As terrorism expert Marc Sageman wrote in his book Leaderless Jihad, "The growth of the internet has dramatically transformed the structure and dynamic of the evolving threat of global Islamist terrorism by changing the nature of terrorists' interactions. The nature of this influence is still misunderstood both by the terrorists themselves and by the people who are fighting them."
Global Islamist terrorists have today shifted from meeting in restaurants and barber shops to meeting in online forums. Internet discussion forums have become the transnational meeting places of jihadists, especially al Qaeda affiliates. After 9/11, for example, al Qaeda used Alneda.com to post and disseminate its statements, theological justifications and propaganda materials. Counter-terrorism experts are only beginning to understand these new developments.
Although only about 6 percent of the population in the Middle East has access to a computer, Internet cafes have become hubs of youth radicalization, where jihadists can log in and discuss their religious and ideological viewpoints with like-minded individuals thousands of miles away.
In the counter-terrorism literature, there is an over-emphasis on studying websites as if they have "intrinsic power to influence people into taking arms against the West." The Internet, however, is not simply a collection of websites. It is also a system of communication. Through e-mail, listservs and chat rooms, jihadists enter a kind of echo chamber where identities are formed and radicalization is escalated. As Sageman notes, "Just as people are rarely convinced or radicalized by simply reading a newspaper story, so no one is converted by a website alone. It is the discussion of the newspaper article with one's friends and family and the interactive exchanges in the chat rooms that inspire and radicalize."
In an important new study published by the Quilliam Foundation entitled, "Cheering for Osama," we go beyond simply analyzing jihadist websites, to actually getting a sense of what they talk about on discussion forums, and the factors nudging them along the process of radicalization. The report examined 20 popular jihadist forums between January 2009 and May 2010.
Forums like Al-Falluja, one of the most popular al Qaeda affiliated forums with close to 18,000 registered members, become repositories of jihadi materials like martyrdom videos, recordings of terrorist attacks or speeches by senior jihadists. Users of these forums inhabit a bubble where dissenting posts are swiftly shouted down or deleted. As Mohammed Ali Musawi, the author of the Quilliam report, writes, "The self-sufficient Jihadist bubble that consequently exists within these sites not only serves as a safe space for like-minded Jihadist interaction, but also serves to safeguard Internet Jihadists against what they see as the many unsavory or hostile aspects of the Internet." These hostile aspects could be anti-jihadist messages or news of operation defeats and unsuccessful terrorist plots. As news like this never makes it onto the forum, many jihadists have a false sense that global Islamist operations are more successful than they actually have been.
Jihadist forums also serve to inspire members to take part in a ghazwa (raid or incursion) into non-jihadist websites. This "media jihad" often consists of posting jihadist material on non-jihadist forums as a way of increasing the potential for recruitment. Jihadists might post a video of an American Humvee being destroyed by an improvised explosive device (IED) or literature portraying Jihadists as taking extra precautions to ensure that innocent Muslims are not injured. These kinds of "jihadist media incursions," Musawi tells me, "try to show that jihadists are actually the only voice or the only people who are standing up for your average-Joe Muslim and his rights."
The report points to three broad discussion trends on jihadist forums: defense of global jihadist ideology and violence, exposition of the internal enemies of Islam and Muslims, and exposition of deviant and heretical sects who "worship manmade laws."
While the first trend is fairly obvious, the second highlights the fact that one of the primary objects of attack on jihadist forums are other Muslims: anti-jihadists, Shia Muslims and Sufis. Shia Muslims are presented as heretical, and posing a fundamental threat to the purity of Islam.
Participants on jihadist forums also attack "non-Islamic" methods of governance, since they run counter to their particular vision of an Islamic state. Individuals or organizations following secular laws or democratic principles are portrayed as deviant. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is often singled out for particular attack as members of the Brotherhood have contested in elections and "now largely believe in gaining power through elections or political maneuverings, rather than through overt terrorist violence."
