Internet a Front Line in Terror War, Reports Warn

(CNSNews.com) - "The keyboard equals Kalashnikov" is a popular new slogan among radical Islamic groups today, according to a recent report highlighting extremists' use of the Internet in spreading their message.

The expression, a reworking of "the pen is mightier than the sword," refers to the computer keyboard and the Russian assault rifle more commonly known as the AK47, popular among radical and terrorist groups for many decades.

Experts are voicing concerns that extremist messages on the web may contribute to radicalization, even among residents of the United States.

Islamist groups have created a sophisticated online media network, complete with multi-media video and audio, to spread their message to audiences speaking English and other Western languages, several studies have shown.

According to one organization, radical groups want to go further, infiltrating mainstream, non-political, non-Islamic websites and forums to further spread their message.

"We couldn't put our finger on one thing -- whether it was mostly online sites or video," Chris Heffelfinger, an analyst for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told Cybercast News Service. "The threat is that the idea is so popular. Their goal is nationalism, but it's a virtual nation, and 80 to 90 percent of their propaganda is all virtual. Much of it didn't exist before the late 1990s, when they came online."

The SITE Institute (Search for International Terrorist Entities), which monitors jihad websites, provides examples of the Internet's growing role as an organizing tool for terrorists.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, Americans from Atlanta, Ga., were charged in March 2006 with material support to a terrorist group in a plot to blow up oil refineries. They were found to have made video footage of various sites in Washington, D.C., which they sent to Younis Tsouli, a radical in England known for his ability to hack into computer systems. (Tsouli was arrested in England on conspiracy and terrorism charges in 2005.)

Mark Robert Walker, 19, of Laramie, Wyo. used the online name "Abdullah" to contact an individual named "Khalid" who agreed to help Walker leave the United States to fight alongside jihadists in Somalia. Walker pleaded guilty in October 2005 to aiding a terrorist organization.

"It is the Internet that enables jihadist networks to continue to exist despite the military might of the United States," SITE Institute Director Rita Katz told the House Armed Services Committee last February. "Regional jihadist groups ... may have difficulty in contacting and connecting with one another in the physical world; however, on the Internet, these jihadist networks all share the same virtual space."

While not the only means of facilitating domestic jihad activity, the Internet is definitely a key factor, said Charles E. Allen, assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security.

"Radicalization occurs through a variety of human and institutional catalysts, such as formal and informal religious institutions," Allen told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. "Charismatic leaders and the Internet play significant roles in this process."

The committee will hold a hearing today (Wednesday) regarding radical Islam in Europe.

Throughout the world, Internet chat rooms and forums are replacing mosques as venues for recruitment and radicalization, according to a report released in May by the Task Force on Internet Facilitated Radicalization, a joint group convened by George Washington University and the University of Virginia.

These extremist groups know how to craft messages that resonate with certain types of people, to "energize and expand their ranks," said the report, which also cited the "keyboard equals Kalashnikov" slogan.

Canada, Britain, Spain, the United States and other countries have felt the impact of radicalization through the Internet, said task force co-chairman Frank J. Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at GWU.

"Some view these instances as examples of homegrown terrorism, but the label is something of a misnomer," Cilluffo said in his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in May. "The Internet has created a largely borderless world; participants in terrorism are therefore perhaps best understood within the transnational context, rather than merely a national one."

The task force report noted that al-Qaeda and other terror groups now have their own production arms -- such as As-Sahab and the Global Islamic Media Front -- which produce web content, television programs, online forums, chat rooms, and video games.

The Global Islamic Media Front has urged supporters to infiltrate non-Islamic websites and post messages defending the organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and degrading the American war effort.

It calls on adherents to learn new web skills, and to post the propaganda messages in "non-Islamic forums such as music, youth forums, sports forums and others."

"The danger is clear, Richard Wachtel, spokesman for the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told Cybercast News Service. "It is fair to assume that many more people visit those popular sites than they do jihad sites for the simple reason that they know that those [jihad] sites and their users are constantly under Arab governments' scrutiny."

