Terrorists Move to Cyberspace

Dreamwalkerofyore writes "The Washington Post has an article on how Al Quaeda is now using the 'net for its new HQ. From the article: 'With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.'"

Comments

Just sensationalism... move along.

[XorNand]

I'm a computer geek, not a terrorism expert but from my understanding, Al Queda is much more a brand name than it is an omnipresent, neboulous, James Bond-like organization. Bin Laden/Al-Zawahri isn't holed up in some Bat Cave, directing his mindless minons in yet another half-baked, but grand scheme at ruling the world. But painting Al Queda as such makes it easier to scare a populace who's grown up with comic book bad guys into complacency.

Al Queda is just a cause; it's a flag that militant Islamic zealots hoist in order to feel part of a worldwide movement. They're a ragtag bunch of criminals who want to spread their message as far and wide as possible. There are no definate leaders (Bin Laden is just a spokesman), nor do they have a cohesive strategy. Therefore it makes perfect sense that they use the Internet to communicate. This isn't news. It's just another way to make us feel that a Muhammad with a Kalashnikov just might be invading an ubiquitous part of most Americans' daily lives. Pair that anxiety with most people's complete lack understanding concering the Internet (ignorance begets fear) and suddenly it becomes much easier to curb our digital liberties just a bit more. Not to mention it helps to sell Washington Post newspapers.

I mean, come on... how many headlines read "Confirmed: Terrorists using telephones to communicate"?

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[rookworm]

actually, most islamic Jihadists are well-educated professionals, with money and university degrees. They have money and free time, so they can build their own islamic libraires, contemplate its meaning, etc, etc. see, for instance http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=10282

the columbine kids did not draw upon an all-encomapssing idealogy or fight for a cause; nor did they have outside support. The ONLY similarity is that they killed.

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[demachina]

"...he's merely another power-hungry despot who uses religious fanaticism to depose...."

Sounds a lot like another world leader I can think of :)

"Without the topmost leadership, Al Qaeda would be much easier to deal with"

The French said the same thing about the leadership of the Muslim insurgency in Algeria that tied them up in knots for years before they gave up and left. They created org charts of all the leaders and they made great ceremony out of crossing them off everytime they killed or captured one. They did in fact catch a lot of them but it had no effect on the insurgency. If an insurgency has popular support the ranks are always filled by new "talented leaders and planners".

Its open to debate if Al Qaeda is in fact a popular insurgency. Their fondness for and willingness to kill fellow Muslims in particular has pushed them out of the main stream of even radical Muslims. They have staged some spectacular terrorist attacks but those required a small number of fanatical followers not a real movement. They have failed miserably at one of their prime goals, toppling governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria. al-Zawihiri tried for example as a member of the ring that assassinated Sadat but they never gain popular support so their coup's always fizzle. Its an interesting and little known fact but al-Zawihiri was release by the Egyptians, after being held for years for the Sadat assassination, and was sent to Pakistan to fight the CIA backed war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan along with hundreds of other jailed militants from across the Middle East.

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[demachina]

"but that doesn't mean the proper approach is to sit around and pretend there is no problem."

Well given the choice between doing nothing and what the Bush and Blair administrations have done, I would have opted for doing nothing. It would have done less damage.

They could have done some things that would have been a lot more effective though:

A- Just installed armored cockpit doors in airliners. The 9/11 attack mode would have been completely eliminated at a tiny cost and without the staggering chaos, economic devestation, and evisceration of civil liberties you see in the TSA and airports today. Sure maybe terrorists could still have taken down an airliner but it would be very hard to use one as a weapon again with armored doors. So simple, so cheap, to simple, to cheap.

B. They should have invaded Afghanistan with a real army of U.S. troops and not fought it with Afghan warlords of dubious motives. They should have made a lot better effort to contain and whack hard the Taliban and Al Qaeda there. The world would have totally supported it and it would have sent the right message to heap serious retribution on the Taliban and Al Qaeda as vengence for 9/11.

C. They should have taken a completely different strategy on Pakistan instead of looking the other way as they harbor the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and doing very little when it became clear they were the worlds number 1 proliferater of nuclear weapons. If there is a center for Islamic extremism its in the middle of two supposed allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Since they are allies the U.S. has done next to nothing about the heart of the problem.

D. They should have completely stayed out of Iraq. Invading Iraq destroyed support for the U.S. in the world, and drained resources in to a quagmire that had nothing to do with 9/11. Saddam was a Baathist, a secular Socialist, and Muslim only when he found it convenient. Iraq was the most secular of Arab nations and Saddam routinely and ruthlessly suppressed Islamic fundamentalism, he was more ally against Islamic fundamentalism, especially in Iran, than supporter of it. Iraqs where mustaches because Saddam persecuted people for wearing beards as a way to frustrate devout Muslims.