I asked Musawi why anti-American rhetoric did not feature prominently in his report. One would suspect that a major topic of discussion on jihadist forums would be the evils of the West. "It goes without saying, of course, that anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric is present," he tells me, "but what was striking for us was the level of attack towards other Muslims." Anti-Americanism is simply taken for granted. I also asked why there was no mention of 72 virgins, a popular explanation for why jihadists engage in suicide bombing. "In the 18 months during which I monitored over 20 forums I have never come across anything to do with 72 virgins or anything of the like," Musawi tells me. Such simplistic explanations for Islamist violence persist despite the utter lack of evidence to support them.
The Internet has increasingly become an important factor in facilitating the organizing efforts of jihadists worldwide. As Marc Sageman notes, "Computer-mediated communication is what makes this decentralized leaderless organization of global Islamist terrorism possible and the forums have become its center of gravity." The Quilliam report sheds much needed light on what is now a major aspect of counter-terrorism strategy. As jihadists talk to each other online, create common goals and rail against common enemies, we would do well to listen in. Learning more about how they articulate their various grievances with the West is integral for devising better strategies in counter-radicalization.
Follow Amarnath Amarasingam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AmarAmarasingam
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Your explanation is deception. The main funding for the Talibans are the British muslims.
when a reader confronts him about his ideology he will say rubbish, his stock phrase
There is a Hindu fanatical orgn in India called RSS which was banned in india after the assassination of the father of the nation Gandhi by an RSS member.
It received huge funds from abroad for its terrorist activities in india.: "Spread of sectarian hate in India can be halted if the money flowing from the US to the anti-Muslim, anti-Christian Sangh Parivar [RSS family] organisations involved in this nefarious design stops," said Biju Mathew, Professor, Rider University, New Jersey, US, at a press conference
Called "The Foreign Exchange of Hate," this 91-page report is now available on the Internet at
http://www.stopfundinghate.org.
According to the report, the IDRF submitted an application for tax exemption certificates to the Internal Revenue Service of the US. The Form 1023 filed by the IDRF in 1989 identifies nine representative organisations like Vikas Bharati (Bihar), Swami Vivekananda Rural Development Society (Tamil Nadu), Sewa Bharti (Delhi), Jana Seva Vidya Kendra (Karnataka), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Madhya Pradesh), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Gujarat), Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (Nagar Haveli), Girivasi Vanvasi Sewa Prakalp (Uttar Pradesh) and G Deshpande Vanvasi Vastigrah (Maharashtra), that the IDRF sought to support in India.
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01122002/0112200277.htm
Non-Muslims as second class citizens She seems to misunderstand and biased in her research
In the Islamic State every able bodied Muslim is obliged to take up arms in a just war, whenever the freedom of his faith or the political safety of his community is threatened: a sort of compulsory military service. Since this is primarily a religious obligation, non-Muslim citizens who do not subscribe to the ideology of Islam, can not in fairness expected to assume a similar burden.
On the other hand, the non-Muslim citizens must be accorded full protection of all their civil rights and of their religious freedom. In order to compensate the Muslim community for this unequal distribution of civic burdens
That a special tax on non-Muslim citizens who do not join the military service.
This is in fact an exemption tax in lieu of military service and in compensation for the statutory covenant of protection.
From all available traditions, it is evident that it is lower than the tax called Zakah ( 2.5%) to which Muslims are liable and this Zakah is not levied on non-Muslim citizens. The tax is levied only on the able-bodied non Muslim citizens who would have served in the military if they had been Muslims.
Non-Muslims who voluntarily join the Muslim military are exempted from this tax. And also all women, minor males, old men, crippled or sick men, priests and monks are exempted from paying any tax.
"THE OBJECTIVES OF JIHAD
o9.8 The caliph (o25) makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4)—which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself—while remaining in their ancestral religions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High, [K.9:29]"
As this passage makes clear, the point of jizya is that the unbeliever declares his submission to his Muslim superiors, not the money itself.
Rubbish. In 1915 Turkish muslims killed 15 million Armenian Chriistians, because they refused to convert. There was no occupation or domination; there was the Capliphate, the ideal muslim state and there was no Israel. The religion is intrinsically violent and the folllowers have practised religiious violence since inception. No other religious leader of consequence has commited enormous violence and killings as the founder of Islam had done.
