English-Language terrorist Forums, Blogs

Jihadists Broaden Reach by Launching English-Language Forums, Blogs

As part of their efforts to reach and influence non-Arabic-speaking audiences, Islamists have set up English-language pages on existing Arabic-language forums, and have also launched jihadist blogs in English. [1] An examination of the content of these forum pages and blogs suggests that they are aimed at various audiences in the West, inter alia to influence Western public opinion on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, to enlist support for jihad among Muslims living in the West, and even to encourage these Muslims to carry out martyrdom operations.

This report presents details on these websites and some examples of their content.

Some Examples of Forums and Blogs

The following are some prominent Islamist forums and blogs in English, along with their URLs and ISPs:

The Al-Hesbah forum
http://www.alhesbah.net/v/forumdisplay.php?f=48
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Shumoukh Al-Islam forum
http://shmo5alislam.net/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=53
ISP: TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Al-Ekhlaas forum
http://ekhlaas.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=109
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Jund Al-Rahman forum
http://jondurrahmaan.com/vb/?styleid=30
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc.; Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Shabkat Al-Akhbar forum
http://w-w-n.ws/forumdisplay.php?f=10
ISP: TIMETELEKOM; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)

At-Tibyan Publications website [2]
http://tibyan.wordpress.com/tag/articles
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc., Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)

The Sawt Al-Jihad blog
http://www.sawtaljihad.org/
ISP: New Dream Network LLC; Brea, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge blog
http://inshallahshaheed.muslimpad.com/NOT, IT IS GONE
ISP: ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc, Dallas, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)

The Crusader Watcher blog
http://www.crusaderwatcher.blogspot.com/
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)

The Press Release blog
http://www.press-release.blogspot.com/
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/21/07)

The Goals of the English-Language Forums and Blogs

Eroding Western Support for the War on Terror

One of the apparent goals of the Islamist forums and blogs in English is to erode support among the Western public for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is done primarily by posting full translations of official communiqués by Afghani and Iraqi terrorist organizations - especially communiqués boasting of successful terrorist attacks, in which the numbers of Coalition casualties are often inflated. [3] Two examples of this are a September 2007 communiqué by the Al-Qaeda-founded Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which claimed that 20 U.S. soldiers had been killed in a suicide attack in Diyala, [4] and a October 2007 message in which the ISI claimed to have killed 57 U.S. soldiers in another Diyala attack. [5] Such messages, which are very common on the English-language forums and blogs, are presumably meant to plant doubt in minds of Western citizens about the West's ability to win the war on terror.


And much more here:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD177707

http://tinyurl.com/39xvxa

Arabic terror sites:

Most popular Jihadist forums:
Gerald

.

China vows to target blogs, search engines

China vows to target blogs, search engines
Agençe France-Presse


Friday, 30 June 2006

typing
China reportedly has up to 36.8 million blog sites
China's internet minders have vowed to step up controls of internet content, especially in the most active areas of blogs, bulletin boards and search engines, state media said this week.

"As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spread through blogs and search engines, we will take effective measures to put the BBS [bulletin board service], blogs and search engines under control," Xinhua news agency quoted Cai Wu, a government spokesman as saying.

China was taking steps to make registration mandatory on millions of blog sites and BBSs, or sites where internet users can converse online, Cai said.

According to a report by Tsinghua University, quoted by Xinhua, China currently has up to 36.8 million blog sites, a figure that could grow to 60 million by the end of the year.

The number of search engine users had reached 97 million, or about 87% of all internet users, the report said.

"We will speed up the technology development to safeguard the network management and do more research on the internet security issues triggered by the new technologies in blogs and search engines," the report quoted Wang Xudong, Minister of Information Industry, as saying.

China has for years been waging an online battle to censor the internet of pornographic and violent content, while also stifling political and religious material that it believes could spark social unrest.

Two years ago all Chinese web portals were required to register with the government, while they also signed on to government issued regulations to self-police their sites for "unhealthy content".

Rules at the time also required all Chinese internet cafes to register web surfers and not allow them to download or upload any content onto or from personal devices.

Human and media rights groups say China's leaders are tightening their control over the internet and traditional press amid increasing social unrest and regularly jail journalists and internet commentators who post anti-government material on the web.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1630857.htm?tech

http://tinyurl.com/2x34ej

"unhealthy information" scary implications: