D. Rumsfeld has agreed with the opinion expressed by many experts who claim that methods and devices of information standoff and psychological warfare used by Islamic extremists have been successfully fulfilling their objective. As D. Rumsfeld said, "our adversaries have learned to effectively wage war in this age of information technologies, whereas we – our country, our government – have by and large failed to do so".
Moreover, the US Defense Secretary had to acknowledge that Aiman az-Zawahiri, Egyptian, one of "Al-Qaeda" leaders, was right in saying that "Al-Qaeda" is actively engaged in the information "battle for hearts and minds" (a favorite American cliche) of Muslims across the world. In this connection D. Rumsfeld emphasized that the struggle for creating a favorable public opinion is no less important than combat and special operations that are currently being conducted by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Defense Secretary had to admit that Islamists who constitute the ideological core of "Al-Qaeda" have been mobile, inventive and swift in waging information warfare, whereas the cumbersome American bureaucratic machine is in no way capable of effectively using modern information technologies to achieve the desired effect.
Informed observers believe that the reason for D. Rumsfeld's confessions has been the recent scandal over the publication in the world media and the Internet of a new batch of photos and videos showing American warders abusing prisoners in the notorious "Abu-Gharaib" jail in Baghdad. The appearance of new testimony of inhuman treatment of Muslims at the hands of US military have caused a new upsurge of anti-American protests all over the Muslim world.
Western experts note that one of the key propaganda tools actively used lately by terrorists is the Internet. After a short discussion between conservative Islamists who tried to brand the Internet as "a Jewish conspiracy", and their pragmatic colleagues, the latter had gained the upper hand. The world-wide web had quickly become a theater of operations for terrorist jeehad groups and their followers in the Islamic world.
The scope and range of the web resources operated at present by "Al-Qaeda" and other jeehad groups is really immense. It is supported by many thousands of individuals familiar with information technologies and united in their adherence to the ideology of pan-Islamism or "global jeehad". The on-line infrastructure of Islamic extremism consists of a whole series of interconnected and interdependent components, and it has been growing by leaps and bounds both in quality and quantity.
Experts in the field of Internet technologies note that websites propagating radical Islamism and ideas of "Al-Qaeda" are becoming increasingly professional, interactive and outwardly attractive. In addition, they are becoming multi-lingual. The jeehadist propaganda in the Internet has been trying to cover as vast an audience as possible, both "internal" and "external".
Though a vast majority of jeehadist sites operate in the Arabic language, the biggest of them all are beginning to come out in English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Swedish language versions. Thus not only young Muslims from immigrant families residing in Europe get caught in terrorists' nets, but also young Europeans professing nihilistic attitudes towards the Western way of life and Christian values, whom "Al-Qaeda" soul snatchers call "white Moors".
"Al-Qaeda"-associated websites also perform an important function of waging a psychological warfare against its main enemies – the US and Israel. Islamist sites post a great number of short video clips filmed mostly in Iraq and showing real guerrilla and terrorist operations, with the purpose of boosting the morale of its followers and demoralizing the enemy's audiences. Quite often these sites feature statements made by "Al-Qaeda" leaders, and sometimes their video messages with threats to the West or general instructions for the base-level cells of the terrorist network.
Though in a lesser degree, videos featuring "the fight against the infidels" in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Indonesia are also present. Notably, the coverage of Palestinian groups has been limited on jeehadist sites due to ideological differences between Palestinians and pan-Islamist groups headed by "Al-Qaeda".
Topping it all, the Internet has also become a central library of jeehadist literature. Posted there are political manifestos, theological texts and fatwas, handbooks and instructions for waging guerrilla warfare, organizing acts of terror, handling weapons and explosives, making the notorious suicide bomber belts ("shaheed belt"), etc.
Thus, widely known is the so-called "Encyclopedia of Preparing for Jeehad", worked out and posted in the name of "Al-Qaeda", which is being constantly updated. Beginner terrorists can find there all the information they need, from drafting new recruits and organizing base-level fighting groups to concocting explosives and hostage-taking tactics.
Experts also note the growing incidence of the use of the Internet for the so-called "e-jeehad", that is, for coordinated hacker attacks on the sites of Western governments and international Christian organizations.
On the whole, the use of the Internet has given terrorist jeehad groups a veritable break-through on the propaganda front, having provided them with a relatively cheap means of propagating their ideas and keeping in touch with their followers all over the world, which is in addition not limited by interstate borders or government censorship.
Thanks to the Internet, geographically wide-scattered and isolated Islamist groups have been turning into a virtual transnational terrorist community, capable in future of carrying out quite real coordinated terrorist attacks on a global scale. And, judging by the above-mentioned acknowledgements made by the head of the Pentagon, the only superpower in the world – the US – can as yet do nothing about it.
