The Internet at War

Taking a page from Ender's playbook, with permission...


Warning: Long, but informative.

Internet Jihad

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[blockquote][b]Internet jihad

A world wide web of terror
Jul 12th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Al-Qaeda's most famous web propagandist is jailed, but the internet remains its best friend[/b]


BY HIS own admission, he never fired a single bullet or ?stood for a second in a trench? in the great jihad against America. Yet the man who called himself ?Irhabi007??a play on the Arabic word for terrorist and the code-name for James Bond?was far more important than any foot soldier or suicide-bomber in Iraq. He led the charge of jihad on the internet.

In doing so, Irhabi007 was a central figure in enabling al-Qaeda to reconstitute itself after the fall of the Taliban and its eviction from Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda (?the base?) and its followers moved to cyberspace, the ultimate ungoverned territory, where jihadists have set up virtual schools for ideological and military training and active propaganda arms.

Irhabi007 pioneered many of the techniques required to make all this happen. He was a tireless ?webmaster? for several extremist websites, especially those issuing the statements of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Intelligence agencies watched powerlessly as Irhabi007 hacked into computers, for instance appropriating that of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department to distribute large video files, and taught his fellow cyber-jihadists how to protect their anonymity online.

Despite his celebrity, this was not good enough for Irhabi007. ?Dude,? he complained to a fellow cyber-jihadist (who called himself ?Abuthaabit?) during one encrypted web chat, ?my heart is in Iraq.?

[blockquote][b]Abuthaabit:[/b] How are you going to have enough to go there?

[b]Irhabi007:[/b] I suppose someone gotta be here!

[b]Abuthaabit:[/b] This media work, I am telling you, is very important. Very, very, very, very.

[b]Irhabi007:[/b] I know, I know.[/blockquote]

Abuthaabit: Because a lot of the funds brothers are getting is because they are seeing stuff like this coming out. Imagine how many people have gone [to Iraq] after seeing the situation because of the videos. Imagine how many of them could have been shaheed [martyrs] as well.
Irhabi007's desire for real action may have led to his downfall. He was not only involved in a dispersed network of jihadi propaganda, but also, it seems, in a decentralised web of terrorist plots. In October 2005 police in Bosnia arrested a cyber-jihadist who called himself ?Maximus?, a Swedish teenager of Bosnian extraction called Mirsad Bektasevic. He and three others were later sentenced to jail terms of up to 15 years for plotting attacks that were to take place either in Bosnia or in other European countries.

Among the material recovered from Mr Bektasevic's flat, police found 19kg of explosives, weapons, a video with instructions for making a suicide vest and a video recording of masked men proclaiming their membership of ?al-Qaeda in northern Europe?. On his computer they found evidence of contacts with other jihadists across Europe. Among them was Irhabi007.

Two days later, British police raided a flat in a terraced house in west London next to one of the rougher pubs in Shepherd's Bush. After an altercation, they arrested Younis Tsouli (pictured above). The elusive Irhabi007 turned out to be the 22-year-old son of a Moroccan tourism board official and a student of information technology. Two other men, also students, were arrested at the same time, although Mr Tsouli had never met them except on the internet.

The trial of Mr Tsouli and his co-defendants?Waseem Mughal, a British-born graduate in biochemistry (aka Abuthaabit), and Tariq al-Daour, a law student born in the United Arab Emirates?came to an end this month when they belatedly pleaded guilty to charges of incitement to murder and conspiracy to murder. The court

 

Maybe massive decentralisation?

Instead of giving them a handful of highly valued political and financial targets, give them tens of thousands.

Diffuse the value of existing ones