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Submitted by: Bill Hickey
NCVA List Master
NRT-0215 Cyber Jihad Activity:
Jihadist use of the web presents difficult problems for western intelligence services, according to an online French press article translated by the Open Source Center. France has "closed down" several jihadist web sites that its laws prohibit, but in other western countries, including the US, such sites are protected by freedom of expression statues, the article asserts. Antiterrorist intelligence services must therefore take the approach of placing the "cyber jihad" under close surveillance. This approach has the upside of enabling these services to detect individuals who show an interest in extremist forums. However, according to the article, these efforts struggle to keep up with the volume of activity. The article cites an unidentified intelligence officer estimating, "There are 4,000-5,000 jihadist sites on the web ... some 500-600 of them are monitored particularly closely by the western intelligence services, which have all had to recruit agents speaking various Arabic dialects." Without elaborating, the intelligence officer cited in the article goes on to allege that in the course of addressing this requirement, "Several western intelligence services have already been infiltrated by agents in Al-Qa'ida's pay."
(Open Source Center 21JUN07)
ABC News has reported that of the 1,000 US employees at the US embassy in Iraq, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic. The count is still an improvement from last year when only six people in the embassy spoke Arabic, according to the report. An assessment of Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2006 noted the shortage of speakers of Arabic, which the State Department classifies as "superhard," is acute at US embassies in Arab nations. The report found that people who did not speak the language at the designated level filled more than one-third of public policy diplomacy positions at Arabic language posts. In April, The GAO said the State Department had started taking action to correct the problems from last year's report.
(IANS 21JUN07)
Last Modified: Saturday, 21-Jul-2007 10:07:14 EDT