Understanding Online Radicalization: The Jihadi Forums
Rising terrorism arrests in America, particularly the breaking up of 22 plots between May 2009 and November 2010, have sparked questions about how young Muslim men become terrorists. Although radicalization has become a catch phrase in the media, little has been written about the methods, websites, and actors involved in the process.
This series, “Understanding Online Radicalization,” seeks to shed light on how the Internet functions as a tool for radicalizing would-be terrorists. It will answer questions about the kinds of websites popular among jihadists, how these sites have used new media and technology, and how they appeal to young people.
Understanding the world of online jihadists gives us insight into what motivates its participants and what drives some of them to act out their violent fantasies.
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Jihadi Forums: The Ansar al-Mujahideen Network
For converts to violent Islamism, the ideology that has motivated attacks ranging from 9/11 to the Fort Hood massacre, the Internet is the ultimate tool in their arsenal. It guides, educates, and provides a sense of community among the isolated Western followers of the path of jihadists.
In particular, jihadi forums provide a one-stop shop for news, publications, and media. Though the forums lack the organized worldview of jihadi blogs, they do provide some of the strongest links bonding would-be terrorists to one another and to larger networks abroad.
Among the jihadi forums, Ansar al-Mujahideen [AM] and its sister site Ansar al-Mujahiden English Forum [AMEF] provide a readily accessible example of the potential of websites in this genre. AM began in 2008 as a “rather low-frills, Arabic-language clone forum with questionable credibility and a membership of mostly silent observers,” according to counterterrorism expert Evan Kohlmann. Although the website grew by leaps and bounds even before Kohlmann’s February 2010 article on the site, it has since become one of the primary beacons among aspiring radicals in the West.
The construction of the Arabic-language edition of the site is simple but graphically sharp. Well-designed ads at the top of the page highlight the latest publications by a number of jihadi media groups, including al-Qaeda branches, Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab, and independent scholars of jihad. Underneath these ads is a ringing endorsement of the site by Jordanian Islamist Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, followed by links to general news about the ummah (Muslim nation), specific theaters of war, a “College of Electronic Jihad,” and many more dedicated sub-forums.
The world of jihadi forums is a fast-moving place, where groups post links to books, articles, videos, and other multimedia using mostly Western file transfer services. Although there is an expectation that most of these links will be taken down, AM features an archive of key texts and “redeploys” significant ideological manuscripts and technical manuals in a timely fashion.
AMEF, the English-language brand of AM, is a smaller and more focused version of its parent website. It features the same glossy links to new jihadi publications as well as the slightly back-dated English translations of those items, but features less sub-categories. For AMEF, the spotlight is on news of the ummah, jihadi media, publications, and press releases.
Materials posted to the forum can be divided into three general categories: “The War on Islam,” the need to fight back, and a smaller subset of publications that support traditional Islamist points of view.
Using violent sections of traditional Islamic texts linked to historic events, the forum presents the view of constant war between Islam and all other ideologies. In its latest episode of this epic war, the forces of disbelief are led by Americans and Jews, who seek to manipulate and oppress Muslims and Islam.
Grievances with American foreign policy — whether real or imagined — reinforce their beliefs. Self-declared scholars dismiss the sell-out Westernized intellectuals on the circuit of mainstream Islamic conferences, often with a high degree of success. Their message has a strong degree of acceptability among predisposed youth, who believe Islam is under attack and subsequently feel alienated when their local religious leaders fail to take actions to protect Islam and Muslims. Jihadist forums provide a powerful answer to the anger these youth experience, combining violence with theological justification.
Once readers buy into the general notion of conflict between Islam and other ideologies, materials on the forum illustrate the how, when, where, and why of carrying out terrorist attacks.
Good god, Nidal Hassan is shown at AMEF in a heroes’ gallery. As Barack Obama says, however, let’s not jump to conclusions.
PajamasMedia asserts: … little has been written about the methods, websites, and actors involved in the process [of radicalization] …
This is one of the most bafflingly nonsensical headlines ever to appear on PajamasMedium.
“Little has been written”? That claim is utter b*llsh*t.
