Lebanese-based Jihadis Online
By: A. Aaron Weisburd, Director
Society for Internet Research
http://www.sofir.org
contact at sofir dot org
Restrictions: Reposting or republication of this document is subject to the approval of the author.
1. Introduction
The following is based on the most current data that we have had a chance to process, acquired from six forums sampled over the summer of 2006 (before the war between Israel and Hizballah). The results are consistent both with data acquired earlier in 2006, and with samples collected in the Fall of 2006 which we have yet to process fully. The data presented here is based on a sample of 3,618 IP addresses gathered from six forums with approximately 2,000 active users per forum, for a population of 12,000. In Lebanon we are speaking of between 150 and 300 jihadists who are active on Arabic-language jihadist websites. Whether a jihadi we see online is Lebanese or Palestinian and living in Lebanon is not something we can determine, and it is an important distinction. Informed speculation suggests that the jihadis we see online are mostly Palestinians, and that most of them are in the vicinity of Ein el-Hilweh or Nahr al-Barid. It is not unusual for jihadist communiqués in this part of the world to be issued first on paper and distributed by fax to newspapers. Later they are posted online. Thus the Internet is not quite so central to jihadist activity in this region compared to other areas, and it may not be the best indicator of current activity or emerging trends. That said, the fact remains that internet activity is something we can view from far off, and so it behooves us to make the most of it.
2. All IP addresses vs. Unique IP addresses
Figure 1. Comparison of all IP addresses vs. unique IP addresses
In our surveys we generally rely on all IP addresses, rather than just the unique IP addresses. The reason for this is that by counting all IP addresses we compensate for cases where multiple users all appear under a single address. This happens when users are forced by their ISP to connect through a proxy server (common practice among satellite internet providers, for example), or when they are using computers in a cyber café, to give just two likely scenarios. In Figure 1, Lebanese users of the forums accounted for between 2.68% and 1.25% of the sample. Saudi internet users are known to mostly connect through proxy servers operated by the Kingdom, and one can see how their percentage of the sample dropped from 8.27% when we counted all IP's to 2.69% when we counted only unique IP's. Conversely, we know Israeli, Palestinian and Yemeni users tend to have broadband internet connections with more-or-less static (and thus unique) IP's, and as a result the percentage of these three groups in our survey rises when we look only at unique IP addresses.
3. Lebanese-based jihadis in regional context
We know that there are active jihadist groups in the Palestinian communities of Ein el-Hilweh in the south of Lebanon, and Nahr al-Barid in the north. We see signs of an emerging, native Lebanese jihadist movement, operating under the name of Mujahedeen of Lebanon. Further complicating the issue is the presence of genuine Syrian jihadists, and of pseudo-jihadists believed by sources to actually be elements of Syrian intelligence (e.g. the perpetrators of the Hariri assassination). The prominence of Palestinian jihadists in the region (Figure 2), the knowledge that most of the Palestinian jihadists we see are in the West Bank and that there are open lines of communication between the West Bank and the camps in Lebanon, and that both the West Bank and the Lebanese Palestinian communities were largely under the control of Fatah rather than Hamas - all these contribute to our belief that the Lebanese-based jihadis we see online are mostly Palestinians. Whether they and the emerging Lebanese jihadis can make common cause remains to be seen. As far as we know they are currently two distinct groups.
Figure 2. Levantine region jihadis online
4. The Levant in the context of the global jihad
Figure 3. The Levantine countries - 15.37% of Arabic-speaking jihadis online
The Levant, comprised of Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and territories occupied by Palestinians, has been and continues to be a center of gravity for the global jihad. As internet, and more importantly broadband internet, becomes more commonly available it will fuel the spread of Islamist radicalization throughout the region. This, combined with the availability of weapons and explosives expertise, should be cause for concern, not only within the Levantine countries, but also in those countries with large diaspora communities, such as Australia (Lebanese), Spain (Palestinian) and the United States (both).