives in Atlantic City, added a photo
of the Chabad Jewish organization headquarters in Brooklyn with a link to a
map, court records show. He noted that Chabad’s main temple was always full at
prayer times and wrote, “Make EVERY attempt to reach these people and teach
them the message of Islam or leave them a message from Islam,” court records
show.
After the New York City Police Department parked a vehicle in front of the
building, Khattab posted a slide show that alternated images of the police
protection, a blood-stained Hebrew prayer book and dead children, court records
show.
Khattab is among those charged in a crackdown against U.S. men whom federal
prosecutors say tried to inspire terrorists to commit violence in the name of
Islam. Jesse C. Morton, a co-founder of the Revolution Muslim organization, was
sentenced last year to 111 / 2 years in prison after he admitted that he
encouraged extremists to attack the writers of the “South Park” animated TV
show because an episode featured the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit. Another man,
Zachary A. Chesser, an Oakton High School graduate
and former basketball and football player, was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in
prison in a similar case.
Khattab faces a maximum of five years in prison at his Feb. 7 sentencing, and
U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady allowed him to remain free on bond until then.
Alan H. Yamamoto, his attorney, said after the hearing that his client is
“regretful,” even if he did not mean real harm. “He posted certain items,”
Yamamoto said. “People made what they would of them.
Facebook 'monitoring' page calling for 3rd intifada
By
YAAKOV LAPPIN
03/27/2011
Jerusalem Post
Social networking group believes page does not advocate violence against
Israel, but has removed individual violent posts.
The Facebook social networking site is monitoring an Arabic-language page which
calls for a “third intifada” against Israel, but the site’s bosses have
concluded that it has not gone beyond the bounds of acceptable speech, and have
decided not to remove it, The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday.
The Facebook page, called “Third Palestinian intifada,” has attracted over
330,000 fans since going online, and has issued a call for a mass march into
Israel from neighboring countries.
It has been condemned as a violence-promoting page by Diaspora Affairs and
Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein, who sent a
letter last week to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a request to remove
the page, and by the Anti-Defamation League, whose national director, Abraham
Foxman, described it as “an appalling abuse of technology to promote terrorist
violence.”
The page is centered around the following message, composed by the
administrator, “The neighboring country will start a march to Palestine on the
15th of May. After that, all the Muslim countries will soon march, [and]
Palestine will be liberated.”
A translation of the Arabic text was provided by the SITE Monitoring Service,
which tracks online jihadi activity.
Since creating the page, a number of posts have been left on it by fans that carry
both implicit and explicit violent content, SITE has found.
These include, “Prepare: Death comes to you, O raider of this abode.”
The page’s administrators posted a quotation of a Hadith (Islamic tradition)
that is popular with radical groups, which reads, “The hour [of redemption]
does not come until the Muslim fight the Jews and even the stones and trees
say, ‘O Muslim, a Jew is behind me, so kill him.’” Other posts have made
reference to “paradise,” a term often used in Islamist circles to promote acts
of terrorism.
“Paradise beckons you to tell everyone about 5/15,” read one post.
Individual posts and comments on the page that incite to violence are being
investigated by Facebook and removed, sources within the networking site have
said. Facebook representatives have also made contact with the page’s
administrator and requested closer monitoring of content.
The Facebook page has been picked up by and promoted on jihadi Internet forums.
Earlier this month, an al-Qaida affiliated forum discussed the page’s creation,
and urged members to join it.
A statement e-mailed to the Post by a Facebook spokesman said, “We want
Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their
views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others.
“With now more than 500 million users from around the world, who have varying
cultures and ideals, using Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that
are important to them, we sometimes find people discussing and posting about
topics that others may find controversial, inaccurate, or offensive.
“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone –
criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political
ideology, for example – that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion. We
strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their
opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak
out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas.”
Radical websites defy deportation threat by urging Islamic war on West
By Duncan Gardham
(Filed: 29/08/2005)
Radical websites are continuing to encourage
Muslims to fight western nations despite the threat of new legislation.
The website of the organisation
Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has
repeatedly stressed its opposition to violence, tells its followers:
"We begin fighting the enemy even if he
did not start fighting us. . . Jihad is not a defensive war; it is in fact a
war to raise the word of Allah and it is compulsory originally in order to
spread Islam and to carry its message even if the disbelievers did not attack
us."
In an article on the G8 summit, but referring
to the London bombings, Hizb ut-Tahrir
says it is "against explosions in cities".
But it adds: "We wonder why the West look
at their civilians who have been killed in one way and look at Muslims who have
been killed in another way? Why do those non-believers in the West and the Jews
expect that the massacre of Muslims will not result in violent reactions from
Muslims?
