Posts tagged as:

Cyberjihadism

‘JihadJane’ indictment alleges threat from within U.S.

10 March 2010

Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2010: Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill “or die trying,” a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Colleen R. LaRose, who [...]

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Canadian terrorist handed toughest sentence

17 February 2010

Globe and Mail, 17 Feb 10: A jihadist from a small town in Quebec who plotted to set off bombs abroad has received the toughest sentence for a convicted Canadian terrorist. Saïd Namouh, 37, who took part in the plot over the internet from his basement apartment in Maskinongé, Que., was handed the maximum sentence [...]

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Generation Jihad, Episode 1

17 February 2010

BBC Peter Taylor investigates the terrorist threat from young Muslim extremists radicalised on the internet. Following the attempt to bomb an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, this landmark series looks at the angry young men of Generation Jihad who have turned their backs on the country where they were born.

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Generation Jihad: Young people ‘brainwashed with Al Qaeda propaganda on the internet’

16 February 2010

Daily Mail, 15 Feb 10: Religious extremists are increasingly turning to the internet to find, indoctrinate and radicalise young Muslims, according to a new documentary series. Like sexual predators they prey on vulnerable young people, quickly brainwashing them with Al Qaeda propaganda and very quickly turning them into potential terrorists. New BBC2 series [...]

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U.S. Intel Officials Seeing Spike in al Qaeda-Linked Internet Chatter Focused on Ways to Thwart Airport Security

15 February 2010

CBS News, 12 Feb 10: CBS News has learned that U.S. Intelligence officials are seeing a marked increase in terror-related Internet chatter with a frightening focus: Jihadists bent on finding gaps in airport security – all linked to al Qaeda in Yemen, reports CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.
On one radical website, a writer [...]

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Online Jihadists Discuss Targets in U.S. – Including Government Buildings Like White House, CIA HQ

8 February 2010

MEMRI, 4 Feb 10: A discussion thread begun on February 2, 2010 on the Al-Falluja jihadist forum discussed which sites in the U.S. would make the most effective targets for a terror attack – or, as the initiator of the thread put it, “how we can hasten getting rid of America, Allah willing.” . . [...]

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Jihadist Suicide Bombers Have Website Fans

14 January 2010

NPR, 14 Jan 10: Islamic extremist Web sites are full of commentary on two men viewed as heroes: the CIA suicide bomber and the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a plane. Al-Qaida expert Jarret Brachman talks to Deborah Amos about jihadist activities on the Internet. Brachman describes who’s posting, and who’s reading [...]

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What role do women play in Al Qaeda? A few are suicide bombers; others may encourage their men to become one.

13 January 2010

Newsweek, 13 Jan 10: There is something haunting and deeply sinister about the interview that NEWSWEEK TÜRKIYE’s Adem Demir did with Defne Bayrak, the wife of the “CIA bomber,” last week. But she seems to have quit talking since she was picked up by the cops in Istanbul, questioned, and released—and that’s really too bad, [...]

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Bomber urged more attacks before striking CIA

12 January 2010

Reuters, 11 Jan 10: A double agent who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan sent a plea to Islamist writers a few weeks earlier urging them to launch suicide attacks, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said, citing a militant forum. The agent, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, himself a former prolific writer on pro-al Qaeda [...]

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Jihadi Forum Publishes Posthumous Article by CIA Khost Base Bomber

7 January 2010

MEMRI, 7 Jan 10: On January 7, 2010, an online jihadi forum posted a new article written by Khost CIA base bomber Abu Dajana Al-Khorasani shortly before he embarked on his suicide mission. In the article, titled “When Will My Words Drink From My Blood? – I Am Now Fit For Publication” Abu Dajana, who [...]

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Profile: Jordanian ‘triple agent’ who killed CIA agents

5 January 2010

Daily Telegraph, 5 Jan 10: Balawi was from Zarqa, the same Jordanian town as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the infamous leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who tormented the US military and Bush administration until his death in 2006 with a terrorist campaign that inspired militants around the world and made him a rival in influence to [...]

