Internet Provides Terrorists With Tools -- Just Like Everyone Else

Last week, I attended a National Counterterrorism Center conference on "The Changing Face of Al Qa'ida." I was honored to take part in a panel on Internet radicalization with some great thinkers in this space, Will McCants and Daveed Gartentstein-Ross, as well as Scott Carpenter, head of Google Ideas, who made a persuasive case for that project, although I continue to have some reservations and look forward to further conversations. What follows is an abridged and edited version of my talk.

Terrorists use the Internet in many of the same ways that everyone else uses it – to communicate, collaborate and achieve critical mass.

Jihadists in the U.S. began using email to distribute propaganda as soon as it became available. They replaced paper newsletters such as Al Hussam, published out of Boston, with e-mailed newsletters like the Islam Report, by Kifah Jayyousi with the American Islamic Group in Florida. Al Hussam later went online as well both in email and Web page form. These were just practical decisions. It cost about $1,000 a month to publish Al Hussam on paper. It cost virtually nothing to email Islam Report.

Jihadis switched to digital video fairly early as well, for similar reasons. It was much cheaper and easier to distribute files on video than on videotape. Prior to 9/11 most of these initiatives were extensions of the earlier formats – basically the same newsletter or video in digital form.

The rise of the Web and social media have made it possible for people with all sorts of fringe interests to find community where they never could before, whether it's fans of low-rated TV shows, people with unusual sexual fetishes or people who are fascinated by jihad.

Since 9/11, use of the Interent in general and by jihadists specifically has increasingly been about relationships. Many or even most of the relationships people institute online will remain online forever. But some people will make connections that lead to real-life interactions.

The jihadist Web is of greatest concern to us when relationships established online become relationships in the real world with real-world consequences. There is a tremendous amount of radical activity online. Very little of that activity will translate into real-world threats. But the volume of activity gives us a great (albeit imperfect) view on the temperature and interests of the movement.

The Internet is also seen, correctly, as an incubator for incipient radicalism and a transmission channel for jihadist and Al Qaeda propaganda. These are important factors, but not as important as the relationships. Relationships forged online have led to attempted terrorist attacks and violent radical activity in a number of cases (including Zach Chesser, "Jihad Jane" Colleen LaRose and Faisal Shahzad).

In contrast, despite a constant flow of specific threats generated on the forums, there is not a single case known to the open-source world where a scheme developed on the forum evolved into an operational success. It is extraordinarily rare for such conversations to become operational at all, even as failures.

One area of obvious concern is Al Qaeda's Inspire magazine, which urges American Muslims to take up arms at home and carry out attacks under the concept known as "individual jihad." This message has been reinforced by messages from American Al Qaeda member Adam Gadahn.

With some notable exceptions, the individual jihad has mostly resulted in embarrassing failures. Recent events in Norway may serve to spur additional efforts on this front, as Anders Breivik has now demonstrated that a single person can successfully mount a spectacular terrorist attack.

Although Inspire has been touted as a new initiative by Al Qaeda, it is in reality an old-style jihadist propaganda magazine, albeit with a few new twists. Most notable is the addition of direct instructions on how to carry out terrorist attacks, which have not traditionally been combined with propaganda pieces.

Last week we saw the first case of someone directly following the instructions in Inspire, former U.S. soldier Nasser Abdo. He won't be the last. It's important to continue monitoring the continued evolution of Inspire, while avoiding hyperbolic comments about its alleged power (which Inspire's editors routinely republish).

We're seeing social media increasingly used by jihadists, but a similar dynamic applies. Social media is not necessarily a source of radicalization but a way to make connections and build toward offline relationships.

For instance, Khalid Abdul Latif, who was plotting an attack on a military installation in Seattle, uploaded propaganda videos to YouTube expounding on his views. There is no evidence his videos managed to radicalize anyone, although they provided a significant service to prosecutors. Only a handful of people even saw his videos prior to his arrest.

Fan pages centered around jihadist/terrorist groups on Facebook have, to some extent, succeeded in establishing a wider reach, but these pages also expose users to potential negative action in a more substantial way than the forums.

For practical purposes, we should be thinking about violent radicalization as a problem set that has to do more to do with violence and less to do with talk, beliefs and attitudes. We can't control or regulate how people think. We can interdict them when they start to move toward violent action.

For more about American jihadists, including a chapter devoted to their use of the Internet, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Jihadist-Forums, Radicalization, Social-Media

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"Andrew Berwick" Manifesto Linked To Oslo Killer Anders Behring Breivik

UPDATED THROUGHOUT

A 1,500-page manifesto written by Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed more than 90 people in a combined bomb and shooting attack in Oslo yesterday.

The document was posted online to Stormfront, a U.S. based white supremacist Web forum. Norwegian authorities authenticated the manifesto some hours after it became available online.

Even prior to their statement, the document appeared to be authentic due to its length and lavish detail, although reports Sunday indicated that some portions of the manuscript were copied directly from the Unabomber's manifesto.

The document first came to my attention on Twitter, where Foreign Policy editor Blake Hounshell has been dissecting it in some detail. Click here to see his comments. The manifesto claims, among other things, that Breivik was part of a right-wing international "Knights Templar" group. Hounshell went through the entire document and subsequently posted a summary.

I first saw the actual document posted by blogger Kevin Slaughter at his eponymous site. Slaughter has also posted a copy on Google Docs (his site is running slow due to traffic).

Jarret Brachman posted a Wordle content analysis on the manifesto which shows pretty clearly what Breivik was focused on.
You can also follow me on Twitter for updates as warranted.

For more about Western extremism, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Anders-Behring-Breivik, Andrew-Berwick, Manifesto, Oslo

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Seven Reasons I Might Not Respond On Twitter

Twittequette is a delicate thing. One of the nice things about Twitter is being able to take part in conversations with a wide variety of people.

