Reporting on line: the Internet and terrorism

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.