PWNT
Posted on 01/16/2008 8:58:21 AM PST by Danae
A computer nerd from Shepherd's Bush, West London, became al Qaeda's top internet agent, it can be revealed today.
Younes Tsouli, 23, an IT student at a London college, used his top-floor flat in W12 to help Islamist extremists wage a propaganda war against the West.
Under the name Irhabi 007 — combining the James Bond reference with the Arabic for terrorist — he worked with al Qaeda leaders in Iraq and came up with a way to convert often gruesome videos into a form that could be put onto the Web.
Videos he posted included messages from Osama bin Laden and images of the kidnapping and murder of hostages in Iraq such as American Nick Berg.
His capture led to the arrest of several Islamic terrorists around the world, including 17 men in Canada and two in the US.
Associates linked to Tsouli in the UK have also now been detained. His 10-year jail sentence was increased to 16 years last month.
At first intelligence operatives who came across his activities dismissed him as a joke. It was only when anti-terrorist detectives began trawling through files on his computer after his arrest that they realised his true significance.
When he was seized, forensic science officers found that Tsouli had been creating a website called YOUBOMBIT.
At his trial at Woolwich crown court a jury heard how the Met trawled through a “hugely gigantic'' amount of material — computers, CDs and memory sticks — to bring Tsouli and two other men to justice.
Detectives found literature urging Muslims to take up the fight against other religions. It was the first time anyone in Britain had been prosecuted for inciting terrorist murder purely based on the internet, the court heard.
Tsouli, who set up and ran several sites over the summer of 2005, was described as the most prominent of the three on trial. The other two were also jailed. One intelligence source said: “In a network structure, if you get the right guy the whole thing goes down.”
Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, the head of the Met's counterterrorism operations, said: “It was the first virtual conspiracy to murder that we have seen.”
Tsouli arrived in London in 2001 with his father, a Moroccan diplomat. He studied IT at a college in central London and was quickly radicalised by images of the war in Iraq posted on the internet.
By 2003 he had already begun posting his own material including a manual on computer hacking and a year later had moved on to publishing extremist images and al Qaeda propaganda on the web.
It is claimed al Qaeda leaders in Iraq spotted Tsouli's work and took the decision to recruit him, using his expertise to post their own extremist videos to a wider audience.
In 2005, Tsouli became administrator for the web forum al-Ansat, used by 4,500 extremists to communicate with each other, sharing such practical information as how to make explosives and how to get to Iraq to become a suicide bomber.
But the enterprise had become so huge, it began to attract the attention of cyber-trackers who monitor the internet for extremists, leading to Tsouli's arrest.
PWNT
Nooooooooooo..........muslims are bad for Europe??? Go figure. Europe best push them back to where they came from or they will take over and ruin them.......if they haven’t already.
I think these guys believe they are living some form of “Warcraft” or live Dungeons and Dragons with no retribution. Until they are beat up, of course.
What will happen to him?....A warning not to do it again?
Arrest his father too for creating the little terrorist creep.
They’re all good until they get caught.
Wonder what his DU screen name was?
A couple of things stand out in this rather muddled story.
If he was the son of a diplomat, what exposed him to arrest? Diplomatic immunity and all that...
The other curious thing is that 17 criminals were arrested in Canada and nary a word in the press that I can recall. Ditto the 2 in the U.S. Is there additional information somewhere that identifies these killer-supporters in our own country? What city? What community?
Has CAIR become involved? If not, why not?
If he were in the US, as far as I understand, nothing would happen to him because he would have diplomatic immunity as the son of a diplomat. Correct me if I am wrong.
Wonder if you crossed paths as you worked to shut down some of those vermin sites?
Charge him first degree assault for beating someone about the fists with his head and face.
Oh... so it was our fault all along then...
You are correct....diplomatic immunity would probably save his sorry a@#. They would take his computer away.
At the time of his arrest in October 2005, Tsouli's computer contained original digital video recordings of what appeared to be vetting missions eyeing potential terrorist targets in Washington D.C. Allegedly, the videos were filmed by a pair of Tsouli's online associates living in Atlanta, Georgia, and copies of those same terror reconnaissance videos have subsequently surfaced in multiple locations searched by authorities across the United Kingdom.
But the US can ask another country to waive immunity. They did that to a Georgian diplomat who killed a girl while driving drunk and Georgia complied with the request. I other nations can do the same.
Hang him.
> What will happen to him?....A warning not to do it again?
What would muslims do if the circumstances were reverse?
It all depends on the specific terms of the treaty negotiated with the accredited power.
Let him enjoy prison, first. Or, better yet, let the other prisoners enjoy him for a while until he wishes he was dead.
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