But not every conversational gambit gets a response. I recently posted this list of reasons why I might not respond to a tweet directed to me via a mention. A few people asked to see it memorialized, and I thought it might come in handy from time to time. So here are my "seven reasons why I might not respond to your tweet:"

1) I have nothing useful to add to your comment. This happens rather a lot.

2) I don't understand what your comment or question is trying to say. This also happens a lot. If I don't understand it the first time, experience suggests that asking for a clarification is not likely to help matters.

3) I generally don't respond to tweets that are just out to pick a fight, unless I know you personally and I have a significant stake in the issue at hand. And even then, usually not. Arguments on Twitter are exhausting and almost never productive, and life is short.

4) I generally don't respond to tweets that are purely political or partisan, because I don't find them productive.

5) Sometimes I just don't see them. Do you SEE how many tweets there are to read every day? Added to that, I have accidentally discovered through using different methods of viewing Twitter (TweetDeck, Web page, mobile phone) that sometimes stuff just doesn't show up.

6) 80 percent of my failures to respond should not be taken personally. The remaining 20 percent, you probably know who you are.

7) If you send me a link without explaining what it is, I am not only not going to click on it, I am not going to respond, and you run a serious risk of getting blocked and reported for spam.

Labels: Off-Topic

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The Mullah Krekar Show

I have a piece at Foreign Policy on Mullah Krekar, the Oslo-based jihadist cleric who was indicted just last week for threatening Norwegian politicians with death. Here's a backgrounder on Krekar's long and tortured history with the Norwegian government.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy

Earlier this week, I had a piece for The Atlantic on homegrown jihadists and why they can't seem to follow Al Qaeda's directions.

Read the full article at The Atlantic

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Awlaki, Jihad-Joe, Mullah-Krekar, Oslo

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

What Is Al Qaeda, Part 3

This is the final batch of results from the "What is Al Qaeda" survey, conducted with major assistance from Clint Watts of SelectedWisdom.com.

Part 1: What is Al Qaeda (definition)

Part 2: Which groups are part of the U.S. war on Al Qaeda?

The third and final question in the survey asked about specific people and whether they are part of Al Qaeda. Click here to see the count for each category, or check out the percentages below.

Name	Yes	No	Don't know
Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi	29%	30%	41%
Anwar Awlaki	77%	6%	17%
Abdel Majid Zindani	13%	34%	53%
Ramzi Yousef	58%	20%	22%
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed	87%	6%	7%
Abu Zubaydah	69%	6%	24%
Omar Abdel Rahman	35%	36%	29%
Omar Hammami	29%	26%	45%
Abu Bakr Bashir	27%	34%	39%
Hambali	24%	25%	51%

The results for this section were very much influenced by lack of information. As with the previous results, I have broken out academic and government responders for closer scrutiny. Given below are the percentage of "yes" votes as compared to "no" votes only (i.e., "don't know" answers were not counted). Yellow blocks show votes with less than two-thirds consensus, red blocks highlight near 50-50 splits.

Name	Academics	Government
Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi	29%	59%
Anwar Awlaki	81%	96%
Abdel Majid Zindani	0%	22%
Ramzi Yousef	63%	64%
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed	90%	96%
Abu Zubaydah	88%	100%
Omar Abdel Rahman	26%	50%
Omar Hammami	20%	53%
Abu Bakr Bashir	20%	39%
Hambali	8%	60%

As you can see, government responders were much less likely to find consensus on these questions than academics, which is significant given that government employees are more directly responsible for implementing policies and making decisions about targeting. However, the sample size is so small (and the pool of government responders so diverse) that these figures should be used very cautiously when drawing conclusions of any kind.

That said, the results are quite interesting and rather confusing, often failing to apply the criteria for Al Qaeda affiliation outlined in Question One or specific groups identified in Question Two. So, for instance, the responses on Abu Zubaydah were quite strongly in favor of considering him part of Al Qaeda despite there being some confusion about this issue in the public record.

A majority of every professional group in the survey voted to include Ramzi Yousef in Al Qaeda, although the margins varied, with both government and academics failing to reach a two-thirds consensus. Relatively few people voted "don't know." While Yousef was known to have trained in Al Qaeda camps, the evidence that he acted at the direction of Al Qaeda is somewhat thin, and the evidence he was financed by Al Qaeda is significantly disputed. That said, there is enough evidence to make the argument and probably succeed in doing so, but it's hardly a slam dunk.

In contrast, the overall vote on Omar Abdel Rahman was sharply split and government voters went straight down the middle on the question. With some caveats, there is reasonably strong evidence that Rahman was signficantly financed by Osama bin Laden while he lived in America, and he effectively led the Al Kifah Center in Brooklyn, which was at least loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda, if not a full-blown "Al Qaeda outpost" as recent reports have mostly characterized it. You can find more on this in my book.

Here are a couple of charts showing a couple other interesting divergences in the data.





For both Omar Hammami and Abu Muhammad Al Maqdisi, we saw wild swings in the data. I will probably try to assemble some thoughts on this later. For now, I just note it.

This is the final installment of the results. I am going to ponder these numbers for a while, trying not just to make sense of them but to draw some useful conclusions and talk about how they inform our national discussion about terrorism. In the meantime, feel free to drop in and discuss your thoughts with me on Facebook or Twitter.

Finally, many thanks again to Clint and SelectedWisdom.com for making the charts above and for making the overall survey happen. A lot of work went into both assembling the survey and making the results comprehensible, and it is much appreciated.

