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thedrifter
12-04-02, 04:30 PM
by Habib Trabelsi
Posted Wed, 04 Dec 2002


Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, which Islamist websites say carried out anti-Israeli attacks in Kenya last week, is still a hot subject on the Internet despite the silencing of the main site believed to speak on its behalf.

US intelligence has waged a no-holds-barred war against drasat.com, the website of the "Islamic Studies and Research Center," said by Al-Qaeda pundits to be the most credible of dozens of websites claiming to speak for the organization.

Washington is concerned that Al-Qaeda could be using the Internet to send coded messages to its followers after the organization went deeper underground in the wake of the US-led military campaign against the group and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, launched in October 2001.

The website, initially registered in Singapore, was forced shut by US intelligence several months ago but reappeared via servers in Malaysia and Texas last June before being closed again at the United States' behest.

Several Islamist websites of dubious credibility - such as alneda.com, azzam.com (both now shut), jehadonline and islammemo - have since been posting statements, analyses and audiotapes attributed to Al-Qaeda.

Two of these (www.jehadonline.org) and http://islammemo.com) on Monday carried a purported Al-Qaeda claim of responsibility for the twin attacks in Kenya.

Three Israelis and 10 Kenyans were killed in Kikambala, near Mombasa, on November 28 when three men slammed a four-wheel drive vehicle packed with explosives into the Paradise Hotel. The attackers also died.

Minutes earlier, two shoulder-launched missiles were fired at an Israeli passenger plane with 261 passengers, as it took off from Mombasa airport, and narrowly missed the aircraft.

A lengthy report attributed to drasat.com was also posted on jehadonline Monday listing attacks carried out by "mujahedeen" (Islamic holy warriors) against US forces in Afghanistan.

But an expert on Al-Qaeda voiced doubt about the authenticity of the claim of responsibility.

"Al-Qaeda has never directly claimed responsibility for operations carried out by its militants, making do with hailing the attacks," he told AFP, requesting anonymity.

But the possibility that Al-Qaeda might have given those websites a "green light" to post the claim, whose gist is "quite plausible," cannot be ruled out, he added.

Whether the claim originated from Al-Qaeda or from its sympathizers, "it will have a deep impact on the Arab masses, and the Americans themselves will have to take it seriously," the expert said.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "has realized that Al-Qaeda has more IT-savvy people than it initially imagined, and that the network might use the Internet to identify weaknesses in the US infrastructure and use them to carry out future attacks," he said.

In addition to claiming responsibility for the Kenya attacks, Monday's message listed other operations carried out by Al-Qaeda in recent years and vowed more strikes against "Jews and Crusaders."


AFP


Sempers,

Roger