Internet Anthropologist Think Tank: Youtube aiding terrorism?

Image via WikipediaIraqi jailed in Germany for online Al-Qaeda recruiting

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 21:56:00 06/19/2008

CELLE -- A German court jailed an Iraqi man Thursday for three years for distributing Al-Qaeda propaganda on the Internet in a landmark case on recruiting for extremist groups.

The regional high court in the northwestern city of Celle convicted Ibrahim Rashid, 37, of seeking supporters for the Islamic radical network in web chat rooms between October 2005 and October 2006.

Presiding judge Wolfgang Siolek said the sentence should serve as a "warning signal" for other recruiters for banned groups.

The court found that Rashid had posted video recordings in which Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and other extremists urged attacks against the West on the Internet at least 22 times "and supplemented them with his own remarks".

He also uploaded videos showing car bombings and sniper attacks.

Siolek said the defendant was a "fanatical jihad fighter" and used the Internet "to create a global climate of fear of ubiquitous terror."

Rashid is the first person in Germany to be convicted under a law passed after the September 11, 2001 suicide hijackings by Al-Qaeda in the United States banning recruitment for terror organizations.

Previously, only belonging to a terror group and supporting a banned radical group with actions such as fundraising were against the law.