Check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: Abdul-Majid-Zindani, Abu-Mansour-Al-Amriki, Abu-Zubaydah, Al-Qaeda, Anwar-Awlaki, Omar-Abdel-Rahman, Omar-Hammami, Ramzi-Yousef, Survey

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Exclusive: Unsealed Documents From Rana Trial, Headley Interviews, Mumbai Bombing

The U.S. Attorney in Chicago unsealed more than 350 pages of documents related to the trial of Tahawwur Rana for his role in providing support to Lashkar e Tayyiba and conspiracy in the the Mumbai massacre, along with American jihadist David Headley. The documents are below (large PDFs):

Batch One

Batch Two

Batch Three

Batch Four

If reporting from these documents, please credit INTELWIRE.com.

For more about Headley, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Labels: David-Coleman-Headley, INTELWIRE-Exclusive, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mumbai, Tahawwur-Rana

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Inspire, Issue Six: Martyrs and Mixed Messages

"We apologize for the delay in the publication of the magazine," writes Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula correspondent Yahya Ibrahim in the opening line of the new issue of Inspire magazine. "Things have been quite hectic over here."

Indeed. The new Inspire reads like a hasty afterthought, no doubt due to the ongoing revolution in Yemen as well as the drone strikes which very nearly took out AQAP's American propagandist Anwar Awlaki.

The new issue of Inspire seeks to depict Awlaki as a prototypical action hero, strapped heavy and cracking wise about the strikes ("It looks as if someone was a bit angry with us this evening") before the bodies of the two men who died in his place had cooled. Unfortunately, the pictures meant to illustrate the scholar's toughness call to mind a child dressed up for Halloween. The man does not look at ease.

The issue notably lacks any content directly attributed to Awlaki, although the question-and-answer section clearly means to suggest that Awlaki is writing the answers. The questions this month were rather interesting in their broad focus. One question asked about whether the mujahideen supported the Shia semi-uprising in Bahrain (they don't), another asked about whether the niqab headcovering for women is "fard" (obligatory). What I take away from this section is that Inspire and/or Awlaki seek to be defined as broadly Islamic in focus rather than narrowly jihadist (although the latter is the obvious priority). If the questions were legitimately sent by readers, that also suggests that Inspire's readers are looking to Awlaki as an Islamic authority figure beyond his simple exhortations to terrorism.

The death of Osama bin Laden received a mixed treatment. Inspire's American editor, Samir Khan, wrote a fairly long piece on the subject. Another short piece on bin Laden ended with a half-hearted non-endorsement to the effect of "So we guess Zawahiri is taking over now."

Beyond bin Laden, Inspire's issue was death-themed with a series of martyr biographies. Notably lacking was a clear acknowledgement of or appreciation for the two men who were killed in Awlaki's place. Until now, martyr biographies have been notably understated in Inspire. Such content has a much higher profile in most other jihadist propaganda including the many magazines that preceded Inspire (I will have more on this soon). It's not clear to me whether this is an overdue corrective, or just an effort to give the issue a theme spinning off bin Laden's death.

In the how-to-be-a-terrorist section, Inspire wrapped up its series of tips for carrying out shooting sprees, then encouraged homegrown terrorists to start working on a very dangerous new bomb ingredient. Fortunately, the article is probably more dangerous to people trying to follow its directions than anyone else, but on sum, we'd probably all be happier if this information wasn't circulating.

For more about Inspire, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Awlaki, Drones, Inspire-Magazine, Samir-Khan

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Al Shabab's Recruiting Pipeline From Minnesota To Somalia Detailed In New Filing

A trial brief filed this week in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota for accused Al Shabab collaborator Omer Adbi Mohamed revealed new details about just how Al Shabab's recruitment practices work in Minneapolis.

I've hacked the file up into a highly condensed excerpt below, or you can read the whole document. Journalists, I edited what's below heavily so quote the document proper if you are quoting.

Starting in or about September 2007, the defendant and his conspirators formed a secretive plan in which ethnic Somali men residing in Minneapolis would return to Somalia to conduct jihad alongside Islamic extremists against the Ethiopian military present in Somalia to assist the internationally-supported Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (“TFG”).

In or about September 2007, the defendant Omer Abdi Mohamed and his conspirators, to include Khalid Abshir (“Abshir”), Dahir Gure (“Gure”), Ahmed Ali Omar (“Omar”), and Shirwa Ahmed (“Shirwa Ahmed”) ... began to raise funds and planned to join Abshir’s relative in Somalia, a senior member of al Shabaab.

Throughout the fall of 2007, the defendant and his conspirators secretly began to mobilize groups of men to depart for Somalia. The group met at mosques, restaurants, and private restaurants to plan the logistics of the trip. ... The group also conferred with one man who had recently returned from Somalia and stated that the men would engage in a “good jihad.”

To raise money, the group solicited donations from unsuspecting members of the Somali community under false pretenses. The defendant and his conspirators went to local malls and apartment buildings to ask for money, claiming it would be used to build a mosque or to assist with relief efforts in Somalia. In fact, the money was to pay for the airfare and travel expenses of the group of men to join in the conspiracy.

They challenged members of the conspiracy who had planned to travel, questioning their commitment, dedication, and knowledge of both the religion and events in Somalia, before ultimately assisting them with the trip.

When the time came to buy tickets, the defendant relied on a contact he had at Amana Travel to assist with booking the tickets. The defendant contacted Amana Travel, accompanied men to the travel agency, and paid for the tickets. The defendant and his conspirators acquired and provided to [local recruit Kamal] Hassan a fraudulent itinerary reflecting that Hassan would be traveling to Saudi Arabia for purpose of misleading Hassan’s family about his destination.

[S]even men who had left from Minneapolis in the fall of 2007 reunited at a safe-house in Southern Somalia. They were provided weapons training and met with senior leaders of al Shabaab. At a different safe-house, the men from Minneapolis, along with other members of al Shabaab, were issued AK-47s and ammunition.

