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Inquiry and Analysis |881 |September 7, 2012   HASHTAG #Jihad Part II: Twitter Usage By Al-Qaeda And Online Jihadi Affiliated Groups Explodes; Apps Increasingly Used As Tools For Cyber Jihad By: Steven Stalinsky* MEMRI | MEMRI TV | JIHAD AND TERRORISM THREAT MONITOR | SOUTH ASIA STUDIES PROJECT

Table of Contents Part I: Tweeting Jihad And Martyrdom: Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, Website Of Imprisoned Jihadi Leader And Scholar Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi Part II: Ansar Al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum (AMAF), An Al-Qaeda Affiliate, Tweets Part III: Muhammad Zawahiri – Brother Of Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri – Joins Twitter Part IV: Former Bin Laden Jihadi And Gitmo Detainee Walid Muhammad Hajj Tweets In Support Of Al-Qaeda, Jihad, And Martyrdom Part V: How Online Jihadis Are Using Twitter – The Taliban Video That Revealed Planning Behind June 1, 2012 Attack On U.S. Military Base In Khost Part VI: New Egyptian Pro-Al-Qaeda Google Blog Group Joins Twitter Part VII: The New Breed of Al-Qaeda Groupies on Twitter – Abu Malik Al-Maqdisi HASHTAG "#Jihad" – Easy to Find, Easy to Remove Terrorist-Related Content From Twitter Introduction As part of their online media strategy, jihadi organizations have in recent years begun using Western websites and technologies – uploading videos to YouTube and to the San Francisco-based Internet Archive, creating official Facebook pages, and over the past year, "tweeting" news flashes from the jihadi fronts. During that time, MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project has monitored how Al-Qaeda-affiliated online jihadi groups and their followers have embraced Twitter. As the number and activity of jihadis and terrorist groups on Twitter continue to multiply exponentially, the issue is attracting more attention from media outlets and from U.S. government and military officials; while the latter have been reluctant to take action, Twitter officials remain neglectful. Highlighting this is a September 3, 2012 article titled "Twitter Becomes Terrorists' New Propaganda Machine" in USA Today, which quotes Marine Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, spokesman for Regional Command Southwest, as saying of terrorists' use of Twitter: "They're all over Twitter... they're incessantly tweeting." He adds that over the past year, Central Command has reported about 10 social media violations to Twitter. The paper noted that Twitter could suspend an account if the user violated policies, and quoted Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz, who said that Twitter does not discuss specific accounts, including military requests, as saying: "We have a process to report terms of service violations." Previously, on August 22, 2012, The Washington Times reported that U.S. intelligence agencies that monitor the Internet for terrorist activity are now regularly in touch with the U.S. military's Central Command, who have on their behalf been contacting U.S. social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, "urging them to halt terrorist recruitment or inciting violent attacks noting that it violates their terms of service." Since Twitter began operating in 2006, there is not one publicly known case of a jihadi or terrorist organization's account being shut down. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Twitter presence of these groups is constantly increasing. Among the organizations that openly utilize Twitter are many that are officially designated by the Western and U.S. governments as terrorist entities, such as the Taliban (alemarahweb and ABalkhi), the Somali Al-Qaeda-affiliated group Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen (HSMPress), Hamas (hamasinfo) and its military wing Al-Qassam Brigades (AlqassamBrigade), Hizbullah and its media arm Al-Manar TV (almanarnews), and other groups. (For a full list of MEMRI research on jihadi and terrorist groups on Twitter, see Appendix I.) While the phenomenon of jihadi and terrorist organizations on Twitter is in its relatively early stages, if it is left to continue unabated, the service will increasingly be used to help build an online community of individuals who support terrorism and are enemies of the U.S. Many of these Twitter users are also now utilizing apps to spread online jihad, which gives Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations additional weapons for their cyber-jihad. As previous reports in this series have noted, Twitter has in fact already become a cyber-weapon used against the U.S.. Furthermore, MEMRI's attempts to alert Twitter, and in particular its CEO and media department, of this and of the risks it entails have been repeatedly ignored. The following report highlights some recent examples of jihadi and terrorist organizations, sheikhs, and other groups who have joined Twitter. Those Twitter accounts, all in Arabic, use the social media site for multiple purposes, including giving religious justification for jihad and terrorist attacks; sending links minute by minute of the latest Al-Qaeda media releases; accounts held by numerous former prisoners jailed for terrorism to provide an outlet to reach followers on their opinions; training purposes for attacks against American forces; and as a vehicle for new terrorist and jihadi groups to easily spread their message for recruitment. Part I: Tweeting Jihad And Martyrdom: Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, Website Of Imprisoned Jihadi Leader And Scholar Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi An extensive report published earlier this year by the staff of the MEMRI JTTM (see Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad English-Language Site, Owned by Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, Peddles Jihad to Non-Arabic Speaking Muslims in the West, March 12, 2012) gave detailed information about one of the main online centers of the global Salafi-jihadi movement – Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad (MTJ), "The Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad," belonging to Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi.  