How do I search for Al-Qaeda websites?  Searching for "Al-Qaeda"
produces a search results list which seems to be full of anti-Al-Qaeda
source's adverse remarks and allegations, but no Al-Qaeda websites.

Dear Johnallman, 

First of all, Al-Qaeda, meaning "the base" in Arabic, is not a group,
rather a network of groups. These groups would not call themselves
Al-Qaeda (but names that represent their identity and ideology).

Second, terror groups change their sites very often of various
reasons: legal ones (threats of US government or other bodies on the
host); hacking (very popular, look for example at the former site,
which was identified with Al-Qaeda, Al-Neda.com
<http://www.alneda.com/>); and the fact is, that such sites cease to
exist relatively quickly (See for example
<http://www.conrado.net/_vit_inf>, that used to be Al Qaeda site).

That all means that if you're not a regular reader of Extremist
Islamic propaganda, it is difficult to know where tio find it.
Difficult, but not impossible.

As mentioned before, Internet Hagganah lists Extremists/Jihad Websites: 
<http://internet-haganah.us/jihadi/> 

Similarly, the SITE Institute monitors terrorist activity online: 
<http://www.siteinstitute.org/index.asp> 

Here are several others: 
Al-Asra
<http://www.alasra.org/> 

Abu Qatada/Tawghed
<http://www.abu-qatada.com/> 
<http://www.tawhed.ws/> 

I hope this answers your question.

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 11 Aug 2004 01:20 PDT

Oops, the most important detail slipped: if you search for the term
"Al Qaeda Website" (instead of just Al Qaeda), you'd get news refering
to the alleged sites currently used by Al Qaeda.

Sincere and very LONG answer, especially for the mean spirited sum I
offered.  Still didn't find me an active Al Qaeda website yet though,
due (I have discovered) to those zealots who zap Al-Qaeda like space
invaders as soon as they appear, and boast about how many "mouths"
(sites) they've silenced, on the grounds (presumably) that it's better
(in their warped view) continually to frustrate one's critics into
bombing one, rather than letting them have their say and finding out
WHY they feel like bombing one.

You might ask the FBI or CIA. :-)

I would think that because their language is written in a different
script than english, that searching for their name in english will not
bring up any of their websites.  Try finding Al-Qaeda in arabic script
and searching for that.

I'm doubtful that an Al-Qaeda site would contain the phrase
"Al-Qaeda." After all, this would make it very easy for authorities to
find it.

Kriswrite

I am the person who posted the (as yet unanswered) question.

Somebody called "kriswrite-qa" says, "I'm doubtful that an Al-Qaeda
site would contain the phrase 'Al-Qaeda.'  After all, this would make
it very easy for authorities to find it."   If the web is really a
world wide web, then unless there are also world wide "authorities"
(about which disastrous development I think we should all be told),
then "kriswrite-qa"'s musing are vain.

I have been told frequently by the news media in my country (the
United Kingdom), including the BBC, that the decapitation or execution
otherwise of this or that "hostage" has been videoed and uploaded onto
"an Al-Qaeda" website".  I would sincerely like to be able to access
at least one of these mythical "Al-Qaeda websites".  I consider this
to be my RIGHT.  If I cannot find any such websites, the obvious
inference for me to make is that (for example) the BBC has ceased
being a news channel that tells the truth, and has become a mere
propaganda channel, n'est-ce pas?

I don't get a kick out of viewing video nasty footage of
decapitations, but I do feel an obligation to check that the news
media aren't telling me a pack of lies these days.  And I smell a rat.

I don't speak Arabic and I don't know the transliteration into the
Arabic character set of "Al-Qaeda" either.

It doesn't strike me as too much to ask, in what purports to be a free
society, to expect a search engine as powerful as Google to be able to
produce at least ONE "Al-Qaeda" site, early on in the search results,
when (all said and done) I search on "Al-Qaeda".

Does "Al-Qaeda" even exist, let alone have websites, some of them
allegedly depicting the execution of "hostages", as is often claimed
nowadays by news media such as the BBC?  I think I have a right to
satisfy myself that I'm not being told the truth my the media where I
live.

I repeat my complaint.  A search on "Al-Qaeda" appears to elicit
nothing but webpages denouncing "Al-Qaeda".  This raises in my mind
the suspicion that either the search engines are tampered with (by
whom, why?), or that that "Al-Aqaeda" organisation does not, as
claimed by (for example) the BBC EXIST in the first place, or, if it
DOES exist, does NOT have any websites.  The conclusion is that the
BBC and others have screen fraudulent footage which it is PURPORTED
have been obtained from non-existent "Al-Qaeda" websites.