For a reasonable high-level summary, search the Army/USMC Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency for the keywords “justice” and “radical”. You will find passages like this one:
At greater depth, the Small Wars Journal Council forum hosts dozens of articles and hundreds of posts on the topic of radicalization … articles and posts that are written mostly by US veterans who have personally been-there-done-that.
In the main, the SWJ discussions are thoughtful, respectful, fact-based. Good.
Small Wars Council >
Small Wars Participants & Stakeholders >
Adversary / Threat
URL: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/forumdisplay.php?f=51/showthread.php?s=d2a4213768d6858143efb71556a7aff0&t=7188
Maybe you didn’t actually read the article? What you posted was so general that it ignores just how young people become radical.
This article is incredibly relevant. They should follow it up with more of the same.
Today’s lead story on the (immensely popular) Computer Science and Engineering site SlashDot is “Aussie Climate Scientists Receiving Death Threats.”
Hmmmm … so AGW denialists (in Australia anyway) now are taking a page straight from Al Qaeda’s methods that are the topic of this post …
In the minds of SlashDot‘s software engineers, the effect is that ideology-first conservatism is viewed as just another species of ideology-first terrorism … or as one highly-rated SlashDot post this morning put it:
Needless to say, the issuing of death-threats is an utter disaster for conservatism broadly … both in Australia and around the globe … and that is thoughtful conservatism must first understand, and then adamantly reject, the ideology-first propaganda methods of the terrorists.
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Aussie Climate Scientists Receiving Death Threats
URL: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/06/20/035226/Aussie-Climate-Scientists-Receiving-Death-Threats
“Hmmmm … so AGW denialists (in Australia anyway) now are taking a page straight from Al Qaeda’s methods that are the topic of this post …”
So, you are making ridiculous accusations based on what “an anonymous writer” stated, without any supporting documentation? Probably alarmists making the threatening calls themselves and blaming the skeptics.
We don’t need to resort to “Al Qaeda’s methods” to know that sooner or later the AGW hoax will be exposed. There are enough already seeing the light:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316469/Royal-Society-issues-new-climate-change-guide-admits-uncertainties.html
Sorry, the above is from jarmo.
All quotes are fully-sourced by named climate scientists speaking on-the-record about the death threats they are receiving.
Death threats fail to shake climate scientists
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/05/3235810.htm
“The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.”
I wonder why that is?
This article is nothing more than an upbeat advertisement for jihadi sites, and is therefore obscene.
This article is purely informative. It could be obscene only to the stupid, I think.
And the reason our so-called “cyber-warriors” allow this stuff to remain online is…?
Monitor them?
How many times must it be written before nice sweet intellectuals understand there is no radicalization within Islam unless one believes following Muhammad is extreme.
If one believes following Muhammad is extreme, and radical, then Islam is extreme, and radical. To follow Muhammad is Islam, and don’t forget getting your arse in the air five times a day towards Mecca to worship the god known as the moon god Sin.
BZO, or Die!
The internet makes it easy for Islamic educators to reach converts.
With groups such as disenfranchised angry young blacks in ghettos and prisons that blame the US government and society for imagined ills,it is simple for muslims to draw them in and feed their living-growing hate.
Islamic countries teach hate and victimization from birth.Internet sites prompt them into revenge actions and eliminate personal ties/blame for the instigators.
They already have well established propoganda text.Creating sites to encourage and whorship the mentally ill murderers is just evolution.
Al-Fateh is Hamas’s web-based magazine for children and youth.
In an analysis of 159 issues published between September 2002 and October 2009, four major themes recur: hatred and contempt for the West, annihilation of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants, demonization of the Jews, and a cynical form of indoctrination that aims to turn children into future suicide bombers.
In Iran Political Islam rules every aspect of education and the school system. Belief in Islam is compulsory, and to live according to Islamic values, norms and thoughts is a pre-condition for survival. Learning the Qur’an is compulsory from the first year in primary schools.
Teachers must pass a religious exam to be permitted to teach. This exam includes Islamic rules, prayers, the Qur’an and Hadith. Islamist propaganda is taught systematically.
Jordanian teachers’ manual for first-graders used on the West Bank instructs educators to “implant in the soul of the pupil the rule of Islam that if the enemies occupy even one inch of the Islamic lands, jihad (holy war) becomes imperative for every Muslim.” It also says the Jews plotted to assassinate Muhammad when he was a child.