E. They should have never started persecuting, arbitrarily arresting or torturing Mulsim prisoners in Gitmo, Iraq and elsehere. They should have never used Rendition to snatch people for torture. This whole process is just a recruiting poster for Muslim extremist. They can point and say see what they are doing to your Muslim brothers. It would have been harder but the U.S should have maintained the moral high ground here, only prosecuted the people they could make a case against, and tried them with real due process and fair trials, not kangaroo courts like Gitmo's. Sure it would have been hard but it would have prevented rampant abuse of people who have been falsely accused and would have kept due process in tact, instead of shredding it in favor of giving arbitrary powers to the executive to arrest and detain anyone he feels like, whenever he feels like and abuse them without restraint. It would have again not demolished U.S. standing in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[demachina]

Well you are quite correct. Necons and the religious right have in fact marginalized everyone who isn't buying in to their plan. You have to look no further than news organization. Fox News has bought in to neoconservatism, are a leading propagator of their myths, and they are flying high. William Kristol is one of their stars and both he and his dad are famous or infamous neoconservative superstars which is a fact beyond dispute.

I'm willing to believe that, in fact, the Strauss school may well be right. Most people can't cope with Western liberalism, moral relativism, and the complexity of the world stage. Many people need a religion and or government to tell them how to live, and need a government to simplify world affairs in to good versus evil theater. Strauss was a huge fan of Gunsmoke because it always came down to the good guys in the white hats vanquishing the bad guys in the black hats and thats how he wanted the nations leaders to frame every issue for the American public. The neocons theater seldom has any connection to reality but most people don't have the knowledge or the will to figure out the reality for themselves and they probably don't want to know the truth even if they could figure it out. For example most Americans want to believe that America is always right, God's gift to the world, and never does anything bad. They will always refuse to believe otherwise even when the evidence is overwhelming to the contrary.

So yes people like me are being marginalized and being made inconsequential day by day. I wish someone could lobotomize me, that I could be born again, and start believing everything my government and Fox News tells me. Life would be a lot easier and more pleasant.

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[general_re]

What a load.

If you understand the philosphy of their mentor, Leo Strauss, their objective is to create myths of good and evil they can use to unite disaffected Westerners behind an easily understood cause of good versus evil.

Thank you, Ms. Drury. This is, as is typical of most folks who set out to comment on Leo Strauss, indicative of someone who has either A) not read Strauss at all, and has instead substituted someone else's absurd caricature for actual reading and critical thought, or; B) has read Strauss, and yet purposefully misrepresents his writings because he makes a convenient boogeyman with which to tar people whose politics differ from your own. For those interested in the man and his actual writings, as opposed to the deep role he apparently plays in the fantasy lives of some, I commend unto you a relatively even-handed Wikipedia overview. For those who also don't follow the "Ms. Drury" crack, mash here for a somewhat less even-handed (but no less accurate) explanation.

The necons need Bin Laden, al-Zarqawi and al-Zawahri in the wild to demonize and terrify Americans to make Americans easier to control and manipulate....The neocons needed a new boogie man when the Soviet Union collapsed. Saddam filled the bill but badly and now he is in jail so is a write off.

And now we delve into the self-contradictory mess that is the typical crackpot spin on current events. We are presented with a conspiracy of sorts, one that is alternately composed of evil geniuses bent on some mad plan, yet who make stunningly bone-headed moves from time to time - depending, of course, on which is more convenient to the storyteller at the time. So how, pray tell, did Saddam wind up in jail? Did he miracle himself in there? If the plan was to use him as a demon to terrorize the sheep at home, doesn't actually capturing him sort of constitute blowing a big hole in your own foot? Why bother capturing him if he's so very valuable out there in the wild?

Team B took the same data the CIA had which said the Soviet Union wasn't that much of a threat, and was crumbling from within...

Jeezus fucking Christ. Who fed you this junk, the CIA? Back during the Reagan years, the CIA was most assuredly not saying any such thing about the Soviets - as late as 1985, the CIA was saying that per-capita income in the USSR was on a par with that of the United States. In fact, we now know that it was less than one-third that of the US at the time, but at the time, they sure didn't know it. It's actually hard to think of a less reliable source for info on the USSR during the Cold War than the CIA - they repeatedly and consistently gave out bad information regarding the threat capabilities of the Soviets, virtually uniformly over-estimating the long-term threat they posed. In hindsight, the collapse of the Soviet Union may well have been inevitable, but you sure wouldn't have gotten that impression if you'd been listening to the CIA during the early- to mid-1980's. I'm sure the staff revisionists at the CIA would like you to believe otherwise - and in the Reagan administration, but nevermind that - but it really just ain't so.

William Casey was a big subscriber of the Soviet Union leading a global terror network. People of the CIA tried to point out to him it was untrue, because in fact it was black propaganda the CIA itself had started.

Excuse me? The links between the Soviet Union and international terrorism are both extensive and well-documented - mash here and here for just a small taste, and please note that the author of those two pieces is a former head of Romanian Intelligence, so spare us "explanations" of how this is more evidence of CIA nefariousness.

This

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[demachina]

"yet purposefully misrepresents his writings"

Strauss's writings were mostly on Greek philosophers. He didn't write that much about his theories on the modern world he injected in to neoconservatism. He mostly shunned speaking engagements, interviews, etc. When he did give interviews he didn't share the heart of his doctrine. Strauss's approach to immortality was to surround himself with a cadre of trusted and gifted students, to train them in his world view and then to have his impact on the world be made through them. Stauss's students are his real writings, not his writings. Would have been pretty stupid and counterproductive to give TV interviews describing his plans for training national leaders to manipulate the American public and to take away their excessive freedom. Duh.