Now, if my (as it were) "paranoia", is not, after all, amply
justified, would somebody please kindly tell me how the "journalists"
successfully search for and find "Al-Qaeda" websites, but I either
lack the skills to do so, or am being prevented from finding the said
websites?

I can't help having an enquiring mind.  It's how I was educated, in a
country called the UK.

I work in a field of political activism and the dissemination of
information in which I expect to be challenged constantly to
substantiate what I say.  I have tried today for the first time to
substantiate the claims broadcast and printed in my country almost
routinely that there are such entities in the world as "Al-Qaeda
websites".  If my assertions were as badly substantiated as those I am
trying to substantiate, I'd deserve the opporbrium I receive from the
incredulous.

Please, somebody, talk some sense to me.  All I'm asking is what you
have to enter in a Google search to find Al-Qaeda websites, avoiding
finding anti-Al-Qaeda websites galore.  Is that really too much to
ask, in this modern age?

John Allman

For $2? Yes, it probably is.

The truth of the matter is much more complicated than you seem to
realize. We are a country at WAR. In times of war information is
monitored, intercepted and even squelched. In this case (which is
undenieably unique and unprecedented) it's not an issue of
Constitutional Right, it's a matter of disabling a weapon of the
enemy, who have chosen to terrorize the world through their own
propaganda efforts by showing us the heinous murders of innocent
captives. I suspect that many (if not most) of the so-called "Al-Qaeda
web sites" have not been your run-of-the-mill store-front web pages
called Al-Qaeda.Com or some such thing. These have probably been other
domains or underground news outlets sympathetic to the cause and
which, from time to time, air or host come of the rantings and videos
we've seen to date. Undoutedly these are monitored closely and perhaps
even shut down before they make the mainstream. I'm sure our
governments would like to be able to say that by doing so they are
protecting us from one of the only weapon of mass destruction that has
been found - and that being an explsosion of worldwide fear and panic.
This explanation will not be forthcoming though until this war over
and in retrospect people, such as yourself, will be more willing and
able to accept it as a matter of history rather than a current (and
very frightening) event.

Having said that, you will probably never find "their" web site -
"they" do not have one.

tutuzdad-ga

Someone hiding behind the cryptic pseudonym "tutuzdad-ga" lectured me
this evening.  He thinks me simplistic, and asserts that "we" are "at
war".  I ask him to spare me the usual, for I am anything but
simplistic, and nor am I at war, with anyone.  Not in my name.

As Saint Augustine of Hippo said, I think, I'm trying to "audi alteram
partem", to "hear the other side".

Al-Qaeda "terrorists" don't "terrorise" me in the slightest.  As a
Brit whose forbears endured daily during the WW2 "blitz" slaughter on
the scale of 9/11, without the panic or self-pity that removes brains,
I take it all (if indeed there is any of it to take) in my stride.

My apparent inability to hear the "other side" of the argument, from
Al-Qaeda itself, if the much media-mentioned but (I assert, as devil's
advocate) MYTHICAL organisation even EXISTS, is what terrorises ME. 
If remaining appalled that fascists censor information amounts to
naivity, and we live in an age of fascism, then I remain blithe thus
to be appalled.

Enough irate diatribe from me, back to the childikely simply facts,
and the question first posted in the hope that it would get a
technical answer, from someone more skilled than myself.

I heard on the news (or is it merely propaganda these days?) that
there are so-called "Al-Qaeda websites" in the world today.  Anybody
else hear this too?

ll I am asking (which ought not to be rocket science) is that somebody
more technically skilled than I am in drafting web searches should
kindly advise me what it is that I have to type into a Google web
search dialogue, in order to find out (by getting some of these
alleged Al-Qaeda websites back in the search results, from the
so-called search "engine") a list of these alleged Al-Qaeda websites.

If that is too much to ask, then I think that onw of the following
applies: (1) the media are lying to us left, right and centre, night
after night - there are NOT in existence the Al-Qaeda websites whose
contents they purport to be telling us about night after night after
all; or (2) we've thrown out the baby with the bathwater, defeating
the entire object of being a "free society" in the first place,
allowing ourselves to be so terrified by the "terrorists" (whose wives
and babies we so love to bomb to smithereens now and then) that we
have become terrified of allowing our own people to "audi alteram
partem"; or (3) there is nobody around with the knack and the IQ to
tell me what I have to enter into a Google search in order to FIND one
of these alleged "Al-Qaeda websites", without getting back a whole lot
of stuff which, for my present "audi alteram partem" purposes, I'm not
interested in, namely webpages crafted by chaps who don't themselves
like Al-Qaeda all that much, from whom I have heard about as much as I
can stomach lately.

