Internet Haganah

Last updated

Internet Haganah is a "global intelligence network dedicated to confronting Internet activities by Islamists and their supporters, enablers and apologists."

Contents

Internet Haganah also is an activist organization which attempts to convince businesses not to provide web-based services to such groups, and collects intelligence to store and pass on to government organizations. It was formed by Aaron Weisburd, an American computer programmer from Illinois, in 2002, and became part of a collection of private anti-terrorist web monitoring companies, including "Terrorism Research Center", "Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute", and "Northeast Intelligence Network". Weisburd is the only full-time employee of Internet Haganah, which is run primarily from his home office, with the help of many online associates. [1] [2] [3]

The organization

Haganah is a Hebrew word meaning 'defense'. Haganah is also the name of the early Zionist militia originally formed to defend Jewish settlers in British Mandate Palestine, and which evolved into what is now the Israel Defense Forces. [4] [5]

There are two main parts to Internet Haganah:

  1. A small, global band of researchers, consultants, analysts and translators, who "associate and collaborate with each other as necessitated by our common desire to do more than just watch Islamists as they use the Internet. We [Internet Haganah] share an understanding that a jihad, or holy war, has been declared against the West, and these jihadists need to be met on whatever field of battle they may appear."
  2. The parent organization is The Society for Internet Research.

Operation

The organization says it has taken down more than 1,000 Jihad sites. [6] Their success logo is a blue drawing of an AK-47.

To target websites perceived as threats, the organization relies upon its web community to find jihadists, and use a free "whois" service to determine if a US-based server hosts them. If so, as in the case of mawusat.com and its host Go Daddy, Internet Haganah operatives express concern about the nature of the site and ask the host to remove it. If this does not work and if the site concerns the US State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons, Internet Haganah contacts the banks and financiers of the host, who could face serious penalties for engaging in unreported transactions with the suspect website. If all else fails, the media may be contacted. [7]

However, their targets often find countermeasures against these actions. In the case of GoDaddy.com and mawusat.com, the site was attacked, but appeared on a different server within a week. Newsweek reported:

It’s no coincidence, they argue, that in just the past year, Islamists have gotten savvier in their use of the Internet. In early 2004, Iraqi insurgent Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his group posted the video of the execution of Nicholas Berg, an American contractor working in Iraq, to one Web site, which was quickly overwhelmed with traffic. Today, jihadis post evidence of their operations on dozens of sites and coordinate their operations on secret e-mail lists, password-protected Web sites and audio chat services like PalTalk, which don’t leave behind a printed record. “The level of sophistication of these groups has become just unbelievable,”says Rita Katz, who monitors Islamic Internet activities as director of the D.C.-based Site Institute.

– Stone, Brad (July 13, 2005.)

Founder

A. Aaron Weisburd is a "half-Irish, half-Jewish New Yorker" in Carbondale, Illinois. He was a philosophy major at George Washington University. He is the founder and Director of Internet Haganah, and also of the Society for Internet Research. [8]

Press coverage

Internet Haganah has received press coverage from such publications as Wired News and Newsweek . A profile of Internet Haganah and their conflict with Islamist hacker Irhabi 007 was featured in the July/August 2006 of The Atlantic . Haganah has also been reported on by a Hamas newspaper.[ citation needed ]

Internet Haganah was identified by Media Matters for America as one of the sources to use the term "Obama Intifada", a term critical of U.S. President Barack Obama's policies on Israel. [9] [ relevant? ]

See also

Related Research Articles

al-Qaeda Jihadist multinational terrorist organization (established 1988)

Al-Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization led by Salafi jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings and the September 11 attacks; it has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries around the world.

The Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute was an organization that tracked the online activity of terrorist organizations. The SITE Institute was founded in 2002 by Rita Katz and Josh Devon, who had left the Investigative Project, a private Islamist-terrorist tracking group. In early 2008 it ceased its operations, and some of its staff formed the SITE Intelligence Group, a for-profit entity, to continue some of its activities.

Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palestinian political violence</span> Violence with political ends in the State of Palestine

Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence perpetrated for political ends in relation to the State of Palestine or in connection with Palestinian nationalism. Common political objectives include self-determination in and sovereignty over Palestine, or the "liberation of Palestine" and recognition of a Palestinian state, either in place of both Israel and the Palestinian territories, or solely in the Palestinian territories. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners or the Palestinian right of return. Other motivations include personal grievances, trauma or revenge.

Younes Tsouli is a Moroccan-born resident of the United Kingdom who, in 2007, was found guilty of incitement to commit acts of terrorism and sentenced to 16 years in prison. His crimes were carried out via the internet, where he was known by several pseudonyms based on variations of Irhabi 007; "Irhabi" being the Arabic word for "terrorist", and "007" a reference to the fictional British secret agent, James Bond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami</span> Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist organisation

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami is a Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist Jihadist organisation affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Which aims to spread Radical Islamist ideology to liberate the rest of Islamic lands from the clutches of the enemies of Islam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Glick</span> American-Israeli news editor (b. 1969)

Caroline Glick is an American-born Israeli conservative columnist, journalist, and author. She writes for Israel Hayom, Breitbart News, The Jerusalem Post, Jewish News Syndicate and Maariv. She is adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, and directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. In 2019, she was a candidate on the Israeli political party New Right's list for Knesset.

