TERROR.COM
Iraq's tech-savvy insurgents are finding supporters and luring
suicide-bomber recruits over the Internet
- Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, July 10, 2005

Insurgents and their supporters have created a sophisticated network
on the Internet to help them recruit suicide bombers to Iraq,
according to interviews with terrorism experts and a review of the
online material.

Using the latest technology available to anyone with a laptop, they
are publishing detailed videos of hostage killings, online magazines
that recap violent actions in and around Baghdad, and dense manuals
that explain everything from how to enter Iraq illegally to how to
make a suicide bomb vest or plant deadly explosives.

Online forums have also been created that applaud coordinated
bombings such as the one that hit London three days ago. Within
hours of the attacks, which killed dozens of people and injured
hundreds, a Web site that promotes fundamentalist viewpoints,
www.tajdeed.org.uk, was inundated with jubilation over the deadly
action. Typical was a posting that said, "London has been shook by
the attacks of those heroes. ... I feel victory is coming. Great
Britain's day of loss is coming."

"If you want to join the jihad, you will find a way on the
Internet," says Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a
Washington organization that stands for Search for International
Terrorist Entities and monitors Web sites run by Islamic
fundamentalists.

Going beyond just publishing their views online, Iraqi insurgents
and their sympathizers are monitoring users of their Web sites, then
contacting those who seem the most sympathetic to killing American
soldiers, Iraqi military and others, says Gabriel Weimann, a
communications professor and author of a study, "How Modern
Terrorism Uses the Internet." While U.S. authorities are aware of
the mushrooming presence of these extremist sites, there's little
they can do to stop them -- partly because the sites are quick to
reappear with a different Web address when they are disabled.

It's unclear exactly how many Web sites are devoted to promoting
holy war in Iraq and in other countries, but terrorism experts say
that Iraqi insurgents and their supporters have created dozens and
dozens, possibly hundreds, of these Arabic-language Web sites. The
sites range from simple message boards where people can post their
feelings about Iraq to intricate multimedia centers that have
downloadable magazines and videos. A recent "Road to Iraq" guide
published by an online magazine called Jihadweb advises recruits
coming through Syria to "wear jeans" and "use a portable music
player" so they'll appear more westernized.

With the help of an Arabic translator, The Chronicle reviewed some
of the most popular sites. Besides serving as recruiting tools,
these sites are intended to boost the morale of the insurgents and
their sympathizers. The sites have increased greatly in the past
year, coinciding with the uptick in Iraq's suicide bombings.

There's "a great deal of evidence to suggest a direct correlation
between (insurgent) propaganda and the recruitment of individuals
into the terrorist movement," says Evan Kohlmann, a New York
terrorism analyst who monitors Islamist Web sites and has testified
before Congress.

In the past three months, more than 200 suicide bombings have
occurred in Iraq, according to news accounts. In the first year of
the conflict, fewer than 70 suicide bombings occurred.

One recent bombing, Kohlmann says, involved a student who was an
ardent follower of a Web forum connected to Ansar al-Sunna, one of
the most violent insurgent groups operating in Iraq. Abu Osama al-
Sudani was active on the Muntada al-Ansar Web forum, which has
appeared in different incarnations, including www.al-ansar.biz and
www.inn4news.net, both of which no longer operate. Al-Sudani was a
Sudanese student living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who killed himself
in a suicide operation in Baquba, Iraq, according to a Web posting
viewed by The Chronicle.

"He was an active participant on these forums," says Kohlmann, who
has monitored Islamist Web sites since 1997 and says the Muntada al-
Ansar forum was the main one used by Iraqi insurgents to post
messages. "Every time a representative of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
group would post a message, (al- Sudani) would
say, 'Congratulations.' A few months ago, he posted a message saying
he had seen enough. He could not bear to hear the news of jihad from
Iraq anymore without participating himself. He issued a goodbye
note, saying, 'I'm off to Iraq to be martyred' and 'Wish me luck.'
About a month later, somebody else posted a message with the phone
number of his family in Sudan, explaining that he had gone to Iraq
and been martyred there fighting with Zarqawi's group."

The posting of al-Sudani's death referred to a "martyrdom operation"
that happened on March 16, the same day a suicide bomber killed four
Iraqi soldiers and wounded 15 in Baquba, a city about 35 miles
northeast of Baghdad. Most of Iraq's suicide bombers are foreign-
born, with the highest proportion coming from Saudi Arabia and other
Persian Gulf states, according to an analysis by the Associated
Press.