Total rubbish and downright lies. The number of Armenians ranged between 600,000 and 1.5 million, not 15 million, you liar! And hey were not murdered because they refused to convert.
I am saying that just in case that genocide really took place. A number of historians dispute that.
"The religion is intrinsically violent and the folllowers have practised religiious violence since inception."
Nonsense. The Quran allows fighting only in self defense. It also demands Muslims to treat nonbelievers with fairness and compassion.
I do not think over the course of history Muslims were more violent than other religious groups.
"No other religious leader of consequence has commited enormous violence and killings as the founder of Islam had done."
The founder of Islam was more peaceful than all the thousands of your Hindu Gods put together.
what I see discussed on american sites is pretty similar
Only we seem to act on our violent ambitions much more consistently
Namely America and its allies attack, domination of Muslims while support their oppressors like Israel and Arab dictators.
Somewhere in here we all need to confront reality as a whole. One place to start, right here at Huffington Post, is with the Virtual Cabinet that I have put together, and I particularly point to the Strategic Analytic Model that the Cabinet is employing to create sound policies in the contact of a balanced budget.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-david-steele
He resigned from the military in 1993 as he thought about the irreconcilable nonsenses in American policies.
He is commonly associated with the open source intelligence movement and coined the terms "virtual intelligence" and "information peacekeeping".
Steele argues the US still ignore his decades of advocacy for a proper national focus on Open Source Intelligence . He further argues that the CIA has refused to take open source information seriously for decades, and should not be charged with developing new capabilities that are totally outside its existing culture of secrecy.
May God Bless you Steele
"Radical Islam" whatever that means (what maybe radical to you might not be to me as a Muslim) hasn't even overtaken a single 3rd world country leadership in its history violently let alone being a nuclear armed communist threat of say USSR.
This is the fear that neocons peddle to justify their perpetual, endless war against Muslims. And when blowback happens with the likes of Faisal Shahzad or Ft. Hood bomber radicalized via American policies; the cycle continues to justify more wars and bombings of Muslims in the ME.
This would offend many moderate who also believe that the world should come under Islamic rule ~ but possibly by other means. Here we only need to look at how countries under Islamic or Muslim rule are run.
There is no equality between those of Islam and those of other religions. This is not a 'hate' inspired fantasy ~ or misunderstanding. The Koran specifically [Sura 9:29], tells Muslims that non-Muslims should live as second class citizens ~ subjugated under Muslim rule. And in every country they do.
This is why we are dealing with Islam on two fronts, those who seek to attack us to bring about Islamic rule and those who would try to subvert rights and freedoms, again in order to create a world under Islamic rule.
I think we should be more honest with Muslims. That our idea of religion is that it should be kept a private matter, and it is here that they have freedom to practise it. Anything outside of this is an affront to our strongly held beliefs.
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As history has shown quite clearly Muhammad DID NOT create a world UNDER Islamic rule. As a matter of fact, Muslims constitute only about 1/5th of the world's population and most countries are not even Muslim majority.
Tell me once "Rebecca C" where bin Laden claims he's fighting to restore worldwide Islamic dominance of over South America, North America, China, and indeed all over the world?
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Your lack of knowledge about the Qur`an is amusing.
I guess you didn't catch that 60 Minutes pieace in which they visited the Christians in Turkey who showed 60 Minutes correspondent a letter from Muhammad acknowledging the truth of Christianity and guaranteeing their religious freedom and complete protection from external threats, like from the Byzantines.
http://www.maikelnabil.com/2010/10/blog-post_4244.html
> Why they do not adopt single child norm that will make education for the children and getting decent livelihood easier? Their intentions are different and dishonest.
> If they are peaceful, why do they cause of the disappearance of other religionists from their midst?
Your explanation is deception. The main funding for the Talibans are the British muslims. Read this:
"More evidence (if it were needed) of how some British Muslims express their love of country and gratitude to their hapless hosts:
“We are not like a government, we depend on individuals,” a Taliban commander told Sky News.
“We get donations from our Muslim brothers in Britain for jihad and they help us. It is the duty of all Muslims to pay towards fighting a jihad. And this is how we get our money and buy our weapons and carry on fighting.”