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Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties

5 January 2010

New York Times, 4 Jan 10: The suicide bomber who killed seven C.I.A. officers and a Jordanian spy last week was a double agent who was taken onto the base in Afghanistan because the Americans hoped he might be able to deliver top members of Al Qaeda’s network, according to Western government officials.
The [...]

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Jordanian Bomber of CIA Base Deceived Family

5 January 2010

AP, 5 Jan 10: Relatives and friends of the Jordanian suspected as a double agent who killed eight people on a CIA base in Afghanistan say he wanted to die in a holy war, and wrote fiery Internet articles calling for jihad against the U.S. and Israel.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 32-year-old physician, struck the [...]

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CIA Bomber Got His Start as a Jihadist Troll

5 January 2010

Wired/Danger Room, 4 Jan 10: We’re learning more about the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA officers at a base in Afghanistan last week. It appears as though the man responsible for the worst losses in CIA history served both as a double agent for Jordanian intelligence and a webmaster for a popular and now-defunct [...]

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Focus on Internet Imams as Al Qaeda Recruiters

4 January 2010

New York Times, 31 Dec 09: The apparent ties between the Nigerian man charged with plotting to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day and a radical American-born Yemeni imam have cast a spotlight on a world of charismatic clerics who wield their Internet celebrity to indoctrinate young Muslims with extremist ideology and recruit them [...]

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Extremists Online Discussed Blowing Up Planes Weeks Before Northwest Flight 253 Attempt

4 January 2010

ABC News, 4 Jan 10: Extremist Internet forums discussed blowing up planes three weeks before the Detroit attempt — and have also discussed ways of using deadly biological agents onboard planes.
A private Israeli intelligence company told ABC News Monday there was a surge of online discussions in extremist Islamic forums about blowing up planes [...]

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Taliban Issue Interview with the Jihad Leader of Sar-i-Pul Province

29 December 2009

Jamestown, 23 Dec 09: Every month, the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan releases al-Somod Islamic e-magazine, a main Taliban propaganda publication. The e-magazine contains religious, political and military articles on the Taliban’s activities. Often, the e-magazine interviews one of the Taliban’s jihad leaders. The forty-second issue of al-Somod carried an interview with the Taliban military [...]

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Should the U.S. Destroy Jihadist Websites?

23 December 2009

TIME, 23 Dec 09: The Internet has played a key role in radicalizing a number of key players in alleged terror plots this year. From Fort Hood accused shooter Nidal Hasan to the five young Americans detained in Pakistan this month allegedly en route to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan, authorities claim the suspects needed [...]

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www.jihad.com

16 December 2009

New York Times/Tom Friedman, 15 Dec 09: Whatever threat the real Afghanistan poses to U.S. national security, the “Virtual Afghanistan” now poses just as big a threat. The Virtual Afghanistan is the network of hundreds of jihadist Web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the [...]

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Terrorist recruiters leverage the Web

14 December 2009

Washington Post, 13 Dec 09: Pakistani authorities on Saturday were searching for an insurgent figure believed to have aided five Northern Virginia men who allegedly tried to join al-Qaeda, saying the case could help unravel a growing network of terrorist recruiters who scour the Internet for radicalized young men.
Investigators have identified the man, known [...]

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FBI Agent: Feds Adapting To Domestic Terror Threat

11 December 2009

CBS Channel 2/Chicago, 10 Dec 09: It’s back to the drawing boards tonight for investigators trying to protect us from home-grown terrorists. Robert Grant, Chicago’s FBI special agent-in-charge, gives CBS 2 Chief correspondent Jay Levine a frank and sobering assessment.
. . . . Grant offered an unusually candid read on what counter-terrorism forces here [...]

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Road to Jihad: Americans Recruited for Terror

11 December 2009

ABC, 11 Dec 09: ABC News has obtained the investigative report prepared by Pakistani police that offers insight to what had become the road to jihad for five young Americans.
Pakistani police this morning showed the pictures and the U.S. passports of the five young college students from the Washington, D.C., suburbs, who authorities say had [...]