The Internet is such an infinite resource that the holy war videos,
manuals, photos and articles would -- if published -- fill a large
university library. A recent Internet edition of the "Encyclopedia
of Jihad" alone is 600 pages, though it takes up just 28 megabytes
of computer space, according to Kohlmann, who has translated brief
sections of it. The encyclopedia's table of contents lists such
chapters as "How to Kill," "Explosive Devices," "Manufacturing
Detonators" and "Assassination with Mines."

Kohlmann discovered a training video on the Internet -- made by a
supporter of the Iraqi insurgency who goes by the name "Terrorist
007" -- that shows how to make a suicide bomb vest. The three-minute
video details, step by step, the process of sewing the vest and
hiding its detonation device inside. The video, reviewed by The
Chronicle, ends with a vest strapped on a male mannequin, which is
blown up along with a group of surrounding objects.

Last month, the Northeast Intelligence Network -- a Pennsylvania
anti- terrorism firm that tracks Web sites operated by Iraqi
insurgents and their supporters -- released the contents of a new
monthly online magazine from Ansar al-Sunna, whose name
means "Protectors of the Faith." Its pages trumpet Ansar al-Sunna's
ability to take hostages and kill them, and the group's effort to
expel "Christian and Zionist crusaders" from Muslim countries.

"Kill them, torture them -- God will support you and will heal the
hearts of those faithful to God," the magazine says in words
translated by The Chronicle. "God and the angels are not with the
infidels."

A companion video to the magazine shows in graphic detail the
slayings of two Iraqis deemed traitors for working with the U.S.-
backed Iraqi government. The four-minute video incorporates slick
graphics and what could be described as "intro music." Reviewed by
The Chronicle, the video's opening credits say, "The Department of
Media, Army of al-Sunna, Presents ..." Then two middle-age men speak
to the camera and to the insurgents who took them hostage.

"It was a good job -- it was good money," says one of the hostages
who is identified as a member of the Iraqi military.

The men are forced to sit in front of a banner that says, "Army of
al- Sunna" and "There is only one God; Muhammad is his prophet."
Throughout the video, the men are called infidels. At the video's
conclusion, the two are turned around, hands tied behind their back,
and shot repeatedly in the head by gunmen who shout, "Allahu akbar!"
The camera pans over the dead men's bodies as a credit says, "The
sentence was executed."

Videos are the insurgents' most effective recruiting and propaganda
tool, Kohlmann says. Insurgents have put so many videos of killings
and beheadings on the Internet that fan clubs have sprung up around
the most extreme ones.

"They trade these videos like baseball cards," says Kohlmann, who
runs the site www.globalterroralert.com.

Because their videos require lots of bandwidth and because the
insurgents always look for ways to save money, they sometimes use
the servers of American organizations to put out their Internet
publications, terrorism experts say. Last year, for example, Web
masters appropriated the servers of George Washington University and
the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, says
Douglas Hagmann, founder and director of the Northeast Intelligence
Network. The holy war Web maneuvers, which included putting a
training manual and beheading video on the Arkansas site, lasted
only a few days, until authorities caught on, Hagmann says. Once
they're found out, Web masters often move their sites, uninvited,
onto other computer servers, spreading the sites' existence by e-
mail and word of mouth.

"They're sophisticated even by our standards," Hagmann says. "For
instance, you might find on a (Web) forum a message that says, 'Go
to this server between 8 to 10 p.m. and pick up these files.' That's
where we found portions of the 'Jihad Encyclopedia' and where we
found portions that relate to assassination and kidnapping."

These Web sites are often restricted to those with protected
passwords, which means they're not easily accessible by Web users
who do a simple Google search. Still, many of the sites are "open
source" sites that give anyone who speaks and writes Arabic a chance
to join in on discussions and get more information on how to be a
suicide bomber in Iraq. The Web sites themselves don't reveal such
information as names and numbers of contacts in Syria or Iraq,
Weimann says. Instead, he says, the sites are portals that lead to
one- on-one relationships with the people who run them -- and it's
through those relationships that converts learn better how to
smuggle themselves into Iraq.

In addition to the Web sites, holy warriors are using other Internet
services to communicate with prospects, Hagmann and other terrorism
experts say. One such service is www.paltalk.com, which lets people
in disparate places connect via their computer. The service features
voice and video capabilities.