"Why do they not expect that the violation
of honour, desecration of Korans and the sanctities,
the brutal crimes in occupied Muslim countries such as Palestine, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Kashmir and Chechnya will push some people to take revenge, to
meet killing with killing. Why do they not expect this?"
The article adds that the solution is the
creation of an Islamic state. "It will bring back the Muslim world's glory
and power and cut the hand of every non-believing colonialist who extends his
hand to harm the Muslim countries and it will protect Islam, the honour of Muslims and their sanctities. It will begin the
conquests and spread goodness to all corners of the world."
Another website, Islamic Awakenings, says it
aims to "face the ideological onslaught waged on the Muslims by exposing
the doctrines of deviancy and disbelief, such as secularism, socialism,
democracy and nationalism".
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, announced
last week that he would extradite individuals involved in extremist websites
that "foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence" where Britain
has received reassurances from their home countries that they will not be
tortured. But the rules would not cover whole organisations
such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, and
a separate consultation is taking place on plans to ban such groups.
A number of Muslim organisations,
including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain,
have claimed the plans would be counterproductive.
Over the weekend a Saudi extremist, Mohammad
al-Masari, put an "obituary" on his website
to try to head off the threat of deportation from Britain. He claimed to be a
victim of the "murder of freedom of expression by the oppressive regime
led by Tony Blair, the liar and well-known war criminal".
He added: "Unfortunately we had to suspend
big parts of our electronic site until this inquisition blows over or until I
move to a country that allows an acceptable degree of free speech."
Al-Masari, who has a
home in this country, ran a website that showed videos of suicide bombings.
Other extremists are thought to be on a list
drawn up by the Home Office. They include a Saudi who lives in Willesden, north
London, where he ran websites linked by America to al-Qa'eda.
Another is an Egyptian who runs a bookshop in
west London and is said to be responsible for a bomb blast in Egypt that failed
to kill the former prime minister, Atef Sedki, in 1993.
Meanwhile, a controversial Islamic scholar supported
by Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, has said it is a duty of Muslims in
Palestine and Iraq to become suicide bombers.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
speaking at a conference in Egypt, said: "I think that saying it is a
legitimate right in Palestine and Iraq is not enough because a right is
something that can be relinquished. It is a duty.
"The truth is we should refrain from
raising this issue because doubting it is like joining the Zionists and
Americans in condemning our brothers in Hamas, the Jihad, the Islamic factions
and the resistance factions in Iraq."
Talking about the London bombings, he added:
"We cannot say we pat these misguided boys on the back but we do want to
listen.
"They have gone astray so we want to treat
them in a way that will set them straight. . . We want to treat them the way
clerics treat their students, the way fathers treat
their sons."
Mr Livingstone has said
he would take the Government to court if Qaradawi was
not allowed into the country under the Home Secretary's new rules.
By HANNAH K. STRANGE
UPI U.K. Correspondent
LONDON, Nov. 16 (UPI) --
The British government approved on Wednesday the extradition of Babar Ahmad to
the United States to face terrorism charges. The controversial decision
prompted heavy criticism from human rights and legal campaigners, and outrage
among British Muslims.
Ahmad, a British citizen,
is accused of running Web sites inciting terrorism and urging Muslims to join a
holy war. U.S. authorities claim that from 1997 he was involved in
"conspiring to support terrorism," and "sought, invited and
solicited contributions" via Web sites and e-mail.
The Web sites allegedly
call for support for terrorist causes in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and give
details of how to transfer money and useful equipment. The United States also
claims Ahmad tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Arizona.
His lawyers have said
Ahmad would be at risk of the death penalty if he was sent to the United States
and transferred to military jurisdiction. However the
Home Office says it has sought and received assurances that the death penalty
will not be applied.
Ahmad's case has been the
subject of a high-profile campaign led by his family, who have lobbied
parliamentarians, organized protests and compiled petitions of over 15,000
signatures.
The Home Office said it
had "given full consideration" to representations made on behalf of
Ahmad, but decided his case met the conditions for extradition. His family said
they would appeal the order in the High Court.
The controversy
surrounding the case centers on two issues: That Ahmad was previously arrested
by British authorities and released without charge, and that under a new law,
the United States does not have to provide detailed evidence of the case
against him.
Ahmad, a 31-year-old
computer expert from south London, was first arrested in December 2003 under
the Terrorism Act, but released without charge after six days. In July 2004, he
was indicted by the United States, and rearrested pending extradition.
