Terror Tube?

"Broadcast Yourself," YouTube encourages its users. And aspiring rock stars, Walter Mitty types and wannabe cult heroes oblige. Yet the explosion of online communication -- which cuts out powerful intermediaries like TV channels and record companies -- is proving equally helpful for aspiring jihadis.

The Dutch security service has called the internet a "turbo boost" to the jihadi movement, while a European Commission assessment notes some 5,000 websites of concern. As if to prove their point, al-Qaida's media arm said in a January 4 announcement that video statements by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri would be downloadable directly to users' mobile phones.

Amplifying effects

The growing array of high-traffic jihadi websites provide an effective way to reach target audiences, whether its aim is to recruit and mobilise potential supporters, or strike fear into the hearts of adversaries. They increase the scale of the terrorist threat in several ways:

• Expert knowledge is made available, covering topics like how to make a suicide vest, handle explosives or operate a cell to avoid detection.
• Reconnaissance for terrorist attacks is aided by the increasingly rich geographical data on sources like Google Earth.
• Propaganda can quickly reach a large pool of young people, jihad's most likely sympathisers.

Extremist forums also replicate the peer-group effects more familiar from Afghan training camps or the battlefield. Participants form social bonds through repeated interaction, making acquaintances with others who share their worldview and identifying opportunities to collaborate.

What to do?

Stoked by revelations of a terrorist network run from a West London bedroom by Moroccan IT student Younis Tsouli, the UK's tabloid media are heckling politicians to get a grip on the problem. Yet concrete measures are almost impossible to carry out.

The mercurial, dynamic nature of the internet makes trying to eradicate malicious content a thankless task. Record companies are well aware of the difficulties in changing online behaviour, after their frustrated quest to stop illegal downloading. Similar problems apply to jihadism:

• If a host site cuts ties with a jihadist, the material will simply be uploaded to a less scrupulous host in a far-away jurisdiction.
• Jihadists are masters of disguise; they use peer-to-peer techniques that mask their identity.
• Deciding what material can be deleted is a legal Gordian knot: jihadi literature walks a tightrope between legitimate dissent and incitement (or 'glorification') of violence.

Faced with this tricky technical and legal terrain, a recent European Commission options paper concluded that blocking websites would be more trouble than it was worth.

It recalls the old adage about killing a snake: if you want to never see it again, you don't cut off its tail, you cut off its head. Rather than snuffing out terrorist equivalents of YouTube -- only to see them spring up elsewhere -- energies may be better spent on training police forces to track terrorists through their online footprint. Instead of quick fixes, that requires investment in police capacity and skills.