Terrorism And Radicalization Going Viral On The Web
The Dallas News points out the danger thousands of websites may pose as they continue to spring up and spread a viral message of of radicalization and jihad.
Thousands of Web sites, most in Arabic but some in English, make it possible for Web surfers to soak up the tenets of violent Islamic terrorism. They can watch videos of jihadi rappers, meet like-minded radicals in chat rooms and, in one notorious case, even launch a rocket attack on U.S. troops in Iraq from anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse.
Last month’s arrest of Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, the 19-year-old Jordanian accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper, was an example of how a leaderless, virtual terror movement has become a worldwide phenomenon, counterterrorism experts say. FBI agents monitoring an Arabic Internet chat room discovered Smadi in March.
The top leaders of al-Qaeda may be living as hunted fugitives on the far edges of the world, but their ideology is available everywhere, said Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli army colonel who is president of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
“They got from the developed world a tool, the tool of their life, to jump from their caves to the 21st century,” Carmon said.
Al-Qaeda sympathizers agree. In a column commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, the editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper wrote: “Al-Qaeda’s ideology is becoming a global ideology which is increasingly independent. Thanks to advanced media like the Internet, Facebook and YouTube, it can reach the widest audiences worldwide, attracting numerous supporters and recruits.”
via Read Full Article.
