Terrorists rely on tech tools, researcher finds

WASHINGTON -- The Internet has become the new Afghanistan for terrorist training, recruitment, and fund-raising, an academic said.
Terrorist groups are exploiting the accessibility, vast audience and anonymity of the Internet to raise money and recruit new members, said Gabriel Weimann, chairman of the communications department at the University of Haifa in Israel. The number of terrorists' Web sites has increased by 571% in the past seven years, Weimann says.
"Al-Qaeda doesn't operate like a terrorist organization anymore," Weimann said, speaking at the New American Foundation in Washington yesterday. "They don't live together, they don't train together, sometimes they don't even meet." They don't need human interaction as long as they can communicate, he added.

Online Training
Al-Qaeda's publication Al Battar, or The Sword, is an online training camp for its network around the world, Weimann noted. Edition 9 of the publication was devoted to kidnappings. It suggests methods, potential targets, negotiating tactics and even directions on how to videotape the beheading of victims and post the video on the Web. That issue was posted before the recent round of kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.
The latest edition, No. 13, was posted to al-Qaeda's Web site yesterday. Weimann said it's not yet fully translated, but its central theme is weaponry.
Referring to the recent beheadings, Weimann said that such acts are very low tech, while videotaping and posting the killings on the Internet are very high tech. Terrorists thus use a combination of primitive and sophisticated measures in their attacks.
"Cyberterrorism is a dark cloud on the horizon," he said of potential future actions.
Terrorists who use the Web to promote their causes operate the same way most savvy marketers do, Weimann said. They inform their audience based on what they think most appeals to different groups of people.
For example, Weimann cited a Web site about the terrorist group Hezbollah. The English version and the Arabic version initially appeared identical. But closer inspection revealed places where the text of the two sites differed.

This is a challenge to governments, Weimann argued. "They need people who can go deep into the text, who can read the metaphors, not those who just passed Arabic 101."

Games and Glamour
The Colombian terrorist organization FARC, which Weimann called one of the most violent groups in South America, has a home page that at first glance looks like an agricultural resource.
Many terrorists' sites are geared toward children, he added. The Hezbollah site provides links to downloadable games. "These games are training children to