If his extradition goes
ahead, it will be the first time a British citizen has been extradited under
the Extradition Treaty 2003. The controversial treaty, which came into force in
January 2004, allows a country to request extradition without being required to
provide detailed evidence, but simply a summary of the allegations.
Sir Menzies Campbell,
Liberal Democrat shadow foreign secretary and an international lawyer, said the
extradition exposed the faults in the treaty, which the United States had yet
to ratify.
"This man's
extradition is based on a one-sided U.S.-U.K. treaty which the U.S. Senate has
so far refused to ratify," he said.
"It is concerning
that British citizens have less constitutional protection than their American
counterparts, perhaps a measure of the extent to which our policy appears
subordinate to the U.S."
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of
Britain, said this was "a very sad day for all who value fairness and
justice.
"It is unacceptable
that under the Extradition Treaty 2003 there is no longer any need for the U.S.
government to prove to a U.K. court or even to the home secretary that there is
a prima facie case against British citizens. We are very disappointed that the
home secretary has agreed to this extradition request and we call on him to
renegotiate the Extradition Treaty 2003 so that it better protects our citizens
- whether Muslims or non-Muslims - from this type of manifest injustice. If our
government has any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Babar Ahmad then he
should be charged in this country and put on trial here."
Liberty, a prominent human
rights and legal organization, said it was currently involved in a similar case
involving the so-called "Enron Three," a trio of bankers appealing
against extradition to the United States on allegations of fraud.
Like Ahmad, the three are
British citizens, and are facing no charges in Britain despite having allegedly
committed the offenses on British soil, against a British bank.
Lawyers for the men told
the High Court Tuesday that it appeared such cases were "simply going to
be sub-contracted out to the U.S. to prosecute on the grounds they got there
first."
Jen Corlew
of Liberty told United Press International that the central point of appeal in
both cases was against the assumption that a British citizen should be sent to
the United States to face charges, when no such case had been made against them
in Britain.
If there was a case to
answer there was no reason why they should not stand trial in Britain, she
said.
Lawyers were also
questioning why, under the Extradition Treaty, the United States had been
granted honorary status as a category one extradition partner when, as a non-EU
country, it should be classed as category two.
Both the appeals would act
as test cases for the Extradition Treaty, she added.
Muslim leaders warned the
case would further alienate and radicalize Muslim youth in Britain.
Responding to the
extradition order on his website, Ahmad, who is currently being held in
Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes, wrote:
"This decision should
only come as a surprise to those who thought that there was still justice for
Muslims in Britain."
Pentagon Surfing Thousands of Jihad Sites
By KATHERINE SHRADER Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
May 4, 2006, 6:08PM
WASHINGTON — A Pentagon research team monitors
more than 5,000 jihadist Web sites, focusing daily on the 25 to 100 most
hostile and active, defense officials say.
The team includes 25 linguists, who cover
multiple dialects of the Arabic language and provide reports on events sparking
anger on extremist Web sites, Dan Devlin, a Pentagon public diplomacy
specialist, said Thursday. The researchers, for instance, focused in November
on the backlash caused by the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
Devlin testified to Congress as part of a
briefing on how terrorists use the Internet.
Extremist propaganda is most often used to
recruit jihadist fighters and supporters between the ages of 7 and 25, the
officials said. But "we've seen products that are aimed at ages even lower
than 7," testified Pentagon contractor Ron Roughhead.
His company wasn't identified, for security reasons.
According to the briefing, al-Qaida has
advertised online to fill jobs for Internet specialists, and its media group
has distributed computer games and recruitment videos that use everything from
poetry to humor to false information to gather support. The media group has
assembled montages of American politicians taking aim at the Arab world.
"This crusade _ crusade
_ crusade _ is going to take awhile,"
President Bush says in one video, edited to make him repeat the word
"crusade" six other times.
The officials said they are hoping to give a
version of the briefing eventually to all U.S. soldiers in Iraq and the broader
region.
The goal is "to help train U.S. forces
deploying to Iraq on radical Islam and the need to respect Arabic and Muslim
culture," said House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.
Also Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee
discussed legislation that would go after al-Qaida's more private
communications using Bush's warrantless surveillance program.
The committee broke without voting on several
bills to govern the controversial program, which allows the National Security
Agency to monitor _ without court warrants _ terror-related communications
between the U.S. and overseas.
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has
introduced a bill that would require the administration to get approval for the
surveillance from a secretive federal court every 90 days. He circulated a
possible modification to his proposal late Wednesday that Democrats suggested
would give the government more flexibility to conduct surveillance.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Specter
to postpone consideration of any bill until she and other lawmakers get more
information on the program from the administration. "We cannot fairly
consider legislation," she wrote Specter.