When they arrived at the camp, the men were divided into groups and began to construct the camp. Under the supervision of the leaders, they began cutting down trees and clearing brush. Salah Ahmed and Isse left the camp after several weeks and began making their way back to the United States. Shirwa Ahmed also left the camp to assist a friend, but was persuaded to return to the camp by his conspirators in Somalia.

The remaining men from Minneapolis along with other recruits were provided weapons training, religious instruction and anti-Western propaganda. The camp received visits from senior members of al Shabaab. An al Shabaab “media” crew arrived to film a propaganda video that depicted recruits training and featured an English-language recruiting appeal made by a man from Minneapolis. Robow and Nabhan appear in the video.

In mid-July 2008, after graduating from the training camp, the men from Minneapolis were assigned to a group of foreign fighters and dispatched to conduct an ambush of Ethiopian troops traveling along a road in Somalia. The preparations and ambush were filmed by a member of the conspiracy and produced as an al Shabaab propaganda video. Senior members of al Shabaab narrate the video and a man from Minneapolis makes a speech to the camera in which he encourages more men to join them in Somalia.

[O]n October 29, 2008, five coordinated vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (“IED”) exploded in the Somali territories of Puntland and Somaliland. The bombings resulted in the death of the suicide bombers, including [Minneapolis recruit] Shirwa Ahmed, as well as approximately 22 persons.

For more about American jihadists, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Related posts:

Dealing With Radicalization In America

Omar Hammami Falls Short In OBL Eulogy

Labels: Al-Shabab, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Omar-Hammami, Omer-Abdi-Mohamed, Somalia

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

What Is Al Qaeda, Part 2

Part one
| Part two | Part three

In the first part of the "What is Al Qaeda" survey, we looked at textbook definitions for the kinds of people and organizations that experts consider to included in Al Qaeda. Click here to read the results.

In the second part, we're looking at what specific organizations those same experts consider to be part of the U.S. government's mandate to wage war against Al Qaeda. The answers are, again, interesting, showing a lack of consensus on key groups, and they do not always sync with the definitions identified in the first question. The bar charts below are once again thanks to Clint Watts of SelectedWisdom.com who also set up the survey page and collected and coded its results.

The survey asked respondents to comment on the following groups. The percentage of "yes" answers is given for each organization. Questions which did not achieve a two-thirds consensus are marked in yellow, questions which were close to a 50-50 split are marked in red.

Organization	Yes votes
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan	96.3%
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula	94.5%
Al Qaeda in Iraq	92.7%
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb	81.5%
Al Shabab	58.2%
Lashkar e Tayyibah	48.1%
Afghan Taliban	50.4%
Tehrik e Taliban	50.9%
Haqqani Network	53.7
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group	31.7
Revolution Muslim	26.7

Once you get past the groups with Al Qaeda in the name, consensus rapidly fell apart in this segment of the survey.



Responses on whether the Taliban should be considered part of Al Qaeda split almost perfectly down the middle, with different groups of respondents coming in all over the map. Academics voted no by two-thirds, while their students voted yes by the same amount. I find that disconnect pretty interesting. Government employees voted yes by just 55.5 percent. Media voted yes by 57.1 percent, and private sector voted no by 54.3 percent.

The status of the Taliban is a crucial question in the wsr in Afghanistan, as the U.S. considers negotiations with the Taliban as part of its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The differences among the various sectors of respondents are less important than the fact that no more than two-thirds of any given segment could agree on the question. Given that no one in government has ever seriously broached the idea that the U.S. could negotiate with Al Qaeda, the question is not a light one.



Pakistani militant group Lashkar e Tayyiba has shared facilities with Al Qaeda Central and provided support to AQC personnel. It would seem to qualify (at best) under "nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations,such as training camps or money laundering." Voters on Question One split 50-50 on whether that description could be considered part of Al Qaeda.

About the same percentage of respondents were willing to include LeT in the U.S. mandate to wage war on Al Qaeda than the Afghan Taliban, whose overt alliance with Al Qaeda was responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan in the first place.

Academics voted "no" by 71.4 percent, while government and media voted no by two-thirds and 62.5 percent respectively. Students and the private sector voted yes by 65.7 percent and 75 percent respectively. Government and academics as a combined group voted no by 68.7 percent, suggesting that there is more agreement among those in a position to know than the overall number might indicate.

Similar numbers were seen on the Haqqani network, within academics voting no by 65 percent, government almost evenly split, and media, private and student groups all voting yes by varying margins. I'd be interested to revisit this question in light of the CTC at West Point paper published this week by Dan Rassler and Vahid Brown on the Haqqani network's interconnections with Al Qaeda.

Outside of Af-Pak, Al Shabab is certainly one of the more pressing questions in counterterrorism at the moment. The Question One category best fitting Al Shabab based on open-source data at the time the survey was taken was "organizations whose leaders have publicly expressed loyalty to AQ or its emir," for which respondents could not come to a consensus, splitting 60-40 in favor of inclusion. Academics split on the question 61 percent against inclusion, while government responders could only muster a slim 52 percent support.

The survey was conducted prior to recent allegations of operational links between Al Shabab and AQAP and a corresponding uptick in U.S. strikes in Somalia. As the American CT effort in Shabab grows, the question of its classification also grows. The breakdown among professions shows very sharp divisions among different groups as to whether Shabab should be part of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda:



Academics voted "no" by a strong majority of 71.5 percent, while government employees voted "yes" by a less convincing 59.2 percent. The government vote is particularly interesting since, individual views aside, the Obama administration has made it crystal clear over the last several days that Shabab is on its targeting list. With votes from both groups taken together, 54.2 percent voted "yes," indicating a massive lack of consensus.

Once you get past those two key demographics, media respondents split 50-50 on the question of Shabab, whereas students and the private sector relatively strongly voted to include the Somali militant group, by 76.5%.