"So how, pray tell, did Saddam wind up in jail?"

Dude that is so easy....

At the point Saddam was taken down Al Qaeda had displaced Saddam as the long term, persisten, evil. The problem with Al Qaeda is they are extremely hard to whack. The neocons needed an enemy they could vanquish with a blitzkrieg with their conventional military. They need a stunning victory with smart bombs, tanks racing through the desert, and "Shock and Awe" so Americans could feel good about their awesome power and like they had won a victory against the perpetrators of 9/11, that something was being done. It also was conveniently timed to help insure reelection. Iraq was a convenient conventional target.

Rousting some Al Qaeda operative out of bed in Pakistan and putting him in a dungeon now and then isn't very good theater.

Al Qaeda is going to be the long term shadow evil and danger that never goes away. Iraq, Iran and Syria are going to be the places that get whacked with conventional forces at regular intervals to make good theatre and so the necons can declare victories.

"And yet here you are, posting away on their evil and secret plans, and they haven't even kicked down your door yet, have they? How do you do it?"

Dude its early yet. If you saw Blair's speech last week he is starting the first concerted wave of outlawing websites and bookstores carrying a message the government decides it disapproves of. It will be a crime to frequent or maybe to have frequented these websites and stores.

If I lived in the U.K. some of the stuff I post here seeking to provide understanding for why Palestinians and Muslims might rationalize what they do, may well soon be illegal in the U.K. and grounds for deportation or arrest, assuming Blair rams through the laws he proposed this week.

If the U.K establishes this next step in repression then the U.S. can follow suit and leap frog it and justify it by saying see, the U.K. is already doing it so its OK if we do too.

"Learn a little history, and do a little reading on your own"

Actually I did a while ago after first seeing the BBC documentary. I was totally unaware of Team B because its never been widely advertised. I remember at the time seeing DoD security training films on this massive Soviet arms build up and imminent threat and wondering where all this propaganda was coming from. In part it was Team B, which I didn't know at the time. When you see the parallels between Team B and the Office of Special Plans, suddenly what happened in Iraq makes a whole lot more sense than it did if you don't know the historical context. Before I knew about Team B I used to rant about how crazy all the WMD and Al Qaida ties to Iraq were, and wonder how those people could be that stupid or deceitful. When you see it as long running policy to fabricate, demonize and exaggerate enemies it makes a whole lot more sense.

It also makes a lot a of sense out of the Reagan through Bush "evil empire" and "axis of evil" rhetoric.

This brand of propaganda isn't new or anything, most war time and oppressive governments indulge in it, its just enlightening to see it happening in a supposedly "Free and Democratic" country that doesn't "do such things".

Re:Just sensationalism... move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least bin Laden has proven that he's wily enough to escape the biggest manhunt in the last couple hundred years

This only proves two things. Either the American force is good for nothing or that Osama is hiding in the White House.

Arabic Translators

[HUADPE]

This is all the more reason the US govt and the CIA need to invest heavily in recruiting and training Arabic translators.

Re:Arabic Translators

[artifex2004]

This is all the more reason the US govt and the CIA need to invest heavily in recruiting and training Arabic translators.

Maybe they could start by hiring back the many competent translators they used to have but dumped because they were gay or lesbian?

Naaaah, that'll never happen.

Re:Arabic Translators

[fdawg]

Or.....

...find the cause of their anger. This is a question I rarely see on the news amidst the rampant "reporting" about the War On Terror. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I digress. I've noticed security and law enforcement have a strange dynamic; they are completely inverse. If one was to have perfect security, there would be no need for law enforcement.

By picking a chosing who gets what freedoms, in this case the security and "anonymity" provided by the internet, a large (innocent) part of the populus gets the shaft. Lack of freedom in "the land of the free" is becoming nausiating.

Diplomacy will solve this problem, not invasion of privacy. The further we deviate from that ideal, the more WE become the terrorists.

Oh great. Wonderful.

[Rupan]

I love how the Bush administration keeps the Terrorist "threat" at the forefront of the American peoples' lives. It really makes me wonder if we are not moving closer to an Orwellian future. "War Is Peace" is beginning to sound more and more like Bush's rhetoric every day.

Nice excuse...

[Anonymous Coward]

to get even more control over the internet.

Re:Oh great. Wonderful.

[lightspawn]

You don't have to respect the man, but George Bush is America's leader during this war. He was elected twice to the position because America trusts his judgement, who are you to second guess a majority of Americans?

Bush was elected once.

And not by the majority of Americans.

Perfect article to prime the electorate...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for new draconian legislation to pass in congress next week.

What will it be this time?

Copyright infringement sentences which are longer than sentences for rape?

Mandatory monitoring and archiving of all Internet communications?

Blanket ban on the use of any encryption or a mandate to escrow all the encryption keys?

A new criminal offense of "visiting subversive websites" which automagically renders the user an "enemy combatent"?

I can just hear them now

"The terrorists are using this newfangled Internet thingy to destroy our American freedoms - quickly, to the legislature!!!"

Humor aside, where is the news here? Terrorists use the Internet...come on!

In Soviet Russia, Internet uses YOU!

This is news?

