http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 <http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=nw2007050409 4215351C266195> &click_id=22&art_id=nw20070504094215351C266195 US gets creative in battle against Al-Qaeda
Washington - US officials championing freedom and democracy are well aware that they cannot try to silence Islamist militants by censoring or blocking the burgeoning number of Al-Qaeda related websites. But they are attempting to exploit potential weaknesses in the terror network's skyrocketing use of online media to spread its ideology, raise money and recruit and train new followers. "It is not possible to capture, kill, or incarcerate ideas," Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Felter, director of the Combating Terrorism Centre at the United States military academy at West Point, told a Senate hearing on homeland security on Thursday. "But we can do a better job of understanding how the Internet facilitates these processes so we can monitor and thwart those who join the jihadi movement." <http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink|585|1099505|0|165|AdId=1374154;BnId=5;iti me=299429041;key=key1+key2+key3+key4;> Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the Internet has created a "largely borderless world." "Internet chat rooms are now supplementing and replacing mosques, community centres and coffee shops as venues for recruitment and radicalisation by terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda," he said. To fight that, Cilluffo outlined a number of tactics for tapping into the online community and using its very nature to US advantage. For one, "it is possible that an intelligence officer posing as a sympathiser could infiltrate an online extremist community," he said. "Seeds of confusion, doubt and distrust could then be planted in order to chip away at the ties that bind individual extremists into a cohesive and dangerous group." Other tactics he proposed included "deepen(ing) our understanding of the process of radicalisation." Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defence, said the anonymous nature of the Internet makes militants difficult to track, and the speed with which messages are broadcast and copied onto other sites compounds the challenges. "Because individuals can access the Internet anonymously from virtually anywhere on the globe, the use of the web by terrorists is a constantly moving target," he said. "From a handful of terrorist websites in 2000, today there are many thousands of terrorist-related websites in existence, with more appearing each week. "Our deep commitment to a free society and the very nature of the web make it virtually impossible to prevent terrorists from using the Internet altogether," he added. Felter concurred that attempts to close down the sites have proven futile. "Attempts to shut down websites have proven as fruitless as a game of whack-a-mole. An open society in the information age offers opportunities for asymmetric warfare that cannot be taken away, only countered." Felter said militants use the satellite mapping site Google Earth to plan attacks in Iraq, and gather specifications on US tactical vehicles used in Iraq based on the manufacturers' websites, techniques US intelligence can use, too. "Know your enemy - read what the terrorists are telling us online," he said. "Exploit enemy vulnerabilities made publicly available on the Internet. One of the most effective ways to hurt the jihadis is to use their own writings, discourse and web postings against them," Felter said. "We can monitor them ... follow the networks and assess their operational capacity. We can sabotage them by infiltrating their networks and flooding the web with bogus information. "And we can anticipate their attacks by reading their strategic literature and following trends on their web forums and discussion boards." Cilluffo advised offering "a compelling narrative that pulls potential extremists back from the brink," but warned such a narrative "should not be confused with efforts to improve America's image," rather it should "offer a 'dream.'" He also lamented the lack of Arabic-speakers in US intelligence services. "The ability to speak, understand and translate Arabic is crucial to prevention and response efforts, yet US government capacities in that regard are much weaker than they should be." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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