Please, let me have no more stupid, politically biassed answers from
ideaological bigots, in a forum where one sets out to get facts from
neutral techies.  This is s ****ing simple technical question I'm
asking.  Either there are some Al-Qaeda websites in the world today,
or the BBC is lying through its teeth on the ten o'clock news night
after night.  Assuming the former, for the sake of argument, would
somebody please tell me, HOW DO TELL GOOGLE TO FIND THESE SUPPOSED
"AL-QAEDA SITES"?

If this is too much to ask, our society, or at very least the Google
search engine, has some "fitness for purpose" bugs it had better fix
damn soon, so far as I can see.

Goodnight.

It is a bit of irony that you would use the phrase, "Audi Alteram
Partem" to describe your frustration though we have tried to explain
it to you sensibly:

"James the First, soon after his accession to the English throne, was
present in a court of justice, to observe the pleadings in a cause of
some consequence. The counsel for the plaintiff having finished, the
king was so perfectly satisfied, that he exclaimed, Tis a plain case!'
and was about to leave the court. Being persuaded, however, to stay
and hear the other side [Audi Alteram Partem] of the question, the
pleaders for the defendant made the case NO LESS PLAIN ON THEIR SIDE.
On this, the monarch rose and departed in a great passion, exclaiming,
'They are all rogues alike!'"

"The Percy Anecdotes"
http://www.mspong.org/percy/eloquence.htm#AudiAlteramPartem

I wish you luck in your quest
tutuzdad-ga (a cryptic pseudonym)

Your theory of media lies makes little sense to me.  Most of the Al
Qaeda probably don't know english.  It doesn't make sense for them to
make a website in english, when they don't speak it.  Searching for
"Al Qaeda" will not get their site, because if you showed most Al
Qaeda members a sign that said "Al Qaeda" they wouldn't know what it
said.  If google answers isn't helping you than you should either
offer more money, or find someone that knows arabic and get them to
help you.  I suggest the latter because when you find an Al Qaeda
website, you won't be able to navigate through it well without knowing
arabic.

Oh, by the way, because I was interested, I'm pretty sure that I found
out what Al Qaeda is in arabic.  According to my sources, it means
"the base", and it is "???????" in arabic.  Copy and paste the words
inside the quotes.  But you'll have a hard time finding their site,
still, because you don't know which one to pick because you don't know
arabic.  I don't know arabic either, so I can't help you out with
that.  I haven't found a site of theirs either.

Some other stuff I found:

Jehad.net
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jehad.net is a website formerly owned by international terrorist
organization Al-Qaeda that was taken down by a cracker from the United
States. The domain name is now owned by Trafficz.com.

On December 8, 2002, the owner of a large financial services firm in
Minnesota saw that Al Qaeda was using the website to claim
responsibility for the attacks on an Israeli airliner and a hotel in
Kenya. (See: Kenyan hotel bombing)

He guessed the answer to the secret question of the MSN Hotmail
account of Julliou Armani, the man listed as the contact for
jehadonline.org

The cracker proceeded to take Jehad.net and Jehadonline.org
(configured to the same site) from the terrorist organization.

Al Qaeda had earlier posted an audio message containing a threat to
attack the United States in July of that year. October 2002 was the
month when Al Qaeda posted on the website a claim of responsibility
for the attack on a French oil tanker in Yemen.

Alneda.com
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Alneda.com (Al Neda means "The call" in Arabic) was a website based in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia used by Al Qaida to spread its message across
the internet.

It first appeared shortly after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist
Attacks. It had encrypted information to direct members to more secure
websites, featured news on Al Qaida, published Fatwas and books, and
had media, including videos of Osama bin Laden.

The internet domain name was taken over by a United States-based
pornography site operator named Jon David Messner, who reregistered
the domain in his name when the original registration lapsed. It is
now a link to ItsHappening.com (http://itshappening.com/), a website
about current events.

Messner used the Arabic translation service at ajeeb.com to read
messages left on the site. For five days, people thought that it was
still the real Al Qaida site. After a post on an Islamic message board
at 4:30 a.m. on July 20 warned people not to go, the site was taken
down.

