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October 13, 2008 8:57:36 AM CDT

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Al-Qaeda Plenty Safe, Thriving on Web

Posted Jun 24, 08 1:01 PM CDT in Technology,  World 

(Newser) – Americans might think of al-Qaeda as a cave-dwelling group of primitives, but the terror group operates one of the most sophisticated propaganda operations on the web, the Washington Post reports. Al-Qaeda releases documentary-quality videos every 3-4 days through tightly secured channels. “It’s beautifully crafted propaganda,” said one expert. “You’re left shaking your head and saying, ‘Yeah, I guess they’re right.’”

“It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates once said. “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” The US missed early chances to cripple al-Qaeda’s web infrastructure, now too hard to dismantle. “We could go around shutting down websites,” one expert said, “but it doesn’t really work.”

Source Washington Post

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This is a screen grab from one of the many videos al-Qaeda posts online.   (AP Photo)
This frame grab taken from a video message carrying the logo of al-Qaida's production house as-Sahab, shows a graphic used in an al-Qaeda's as-Sahab Media release.   (AP Photo/IntelCenter)
A purported al-Qaeda operative speaks in a video from al-Qaeda's as-Sahab Media.   (AP Photo)
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Internet  • al-Qaeda  • Osama bin Laden  • propaganda  • cyberterrorism  • terror websites


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