A MEMRI report on the radical media group shows participants in the project being instructed to distribute the message to others through other covert means, when necessary. "If you are afraid you will be exposed, you can [distribute the material] without people noticing. ... You can slip a CD into your friend's back pack without him noticing. You can drop it into a person's car while he is driving ... You can place it in your neighbor's mailbox."

Infiltration is nothing new for radical groups, said Kamal Nawash, president of the Free Muslims Coalition, a moderate U.S. Islamic group. He said for the last 30 years, radicals have joined secular business and civic institutions in once secular Middle Eastern countries with the goal of taking them over. This ultimately shifted the balance of power.

Still, Nawash doesn't think proliferation of radical Islamic groups on the web is necessarily a bad thing because, he says, in doing so they move out of the shadows. Even in anonymous chat rooms, the public is exposed to their real intent, he said.

"The answer is not censorship," he told Cybercast News Service. "The Internet [also] provides an opportunity for moderates to spread their message. I'm starting to see a trend of moderates, liberals and secular Muslims, after all these years, finding a voice."

The GWU-University of Virginia taskforce report noted that radical media groups push the narrative of a "clash of civilizations" between the monolithic West and monolithic Islam. It recommended that the U.S. government respond by crafting a counter narrative, reaching populations that might be prone to this message and using covert tactics to confuse the extremist chat rooms and forums.

American Muslims can be part of the solution to extremism on the web, Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this month.

"There are several Internet sites that provide thoughtful analysis on current affairs and counter extremist rhetoric," Marayati said.

Good luck to islamists trying to "fake it" on FR...

There are two parts to this "report"; the islamic web sites in arabic, which I could care less about; it it weren't the web, it would be coded telegrams, long distance call, regular mail, couriers...

The English language ones are a whole other thing. I assume that there are sites like Islamwatch which monitor this activity and keep a current list of them for anyone interested, including law enforcement and anti-terrorist agencies.
Participating in those sites is out of the question, since I doubt dissenting voices are tolerated.

This thread is basically a big 'whoop'

"American Muslims can be part of the solution to extremism on the web, Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this month."

From DiscoverTheNetwork.org:

"...Holding Israel entirely responsible for the "pattern of violence" in the Middle East, MPAC asserts that Hezbollah "could be called a liberation movement." The Council likens Hezbollah members to American "freedom fighters hundreds of years ago whom the British regarded as terrorists." In a November 1997 speech at the University of Pennsylvania, MPAC Co-Founder and Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati steadfastly refused to call Hezbollah a terrorist organization; he justified the existence of Hamas as a political entity and a provider of social programs and "educational operations"; and he equated jihad with the sentiments of the American statesman Patrick Henry, whose "Give me liberty or give me death" declaration was, in Al-Marayati's view, "a way of looking at the term jihad from an American perspective." In a 1999 position paper, MPAC justified Hezbollah's deadly 1983 bombing of the American Marine barracks in Lebanon as a "military operation" rather than a terrorist attack. As Maher Hathout puts it: "Hezbollah is fighting for freedom, an organized army, limiting its operations against military people, this is a legitimate target against occupation. … this is legitimate, this is an American value -- freedom and liberty.'" [Full debriefing].

I'm sure the members of the House Homeland Security Committee were just riveted by this "moderate" spokesman for Islam in America.

That situations like these continue to happen in the halls of our government leaves me incredulous.

On the battlefield of ideas, the sometimes goofy U.S. government invites the enemy into their very midst to be openly lied to.

AMERICA AT WAR
At Salem the Soldier's Homepage ~
Islam, a Religion of Peace®? Some links...  by backhoe
Translated Pre-War IRAQ Documents  by jveritas
Mohammed, The Mad Poet Quoted....  by PsyOp
"PLAES DO NOT TOCH THE WAR"  by AnnaZ
The Clash of Ideologies - A Review

"...It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world." [FReeper Retief]

"...That the totalitarian force pitted against freedom wears a religious makes this civil war among mankind all the more difficult to engage. Loving freedom as we do, it seems reprehensible to deliberate against a religion. But this is no ordinary religion as it demands absolute obedience of all to their religion at the cost of freedom itself." [FReeper Backtothestreets]

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