Gabriel Weimann

www.terror.net

How Modern Terrorism 

Uses the Internet

Summary

• The great virtues of the Internet—ease of access, lack of regulation, vast potential 

audiences, and fast flow of information, among others—have been turned to the 

advantage of groups committed to terrorizing societies to achieve their goals. 

• Today, all active terrorist groups have established their presence on the Internet. Our 

scan of the Internet in 2003–4 revealed hundreds of websites serving terrorists and 

their supporters.

• Terrorism on the Internet is a very dynamic phenomenon: websites suddenly emerge, 

frequently modify their formats, and then swiftly disappear—or, in many cases, seem 

to disappear by changing their online address but retaining much the same content.

• Terrorist websites target three different audiences: current and potential supporters; 

international public opinion; and enemy publics.

• The mass media, policymakers, and even security agencies have tended to focus on 

the exaggerated threat of cyberterrorism and paid insufficient attention to the more 

routine uses made of the Internet. Those uses are numerous and, from the terrorists’ 

perspective, invaluable.

• There are eight different ways in which contemporary terrorists use the Internet, ranging from psychological warfare and propaganda to highly instrumental uses such as 

fundraising, recruitment, data mining, and coordination of actions.

• While we must better defend our societies against cyberterrorism and Internet-savvy 

terrorists, we should also consider the costs of applying counterterrorism measures to 

the Internet. Such measures can hand authoritarian governments and agencies with 

little public accountability tools with which to violate privacy, curtail the free flow of 

information, and restrict freedom of expression, thus adding a heavy price in terms of 

diminished civil liberties to the high toll exacted by terrorism itself.

www.usip.org

1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

SPECIAL REPORT 116 MARCH 2004

ABOUT THE REPORT

Terrorists fight their wars in cyberspace as well as on 

the ground. However, while politicians and the media 

have hotly debated the dangers that cyberterrorism 

poses to the Internet, surprisingly little is known 

about the threat posed by terrorists’ use of the 

Internet. Today, as this report makes plain, terrorist 

organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds 

of websites, exploiting the unregulated, anonymous, 

and easily accessible nature of the Internet to target 

an array of messages to a variety of audiences. Gabriel 

Weimann identifies no fewer than eight different ways 

in which terrorists are using the Internet to advance 

their cause, ranging from psychological warfare to 

recruitment, networking to fundraising. In each 

case, the report not only analyzes how the Internet 

can facilitate terrorist operations but also illustrates 

the point with examples culled from an extensive 

exploration of the World Wide Web. 

Gabriel Weimann is a senior fellow at the United States 

Institute of Peace and professor of communication 

at Haifa University, Israel. He has written widely on 

modern terrorism, political campaigns, and the mass 

media. This report distills some of the findings from 

an ongoing, six-year study of terrorists’ use of the 

Internet. 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not not advocate specific policy positions.

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

CONTENTS

Introduction 2

Modern Terrorism and the Internet 2

An Overview of Terrorist Websites 3

How Terrorists Use the Internet 5

Conclusion 11

SPECIAL REPORT
Introduction

The story of the presence of terrorist groups in cyberspace has barely begun to be told. 

In 1998, around half of the thirty organizations designated as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” under the U.S. Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 maintained 

websites; by 2000, virtually all terrorist groups had established their presence on the 

Internet. Our scan of the Internet in 2003–4 revealed hundreds of websites serving 

terrorists and their supporters. And yet, despite this growing terrorist presence, when 

policymakers, journalists, and academics have discussed the combination of terrorism 

and the Internet, they have focused on the overrated threat posed by cyberterrorism or 

cyberwarfare (i.e., attacks on computer networks, including those on the Internet) and 

largely ignored the numerous uses that terrorists make of the Internet every day. 

In this report we turn the spotlight on these latter activities, identifying, analyzing, 

and illustrating ways in which terrorist organizations are exploiting the unique attributes 

of the Internet. The material presented here is drawn from an ongoing study (now in its 

sixth year) of the phenomenon, during which we have witnessed a growing and increasingly sophisticated terrorist presence on the World Wide Web. Terrorism on the Internet, 

as we have discovered, is a very dynamic phenomenon: websites suddenly emerge, frequently

modify their formats, and then swiftly disappear—or, in many cases, seem to disappear 

by changing their online address but retaining much the same content. To locate the 

terrorists’ sites, we have conducted numerous systematic scans of the Internet, feeding 

an enormous variety of names and terms into search engines, entering chat rooms and 

forums of supporters and sympathizers, and surveying the links on other organizations’ 

websites to create and update our own lists of sites. This is often a herculean effort, especially because in some cases (e.g., al Qaeda’s websites) locations and contents change 

almost daily.

