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[a post to study and research, is this a new tape, says Wed.]

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Generation jihad: terror at the touch of a key
Tech-savvy terrorist groups are going on-line to spread their extremist message

MICHAEL SNIDER

TORONTO -- Ayman al-Zawahiri appears on the screen looking scholarly in a clean white shirt and black turban. The bearded and bespectacled figure, speaking in Arabic, gestures purposefully with his right hand while he marks the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"The Americans and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disasters and misfortune," he says. The founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant congratulates the mujahedeen for their "moral and material defeat of the Western Crusade" and encourages the faithful around the world to rise up against the common enemy.

No beheadings, no insurgent missile attacks. Dr. al-Zawahiri signs off by praising Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and the screen goes dark.

While the message may be only mildly troubling, it's the method that concerns Canadian authorities and terrorism experts. The video, downloaded from a password-protected Web forum last Wednesday, is just one example of how terrorist groups spread their message worldwide. Since 2000, extremist organizations have become adept at promoting their causes and spreading their ideology on-line in an effort to capture the hearts and minds of disillusioned and disaffected Muslims far away from the mountains of Afghanistan or streets of Baghdad.

Experts say this virtual war played a direct role in the emergence of what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service describes as the homegrown threat -- young Muslims who've grown up in Canadian suburbs with computers and high-speed connections, some of whom are accused of planning to attack targets in Southern Ontario.

"The Internet is used to reach out to diaspora communities," said Gabriel Weimann, professor of communication at the University of Haifa and author of Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges.

"Almost all terrorist activities of recent years . . . were actually executed by members of diaspora communities, whether that's in Spain, England, Holland and now [allegedly] in Canada. It's not people being sent by al-Qaeda, it's actually a homegrown community that is affiliated, or who affiliate themselves -- as [allegedly] is the case with Canada -- with the jihadist movement or with al-Qaeda."

A World Wide Web sewn with threads of fanatical Islam worries CSIS.

Just days before 17 terrorism suspects were arrested in Toronto and Kingston, CSIS deputy director Jack Hooper told a Senate committee that Canada is fighting a clandestine war against "technologically sophisticated" homegrown extremists.

Many are tech-savvy because they are "drawn from the ranks of the young and well educated," adept at using the Internet for communication, education and planning, said Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in security issues. "Use of the Internet is second nature to this generation. The Internet allows them to connect to the like-minded, in ways that seem to promise anonymity."

Sparked by an influx of message postings on extremist websites, Canadian authorities tracked a number of terrorism suspects on-line for nearly two years. CSIS and the RCMP say they unravelled a plan to detonate a quantity of ammonium nitrate at Southern Ontario targets. On June 2, they swept down across Toronto, arresting 15 men. Two more, already in custody in Kingston for gun-running charges, were charged as well.

Thirteen of the accused, including five youths, are under the age of 25.

News media reports have also linked several arrests in Britain with members of the alleged Canadian cell. One of two men British police arrested last week had lived in Toronto, the BBC reported, citing confidential police sources.

As well, reports say, Younis Tsouli, a British man referred to as al-Qaeda's hacker, who allegedly had close ties to the recently killed al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may have had connections to Canada. U.S. law officials told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Tsouli's arrest in October spurred the investigation that culminated in the 17 Canadian arrests and that he may have been communicating with the Canadian suspects.

But even before the recent international sweep, authorities were aware that extremists took advantage of the unregulated and easily accessible medium to communicate and spread their messages of hate.

By 2000, Prof. Weimann wrote in an on-line article, How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet, nearly every terrorist group had established a presence on the Internet. Today, he said, there are more than 4,800 websites associated with extremist groups, many used for recruiting young acolytes.

"All over the world there are huge Muslim communities that feel like second-rate citizens. Terrorists are reaching out to those communities, reaching out with the spirit of jihad and providing them with the idea that they belong to a global community," Prof. Weimann said.

Messages of inspiration from al-Qaeda leaders are one thing. But Web forums distribute much more graphic and powerfully persuasive videos.

"You find beheadings, [insurgents] attacking U.S. targets, blowing up cars and trucks of the U.S. Army and snipers shooting U.S. soldiers -- many, many videos of shooting U.S. soldiers," said Jonathan Halevi, a retired colonel in the Israeli Defence Force who now is director of Toronto-based Orient Research Group, an independent think tank that researches radical Islam.

The purpose of these graphic videos, Mr. Halevi said, is to evoke fear in the enemy while instilling courage in supporters. "There are endless videos that show how the martyr is smiling after his death. The logic behind it is, because when he reaches his goal, he's pleased and is waving from heaven."

The challenge authorities face monitoring extremist websites -- and those who participate in them -- is vast. Sites appear and disappear quickly, hackers hijack legitimate websites and upload files, notify others of their location and then vanish.

Infiltrating Web forums and gaining the trust of participants, not to mention mastering Arabic, is not easy, said Josh Devon, co-founder of the Washington-based SITE Institute, a private organization of concerned citizens that monitors and sometimes infiltrates extremist forums.

"[It's] difficult in the sense that if you aren't in from the beginning and aren't active in discussions, they get suspicious. The community is very small and sometimes you have to be recommended to get access to the website."

Canada's police and spy agencies are tight-lipped about what strategies they use and resources they have to monitor and combat the on-line threat. RCMP and CSIS won't comment on the two-year investigation that led to the 17 arrests. But the threat, they say, is growing.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060615.TERRORWEB15/TPStory/National