Contents
• Terrorist use of the Internet for training purposes
• Irhabi007 & Co. to remain on holiday in Belmarsh for an extended period of time
• Top German Prosecutor Backs Online Terror Surveillance
OSINT
• Lebanon Indicts 31 Over Al-Qaida-Linked Plots [22 Dec 2007]
• Belgium Arrests 14 in Terror Probe [22 Dec 2007]
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• Sherlock Holmes used to work for the CIA
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• American Intelligence
• National Intelligence Estimate is...
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• Reading Their Lips: The Credibility of Jihadi Web Sites as ‘Soft Power’ in the War of the Minds
• ISLAM IN AFRICA NEWSLETTER, Volume 2 (2007), Number 4 (December 2007)
• Radical Islam in the Caribbean Basin: A Local Problem or a Global Threat?
Terrorist use of the Internet for training purposes
by A. Aaron Weisburd
Many kinds of training can be engaged in or implemented by terrorists and the organizations they support. Most of this training involves ideological indoctrination, strategic and tactical considerations of target selection, and methods for organizing a terrorist cell, planning, and carrying out an attack.
The manufacture of explosives is the one element of terrorist tradecraft that is difficult to teach online. This is so, not as a result of any limitation inherent to the Internet, but due to real-world factors.
A terrorist who enrolls himself in a self-training program will require opportunity, self-discipline, intelligence, courage, luck, and information.
The Internet can be a source of good information regarding explosives manufacture.
In order to successfully complete his course of study, our would-be terrorist will need the opportunity - not to mention the good sense - to make and test explosives repeatedly so that he may be assured they will actually function as desired when the time comes. Explosives are loud. In any area that is densely populated this activity is liable to draw unwanted attention and bring with it an increased risk of exposure. Conversely, failure to adequately test one's student project prior to an operation can result in spectacular failure.
At any moment the "semester" may come to a dramatic end in the form of a "work accident" which prematurely sends the aspiring terrorist(s) off to meet their maker. Even if the apprentice bomb-maker is both lucky and has the opportunity to test his work without being noticed, and the good fortune to have selected good information to guide his efforts, he may well lack the discipline necessary to complete this or any other course of self-instruction.
No amount of opportunity, self-discipline, intelligence, courage, and luck will make up for the absence of good information, and in this regard the Internet may be expected to play a vital role in the successful training of a jihadist or any other individual inclined to the most extreme forms of political violence.
That all said, we now refer you to the following two articles, one which overstates the threat posed by terrorist use of the Internet, and the other of which understates that threat.
The Internet is a communications medium, a theatre of operations, a technology. These are details that we need to be mindful of. What matters, however, is people: who they are, where they are, their motivations, and the opportunities they have to do harm.
1. Report: Terrorists cannot train online
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The Internet is useful to Islamic terror groups for propaganda and recruitment, but it cannot be used for terrorist military training, says a U.S. report.The Austin, Texas-based private sector intelligence company Stratfor says in an analysis that some experts overstate the importance of the Internet.
"Although the Internet has been a great enabler for grassroots (terrorist) cells to spread their ideology and recruit new acolytes, some things are incredibly difficult to accomplish online -- namely, absorbing the technical information and tradecraft of terrorism and applying it to a real-world situation, particularly in a hostile environment," reads the analysis, published last week.
"The application of technical skills (bomb-making, targeting, and deployment) often requires subtle and complex abilities that one cannot perfect simply by reading about them," says the analysis, adding it is "quite difficult to follow written instructions and build a perfectly functioning improvised explosive device from scratch; as with any scientific endeavor, trial and error and testing in the real world usually are required.
"Bomb-making is a talent best learned from an experienced teacher," it concludes.
The analysis adds that "tradecraft -- those intuitive skills needed to sustain secrecy and operations in a hostile environment" -- is another set of skills hard to acquire online.
2. Terrorists to use virtual worlds to train
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Second Life-type virtual worlds hidden on botnets of hacker-controlled computers could be used by terrorists as a place to meet and train, say two experts.In an analysis on the Counter-Terrorism Blog, former British Special Branch policeman Roderick Jones and innovation expert Michael Schrage, who advises the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, note that terror groups tend to be "early adopters of new technologies -- especially if they're cheap and easy to acquire."