The report begins by sketching the origins of the Internet, the characteristics of the 

new medium that make it so attractive to political extremists, the range of terrorist 

organizations active in cyberspace, and their target audiences. The heart of the report is 

an analysis of eight different uses that terrorists make of the Internet. These range from 

conducting psychological warfare to gathering information, from training to fundraising, 

from propagandizing to recruiting, and from networking to planning and coordinating 

terrorist acts. In each instance, we offer concrete examples drawn from our own research, 

from cases reported in the media, and from contacts with Western intelligence organizations. Although the bulk of the report amounts to a strong argument for the political, 

intelligence, and academic communities to pay much more attention to the dangers posed 

by terrorists’ use of the Internet, the report concludes with a plea to those same communities not to overreact. The Internet may be attractive to political extremists, but it also 

symbolizes and supports the freedom of thought and expression that helps distinguish 

democracies from their enemies. Effective counterterrorist campaigns do not require, and 

may be undermined by, draconian measures to restrict Internet access.

Modern Terrorism and the Internet

Paradoxically, the very decentralized network of communication that the U.S. security 

services created out of fear of the Soviet Union now serves the interests of the greatest 

foe of the West’s security services since the end of the Cold War: international terror. The 

roots of the modern Internet are to be found in the early 1970s, during the days of the 

Cold War, when the U.S. Department of Defense was concerned about reducing the vulnerability of its communication networks to nuclear attack. The Defense Department decided 

to decentralize the whole system by creating an interconnected web of computer networks. After twenty years of development and use by academic researchers, the Internet 

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an 

independent, nonpartisan federal institution 

created by Congress to promote the prevention, 

management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute 

meets its congressional mandate through an array 

of programs, including research grants, fellowships, professional training, education programs 

from high school through graduate school, 

conferences and workshops, library services, and 

publications. The Institute’s Board of Directors is 

appointed by the President of the United States 

and confirmed by the Senate.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), James R. Schlesinger 

Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign Service, 

Georgetown University • Seymour Martin Lipset (Vice 

Chairman), Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George 

Mason University • Betty F. Bumpers, Founder and 

former President, Peace Links, Washington, D.C. 

• Holly J. Burkhalter, Advocacy Director, Physicians 

for Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Charles Horner, 

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. 

• Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of 

International Relations, Stanford University 

• Marc E. Leland, Esq., President, Marc E. Leland & 

Associates, Arlington, Va. • Mora L. McLean, Esq., 

President, Africa-America Institute, New York, N.Y. 

• María Otero, President, ACCION International, Boston, 

Mass.• Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia, Pa. • Barbara W. Snelling, former State Senator 

and former Lieutenant Governor, Shelburne, Vt. • Harriet 

Zimmerman, Vice President, American Israel Public 

Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.

MEMBERS EX OFFICIO

Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary of State 

for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 

• Michael M. Dunn, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air 

Force; President, National Defense University 

• Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 

• Richard H. Solomon, President, United States 

Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

2
quickly expanded and changed its character when it was opened up to commercial users 

in the late 1980s. By the mid-1990s, the Internet connected more than 18,000 private, 

public, and national networks, with the number increasing daily. Hooked into those networks were about 3.2 million host computers and perhaps as many as 60 million users 

spread across all seven continents. The estimated number of users in the early years of 

the twenty-first century is over a billion.

As it burgeoned, the Internet was hailed as an integrator of cultures and a medium for 

businesses, consumers, and governments to communicate with one another. It appeared 

to offer unparalleled opportunities for the creation of a forum in which the “global village” could meet and exchange ideas, stimulating and sustaining democracy throughout 

the world. However, with the enormous growth in the size and use of the network, 

utopian visions of the promise of the Internet were challenged by the proliferation of 

pornographic and violent content on the web and by the use of the Internet by extremist 

organizations of various kinds. Groups with very different political goals but united in 

their readiness to employ terrorist tactics started using the network to distribute their 

propaganda, to communicate with their supporters, to foster public awareness of and 

sympathy for their causes, and even to execute operations.

By its very nature, the Internet is in many ways an ideal arena for activity by terrorist 

organizations. Most notably, it offers

• easy access;

• little or no regulation, censorship, or other forms of government control;

• potentially huge audiences spread throughout the world;

• anonymity of communication;

• fast flow of information;

• inexpensive development and maintenance of a web presence;

• a multimedia environment (the ability to combine text, graphics, audio, and video and 

to allow users to download films, songs, books, posters, and so forth); and

• the ability to shape coverage in the traditional mass media, which increasingly use the 

Internet as a source for stories.

An Overview of Terrorist Websites

These advantages have not gone unnoticed by terrorist organizations, no matter what 

their political orientation. Islamists and Marxists, nationalists and separatists, racists and 

anarchists: all find the Internet alluring. Today, almost all active terrorist organizations 

(which number more than forty) maintain websites, and many maintain more than one 

website and use several different languages.

As the following illustrative list shows, these organizations and groups come from all 

corners of the globe. (This geographical categorization, it should be noted, reveals the 

geographical diversity but obscures the fact that many groups are truly transnational, and 

even transregional, in character.)

• From the Middle East, Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement), the Lebanese Hezbollah (Party of God), the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah Tanzim, the Popular Front for the 

Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Kahane Lives movement, 

the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI—Mujahedin-e Khalq), the Kurdish Workers’ Party 

(PKK), and the Turkish-based Popular Democratic Liberation Front Party (DHKP/C) and 

Great East Islamic Raiders Front (IBDA-C).

• From Europe, the Basque ETA movement, Armata Corsa (the Corsican Army), and the 

Irish Republican Army (IRA).

