Al Qaeda's Message Spreading Through English-Language Sites

Thursday, November 19, 2009
 

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RIYADH,Saudi Arabia —  Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading Al Qaeda's message to Muslims in the West.

They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.

The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.

"The point is you don't have to be an official part of Al Qaeda to spread hatred and sectarian views," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.

"If you look at the most influential documents in terms of homegrown terrorism cases, it's not training manuals on building bombs," Kohlmann said. "The most influential documents are the ones that are written by theological advisers, some of whom are not even official Al Qaeda members."

Most of the radical Islamic sites are not run or directed by Al Qaeda, but they provide a powerful tool for recruiting sympathizers to its cause of jihad, or holy war, against the United States, experts who track the activity said.

The number of English-language sites sympathetic to Al Qaeda has risen from about 30 seven years ago to more than 200 recently, said Abdulmanam Almushawah, head of a Saudi government program called Assakeena, which works to combat militant Islamic Web sites.

In contrast, Arabic-language radical sites have dropped to around 50, down from 1,000 seven years ago, because of efforts by governments around the world to shut them down, he said.

Al Qaeda has long tried to reach a Western audience. Videotaped messages from its leader, Usama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri usually have English subtitles. But translations of writings and sermons that form the theological grounding for Al Qaeda's ideology, along with preachers like al-Awlaki, mostly eliminate the language barrier.

Al-Awlaki's sermons have turned up on the computers of nearly every homegrown terror suspect arrested in the United States, Kohlmann said.

Members of a group of Canadian Muslims arrested in 2006 for allegedly forming a training camp and plotting bombing attacks in Toronto listened to his online calls for jihad, according to the case against them in court. According to prosecutors, an al-Awlaki sermon on jihad was among the numerous materials — including videos of beheadings — found on the computers of five men convicted in December of plotting attacks on the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey.

On his Web site and in widely circulated lectures, the 38-year-old al-Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen, often calls on Muslims to fight against the United States, accusing it of waging war on Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nidal Hasan, who has been charged in the Fort Hood shootings, contacted al-Awlaki nearly a year ago. In an interview published in The Washington Post, al-Awlaki said he did not pressure Hasan to carry out the shooting, but after the attack, al-Awlaki praised him as a hero. U.S. investigators have said Hasan appears to have acted alone, not on orders from anyone, when he opened fire Nov. 5 at the Texas military base, killing 13.

The cleric met two of the 9/11 hijackers at mosques where he preached in the United States, and after his return to Yemen he was detained for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in a kidnapping gang. Yemeni officials released him because they could not confirm an Al Qaeda link, but they say they are hunting for him again on suspicion he may have ties.

U.S. intelligence officials declined comment on the spread of English-language jihadist Web sites.

Such sites are expected to follow closely the upcoming trials of Hasan and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being a top architect of the 9/11 attacks, said Rita Katz, head of the U.S. based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows on line militant traffic. The Obama administration announced this week that Mohammed and four others will be put on trial in New York City.

Almushawah said clerics like al-Awlaki are "more dangerous than any other group." And if these clerics are jailed, "it's no big loss for Al Qaeda because they don't belong to the network," he said.

Many of the sites post speeches by English-speaking clerics like al-Awlaki or, more often, translations of sermons and lectures by Arabic-speaking clerics.

One site, the Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad links to sermons by al-Awlaki, alongside English versions of speeches by some of the top sheikhs of jihadist ideology — even some who are dead like Abdullah Azzam.

The proliferation of sites in English means "potential jihadists can know only their native language and still be radicalized," Katz said.

While al-Awlaki has become popular, "other, more prominent and influential Arabic-speaking jihadist sheikhs ... have had their works and speeches translated into English and other languages. Their works tend to be used more often by the jihadist community to justify violence," she said in an e-mail interview. Al-Awlaki "fills a void in that he can directly interact, understand and communicate with English-speaking jihadists in a way that Arabic-speaking clerics cannot."

Almushawah says most of the servers for the sites are in Britain, but they can be run from anywhere and most of them are operated and receive content from the U.S. Most of the clerics who appear on them are in the Arab world with some in France and England.

U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the spread of English language sites and their influence.

Saudi Arabia set up its Assakeena program after authorities found that 70 percent of Al Qaeda sympathizers were drawn to the group through the Internet. In the campaign, government-backed preachers monitor 400 radical Islamic web sites and inject a more moderate message on the sites.

The campaigners also directly contact and dialogue with militants they encounter on the Web, conversations that can take weeks or months. Of 2,631 militants contacted by the group, 1,170 withdrew their support for radicals, according to the campaign. About a fifth of the militants were from Europe and North American, and the rest from Arab countries.

Assakeena — the name is Arabic for "Tranquility from God" — is part of other hearts-and-minds programs the kingdom launched to complement its crackdown on Al Qaeda after the group carried out a series of attacks on foreigners and oil infrastructure in 2004.

Folks, recently I received an email from Curt Dalton who, as you know, has been a blogger from the beginning, and a respected one.  His news was tragic and while I wanted to share it with all of you, I wanted Curts permission first and just received it. 

This is the permission email....

Nancy - 

This is the original message........

"Recently, those who are REALLY close to us have noticed a subtle change in the e-mails from Leslie's and my accounts.  Some have even called to ask:  What the heck is going on? 

Well, my friends, I am very sick.  

I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  While I AM very sick,  I want each and every one of you to know you are still very important to me ... That is why I have written this letter to you.  I do not want you to think I do not care for you and I want you to know that even in this time of trouble in my life, I still care very deeply for you.  While this is a "mass" e-mail, the love and feelings I have for you are as genuine as they could possibly be.