[demon_2k]

I might as well have read a post titled "Terrorists use the phone to communicate". You and I might call them terrorists but, they are still people. And people generally tend to use any piece of technology around them (assuming they are aware pf the technology and they are skilled enought to use it) to achieve their goal. They should not be underestimated and thought of as primitive because even they will adapt and develop new means and methods if need be.

Re:Oh great. Wonderful.

[rscrawford]

BWAH HA HA HAAA!!!

That was great. Someone mod parent "Funny", right now!

Seriously, though. Isn't it a bit of a stretch to claim that "a majority of Americans" voted for Bush when he won with, what, 51% of the vote? Maybe 52%? And now that his approval ratings are sub-Clinton, that statement is even more disingenuous than ever.

Claiming that he has been "forthright and honest" is even more of a stretch. How many justifications have we heard for the Iraq invasion? How many of them have panned out to be even slightly true? It's pretty common knowledge at this point that we haven't found a single WMD since invading Iraq. It could be that we were spreading democracy, but there's good reason at this point to believe that this "democracy" won't be extended to women.

How American is that?

Re:Yes we must take immediate action

[garcia]

Yes we must take immediate action and shut down the internet......

This isn't funny and I'm disturbed that a moderator wasted one of his points making this seem less sinister than it may turn out to be.

The Government is just looking for excuses to present to the American public to push for even tighter controls that will benefit "the war on terror" and Big Business.

Terrorists support BitTorrent and encryption. We have to eliminate this to keep you and your children safe.

Re:Oh great. Wonderful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, though. Isn't it a bit of a stretch to claim that "a majority of Americans" voted for Bush when he won with, what, 51% of the vote? Maybe 52%? And now that his approval ratings are sub-Clinton, that statement is even more disingenuous than ever.

Why is it a stretch to deem 51% as majority? Would it make any difference if his approval ratings were higher than Clinton? Would that somehow imply that his majority was any more valid?

And Who Invented the Internet?

[carterhawk001]

So your telling me that the terrorists who want to destroy us and everything we have accomplished are using the most globalized tool to ever come out of our research labs? Have they even stoppped to think about the fact that they owe this ease of communication to American ingenuity? They are all just a bunch of hippocrates, mean ignorant zealous hippocrates.

"threat"

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how you put scare quotes around that like somehow terrorists really don't exist except in Bush's and their supporters' minds.

I guess 9/11 wasn't a "threat", or when Osama and his buddies put out videos with their jihad against America, that isn't a "threat" either.

You people who follow Michael Moore who also says there's no threat can keep your heads in the sand, but just because you close your eyes doesn't mean the threat isn't still out there.

So...

[mar1no]

Where are these websites then? It'd be nice if they had something to show us.

Social Security Security

[fsterman]

All the more reason all American's should have to use their SSN's, fingerprints, and cornea to sign into any internet café. Why Bush hasn't payed MS to change every internet sign in to the centralized .NET Jesus only knows.
(chill, jk)

Not the first time for communication methods

[Eevee]

Thirty seconds on Google shows the media has reported on how Al Queda communicates before. (Feel free to be picky about 'headlines' if you want.)

http://www.cellular.co.za/news_2002/091602-us_cust oms_agents_intercept_cell.htm

In a major breakthrough, U.S. Customs agents intercepted a cache of 250 cell phones that were to be shipped to the al Qaeda network, said John Babb, U.S. Customs director.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/31/london. tube/

Osman was arrested in Rome on Friday after investigators traced his travels by monitoring cell phone activity from England to France to Italy.

http://strategypage.com/dls/articles/20030303.asp

But Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did not heed these warnings. He regularly used cell phones and email, and this apparently led to his capture.

Re:Oh great. Wonderful.

[StikyPad]

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
-Winston Churchill

(It's worth noting that he also said "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.")

End of the Internet as we know it

[PineHall]

This abuse of the Internet to sow hatred and terrorism will mean that governments will monitor the Internet much more closely, and will close down any web sites and stop any activities that are potentially dangerous. The Wild West Period of the Internet is definitely ending. There will be things you can and can not do. Like it or not the rule of law will be enforced with increasing strictness. (It is just like us humans to abuse a good thing.)

That is it exactly

[usurper_ii]

I once saved an article, I think from the NY Times, about gangs moving onto the Internet. They could not, however, gather any useful information from these "barely computer literate" gang members because they used CODE WORDS in place of what they really meant. Now imagine, no heavy encryption, no PGP, just plain text from teenage punks...and they couldn't get anything useful because they used CODE words.

Intercepting terrorists messages isn't their goal. If they can't stop LA gangbangers from using the Net to communicate, they sure can't stop hard core terrorists, who are surely smart enough to use more than just code words.

What they really want to keep tabs on is the 99.9% of the Net who aren't terrorists and aren't using encryption and simple code words.

Man, I wished I could find that article!

Usurper_ii

Strangely enough...

[DaedalusHKX]

What nobody (or at least, too few) in this country are doing is "thinking".

In a nation that is so self proclaiming of its freedom as ours is, nobody is EXERCISING that freedom to THINK. Nobody wonders why those people are willing to DIE HORRIBLY to kill a few of us. When you are cornered, and an omnipresent foe threatens to destroy your lifestyle and enslave you to a set of norms completely against everything you believe, do you not think you would take up a rifle or machete and fight "the man" ??