3

By its very nature, the Internet 

is in many ways an ideal 

arena for activity by terrorist 

organizations.

Today, almost all active 

terrorist organizations . . . 

maintain websites, and 

many maintain more than 

one website and use several 

languages.
• From Latin America, Peru’s Tupak-Amaru (MRTA) and Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), 

the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN-Colombia), and the Armed Revolutionary 

Forces of Colombia (FARC).

• From Asia, al Qaeda, the Japanese Supreme Truth (Aum Shinrikyo), Ansar al Islam (Supporters of Islam) in Iraq, the Japanese Red Army (JRA), Hizb-ul Mujehideen in Kashmir, 

the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 

the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the Philippines, the Pakistan-based Lashkare-Taiba, and the rebel movement in Chechnya.

Content

What is the content of terrorist sites? Typically, a site will provide a history of the organization and its activities, a detailed review of its social and political background, accounts 

of its notable exploits, biographies of its leaders, founders, and heroes, information on 

its political and ideological aims, fierce criticism of its enemies, and up-to-date news. 

Nationalist and separatist organizations generally display maps of the areas in dispute: 

the Hamas site shows a map of Palestine, the FARC site shows a map of Colombia, the 

LTTE site presents a map of Sri Lanka, and so forth. Despite the ever-present vocabulary 

of “the armed struggle” and “resistance,” what most sides do not feature is a detailed 

description of their violent activities. Even if they expound at length on the moral and 

legal basis of the legitimacy of the use of violence, most sites refrain from referring to 

the terrorists’ violent actions or their fatal consequences—this reticence is presumably 

inspired by propagandist and image-building considerations. Two exceptions to this rule 

are Hezbollah and Hamas, whose sites feature updated statistical reports of their actions 

(“daily operations”) and tallies of both “dead martyrs” and “Israeli enemies” and “collaborators” killed. 

Audiences

Whom do the Internet terrorists target at their sites? An analysis of the content of the 

websites suggests three different audiences.

• Current and potential supporters. Terrorist websites make heavy use of slogans and 

offer items for sale, including T-shirts, badges, flags, and videotapes and audiocassettes, all evidently aimed at sympathizers. Often, an organization will target its 

local supporters with a site in the local language and will provide detailed information about the activities and internal politics of the organization, its allies, and its 

competitors.

• International public opinion. The international public, who are not directly involved in 

the conflict but who may have some interest in the issues involved, are courted with 

sites in languages other than the local tongue. Most sites offer versions in several 

languages. ETA’s site, for instance, offers information in Castilian, German, French, and 

Italian; the MRTA site offers Japanese and Italian in addition to its English and Spanish 

versions; and the IMU site uses Arabic, English, and Russian. For the benefit of their 

international audiences, the sites present basic information about the organization 

and extensive historical background material (material with which the organization’s 

supporters are presumably already familiar).

Judging from the content of many of the sites, it appears that foreign journalists 

are also targeted. Press releases are often placed on the websites in an effort to get 

the organization’s point of view into the traditional media. The detailed background 

information is also very useful for international reporters. One of Hezbollah’s sites 

specifically addresses journalists, inviting them to interact with the organization’s 

press office via-email.

4

What most sites do not feature is a detailed description 

of their violent activities.

Judging from the content of 

many of the sites, it appears 

that foreign journalists are 

also targeted.
• Enemy publics. Efforts to reach enemy publics (i.e., citizens of the states against which 

the terrorists are fighting) are not as clearly apparent from the content of many sites. 

However, some sites do seem to make an effort to demoralize the enemy by threatening attacks and by fostering feelings of guilt about the enemy’s conduct and motives. 

In the process, they also seek to stimulate public debate in their enemies’ states, to 

change public opinion, and to weaken public support for the governing regime.

How Terrorists Use the Internet

We have identified eight different, albeit sometimes overlapping, ways in which contemporary terrorists use the Internet. Some of these parallel the uses to which everyone puts 

the Internet—information gathering, for instance. Some resemble the uses made of the 

medium by traditional political organizations—for example, raising funds and disseminating propaganda. Others, however, are much more unusual and distinctive—for instance, 

hiding instructions, manuals, and directions in coded messages or encrypted files.

Psychological Warfare

Terrorism has often been conceptualized as a form of psychological warfare, and certainly 

terrorists have sought to wage such a campaign through the Internet. There are several 

ways for terrorists to do so. For instance, they can use the Internet to spread disinformation, to deliver threats intended to distill fear and helplessness, and to disseminate horrific images of recent actions, such as the brutal murder of the American journalist Daniel 

Pearl by his captors, a videotape of which was replayed on several terrorist websites. Terrorists can also launch psychological attacks through cyberterrorism, or, more accurately, 

through creating the fear of cyberterrorism. “Cyberfear” is generated when concern about 

what a computer attack could do (for example, bringing down airliners by disabling air 

traffic control systems, or disrupting national economies by wrecking the computerized 

systems that regulate stock markets) is amplified until the public believes that an attack 

will happen. The Internet—an uncensored medium that carries stories, pictures, threats, 

or messages regardless of their validity or potential impact—is peculiarly well suited to 

allowing even a small group to amplify its message and exaggerate its importance and 

the threat it poses.