There have been several videos released showing Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Rita Katz is a terrorism analyst and the co-founder of the Search International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Intelligence Group, a private intelligence firm based in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israeli casualties of war</span> Overview of Israeli casualties during armed conflict

Israeli casualties of war, in addition to those of Israel's nine major wars, include 9,745 soldiers and security forces personnel killed in "miscellaneous engagements and terrorist attacks", which includes security forces members killed during military operations, by fighting crime, natural disasters, diseases, traffic or labor accidents and disabled veterans whose disabilities contributed to their deaths. Between 1948 and 1997, 20,093 Israeli soldiers were killed in combat, 75,000 Israelis were wounded, and nearly 100,000 Israelis were considered disabled army veterans. On the other hand, in 2010 Yom Hazikaron, Israel honored the memory of 22,684 Israeli soldiers and pre-Israeli Palestinian Jews killed since 1860 in the line of duty for the independence, preservation and protection of the nation, and 3,971 civilian terror victims. The memorial roll, in addition to IDF members deceased, also include fallen members of the Shin Bet security service, the Mossad intelligence service, the Israel Police, the Border Police, the Israel Prisons Service, other Israeli security forces, the pre-state Jewish underground, and the Jewish Brigade and the Jewish Legion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Internet Defense Force</span> Online activist group

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) was an organization that used social media to mobilize support for campaigns against websites and Facebook groups that promote or praise what it described as Islamic terrorism or antisemitism. The group's website described the JIDF as a "private, independent, non-violent protest organization representing a collective of activists". The JIDF's work has been termed "hacktivism" by the BBC and Haaretz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Jawa Report</span> Blog and forum about terrorism committed by Islamists

The Jawa Report was a blog and forum about terrorism committed by Islamists.

<i>The Third Jihad: Radical Islams Vision For America</i> 2008 American film

The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision For America is a 2008 documentary style film directed by Wayne Kopping of South Africa and Erik Werth. It was produced by Werth and Raphael Shore, a Canadian-Israeli, with financing from the Clarion Project, an organization described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim group.

A "jihobbyist" is a term coined by Jarret Brachman that denotes a person who is not an active member of a violent jihadist organization such as Al-Qaeda or the Somali Al-Shabaab yet is receptive to jihad and radical Islam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tawhid al-Jihad (Gaza Strip)</span>

Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, and is the branch of al-Qaeda in Gaza. The establishment of the group was publicly announced on 6 November 2008, with communiqués vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having "received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri." Various forms of the "Tawhid al-Jihad" label have appeared in relation to developments in the Gaza Strip. The size of the group is not publicly known.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem</span>

The Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem or simply the Mujahideen Shura Council is an armed Salafi jihadist group linked to al-Qaeda that is active in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and in the Gaza Strip. The group was formed in 2011 or 2012 by Salafist Islamist Hisham Al-Saedni to coordinate the activities of the Salafi jihadist groups operating in Gaza even before the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and has carried out attacks against civilians in Israel. The group describes violence against Jews as a religious obligation that brings its perpetrators closer to God. Al-Saedni, who was the leader of the group and also of Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on 14 October 2012. The group is subordinated with Al-Qaeda in Sinai Peninsula as of August 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Islamic Media Front</span>

The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) is an Islamist propaganda organization that is associated with the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist groups. The GIMF is known by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "underground media" organization. The GIMF specializes in production of jihadist material for distribution. It is one of several organizations that jihadists use to spread information via the Internet, including the well-known As-Sahab. Their slogan that is used on their materials is "Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers." There is no indication who the leader of this organization is.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula</span> Militant jihadist organization

Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, or AQSP, was an Egyptian militant jihadist organization possibly formed by a merger between al-Qaeda operatives in Sinai and Ansar al Jihad. It was Al-Qaeda's branch in the Sinai peninsula, and is composed of many Al-Qaeda factions in the area. AQSP made international headlines in November 2014 when the organization pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in a nine-minute audio speech released on Twitter.

Brooke Goldstein is a human rights attorney. She is the founder and Executive Director of The Lawfare Project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erick Stakelbeck</span>

Erick Stakelbeck is an American author, and television host and presenter of The Watchman on TBN and The Watchman Newscast on YouTube. As a Christian Zionist, the show is sponsored by Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

References

  1. ↑ "At Israel´s Right – On A7 Radio – Israel News". Israel National News. September 11, 2001. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  2. ↑ Brad StoneJuly 13, 2005 (July 13, 2005). "Plain Text: Heroes or Nettlesome Hacks?". Newsweek. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News". FOXNews.com. March 22, 2008. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  4. ↑ Michael Snider (November 15, 2004). "On Osama's trail | Macleans.ca – Canada – Features". Macleans.ca. Archived from the original on August 7, 2011. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Online crusaders: a new breed of activists". Melbourne: Theage.com.au. April 26, 2005. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Air Canada grounded". Canadafreepress.com. November 16, 2007. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
  7. ↑ "Asia Times – Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East". Atimes.com. April 16, 2004. Archived from the original on April 21, 2004. Retrieved August 20, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. ↑ Cha, Ariana (April 25, 2005). "Watchdogs Seek Out the Web's Bad Side". Washington Post.
  9. ↑ Terry Krepel (2010-03-18). "Right-wing writers make outrageous claim Obama is instigating or "incentiviz[ing]" an "intifada" against Israel". Media Matters for America .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.