Reporting on line: the Internet and terrorism

Journalists have lost their monopoly on international news. The Internet has encouraged a shift in who creates, distributes and ultimately owns the news. It increasingly shapes the ways journalists communicate, construct their stories, publish their material and interact with their audiences.

But it also allows radical groups, who might have previously relied on small audience, easily censored and supressed newspapers, radio or television stations, to bypass journalists and offer their intellectual wares directly to an international audience.

Terrorist groups have embraced the Internet as a means of transmitting propaganda, raising cash, recruiting new members and communicating with their activists.

Indeed the organisation of the most notorious of the international terrorist groups, Al-Qaeda, can be seen to parallel the structure of the Internet. In that, it is transnational, lacks a geographic centre, consists of disparate nodes or activist cells, and depends on the software of ideas rather than the hardware of the military.

As a result Al-Qaeda, like the Internet, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. As national, geographically centred, heirachial governments have found it difficult to control and censor the web, the USA has found it difficult to identify and eliminate Al-Qaeda.

What is Terrorism?

Since September 11 the American definition of terrorism has become the dominant global paradigm, and as such used for the purposes of discussion in this paper.

George Bush in his speech to the joint Houses of Congress on November 20, 2001 said that every nation had to decide, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbour and support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime".

So what makes a terrorist according to the US? Colin Powell’s definition is somewhat less altruistic than President’s Bush’s rhetoric might indicate. According to the US State Department, the definition of terrorism was explicitly linked to US national interests, in that US designated terrorist threatened: US nationals, US national defense, US Foreign relations and US Economic Interests.

Despite America’s pledge to rid the world of terrorism, a number of terrorist and pro-terrorist sites operate from with in the US and other western countries.

A search of the Internet found a series of websites promoting US designated terrorist groups. Five were selected for this paper.

Hizballah – the party of god:

A Radical Shia group formed in Lebanon (1982) by a group of clerics dedicated to create an Iranian-style Islamic republic in Lebanon following Israeli invasions. In October1983 Hizbullah became the first terrorist organisation to use suicide bombers, in truck bomb attacks of the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut - killing 241 (US Department of State, 1999).

Hizballah’s complex sites appear to use mirroring (www.hizbollah.org, www.hizbulla.net, www.hizbollah.tv) to deter hackers. The Imams have their own web pages, reflecting the importance and independence of the religious leaders to the political movement, and the web’s ability to deliver colour images is used to immortalise martyrs in cyberspace.

The Hizballah homepage link to a number of associated sites each with a specific type of information. The web page of Hizbullah Secretary-General - Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah outlines the political and religious doctrine of the organisation, together with quick time movies of a number of key Khomeinistic Shi'ite clerics. The site is in both English and French.

‘Zionist terrorism’ archive www.qana.net/janta/main1.htm is a page dedicated to those who were killed by Israeli troops since 1948 including a number of allegedly murdered children - a visually powerful site of a well orchestrated propaganda operation.

The alleged torture at the Khiam prison by Israeli and Southern Lebanese soldiers is highlighted in www.khiamwatch.net. The site consists of a large number of testimonials and letters smuggled out by prisoners.

Kahane Chai – Kahane lives.

Aimed at restoring the biblical state Israel, the Kach group was founded by radical Israeli-American rabbi Meir Kahane, and Kahane Chai was founded by Meir Kahane’s son Binyamin following his father’s assassination in the US. Both groups were declared as terrorist organisation by the Israel cabinet in March 1994 following the al-ibrahimi Masque attack (US Department of State, 1999).

This site was the most technically sophisticated of those surveyed. Aiming to promote Jewish identity across geographically and linguistically diverse Zionist communities, it deployed the widest range of multi-media technology, encouraging interaction through polls, emails and even games. It included a version in Russian, serving conservative Zionist émigrés from that country, as well as a Hebrew version. Audio tapes were available in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish.

The site actively merchandises with items such as "Special sale of the day"; in this case a Kahane.org video reduced from the regular price of $25.00 to $18.00. The eCommerce section includes a T shirt sale. Books, audio tapes, stickers and jewellery were also available.

While the epolls consist of polls similar in style to those operated by CNN. Eg: Should Israel allow International Investigators to enter Israel and investigate Jenin battle? 1172 votes were counted with 57 per cent voting no.

Games included "Welcome Arafat" which requires the player to shoot a pistol at a rapidly moving Arafat target. Hits are scored and players are invited to email Kahane.org. In Whack a Barak, "It is your difficult task of whacking some sense into [former Israeli Prime Minister] Barak's tiny Brains. Just Whack him with the plastic hammer and maybe he'll just come to his senses!" The game notes that it is not advocating violence against fellow Jews.

The site also provides a platform for fund raising and guest books for recording the visitors comments. People were urged to email the US Senate (contacts linked) to demand that the Kahane group no longer be listed as a terrorist group.

Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque Fatherland and Liberty was founded in 1959, seeking to establish a Basque homeland in northern Spain southern France. It finances its activities through robberies, kidnapping and extortion. Primarily opposed to the Spanish authorities, ETA is believed to have killed more than 800 people in bombings and executions.