The Arab countries see to it that all young schoolchildren are taught to hate Jews. The Syrian Minister of Education : “The hatred which we indoctrinate into the minds of our children from their birth is sacred.”
In Pakistan school textbooks teach intolerance toward Hindus.The book charges Hindus and Sikhs practised ethnic cleansing during partition in 1947 when India and Pakistan were carved out of British India and became independent states.
In Britain as well, the indoctrination to hatred is alive and well.
Shame of Britain’s Muslim schools
Welcome to one of Britain’s most influential Islamic faith schools, one of at least 2,000 such schools in Britain, some full-time, others part-time. They represent a growing, parallel education system.
The school is the Darul Uloom Islamic High School in Birmingham, an oversubscribed independent secondary school. Darul Ulooms are world-renowned Islamic institutions and their aim is to produce the next generation of Muslim leaders. In fact, these schools have been described as the ‘Etons of Islam’.
…………
We found children as young as 11 learning that Hindus have ‘no intellect’ and that they ‘drink cow p***’.
And we came across pupils being told that the ‘disbelievers’ are ‘the worst creatures’ and that Muslims who adopt supposedly non-Muslim ways, such as shaving, dancing, listening to music and – in the case of women – removing their headscarves, would be tortured with a forked iron rod in the afterlife.
Now just imagine if this “teaching” came from the other side, what a scandal would be made of it.
How ironic that if these animals should win in their strucggle, they will obliterate the very vehicle of their victory. That figures…
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U.S. soldiers fiery the Koran incident congeal fixed a multi-national anti-Americanism climax
Burning of Koran desecration, according to China Constantly U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the Coalesced States February 24, said the civilized spread of weighty appertain to for the situation, and aeons ago again express the most sincere apology. Afghanistan protests set fourth daytime, and no signs of stopping. Not only that, Pakistan, Libya, the wilderness pinpoint off a latest – wheel anti-American high tide. http://www.slendertonesflex.com/ Slendertone Flex
Deterioration of the setting that the Connected States quickly and time after time apologized in compensation
Consolidated U.S. media, on the 24 day U.S. Have Unit regular briefing, substitute spokesman Mark Downer stressed that the burning of the Koran is the U.S. soldiers inadvertently, the American people to attentiveness the beliefs and religious practices of all Muslims. http://www.slendertonesflex.com/ Slendertone Aspect
Downer said: “We reimburse conclude notice to the worsening injure b warp in Afghanistan, condition, and the rising annihilation toll in the media reports and I expectation the Afghan people to allow the United States the most unfeigned apology – from the future-oriented.”
- Days, the Innocent House said the ultimate target of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to wipe al-Qaeda. White Assembly spokesman said, do not want to drink Afghanistan escalating protests nearby the religious extremist forces. U.S. analysts find creditable that the Amalgamated States right away and over again apologized, but also necessary to secure the safety of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in person considerations and the U.S. design in Afghanistan as a whole.
Displeasure spread of Pakistani protesters Libya smashed tombstones
U.S. soldiers aflame the Koran circumstance triggered fuming conflagration has already spread to neighboring Pakistan, Afghanistan. February 24, in the Pakistani funds Islamabad and the northwestern new zealand urban area of Peshawar, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest against the desecration of the U.S. soldiers.
In the Pakistani funds Islamabad, demonstrators shouted “quit the transportation of supplies to NATO,” U.S. slavery unsatisfactory “and other slogans. In Peshawar, protesters who played “We incriminate the NATO soldiers slander the Koran” slogan chanted “team up of the United States is a benedict arnold” battle-cry, burning portraits of U.S. President Barack Obama. http://www.slendertonesflex.com/ Slendertone Thrash sing
According to British “Everyday Telegraph” speech prohibited of madden to the burning of the Koran past U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Libyan Islamic extremists British soldiers killed during The human race Struggle II in Libya, Benghazi military cemetery tombstones smashed, where buried far 1214 allied soldiers. Analysts are active round the Taliban or other jingoistic groups as an palliation to call on people to contrary to the Anglo-American coalition forces in Afghanistan.