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Americans held in Pakistan “wanted to join jihad”

10 December 2009

Reuters, 10 Dec 09: Five young Americans detained in Pakistan, which is fighting a violent Taliban insurgency, wanted to join a holy war and were in contact with militants through the Internet, officials said on Thursday. The five men, students in their 20s from northern Virginia, were detained this week in the city of Sargodha [...]

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Is Shutting Down Cyber Jihad Possible? The Real Scope of Cyber Jihad

1 December 2009

MEMRI, 1 Dec 09: The exact number of Salafi-jihadi websites and forums has been a matter of debate among experts; the figures proposed range from a few dozen to thousands. The surge in the number of Islamist blogs in the past two years has intensified the debate and made calculation even more difficult. Scrutiny of [...]

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Expert: Study on extremism might have prevented Fort Hood shootings

20 November 2009

CNN, 20 Nov 09: A security expert who contributed to a now-classified 2008 study aimed at helping military officials recognize the signs of extremism among troops said it could have helped prevent the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
Shannen Rossmiller is angry that the study she worked with the Pentagon to create — unclassified at its [...]

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200 Web sites spread al-Qaida’s message in English

20 November 2009

AP, 18 Nov 09: Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida’s message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.
The [...]

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Hasan’s ties to radical cleric raise issues for law enforcement

18 November 2009

Washington Post, 18 Nov 09: Three weeks before Maj. Nidal M. Hasan purchased the semiautomatic pistol allegedly used in the Fort Hood attack, a radical Yemeni American cleric whom he frequently e-mailed gave a broad religious blessing to Muslims who attack “government armies in the Muslim world.”
“These armies are the defenders of apostasy,” Anwar al-Aulaqi [...]

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Major Hasan Dined with ‘Jihad Hobbyist’

18 November 2009

Right: A photo uploaded to Duane Reasoner’s online “photobucket” account is a violent image of Osama bin Laden presiding over the White House on fire.
ABC News, 17 Nov 09: Ever since he told a British reporter that he felt “no pity” for the victims of the Fort Hood massacre, Duane Reasoner Jr., an 18-year-old Muslim [...]

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Cleric says he was confidant to Hasan

16 November 2009

Washington Post, 16 Nov 09: In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into [...]

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Terrorists smuggle fatwas out of secure prisons

16 November 2009

Times of London, 15 Nov 09: Some of Britain’s most dangerous Al-Qaeda leaders are promoting jihad from inside high-security prisons by smuggling out propaganda for the internet and finding recruits.
In an authoritative report, Quilliam, a think tank funded by the Home Office, claims “mismanagement” by the Prison Service is helping AlQaeda gain recruits and risks [...]

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Fort Hood shows us that Internet jihad is not a myth

16 November 2009

Foreign Policy/Evan Kohlmann:
Evan Kohlmann is senior investigator for the NEFA Foundation and works as a private consultant and expert witness on behalf of the FBI, Scotland Yard, and other law enforcement agencies in cases involving suspected homegrown terrorists.
Upon learning of the reported “missed” link between the alleged culprit responsible for the massacre at Ft. Hood [...]

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Major Hasan: Soldier of Allah; Many Ties to Jihad Web Sites

12 November 2009

ABC News:

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan proclaimed himself a “soldier of Allah” on private business cards he obtained over the Internet and kept in a box at his apartment near Fort Hood, Texas.
Hasan, the alleged perpetrator of last week’s fatal shootings in Fort Hood, TX, was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder [...]

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Court papers say terror suspect tried to ‘recruit’ others

12 November 2009

From the Boston Globe:
Tarek Mehanna, a Sudbury man indicted this week on terrorism charges, confided to a friend three years ago that he stopped speaking during prayer sessions at a Sharon mosque because someone complained that he sounded like an Al Qaeda operative, according to documents filed in federal court Thursday.
Mehanna, 27, an Internet blogger [...]

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