Israeli Expert Discusses Terrorists’ Use of Internet in Austrian Interview

Text of interview with Gabriel Weimann: “The Internet Is the ideal medium for terrorists”, published by Austrian newspaper Die Presse on 12 March

Vienna – How do international terrorist organizations use the media as a “stage” for their crimes? What do they do to attract people’s attention, to terrify them? The Israeli professor Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa has dealt with these questions for many years. The newspaper Die Presse spoke with him about the Internet as a new means of communication for terrorists.

[Die Presse] Why are terrorists increasingly using the Internet?

[Gabriel Weimann] The Internet is the ideal medium for modern terrorism. It is accessible from anywhere. You can sit in an Internet cafe or in a library, post messages and videos, and vanish from the scene. Moreover, there is no censorship and no gatekeeper [previous word in English in original]. The terrorists do not have to convince an editor to publish their story – they simply place it on the Internet. The Internet is interactive: the terrorists can directly communicate with their audience and exchange opinions, which makes it easier for them to indoctrinate people. In addition, the Internet is not just another individual medium, like, for example, newspapers, radio, or television, but it is a combination of all these media. One can download movies, video clips, music, charts, and books.

[Die Presse] Why are terror websites not simply being closed down?

[Weimann] Even if these sites are being closed down, they are available again within an hour. We started our university project eight years ago. We found 12 terror websites then. Today, we know that there are more than 5,000 relevant sites.

Al-Qa’idah alone is operating almost 60 homepages. Hacking and closing their websites is a cat-and-mouse game. The mouse is hunted down; it dives into a hole and reappears through another. But it is not necessary to destroy these websites. By monitoring them carefully, you can learn a lot about the terrorists, about their motives, about their way of thinking, who they want to address, and who they want to attack. It allows you to open a window into the thoughts of terrorists.

[Die Presse] What could you learn so far about the motives of terrorists?

[Weimann] There is a wide variety of motives: religious, political, ethnic, or social motives, for example, if people have the impression to live in a society where they are second-class citizens.

[Die Presse] How do jihadists work?

[Weimann] Let’s say, for example, you want to sell coffee and you have many different potential customers. To some customers you will say: my coffee has a very good flavor. Others you will try to convince by saying: my coffee is the best thing to wake you up.

[Die Presse] How do jihadists try to indoctrinate their audience via the Internet?

[Weimann] They will try to choose the right motive for the right person. They will try to convince religious people with religious motives. When trying to convince Muslims in the diaspora, they speak about the social frustrations some of these Muslims experience in Europe.

The Shi’i Hezbollah, for example, runs dozens of websites in eight different languages. Some address the public opinion of the world. Some address the Shi’is in Lebanon, and others address the pubic opinion in Israel – as an instrument of psychological warfare against the enemy. Now the Hezbollah even runs a website in Hebrew.

Underground groups in Iraq operate websites addressing the US forces. There they show the killing of US soldiers to intimidate the coalition forces. In 2004, the former Al-Qa’idah chief in Iraq, Musab al-Zarqawi, showed the first execution on the Internet – the decapitation of Nicholas Berg, a kidnapped American. Within seconds, the video could be watched all over the world.

[Die Presse] What do you think is the most alarming development concerning terrorism and the Internet?

[Weimann] I find it most alarming that terrorists are increasingly focusing on the indoctrination of children. Many terror websites offer music, cartoons, or computer games. Hezbollah, for example, uses a game called “Special Force.” It starts like a typical war game. The player shoots at Israeli soldiers, but suddenly, he finds himself in a Hezbollah training camp, where he is politically indoctrinated by Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah. Al-Qa’idah uses many cartoons praising suicide attacks.

[Die Presse] What can be done against the increase of these websites?

[Weimann] Perhaps it is possible to slow down the development, but it is impossible to stop it. This is the price we have to pay for modern life and democracy. Of course, the increase in terrorism homepages on the Internet could be stopped by closing down the Internet. But, of course, no one would want that.

But the people who combat terrorism can learn from these homepages. They can set traps for terrorists. In some cases, net- based communication between attackers even contributed to the prevention of attacks.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring European. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.