Shutting Down Terrorist Websites Could Hurt Intelligence, Researcher Says

Terrorist websites sprouted from 12 in 1998 to 4,850 this week, Weimann said. Early websites were “very stable” and usually “official” -- maintained by well-known groups like Hamas. Now dozens of groups, few of which that can be considered “official,” maintain multiple websites in different languages and formats, using chat rooms, online bulletin boards and multimedia melanges of radio, video and downloadable print materials, he said. Some are disguised so well they fool journalists, he said. The Internet is “Allah’s gift to terrorism,” filling the terrorist’s need for mobility, cheap distribution and anonymity: “There are no fingerprints that are left behind,” especially from the public library or Internet cafe.

Recruitment online has followed the path of marketing in general the past decade, with terrorists moving to “narrowcasting” to highly targeted audiences from general appeals to sympathetic groups, Weimann said. A Hamas site features “comic-style storytelling” and cartoons of happy Arab children on the home page -- but delve into the inside pages and you'll find a photo of a blown-up suicide bomber and celebration of her attack, he said, showing screenshots. Hezbollah and a Chechen group offer insurgent games for download, and the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades features children holding automatic weaponry. Days after a video of slain American hostage Nicholas Berg went online, a video of children acting out the beheading went up on a terrorist site, he said. Websites targeted at women feature pink backgrounds and instructions on raising children to become jihadists and supporting a jihadist husband. One cartoon featured a young girl with a slingshot.

Most terrorist groups have an online magazine that can be downloaded and printed, Weimann said. Al Qaeda’s sprawling media operation publishes an Internet newsletter twice monthly; Hezbollah runs Internet radio much like AOL; and the website of Japanese group Aum Shinrikyo, which attacked a subway with ricin, features New Age-style music that plays upon loading. One production group that al Qaeda hired for a TV program is based in Canada, he said.

Western portals are popular sources for hosting online bulletin boards and chats, Weimann said, showing a screenshot of a Yahoo Groups page full of posts and responses from terrorist-sympathizing readers. These forums appeal especially to Muslims in the West, who often feel alienated from their societies. “I bet you most of the people joining [online discussion groups] are security people,” he said, but once terrorist webmasters know their group has been infiltrated, they move it and notify participants through other forums.

One of the most interesting terrorist trends is debate online among insurgent leaders, groups and sympathizers over strategy and tactics, Weimann said. Some terrorists criticized Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in forums for beheading certain hostages, while Hamas caught flak for visiting Russian officials. But other areas that were subjects of intense debate early in terrorists’ use of the Internet are now verboten: The morality of suicide attacks, use of women and children in attacks, violence against Muslims and the use of weapons of mass destruction. All of these were shut off for debate because of fatwas issued online, Weimann said.

Terrorists’ invocation of Iraq to recruit online isn’t new: “If the Americans leave Iraq, [terrorists] will seek other platforms,” Weimann said. Osama bin Laden didn’t mention Israel in his rants before 9/11, but has used the Jews strategically since. The Pakistani group Lashkar-e- Toiba, formerly limited to disputes between India and Pakistan, now features a burning U.S. Capitol building in its online magazine, he said. A March 27 news release from a coalition of 6 terrorist groups was printed in English. This used to be rare but is increasingly common. Training would- be jihadis has also moved online, with a “practical” Al Qaeda online magazine telling readers how to make weapons, kidnap, and shoot down planes. A “jihad encyclopedia” went online in the fall, Weimann added.

Website Takedown Makes Terrorist Tracking More Difficult

But the proper response to terrorist organizing is launching “proactive sites” that “voice the alternative narrative” of peaceful protest and liberalization from within targeted societies, Weimann said. “We have to consider that we may pay high prices in civil liberties” in the wake of govt. crackdowns on terrorist websites -- and mandates to 3rd-party providers to remove such sites, or actively police for their existence. “I'm quite sure the public will support” website removal mandates, he admitted. But the U.S.-backed Radio Sawa in Iraq is “a good case of what not to do” to address violence, Weimann said: The “silent majority” of peaceful people in the Middle East need to be empowered to speak.

Further modifying some provisions in the Patriot Act could “relieve some of the tension” felt by civil liberties advocates, and even counterterrorism officials that want to study terrorist websites for useful intelligence. Private campaigns to bring down websites are fruitless: “Sometimes by hacking them we only make them reappear” in a more secure form. Weimann said Al Qaeda’s first website, after getting taken down, came back as multiple websites with more careful marketing.

Hosting platforms like Yahoo shouldn’t be forced to actively monitor their space for terrorist presence, Weimann said in response to our question: “Would we really want to follow the Chinese” practice of online censorship? “Yahoo cannot trace and monitor all those groups… They do respond [to takedown requests from govt.] but they don’t initiate,” and that’s the right position.

Asked whether he supported the extension of wiretap law to interconnected VoIP and wireline broadband providers, as required by an FCC order that hasn’t taken effect (WID Aug 8 p1), Weimann said govt. needs to “agree on red lines” for the rules’ scope: “Somebody will decide for us” otherwise, presumably law enforcement. FCC Chmn. Martin has proposed letting standards-setting groups have the first crack at designing rules for making those providers compliant (WID April 12 p7). Terrorists will always switch to new technology to communicate, so the law must keep pace with their activities, Weimann said.

Cyberterrorism -- attacks against networks themselves -- is the “threat of tomorrow… and may be the next 9/11,” but there are no documented cases of terrorists employing cyberattacks, Weimann said. That’s probably because terrorists have become too dependent on the Internet to risk impairing their own recruitment and organization, he said. A cybersecurity official at the Dept. of Homeland Security recently said the U.S. can’t cite terrorists’ heavy use of the Internet as an excuse for failing to plan for cyberterrorism (WID April 18 p1).