The next post on the survey, probably next week some time, will look at individual people and whether they are considered part of Al Qaeda. These results are all over the map and the most erratic of all three polls when evaluated on a factual basis and in comparison to the principles outlined in Question One, so be sure to check back.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda-In-Iraq, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Al-Shabab, AQAP, AQIM, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Survey, Taliban

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Google's Process For Extremist Content

Google managed to associate its name with "countering violent extremism" pretty thoroughly last month by hosting a Summit Against Violent Extremism in Dublin. I've thoroughly expressed my skepticism about CVE elsewhere.

My question for today is: What's Google doing to clean up its own house? Between Blogger and YouTube, Google itself is one of the key distributors of radical content online. The company was recently asked by Sen. Joseph Lieberman to answer a series of questions about its internal efforts to control this content. Here are some samples of what it said:

Read the full document

Blogger’s policies prohibit threatening content, content that promotes “dangerous and illegal activities,” contains hate speech, or inciteful material that encourages “violent action against another person or group of people.” Similar to YouTube, when material of this nature is reported to Blogger, review teams take action to remove the content quickly.

It's kind of hard to believe that no one has reported Blogger site Islam Policy by now, and even harder to believe that IP's content doesn't violate the terms of service outlined about.

Video is uploaded you YouTube at the rate of 35 hours per minute. Because of the massive scale of the platform, it is not possible to pre-screen content. To ensure that our policies are followed, we have a community policing system in place whereby users report prohibited material by selecting the “Flag” link under every video. Our policy review team reviews flagged videos 24 hours a day, seven days a week, removing material that violates our Guidelines. In addition, we have a Help & Safety Tool that lets users contact us about threatening comments. A staff of specialists is on hand around the clock taking action to remove and, when appropriate, report such comments.

I get this. I really do. But I am just guessing that the engineers over at Google have found ways to flag uploads for pornographic and snuff content in real time. I admit this is an assumption, but it's based on the fact that we never see news stories about widespread problems with kids stumbling across such content on YouTube. I'm guessing people try to upload porn to YouTube about 1,000 times more often than jihadist propaganda. Aren't there ways to deal with this?

Google has also taken it upon itself to anoint certain Muslim Americans as "helpful moderates" and give them a technological edge.

Google has sought out and worked with groups and individuals who lead Muslim American communities in order to better educate them about using technology to project their messages. Working with personnel from key government agencies and the New America Foundation, we have
provided training on Google tools and services, as well as those of other companies. We demonstrate this by showing examples of non-profit groups from many areas that have successfully taken advantage of Google tools and services. !We have not worked directly on the content of the message but focused rather on increasing the groups' audience and the range of the tools they can use.!

I outlined my objections to this practice in the CVE rant I referenced above. I suspect Google will encounter the same pitfalls that the US Government experienced if it thinks it can figure out who is helpful and who is not.

Read the rest of the document here

I remain highly skeptical that Big Brother -- whether corporate, non-profit or government -- can "help" Muslims deal with a problem whose scale, nature and scope is not well-understood. CVE is about fostering "good Muslims," counterterrorism is about disrupting people who are planning to kill innocents.

The answers Google provided to the HLS subcommittee are big on reassurance and light on details. What the company can do -- and arguably isn't doing well enough -- is disrupt clearly extremist content on a consistent basis. It deserves at least as much attention as fighting porn.

For more about online extremism, check out J.M. Berger's new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere.

Labels: CVE, Google, Homeland-Security

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

What Is Al Qaeda, Part 1

Part one
| Part two | Part three

What is Al Qaeda?

It seems like a simple question. The United States has been at war with Al Qaeda for nearly 10 years, and Al Qaeda has been at war with the United States for even longer. With thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent, surely there should be a single, clear answer to the question of identifying the enemy.

But it's not that simple. Not only are there sharp differences among different interest groups -- such as government (including contractors), academics and the media -- regarding exactly what comprises Al Qaeda, but even within those groups there is no consensus on key questions.

I have observed this anecdotally for some time, but I wanted to put some preliminary data on the question. With massive help from Clinton Watts of SelectedWidsom.com, a survey was created. Clint also provided the charts below.

We received 112 responses, which is fairly good given the unavoidable complexity of the survey. Respondents were solicited on Twitter and LinkedIn. A few random people crept in, including a couple of joke answers, but for the most part the group was fairly controlled. The survey consisted of three questions, each of which contained a number of sub-questions. The primary questions were:

What is Al Qaeda? (this post)

What groups are included in the U.S. mandate to wage war on Al Qaeda?

Which of the following individuals are part of Al Qaeda? (to come)

It will take a few posts to process and present these results, then at some point I will make an effort to write something more ambitious dealing with the big picture. This post will feature the results of the first question, "What is Al Qaeda?"

The question was presented with a series of descriptive sentences describing partial definitions of Al Qaeda on which respondents could vote "yes" or "no" as to whether the criteria met the definition of Al Qaeda. The results are below. I have highlighted questions where less than two-thirds of respondents agreed on the answer in yellow, and questions that are close to a 50-50 split in red.