Al Qaeda combines multimedia propaganda and advanced communication technologies to create a very sophisticated form of psychological warfare. Osama bin Laden and 

his followers concentrate their propaganda efforts on the Internet, where visitors to al 

Qaeda’s numerous websites and to the sites of sympathetic, aboveground organizations 

can access prerecorded videotapes and audiotapes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, photographs, and 

announcements. Despite the massive onslaught it has sustained in recent years—the 

arrests and deaths of many of its members, the dismantling of its operational bases and 

training camps in Afghanistan, and the smashing of its bases in the Far East—al Qaeda 

has been able to conduct an impressive scare campaign. Since September 11, 2001, the 

organization has festooned its websites with a string of announcements of an impending 

“large attack” on U.S. targets. These warnings have received considerable media coverage, 

which has helped to generate a widespread sense of dread and insecurity among audiences throughout the world and especially within the United States.

Interestingly, al Qaeda has consistently claimed on its websites that the destruction of the 

World Trade Center has inflicted psychological damage, as well as concrete damage, on the 

U.S. economy. The attacks on the Twin Towers are depicted as an assault on the trademark 

of the U.S. economy, and evidence of their effectiveness is seen in the weakening of the 

dollar, the decline of the U.S. stock market after 9/11, and a supposed loss of confidence 

in the U. S. economy both within the United States and elsewhere. Parallels are drawn with 

the decline and ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. One of bin Laden’s recent publications, 

5

Terrorism has often been 

conceptualized as a form of 

psychological warfare, and 

certainly terrorists have sought 

to wage such a campaign 

through the Internet.

Al Qaeda combines multimedia 

propaganda and advanced 

communication technologies to 

create a very sophisticated 

form of psychological warfare.

Despite the massive onslaught 

it has sustained in recent years 

. . . al Qaeda has been able to 

conduct an impressive scare 

campaign.
posted on the web, declared that “America is in retreat by the Grace of Almighty and economic attrition is continuing up to today. But it needs further blows. The young men need 

to seek out the nodes of the American economy and strike the enemy’s nodes.”

Publicity and Propaganda

The Internet has significantly expanded the opportunities for terrorists to secure publicity. 

Until the advent of the Internet, terrorists’ hopes of winning publicity for their causes and 

activities depended on attracting the attention of television, radio, or the print media. 

These traditional media have “selection thresholds” (multistage processes of editorial selection) that terrorists often cannot reach. No such thresholds, of course, exist on the terrorists’ 

own websites. The fact that many terrorists now have direct control over the content of their 

message offers further opportunities to shape how they are perceived by different target 

audiences and to manipulate their own image and the image of their enemies.

As noted earlier, most terrorist sites do not celebrate their violent activities. Instead, 

regardless of the terrorists’ agendas, motives, and location, most sites emphasize two 

issues: the restrictions placed on freedom of expression and the plight of comrades who 

are now political prisoners. These issues resonate powerfully with their own supporters 

and are also calculated to elicit sympathy from Western audiences that cherish freedom of 

expression and frown on measures to silence political opposition. Enemy publics, too, may 

be targets for these complaints insofar as the terrorists, by emphasizing the antidemocratic nature of the steps taken against them, try to create feelings of unease and shame 

among their foes. The terrorists’ protest at being muzzled, it may be noted, is particularly 

well suited to the Internet, which for many users is the symbol of free, unfettered, and 

uncensored communication.

Terrorist sites commonly employ three rhetorical structures, all used to justify their reliance on violence. The first one is the claim that the terrorists have no choice other than 

to turn to violence. Violence is presented as a necessity foisted upon the weak as the only 

means with which to respond to an oppressive enemy. While the sites avoid mentioning 

how the terrorists victimize others, the forceful actions of the governments and regimes 

that combat the terrorists are heavily emphasized and characterized with terms such as 

“slaughter,” “murder,” and “genocide.” The terrorist organization is depicted as constantly 

persecuted, its leaders subject to assassination attempts and its supporters massacred, 

its freedom of expression curtailed, and its adherents arrested. This tactic, which portrays 

the organization as small, weak, and hunted down by a strong power or a strong state, 

turns the terrorists into the underdog.

A second rhetorical structure related to the legitimacy of the use of violence is the 

demonizing and delegitimization of the enemy. The members of the movement or organization are presented as freedom fighters, forced against their will to use violence because 

a ruthless enemy is crushing the rights and dignity of their people or group. The enemy 

of the movement or the organization is the real terrorist, many sites insist: “Our violence 

is tiny in comparison to his aggression” is a common argument. Terrorist rhetoric tries to 

shift the responsibility for violence from the terrorist to the adversary, which is accused 

of displaying its brutality, inhumanity, and immorality.

A third rhetorical device is to make extensive use of the language of nonviolence in 

an attempt to counter the terrorists’ violent image. Although these are violent organizations, many of their sites claim that they seek peaceful solutions, that their ultimate aim 

is a diplomatic settlement achieved through negotiation and international pressure on a 

repressive government.

