Understanding Online Radicalization: The Jihadi Forums
Biographies of previous attackers provide inspiration, video series and glossy magazines give technical training, and “authentic” scholars of jihad provide targets to strike. Presented in a closed forum session, inspired individuals can confidentially prepare themselves and others to follow through on their ideology and to become heroes of the faith who will be idolized by the next generation of online jihadists.
In recent years, ideologues popular among Western jihadists — such as Yemeni-American scholar Anwar al-Awlaki — have tried to dissuade forum members from travelling to the lands of jihad. Instead, they have encouraged a greater focus on media production and so-called “homegrown” attacks, which are meant to leave the smallest paper trail for American intelligence agencies to follow.
Other major themes include teaching participants how to avoid Western intelligence operations, and expanding dawah (proselytizing). There has also been a growth in “supporting” materials, which supply a more general Islamic education. The move has been a response to the accusations of more moderate clerics, who attack extremists for their weak grasp of general Islamic principles and their calls for conflict without tangible ends.
AM and AMEF have made strong headway among American and European audiences. Faical Errai, a 26-year-old Moroccan living in Spain who founded the webpage, was arrested by Spanish Guardia Civil forces and later deported to his home country. According to Spanish trial documents and researcher Raff Pantucci at the ICSR, Errai had personally used the AM website to fundraise and direct fighters to Chechnya and the Taliban-dominated Pakistani province of Waziristan. From Spain, Errai boasted of directing Libyan terrorists to war zones, a marker of the international success of AM. After Errai’s arrest, the website was taken over by other jihadists, who continued the same mission and expanded the group to include AMEF.
AMEF became a major site for American and European jihadists who did not possess fluency in Arabic. Examples include convicted American terrorists Colleen LaRose (Jihad Jane), Zachary Chesser (Abu Talha al-Amriki), and Emerson Begolly (Asadullah al-Shishani), who were all major contributors to AMEF. German couple Fritz and Filiz Gelowicz, both convicted of providing material support to jihadi groups, were also regular participants.
For Chesser and Jihad Jane, the radicalization process was fairly similar. Both were converts who bought into “The War on Islam” narrative, who experienced significant radicalization outside the Internet, and who later became major participators in online forums. Chesser, who was apprehended before joining al-Shabaab, told investigators about his participation in AMEF and al-Shabaab forum alqimmah.net. He was also a leading activist for the Revolution Muslim blog, and was the founder of “themujahidblog.” Jihad Jane was also an active participant on AMEF and Revolution Muslim, which later became islampolicy.com.
Begolly, a would-be terrorist who was nabbed well before becoming operational, was an active participant in several forums including AMEF, Shumukh al-Islam, and Fallujah, according to SITE intelligence group.
With large numbers already radicalized, AMEF and AM have also begun to expand their reach into new technology. In October 2009, AM’s “Mobile Detachment” created a special data package for cell phones, according to expert Nico Prucha at jihadica.com. Aside from speeches and educational materials, the package includes an encryption program for jihadists to communicate securely, as well as new data packages that capitalize on new and older materials.
PART TWO in this series will appear tomorrow: “Understanding Online Radicalization: The Jihadi Blogs.”
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.
—–
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.