The site briefly re-appeared on www.news4arab.org, but it was taken
down again. The website since had many other sightings as Al-Qaida
kept trying to put it up. The site had been inserted inside of other
websites several times, probably with the help of internet utilities.

Maybe I was wrong about them not having an english site.  Good luck.

Hi John,

This isn't about terrorists and their ability to terrorize. I live 50
miles from the twin towers. I worked in the hotel at its base, I had
friends and family in the building, I had friends and family respond
in ambulances and fire trucks to the building. As a NYer, let me
assure you no one here is terrorized. We are angry, we want to
understand why two buildings full of innocent bystanders whose only
crime was to go to work were killed for this simple daily activity.

You want to read their side, their viewpoints? You don't think you can
trust internation news reporting agencies? I am sure during the blitz
that the residents of the UK took time every night to find a
translated German newspaper so they could read and see if Hitler was
really a bad guy.

I could go on, I'm a little angry at the way you treated my fellow
researchers who made logical comments which you mocked. Kriswrite-ga
pointed out hanging a shingle outside the door which says Al-qaeda
might draw attention from the authorities. You mocked this idea like
there is no worldwide authority which would take down sites which
support the killing of innocent citzens. Sites which support the
needless slaughter of people as some sort of symbolic gesture to a
bastardized religion. I am sure no one would ever shut down these
types of sites.

Sites like www.al-ansar.biz who originally hosted the Nick Berg video.
I am sure there was some kind of humanitarian based need for the world
to see a man decapitated. Oddly enough, that site no longer exists.

"Update: The grisly video of Nicholas Berg's beheading was hosted at
www.al-ansar.biz . This site was hosted at an Internet company in
Malaysia, a member of the Islamic countries federation. Upon learning
that the site was connected to Al-Qaida, the internet company shut
down the web site."

Israel Science and Technology Homepage
http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/Articles/Chan-2004-05-12.asp

If you are interested in a link to websites supporting Al-qaeda, I am
sure you will find some here:
http://internet-haganah.co.il/haganah/

This website uses small blue SK47's to indicate sites they have
successfully had removed from the internet.

If you would like to search for Al-Qaeda websites yourself, feel free
to use terms like "al battar" which loosely translates into "The
Sword" it is alleged to be one of Al-Qaeda's largest online websites.

Perhaps a quick read of this site will give you some information about
why you can't simply type in some keywords and find Al-qaeda friendly
websites. Mainly, because Al-qaeda websites do not want to be found.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0728/p03s01-usgn.htm

I found these sites by using search terms related to terrorism. Terms
like "Nick Berg", and "Al Battar". Appearently the Al-qaeda friendly
sites don't really work on seach engine placement, so you will have to
search some of these links for additional links to sites you would
like to read about.

I found the above sites using this technique. 

I feel this answers your question, rather then post this as an answer,
take the two dollars and donate it to a nice charity involved with
helping the people who were effected by 9/11.

Mother911-ga

A web site might exist and Google might not list it in a search.  Why?
 Google usees a variety of ways to rank a web site with regards to
what you are searching for.  I believe that one of the parameters is
how many web sites link to it.(In addition to containing the words you
are looking for.)  If no one links to their web site then it is highly
likely that Google won't list it.  Also search engines like Google
crawl the web going from link to link to find content'.  If no one
links to an Al-Qaeda web site then it won't be crawled by a search
engine.  In addition, even if there are links to one, they might be
password protected.  In that event the web crawler won't be able to
include those pages.  Hence they won't show up in the search.

I understand that you want to make sure this isn't some vast
conspiricy.  Do you really think there is some organization so
powerful that it can make it appear that a group exists and countries
like France, UK, US, Russia, Germany, and others all act and agree
that it does and yet it does not?  If that is a possibility in your
mind then don't you think they would be so careless as to make it easy
to find it was all a fake?  Do you think that it wouldn't be
discovered?  Sure its possible, but very very unlikely.  There is no
Illuminatii, except in a Steve Jackson Game.

Trying to find Al-Qaeda websites with a search engine is a bit like
trying to find the Mafia's phone number in the Yellow Pages.

Thank you everybody who has commented.

I STILL haven't managed to find any Al-Qaeda websites!

I commiserate with the 9/11 bereaved mother.  I hope she finds someone
to blame for her loss, if this will help her to feel better.  I hope
that she is smart enough to work out that whoever is to blame would
likely work his her socks off to persuade her to blame somebody ELSE -
especially if theere was a buck or two to be made in the process.

