CAIRO - Al-Qaida and its ideological allies are using English-language websites and forums to encourage non-Arabic speakers to make war on the West as terrorists seek the next Fort Hood shooters and "JihadJanes."
Their goal to widen the pool of prospective terrorists beyond traditional Mideastern and Asian sources is part of a search for "white Al-Qaida" activists who could foil racial profiling and initiate attacks, said Evan Kohlmann, a consultant with FlashPoint Partners, a New York-based security research company. The effort is consistent with the gradual decentralization of Islamic-inspired holy war, he said in a telephone interview.
"It's a way Al-Qaida can say, 'You don't have to speak Arabic or Pashtun or come to Pakistan for training; you just have to be committed, and go out and kill people,'" Kohlmann said.
Appeals for nonmembers to carry out small-scale attacks are a departure for Al-Qaida, the global terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. It maintained centralized command and training for many years, masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. After Sept. 11, it pledged to trump the mass killing with even more spectacular assaults.
Aiming at individuals
As the United States kept up pressure on Al-Qaida hide-outs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, its leaders exercised less control over related organizations and have begun to encourage attacks by unaffiliated individuals, Kohlmann said.
Al-Qaida released a video message in English last month by Adam Gadahn, an American-born spokesman, appealing for hits on targets big and small. "We must look to further undermine the West's already-struggling economies with carefully timed and targeted attacks on symbols of capitalism, which will again shake consumer confidence and stifle spending," he said.
A number of recent attacks and plots have had links to the Internet.
Some of the Web users
Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major charged by military authorities with killing 13 soldiers on Nov. 5, at Fort Hood, Texas, drew ideological nourishment from English- language blogs and e-mails with Al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, according to Kohlmann and press reports.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian accused by federal authorities of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines jet on Dec. 25 with explosives hidden in his underwear, chatted on various English jihad forums, Kohlmann said.
Colleen LaRose, the Pennsylvania woman who used the alias "JihadJane," recruited people on the Internet and solicited funds for terrorists, prosecutors say. She pleaded not guilty to charges that she plotted to recruit jihadist fighters and conspired to murder a Swedish resident.
"Jihadis are desperate to find people like that as low- level recruits," said Jarret Brachman, author of "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice" and a research fellow at North Dakota State University in Fargo. "There's always a clamor at jihad websites for people who can speak and translate English."
It isn't clear that expanding English-language Internet efforts will lead to a major increase in attacks, Brachman said, adding, "I don't think yet you can be sure of a causal relationship between non-Arabic websites and active jihad."
Even so, there's a danger that authorities will view online militants as armchair "jihobbyists" and won't take their threats seriously, Kohlmann said. "It doesn't take a Ph.D. to kill someone."
