It has been clear over the past couple of years that al-Qaeda and affiliated Jihadists are making extensive use of the Internet to expand their influence and gain potential human assets internationally. While this is being monitored and analyzed by both private and governmental organizations, two important issues remain. First, a proactive strategy to respond to these websites has not been implemented. For the most part, the US response to such websites has been left to private citizen vigilantes who bluntly attempt to dismantle or take down the sites, inadvertently leading to their proliferation and disrupting intelligence-gathering efforts. What is needed is a comprehensive strategy to counter the effects of terrorist propaganda, with discreet removal of the most potentially harmful materials while making the most of these sites for their intelligence value.
Secondly, the ideology and information available on these sites must be disseminated to military, law enforcement, and other entities involved in counterterrorism in order to help them to understand the mindset, political views, and strategy of their opponents. The actions of individuals can quickly become fodder for Jihadist propagandists sending materials all over the world, and so it is important that those involved in counterterrorism efforts understand how various activities and events can resonate among Islamist and Muslim populations. For those helping to formulate counterterrorism strategy, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, an understanding of enemy propaganda and how it is dispersed is crucial. In the past, government agencies may have been looking at Jihadist websites, but the usefulness of their findings would be compromised if analysis was done at such a level of classification that it could not be made widely available.
The Congressional hearing reported on in this article shows initial steps towards addressing both of those needs. The need to counter the influence of such propaganda online is mentioned, as well as a plan to brief troops on what is happening online. It has taken some time, but methods for intelligence collection and processing from online sources are being established with cooperation between both private and public sector organizations, and the need for information and education to be passed on to soldiers, police, and others down to the lowest levels is finally being recognized.
However, it is important that these efforts be carried out without extensive advertising in the media, which only reveals our battle plans to our opponents, who have demonstrated that they extensively monitor the US media. Also, media coverage of counterpropaganda attempts undermines the effectiveness of those efforts by casting them in a manipulative and Orwellian light. The efforts to combat Jihadist activities online and offline are complicated by the appetite of the American public for constant information on terrorist actions, threats, and US efforts to combat those threats in all their detail, while at the same time, Jihadists have the language skills and Internet access to cull through this information for anything useful to them. While pursuing new strategies in fighting terrorism and radicalism online, it is important to understand and take into account the influence of the media on that effort.
