Server error: jihad domain not found

Al-Qaeda Web Forums Abruptly Taken Offline

By Ellen Knickmeyer

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 18, 2008; Page A01

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 17 -- Four of the five main online forums that al-Qaeda's media wing uses to distribute statements by Osama bin Laden and other extremists have been disabled since mid-September, monitors of the Web sites say.

The disappearance of the forums on Sept. 10 -- and al-Qaeda's apparent inability to restore them or create alternate online venues, as it has before -- has curbed the organization's dissemination of the words and images of its fugitive leaders.

On Sept. 29, a statement by the al-Fajr Media Center, a distribution network created by supporters of al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, said the forums had disappeared "for technical reasons," and it urged followers not to trust look-alike sites.

For al-Qaeda, "these sites are the equivalent of pentagon.mil, whitehouse.gov, att.com," said Evan F. Kohlmann, an expert on online al-Qaeda operations who has advised the FBI and others. With just one authorized al-Qaeda site still in business, "this has left al-Qaeda's propaganda strategy hanging by a very narrow thread."

full @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/17/AR2008101703367.html

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This is fascinating. I may have mentioned this to you already, but some analysts said following the Russia/Georgia conflict this summer, in which Georgian government websites were the victims of massive DDOS attacks, that by remaining silent in the face of a use of that form of cyberwarfare the US signaled that cyberattacks would legitimized as a battle tactic. Pretty cool.