Question	Percentage of yes votes
1. Muslim extremists who have sworn bayat (allegiance) to Osama bin Laden or the current emir of the Al Qaeda organization	87.4
2. Extremists who take orders from Al Qaeda's emir or his appointed deputies but may or may not have sworn bayat (allegiance)	83.5
3. Extremists who are significantly financed at the direction of Al Qaeda's emir or his deputies	71.8
4. Extremists based in the Af-Pak region	15.9
5. Formally branded Al Qaeda franchises (AQIM, AQAP and AQI)	85.2
6. Organizations whose leaders have publicly expressed loyalty to AQ or its emir	60.6
7. Nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations,such as training camps or money laundering	50
8. Ideologues who explicitly justify or defend Al Qaeda ideology and tactics without strong operational ties to the organization	27.5
9. People who take part in the broad social movement inspired by Al Qaeda but who may not have direct or operational links to terrorist leaders	21.5

Virtually all serious responses agreed, by about 90 percent, that people who have sworn bayat to Al Qaeda's emir should be considered part of Al Qaeda. More than 80 percent agreed that extremists who take orders from Al Qaeda's emir (regardless of oath) and Al Qaeda's officially sanctioned franchises should be included in the definition of Al Qaeda. More than 80 percent agreed to exclude people who only take part in Al Qaeda's social movement and Islamic extremists when being based in the Af-Pak area was the sole criteria.

From there, things get interesting.

On the question of whether ideologues who explicitly justify or defend Al Qaeda ideology and tactics without strong operational ties to the organization, the split was 72.5 percent voting "no" to 27.5 percent voting "yes," slightly less than three-quarters agreeing to exclude people in this category. While a clear majority, the split here shows a significant amount of dissent.

Real divisions emerged on the question of organizations whose leaders have publicly expressed loyalty to Al Qaeda or its emir, without being formally sanctioned franchises using the Al Qaeda name. Only 60.6 percent said yes, with 39.4 percent voting no. That represents very weak support for the most visible group that fits this criteria, Al Shabab. (The results were different when asked about Al Shabab specifically, as we will see in a subsequent post).

Respondents were split 50-50 on the question of nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations, such as training camps or money laundering. This gets into a whole host of organizations and sticky questions about people which will be touched on in follow-up posts, but for now I will just note that the people guiding U.S. drone activities seem to be following a philosophy that such networks can be targeted under the "war on Al Qaeda" mandate.

The two questions which lack a two-thirds consensus represent significant theaters in which the U.S. is operating fairly aggressively with an inclusive definition despite a lack of consensus on whether those groups should be considered part of Al Qaeda. This indicates to me that we need to be having more conversations about how our definitions impact policy.

DIFFERENCES BY PROFESSION

An important element of this discussion is looking at how different interest groups qualify their definitions of Al Qaeda.

On the question of whether groups significantly financed by Al Qaeda should be considered part of Al Qaeda, 57 percent of academics voted yes, compared to 63 percent of government respondents. That represents a significant lack of consensus. Students voted yes by 67 percent.

In comparison, media and private sector respondents (including a large number of people working in security-related fields but not direct government contractors) voted overwhelmingly -- more than 81 percent -- to include Al Qaeda-financed groups in the definition of Al Qaeda. That represents a meaningful disconnect, especially in the media sector which is charged with translating government and academic views on Al Qaeda for the general public.

Fracture lines also emerged over whether groups whose leaders have declared their loyalty to Al Qaeda should be considered part of Al Qaeda.

Students and private sector respondents were again much more inclined to classify such groups as part of Al Qaeda, voting yes 67 percent of the time. The media overwhelmingly voted yes on this question too.

In contrast, academics voted no by a margin of 61 percent, and government responders split almost evenly down the middle. Given the amount of activity around Al Shabab recently this is an extremely interesting result, although Shabab has other qualities which debateably could lead someone to include it under the umbrella of AQ.

The sharp lack of agreement among government responders also raises some significant questions, although the sample size is too small to make sweeping conclusions. A rigorous survey of government workers from the street level through the policy level would no doubt produce some very interesting results as well.

On the question of whether "nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations, such as training camps or money laundering," sharp differences again emerged depending on profession.

Academic responders voted no by 71 percent, while government responders voted yes by a slim margin of 51 percent. The media responders were almost evenly divided, while private sector and student responders voted yes by about 60 percent.

This question is particularly interesting in light of the case of Abu Zubaydah, who is or is not a member of Al Qaeda depending on who you talk to. Depending on who you talk to, Zubaydah's training camp and logistics operations would potentially fall under this description. The U.S. government has traditionally come down in favor of classifying Zubaydah as part of Al Qaeda.

Even though government responders voted yes on this issue by the slimmest of margins (one vote), in question three of the survey, to be discussed in a later post, government responders overwhelmingly classified Abu Zubaydah as part of Al Qaeda.

Given the relative importance of academia as a rigorous process for examining the evidence about Al Qaeda and government as the main implementer of action based on these definitions, I am breaking out their responses below for comparison to the overall field. All numbers are percentage of "yes" responses. Isolating these two important groups highlights notable failures to arrive at consensus with more categories being disputed and the splits being closer to even.

Question	Acad	Govt
1. Muslim extremists who have sworn bayat (allegiance) to Osama bin Laden or the current emir of the Al Qaeda organization	85.7	77.7
2. Extremists who take orders from Al Qaeda's emir or his appointed deputies but may or may not have sworn bayat (allegiance)	85	81.5
3. Extremists who are significantly financed at the direction of Al Qaeda's emir or his deputies	57.1	62.9
4. Extremists based in the Af-Pak region	9.5	19.2
5. Formally branded Al Qaeda franchises (AQIM, AQAP and AQI)	80	88.9
6. Organizations whose leaders have publicly expressed loyalty to AQ or its emir	38	51.9
7. Nominally independent extremist networks that provide significant services used in Al Qaeda operations, such as training camps or money laundering	28.6	38.4
8. Ideologues who explicitly justify or defend Al Qaeda ideology and tactics without strong operational ties to the organization	14.2	37
9. People who take part in the broad social movement inspired by Al Qaeda but who may not have direct or operational links toterrorist leaders	14.2	29.6

OVERALL CONSENSUS

The average "consensus" on all questions asked (averaging the majority scores from each response) works out to be 74.4 percent.