I am 51 years old and British.  I grew up in an age and culture when
"terrorists" used to issue statements in which they "admitted
responsibility" for their atrocities, and explained what it was they
wanted, if further atrocities committed on their part were to be
avoided.

The only people who have been telling me for the past two years that
something they call "Al-Qaeda" did the 9/11 thing are more or less
exactly the same people who are being sacked from their jobs left
right and centre this year, allegedly for incorrectly telling various
more powerful people that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" a
couple of years ago, when clearly this turned out to be pure fiction,
although the more powerful people, it must be admitted, stand to make
a LOT of money from this unfortunate mistake on the part of their
underlings.

I had heard so-called "news reports" (pretty hard to avoid hearing as
they were) which mentioned "Al-Qaeda websites", so I thought that I
ought to visit one or two of these supposed Al-Qaeda websites, in
order to find out whether this supposed "Al-Qaeda", whom the same
people, who supposedly misled uas all about Iraq's non-existent
weapons of mass destruction were claiming had done the 9/11 thing,
ADMITTED doing the 9/11 thing or not.  If they DENIED doing the 9/11
thing, I was half minded to believe the denials.  Please bear with me,
as I explain why I had this "dissident" mind set.

Terrorist atrocities that are admitted might aid the terrorists
causes.  Apparent terrorist atrocities that NOPBODY admits to help
nobody EXCEPT those who might benefit from having a frightened
electorate to whom to answer, from whom they'd like to confiscate
civil liberties a-plenty without too much of an uproar.

Moreover, a confiscation of civil liberties I hoped would never, ever
live to witness confiscated from the citizens of democracies has
followed the commission of an atrocity on 9/11 which nobody has
admitted, and which nobody has denied either - at least nobody
suspected re 9/11 (by those recently sacked) - has denied
responsibility,at least not on a website that somebody zealous hasn't
successfully sabotaged (whether it was hosted in his own coutry or
abroad) before I for one could get around to reading any denials of
responsibilty for 9/11 that might have been on those sabotaged
websites.

I tried to make independent enquiries, turning first to Google.  I
have been frustrated.

I was directed to a website by one contributor to this thread (the
bereaved lady), in which the website owner actually boasted about
having successfully sabotaged literally HUNDREDS of alledged Al-Qaeda
websites, preventing you and me from finding out whether or not this
supposed "Al-Qaeda" exists or not, whether the media are telling the
truth or lying when claiming that Al-Qaeda has some websites, or
whether Al-Qaeda admits responsibility for 9/11, or denies it
vehemently.

I can't think how Al-Qaeda, if it exists, can be possibly be making
any money out of 9/11 (unless somebody paid them).  On the other hand,
I CAN think of somebody who would accrue further power and money
galore, if he only he could fool you and me into believing that
Al-Qaeda committed the 9/11 atrocities, and that the deposed president
of Iraq was a chum of Al-Qaeda.  I would imagine that the last thing
that person would want would be for ordinary people like us to be able
to visit Al-Qaeda websites and read for ourselves statements on the
part of Al-Qaeda that said "honestly, we didn't commit the 9/11
atrocity - please look elsewhere for the true culprits".

When the world gets confusing, I sincerel;y wish people would follow
the money trail, and think for themselves.

I remain open to any leads opr Google search parameter suggestions
that will enable me at last to access an authentic Al Qaeda website
(like those mentioned on the TV news so often), if any such exist, so
that I can find out whether Al-Qaeda exists, has websites and admits
9/11 (meaning they did it) or denies 9/11 (meaning that they almost
certainly didn't do it, whatever the people sacked for lying about
Iraq's weapons might have told us all).

Anybody left able to help in my search for the truth?

John

John,
You are suffering under the delusion that someone has to have a web
site and maintain it as proof of their existance.    Sort of a
Decartian "Google me therefore I am"  Why?  They don't care about you,
to them you are an infidel, someone to either convert or kill.  There
is no middle ground with this group. (Let me clarify that this is an
extremist group and I believe a small minority of Muslims believe
this.)

Why would they have a web site for you (or I) to find?  What evidence
is that?  None.  You claim to have lived through WWII and yet you are
hung up on web sites.     To what benefit to them would a public web
site be for this group?

Are you really so paranoid to think that the UK and the US et al are
in cahoots with Al Jezera(sp) and each other? Please seek professional
help.  If you are upset about civil liberties there are groups you can
work with and support to work towards changing those issues.

Your desperate postings cry out for professional help.  Please seek it out.