We don't ask "WHY?" we just react. And thus our country is less like an elite martial arts master, analyzing the situation and acting properly, we are more like the dumb gangbanger shooting up the sidewalk full of innocents to kill some other kid that might belong to another gang.

Our leaders know what they are doing. They allowed it to happen, knowing that most of us americans are among the most ignorant people alive... unquestioning in their mob, serf-like mentality. Coupled with nazi germany style rhetoric and we have a mob ready to murder anyone the leaders point to. Wham... war in a can, just add, uhhh... oil.

Look at our people... they are "defending freedom", how?? The very people sending them to die are the ones outsourcing their jobs to the countries we "free". But does anyone stop to question? What happens when china and japan STOP buying our horrendous national debt??

Bush is to the USA what Gorbachev was to USSR. Only our fall will be much nastier, because we will got from being HAVES to being have nots. Not from have nots to haves as the russians did. We keep "buying" cheap goods made in China, we keep listening to those Indian IT support people. We buy the cheapest. But like buying RAM and a motherboard go, buying cheap only pays off in the short run, farther down the road you end up paying for being cheap. (Compare a PC Chips vs a good solid board (tyan and serverworks come to mind).

We can prevent all this. We leave the arabs to reconquer their lands, and we're likely never going to hear from them again. Especially after we put alternative fuels and energy sources to work. We will be cutting their funding AND their anger by containing them instead of trying to convert them to christianity. As I recall it, Jerusalem managed to be a peaceful place when it was under Muslim rule, it was bloodiest while under Christian rule, and so it is with the rest of the Middle East.

How Ironic

[GrahamCox]

If the kind of world they wished to see actually existed, computers, DVDs and the internet etc just couldn't exist. Think 11th century.

Re:How Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The grievances of al-Qaida are against Western lifestyle and governments, particularly their influence and interference in Middle Eastern affairs. Technology never enters into it.

Re:How Ironic

[Triskele]

If the kind of world they wished to see actually existed, computers, DVDs and the internet etc just couldn't exist. Think 11th century.

I wonder if you appreciate the irony in that statement. In the 11th Century while Christendom was beset by single-minded fundamentalism that burnt any book that wasn't the Bible, Islam was a rich and enlightened world of scholarship. From that era we get the names of most of the visible stars, the basics of modern mathematics (including zero), algorithms (an arabic word derived from their creator...), an understanding of optics that revolutionised the classical greek understanding that the Holy Roman Empire would cling to for a few more hundred years.

Please don't fall into the trap of equating Islam and these fundie terrorists who are reviled by as many muslims as christians. Or perhaps you also believe that the fundie christians who now rule America will turn the clock back to the Inquisition and reject any belief not sanctioned in the great book (heliocentricity, evolution, etc).

Radical Islam and Deterrence

[Infonaut]

Can we stop calling these people zealots or extremists, that gives the impression that its only one or two believers of this "religion" that want to destroy America's and Western Europe's way of life. Get real, there are Muslims and there are reformed Muslims. The former, who are the majority, are a threat to any non believer.

Islam is a religion with millions of adherents who have never bombed anyone, killed anyone, threatened anyone, or attempted to take over the world and destroy Christianity in the process.

Islam is definitely engaged in an internal struggle right now, but those who condemn violence are starting to do so more forcefully, and the notion that the majority of Muslims want to do in America and Europe is to the best of my knowledge unsubstantiated.

The Christian Identity Movement espoused by the Aryan Nation purports to be a true interpretation of Christ's teachings. Because they call themselves Christians doesn't mean that they speak for the millions of other Christians, does it?

Sure the leaders are the same folks who run Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, etc... The Strategy is to take over the world, pretty simple to me.

Bin Laden hates the Saudi royal family and would love nothing better than to have it destroyed. That hardly puts them on the same side. The fact that Iran is a Shiite nation and most of the rest of the Middle East (save Iraq) is dominated by Sunnis is also a very important factor. Just as Catholics and Protestants clashed in Europe for generations, so it is with the Muslim Arabs. That doesn't mean they can't and haven't been cooperating, but they certainly don't all share the same vision of what is right for Islam, much less the entire world.

Remember that the world communist movement had a very clear ideological platform and a very clear plan. They even had two giant countries, the USSR and China, in their camp. But nope, the whole "take over the world" goal was just too difficult to obtain. Communism imploded specifically because the West successfully pursued a strategy of containment, which forced communism to slowly collapse under its own contradictions.

Because of course they haven't invaded other parts of our lives like air travel and public transportation?

They have attacked us and inflicted damage, absolutely. But the effectiveness of terrorists can be minimized, and they can be isolated and slowly choked off. Deterrence and patient police work are the key to this, as the British know.

Re:Radical Islam and Deterrence

[myowntrueself]

"Did you ever find that there were things the Muslim kids said or did that offended you?"

Actually, apart from when they saw their religion as being offended, they were always polite and considerate. *Very* polite.

But Muslims, on the whole, seem to take their religion a LOT more seriously than *any* Christian I ever met. Outside of Jehovas Witnesses or 7th day adventists or Plymouth Brethren. But thats how extremely a Christian would have to view their faith to take it as seriously as the moderate, westernised Muslims I've known.