Revealed: Sydney’s web of
hate
July 10, 2006
MUSLIM extremists in Sydney are using
the internet to gather support for making Australia an Islamic state.
The chat rooms also reveal a ground swell of
support for notorious terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi among some young
Muslims living in the suburbs.
Just a day after investigators in the US uncovered an internet-based plot to
attack New York, The Daily Telegraph can reveal that Australian Muslim websites
are awash with similar material.
The sinister forums are contained in innocent-looking websites posing as
community discussion boards.
The Sydney Muslim Youth Forum, on which hundreds of young Muslims
exchange views about Islam, devotes several threads to turning Australia an
Islamic state.
"I reckon we stay and try our best to get to high positions in this
country so it comes to the fold of Islam," wrote one member calling
himself God's Slave 4 Life.
Another member called Wasalam also suggested imposing
the Muslim way of life on Australian society from the inside and called on
members to pray for Muslims waging war overseas.
"We have to be sure firstly that Allah is pleased with us and that we're
completing our task and that we're not only stressing about what's happening
but that we are also doing something about it," Wasalam
writes.
"May Allah help us and bring victory to the Muslimeen and Mujahideen in
every land, ameen."
But a female member tells her friends that Australian Muslims would be better
off moving overseas.
"Don't you think we should all unite in one land and from there re-organise ourselves into different territories?" she
wrote.
"We are investing our gold n' silver in a non-Muslim land and at any
moment if the big bosses think we're up to no good, they can just freeze
everything!"
The Muslim Village website - a branch of the mainstream IslamicSydney.com site
- contains disturbing messages of support for some of the world's most reviled
terrorists.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was killed by US forces last month in an airstrike
after a rein of terror which included the beheading
western hostages, is described as a hero of the Islamic cause.
While some members of the chat room rejoiced in Zarqawi's death, others
expressed their dismayed.
"I don't understand why some of you seem pleased about his death,"
wrote one member identifying himself as Sumguy.
"I don't think that's right. It's disrespectful."
Another member scorned moderate Muslims who welcomed Zarqawi's death as a
victory over terrorism.
"You're probably happy at the same time that the US forces are still there
killing thousands of others," he wrote.
"As for the Muslim, he does not celebrate the killing of a Muslim."
Radical
Islamic Groups Exploit Internet for Jihad
Thursday , December
21, 2006
By Kelley Beaucar
Vlahos
Fox News
WASHINGTON — The global jihadist
movement wants the world to adopt Islam's 7th century values, and it's
using 21st century technology to do it. In fact, radical Islamic Web sites are
years ahead of any Western counter-efforts, say Web watchers and terror
trackers.
“In terms of the propaganda war,
they are way ahead of us — they are 10 years ahead of us,” said Stephen Ulph, a
senior fellow at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, where he is a specialist in Middle
East and North African affairs. “[The Internet] seems to me to be the real
center of gravity for the jihad movement.”
On Wednesday, a video broadcast by
Al Jazeera television network showed the deputy leader of Al Qaeda saying the
United States is negotiating with the wrong people in Iraq and implying the
U.S. needs to talk to his group.
The video — which bore the logo of
Al Qaeda's media production house, al-Sahab — was the
15th time this year that Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri has
sent out a statement. The video bore the hallmarks of his previous messages —
all authenticated by CIA analysts.
Aside from the video itself — the
growing technical sophistication of the terrorists was marked by the fact that
U.S. intelligence officials learned about the emergence of a possible message
by Al-Zawhiri from speculation that spread across
"Jihad-type Web sites."
Days before the video surfaced,
intelligence officials warned U.S. news outlets not to get too carried away by
the announcement of an impending tape because the pattern of promoting upcoming
videos via the Internet had been a technique used in the past to maximize media
coverage.
Laws exist in the United States and
other countries against Web sites that directly incite violence, but the U.S
government has had a tough time monitoring and shutting those down. That
challenge has been compounded by the fact that these jidahist
sites are typically not in English, can be posted and removed quickly and
utilize servers scattered across different countries on the globe.
Web sites that seek to inspire,
indoctrinate and recruit Muslims for jihad don’t necessarily call for violent
action. Instead, they seek to persuade potential recruits with mountains of
literature, religious text, interpretations and the allure of a worldwide
community of brotherhood.
Robert Steele, a former clandestine
case officer for the CIA who works in open source
intelligence, that is, building intelligence by monitoring and trolling public
information, like the Internet, said one-third of the Jihadist Web sites
operating today are used to incite violence, one-third raise funds for
organizations that fund terrorists, and another third indoctrinate through
theology and intellectual discourse.
