Use of the Internet by Terrorists

The message is clear: "Don’t think that you are protected from God’s soldiers. God put out for you a gang of mujahideen who fight for God without fear. God put out for you mujahideen who love death and ask for martyrdom, as you love life" declared Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, the emir of the militant organization Jamaat al-Tawhid al-Jihad -a body of self declared ‘gang of mujahideen’ responsible for the recent beheadings in Iraq, on a website. The Internet is now a frontline propaganda tool in the hands of Islamic militants to intimidate the world. They fully realize its power in reaching out to global audiences and perfectly understand that only the most violent acts will grab universal media attention. This is one of the main reasons why they have chosen to behead their captives instead of simply shooting them to death. But what’s even worse is that they are filming their callous acts of slaughtering human beings like animals; ostentatiously projecting it on their now preferred medium of choice: the Internet.

Not surprisingly this recent trend too has its roots in Pakistan. It all started in Karachi February 2002 when a Jewish Wall Street reporter, Daniel Pearl, was killed in the same fashion as retribution for the sufferings of Palestinians. It was the first time in Islamic militant history that not only the hostage was savagely beheaded but the act was also recorded on film and then later with professional quality video editing, complete with sound effects, the movie was made available online. Now with the war on Iraq in a critical phase, the beheading of nationals originating from America and their supporters has become a routine ‘holy’ cause for the militants; no matter whether they are soldiers or civilians.

The act of beheading the ‘enemy’ in the Islamic tradition is nothing new; infact it dates back to fourteen centuries. In present times Muslim militants elsewhere in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Philippines, Chechnya, and Algeria have also regularly carried out decapitation as vengeance. But what sets these acts apart from those carried out in Iraq is that none of the Jihadi outfits there have ever manipulated the Internet in the same unprecedented manner to draw attention.

The current spate of beheadings is also a hotly debated issue in Islamic forums all around the web since Islamic scholars’ dispute that beheading is sanctioned by the Koran or even allowed by Islamic law except after criminal judicial proceedings. It is only under this injunction that the Saudis, under the legal cover of the Shari’at, have kept this custom alive - 53 people had their heads chopped off only last year in the kingdom. Islam Online amongst many others has some interesting discussion threads on the topic.

The beheading videos are almost orchestrated; with speeches prepared before hand, detainees dress up in the same orange colored jump suits that the Gauntanamo Bay prisoners wear, four to five gun totting masked militants stand inline behind their kneeling victim and the banner of the radical organization is mounted on a wall in the background. Also the victims are no longer drugged as in the case of Daniel Pearl who was at least sedated before his throat was slit open. But now as in the case of Nick Berg, an American civilian contractor, the victims are placed under the knife in full consciousness so that their horrific screams of pain can be recorded for the maximum terrorizing effect.

The timing of releasing the execution footages online has also been varied. In Daniel’s case a videotape was first delivered to a US consulate and only later posted online. Nick’s footage was released on the web soon after his beheading. Now the captors draw even more attention to themselves by first releasing the video announcing their prey’s capture with threats to kill if their demands aren’t met by a deadline. Paul Johnson, a US engineer for Apache helicopters, was given a 72 hour deadline when he was shown captured. On failing to meet the demands his mutilated pictures were promptly posted online.

The South Korean civilian Kim’s heart wrenching pleas of ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die’ just hours before his decapitation are still fresh in our minds. The world is becoming accustomed to watching the sadistic video clips of innocent victims who have been condemned to die- a now trademark feature of our ‘Jihadi brothers’. In many ways the deadline trait is even more distressing to the families of the victims who are given a fruitless ray of hope, knowing that their governments would never give in to the almost impossible demands. But some have been lucky. A Pakistani driver working for the US army and a US marine of Lebanese dissent were both released even though none of the demands were fulfilled.

There’s also a unique benefit in uploading the violent pictures and videos on the net which the militants don’t get on television networks: avoiding censorship. On TV the full message and video are usually clipped either due to the extreme graphic nature of the material or because of security concerns. On the other hand on the web there’s no such regulation. Also the militant sites are hosted on free web based services such as Geocities that make the point of origin of the files virtually untraceable. Even shutting down the sites can’t stop them from spreading their agenda since one can make hundreds of ID’s with such free services in minutes and upload the messages again anywhere. Infact by the time the website is forced to shut down, the material has already been replicated all over the web.

Besides propaganda independent research carried out by the Associated Press and the Weimann Dartmouth College has identified that the Islamic militants have been using the Internet for recruitment, fund raising and planning. Last month a haunting one hour documentary on the last moments of suicide bombers in Iraq was circulated inciting people to join the resistance in Iraq (clips of the film can be found at the Northeast Intelligence Networks website and Orgish.) It is now known that the planning of the Madrid bombings carried out on the 11th March was actually based on an Al-Qaeda terrorist manual published months before on the net. With Osama Bin Laden’s three month deadline to the European countries to withdraw from the Middle East countries expired last 13th July, whether more deadly attacks will take place remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure; the Internet will continue to play a prominent role in terrorist activities for the times to come.