Data Mining

The Internet may be viewed as a vast digital library. The World Wide Web alone offers 

about a billion pages of information, much of it free—and much of it of interest to terrorist organizations. Terrorists, for instance, can learn from the Internet a wide variety of 

6

Terrorists now have direct 

control over the content of their 

message . . . [enabling them] 

to manipulate their own image 

and the image of their enemies.

Most terrorist sites emphasize 

two issues: the restrictions 

placed on freedom of 

expression and the plight 

of comrades who are now 

political prisoners.

The World Wide Web alone 

offers about a billion pages of 

information, much of it free—

and much of it of interest to 

terrorist organizations.
details about targets such as transportation facilities, nuclear power plants, public buildings, airports, and ports, and even about counterterrorism measures. Dan Verton, in his 

book Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyberterrorism (2003), explains that “al-Qaeda cells 

now operate with the assistance of large databases containing details of potential targets 

in the U.S. They use the Internet to collect intelligence on those targets, especially critical economic nodes, and modern software enables them to study structural weaknesses 

in facilities as well as predict the cascading failure effect of attacking certain systems.” 

According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on January 15, 2003, an al 

Qaeda training manual recovered in Afghanistan tells its readers, “Using public sources 

openly and without resorting to illegal means, it is possible to gather at least 80 percent 

of all information required about the enemy.”

The website operated by the Muslim Hackers Club (a group that U.S. security agencies 

believe aims to develop software tools with which to launch cyberattacks) has featured 

links to U.S. sites that purport to disclose sensitive information such as code names 

and radio frequencies used by the U.S. Secret Service. The same website offers tutorials 

in creating and spreading viruses, devising hacking stratagems, sabotaging networks, 

and developing codes; it also provides links to other militant Islamic and terrorist web 

addresses. Specific targets that al Qaeda–related websites have discussed include the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta; FedWire, the money-movement 

clearing system maintained by the Federal Reserve Board; and facilities controlling the 

flow of information over the Internet. Like many other Internet users, terrorists have 

access not only to maps and diagrams of potential targets but also to imaging data on 

those same facilities and networks that may reveal counterterrorist activities at a target 

site. One captured al Qaeda computer contained engineering and structural features of a 

dam, which had been downloaded from the Internet and which would enable al Qaeda 

engineers and planners to simulate catastrophic failures. In other captured computers, 

U.S. investigators found evidence that al Qaeda operators spent time on sites that offer 

software and programming instructions for the digital switches that run power, water, 

transportation, and communications grids.

Numerous tools are available to facilitate such data collection, including search 

engines, e-mail distribution lists, and chat rooms and discussion groups. Many websites 

offer their own search tools for extracting information from databases on their sites. Word 

searches of online newspapers and journals can likewise generate information of use to 

terrorists; some of this information may also be available in the traditional media, but 

online searching capabilities allow terrorists to capture it anonymously and with very 

little effort or expense.

Fundraising

Like many other political organizations, terrorist groups use the Internet to raise funds. 

Al Qaeda, for instance, has always depended heavily on donations, and its global fundraising network is built upon a foundation of charities, nongovernmental organizations, 

and other financial institutions that use websites and Internet-based chat rooms and 

forums. The Sunni extremist group Hizb al-Tahrir uses an integrated web of Internet 

sites, stretching from Europe to Africa, which asks supporters to assist the effort by 

giving money and encouraging others to donate to the cause of jihad. Banking information, including the numbers of accounts into which donations can be deposited, is 

provided on a site based in Germany. The fighters in the Russian breakaway republic of 

Chechnya have likewise used the Internet to publicize the numbers of bank accounts to 

which sympathizers can contribute. (One of these Chechen bank accounts is located in 

Sacramento, California.) The IRA’s website contains a page on which visitors can make 

credit card donations.

Internet user demographics (culled, for instance, from personal information entered in 

online questionnaires and order forms) allow terrorists to identify users with sympathy 

7

Specific targets that al Qaeda–

related websites have discussed 

include the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention in 

Atlanta [and] FedWire, the 

money-movement clearing 

system maintained by the 

Federal Reserve Board.

The IRA's website contains a 

page on which visitors can 

make credit card donations.

Internet user demographics

. . . allow terrorists to identify 

users with sympathy for a 

particular cause or issue.
for a particular cause or issue. These individuals are then asked to make donations, typically through e-mails sent by a front group (i.e., an organization broadly supportive of 

the terrorists’ aims but operating publicly and legally and usually having no direct ties to 

the terrorist organization). For instance, money benefiting Hamas has been collected via 

the website of a Texas-based charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). The U.S. government seized the assets of HLF in December 2001 because 

of its ties to Hamas. The U.S. government has also frozen the assets of three seemingly 

legitimate charities that use the Internet to raise money—the Benevolence International 

Foundation, the Global Relief Foundation, and the Al-Haramain Foundation—because of 

evidence that those charities have funneled money to al Qaeda.

In another example, in January 2004, a federal grand jury in Idaho charged a Saudi 

graduate student with conspiring to help terrorist organizations wage jihad by using the 

Internet to raise funds, field recruits, and locate prospective U.S. targets—military and 

civilian—in the Middle East. Sami Omar Hussayen, a doctoral candidate in computer science in a University of Idaho program sponsored—ironically—by the National Security 

Agency, was accused of creating websites and an e-mail group that disseminated messages from him and two radical clerics in Saudi Arabia that supported jihad.