I do not understand why everyone is jumping on this mans back.  I live
in the United States.  Everyday our President tells its citizens the
terrorists hate us because of our freedom.  They hate us because of
our freedom?  Does that make sense?  Does he know anything about
history?  Every other week our government issue a terror warning. 
They issue warnings based on information that is years old and
warnings based on information so general that they cannot begin to
offer any specifics. The Washington Post and the New York Times have
both admitted they did not pay attention to dissenting views before
the war and just regurgitated information the administration spoon fed
them.  There are so many other examples.

And yet you question this man for being skeptical of the media. Wake up.

In reply to subjim-ga:

>> You are suffering under the delusion that someone has to have a web
site and maintain it as proof of their existance. <<

No I am not.

>> They don't care about you, to them you are an infidel, someone to
either convert or kill.  There is no middle ground with this group.
(Let me clarify that this is an extremist group and I believe a small
minority of Muslims believe this.) <<

So we are constantly being told.

>> Why would they have a web site for you (or I) to find? <<

So that we find out what they want for them to stop terrorism, and
demand that our politicians give them what they want.  The usual
reason.  Terrorism without such information is as pointless (and as
unlikely) as a kidnap without a ransom note.

>> You claim to have lived through WWII <<

I was born in 1953.

>> To what benefit to them would a public web site be for this group? <<

"Terrorism" is only useful to emphasise some point.  People who aren't
making any point are unlikely to be "terrorists".

>> Are you really so paranoid to think that the UK and the US et al
are in cahoots with Al Jezera(sp) and each other? <<

I think the word you misspelt might be the name of a news agency,
similar to Reuters.  I am not paranoid at all.

>> Please seek professional help. <<

I did.  I posted a question in Google answers, asking if anybody knew
how to search for Al-Qaeda websites.

>> Your desperate postings cry out for professional help.  Please seek it out. <<

I DID seek out professional help.  I posted a question in Google
answers, asking if anybody knew how to search for Al-Qaeda websites. 
Duh!

John,


Don't ask too many questions about Al Qaeda, or you may find yourself
having an unplanned holiday in Guantanamo Bay. After all, I'm sure the
US govt would tell you that only dissidents and potential terrorists
would try to access information about terrorists and their activities.

You, as a citizen of the free world, are suppose to be too scared to
question anything right now, and only a person who had nothing to fear
from Al Qaeda (IE a sleeper agent or supporter) would want to know
anything about their beliefs or what may have caused them to hate the
US and its allies. So stop thinking and immediately begin to contruct
a shelter to protect you and your loved ones from the imminent threat
posed by Saddam's Chemical and Biological weapons, which could be
launched from Iraq at any time!

In conclusion, please stop asking for Enemy propaganda, and tune in to
our own highly informative and impartial news broadcasts(CNN, FOX,
ABC, NBC ...). They will supply you with all the information about Al
Qaeda that the Government wants you to know.

FAO kyraxe-ga:

Perhaps fortunately, I am neither a citizen nor a resident of the USA.
 My recent trip to the USA, where I had been invited to address a
civil rights rally in Houston on 30 July 2004 (did you read about it
in the papers?), was my first trip to the USA for about five years.  I
am actually British.

I'm sure the USA government has more pressing reasons for wishing they
could send me to Guantanamo Bay than my merely asking what started out
as purely a technical question about Google searches.  Unfortunately,
it would have been something of a give-away if they'd even found a
trumped-up reason not to let my wife and me into the country. 
Notoriety has its blessings.

I'm amazed at some of the reactions.  Surely the most obvious thing to
expect anybody with internet access to do, when told on the TV news
that this or that has been posted on an Al-Qaeda website, is for them
to try to find out for themselves whether what the TV news has told
them is true or not.  This isn't rocket science.  Besides, what sort
of sloppy, unprofessional journalism is it to broaccast a story which
is primarily about the contents of a website without mentioning on air
the URL.

God bless.

Their goal is to create an Islamic Fundamentalist Utopia in this
world.  (rather big goal)  They don't want to negotiate with us; they
want us to convert to a highly specific sect of Islam or rid the world
of infidels.  This is not like having diplomatic relations with a
nation and trying to negotiate with them to reach an agreement (eg
nuclear disarmment, trade, etc.).  There is no nation to negotiate
with, there is no central authority to appeal to or communicate with. 
They are only using technology to accomplish their goals, not to put a
public face  on some web site to appease infidels.  Why would they
make their web site easy to find?  It would only make them easier to
find, which is not their goal.  (someone had to pay an ISP  and that
leaves a money trail.)

