[IP] Internet Virtual Classroom for Al Qaeda Supporter
Begin forwarded message:
From: "John F. McMullen" <observer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 25, 2004 11:58:59 AM EDT
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Dave Farber <farber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Open Source Intelligence
Network <osint@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Internet Virtual Classroom for Al Qaeda Supporter
From Reuters (almost 2 weeks ago; I came across it while looking for
something else) --
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5957906
Internet Virtual Classroom for Al Qaeda Supporter
By Jon Boyle
PARIS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has turned the Internet into a virtual
classroom for its supporters around the world after U.S. troops drove
Osama bin Laden's followers from training bases in Afghanistan,
security experts say.
The Internet played a key role in al Qaeda's planning and coordinating
for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. landmarks. In the years since,
the Web has taken on an even greater role in recruiting, spreading fear
and propaganda, and executing attacks, according to the security
experts.
"The Internet is even more dangerous than it was in the past," said
Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, in a telephone interview
from Washington.
"Whatever you had in Afghanistan in the training camps, you have today
on the Internet," said Katz, whose nonprofit organization tracks
militant Islamic sites and counts the U.S. government and major U.S.
corporations among its clients.
"Some of the manuals (posted on the Web) are the actual manuals from
Afghanistan ... some written by Saif al-Adel, one of the most wanted
military commanders of (Al Qaeda) who has not been captured. He's on
the FBI most-wanted list," she said.
A recent posting detailed how to use a mobile phone in a bomb attack, a
method used to kill 191 people in March in coordinated blasts on Madrid
commuter trains.
"It was step-by-step, and to make sure you get the picture they had a
video to demonstrate it. It's scary," Katz said.
A month before a wave of kidnappings in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, she
said, manuals appeared on Jihad Web sites with precise instructions on
how to seize hostages.
One was posted by Abu Hajer, who later kidnapped U.S. engineer Paul
Johnson and assassinated him, she said.
"I was asking myself, 'Why are we getting so many warnings?' Maybe the
answer is that this way they communicate with other members, saying
look, this is our agenda."
Jonathan Schanzer, research fellow at the Washington Institute, said:
"After 9/11, I don't think Al Qaeda can be seen as much as an
organization as a movement, and that sharing of information among this
movement is incredibly critical.
"It's increasingly crucial, not so much for recruitment but in terms of
communications, sending encrypted messages, coded messages, maintaining
data bases, etc."
CYBER THREAT
Gabriel Weimann, senior fellow with the Washington-based U.S. Institute
of Peace, said the Internet threat had been widely misunderstood due to
a misplaced focus on the "exaggerated threat of cyber attacks."
It is the use of the Internet for more routine purposes -- not attacks
on the network itself -- that is worrying.
In a 6-year-old study of militants' use of the Internet, Weimann's
group details routine ways militants use the Web, including
psychological warfare, propaganda, fund-raising, recruitment, data
mining and coordinating attacks.
The Internet's role was highlighted this month with news of the secret
arrest in July of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, a computer expert used by
Pakistan to track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and America.
Security agencies are developing other ways to pierce Al Qaeda's veil
of secrecy, including electronic surveillance of communications and
secret messages embedded in apparently innocuous Web sites.
But Western intelligence must increase the resources devoted to
studying the network and be far more flexible if it is to take the
cyber trail to track down militants, analysts say.
"I think it's going to take them a while to be able to monitor the
Internet in a way that will enable us to be on the right trail before
something happens," Katz said.
Schanzer welcomed improved monitoring of "chatter" on militant Web
sites, but disinformation and small-time braggers masked the tiny
number of genuine operatives planning attacks.
"The question is not so much whether we have the technology, but
whether intelligence gathering organizations have the flexibility ...
are able to adapt as quickly as Al Qaeda."
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem)
Copyright Reuters 2004.
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