Terrorism in the Digital Age

[SWJED]

6 Dec. Washington Times - Terrorism in the Digital Age.

It is an irony of the digital age that technology has aided the security forces in detecting and thwarting terrorist operations and has helped terrorists do their evil.

Let's look at Iraq's Sunni triangle where Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, after a recent trip, observed there are "roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters." In Iraq, Mr. Lieberman writes, "[t]here are more ... satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before." Mr. Lieberman exhorts us to stay the course in Iraq. But, the unanswered question is: How many of these million cell phones are in the hands of the 10,000 terrorists.

Then there is France, where Islamic rioters, mostly outside Paris but scattered as well throughout the country, have run amok. French authorities say the car burnings were orchestrated and organized on blogs and executed with cell phones. Technology is key to the European jihadis...

[Jedburgh]

RFE/RL, 31 May: Culture: Political Messages Find A New Medium

Earlier this month, one of the Iraqi parliament's first sessions was disrupted when a scuffle broke out after a legislator's mobile phone played a Shi’ite Muslim chant. Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani had already asked the legislator to turn off her phone, but it's possible that al-Mashhadani, who is Sunni, was piqued as much by the content of the ring tone as by the breach of etiquette.

Mobile-phone ring tones have come of age in the political world.

Ring tones can convey political messages in rich, polyphonic sound -- and with the potential to reach audiences of millions. So, naturally, political activists around the world are making use of them...