Terror Forum Sows Seeds of Jihad By John Lasker Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68214,00.html
02:00 AM Jul. 19, 2005 PT A popular pro-jihadist, London-registered message board -- Tajdeed.org.uk -- is under scrutiny as the fallout from the London terror attack continues. Several private watchdog efforts monitoring the rising tide of terror-related websites say it wouldn't come as a surprise if British police implicate the online forum during their investigation. Rita Katz, co-founder and director of the Washington, D.C.-based Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute, or Site, said the London family that runs the site has ties to the al-Qaida network, and that the forum "disseminates communiqués by terrorists including al-Qaida operatives." Just hours after the July 7 attacks, the site was inundated with messages calling the suicide bombings a victory for Islamic fundamentalists. And while the first claim of responsibility for the bombings was logged by the Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe on the lesser-known al-qal3ah.com, a second claim was posted to Tajdeed.org.uk a day later by a group called the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade. "The implication of Tajdeed.org.uk by British police would not be unexpected," said Katz, whose clients include the FBI and CIA. "The website and its head, Muhammad al-Massari, have been under investigation as was indicated by a raid carried out by British antiterrorism officers in May." Earlier this year, Katz testified against one of al-Massari's sons, 34-year-old Majid, in U.S. immigration court. She told the court Majid al-Massari was working on Tajdeed.org.uk from the United States, and he's also met with Saad Rashed Mohammad al-Faqih, who was designated an al-Qaida financier by the U.S. Treasury Department for his alleged involvement in the 1998 eastern Africa embassy bombings. Majid al-Massari is in a Washington state federal prison awaiting deportation to Saudi Arabia, according to the Seattle Times. The al-Massari family, which was exiled to London for radical Islamic beliefs, claims he faces death if forced to return to his homeland, according to a posting on the Site website. Katz said Tajdeed.org.uk is just one of hundreds of jihadist message boards. But this site in particular -- shut down several times in the past 12 months -- is well-financed and well-traveled, as attested by its ability to keep reappearing on different servers around the world. At the time of the London attacks, Tajdeed.org.uk was being hosted by Everyones Internet, a service provider based in Houston, but it was disabled or abandoned last Monday. A message at the address says the site is seeking a new server. British police remain tight-lipped over the attacks, but four British nationals of Pakistani descent are suspected of being the suicide bombers. "It is likely that people involved in the bombings use the site," said Aaron Weisburd, director of Internet Haganah, a self-described "counterinsurgency" organization working against pro-terror sites on the web. Weisburd said Tajdeed.org.uk highlights the ongoing debate about how to handle sites that are pro-terror and possibly assisting attacks. Some terror experts advocate monitoring such websites in hopes of gathering intelligence, but Weisburd urges they be taken down. The subway bombing in Madrid, Spain -- which was similar to the London attack -- is believed to have been inspired and partially planned by strangers via websites, Spanish security analysts told PBS' Frontline earlier this year. For example, plans for terror attacks have been discovered in the lyrics of songs sung in Arabic that were posted as sound files on pro-terror sites, according to the Spanish security analysts and the U.S. Justice Department. "I've been talking about this with my Israeli colleagues, and we are all mystified (as to why the British allowed the site to flourish)," said Weisburd, who acts aggressively to convince hosting companies to remove pro-terror sites from their servers. Weisburd said it would be naive to think British intelligence wasn't watching the site closely, but he questions what effectiveness the strategy might have once the terrorists strike. "Obviously it didn't enable them to prevent the bombing," he said. "All it does is allow the Islamists to build a bigger and stronger community, committed to waging this bloody jihad. All of which leads back to why I argue against the strategy of merely watching these sites." Another expert on how Islamic radicals network on the internet also believes the British government should have asked any U.S. company hosting Tajdeed.org.uk to ban the site from its servers. "Honestly, I don't know why (they didn't have the site removed by its American hosting company)," said Reuven Paz, director of the Israel-based Project for the Research of Islamist Movements, or Prism. "I cannot understand the British policy in the past five years regarding thousands of Islamists on their soil." But other experts, including the FBI, say keeping some of these sites online is critical to the war on terror. "We need to collect information and many times it is a long process," said Site's Katz. A recently concluded internet investigation, for example, went on for three years before several arrests were made in Europe, she said. Besides collecting intelligence, Katz said, "Monitoring these sites allows us to know what kind of threats they're issuing." This past April, for instance, the European pro-jihadist Global Islamic Media Front issued warnings in online forums to Denmark and Sweden. One threat was in the form of an image showing explosives rigged to detonate over a map showing where to board Stockholm's subway. Again, both forums were hosted by U.S. companies -- including, again, Everyones Internet. Everyones Internet spokeswoman Isabel Wang said the company had no comment, but referred to a statement on the company website by CEO Robert Marsh: "(Everones Internet) manages over 20,000 dedicated web servers, which together contain more than one million websites," says the statement. "Our company, operating according to established industry practices, does not pre-screen resellers.... However, while we don't act as a real-time censor, we have always been committed to being good internet citizens. Our Abuse Department operates 24/7 to investigate and address any complaints against any server or website on our network." For now, how Tajdeed.org.uk was shut down remains a mystery, said Internet Haganah's Weisburd. He has no doubt, however, the site will be up and running again sometime soon. "Wait a week or so and see if they don't bring the whole thing back online when they think no one is looking," he said. "I've seen the whole little game play out in Houston at Everyones Internet more than once. They may simply change the name of the site. When the server and the backup drives are all unplugged and marched out of the data center by the local (FBI agents), then I will believe." End of story You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
