Web May Aid Terrorists

Terrorist groups have discovered a new and effective way of attracting and mobilizing new members, according to a recent article that a Harvard affiliate co-authored in the journal Nature.

In the Sept. 29 article, Jessica E. Stern, a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government, and University of Michigan Adjunct Professor Scott Atran investigate the perpetually expanding world of cyber terrorism. They contend that modern technology, particularly the Internet, provides terrorists with both the means and the motivation to strike their targets. These websites, which spring up by the dozens, allow for instant communication among insurgents and further their potential to create death and destruction.

“In the United States, there is a concept of virtual networks that are utilized for mobilization and recruitment for a cause without having to contact a leader,” said Stern, who is also affiliated with Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The article said that these networks contribute to the efficient planning and organization of jihad cells.

“These sites do not create terrorism,” Atran said in a phone interview on Saturday. “They facilitate it by creating an atmosphere of jihadists with similar beliefs.”

Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs Ashton B. Carter emphasized the role of community building through the Internet rather than brick-and-mortar terrorist facilities.

“The meeting place that Afghanistan was in the 1990s has been replaced by cyberspace, so susceptible young men are recruited and trained over the Internet rather than...in Afghanistan,” said Carter, who is also the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.

Stern said it was surprising that this communication between terrorist groups and their parent organizations originated with American “right-wing extremists” before it did among its Middle-Eastern counterparts.

“Americans who killed abortion doctors used the Internet...and published license plate numbers of targets and names of their family members,” Stern said. “And it’s all within the First Amendment.”

Stern said there was a clear connection between the tactics of American and Middle-Eastern fundamentalists in that they both utilized the Internet to track their targets. She also pointed out that such methods were employed before Sept. 11.

“Some groups that I was monitoring, members of Bin Laden’s international Islamic front, were openly fundraising,” she said. “They were publishing the addresses of their banks, saying ‘please send money to this account.’”

With the recent advances in terrorist communication, security agencies now face the formidable task of sifting through what Atran called “misinformation” in order to extract valid facts.

Perhaps the most effective way to combat terrorism in this form is not through superior technology, Atran and Stern said, but through the substitution of terror-related websites with those that advocate a non-violent religious community.