Not saying 'all Muslims are extremists', just pointing out the issue of 'taking it seriously'.

In the context of the Western world, laughing at matters of religion is totally normal. In the Muslim world it seems, today, to be absolutely forbidden.

Sad really. Google for "Mulla Nasrudin".

One of my favorites is when the Mulla advises a man on his deathbed to "say 'God help me. Devil help me.' You can never be too sure!"

Re:So why haven't US based hackers attacked al-qae

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the distributed and international nature of the Internet, it just isnt possible for governments to take action against the publicly accessible al-qaeda sites. My question is this: why haven't US and UK based hackers taken action against these sites? It certainly seems like a slightly more productive use of time and energy than writing viruses.

Having worked for company X where we actually HOSTED a number of Al-Quaida websites, I would have to say that this is hard. How is it hard? The websites were written in Farsi and Arabic (Mostly Arabic IIRC). None of used, spoke, or read these languages. It was not until we were alerted to the presence of pro Al-Quaida pages on our network that we took them down.

In that time we suffered many attacks - both DDOS and the standard stuff for large networks, but the attack traffic was largely directed at the english websites. The problem is that the skript kiddi3z cant read Farsi or Arabic. (Or perhaps READ period, but that is a whole other discussion...)

Re:Quick!

[Khuffie]

Actually, it means you may be harbouring terrorists! That meanst the government MUST install monitoring equipment in your home, you know, TO STOP THE TERRORISTS!

Why can't you take this article seriously?

[Bryansix]

It seems that the majority of people on /. cannot take this article seriously and think it is part of some FUD campaign. I do not think it is at all on the otherhand and I think there are a disproportional amount of comments on this article which are immature.

The article simply seeks to disseminate information which is interesting. It contains many facts including the URLS of former websites run by Al Quaeda. It even speaks about organizations who devote all of thier time to tracking the websites of Jihadists.

Since the Washington Post is the most liberal major newspaper in the US right now I doubt they will be doing this administration any favors. I do not think that they intended to spread fear or even to imply that tighter controls on the Internet were needed. Actually I think talking about the real tacticts of Jihadists will be the best argument AGAINST tighter controls. That is because whatever restraints we make on our networks here domestically will not affect the rest of the internet and besides there are ways around even the best policies. The Internet is a network that was designed for the easy transfer of information and that is how it is being used.

I think some of the information in the article is useful in the posturing of agencies looking to track down terrorists. If people neglect to think about this channel for imformation dissemination then many things will be missed. In addition the article pointed out that Businesses who do not take thier security seriously have thier websites hacked and used by Al Quaeda operatives. I think this is the best motivation ever for companies to finally get off thier lazy behinds and lock down open servers. Getting you corporate site hacked and turned into a commercial for Jihad is not good for PR.

In conclustion I think the article was good. It was not all new information but the article pulled a lot of info that was scattered and put it in one place. I think that is also deserved to be posted on /. in my opinion.

Why no Indian Muslim is in Al-Qaeda

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1447371,001 301780001.htm

"Why are there no Indian Muslims in Al-Qaeda? There are no easy answers. But there are two probable reasons. One is the assurance of a level-playing field for all citizens in India because of the success of the democratic system. The other is the absence of American influence on Indian policy all through the Cold War years and, to a large extent, even now.

To start with the second, it has been observed that a majority of the terrorists come from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and some of the North African countries. What is common about these countries is the lack of a genuine democracy, despite the adherence to form, and longstanding virtual patron-client links with the US. What is more, these two factors are interconnected.

A basic reason why the military or feudal autocrats control these countries is that the US propped them up to serve its economic and diplomatic interests. It was either the presence of oil or their utility as frontline states against the Soviet Union that guided the Americans.

As is known, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire, was an American ally when his band of fundamentalists fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. It is the cynical use of these countries by Washington that built up a reservoir of resentment among large sections of their people against the US.

This anger may have become all the more intense because there were no democratic outlets -- no Parliament, Opposition parties, a free press and a free judiciary -- to let off steam.

The difference between India and these countries is obvious. India's 'noisy democracy', as an American newspaper recently put it, ensures that all segments of public opinion -- anti-US, pro-US, neutral -- are routinely aired.

Besides, during the Cold War, India was regarded by the US and the West as being in the anti-American camp despite its claims to be non-aligned. This perception gave India a certain dignified status in the eyes of its own people since the Western world was still seen as being engaged in a colonial enterprise.

The pro-American countries seemingly lacked this sense of self-esteem, as was evident from the title of one of America's favourite dictator Ayub Khan's book, "Friends, Not Masters". The Pakistan president's grouse was that the US tended to behave like a viceroy. The result was that while the governments of these countries were pro-American, most of their people were not.

But even more than India's neutrality in foreign affairs (which was resented by the US as the revelations of the recent Nixon-Kissinger transcripts show), what has saved the Indian Muslims from falling into Al-Qaeda's trap is its vibrant, multicultural democracy. Its value is now understood by the world even more than before because of the terrorist threat.

During the 60th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II in Moscow, President George W Bush introduced his wife Laura to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the words that he was the leader of the "most fascinating democracy in the world" and pointed out that Al-Qaeda hadn't been able to recruit a single Indian Muslim.

