Defeating Internet terrorists
By Joshua Sinai
October 8, 2006


The Internet has become the "seductive hypermedia" for radical Islamic terrorists, with official and unofficial Web sites, forums and chatrooms that appeal to supporters worldwide. Most Web sites are intended to advance a group's propaganda to increase their supporting audience, while some have operational intentions. But how do we defeat such terrorism in cyberspace?
An eclectic group of international experts in terrorist use of the Internet and graphic design specialists met recently in Israel's southern resort city of Eilat to formulate a comprehensive response campaign that deserves wide attention.
As explained by Gabriel Weimann, of Israel's Haifa University, terrorists "narrow-cast" their messages to "trap" selected audiences of adherents. Taking this further, Boaz Ganor, of the Israeli Interdisciplinary Center, showed how the "captured" adherents are then indoctrinated into radicalization by emphasizing a problem, such as threats posed by a common enemy or humiliation suffered by Muslims at the hands of their adversaries. Emphasizing the religious obligation of Muslims to confront their enemies and the challenge to their faith is the common denominator that binds the audience into their new virtual community. Segments of this community are then activated into a variety of activities on behalf of the terrorist group, such as fund-raising, recruitment, training and warfare.
The different types of terrorist activities on the Internet require appropriately differentiated responses. As outlined by Mr. Weimann, one such response is based on what he terms a "MUD" approach (Monitoring, Using and Disrupting).
c First, terrorist Web sites need to be monitored to learn about their mindsets, motives, persuasive "buzzwords," audiences, operational plans and potential targets for attack. These sites will also reveal whom they consider to be their political and religious authorities, as well as moderate religious clerics they regard as particularly threatening. Monitoring also reveals their inner debates and disputes.
c Second, counterterrorism organizations need to "use" the terrorist Web sites to identify and locate their propagandists, chat room discussion moderators, Internet service provider (ISP) hosts, operatives and participating members.
c Third, terrorist Web sites need to be "disrupted" through negative and positive means. In a negative "influence" campaign, sites can be infected with viruses and worms to destroy them, or kept "alive" while flooding them with false technical information about weapons systems, circulating rumors to create doubt about the reputation and credibility of terrorist leaders, or inserting conflicting messages into discussion forums to confuse operatives and their supporters. In a more positive approach, alternative narratives can be inserted into these Web sites to demonstrate the negative results of terrorism or, to potential suicide bombers, to suggest the benefits of the "value of life" versus the self-destructiveness of the "culture of death and martyrdom."
An effective "MUD" approach, however, depends on several conditions. It must be interdisciplinary, involving experts in communications and rhetoric, psychologists who understand the impact of influence campaigns on their targeted audiences' cognitive and behavioral responses, graphic designers who understand the type of graphic interface and layout that would appeal to such potential audiences, and civil liberty attorneys to ensure such influence campaigns do not infringe on constitutional rights of free speech and expression.
Finally, international cooperation is required to implement and coordinate such influence campaigns worldwide.
Above all, such a response requires new counterterrorism "armies" possessing new strategies, capabilities, tactics and cyber weapons to counteract the Jihadi Web sites.
This is a dynamic arena of continuous feedback loops in which our actions must ceaselessly anticipate and respond to the reactions of the targeted terrorist Web sites. For instance, when a Web site is brought down, it usually re-emerges in a different configuration elsewhere. Moreover, we need to prioritize the audiences to be targeted by such influence campaigns. For example, devoted activists may be considered a lost cause, while potential recruits who have not yet been activated into terrorism represent new opportunities for influence operations.
Such influence campaigns must be led by moderate political and religious leaders from Islamic communities to formulate alternative messages and narratives to the radical Islamic ideologies. Here, further differentiation is required because, for example, mainstream Islam in the Middle East will be different than its counterparts in Southeast Asia or Europe. It is crucial that whatever is being countered must be as authentically Islamic and close to the "ground" truth as possible. It is here that the root causes underlying the problems that the radical Islamists are exploiting for their own purposes must be resolved.
The Eilat workshop also proposed an institutional framework to carry out such influence campaigns. Joint governmental and independent nongovernmental organization (NGO) campaigns would be driven by coordinated official and "unofficial" international monitoring entities that would form a "Web site Interpol." Guidelines would be issued to define "Red Lines" in terrorist supporters' Web sites which, crossed, would trigger measures to cease their presence on the Internet.

Joshua Sinai is program manager, counterterrorism studies, The Analysis Corp., McLean, Va.