As the report noted, Al-Maqdisi has long been at the fore of the radical Salafi movement in Jordan, and is considered a religious authority and spiritual leader by many Salafi-jihadis worldwide. His website has served as a primary means of disseminating Salafi-jihadi doctrine and texts, and jihad-related fatwas. The website is overseen by Al-Maqdisi himself, in addition to a shari'a committee of radical Salafi-jihadi clerics from various Arab countries, some of them residing in the West. In addition to its main Arabic-language website, MTJ has an English website, Tawhid.net. This website serves as an online library of Salafi-jihadi material translated from Arabic, including sermons, articles, books, magazines, and interviews by Islamist luminaries such as Al-Maqdisi himself, Sayyed Qutb, and Al-Qaeda leaders past and present, including Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 'Abdallah 'Azzam, and others. Also offered is original English-language material, much of it by the late Yemeni-American cleric Anwar Al-'Awlaki, who is featured prominently on the site with books, articles, audio recordings, and magazines such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) English-language magazineInspire. With its English forum, MTJ aims to propagate jihad and serve as a virtual library for the Salafi-jihadi education of Muslims who are distant from active jihad communities. This includes preaching jihad as an individual duty incumbent upon all Muslims; eliciting support for Al-Qaeda and disseminating its leaders' messages online; playing up grievances suffered by Muslims in the West's anti-Islam "Crusade"; and glorifying slain jihadis, publishing fatwas in support of suicide operations, and so on. Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad's Twitter Account On January 12, 2012, Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad launched a Twitter account, twitter.com/MinbarTawhed, and has since posted over 200 tweets. Most of the tweets include content from MTJ's website as well as links to the main MTJ website itself. Tweets include rulings on fatwas and answers to Islamic law questions – many of which are related to jihad. Examples Of Topics In Tweets By Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad Minbar al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad tweets on a number of topics. The following are examples: Becoming a martyr in the battlefield of jihad. The permissibility of fighting with the mujahideen without pledging allegiance to a specific group. The permissibility of working with Jews and Christians to collect money to go wage jihad. Rulings on using stolen money for jihad. The permissibility of killing drug dealers in the land of jihad. Rulings about disclosing the secrets of the mujahideen. Whether one should wage jihad or pay off a bank debt. The permissibility of joining the mujahideen fighters in the Levant. Waging jihad in Nigeria, Tunisia, Libya, Syria. Leaving one's country to wage jihad in another country's battlefield. Rulings on joining the armies of Western countries. Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad Uses Twitter Apps Twishort And TwitMail Service To Post Longer Texts Over the past year, the Middle East has seen the emergence of a plethora of apps and other tools which have helped to innovate social media usage in the region. What makes Minbar al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad's Twitter account unique is its extensive use of such Twitter-specific apps, including Twishort and Twitmail. MTJ uses Twitter's Twishort (twishort.com) service to ask questions that link to the answering longer fatwas or rulings. These Twishort tweets often include hashtags such as #jihad, #fatwa, and #mujahideen. Users do not need to register to use Twishort. To use the service, they post longer texts on the Twishort website, and the service then tweets the first 140 characters, including a link to the longer post, from the user's Twitter account. Most MTJ Twishort links lead to long items directly on MTJ. Twitter's Twitmail service allows Twitter users to attach their emails to Twitter posts. To use the service, which is not affiliated with Twitter, users must open an account. They then send an email with the content they wish to tweet to their Twitmail account, and the service tweets it to their Twitter feed with a link to the email, which is publicly viewable along with all attachments to the original email. TwitMail on MTJ's Twitter account includes Al-Qaeda material posted on the main jihadi forums. One example, sent July 17, 2012, includes a DVD collection of Osama bin Laden's speeches and videos for downloading, as well as the usual links to download the material, including links to the San Francisco-based Internet Archives. It should be noted that the use of services such as Twitter, including apps such as Twishort and Twitmail, is a growing trend among online jihadis. After encountering increasing difficulty in posting content to main jihadi websites, they are now looking for quicker and easier ways to spread jihad online. Part II: Ansar Al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum (AMAF), An Al-Qaeda Affiliate, Tweets One of the most prominent Al-Qaeda affiliated forums, Ansar Al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum (AMAF), opened a Twitter account (https: //twitter.com/as_ansar) on April 13, 2012. As of August 15, 2012, AMAF's Twitter account