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Hunt for source of terror images

Ewen MacAskill and Bobbie Johnson

Friday September 24, 2004

The Guardian

US and British intelligence services were yesterday hunting for the site of the computer used to post on the internet the video of British hostage Kenneth Bigley pleading for his life.

Intelligence and computer analysts confirmed it was technically possible to identify the home, office or internet cafe from which the video originated. But they said it was a time consuming exercise and that the terrorists responsible were likely to only use a computer once before moving to another location.

Rita Katz, director of the Washington-based organisation Search for International Terrorist Entities, said yesterday there were dozens of such sites and message boards used for propaganda, recruitment and training.

She said: "By the time the government subpoenas a company to get the information [about an individual computer] it can take two to three months."

The website run by the group holding Mr Bigley, Tawhid and Jihad, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been up and running for five weeks, according to a London-based Arab journalist. The videos are quickly distributed among other terrorist websites and that further makes it difficult to close them down.

Ms Katz, the Iraqi-born author of Terrorist Hunter, said that on one message board there was discussion immediately after the beheading of one of the two Americans about the fate of Mr Bigley. This included a suggestion that Mr Bigley should make a plea to Mr Blair.

A security analyst who requested anonymity because his firm deals with kidnappings said: "The internet has become an important tool for the mobilisation and training of jihadists. We have seen more and more because the internet puts the main media in the hands of an individual."

The Foreign Office has a team monitoring the jihadist websites 24 hours a day.

The video of Mr Bigley, although superficially sophisticated with the use of elaborate graphics, is in fact quite crude and it is relatively easy for anyone with some computer expertise to post such a video on the internet. Using a video camera and appropriate software, even low quality film can be turned into a digital file in a matter of minutes.

That file can then be transferred to the web using any reasonably powerful computer with an internet connection. While Iraq does not yet have much high-speed broadband web access, video uploading could easily take place at one of the country's many internet cafes or via a private telephone line. There is even the possibility that the kidnappers are able to transfer videos by sending them from a mobile phone.

"Even under Saddam such technology was much more widespread than people thought," said Paul Eedle, another specialist on terror groups on the web.

Since the fall of Saddam there has been an expansion in technological uptake, especially among middle-class Iraqis. While greater technical expertise is required to try and prevent information being traced back to its source, such knowledge is relatively common in the Middle East. Neighbouring Saudi Arabia is considered a leading fountainhead of internet expertise in the region.

The chief consideration for those trying to track the videos to their source is to discover where and when the files were put on the internet.

Mr Eedle shares Ms Katz's scepticism that tracing the source to a location may not prove successful in catching the kidnappers. He said: "Al-Zarqawi's followers are definitely exposing themselves by uploading material at roughly the same time every night - but ultimately they'd be taking more of a risk by physically dumping a body on a Baghdad street."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1311834,00.html

Sep. 20, 2004. 01:00 AM

Money laundering on rise, poll finds

CRAIG WONG
CANADIAN PRESS

Two-thirds of banks around the world have reported an increase in the volume of suspicious activities they report to police, a report by KPMG suggests.

The accounting and consulting firm suggests in a report for release today that $500 billion to $1 trillion is laundered worldwide annually by drug dealers, arms traffickers and other criminals.

James Hunter, president of KPMG Forensic, said that, since the September, 2001, terrorist attacks against America, financial institutions have become more vigilant against the proceeds of crime.

"Money launderers have always seen Canada as a bit of a haven because we have a stable banking system, we've got a pretty open economy and we're quite lenient on criminals," Hunter said.

"In Canada, we don't really have the same enforcement mentality that they have in the United States. So, for example, when white-collar crime occurs in the United States, it tends to be dealt with much more severely."

The survey polled 209 financial institutions around the world, including five Canadian banks.

Hunter said a key challenge for Canadian financial institutions is to ensure the same standards are applied across the whole organization, regardless of where its branches are located.

"In many cases they have not grown organically. They've grown by merger and acquisition.

"I think there is a real challenge for a Canadian bank to make sure the standards that are applied in Toronto will be applied in the South Pacific or the Caribbean or other areas that are traditionally associated with money launderers."

The survey suggests police are having difficulty responding to the increased volume of reports of suspicious transactions, due to a lack of resources and the challenge of monitoring account transactions in other countries.

The first line of defence for banks is their tellers, Hunter said.

"No bank in a developed country wants to be seen to be facilitating terrorist financing."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1095631809951&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724