Defeating Internet terrorists*-*Commentary*-*The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Get rid of the terrorists, all of them!



YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Resign, Mr. Speaker - Editorials/Op-Ed - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Who's an idiot?

Child doesn't have the intellect to discuss anything Jefferson. Why do you think his name is "child"? Makes sense. Discuss this child.

Suspect in terror hunt used veil to evade arrest
By Sean O’Neill and Anthony Browne



A MALE suspect in a major anti-terrorist investigation in Britain escaped capture by allegedly disguising himself as a Muslim woman dressed in a burka, The Times can reveal.
The man, who was wanted in connection with serious terrorist offences, evaded arrest for several days as police searched for him across the country.



The fact that a fugitive remained at large after disguising himself in an Islamic dress which covered his face will further fuel the debate sparked by Jack Straw, Leader of the House of Commons, about the wearing of the veil.

Details of the man’s true identity were circulated to ports and airports to try to prevent him leaving the country.

He was eventually caught and is now one of more than 90 suspects in British prisons awaiting trial on terror charges.

The suspect’s name and the detail of the offences he is accused of cannot be revealed because of the danger of prejudicing his forthcoming trial.

It is the first time that a male suspect has allegedly disguised himself as a Muslim woman in Britain. However, the tactic has been used frequently by Islamist fighters — including suicide bombers — in Iraq and Afghanistan. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, often dressed in a burka to evade American forces hunting him.

Counter-terrorist agencies in Britain and Europe have long been concerned about the readiness of male Islamist terrorists to wear female clothing.

The issue of people hiding their faces under the burka, which covers the whole face, or behind the niqab, which exposes only the eyes, has also posed difficulties for banks, immigration authorities and benefit offices. But questions of security have tended to be overruled by the need to maintain good community relations.

Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, expressed concern that the issue could create unnecessary tension. “If this is true, then it is the first case of its kind in Britain and an isolated incident. We must not get hysterical about it. There have been many hundreds of cases where robberies have been committed by men wearing women’s stockings on their heads — but no one is talking about banning stockings.

“The important thing is that the police and the security services should feel comfortable and confident about stopping anyone who they have suspicions about, whatever they are wearing.”

Speaking on the BBC, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said: “I fear sometimes people might use it in a more prejudiced way and I am concerned it may damage relations rather than improve them.”

He added that he would not follow Mr Straw’s practice of asking Muslim women in constituency meetings to uncover their faces.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, also disagreed with Mr Straw’s stance. She said that in the past she had regarded the veil as a symbol of women’s oppression, but changed her mind after a meeting with a Muslim woman in her constituency. “She’d made the decision — not her parents or anybody else — that she wanted, as part of her statement of her faith, to wear the veil.”

However, Mr Straw was backed by Phil Woolas, the minister responsible for community cohesion, race and faith, whose Oldham constituency contains a large Muslim population. Writing in the Sunday Mirror, he said: “Most British-born Muslims who wear it do so as an assertion of their identity and religion. This can create fear and resentment among non-Muslims and lead to discrimination. Muslims then become even more determined to assert their identity, and so it becomes a vicious circle where the only beneficiaries are racists like the BNP.”

Anila Baig, a columnist on The Sun newspaper, reported that at Leeds-Bradford airport no member of security had asked her to remove her niqab to check her identity against her passport picture.

Muslim organisations have complained about receiving hate mail since Mr Straw referred to the veil as “a visible statement of separation” in his local newspaper. A spokesman for The Muslim Safety Forum said that there had been an increase in attacks against Muslims, and added: “We are concerned that Jack Straw’s comments will be picked up by certain elements of the community who want to spread Islamophobia.”

Suspect in terror hunt used veil to evade arrest - Britain - Times Online

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Great.....now the Jews want to destroy the internet by pretending its "filled with terrorists."

Is there no invention of mankind that a Jew wont pervert or destroy?

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Jews see "terrorists" everywhere.....


Is Judaism a Mental Disorder?

This is what happens when a Jew loses an argument in a chatroom.

Because, you know, all Jews totally think the same. Judaism isn't just eating potato latkes and complaining about the rabbi's last sermon, it's a HIVE MIND.

We're actually from the center of the Earth. Also, we're radioactive. Don't tell anyone though, or we will have to kill you with our secret psychic powers. We are the Jews. Resistance is futile.

(This might just be one of the most sarcastic things I have ever written. Maybe I should change my screen name to The Acidic Jew (PUN!) or something.)

Sarcastic Dylan owns....long time.