Myth, reality and Jihadist Use of the Internet

Prologue

Recently a prominent American news program asked me for an example of the kind of jihadist websites that were in existence in ancient times. So I (literally) dusted off my archives from 2002, 2003 and 2004, and ultimately selected a .pdf archive of the al-Neda site, operated by deceased al-Qaida ideologue Yussuf al-Ayyeri.

Figure 1. al-Neda, site of Yussuf al-Ayyeri, RIP

This brings us to myth number 1.

Myth Number 1: jihadi web sites were primitive 'back in the day' but now they are oh so sophisticated, and the jihadists who operate those sites are likewise more adept.

For comparison, here is what the www.tawhed.ws site looks like today:

Figure 2. www.tawhed.ws[1] - currently the premier ideological website of the global jihad

Involved as I was with the al-Neda site, and involved as I am in maintaining an archive of the tawhed.ws site, I can tell you that the latter is not more technically sophisticated than the former. If al-Neda was to be designed today, the buttons and graphics would have a more glossy, three-dimensional appearance, but that is a reflection of the fact that Photoshop and similar program are now more sophisticated, and the computers available commonly to run Photoshop are much more powerful than they were just a few short years ago. So the tools are more sophisticated, but the jihadis are the same arrogant, hot-headed fools they ever were.

In the course of dredging up that archive of al-Neda, I went through CD-ROM after CD-ROM of jihadi web sites that I had archived (for the most part in 2002 and 2003) and you know what? At least 80% of those sites are deceased[2].

domain	current status	domain	current status
www.ansarislam.com	dead	www.islah.tv	live
www.arabvoice.com	live	www.islam3.net	dead
www.madoogali.com	dead	www.islambgd.com	dead
www.nedayequds.com	dead	www.nashed.ws	dead
www.palhackerz.com	dead	www.kashmiruna.org	live
www.jehad.net	dead	www.khilafah.net	live
www.purenectar.net	dead	www.lanaa.com	dead
www.jewstoislam.com	dead	www.page4free.biz	dead
www.qoqaz.com	live	www.mojahedun.com	dead
www.jihadonline.com	dead	www.rightword.net	dead
www.khamorim.com	dead	www.cihad.net	live
www.hodhod33.com	dead	www.waheh.org	dead
www.almuslimoon.com	dead	www.kavkazcenter.com	live
www.alyahood.com	dead	www.yosf.com	dead
www.almoltaqa.org	dead	www.shareeah.org	dead
www.alerhap.com	dead	www.shohra.com	dead
www.alftn.net	dead	www.site4free.biz	dead
www.alm2sda.com	dead	www.alw3dnet.com	dead
www.almaqdese.com	live	www.islam3.net	dead
www.almeer.net	dead	www.m919m.com	dead
www.alrayat.net	dead	www.shuhadaa.org	dead
www.alsr7.com	dead	www.strike-free.net	dead
altaefa-almansoura.com	dead	chechnya.tk	dead
www.anashed.net	live	www.almuhajiroun.com.pk	dead
www.awda-dawa.com	live	www.islam.org.au	dead
www.4the1.org	dead	www.as-sahwah.com	live
www.abualbukhary.com	live	www.7hj.com	dead
www.abubaseer.com	dead	www.al-mojahedoon.net	dead
www.al-ansar.biz	dead	www.aadad.com	dead
www.alasra.org	dead	www.al-saf.net	dead
h-alali.net	live	www.alaflam.net	dead
www.honaweb.com	dead	chechan.org	dead
www.sos4all.com	dead	www.mawsuat.com	dead
www.iraqvictims.com	live	www.mojahedun.com	dead
www.isl.org.uk	dead	www.pega7.com	dead

Table 1. Sample of 70 jihadi web sites archived during phase of the Internet Haganah project that emphasized site interdiction

This brings us to the 2nd myth.

Myth Number 2: you can get sites shut down, but they will just pop back up again.

Who to believe, your own lying eyes or the conventional wisdom of counter-terrorism 'experts'? If you want to call an 80% 'mortality' rate ineffective, go right ahead, but the fact of the matter is that not only can web sites be shut down (by asking the service provider to do so), but getting sites shut down will reliably kill those sites dead. Those sites that remain online, or that are more resistant to such efforts simply become a more valuable target for further action and investigation, along with the people who operate and use those surviving sites. As a consequence of such active web site interdiction efforts, we are left with a smaller pool of higher quality targets, which is a Good Thing™, because the resources available to deal with those sites are always scarce.

Myth Number 3: maybe you can get sites shut down, but many more will magically pop up to replace them.

This 'myth' is perhaps more properly termed an 'excuse for inaction'.

For as long as jihadis have had access to the Internet, the Internet has been littered with jihadi web sites. Then as now, the vast majority of those sites were of no significance whatsoever, and only a small percentage of the jihadist sites online are of any value from an intelligence, investigative or research perspective.

Who determines a site's significance? Ultimately it is the jihadists themselves who do so, through their efforts to promote sites that matter to them through the propagation of links, through the consumption of the site's offerings, and through participation on those sites that allow user interaction.

What to do?

The question is not

"Can sites be shut down down?"

(the answer is yes)

And the question is not

"Is shutting sites down effective?"

(the answer is yes)

The question is

"Which sites should be left online, and what should be done about those sites that are left online?"

While there will never be true consensus regarding which sites should be left online, it is possible to develop a set of rational guidelines to aid in making such decisions. Developing such guidelines would involve honestly assessing the abilities of various agencies to actively monitor sites and to rapidly exploit the intelligence gleaned from such efforts.

The words 'actively' and 'rapidly' are central to any such discussion. The price of passivity and sloth is paid in the blood of the victims of terrorism.

In the most general terms, interactive web sites - called forums, or bulletin boards, or sometimes mislabeled as 'chat rooms' - sites which allow the rank and file of the global jihad to speak in their own voice (and thus incriminate themselves), these are sites that recommend themselves for monitoring, assuming the resources are available to do so. Static web sites, on the other hand, sites which do not allow the readership to express itself, are of lesser value, except perhaps in those rare instances where either the content or the site's operators are of great significance or are high value targets (e.g. al-Neda and the tawhed.ws sites discussed above).

Specific answers regarding what can be done with or to each site and by whom are best not discussed on a site like this, because the jihadis are known to monitor Internet Haganah for their own intelligence gathering purposes. The short answer is that there are many things that can be done, and there is little need to reinvent the wheel. Despite the fact that this war is fought on the Internet, it still involves people, and so von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are still relevant, as are certain Proverbs, not to mention the work done more recently by the likes of the OSS and the Political Warfare Executive during the Second World War.

Another question that comes up in the media regarding this issue is

"How much has changed in the last four to six years?"

The answer, as regards what governments are doing about the problem is

"Not nearly enough."

But at least there is general recognition of the problem.

It's a start.

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[1] The site routinely blocks visitors from the USA, even though it is hosted in the USA. If you do not reach an active site try using a proxy server.

[2] That was after I removed from the sample of sites all the sites that were on free hosting servers (e.g. geocities) 100% of which were dead, all the sites of Palestinian terrorist organizations (because they don't fit the description of global jihadist), and all the merely salafist or Islamist sites that were not explicitly jihadist in nature.

Posted on 01 March 2007 @ 07:17