has 3,141 followers, and has tweeted over 623 times. Ansar al-Mujahideen Twitter Homepage                                                           Top Of AMAF Twitter Account Page Includes YouTube Link To Video Of AQAP Leader Discussing Importance Of Online Jihad, How To Use Cyber Tools And Weapons Featured prominently on AMAF's Twitter page, next to its official logo, is a link to a YouTube video in which Abu Hurayrah, an Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader, praises online jihadi forums including AMAF. He stated, "The enemies of the Muslims are taking the true and clear facts from jihadi forums on the Internet." The same YouTube video also provides very specific instructions on installing Tor, a program designed to hide the user's identity online. In fact, at the conclusion of the video, AMAF instructs users not to access its website without installing Tor. Abu Hurayrah al-Sana'i praising jihadi Internet forums        Screenshot of Tor program from AMAF instructional video AMAF Gives Advice On How To Effectively Disseminate Its Message On Twitter On May 7, 2012, the Ansar Al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum (AMAF) published "important instructions" regarding its Twitter account, which it had opened on April 13. The announcement said that, having understood the crucial role jihadi media plays in the battle between Islam and its enemies, the AMAF is using all legitimate means to support Islam. Among the steps it took in this regard, it said, was the recent opening of the AMAF's Twitter account, "as_ansar@". As for its instructions to jihadis, the announcement asked them to follow AMAF's Twitter account and to disseminate its content via "retweeting" and the use of hashtags. Examples Of Topics In Tweets By AMAF Many of the AMAF tweets are links to YouTube videos of suicide bombers; jihadi groups training for attacks; Al-Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Al-Zarqawi, Al-Awlaki, and others; and videos of dead jihadi fighters. Al-Qaeda groups in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Africa are heavily represented. AMAF Twitter Account Relies On San Francisco-Based Internet Archives A large number of AMAF tweets link to files on the San Francisco-based Internet Archive (archive.org), where jihadists can download PDF's of books, articles, and statements on AMAF, along with links. MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 724, Al-Qaeda, Jihadis Infest The San Francisco, California-Based 'Internet Archive' Library, published August 17, 2011, detailed this website's importance to online jihadis. Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose stated mission is to provide "universal access to all knowledge." The Internet Archive is recognized by the state of California as a library, and is a member of the American Library Association. It states that its purposes include "offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages." Multiple U.S. government agencies, including NASA, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institute collaborate with the Internet Archive, and, according to a Washington Post report, federal prosecutors, the FBI, and CIA "frequently" use it. Besides the U.S. government, Al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups are continually and increasingly using the San Francisco-based Internet Archive by posting links on Twitter to spread their propaganda/recruitment messages, including video and audio recordings of speeches, attacks, publications, and much more. They often include content encouraging, and urging, terrorist attacks against the U.S. It can be assumed that Al-Qaeda-related material was first posted to the Internet Archive for legitimate research purposes, but that at some point jihadis discovered that it was an accessible website that could be easily used for online jihad; jihadis now upload content to and download content from the Internet Archive on a daily basis; all anyone needs in order to use the Archive is a valid email address. Part III: Muhammad Al-Zawahiri – Brother Of Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri – Joins Twitter On August 13, 2012, a post by Ishmael Jad on the Al-Qaeda-affiliated forum Al-Fidaa announced that Muhammad Al-Zawahiri, brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, had opened a Twitter account. Muhammad Al-Zawahiri, a member of the Egyptian organization Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, served 13 years in prison in Egypt on allegations that he was linked to the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Even before posting his first tweet, on August 18, 2012, Muhammad Al-Zawahiri had nearly 1,000 followers; to date he has tweeted 12 times and has 1,562 followers. Examples of Muhammad Al-Zawahiri's Tweets Al-Zawahiri's second tweet, on August 19, 2012, links to the Ansar Al-Mujahideen forum, to an article he published August 7, 2012 titled "Is It Legally Correct That We Only Fight Those Who Fight Us?" in which he defends the Islamic notion of offensive jihad. Other posts include his first TV interview after his release from prison (posted August 20, 2012), a biography of Zawahiri found on a jihadi blog (posted August 21, 2012), as well as another Islamic legal response titled "A response to the Saudifatwa regarding warning the youth against going abroad with the intention of fighting jihad." (posted Aug. 21, 2012). Part IV: Former Bin Laden Jihadi And Gitmo Detainee Walid Muhammad Hajj Tweets In Support Of Al-Qaeda, Jihad, And Martyrdom On June 13, 2012, Walid Muhammad Hajj, a former Guantanamo detainee who fought in Osama bin Laden's 55th Arab Brigade, joined Twitter (WaleedGaj2002); to date, he has posted 2,272 Tweets, has 12,072 followers, and is following 55 well-known jihadis and jihadi groups. Click here to read the full report.