Wednesday, 11 August 2010 02:48
The Peninsula
The Center of Dawn, one of Al Qaeda’s online media programmes, has published a magazine titled Inspire. As the title suggest, the publication is about terrorist motivation, and is the organisation’s first online magazine in the English language. In its first pages, the magazine tells mujahideen beginners what must accompany them in their luggage during jihad. It also instructs them on preparing bombs in their kitchens. One page even contains information on how to create bombs in their mother’s kitchen: “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mum” describes ways in which one can prepare a bomb in a day or two that can kill over a dozen people. Another bomb, which takes a full month to produce, can kill dozens more. The ingredients of the bombs include sugar, matchsticks, light bulbs, batteries, watches, and other items that can easily be obtained from the nearest grocery store or supermarket.
The magazine also includes “practical” tips for mujahideen on what can be expected during recruitment for jihad, including being able to speak domestic dialects fluently and knowledge of local traditions. It goes into precise detail about the necessity of travelling with as little baggage as possible. Amongst the travel necessities mentioned are backpacks and several pairs of appropriately soft shoes, not to mention shower gel. Of course, carrying religious literature remains essential, but it reminds the young beginners that there is no harm in bringing along an MP3 player or a laptop computer. However, the magazine warns against using locked mobile phones and of the risks of communicating via e-mail. Instead, it recommends using a special encoding program under the name of “Mujahideen Secrets”.
This magazine and other destructive media created by terrorists — who are unfortunately identified with all Arabs and Muslims — use the tools of science, modern knowledge and technology as weapons for destroying places, regions and countries that have produced the very sciences they are abusing. These media arms do not hide their clear objective of targeting the new generation of “sons of Muslims” who have lived, been educated, and gained knowledge of science and technology in the West, and hold degrees from universities. More often than not, the young recruits’ background in religion is weak, therefore they are easily attracted by modern means of communication and the Internet which recruit and transform them into suicide bombers in the name of Islam.
The Telegraph newspaper published a commentary by Bruce Riedel, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, indicating that the mujahideen magazine, Inspire, aims explicitly to call for jihad in the United States and Britain, which could possibly be housing the future terrorists of Fort Hood, or the next suicide bomber of Times Square. Experts believe that online forums are major players in the battle, and that September 11, 2001 was a turning point where the term “jihadist forums” appeared in reference to these types of sites that are similar to secluded caves with perverse abilities of control. Jihadist forums began as windows for disseminating the ideas of Al Qaeda and escaping control, regulation and security bans. The most dangerous features of these media are that they are cheap — so for just a few dollars, anyone, anywhere in the world, can establish forums and broadcast anything one desires. Technically, the process does not require more than buying a program for creating forums and then launching it through one of the many hosting companies readily available on the worldwide web and open the doors for recruiting sympathisers. The Telegraph adds that one of the forums that played a major role in the dissemination of Al Qaeda’s ideas is “Al Hasba”. Those responsible for the site were subject to several intensified arrest campaigns, prompting them to shut down the forum. There is a forest of forums estimated to reach over 6,000 websites. According to Gabriel Weimann, researcher at the US Peace Institute, in his book Terror on the Internet: Good Platform, a new Challenge, the number of fundamentalist websites has increased from about 12 sites in 1998 to more than 4,800 to date.
One of the rewards reaped by the websites is the recruitment of a new breed of terrorists such as Faisal Shahzad, who, at 30 years of age, holds a graduate degree, was born in a prominent Pakistani family, is fluent in English and spent 10 years working in the United States. Six of those years were spent as an administrative accountant, then as a chief financial officer of the American cosmetics brand Elizabeth Arden. He is also married to a young American of Pakistani origin and blessed with two children. Shahzad attempted a car bomb attack in Times Square of New York several weeks ago, but, luckily, the bomb did not explode, and it was successfully dismantled by the police. Shahzad managed to escape but fell into the hands of agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In an exposè that prompted much debate, the Washington Times published a report quoting one of the most senior advisers to the US president in matters of counter-terrorism and national security that dozens of Americans have joined terrorist groups and are a real threat to the United States’ interests domestically and abroad. The latest study by the Rand Corporation on domestic American extremism indicates that there has been a remarkable increase in charges against Americans trained to carry out jihadist acts of violence over the past two years. The report states that there were 81 people accused of terrorist crimes between 2002 to 2008. Also, 42 people were accused of similar offences in 2009 and two so far in 2010. The study concluded that for every 30,000 American Muslims, one person carries tendencies toward extremism, a fact which indicates that the majority of American Muslims oppose the ideology of jihad and its call for violence. The study also notes that the law enforcement agencies of America have the means to monitor Al Qaeda’s electronic forums, which have been previously confirmed as a gateway for recruiting members for the terrorist organisation.
Gell Cable, in his book, War of the Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, states that the Internet was the primary reason for the success of Al Qaeda in carrying out the attacks of September 11, 2001. At the same time, he asserts that “9/11 is a product of the Internet!” Someone else approaching the idea of international terrorism is the expert Gabriel Weimann in his report on the use of terrorism via the Internet, where he confirms that top members of Al Qaeda “have relied heavily on the Internet in planning the attacks of September 11th”.
Under the fierce attacks that use our religion, wear its cloak and speak on its behalf, there must be a strong confrontation by those of us who reject the use of violence, extremism, religious intolerance and horrific justification of slaughter, bloodshed, and unfettered moral, humanitarian and legal atrocities in the name of Islam. We must change the argument claiming that all Muslims are terrorists since the reality is, and the findings indicate, that most terrorists are Muslims. The battle and the battleground is the Internet and its soldiers are all of those who can access and participate in it to create changes for the better and project a positive image of a civilised form of Islam.
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