A recent Washington Post editorial noted that India's "large and tolerant" Muslim population "may serve as an ally against Islamic militancy". The old habit of looking for a docile 'ally' is again evident. However, the point that can be made is that the tolerance and upward mobility of Indian Muslims can serve as an example to the rest of the world. And the example underlines how a successful democracy can draw the poison from terrorist propaganda.

One of the reasons why the Al-Qaeda has gained ground among impressionable youth in the West Asia and elsewhere is that it portrays Muslims as an oppressed community. But this is far from being the truth in India, where the Muslims have done exceptionally well in several fields.

For instance, Bolly

Re:New game plan for the war against liberty

[KanSer]

Please define doing something wrong. Exercizing my 4th amendment rights in the face of tyrranical government?

Are there guidelines published somewhere that say when I should start acting against a government when it has become too insane? I'd like to know, other wise I'm forced to make it up.

Besides, I only said Big Bro would disappear the website. The operators probably just get a heavy-handed dose of "doing-your-country-a-service-by-shutting-up", with an appetizer of "fed-waving-a-gun-in-your-face".

I might need a tin-foil hat, but I could also use a government that lets me sleep soundly at night.

Re:Dear WaPo, your fearmongering is pathetic

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Whether you voted for the guy or not, he's our commander in chief for another 4 years so there is no alternative but to stand by him...

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If the guy's no good at his job, you tell him that. If he doesn't listen, you say it louder. He's not an algorithm, he's a guy, and if enough people are pissed at him, he might change. That said, if the people who are pissed at him are also mostly jerks, which is the current case, it'll have the opposite effect.

I'd rather have a president that is overreacting than one who is doing nothing so as to avoid labels like fascist.

Which sounds not that bad in the general case, but when you're dealing with a threat that kills about the same number of people as falling coconuts, it's just plain crazy.

Communications

[fishbowl]

So the powers that be, now that they realize they allowed it to happen, are beginning to regret the easy access to the kind of secure communication channels that every military commander and every espionage agent in history has ever dreamed of.

For all the widespread belief that the NSA has a backdoor into every known crypto algorithm, the truth is, secure commo exists and both your friends and your enemies have it. You may have the ability to take it away from your friends, but your enemies will still have it.

Re:Dear WaPo, your fearmongering is pathetic

[Jeremi]

Whether you voted for the guy or not, he's our commander in chief for another 4 years so there is no alternative but to stand by him and wait until the next election to vote democrat. That's how our country works. If you don't like it, blame The Constitution

Actually, the Constitution says exactly the opposite: the first amendment guarantees our right to criticize the government. Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Whether you like the patriot act or not, the president has a duty to do something and I'd rather have a president that is overreacting than one who is doing nothing so as to avoid labels like fascist

Actually, no -- the president's duty is not to "do something", but to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." If you think fascism can't happen here, you may be right -- but only if the American people are willing to defend the Constitution even when it isn't convenient to do so. If people don't take their freedoms seriously, they will likely lose them.

What terrorist ?

[jonfr]

The U.K did go trugh more then 20 years of IRA bombings and other mess. So have many other countryes. This terrorist noncence is getting tierd, this looks like propaganda and nothing else. The goverment screams "terrorist, terrorst, the terrorist are after you and they want to kill you (insert reasion of chose)...." and so on. What has happen in past 4 year since this nonsence did start regarding that terrorist are propagading more then dangerus cancer, nothing. Execpt that goverment are becoming more powerhungry and want to cut pepole rights to protect them from the "terrorist threat". It's nonsence i say, lead by the U.S and has been leading.

The newest fud, "the terrorist are on the internet (insert evil deed here)...".

This nonsence has to stop.

Re:Terrorists Move to Cyberspace

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

None of you buty this propaganda do you? This is so they can justfy "policing" and shutting down much of the Internet - especially th eso-called Blogosphere. There is a real probelem with uncontrolled messages from the point-of-view of those who spent trillions managing mainstream media and political opinion for the past 80 years.

Child porn scares weren't enough. Now you will find use of evasive technologies soon to be classified as criminal offences. TOR? Even SSH, when they want an example, or to close down another "free-thinker".

It's over. You traded your souls to these people, for a shot at buying a Lexus.

All they can do is make lame jokes.

[Futurepower(R)]

It's shocking. Most of the people who comment here are facing a serious threat to their liberty, and all they can do is make lame jokes.

--
If you support dishonesty and violence, don't say you are Christian.

MOD Partent UP

[FullCircle]

Look, I'm a Southern white boy and even I understand this. Stories like this one are FUD and more propaganda for the current regime.

They have spooked us into giving up freedom after freedom and are constantly trying to turn us against one another.

Honestly, I don't see what the journalists get out of it. Wouldn't standing up for the citizens gain more attention than falling into the party line?

Overplaying the benign while ignoring the threat

[interstellar_donkey]

Going over the article, it seems to focus a lot on the mostly benign while overlooking the real danger.

It's not these scary terrorist webpages. Heck, I could start my own webpage tomorrow called "People's Jihad of America", or some such rubbish, then provide a link under "training" entitled "How to detonate a nuclear bomb"

The body could be something like: First you find a nuclear bomb. Bring the bomb into America. This is the tricky part because you might get caught, so we suggest trying to smuggle it in as discreetly as possible. Once you've got it in the United States, take it a city like New York or Los Angeles. You should do this because those are dense cities and the denser the city, the more people the bomb will kill. Finally, take the bomb to the center of the city because that's where most of the people live, and detonate it".

