Inside the Cyber Jihad

This week Newsweek has an "Islam in America" theme, one of which highlights the cyber jihad:

Using Web-based television as well as Internet chat rooms, "news" sites and what amount to virtual training camps for terrorism and guerrilla warfare, they keep up a constant rant of propaganda, indoctrination and ideological discussion about how best to defeat the United States....

The key, said [captured al Qaeda operative Abu Musab] al-Suri, is "individual terrorism" that cannot be thwarted by the disruptions of a command structure. Those killed on 9/11 and afterward are just a beginning, he said. "Our mujahideen [holy warriors] have only collected a small amount of the bill."...

Some American analysts worry that the United States isn't fighting back hard enough in this cyberwar of ideas. "We have failed to take the jihadists seriously, intellectually and culturally, and as a result their corrosive influence is progressing unopposed," warns Stephen Ulph, a research associate of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

The Newsweek piece plays down the importance of the internet in radicalizing potential home-grown terrorists. Which is odd given that the same article emphasizes al Qaeda's call for individual acts of jihad.

Is this a signs that the military is going to begin to treat cyberspace as real 'space' in which the war must be waged? Doubtful. If you actually read what the Army is proposing, it's nothing more than local PR. The cyberjihad is global and those we are trying to influence are a global audience.

Hat tip: Son of the Godfather who calls some of the Newsweek articles in this week's issue a 'poor Muslims fluff piece'.

Posted by: Rusty at 02:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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