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.

[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.

[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".

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.