Academic responders average consensus score was 78.1 percent, somewhat higher. The average consensus for government responders was 71 percent. Government responders came from different sectors of government, which no doubt accounts at least in part for the lower score.

NEXT

Question Two: What groups are included in the U.S. mandate to wage war on Al Qaeda?

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Survey

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Jihad Joe Reading And Signing At Porter Square Books in Cambridge

I'll be appearing at my local, Porter Square Bookstore, in Cambridge to do a reading from Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam on Tuesday, July 12, at 7 p.m. Click here to RSVP through Facebook, or just come on down. I hope to see you!

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, J-M-Berger, Jihad-Joe

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Terrorist acts, terrorist thoughts

By J.M. Berger

On a recent Friday, in Washington, D.C., the New America Foundation issued a report on "Countering Domestic Radicalization." A few hours later, the Bipartisan Policy Commission released a report on "Preventing Violent Radicalization in America." A week later, Google hosted an extravagant "Summit Against Violent Extremism" in Dublin.

You can expect to hear a lot more of this in the days and weeks to come. Ten years after September 11, the conversation has shifted away from traditional counterterrorism and toward "countering violent extremism," known as CVE.

The reasoning behind CVE is fairly easy to understand. Advocates say it's better, for both budgetary and social reasons, to prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place than to arrest them after they have committed a crime. It's the triumph of Doctor Phil over Jack Bauer.

Traditional counterterrorism targets people who are already taking active steps in pursuit of illegal activities, regardless of their religion, and arrests them before they can do harm.

In contrast, CVE seeks to prevent violent thoughts from taking root in the minds of ordinary people who are not actively pursuing illegal activities. And by ordinary people, everyone taking part in this conversation means Muslims.

This summer's think tank reports are not the worst examples of this kind of approach. Each contains a combination of astute insights and well-intentioned policy recommendations.

Many of those recommendations are oriented toward engaging Muslims rather than alienating them by singling them out for enforcement.

But both reports drive this point home in an unfortunate way, by talking exclusively about Muslim radicalization and not, for instance, white supremacy or the sovereign citizen movement.

Allowing for imperfect data, the percentage of Muslims who have a favorable view of Al Qaeda appears to be no larger than the number of white Americans who characterize themselves as racist.

Yet no one has ever once asked my opinion about how to keep young people from sliding into Odinism, or neo-Nazi beliefs, even though incidents of racist and anti-Semitic violence far outnumber incidents of jihadist terrorism in the United States.

If the first step in making Muslims feel less alienated is to single them out for remedial social engineering, then we have a problem before we even start.

Once you get past this inherent contradiction, the next question is whether government and policymakers have a track record that suggests they can successfully navigate the waters of Muslim politics, ideology and belief in order to discourage radicalism and encourage moderation.

During the Gulf War, U.S. military commanders allowed the Saudi government to run a "cultural exchange program" on base with American soldiers near Riyadh. In reality, the program set out to convert those soldiers to Islam, reportedly with great success.

Leading the charge was a Canadian Muslim named Bilal Philips, who has since become an international pariah, banned from traveling to the U.K. and Germany over controversial interpretations of Islamic law on such issues as homosexuality and child brides.

In my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, I reveal for the first time that another preacher given full access to U.S. soldiers in Riyadh, an American Muslim known as Tahir, was later discovered to be a member of Al Qaeda.

From the 1990s through 2003, both Republican and Democratic politicians embraced Abdurrahman Alamoudi, then-leader of the American Muslim Council, who was chosen as a partner in a number of government programs, from Muslim military chaplains to State Department goodwill efforts. Alamoudi is today serving a prison sentence for trying to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon even hosted Anwar Awlaki as a luncheon speaker on Islam soon after September 11, according to documents recently uncovered by Fox News. Today, American drones are scouring Yemen in an effort to kill Awlaki, whose preaching has inspired dozens of terrorist attempts by Western Muslims.

Unfortunately, there are not many success stories to offset these spectacular failures. The government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to parse and evaluate Muslim thought and to identify moderate people and trends.

These failures aren't just embarrassments. When we elevate hucksters like Alamoudi, it dismays and discourages those moderate Muslims who know better, and when we subsequently have to prosecute the hucksters, it alienates other Muslims who feel that the U.S. government is trying to silence the community's most prominent voices.

Even when you move past such large-scale disasters, government efforts to engage American Muslims have fallen flat. Consider the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an occasional partner in the government's efforts to engage the Muslim community over the years.

CAIR has been largely pushed out of those programs over the last couple of years due to its historical links to Hamas, its often unhelpful narrative about the perceived victimization of Muslims in America and its tendency to approach the issue of radicalization with a mix of denial and rationalization.

While it has largely failed to satisfy its government constituents, CAIR also lacks credibility among radical-leaning Muslims, who routinely blast the organization as a snitch, a sellout and a passive collaborator in U.S. anti-Muslim policies.

Similar complications apply for many other American Muslim leadership organizations of the moment. The best-funded (and thus most prominent) organizations get significant money and theological guidance from overseas. They aren't populist and do not offer a particularly comfortable space for less-religious Muslims to participate.

Many of these groups also advance a watered-down version of the "war on Islam" narrative that is most important to violent radicalization, and not many can pass the white-glove test imposed by critics and watchdogs in political and media circles.

But at the same time, these groups are too assimilated and conciliatory to possess credibility with the segments of the Muslim community most vulnerable to violent radicalization.

There are other considerations as well, but all are variations on a single theme: Tackling extremism at the thought level is a complex endeavor with far more pitfalls than payoffs.

So where do we go from here?

Unlike racist radicals, Muslim extremists tend to focus on mass casualty attacks, rather than individual hate crimes. For that reason and others, the government will not let this issue go untended. But history suggests the CVE approach is ineffective at best, harmful at worst.