Recruitment and Mobilization

The Internet can be used not only to solicit donations from sympathizers but also 

to recruit and mobilize supporters to play a more active role in support of terrorist activities or causes. In addition to seeking converts by using the full panoply of 

website technologies (audio, digital video, etc.) to enhance the presentation of their 

message, terrorist organizations capture information about the users who browse their 

websites. Users who seem most interested in the organization’s cause or well suited 

to carrying out its work are then contacted. Recruiters may also use more interactive 

Internet technology to roam online chat rooms and cybercafes, looking for receptive 

members of the public, particularly young people. Electronic bulletin boards and user 

nets (issue-specific chat rooms and bulletins) can also serve as vehicles for reaching 

out to potential recruits.

Some would-be recruits, it may be noted, use the Internet to advertise themselves to 

terrorist organizations. In 1995, as reported by Verton in Black Ice, Ziyad Khalil enrolled 

as a computer science major at Columbia College in Missouri. He also became a Muslim 

activist on the campus, developing links to several radical groups and operating a website 

that supported Hamas. Thanks in large part to his Internet activities, he came to the 

attention of bin Laden and his lieutenants. Khalil became al Qaeda’s procurement officer 

in the United States, arranging purchases of satellite telephones, computers, and other 

electronic surveillance technologies and helping bin Laden communicate with his followers and officers.

More typically, however, terrorist organizations go looking for recruits rather than 

waiting for them to present themselves. The SITE Institute, a Washington, D.C.–based 

terrorism research group that monitors al Qaeda’s Internet communications, has provided 

chilling details of a high-tech recruitment drive launched in 2003 to recruit fighters to 

travel to Iraq and attack U.S. and coalition forces there. Potential recruits are bombarded 

with religious decrees and anti-American propaganda, provided with training manuals on 

how to be a terrorist, and—as they are led through a maze of secret chat rooms—given 

specific instructions on how to make the journey to Iraq. In one particularly graphic 

exchange in a secret al Qaeda chat room in early September 2003 an unknown Islamic 

fanatic, with the user name “Redemption Is Close,” writes, “Brothers, how do I go to Iraq 

for Jihad? Are there any army camps and is there someone who commands there?” Four 

days later he gets a reply from “Merciless Terrorist.” “Dear Brother, the road is wide open 

for you—there are many groups, go look for someone you trust, join him, he will be 

the protector of the Iraqi regions and with the help of Allah you will become one of the 

8

Potential recruits are 

bombarded with religious 

decrees and anti-American 

propaganda, provided with 

training manuals on how to 

be a terrorist, and . . . given 

specific instructions on how to 

make the journey to Iraq.

Recruiters . . . roam online 

chat rooms and cybercafes, 

looking for receptive members 

of the public, particularly 

young people.
Mujahidin.” “Redemption Is Close” then presses for more specific information on how he 

can wage jihad in Iraq. “Merciless Terrorist” sends him a propaganda video and instructs 

him to download software called Pal Talk, which enables users to speak to each other on 

the Internet without fear of being monitored.

Many terrorist websites stop short of enlisting recruits for violent action but they do 

encourage supporters to show their commitment to the cause in other tangible ways. 

“How can I help the struggle: A few suggestions,” runs a heading on the Kahane Lives 

website; “Action alert: What you can do” is a feature on the Shining Path’s website. The 

power of the Internet to mobilize activists is illustrated by the response to the arrest of 

Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish terrorist group the PKK. When Turkish forces arrested Ocalan, tens of thousands of Kurds around the world responded with demonstrations 

within a matter of hours—thanks to sympathetic websites urging supporters to protest. 

Networking

Many terrorist groups, among them Hamas and al Qaeda, have undergone a transformation from strictly hierarchical organizations with designated leaders to affiliations of 

semi-independent cells that have no single commanding hierarchy. Through the use of 

the Internet, these loosely interconnected groups are able to maintain contact with one 

another—and with members of other terrorist groups. In the future, terrorists are increasingly likely to be organized in a more decentralized manner, with arrays of transnational 

groups linked by the Internet and communicating and coordinating horizontally rather 

than vertically. 

Several reasons explain why modern communication technologies, especially computermediated communications, are so useful for terrorists in establishing and maintaining 

networks. First, new technologies have greatly reduced transmission time, enabling 

dispersed organizational actors to communicate swiftly and to coordinate effectively. 

Second, new technologies have significantly reduced the cost of communication. Third, 

by integrating computing with communications, they have substantially increased the 

variety and complexity of the information that can be shared.

The Internet connects not only members of the same terrorist organizations but also 

members of different groups. For instance, dozens of sites exist that express support for 

terrorism conducted in the name of jihad. These sites and related forums permit terrorists 

in places such as Chechnya, Palestine, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Malaysia, the 

Philippines, and Lebanon to exchange not only ideas and suggestions but also practical 

information about how to build bombs, establish terror cells, and carry out attacks. 