The commander added that an attack on Britain and Europe could happen “at any time”.
http://undhimmi.com/2010/10/21/taliban-british-muslims-our-greatest-source-of-funding/
Spread of sectarian hate in India can be halted if the money flowing from the US to the anti-Muslim, anti-Christian Sangh Parivar [RSS family] organisations involved in this nefarious design stops," said Biju Mathew, Professor, Rider University, New Jersey, US, at a press conference
The press conference was organised to expose huge funding of Hindu hate organisations through US-based charities. A campaign to halt the funding for spreading hate in India has been formally launched with the publication at the press conference of a comprehensive report about this funding.
Called "The Foreign Exchange of Hate," this 91-page report is now available on the Internet
at
http://www.stopfundinghate.org.
And the following website
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01122002/0112200277.htm
A fact-finding team comprising members of five city-based organisations has concluded this. Besides CLMC, members of Kula Nirmoolana Porata Samiti, Patriotic Democratic Movement, Chaitanya Samaikhya and Viplava Rachayitula Sangam were part of the fact-finding team which visited all the affected areas.
At least 36 mosques and 3 temples were attacked and property including houses, shops, and hotels were burnt or damaged. Two persons died due to stabbing, another died in stone-pelting, while 97 persons were injured.
The hand of municipal councillors of BJP( HIndu based party), MIM and TDP is being suspected. A key Karnataka BJP minister and Bellary strongman allegedly funded radical Hindu outfits to orchestrate riots in the city. It is a political fight between a mine owner and K. Rosaiah. The people of Hyderabad were in a way fortunate to have minority as the Chief Police Officer controlling the situation instead of the discriminating Gujarat police officers such as Vanjara who is in prison now.
Alot of these 'Jihadist' websites are run by people trying to trap angry Muslims into doing criminal acts my misdirecting anger they may have because of the occupation of thier countries...or the killing of thier neighbours by Americans.
Alot of these 'jihadist' websites are 'intelligence agency' originated, not by Arabs or Muslims.
What proof is there of your assertion? I think this is the kind of thing that is said out of wishful thinking. "Oh, those really bad things on those websites were done by Americans". Are the websites showing Westerners having their heads sawn off created by the CIA or MI6?
I dont think the CIA or any other intelligence agency is above misdirecting anger someone might have because of thier nation being occupied, or killing of thier neighbors by Americans.
After all, Iraq was literally destroyed by a lie...some of it originated from western intelligence organizations. We do know now, that the lies could have been exposed had the intelligence agencies not had a political reason for Iraq.
Of course, when they begin to censor the internet...as it seems they are gradually making a case for...people like you would say 'they are trying to protect us'.
If you doubt that...just think back to Sadaam has WMD...we needed to invade and occupy Iraq because 'they are trying to protect us'.
Are American crimes against the weak ( Sudan ) normal? Sudan sought the legal means that is asking the UN to inquire into the justification for the bombing. Even that was blocked by Washington-the super Police, Prosecutor and Judge.
A year after the attack on Sudan’s medical factory, tens of thousands of people- many of them children-have suffered and died from malaria, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases. Was not Washington’s decision to bomb responsible for this massive human tragedy?
German Ambassador wrote as follows: “ It is difficult to assess how many people in this poor African country dies as a consequence of the destruction of the Al-Shifa factory but several tens of thousands seem a reasonable guess.” Refer Werner Daum: “Universalism and the West” Harvard International Review: Summer 2001.
throw some religion and politics into the mix and you have some interesting drama.
the culprit is always ignorance.
find the origin of that ignorance and you will have found one of the great mysteries of life.
naw lets keep blaming everyone and play the victim role. this keeps the ego happy and content.
when you have a mega military presence around the world and your nose is stuck in every other nation's business one might begin to think there will be consequences. not most americans they think they are saving the world.
"Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it." -- Henry David Thoreau
-- Molly Ivins
Duh!
And someone had to write an article on that?
Duh!
Do you consider Indonesia an "undemocratic fundamentalist theocracy"?
That is the country with the largest Muslim population.