Jihadist network promotes Zarqawi views unabated
Over the last two years, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi established the Web as a powerful tool of the global jihad.
On Thursday the electronic network that he helped to build was abuzz with commentary about his death, with supporters posting eulogies, praising what they called his martyrdom and vowing to continue his fight.
One Qaeda ideologist who calls himself Lewis Attiya Allah declared that Zarqawi's death was a "victory" for Islam, saying, "Allah chose him" and "We are all al-Zarqawi," according to the SITE Institute in Washington, which tracks militants' Web postings.
An online jihadist publication called Sada Al Jihad, or Echo of Jihad, declared, "Our nation can provide more sons," adding, "The day of revenge is coming soon, very soon."
The flood of Web tributes, their tone more defiant than sorrowful, reached an audience that Zarqawi had greatly expanded.
While other militants, from the Chechen separatists to Hamas Palestinians, had built Web sites to spread their message, Zarqawi and his aides were the first to take full advantage of the technology.
Zarqawi's Web propaganda generated and probably embellished his reputation in the Iraqi insurgency. But it also helped secure the Internet as a center of terrorist recruitment and instruction, partly supplanting the role of old al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts.
In recent months, his video messages and vivid images of violence have been posted on multiple computer servers to avoid downloading delays, with one version designed for viewing on cell phones.
"I would call him the Alexander Graham Bell of terrorist propaganda," said Evan F. Kohlmann, who follows militants' Web sites at GlobalTerrorAlert.com. "It's a new day for these groups because of him."
In April, when Zarqawi posted a video that showed his face for the first time, sympathizers posted translations of his speech within hours in English, German, French, Dutch and other languages.
A London man, Younis Tsouli, who was arrested on terrorism charges in October, is believed to have played a critical role in spreading Zarqawi's communiques, which the authorities say have helped incite homegrown terrorist plotters and suspects in many countries, including the 17 men arrested last week in Canada.
"While Osama bin Laden traditionally relied on Aljazeera and the media to disseminate his propaganda, Zarqawi went straight to the Internet, which enabled him to produce graphic videos that would never have been shown on the mainstream media," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute.
A grisly precedent
Videotape that showed a masked man, thought to be Zarqawi, as he beheaded an American businessman in Iraq, Nicholas Berg, in 2004 became a gruesome model for others seeking similar notoriety. Videos later posted in Thailand showed people being beheaded by militants "who looked into the camera and said one word: 'Zarqawi,'" Kohlmann said.
Since his first communique appeared on a jihadist Web forum in April 2004, Zarqawi's media operation has posted hundreds of others, often with video clips. Lasting only a minute or two, the clips gave jihadist oratory far more immediacy: Masked snipers shoot at American soldiers; a suicide bomber's car speeds toward an armored personnel carrier before disappearing in a fireball; a bomb detonates in a truck convoy, with drivers fleeing the flames.
Sometimes Zarqawi's media efforts, overseen by an associate who calls himself Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, were more ambitious. An hourlong video released in 2004, called "The Winds of Victory," collected pictures of suicide bombings and other attacks in a slick production that was serialized on jihadist Web sites.
Volunteers abroad have played an important role in distributing the material. Tsouli, the man arrested in London, and believed to be the Web operator using the online name Irhabi 007 (irhabi is Arabic for terrorist), became known worldwide for duplicating and posting Zarqawi's messages.
"If a beheading appears on a Web site, it can sometimes be taken down in seconds," said Gabriel Weimann, a professor at the University of Haifa in Israel and the author of "Terror on the Internet." "But if someone like Irhabi downloads it and posts it all over the Web, the message gets out."
What appears to be surveillance video of Washington monuments on Tsouli's computer was also found in the possession of two Georgia men arrested in March and April, according to a law enforcement official who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The Georgia men, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, in turn, had contacts with some of the 17 men arrested in Ontario last week.
"Very often these people don't know one another," Weimann said. "But they're all connected on the Net."