Richard
10-04-2009, 08:03
Terrorism Message Is Viral On Web
Jim Landers, The Dallas Morning News, 4 Oct 2009
WASHINGTON – Thousands of Web sites, most in Arabic but some in English, make it possible for Web surfers to soak up the tenets of violent Islamic terrorism. They can watch videos of jihadi rappers, meet like-minded radicals in chat rooms and, in one notorious case, even launch a rocket attack on U.S. troops in Iraq from anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse.
Last month's arrest of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, the 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper, was an example of how a leaderless, virtual terror movement has become a worldwide phenomenon, counterterrorism experts say. FBI agents monitoring an Arabic Internet chat room discovered Smadi in March.
The top leaders of al-Qaeda may be living as hunted fugitives on the far edges of the world, but their ideology is available everywhere, said Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli army colonel who is president of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
"They got from the developed world a tool, the tool of their life, to jump from their caves to the 21st century," Carmon said.
Al-Qaeda sympathizers agree. In a column commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabinewspaper wrote: "Al-Qaeda's ideology is becoming a global [ideology] which is increasingly independent. Thanks to advanced media like the Internet, Facebook and YouTube, it can reach the widest audiences worldwide, [attracting] numerous supporters and recruits."
Some of the content produced for these Web sites comes from al-Qaeda itself, or from groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But much of it is generated by sympathizers around the world who have little or no contact with major extremist groups.
These sympathizers are increasingly skillful at producing emotional propaganda videos showing Muslims dying and grieving at the hands of U.S. and Israeli forces. The teenagers and young adults who gravitate to such sites often aren't very religious but find in them a sense of identity and community.
"A lot of these are young kids working themselves up to becoming volunteers for jihad," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and author of the book Leaderless Jihad. Sageman compared the Smadi case to the adolescents behind mass high school shootings.
"Loners usually are sick," he said. "So now, instead of Goth ideology, they use al-Qaeda ideology. Before that, it was leftist ideology, and neo-Nazi."
Sageman and Carmon said their reading of the Smadi case left them believing the teenager was more angry than adept and made an unlikely terrorist. "The FBI finds these kids and says, 'Oh, yeah? You want to do something? We can facilitate that,' " Sageman said. "Without the FBI, these kids would just be bitching."
But Walter Purdy, training director at the Terrorism Research Center in Arlington, Va., said the alleged Dallas bomber might have found other willing conspirators if the FBI had not found him first. "There are individuals who are going to take these steps, no matter what," Purdy said.
Web sites and chat rooms – usually hosted unknowingly by U.S.-based Internet service providers, Carmon said – have been used to plot attacks in Canada, Britain, Sweden, Bosnia, the United States and several other countries. "If somebody espouses jihadi views and maybe he can't get to Pakistan or Yemen or someplace else to get training, a Web site is a place where he can go to find people who think like him and acquire knowledge," Purdy said.
Perhaps the most audacious use of the Internet by a radical group occurred in Iraq. Army Lt. Col. Joseph Felter, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, described the case two years ago in congressional testimony.
An insurgent group sponsored a Web site design contest. "The prize for the winner," Felter said, "was to launch a rocket attack against a U.S. base in Iraq simply by clicking the mouse on their computer from the comfort of their own home."
Most other virtual terrorists haven't been successful in getting together the skills and materials to carry out their plans. Two years ago, Canadian police broke up a diverse immigrant group dubbed the Toronto 18 who conspired to blow up the Canadian Parliament and other landmarks.
The group created a Web site called Clear Guidance. This attracted two young Muslims living in the Atlanta area who suggested bombing targets in Washington, D.C. A Serb living in Sweden gathered explosives for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia, while others linked via the Internet in London and Copenhagen talked of forming al-Qaeda in Northern Europe.