The diverse construction of the sites reflects the political concerns of the radical communist, but anarchist influenced, independence movement. The style and structure of the site reflect ETA’s need to establish a unique political and cultural identity.

Consequently the sites make excellent use of the web’s capacity to deliver a combination of art/photography, text, animation and music. Some animations seem more concerned with aesthetics than overt political message, relying on a sometimes obscure cultural subtext.

The ETA associated basque-red.net consisted of people who described themselves as radical communists, basque nationalists, ecologists and feminists. Members of the collective included local politicians such as Lourdes Cerrato Ocerin who was imprisoned in 1997 on charges of collaboration with ETA. It also includes academics, journalists, Basque activists and alleged torture victims. The site maintained a reading list of publications produced by collective members.

The site contains weekly analysis and news service (A glance at the hidden face of the Spanish State) produced in Spanish, as well as a bi monthly commentary by Immanuel Wallerstein from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

However the group’s Euskal Heria Journal is perhaps the most visually sophisticated of the terrorist supported sites. The Journal adopts the style of an eMagazine rather than the more common eNews presentations.

The journal includes a series of papers tracing the evolution of Basque politics from the defeat of the Basques by Carolingian knights in 781 AD to the present day. This section opens to a sound file of nationalistic Basque music. There is also a virtual gallery of art and photographs, accompanied by a sound track. The shockwave movie, "Go Navarre Go" features a naked woman running across the screen, followed by the state of Navarre rising from the sea on a rubber tube. The movie is accompanied by the sound of seagulls.

Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

The second largest group within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. It is a Marxist-Leninist group founded by a PLO member George Habash (al-Hakim) in 1967. The Group is suspected of a number of international terrorist attacks including then 1972 Telaviv airport attack, and since 1978 attacks on Israel and moderate Arab targets (US Department of State, 1999).

The PELP site is a text heavy site with only minimal graphics. It’s wordy and worthy style resonates with the newspapers produced by similar Marxist groups. The group appears to be seeking to legitimise itself by linking to recognised mainstream media such as the BBC.

It includes, transcripts of interviews with party leaders such as Abu Ali Mustafa, who was assassinated by the Israelis in 2001, and reprints of newspaper reports eg: A Guardian report on Leila Khaled who hijacked her first plane in 1969.

Basic questions of the organisation are addressed in the FAQs -Does the PFLP have a strategy for peace? Why did the Palestinians reject Barak's "generous" proposal that included the Israeli withdrawal from 95 per cent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the division of Jerusalem?

At the time of the study the sites counter showed more than 70,000 hits

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Sri-Lankan rebel group fighting for Eelam - a separate state since 1976, and has adopted a battlefield insurgent strategy against the Sri Lankan Army and the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (1987-1991). The only terrorist group to have killed heads of state in two countries - Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa.

The tigers have used highest number of suicide bombers (US Department of State, 1999) - nearly 200 suiciders since the first attack by captain Millar (1987)- and Ghandi’s assassin Dhanu the world’s first female suicide killer (1991).

The LTTE operated one of the most extensive web based propaganda networks used by any terrorist organisations. The tiger’s web based propaganda net-work consists of LTTE official pages, tiger front organizations and pro-eelam groups based in more than 50 countries including the US, Britain, Canada, Australian and a number of other European and Asian countries.

For more than a decade Eelam House, LTTE’s London based press office has operated the heavily text based www.eelam.com. The site contains LTTE press releases from 1985 and other publications supporting the Tamil claim for separate homeland.

Of the many pro-tiger web pages www.tamilcandian.com is the most comprehensive database of pro-LTTE literature available on the internet (Canadian Intelligence report, 2001), and reflects the tigers heavily reliance on expatriate communities for their fund raising activities which link regional specific expatriate sites which contain information on sporting activities, social events, and even immigration regulations.

The news coverage in the pro-eelam network is both regular and prolific, resembling a conventional news agency more than a sectional political site. www.tamilnet.com operated form America with a front base in Norway offers daily news updates from Sri Lanka, and since 1997 it has been the largest web based Tamil news source. While www.tamilguardian.com the pro-eelam news paper distributes from three distinct geographic locations Toronto Canada for a North American audience, Victoria Australia for Australasia and London UK for Europe. The newspaper is available on-line on pdf format.

The Internet is atomising influence in international communications. The metropolitan centred news systems must now compete with locally produced globally distributed information. The primary difference between the two products may be credibility.

The Internet provides journalists with unprecedented variety and depth of sources. Yet it already allows their intended audiences to check journalists’ interpretation against the original. New technology allows journalists to communicate immediately with home bases, transmitting stories over great distance via satellite or landlines. Increased speed of delivery can be expected to allow reporters less time for reflection.

Meanwhile, their subsequent reports can be quickly distributed back to the sources, beyond western journalists’ traditional metropolitan audiences. This will allow media critics to immediately interact on what they consider misreporting.

Terrorists are already developing their own news networks, deploying sophisticated multi media techniques, which match and sometimes surpass mainstream media.

The traditional values of accuracy and speed will become even more important for mainstream reporters competing with these partisan voices on the Internet.