In the coming weeks, things will be undergoing some profound changes and it may be impossible for me to respond to you in an individual manner, but please rest assured, you are in my thoughts and I honestly wish I could sit down with each and every one of you and have a beer and tell you how very important you are to me and have been to me through my life.  

Thank you for being my friend.  If you want to call, please give us a call on our home phone number.  If for some silly reason you don't have our number, shoot me an e-mail and I'll get the phone number out to you as soon as possible!

My love to you all... 

------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- --

I don't know if Curt will approve of me posting his actual words but I did anyway.  He is such a great person and this is such a tragedy. 

Live from New York, a terror trial we'll regret

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 18, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

AS A CANDIDATE for president in 2004, Senator John Kerry described international terrorism as "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation," and urged voters to think of deadly jihadist violence as merely "a nuisance" that we need "to reduce," but that "we're never going to end" -- akin, he said, to gambling or prostitution.

Kerry lost that election, and the Bush administration's very different approach -- treating terrorist attacks as acts of war, not criminal violations -- continued for four more years. Pre-empting terror in advance, not prosecuting it after the fact, remained the overriding priority. Counterterrorism efforts under George W. Bush were aggressive and they drew much criticism. But whatever else might be said about them, there was no repeat of the 9/11 catastrophe on American soil during Bush's presidency.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 atrocities, is to be tried before a civilian jury in federal court in Manhattan

But Obama also said that "detainees who violate the laws of war" would be "tried through military commissions," the time-honored venue for prosecuting wartime enemies. And come what may, the president vowed, he would not release the most dangerous detainees of all -- those who "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans . . . people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States."

If that description fits anyone, it is surely Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the unrepentant mastermind of the 9/11 slaughter and an avowed enemy of the United States.

Mohammed and his al-Qaeda co-conspirators, led by Bin Laden, made war against America while committing horrendous war crimes -- above all, the deliberate, unprovoked murder of thousands of innocent civilians. The place to try such war criminals is before the military commissions Congress created for that purpose, commissions that even Obama acknowledged "have a long tradition in the United States" and "are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war." The administration's decision to transfer Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters from Guantanamo to New York City, and to put them on trial in a civilian court as if they were ordinary criminals, seems completely inconsistent with the president's earlier assurances. It is also inconsistent with the announcement that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of planning the deadly attack in 2000 on the USS Cole, will be tried by a military commission.

But worse than inconsistent, the administration's action is reckless.

As defendants in federal court, the al-Qaeda prisoners will be entitled to the full panoply of due-process rights, including the right to discovery of all of the government's information about them, where that information came from, and the methods by which it was obtained.

"Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials," writes former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy. "They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses -- intelligence sources -- must expose themselves and their secrets."

McCarthy should know. He was the prosecutor of Omar Abdel Rahman, the "blind sheikh" put on trial after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Though Rahman was eventually convicted and is serving a life sentence, the government was required to supply defense lawyers with intelligence details, including a sensitive list of 200 potential co-conspirators -- people the government knew about, but didn't have enough evidence to charge. Within days, those names had found their way to Sudan and were in the possession of bin Laden, an intelligence windfall that strengthened his ability to wage jihad against the United States.

No good can come from blurring the distinction between conventional crimes and acts of war. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates are enemies of the United States seized in wartime, not members of our society who have run afoul of our laws. It is easy to see what al-Qaeda gains from a New York trial: a powerful propaganda platform and the forced disclosure of American secrets. Will it take another 9/11 to remind Americans how much they stand to lose?

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

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Is the feud over?  Cooling?  Warming?   Did the bad publicity finally get to him?

http://www.google.com/hoste...

This is a clip of his interview with Bill O'Reilly.  "CNN Doesn't embrace controversy, it's a miracle he lasted as long as he did."

http://video.foxnews.com/11...

Will some of you be able to listen to this with an open mind and take the man at his word?  I know some formed their opinions the day it was announced he was leaving CNN but notice that he did not badmouth ANYONE, just that CNN wanted to go in another direction.

Obama and 'The Great I Am'

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
November 14, 2009

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6...

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was "a painful barrier between family and friends" that symbolized "a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being." He referred to "tyranny," but never identified the tyrants -- he never uttered the words "Soviet Union" or "communism," for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan -- or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.

"Few would have foreseen," declared the president, "that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it."

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for "Ich bin ein Berliner," still less another "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn't be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made "destiny" of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called "The Great I Am," regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many "I's" in his prepared remarks. Ronald Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn't mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was "peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies."

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.

"I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that . . . I'm a better political director than my political director."

At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal "we" -- "We will build the roads and bridges . . . We will restore science to its rightful place . . . We will harness the sun and winds," he declaimed at his inauguration.

But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, "By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked 'I': 'As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.' 'I called for action.' 'I pushed for quick action.' 'I have told each of my cabinet.' 'I've appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.' 'I refuse to let that happen.' 'I will not spend a single penny.' 'I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.' 'I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half.'" In his speech on the federal takeover of GM, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. ("Congress" he mentioned just once.)

At this rate, it won't be long before the president's ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own.

Then again, how modest would any of us be if we were as magnificent as Obama knows himself to be? "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assemblyof the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." in September, "

In 1860, writes Doris Kearns Goodwin in her celebrated biography Team of Rivals, an author wishing to dedicate his forthcoming work to Abraham Lincoln received this answer: "I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect."

Obama has often claimed Lincoln as a role model. Apparently it only goes so far.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

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Enjoy.  They only have two left after today.  Here's the schedule.

http://www.gobulldogs.com/s...

The first marijuana coffee shop (?) opens in Oregon.  What's next?  Cocaine Happy Houses?

http://www.foxnews.com/stor...

It will be interesting to see just how far Obama "lenient" policy lasts now.

Couldn't find Ask the CA so I'm asking you folks.  Anyone know?