The virtual Caliphate
Al Qaeda is not capable now of taking over the earth and declaring its aim of a world-wide Caliphate. Over time the realization should have dawned that the current phase of their project is not only to undermine the Western world with terrorism, but also to establish a virtual Calphate on-line.
This is the main means that the various groups of far-flung Islamists use to keep in touch with each other and with their adherents. The many Islamist sites, that contain downloadable sermons calling for jihad and murdering of infidels are available in all countries thru the internet. You only need to have a server and a site address and you too can be part of the world-wide global jihad.
Case in point, "Jihad Jane," an American woman named Colleen LaRose of Pennsburg PA, who over the internet in a period of 14 months became a convinced but secret jihadist. Even her boyfriend claimed not to know about her other activities. She agreed on-line to marry a Muslim so that he could enter Europe or the US and she volunteered to become a suicide killer and was given the task of murdering Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks who had once published a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a dog's body. Taking her assignment seriously she traveled to Ireland and recruited 6 Muslim men (3 Algerians, a Palestinian, a Libyan and a Croatian) and the American wife of one of them to actually go to Sweden and do the deed. When the plans were in an advanced state of preparation the FBI swooped in and arrested her and the others were arrested in Ireland. Now in some respects this plot sounds ludicrous, but Lars Vilks was not laughing. This is an illustration how borders are no barrier to the virtual global jihad. But, one hopes that the FBI has a well organized on-line anti-jihad group detection system at work.
Here is another aspect, in 2007 the small country of Estonia found itself almost brought to a standstill by a cyber war. It happened after the Government decided to move a WWII Russian statue from the central square in Tallinn to a suburban park. This caused two nights of rioting by the Russian ethnic minority and word got around. Soon the computers of all of Estonia were caused to grind to a halt by a sophisticated cyber attack that emanated from Russia. As far as can be told this was orchestrated not by the Kremlin itself but by a right wing Russian youth group. They started the campaign that caused the Estonian Government computers to fail and the banking system to collapse.
Now the reason I mention this is because cyber terrorism will definitely be a feature of future wars. There are many Arabs who have tried, sometimes successfully, to infiltrate and take over Israeli web sites, including those of Government Agencies, and one can predict that this will continue. However, an organized campaign to cause the computers in a given country to fail would be a natural part of any future war aim. It would render communcations difficult, could interfere with air control, prevent money being transferred and generally bring a country to a halt. While Iranian computer hackers will not doubt try to do this to Israel, one hopes that Israel, with a strong basis in computer science, would not only be able to withstand such an attack but could bring Iran's computer systems to its knees. This is the ultimate way to defeat the virtual global jihad.
This is the main means that the various groups of far-flung Islamists use to keep in touch with each other and with their adherents. The many Islamist sites, that contain downloadable sermons calling for jihad and murdering of infidels are available in all countries thru the internet. You only need to have a server and a site address and you too can be part of the world-wide global jihad.
Case in point, "Jihad Jane," an American woman named Colleen LaRose of Pennsburg PA, who over the internet in a period of 14 months became a convinced but secret jihadist. Even her boyfriend claimed not to know about her other activities. She agreed on-line to marry a Muslim so that he could enter Europe or the US and she volunteered to become a suicide killer and was given the task of murdering Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks who had once published a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed with a dog's body. Taking her assignment seriously she traveled to Ireland and recruited 6 Muslim men (3 Algerians, a Palestinian, a Libyan and a Croatian) and the American wife of one of them to actually go to Sweden and do the deed. When the plans were in an advanced state of preparation the FBI swooped in and arrested her and the others were arrested in Ireland. Now in some respects this plot sounds ludicrous, but Lars Vilks was not laughing. This is an illustration how borders are no barrier to the virtual global jihad. But, one hopes that the FBI has a well organized on-line anti-jihad group detection system at work.
Here is another aspect, in 2007 the small country of Estonia found itself almost brought to a standstill by a cyber war. It happened after the Government decided to move a WWII Russian statue from the central square in Tallinn to a suburban park. This caused two nights of rioting by the Russian ethnic minority and word got around. Soon the computers of all of Estonia were caused to grind to a halt by a sophisticated cyber attack that emanated from Russia. As far as can be told this was orchestrated not by the Kremlin itself but by a right wing Russian youth group. They started the campaign that caused the Estonian Government computers to fail and the banking system to collapse.
Now the reason I mention this is because cyber terrorism will definitely be a feature of future wars. There are many Arabs who have tried, sometimes successfully, to infiltrate and take over Israeli web sites, including those of Government Agencies, and one can predict that this will continue. However, an organized campaign to cause the computers in a given country to fail would be a natural part of any future war aim. It would render communcations difficult, could interfere with air control, prevent money being transferred and generally bring a country to a halt. While Iranian computer hackers will not doubt try to do this to Israel, one hopes that Israel, with a strong basis in computer science, would not only be able to withstand such an attack but could bring Iran's computer systems to its knees. This is the ultimate way to defeat the virtual global jihad.
posted by Jack Cohen at 6:06 PM
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