This is absolutely inexcusable and inexplicable, and is probably yet another manifestation of the utter misapprehension of the nature of the jihad threat that prevails in Washington. Probably the learned analysts were so busy telling each other that the mujahedin were against all manifestations of modernity, as if they were some violent Amish subspecies, that they didn’t have time to notice their sophisticated use of the Internet — which we have noted here for quite some time. That use extends not only to proselytizing, recruitment, and education, but also to sophisticated information transfer procedures. From the World Tribune, with thanks to Fjordman:
WASHINGTON “” Despite its military superiority, the United States has failed to stop Al Qaida’s growing exploitation of the Internet as the group’s primary means of recruitment, information and financing.
“Its use of the Internet is interesting,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director for policy and plans at Central Command. “It uses the Internet to recruit, to train, to proselytize, in some methods to hand out orders and instructions. It uses it for financing. It uses it to show its latest videos to the world.”
While he singled out no U.S. successes in thwarting Al Qaida’s low-overhead exploitation of the Internet, a global networking resource made possible the Pentagon, Kimmitt was not ready to throw in the towel, Middle East Newsline reported.
“While we find it to be particularly clever, we don’t find it to be invincible, and we will continue to defeat it,” Kimmitt said.
Over the last few weeks, Al Qaida has sought to recruit experts in Internet and cellular phone technology. On Feb. 19, the so-called Global Islamic Media Front posted a call on the Internet for experts in photography by mobile phone and video camera to “spy on the enemy and expose his ignominy and shame, for us to publish to the masses.”