"Clear Guidance didn't have any al-Qaeda presence," Sageman said. "They were all teenagers or guys in their early 20s who were basically bragging to each other."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-virtual_terror_04ent.ART.State.Edition1.4c5223d.ht ml
Jim Landers, The Dallas Morning News, 4 Oct 2009
WASHINGTON – Thousands of Web sites, most in Arabic but some in English, make it possible for Web surfers to soak up the tenets of violent Islamic terrorism. They can watch videos of jihadi rappers, meet like-minded radicals in chat rooms and, in one notorious case, even launch a rocket attack on U.S. troops in Iraq from anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse.
Last month's arrest of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, the 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper, was an example of how a leaderless, virtual terror movement has become a worldwide phenomenon, counterterrorism experts say. FBI agents monitoring an Arabic Internet chat room discovered Smadi in March.
The top leaders of al-Qaeda may be living as hunted fugitives on the far edges of the world, but their ideology is available everywhere, said Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli army colonel who is president of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
"They got from the developed world a tool, the tool of their life, to jump from their caves to the 21st century," Carmon said.
Al-Qaeda sympathizers agree. In a column commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabinewspaper wrote: "Al-Qaeda's ideology is becoming a global [ideology] which is increasingly independent. Thanks to advanced media like the Internet, Facebook and YouTube, it can reach the widest audiences worldwide, [attracting] numerous supporters and recruits."
Some of the content produced for these Web sites comes from al-Qaeda itself, or from groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But much of it is generated by sympathizers around the world who have little or no contact with major extremist groups.
These sympathizers are increasingly skillful at producing emotional propaganda videos showing Muslims dying and grieving at the hands of U.S. and Israeli forces. The teenagers and young adults who gravitate to such sites often aren't very religious but find in them a sense of identity and community.
"A lot of these are young kids working themselves up to becoming volunteers for jihad," said Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and author of the book Leaderless Jihad. Sageman compared the Smadi case to the adolescents behind mass high school shootings.
"Loners usually are sick," he said. "So now, instead of Goth ideology, they use al-Qaeda ideology. Before that, it was leftist ideology, and neo-Nazi."
Sageman and Carmon said their reading of the Smadi case left them believing the teenager was more angry than adept and made an unlikely terrorist. "The FBI finds these kids and says, 'Oh, yeah? You want to do something? We can facilitate that,' " Sageman said. "Without the FBI, these kids would just be bitching."
But Walter Purdy, training director at the Terrorism Research Center in Arlington, Va., said the alleged Dallas bomber might have found other willing conspirators if the FBI had not found him first. "There are individuals who are going to take these steps, no matter what," Purdy said.
Web sites and chat rooms – usually hosted unknowingly by U.S.-based Internet service providers, Carmon said – have been used to plot attacks in Canada, Britain, Sweden, Bosnia, the United States and several other countries. "If somebody espouses jihadi views and maybe he can't get to Pakistan or Yemen or someplace else to get training, a Web site is a place where he can go to find people who think like him and acquire knowledge," Purdy said.
Perhaps the most audacious use of the Internet by a radical group occurred in Iraq. Army Lt. Col. Joseph Felter, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, described the case two years ago in congressional testimony.
An insurgent group sponsored a Web site design contest. "The prize for the winner," Felter said, "was to launch a rocket attack against a U.S. base in Iraq simply by clicking the mouse on their computer from the comfort of their own home."
Most other virtual terrorists haven't been successful in getting together the skills and materials to carry out their plans. Two years ago, Canadian police broke up a diverse immigrant group dubbed the Toronto 18 who conspired to blow up the Canadian Parliament and other landmarks.
The group created a Web site called Clear Guidance. This attracted two young Muslims living in the Atlanta area who suggested bombing targets in Washington, D.C. A Serb living in Sweden gathered explosives for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia, while others linked via the Internet in London and Copenhagen talked of forming al-Qaeda in Northern Europe.
"Clear Guidance didn't have any al-Qaeda presence," Sageman said. "They were all teenagers or guys in their early 20s who were basically bragging to each other."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-virtual_terror_04ent.ART.State.Edition1.4c5223d.ht ml