Update: 03 March 2010, 13:18 Z
Well, that was fun. All the core sites (Faloja, Ma'ark, and Ansar) are back online. Was it a diversion? A message to the forum operators that they are not in charge of their own sites? A fit of pique by an intelligence service or two or three? No one knows - and anyone who says they do know is probably being less that truthful or more than a little imaginative. The jihadi site admins in particular are an unreliable source in such matters - witness the complete denial on the part of the Ansar forum admins regarding the compromise of their site's database. In more general terms, the jihadi site admins can either cut their own lines of communication and truly compartmentalize their operations, or they can suffer having those lines of communication cut by their adversaries more-or-less at will. Either way we win, they lose.
1. The scorekeeper reports the following...
Faloja: down
Ansar: down
Ma'ark: down
Medad: down
Global jihad online? What global jihad online? If I had to speculate, I would reckon that Jordan found the posthumous insults of Abu Dujanah al-Khorasani to be intolerable and so they cashed in a few chips. International cooperation is a beautiful thing when it works.
2. The rest is commentary...
The following represent the jihadi community's response to the disappearance of Faloja and other significant forums, in as much as there is anything left online that constitutes a jihadi community...
Faloja is trying to dust itself off:
They say they'll be back soon, and that whatever it was that happened was the result of the "secret war", which I don't doubt. Given that the Faloja admins are
a) professional website operators, and
b) based in Gaza
they have the best chance of surviving such events. Not that they are invulnerable, obviously, but they do present a harder target profile.
At Leyoth, they are asking WTF is going on?
• Archive of post
Majahden, the Electronic Mujahideen Forum so-called, made a really heartwarming effort to welcome in the refugees from Faloja. I'm not sure how many new members they picked up, but it's the thought that counts. That and the amount of time that Faloja remains offline.
• Welcome to the refugees: page 1, page 2
• Faloja will return soon, insha'allah: page 1, page 2
The Atahadi forum I reckon is the big winner here, the site most likely to enjoy more readers and improved status, but to be honest that's more of a hunch than anything.
• Ah, the splendor that was al-Faloja
• Allah willing, Faloja forum will survive
• Trying to make sense of it all: page 1, page 2
• Two pages of prayers and excuses: page 1, page 2
• ZOMG! Faloja is down!!!1!
3. Reality distortion field at full strength
After maybe 24 hours of downtime, the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum has brought itself back online here:
http://124.217.247.149/vb/
If they have any lingering security concerns you wouldn't know it, which is funny. Clearly they view the media jihad as important - witness this private message from Insurgent to Terrorist001:
we need a lot of brothers who are ready to do something fi sabielellah, and of course you can look out for more brothers who can cut videos and audio too. We need to develop our skills and this cannot be achieved when every one of us working alone, no discussions, no ideas…We need to adopt the way of thinking of our enemies and we need each other to strengthen each other…our mission is very long and dangerous…It’s not just about copying and pasting…we need to develop our media skills, produce more videos and audio releases in arabic and also in english, and other languages if it possible. Doing this is gonna improve the quality and the professionality [sic] of the brothers and sisters and you know very well how important media is. [1]
However, their online zeal is likely to result in real-world imprisonment, given that the private discussions include some rather specific operational details, as in this message from Abu Aeisha to Nasruddin at-Tamimi:
I can arrange with one of the brothers, but I don’t know this brother well, and I don’t want to throw away what I have here without some assurances and reliability, and I am in nature very careful dealing with the security aspect, and I don’t speak about these issues until I am certain. But with you, despite the fact that I haven’t known you for more than a month or so, my heart feels warmth towards you, and I ask Allah to group me with you in the highest ranks of paradise. Brother, just as a reminder, I know one of the Somali brothers who I met in another country, and this brother resides in the city of Medina—can he transport the brothers to Somalia! And since you are a resident in Medina, I’ll send you the brother’s name and his description so you can ask him for his phone number, and so I can call him, and Inshallah he will assist us.[2]
Operators are standing by...
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[1] Kohlmann, E. 2010. "A Beacon for Extremists: The Ansar al-Mujahideen Web Forum" CTC Sentinel, 3(2):1-4
[2] Ibid.
Posted on 02 March 2010 @ 14:13© 2003-2011 society for internet research