Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : TALIBAN & AL QAIDA PROPAGANDA (including the 'bin Laden Tapes' & AQ statements) with analysis
Al Qaeda Increasingly Reliant on Media by H M Fattah 
New York Times, September 30, 2006 Al Qaeda Increasingly Reliant on Media By HASSAN M. FATTAH AMMAN, Jordan - On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Abu Omar received the call to jihad. Literally. "There's a present for you," a voice on the other end of the phone said that morning, he recalled. It was a common code whenever his friends and colleagues wanted to share a new broadcast or communiqué from Al Qaeda over the Internet, he said. Abu Omar, speaking on the condition that only his nickname be used, said he soon went to one of the Internet cafes he frequents in Amman and began distributing the latest video by Al Qaeda, alerting friends and occasionally adding commentary. "We are the energy behind the path to jihad," Abu Omar said proudly. "Just like the jihadis reached their target on Sept. 11, we will reach ours through the Internet." Abu Omar, 28, is part of an increasingly sophisticated network of contributors and discussion leaders helping to wage Al Qaeda's battle for Muslim hearts and minds. A self-described Qaeda sympathizer who defends the Sept. 11 attacks and continues to find inspiration in Osama bin Laden's call for jihad, Abu Omar is part of a growing army of young men who may not seek to take violent action, but who help spread jihadist philosophy, shape its message and hope to inspire others to their cause. Though he does not appear to be directly connected to Al Qaeda, Abu Omar does seem to be on a direct e-mail list for groups sympathetic to Al Qaeda, making him a link in a chain that spreads the organization's propaganda using code and special software to circumvent official scrutiny of their Internet activity. As Al Qaeda gradually transforms itself from a terrorist organization carrying out its own attacks into an ideological umbrella that encourages local movements to take action, its increased reliance on various forms of media have made Web-savvy sympathizers like Abu Omar ever more important. For example, this past Sept. 11, Abu Omar said, a link sent to a jihadist e-mail list took him to a general interest Islamic Web site, which led him to a password-protected Web site, then onto yet another site containing the latest release from Al Qaeda: a lecture by its No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatening attacks on Israel and the Persian Gulf. Abu Omar said he then passed the video to friends and confidants, acting as a local distributor to other sympathizers. In recent years, Al Qaeda has formed a special media production division called Al Sahab to produce videos about leaders like Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri, terrorism experts say. The group largely once relied on Arab television channels like Al Jazeera to broadcast its videos and taped messages. Al Sahab, whose name means the cloud, has continued to draw on a video library featuring everything from taped suicide messages by the Sept. 11 hijackers to images of gun battles and bombings spearheaded by Al Qaeda and others, said Marwan Shehadeh, an expert on Islamist movements with the Vision Research Institute in Amman who has close ties to jihadists in Jordan and Syria. But this year Al Sahab has released many more recordings than in previous years, said Chris Heffelfinger, a specialist in jihadi ideology at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, in what many analysts see as a new offensive focusing on the Muslim mainstream. Jihadi Web sites, meanwhile, have continued sprouting on the Internet, serving as a conduit for Al Qaeda's propaganda. Mr. Shehadeh describes Al Sahab as an informal group with video camcorders and laptops. Some news reports have described it as an organization with a mobile production unit that navigates the Pakistani provinces. "The jihadis have successfully used American technology to show the U.S. as a loser," Mr. Shehadeh said. "This is an open-ended war, and they use media as part of their jihad against Western and Arab regimes." Just days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Sahab released a barrage of videos, including images of Mr. bin Laden seated with some of the Sept. 11 suicide bombers; a documentary that some have described as a "making of Sept. 11" feature, with testaments by two of the bombers; and the lecture by Mr. Zawahri that Abu Omar said he received that morning. What is most striking about the messages is their tone, terrorism analysts say. In the past, the group's leaders were generally depicted as soldiers in battle, often filmed outdoors with weapons in the background. But the more recent communiqués show Al Qaeda's leaders in the comfort of a living room or office, set against bookshelves with religious texts. The group has also taken to quoting Western authors and famous speeches, in what seems to be an effort to reach those with Western sensibilities. "It's a clear message: when there's a gun in the background, they're saying, 'I'm a fighter like you'; when there are books in the background, it means, 'I am a scholar and deserve authority,' " said Fares bin Hizam, a journalist who reports on militant groups for the Arab satellite news channel Al Arabiya. "It is a message that resonates well with an impressionable young man who is 17 or 18." One result, terrorism analysts say, is a militant group in transition, seeking to push ideology over direct action, franchising its name and principles to smaller groups acting more independently. "Al Qaeda has been turning itself from an active organization into a propaganda organization," said Mr. Heffelfinger. "They now appear to be focused on putting out disinformation and projecting the strength of the mujahedeen. They're no longer the group that is organizing the mujahedeen. Instead, they are giving guidance to all the movements." Men like Abu Omar have become integral to that transformation. Mr. Shehadeh, who introduced Abu Omar to this reporter, says he has known Abu Omar ever since he was a teenager and has observed his gradual embrace of jihadist ideology. He says he has seen Abu Omar's contributions on numerous chat boards and notes that while Abu Omar is probably not a Qaeda member, he regularly relays news and spreads the group's message to friends and colleagues. In Amman's more conservative neighborhoods, Abu Omar and several analysts said, one or two jihadists tend to be the organizers, distributing messages and content to volunteers, and controlling membership in jihadist e-mail lists. "We are typically observers, but when we see something on the Net, our job is to share it," Abu Omar said. He no longer trusts news reports on television, he said. He even cast doubt on Al Jazeera, which typically broadcasts Al Qaeda's videos but is, he said, still beholden to Arab governments. "We become like journalists ourselves." Abu Omar, who owns a computer store in one of Amman's refugee camps, said he became involved in jihadi movements about six years ago, driven in part by his anger over the death of his father, who he said was a fighter with the Palestinian faction Fatah when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. "On the Net, you can see all the pictures of Palestine and the Muslim world being attacked, and then you see the planes crashing into one of the towers and you think, 'I can understand it,' " he said. He goes to an Internet cafe several times a week. In recent years, Jordan's Internet cafes have begun taking increased security measures, like registering users' identification cards, he said, but jihadists in Amman alternate among a network of sympathetic cafe owners who allow them to surf anonymously. He never uses his own computer to search for jihadi content, and he limits his time online to about 30 minutes - not long enough for the authorities to locate him, he figures. In 2005, Jordanian authorities arrested an 18-year-old man, Murad al-Assaydeh, accusing him of using the Internet to threaten attacks on intelligence officials. Abu Omar said several of his friends and comrades had been arrested by the General Information Department in Jordan in connection with Mr. Assaydeh's case and in subsequent dragnets. Abu Omar said he was once called in for questioning but was released the same day. He now changes his e-mail address frequently, he said, and he typically carries software that can delete details of his actions from a computer. "In the beginning, I thought maybe I would go for jihad in Iraq, but it was very difficult to get there," he said. "Now I realize it's better to work on the Net and get the message out." |