In contrast, consider the following statistic. More than 180 homegrown extremists have tried to carry out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since September 11. Only four have succeeded, thanks to old-fashioned counterterrorism. Many of those cases were cracked thanks to cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement.

That's an impressive track record, and our policy investments should be informed by that success.

The vast majority of American Muslims oppose the acts of violence and terrorism carried out in their name by a handful of self-styled religious zealots who embrace the ideology of Al Qaeda. But the diversity of America's Muslim community makes it a challenge to develop critical mass for a legitimate grassroots movement that has both the credibility and will to fight radicalization directly.

I'm an optimist. I believe that such a movement can and will develop, if Muslims are given space to process this issue from within. When Americans are asked by an indigenous, populist Muslim movement for help counteracting the poison of radicalization, we should give it.

Until then, we should stay out of the way.

J.M. Berger is author of the new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Labels: Abdurrahman-Alamoudi, Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Anwar-Awlaki, Bilal-Philips, CVE, Jihad-Joe

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Happy Birthday Inspire!

Well, it's been about one year since the American clique at Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula rolled out "Inspire" magazine for an adoring public. During that time, the project -- run by American cleric Anwar Awlaki and American blogger Samir Khan -- has captured a lot of the public imagination regarding the nature of the war on terrorism, without producing a lot of clearly quantifiable results.

The burning question of the moment is whether Inspire -- which is not all that original or unique despite its press -- is facing the same fate as News of the World.

It's been four months since the last issue of Inspire hit virtual newsstands -- the longest period in between issues since the magazine was founded.

During that period, Osama bin Laden was killed, which is the kind of thing Inspire should have made hay from by now. On the other hand, intel leaked from the raid at Stately Bin Laden Manor indicates that the big man was not enamored of Inspire's creative approach to terrorism, which was apparently too bloodthirsty for the man behind the deaths of almost 3,000 civilians September 11. This long silence also comes in the wake of a reported near miss by a drone targeting Awlaki and the outbreak of near civil war in Yemen.

Is Inspire on hiatus for an editorial reevaluation in light of bin Laden's withering critique? Are Awlaki and Khan too busy running for their lives to propagandize? Have they been handed rifles and sent to the front lines in Zinjabar? Stay tuned...

For much more about Inspire and Awlaki, check out my new book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, on sale everywhere. Journalists interested in discussing this issue can contact me here. For reviews and additional information about the book, click here.

Labels: Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Awlaki, Inspire-Magazine, Samir-Khan

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Tommy Corrigan Passes Away

I wanted to mark the passing of Tommy Corrigan, a 20-year veteran of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, who died of complications from leukemia on Monday.

I met Tommy a few years ago while working on a documentary about the Bosnia war. His reputation as one of the smartest, most knowledgeable people investigating terrorism preceded him, and he lived up to it. He worked on some of the most important cases of the 1990s, including a major part in breaking up the Brooklyn terrorist cell connected to the World Trade Center bombing and a subsequent plot to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, a tragedy he helped prevent, and later conducting a lot of early work looking at Al Qaeda.

We kept in touch, and Tommy was a tremendous help to me as I worked on my book. After the book was finished, we continued to talk. He had a very active spirit and was going stir-crazy under restrictions on his activity that stemmed from his fight with leukemia, and we'd talk about cold cases and the minutiae of some of his cases.

I am certain I talked to him more after the book was finished than I did while interviewing him. I was always glad to hear from him, and I considered him a friend. He will be missed.

Click here for more about Tommy Corrigan, including arrangements.

Labels: Tommy-Corrigan

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In Latest Filing, FBI Says It Can't Find OKC Bombing Videos

The FBI admitted in a court filing Thursday that videotapes related to the Oklahoma City bombing -- including possible footage of the actual truck bomb detonation -- may have been misfiled and as a result might never be found.

The new filing came as part of a lawsuit filed by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue. Documents previously disclosed as part of the lawsuit can be found here, here and here.

The lawsuit seeks, among other things, information pertaining to surveillance videotapes that may have captured the bombing in progress and which Trentadue believes may show additional conspirators in the domestic terrorist attack that claimed 168 lives on April 19, 1995.

Trentadue previously submitted affidavits and other filings claiming the existence of a tape that shows the truck bomb in the moments before it detonated as well as another tape showing the arrest of Timothy McVeigh during a traffic stop soon after the bombing.

In response to these documents and another filing which showed David Hardy, the FBI's main FOIA compliance official, had intentionally misled the judge in a different FOIA case, Judge Clark Waddoups in May ordered the FBI to provide additional information on its search for the tapes as well as other documentation averring the truthfulness of previous FBI filings.

Filed Thursday, Hardy's response was largely uninformative, repeating its earlier claims and averring that Hardy had not misled the judge. Hardy claimed he had no information which could assist additional searches for the tapes, except for a manual review of the 450,000 pages of documents generated during the first two weeks of the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, which he said could take as long as a year and a half to complete.

Hardy argued against making the search, saying that it would impact other pending FOIA cases. The documents in question are, in fact, covered by a FOIA request made by INTELWIRE which has not been fulfilled to date.

Hardy also said in Thursday's filing, "While it is always a possibility that responsive documents might have been misfiled and thus could be located somewhere other than in the OKBOMB file (though it would be impossible to know where), I am not aware that this is the case, and a reasonable search did not and would not locate any such documents (if they exist) because they would not be in a location likely to contain responsive documents."

The complete response from the FBI can be viewed here.

Trentadue sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act for documents related to the Oklahoma City bombing after his brother, Kenneth, was found dead in a federal prison cell soon after the bombing. Trentadue won a wrongful death suit against the Bureau of Prisons for covering up key details of his brother's death, which the Bureau claimed was a suicide.

Labels: Jesse-Trentadue, OKBOMB, Oklahoma-City-Bombing

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