Sharing Information

The World Wide Web is home to dozens of sites that provide information on how to build 

chemical and explosive weapons. Many of these sites post The Terrorist’s Handbook and 

The Anarchist Cookbook, two well-known manuals that offer detailed instructions on how 

to construct a wide range of bombs. Another manual, The Mujahadeen Poisons Handbook, 

written by Abdel-Aziz in 1996 and “published” on the official Hamas website, details in 

twenty-three pages how to prepare various homemade poisons, poisonous gases, and 

other deadly materials for use in terrorist attacks. A much larger manual, nicknamed 

“The Encyclopedia of Jihad” and prepared by al Qaeda, runs to thousands of pages; 

distributed through the Internet, it offers detailed instructions on how to establish an 

underground organization and execute attacks. One al Qaeda laptop found in Afghanistan had been used to make multiple visits to a French site run by the Société Anonyme 

(a self-described “fluctuating group of artists and theoreticians who work specifically 

on the relations between critical thinking and artistic practices”), which offers a twovolume Sabotage Handbook with sections on topics such as planning an assassination 

and antisurveillance methods.

9

Terrorists are increasingly 

likely to be organized . . . 

[as] arrays of transnational 

groups linked by the Internet 

and communicating and 

coordinating horizontally 

rather than vertically.

The World Wide Web is home 

to dozens of sites that provide 

information on how to build 

chemical and explosive 

weapons.
This kind of information is sought out not just by sophisticated terrorist organizations 

but also by disaffected individuals prepared to use terrorist tactics to advance their idiosyncratic agendas. In 1999, for instance, a young man by the name of David Copeland 

planted nail bombs in three different areas of London: multiracial Brixton, the largely 

Bangladeshi community of Brick Lane, and the gay quarter in Soho. Over the course of 

three weeks, he killed 3 people and injured 139. At his trial, he revealed that he had 

learned his deadly techniques from the Internet, downloading The Terrorist’s Handbook 

and How to Make Bombs: Book Two. Both titles are still easily accessible. A search for 

the keywords “terrorist” and “handbook” on the Google search engine found nearly four 

thousand matches that included references to guidebooks and manuals. One site gives 

instructions on how to acquire ammonium nitrate, Copeland’s “first choice” of explosive 

material. 

In Finland in 2002, a brilliant chemistry student who called himself “RC” discussed 

bomb-making techniques with other enthusiasts on a Finnish Internet website devoted 

to bombs and explosives. Sometimes he posted queries on topics such as manufacturing 

nerve gas at home. Often he traded information with the site’s moderator, whose messages carried a picture of his own face superimposed on Osama bin Laden’s body, complete with turban and beard. Then RC set off a bomb that killed seven people, including 

himself, in a crowded shopping mall. The website frequented by RC, known as the Home 

Chemistry Forum, was shut down by its sponsor, a computer magazine. But a backup copy 

was immediately posted again on a read-only basis.

Planning and Coordination

Terrorists use the Internet not only to learn how to build bombs but also to plan and 

coordinate specific attacks. Al Qaeda operatives relied heavily on the Internet in planning 

and coordinating the September 11 attacks. Thousands of encrypted messages that had 

been posted in a password-protected area of a website were found by federal officials on 

the computer of arrested al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who reportedly masterminded 

the September 11 attacks. The first messages found on Zubaydah’s computer were dated 

May 2001 and the last were sent on September 9, 2001. The frequency of the messages 

was highest in August 2001. To preserve their anonymity, the al Qaeda terrorists used the 

Internet in public places and sent messages via public e-mail. Some of the September 11 

hijackers communicated using free web-based e-mail accounts.

Hamas activists in the Middle East, for example, use chat rooms to plan operations 

and operatives exchange e-mail to coordinate actions across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Israel. Instructions in the form of maps, photographs, directions, and technical 

details of how to use explosives are often disguised by means of steganography, which 

involves hiding messages inside graphic files. Sometimes, however, instructions are 

delivered concealed in only the simplest of codes. Mohammed Atta’s final message to the 

other eighteen terrorists who carried out the attacks of 9/11 is reported to have read: 

“The semester begins in three more weeks. We’ve obtained 19 confirmations for studies in 

the faculty of law, the faculty of urban planning, the faculty of fine arts, and the faculty 

of engineering.” (The reference to the various faculties was apparently the code for the 

buildings targeted in the attacks.)

Since 9/11, U.S. security agencies have monitored a number of websites that they 

believe are linked to al Qaeda and appear to contain elements of cyberplanning (e.g., 

directions for operatives, information for supporters and activists, calls for action, threats, 

and links to other websites): 

• alneda.com, which, until it was closed down in 2002, is said by U.S. officials to 

have contained encrypted information to direct al Qaeda members to more secure 

sites, featured international news about al Qaeda, and published a variety of articles, 

books, and fatwas (the latter typically declaring war on the United States, Christianity, or Judaism);

10

A search for the keywords 

“terrorist” and “handbook” on 

the Google search engine found 

nearly four thousand matches 

that included references to 

guidebooks and manuals.

Thousands of encrypted 

messages that had been 

posted in a password-protected 

area of a website were found 

by federal officials on the 

computer [of the man] who 

reportedly masterminded the 

September 11 attacks.