Even without this direct communication, Iraq's insurgents appear
able to send coded messages via their videos. In the past few
months, Zarqawi, who is the most wanted insurgent in Iraq, has
released videos that show him holding a gun, says Laura Mansfield,
associate director of the Northeast Intelligence Network. She has
noticed a pattern: When the gun sight is pointed toward his body,
that usually means a major attack is imminent. When the gun sight is
pointed away from his body, the video is usually just to rally Iraqi
insurgents and their supporters. In one of Zarqawi's recent videos,
the sight of the gun he held was aimed at his body, says Mansfield,
who believes Zarqawi was connected to the London bombings. Mansfield
says there was "increased chatter" on message boards and chat rooms
in the past two months before Thursday's attacks in London.

"I've seen a dramatic increase over the last month in chatter,"
Mansfield says.

Weimann, who teaches at Israel's Haifa University, says violent
fundamentalists are lured by the Web's easy access. In his
report, "How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet," Weimann cites a
list of past terrorist Web sites that are no longer in use,
including www.alneda.com and www.jehad.net. Weismann writes that
terrorist organizations "capture information about the users who
browse their Web sites. Users who seem most interested in the
organization's cause or well suited to carrying out its work are
then contacted. Recruiters may also use more interactive Internet
technology to roam online chat rooms and cyber cafes."

Al Qaeda has long used computer technology to spread information,
including during the war in Afghanistan. Zarqawi regularly releases
news on Web sites that are run by his associates, and he even has
a "media coordinator, " Abu Maysara al-Iraqi. In December, Kohlmann
says, supporters of al-Zarqawi uploaded files on the Internet that
showed readers how to use surface-to-air missiles to take down
aircraft.

The "Road to Iraq" guide published by Jihadweb tells recruits to
enter Syria via Turkey so they'll have a Turkish visa. That way, if
they're stopped by Syrian authorities suspicious of their
motives, "you can pretend you're in transit to Turkey." To avoid
suspicion, potential insurgents should also "make sure to wear jeans
and eat doughnuts and use a portable music player which has a tape
of any singer," says the guide, which the SITE Institute found and
translated into English from Arabic. Once in Syria, the guide says,
there are plenty of "secret roads" that let would-be suicide bombers
travel to insurgent centers in Iraq.

In March, Ansar al-Sunna's Web forum warned recruits that Syrian
authorities had set up checkpoints in Al Qamishli and Dayr Az Zawr,
two major Syrian cities near the Iraq border. The forum suggested
that recruits avoid hotels along the border because Syrian
authorities were "giving orders to the notification about any Arab
that stays (there)." Ansar al-Sunna is the same group whose Web site
had a gruesome video last year that showed the decapitation of
American Nicholas Berg.

Web masters are always changing the sites' names to avoid scrutiny
by authorities. The names they choose often have obvious Islamic
references, such as www.islam-minbar.net. (A minbar is a mosque
pulpit.) Other recent sites, which are now defunct, include
www.qal3ah.org/bb and www.ekhlaas.net, Mansfield says.

The U.S. government is well aware of these sites, says Lt. Col.
Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman. Department of Defense personnel
monitor the sites "as a matter of routine," and information from the
sites provides "one more layer of intelligence analysis," Venable
says. A spokesman with the Defense Intelligence Agency, a unit
within the Department of Defense, says U.S. authorities regularly
investigate who's behind the Web sites. The spokesman would not say
what authorities do with that information.

Last month, John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said the
Internet had become a prime recruiting tool for Iraq's insurgents,
saying, "People come (into Iraq) from Damascus in a way that allows
them to get inside Iraq sometimes with forged documents, sometimes
with a lot of money for bribery, etc. These people are recruited on
the Internet. They're young. They're idealistic. They think they're
coming to fight the jihad. They immediately move on up into
Damascus. They're met by facilitators. They're moved to safe
houses."

Besides recruiting suicide bombers to Iraq, insurgents are
discovering new ways to use technology. Recently, they've learned to
watch and forward beheading videos from their cell phones, Kohlmann
says. These tech advances mean that militants in remote deserts or
places without Internet access can still participate in what he
calls "Internet jihad."

"The same way the Internet has revolutionized life in the United
States, it's also revolutionized the business of terrorism,"
Kohlmann says. "The same way we've jumped on the Internet, they
have, too."

E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@....

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