Your assumptions that if a web site doesn't exist then an organiztion
doesn't exist is silly.   If you are skeptical about where a variety
of news organizations got their video then it would be best to ask
them.  That is a reasonable concern.  Checking sources is reasonable,
but you might have a tough time doing it.  It wouldn't be difficult to
mail a video to a news organization or to make a video available via
the web for a short time.(then the site could be gone and one could
not check the source)  But most ssources are not on the Internet, and
the Internet isn't a reliable source in any event!

Personally, ANY organization or group that espouses hatred just
because people are not of their group (eg a lot of religios
organizations and political organizations) or groups that are use
highly emotive language (eg "We must send  missionaries to Japan
because the country is full of heathens."  An actual quote  I heard
form a leader of a local church.  It turned my stomach when someone
told me about it.)  I find highly offensive and narrow minded and not
one I would want to belong to or support.

FAO scubajim-ga:

>> Your assumptions that if a web site doesn't exist then an organiztion
doesn't exist is silly. <<

I haven't made that assumption.  I have already TOLD you once before
that I am not making that "assumption".  You are right: it would be a
very silly assumption to make.  I am NOT making that assumption.  Is
that clear?

As regards the rest of your message, I am impressed with how much of
an expert you are on Al-Qaeda.  You have told me a lot about them,
although I haven't been able to compare any of it yet with whatever
Al-Qaeda has been trying to say about themselves.  That is perhaps
because there are people who expend time and effort destroying
Al-Qaeda websites as fast as they appear.  I went to one anti-Al-Qaeda
website recently which boasted of having destroyed HUNDREDS of
Al-Qaeda websites!

I wonder what we would have to do to persuade Al-Qaeda to stop
terrorism.  Do you know what it is they want?

>> There is no nation to negotiate with, there is no central authority
to appeal to or communicate with. <<

It's dreadful of Al-Qaeda to carry on so unco-operatively like this,
not staying in one place for long.  They ought to set up a
headquarters somewhere, somewhere like Afghanistan, say.  We'd all be
much better off knowing where they were.  Then, gradually, we could
find out what they were so unhappy about, and tell them what we were
unhappy about, and things might start to get better between us.  But
with them refusing to stay in one country like they do, they make all
that impossible!  What dreadful people they are!

I am still wondering what they are unhappy about though.  Still, being
the bad and crazy people you have told me that they are, they probably
never even bothered to mention what they were unhappy about on any of
the 500 or more Al-Qaeda websites they set up, but which got
destroyed, so I'd be none the wiser if they'd been allowed to have
their say and I had got round to reading it.

Yes, I think you could be right when you say that basically Al-Qaeda
are just a bunch of nuts who enjoy war (even to the extent of starting
one against the most heavily armed nation in the history of the world,
which is also the nation most likely to attack foreign countries which
haven't attacked them, and to use nuclear weapons).  If Al-Qaeda are
such nuts, they probably never even bothered to say what they were
unhappy about on any of their hundreds of websites, before their
websites got destroyed.  In that case, they'd have had to have been
nuts!  I mean, who but nuts would to do terrorism and not tell anybody
what they were unhappy about?   So, as you have realised so quickly,
but I was so slow to realise, LOGICALLY, they MUST be nuts.   Isn't
that what you're trying to say?  Wow!  I've got the point at last! 
Thank you!

With my finally having managed to follow your logical argument, I
think we can close this discussion now, don't you?

John Allman
Knaresborough
United Kingdom

I am curious, did Mr. Sanford gave you his permission to post private
corresopondence in public, including his private email address?

In any case, posting private people's email addresses is against the ToS.

FAO politicalguru-ga:

I did not have permission.  I have reported myself over the
inappropriate content I posted (particularly the email address), and
have requested that my offending message should be removed.  Thank you
for pointing out to me the error of my ways.  I shall endeavour to
comply with the terms of service in future.

I don't think that there is any general expectation that one can write
anything to anybody at any time, wholly immune to the risk that he
will tell others, or publish what one has written, unless one give
explicit permission.

The way in which, on this occasion, what began as a technical question
mushroomed into a heated, and sometimes far off-topic, political
debate, is quite an eye-opener.  I seem to have been drawn gradually
into defending myself for having asked the technical question in the
first place.

I had ended my message before the offending one, which I hope will be
removed, with the words, "I think we can close this discussion now,
don't you?".  Had not this been followed by my receiving a private
email at home critical of the way I conducted myself in the thread
(albeit non-specifically), the troublesome thread might have died a
natural death by now.