Instructions . . . are often disguised by means of steganography, which involves hiding 

messages inside graphic files.
• assam.com, which served as a mouthpiece for jihad in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and 

Palestine;

• almuhrajiroun.com, which in the late 1990s and early 2000s urged sympathizers to 

assassinate Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf;

• qassam.net, a site that U.S. officials claim is linked not only to al Qaeda but also to 

Hamas;

• jihadunspun.net, which offered a thirty-six-minute video of Osama bin Laden lecturing, 

preaching, and making threats;

• 7hj.7hj.com, which aimed to teach visitors how to hack into Internet networks and 

how to infect government and corporate websites with “worms” and viruses; 

• aloswa.org, which featured quotations from bin Laden and religious legal rulings justifying the attacks of 9/11 and other assaults on the West;

• drasat.com, run (some experts suspect) by a fictional institution called the Islamic 

Studies and Research Center and reported to be the most credible of dozens of Islamist 

sites posting al Qaeda news; and

• jehad.net, alsaha.com, and islammemo.com, which are alleged to have posted al Qaeda 

statements as well as calls for action and directions for operatives.

Conclusion

In a briefing given in late September 2001, Ronald Dick, assistant director of the FBI and 

head of the United States National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), told reporters 

that the hijackers of 9/11 had used the Internet, and “used it well.” Since 9/11, terrorists 

have only sharpened their Internet skills and increased their web presence. Today, terrorists of very different ideological persuasions—Islamist, Marxist, nationalist, separatist, 

racist—have learned many of the same lessons about how to make the most of the Internet. The great virtues of the Internet—ease of access, lack of regulation, vast potential 

audiences, fast flow of information, and so forth—have been turned to the advantage of 

groups committed to terrorizing societies to achieve their goals. 

How should those societies respond? This is not the place to attempt anything like 

a definitive answer, but two things seem clear. First, we must become better informed 

about the uses to which terrorists put the Internet and better able to monitor their 

activities. As noted at the outset of this report, journalists, scholars, policymakers, and 

even security agencies have tended to focus on the exaggerated threat of cyberterrorism 

and paid insufficient attention to the more routine uses made of the Internet. Those uses 

are numerous and, from the terrorists’ perspective, invaluable. Hence, it is imperative 

that security agencies continue to improve their ability to study and monitor terrorist 

activities on the Internet and explore measures to limit the usability of this medium by 

modern terrorists. 

Second, while we must thus better defend our societies against terrorism, we must not 

in the process erode the very qualities and values that make our societies worth defending. The Internet is in many ways an almost perfect embodiment of the democratic ideals 

of free speech and open communication; it is a marketplace of ideas unlike any that 

has existed before. Unfortunately, as this report has shown, the freedom offered by the 

Internet is vulnerable to abuse from groups that, paradoxically, are themselves often hostile to uncensored thought and expression. But if, fearful of further terrorist attacks, we 

circumscribe our own freedom to use the Internet, then we hand the terrorists a victory 

and deal democracy a blow. We must not forget that the fear that terrorism inflicts has in 

the past been manipulated by politicians to pass legislation that undermines individual 

rights and liberties. The use of advanced techniques to monitor, search, track, and analyze 

11

While we must . . . better 

defend our societies against 

terrorism, we must not in the 

process erode the very qualities and values that make our 

societies worth defending. 

It is imperative that security 

agencies continue to improve 

their ability to study and 

monitor terrorist activities 

on the Internet.
For more information on this topic, 

see our website (www.usip.org), 

which has an online edition of this 

report containing links to related 

websites, as well as additional 

information on the subject.

United States 

Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org

communications carries inherent dangers. Although such technologies might prove very 

helpful in the fight against cyberterrorism and Internet-savvy terrorists, they would also 

hand participating governments, especially authoritarian governments and agencies with 

little public accountability, tools with which to violate civil liberties domestically and 

abroad. It does take much imagination to recognize that the long-term implications could 

be profound and damaging for democracies and their values, adding a heavy price in terms 

of diminished civil liberties to the high toll exacted by terrorism itself.

Of Related Interest

A number of other publications from the United States Institute of Peace address issues 

related to terrorism and to the Internet and other forms of information technology. Note:

Most of our reports can be downloaded from our website at www.usip.org/reports.

Recent Special Reports on Terrorism

• Terrorism in the Horn of Africa (Special Report 113, January 2004)

• Global Terrorism after the Iraq War (Special Report 111, October 2003)

• The Diplomacy of Counterterrorism: Lessons Learned, Ignored, and Disputed (Special 

Report 80, January 2002)

• For terrorism and counterterrorism links, visit www.usip.org/library/topics/terrorism.

html.

Recent Reports from the Virtual Diplomacy Initiative

• Creating a Common Communications Culture: Interoperability in Crisis Management (January 2004)

• Net Diplomacy I (Beyond Foreign Ministries), II (Beyond Old Borders), and III (2015 and 

Beyond) (August 2002)

• Information Technology and Peace Support Operations (July 2002)

• For more resources, visit www.usip.org/virtualdiplomacy/index.html.