By Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writers
In the snow-draped mountains near Jalalabad in November 2001, as the
Taliban collapsed and al Qaeda lost its Afghan sanctuary, Osama bin
Laden biographer Hamid Mir watched "every second al Qaeda member
carrying a laptop computer along with a Kalashnikov" as they prepared
to scatter into hiding and exile. On the screens were photographs of
Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.
Nearly four years later, al Qaeda has become the first guerrilla
movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace.
With laptops and DVDs, in secret hideouts and at neighborhood Internet
cafes, young code-writing jihadists have sought to replicate the
training, communication, planning and preaching facilities they lost
in Afghanistan with countless new locations on the Internet.
Al Qaeda suicide bombers and ambush units in Iraq routinely depend on
the Web for training and tactical support, relying on the Internet's
anonymity and flexibility to operate with near impunity in
cyberspace. In Qatar, Egypt and Europe, cells affiliated with al Qaeda
that have recently carried out or seriously planned bombings have
relied heavily on the Internet.
Such cases have led Western intelligence agencies and outside
terrorism specialists to conclude that the "global jihad movement,"
sometimes led by al Qaeda fugitives but increasingly made up of
diverse "groups and ad hoc cells," has become a "Web-directed"
phenomenon, as a presentation for U.S. government terrorism analysts
by longtime State Department expert Dennis Pluchinsky put it.
Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has
proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this
vast online presence.
Among other things, al Qaeda and its offshoots are building a massive
and dynamic online library of training materials -- some supported by
experts who answer questions on message boards or in chat rooms --
covering such varied subjects as how to mix ricin poison, how to make
a bomb from commercial chemicals, how to pose as a fisherman and sneak
through Syria into Iraq, how to shoot at a U.S. soldier, and how to
navigate by the stars while running through a night-shrouded
desert. These materials are cascading across the Web in Arabic, Urdu,
Pashto and other first languages of jihadist volunteers.
The Saudi Arabian branch of al Qaeda launched an online magazine in
2004 that exhorted potential recruits to use the Internet: "Oh Mujahid
brother, in order to join the great training camps you don't have to
travel to other lands," declared the inaugural issue of Muaskar
al-Battar, or Camp of the Sword. "Alone, in your home or with a group
of your brothers, you too can begin to execute the training program."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080501138.html
Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)