Defeating al Qaeda Online

Al Qaeda and the global salafist jihad network can be beaten, but not through traditional military force. The terrorists can only be beaten when we take away their major tool for recruitment and training--the internet. Aaron at Internet Haganah is correct:

What the internet *does* do is facilitate the building of a global community of jihadists and the propagation of Islamism, Islam as a political ideology which - the in the aftermath of the Cold War - is the only viable form of Arab nationalism left. And this role that the internet plays in the global jihad is absolutely critical to growing the jihad world-wide, especially in Europe and Asia. Because to transform a Muslim into a jihadist it is first necessary to Arabize that Muslim, to overcome those elements of non-Arab culture and non-Arab Muslim religious practice that help to moderate Islam in the outlying regions of the Muslim world.

If we're going to defeat the global jihad we need to recognize that there is no line separating online jihadist activity from offline terrorism, and we need to take advantage of jihadist use of the internet and use their dependance on the web to systematically acquire and take down targets: the humans who run and are most active on the websites of the global jihad.

Nothing kills a jihadist website more effectively than tossing the admin in a cell and leaving him there for a good long time.

And from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a strategy offered to beat al Qaeda online:

Force jihadi propagandists back on their heels.

Ultimate success for al-QaÂ’ida lies in reshaping mass perceptions about good and evil. As was the case since Hasan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, it is essential to grasp the fact that the long-term goal of this jihadi salafi movement is to change the face of society. Al-QaÂ’ida has been relatively successful in packaging and marketing their message in a social movement. Through the persuasive figurehead of Osama Bin Laden, the persistent continuation of global terrorism and the work by an army of propagandists to spin the tale of jihad, al-QaÂ’ida as an idea is actually much more difficult for governments to counter than when it was more or less an organization or confederation with its associated organizational vulnerabilities described earlier in our analysis.

The jihadi movementÂ’s strategic coherency to this point is attributable, in large part, to how skillfully its members used propaganda instruments, particularly since 9/11, for weaving a historical record, as one senior al-QaÂ’ida ideologue called it. As a repository of images, videos and stories, the Internet has come to codify a particular jihadi foundational myth, accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Publishing their ideas in short forum postings, longer articles floated online or in voluminous books, jihadi strategists not only recruit new members into this worldview, but they spoon-feed recruits with their virulent (and tedious) vocabulary for expressing their anger, and provide direction to operators on the ground, both in Iraq and abroad.

In a Harmony document written in 1994, the author (Hassan) contends that “more effective radio broadcasts are needed to launch a propaganda campaign in Yemen and Somalia.” Much like the prolific jihadi propagandists at work today, Hassan believed that “radio stations are more powerful than atomic bombs.” Again, the target of propaganda campaigns, he argues, must be the youth, who in small numbers can bring “correct teaching” to a large area.[31] Bin Laden himself, in a captured letter he wrote to Mullah Muhammad ‘Omar, wrote “It is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods; in fact, its ratio may reach 90% of the total preparation for the battles.”[32] In “A Memo to the Honorable Sheikh Abu Abdullah,” the author, Abu Huthayfa, suggests that Muslims should seek to integrate jihad into all aspects of their lives. For example, he argues, marriage ceremonies “should include speeches, songs, and poetry promoting jihad.”[33]

It seems imperative that combating terrorism efforts do everything possible to contain the spread of the jihadi body of ideas. The insight gained from the application of our theoretically informed model to this limited number of documents suggests that governments would find success implementing policies that focus on denying jihadis the operational space they seek; pitting groups, ideologues and even propagandists against one another; encouraging parochial squabbles within organizational leadership; and demoralizing new recruits while providing viable alternatives and exit strategies to them.

Al Qaeda is no longer a single organization, but only one organization in the larger jihad movement. I'm glad that this study recognizes that, but it fails to grasp that this war we are in is not against al Qaeda, it is against something much larger. Disrupting al Qaeda will only disrupt al Qaeda. It will make us safer inasmuch as lowering the operational capacity of that group helps, but even if al Qaeda was destroyed as an organization, it would live as an idea. The only way to win is to win the war of ideas. Pitting one jihadi group against another is a good short term strategy, but is a terrible long term strategy.

Denying the terrorist networks 'operational space' must include going after any and all websites that distribute terrorist propaganda for the purposes of building support for jihad. The task may be big, but contrary to the naysayers, it is not impossible.

Posted by: Rusty at 04:54 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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