Experts say West can't stop Web radicalisation ( BS. )

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - From behind a computer keyboard at his London home, student Younes Tsouli used the Internet to spread al Qaeda propaganda, recruit suicide bombers and promote Web sites that encouraged the killing of non-Muslims.

The Moroccan-born student and two accomplices, one of whom he had never met in person, went on to become the first to be jailed in Britain for inciting terrorism over the Internet.

In September, a Scottish student described as a "wannabe suicide bomber" was imprisoned for eight years for owning terrorism material and distributing it via Web sites.

The two cases are examples of what Western authorities believe is the dangerous and growing role the Internet plays in spreading extremist propaganda and recruiting sympathisers to Islamist militant causes. ( prison stopped that Web radicalisation )

But can the West censor radical Web sites and, indeed, is it morally right to do so?

( yes it is, we already have precedent: It is not legal to shout "Fire" in a crowded movie theater, nor should it be morally right or legal to solicit suicide bombers. WTF? )

The perceived threat has prompted much talk from governments of the need for action. On Tuesday, the European Commission urged the EU's 27 states to crack down on militant sites.

"The Internet serves ... as one of the principal boosters of the processes of radicalisation and recruitment and also serves as a source of information on terrorist means and methods, thus functioning as a virtual training camp," the Commission's proposal said.

New York's police chief described the Internet as "the new Afghanistan" in August. That echoed the views of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who said last year potential recruits no longer needed to travel to al Qaeda camps. Continued...

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We see the problem as "Info WAR",

USA is MIA in many arenas or the "INFO WAR".

al Qaeda is shoveling propaganda out in indigenous languages, videos, web sites, FM,

And the Terrorist are winning by default.

If you only HEAR/SEE one side, then you are much easier to recruit.

I suspect the turn around in Iraq has as much to do with the new huge cell phone network in Iraq as the surge.

The Ummah communicate the truth and seek it out, but who is feeding them this truth?

Once Iraqi recognized al Qaeda for what it was, it starts dying.

From experience "Internet Anthropologists" has recognized the Internet as a poor Command and Control system. It has to be followed up with voice communication to be effective.

Or you end up with unknowingly confused and under performing cadre.

TEXT lacks the subtleties and content of verbal communication.

We have seen our own ops screwed up from relying on just IM or Email for C&C.

Example are the "Scotland airport bombers".

When you take down a terrorist web site you cut a little piece of his heart out.

Kinda like tearing up a work of art in front of the Artist, it hurts and draws down resources.

Heavy toll on Morale.

As the WEST moves onto the Internet, the terrorist are learning the "LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES", BLOW BACK and WWW weaknesses.

Gerald

Anthropologist

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Terrorism: Jihad has failed, former Libyan Islamist tells al-Qaeda

Tripoli, 7 Nov. (AKI) - A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, has written a letter to al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri telling him that Jihadi groups in Arab countries have failed.

"Dear Doctor Ayman, as I told you during a meeting in Kandahar [in Afghanistan] in 2000, the experience of the Jihadi groups in Arab countries is failed and despite our appeals, the armed groups are divided and will not unite," he said in the letter, a copy of which was published in the London based pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

The letter by Uthman, who is based in London, comes after an audio message by al-Zawahiri - an Egyptian medic - was released on Saturday. In it, al-Zawahiri announced that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had joined al-Qaeda. He also called for the ousting of regimes in North Africa.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group first announced itself in 1995, vowing to topple the Libyan regime. It is the second organisation to allegedly join al-Qaeda after Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which changed its name to the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb last January.

"I ask you and whoever is behind you to review the way you behave because the Jihadi groups are acting very badly towards those who think differently from the way they do," said Uthman in the letter.

"I aks you to stop the armed operations in the Arab countries, to guarantee the security of Muslims and to retract your threats toward the West, to take away from them the terrorism card used by some Western governments to hate Islam and Muslims," he said.

The former Libyan mujahadeen, who assisted the birth of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, also asked that the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq' insurgent group be dissolved and return to being simply an armed group. The Islamic State of Iraq is an organisation set up by al-Qaeda in a bid to unite the Iraqi is insurgency.

"Only in this way, will it be possible to rebuild ties with other Sunni guerilla groups," he said.

Uthman also said that he had taken part in an important al-Qaeda summit in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2000, in which al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had defined search for and use of weapons of mass destruction as a "Sharia obligation".

"During this occasion, I had a strong dispute with the martyr Abu Hafs al-Kumandan, because he was heavily involved in acquiring weapons of mass destruction," he said in the letter.

"He wanted to use these weapons to dissuade the United State from attacking Afghanistan. And yet I knew that al-Qaeda did not have any strategic vision and would have used the weapons to kill indistriminately and not to dissuade".

According to the former jihadi, if al-Qaeda had chemical or nuclear weapons, they would only increase their destructive power to the detriment of Arab countries in particular.

"After seven years since that meeting, my convictions on these issues have only grown stronger," he said.

"At that time I said that provoking the United States would turn them against the Taliban and by striking the country in an unconventional way would bring occupation to the entire Middle East and not only Afghanistan and that's what's happened," he said.

SOURCE:

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The Internet magnifies these problems, AND ADDS NEW PROBLEMS.

G