The next day, there would be news reports that "An American website affiliated with terrorist organizations published a training manual for a nuclear attack against the United States. Singling out either New York or Los Angeles for attack, the manual provides tips on how to smuggle a bomb into the country, and even instructs on the proper placement of the nuclear device to have maximum effectiveness.

Well . . . um . . . duh.

The real scary part is communication, not webpages. Anonymous emails and chat rooms abound where parent terrorist cells can disseminate orders and information to subordinate cells. Simply handwriting a note and scanning it, emailing the message as a jpg can defeat pretty much all of our best detection methods. This--which is the real threat--is all but ignored in the media.

But some yahoo puts up a website after thumbing through the Anarchist's Cookbook, and we're supposed to be scared of that.

Re:There is so much more to cyber terrorism...

[SumDog]

Thanks to adding to the fear with your ignorance.

As far as I know, emergency personal use plain old radio to communicate with ocasional use of cell phones. They don't e-mail each other.

The phone infrastructure in place around the world is something even many 3rd world countries are familiar with and its analogue nature makes it difficult to "hack into" even with the more modern digital variants.

Sure terroist could kill Internet communication, but we did that ourselves after 9/11 when cnn.com, msnbc.com and every major news network went down from server load.

Anyone with enough technical knowledge could build a jammer to kill radio communication for police. You could blow up a switching station and kill phone communication for entire blocks.

Sure people can communicate anonymously in Internet cafes, but when we start getting paranoid, we start violating civil rights. Anonymous communication is a good thing in many cases. If an employe finds out his companies product had a dangerous flaw, he can get the message out without risking his identity and job.

We've know terroist use electronic communication for a long time. It just means the US intellegence needs to work overtime to get the right information while not violating anyone's civil rights.

Re:There is so much more to cyber terrorism...

[KurtisKiesel]

Personal attacks against a person could happen at any time. A dignitary is more likely to die at the hands of a gunman or a suicide bomber. And fits the suicide profile or fanatic profile of our coward Al-Quida freak. Cyber terrorism seems to be the quordination of these insurgents, actual attacks on our 'cyber' infrustructure will probably always be lead by those who test the envilope, us. As for the altering of medical information... imagine the lawsuit that would come from a mixed blood type? I Think most hospitals already have that info secure, and if not HIPPA is going into effect and protecting that information is suppose to be the law of the land now for those agencies. I think WP definition of Cyber Terrorism is a little more exact. They seem to be saying that it is.. The coordination and communication of multiple cells of a terrorist network over electronic media.

Re:TummyX gets owned

[bani]

From TFA:

After their discharges, Gamble and Hicks applied for other federal jobs where they could use their language skills in the war on terrorism, but neither was hired, Gamble said.

I guess the government feels the "war on homos" is more important than the "war on terror".

The us government is decrying a shortage of translators, and yet they're busy firing homosexual translators. Makes perfect sense to me.

How to analyze violence.

[Futurepower(R)]

I always like a good joke. But your joke wasn't very funny, and I feel uncomfortable with so many jokes about something that should be taken seriously. It seems to me that there is too much joking about this subject and not enough seriousness.

If you want the violence and the degradation of the U.S. lifestyle to stop, study the situation carefully. Below is background information you need to know to understand the Washington Post article referenced in the Slashdot story. You could gather this information yourself, but people who joke easily about this kind of thing generally don't take the time:

The SITE Institute supplied information for the Washington Post article. SITE stands for "Search for International Terrorist Entities". SITE Institute provides examples of terrorist web sites. One of them, PalestinianInfo.net, published this photograph: Photo of the day. The caption says, "Palestinian children walk on the rubble of a Palestinian house that was demolished by Israeli occupation authorities, in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of A-tur July 5, 2005. According to the Israeli authorities, the house was demolished due to a lack of permits." It seems that the issue might not be completely one-sided.

The Arab "terrorists" believe they are fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. The U.S. government believes it is fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. I'm not saying those groups have anything else in common, just that they share two beliefs in common.

If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same. The U.S. government began killing Arabs and Muslims and corrupting their governments long before most Arabs and Muslims thought about the United States. None of the violence was secret. It was in the newspapers and in magazines and on TV, but not in enough detail that U.S. citizens could understand the implications. I remember reading that the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted his country to share more of the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government put a weak man in power, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. For more information, see the short article, To understand the present conflict, consider the past.

As of 2005-08-08, 04:24 AM PDT, the SITE Institute says these are other terrorist web sites: http://www.kataebaqsa1.com/, http://www.moqawama.net/, and http://www.qudsway.com/. The only way you can know directly what they say in Arabic is to read Arabic. Be careful about accepting what someone else says they say. You need to be able to trust that the translator is not politically involved.

The Washington Post article says, "Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence." This sentence worries me. It seems to justify U.S. government interference with free speech. It's not clear that preventing open speech for those who disagree with the policies of the U.S. government is a sensible idea. It seems likely that knowing what they are saying is important; we don't want