They are all growing in popularity.
“It’s spreading like wildfire. It’s
phenomenally successful,” Steele said.
Stephen Schwartz, author of
"The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from
Tradition to Terror," said he is struck by the sophistication of
technology and breadth of content on the sites, which are primarily used for
indoctrination into the radical Muslim ideology of jihad.
“The jihadist Web sites are pretty
extraordinary when you look at them,” he said. “The combination of money, youth
imagination, fanaticism, the desire for simplicity and the desire to sweep
people away — it’s really a potent mixture.”
Opinions differ about the goals of
these sites are, but most agree they include spreading the pursuit of cleansing
the Muslim world of tyrants and apostates — those Muslims not loyal to their
vision of the faith — through jihad. Other more vociferous sites, particularly
those linked to Al Qaeda, advocate some form of action and almost all reflect
hostility toward the United States and the West.
The sites are generously funded by
sources in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, countries that are typically
very restrictive about Internet activity but have so far been inept at
controlling Web sites or fairly lax in their concern about this particular
content, say those familiar with these outlets.
“The Saudis shut down a number of
these sites for a while,” said Schwartz. “I don’t think Pakistan has done
anything to control the e-jihad. A lot of the e-jihad is being run from Europe, some is run from the United States.”
Some terror analysts note the
Catch-22 associated with controlling jihadist messages on the Internet — they
suggest that Western adherence to civil liberties, like freedom of expression,
is preventing law enforcement types from choking off the lifeblood of these Web
sites.
“They are successful because they
use the legal system of the West and hide under it,” said Walid Phares,
terrorism expert for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "[They] use
liberties to their advantage.”
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich,
raised eyebrows recently when he suggested that such liberties might need to be
re-examined against the threat of Internet jihad and the associated possibility
of terror attacks against Americans.
But Schwartz said the issue is more
complicated than that. While sites inciting violence already violate U.S. law,
indoctrination sites may be useful in terms of keeping an eye on what
extremists are planning. The Zawahiri video is a case in point.
“My ability to know what is going
on depends on my ability to monitor what is going on,” he said, noting that
transparency seems like the best policy in order to spot a real terror threat
creeping out of the shadows.
Ulph, Phares and Schwartz also said
the best way to combat cyber-radicalization is through a well-orchestrated,
relentless propaganda machine on the other side, engaging the jihadists on a
theological and cultural level and employing moderate Muslim scholars and
activists willing to bully their way onto the Internet battlefield.
"We really need to get our
acts together and martial the entire liberal movement in the Muslim community,
plus the non-Muslim West, to starting chipping away" at the religious
arguments for jihad, said Ulph.
He said weaknesses in their
intellectual defenses, like the question of violence against other Muslims,
could be exploited by aggressive, loud, publicity-grabbing moderate Muslims.
"What you want are bullies --
a clever media response from people who are of the right age group, not
camera-shy and proactive," he said.
But others say they are doubtful.
Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst who headed the counterterrorism unit
dedicated to tracking Usama
bin Laden in the 1990s, said anti-terror forces cannot win by fighting
radicals on a theological level because the so-called moderate and liberal Muslims
are more wary of U.S. influence in the Muslim world than they are of extremists
in their ranks.
"The reality is, liberals,
moderates and conservatives in the Muslim world all hate our foreign
policy" and no amount of counter-propaganda is going to curb the spread
and popularity of these Web sites, said Scheuer. "You can argue religion
all you want … but as long as the argument is the Americans are still occupying
Iraq, well, it's hard to discredit that argument."
Phares countered that jihad was
growing long before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and it is wrong to think
it is all about U.S. foreign policy.
"This is a very old ideology
with objectives much wider than the specific goals of U.S. policy in the
region. Just the opposite, a U.S. policy that supports democracy and freedom in
the region is the only rational response to the rise of the terrorist
ideologies," he said.
While calling the extremist Web
sites "dangerous and very hard to combat," Abbas Kadhim,
an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in
California, said the United States has so far failed in its pledge to help
democratize the region. Continued oppression in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two
U.S. allies, are examples of that. This status quo has only served to encourage
extremist rhetoric while dissuading sought-after moderates.
"The reason for not being on
top of this war in cyber space is the same reason the U.S is not winning the
war of ideas on Al Jazeera and other media," Kadhim
said. "It's about not being able to compete in terms of popularity in the
Middle East. People see the inconsistencies in policy and they see rhetoric not
matched by action."