Provocatively, the two argue that such technologies might eventually eliminate the need for terrorist training camps altogether.
"Geographically dispersed terrorist groups could easily come together to learn the complex technical tradecraft of terror, such as bomb making … within a virtual environment."
Such virtual worlds could be built using commercial software, and be housed on botnets -- networks of compromised personal computers that, all unbeknownst to their owners, are controlled by hackers.
"Untraceably cheap and disposable 'just-in-time' virtual worlds that fuse the benefits of virtual worlds like Second Life with the criminal effectiveness of zombie bot-nets are inevitable," argue the two authors.
"The barriers to creating such a world are being constantly reduced as companies are beginning to provide the tools for creating DIY worlds. Virtual worlds require a relatively small software interface, which sits over a number of dispersed servers that host the world. Bot-nets could act as temporary servers."
Irhabi007 & Co. to remain on holiday in Belmarsh for an extended period of time
Longer sentences for al-Qaeda men
Three men linked to al-Qaeda, who admitted inciting terrorist attacks against non-Muslims via the internet, have had their sentences increased.Younes Tsouli, 24, had a 10-year jail term raised to 16 years, while Waseem Mughal, 24, had seven-and-a-half-years lengthened to 12.
And Tariq Al-Daour, 22, originally jailed for six-and-a-half years, had his term increased to 10 years.
The Court of Appeal agreed the original terms were "unduly lenient".
The decision was taken after being referred under the Unduly Lenient sentence scheme by Vera Baird, the Solicitor General.
'Global conspiracy'
The solicitor general said: "I referred the sentences given to these three offenders to the Court of Appeal because I considered that the sentences did not properly reflect the seriousness of the offences, the need to punish the offenders and the need to deter others from such serious conduct."
Al-Daour was also sentenced to a further two years to run consecutively on a separate fraud offence.
The three men are the first people to be convicted of inciting terrorist murder via the internet.
During their trial, Woolwich Crown Court heard that Al-Daour and Tsouli, both of west London, and Mughal, of Chatham, Kent, had close links with al-Qaeda in Iraq and believed there was a "global conspiracy" to wipe out Islam.
For at least a year, they used e-mail and radical websites to try to encourage people to follow the ideology of Osama Bin Laden.
Conspiracy admission
The jury heard footage was found in their belongings of Briton Ken Bigley pleading for his life and Americans Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl being killed.
Following a two-month trial, all three admitted inciting another person to commit an act of terrorism wholly or partly outside the UK which would, if committed in England and Wales, constitute murder.
They also admitted conspiring together and with others to defraud banks, credit card companies and charge card companies.
Computers, notebooks and digital storage media were seized when police raided the homes of the three men.
They were originally sentenced in July.
Top German Prosecutor Backs Online Terror Surveillance
A computer with a picture of a veiled terrorists with a machine gun The Internet has become the main mode of communication for international terrorists, according to Germany's top prosecutor. That's why the country needs to consider highly controversial surveillance methods, she said.Posted on 22 December 2007 @ 13:30Surveillance of Islamists on the Internet has become vital in the battle against terrorism, Germany's top anti-subversion official, Federal Prosecutor General Monika Harms, said Friday, Dec. 14.
"The Internet has developed into the decisive means of communication within international Islamist terrorism," she said during a press conference in Karlsruhe to review the year.
Harms said a Berlin-based team, the Joint Internet Center (GIZ), consisting of about 30 German police and intelligence officers, had been working full time since January, monitoring Islamist activity on the Internet and analyzing Islamist Web sites.
DIY bombs
The federal prosecutors added that the Internet was being used to give orders to conduct attacks or to publish blueprints for bombs.
"It provides a technical platform for new forms of telephony and written communication, where effective encryption is able de facto to prevent interception by third parties," she said.
Expanding surveillance
"It is indispensable for investigative authorities to have access to the communications of suspects," she added, referring to a debate in Germany about whether police should use software viruses to quietly read files on the computers' of people suspected of serious crimes.
"There are established instruments, such as telephone tapping, or the use of technology to establish the location of mobile phones," she said. "But technical change forces one to constantly review the technical arsenal."
Vigilance was vital to detect attack plans before they happened, said Harms, who directs prosecutors and police fighting crimes against the state.