Best wishes.

John

"Cet animal est trés méchant.  Quand on l'attaque, il se defend."

Hi John,

I hope you didn't take my comment too seriously, I intended it to be a
sarcastic response akin to some of the other comments you have
received which I find highly amusing.


Hope you eventually find the information you are looking for.

Take care.

kyraxe-ga, I recognised the humour in your message.  I hope you didn't
miss the (much less obvious) humour in mine.

I have NOT found what I was looking for in this thread, but I have
found what I was most looking for in life, thank you.

On the (unsuccessful) journey (through this tread) I discovered
allegations of a faked video starring a Bin Laden look-alike
confessing, and vehement denials dating from 9/13 on the part of Bin
Laden of any complicity whatsoever in 9/11 attacks.

When I were a lad, you'd got real terrorists, not these modern
namby-pamby amateurs, who get cold feet before t'job's finished. 
T'terrorists of my day knew that admitting what tha'd done and
explaining what 'twas that folks could  do to prevent tha next
atrocity (so tha'd get tha own way) were just as much part o't'job as
t'bombing itself.

By 'eck, bring back the old terrorists I say.  At least you know where
you were wit' them!  How on earth Bin Laden ever expected to get his
own way by bombing the twin towers and then making out as how it were
someone else 'ad done it, I'll never know.

Still, I'm surprised it took me so long to find out that Bin Laden
denied responsibility for his crimes.  I'd have thought the news media
would have been falling over one another to be the first to report
what an idiot Bin Laden was.  What sort of jerk does the terrorist
bombing without the terrorist admitting responsibility, the terrorist
threatening more of the same and the terrorist issuing a list of the
terrorist's demands, meeting which demands will avoid more of the
same?

Bin Laden behaved as stupidly as a kidnapper who forget to send the
ransom note!  O boy, did the newspapers, TV stations and radio
stations miss out on a golden opportunity to mock Bin Laden as he
deserves.  Fancy them all omitting to report that Bin Laden is such an
incompetent terrorist that he not only forgot to admit responsibility,
but he actually got his confession speech so badly mixed up, that he
actually ended up accidentally blurting out a denial!  Talk about a
fool!

On the other hand, and sorry for stepping into this discussion, "old
days terrorists" were organised in a different way from Al-Qaida
(that, as I have formerly explained, is not an organisation at all);
and their political objectives were usually nationalistic or
socio-economic (if you could lable extreme-left terrorism as having
"socio-economic" objectives). Al Qaeda's objectives (if one could
speak of "Al Qaeda" as a unified body, which I am not sure is
possible) are different, and there is no usage in analysing them in
the same way that one analyses the former waves of terrorism.

Just for comparison, Aum Shinrokyo admitted their responsibility for
the Tokyo Subway Sarin attacks only 5 years after it happened (and
when the Japanese government already tried some of the memebrs of this
group), and during that time denied responsibility for the attacks.
So, not all terrorist organisations act by those unwritten "rules",
and the attack on the Japanese Subway seems as senseless to strangers
who don't know the history of Aum Shinrikyo, just as 9/11 seems
senseless.

However, anyone who followed and studied the different extremist
Islamist organisations, could have not been too surprised (shocked,
maybe, like any moral human being amidst extreme evil) by those and
other attacks, as they have followed a certain line. People who are
familiar with the different groups and their connections, with their
ideology and teachings, especially (but not only) after 1994 (first
WTC) could have been less surprised as others, who lived in blissful
ignorance, or still do.

The sites which I have provided you with, alas in Arabic, would
provide you with the rationale behind such attacks. However, this
political movement has a long tradition, from Said Qutb (and even
before that) to these days. I recommend books by these scholars, to
learn more about the formation of Islamic Extremism:

Bassam Tibi (I happened to met him at LSU a couple of years ago, in a
conference abotu religious extremism. He is not only a great scholar,
but also a great man)

Mark Juergensmeyer (esp. Terror in the Mind of God, which I already
recommended in GA - Juergensmeyer compares between different types of
religious terrorism).

Emmanuel Sivan (also a great scholar, to whom it was a great pleasure
to listen. Read Radical Islam as an intro).

John Hall - he's an expert in religious extremism, and wrote lately an
article about apocalyptic terrorism and why it is different than
"normal" terrorism:
Apocalypse 9/11 * John R. Hall
<http://chsc.ucdavis.edu/JRHallApocalypse9-11.pdf>