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THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Jihadists Broaden Reach by Launching English-Language Forums, Blogs
As part of their efforts to reach and influence non-Arabic-speaking audiences, Islamists have set up English-language pages on existing Arabic-language forums, and have also launched jihadist blogs in English. [1] An examination of the content of these forum pages and blogs suggests that they are aimed at various audiences in the West, inter alia to influence Western public opinion on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, to enlist support for jihad among Muslims living in the West, and even to encourage these Muslims to carry out martyrdom operations.
This report presents details on these websites and some examples of their content.
Some Examples of Forums and Blogs
The following are some prominent Islamist forums and blogs in English, along with their URLs and ISPs:
The Al-Hesbah forum
http://www.alhesbah.net/v
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Shumoukh Al-Islam forum
http://shmo5alislam.net/vb
ISP: TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Al-Ekhlaas forum
http://ekhlaas.org/forum
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Jund Al-Rahman forum
http://jondurrahmaan.com/vb/
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc.; Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Shabkat Al-Akhbar forum
http://w-w-n.ws/forumdisplay
ISP: TIMETELEKOM; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)
At-Tibyan Publications website [2]
http://tibyan.wordpress.com
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc., Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)
The Sawt Al-Jihad blog
http://www.sawtaljihad.org/
ISP: New Dream Network LLC; Brea, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge blog
http://inshallahshaheed
ISP: ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc, Dallas, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)
The Crusader Watcher blog
http://www.crusaderwatcher
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Press Release blog
http://www.press-release
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/21/07)
The Goals of the English-Language Forums and Blogs
Eroding Western Support for the War on Terror
One of the apparent goals of the Islamist forums and blogs in English is to erode support among the Western public for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is done primarily by posting full translations of official communiqués by Afghani and Iraqi terrorist organizations - especially communiqués boasting of successful terrorist attacks, in which the numbers of Coalition casualties are often inflated. [3] Two examples of this are a September 2007 communiqué by the Al-Qaeda-founded Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), which claimed that 20 U.S. soldiers had been killed in a suicide attack in Diyala, [4] and a October 2007 message in which the ISI claimed to have killed 57 U.S. soldiers in another Diyala attack. [5] Such messages, which are very common on the English-language forums and blogs, are presumably meant to plant doubt in minds of Western citizens about the West's ability to win the war on terror.
And much more here:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD177707
http://tinyurl.com/39xvxa
Arabic terror sites:
Most popular Jihadist forums:
Gerald
.
Originally published at https://warintel.blogspot.com/2007/12/english-language-terrorist-forums-blogs.html on December 3, 2007.