|
U.S. pulls plug on 6 al-Qaeda media outlets in Iraq
Domestic outlets like Daily Kos and the Puffington Host will continue to be ignored.The U.S. military says it has captured at least six al-Qaeda media centers in Iraq and arrested 20 suspected propaganda leaders since June. The seizures of the centers underscore the importance al-Qaeda has placed on media, primarily the Internet, as a tool to communicate to its members and use against U.S. forces in Iraq. The group's media emphasis continues to increase, intelligence analysts say. The progress against al-Qaeda's media operations stems from new offensives aimed at al-Qaeda sanctuaries and an emphasis on blunting the terrorist group's extensive propaganda operations, U.S. officers say. "One of our goals is to target these propaganda networks, and we've had more success over the past three months," says Air Force Col. Donald Bacon, a staff officer at Multi-National Force-Iraq. Those seizures have sharply curtailed the amount of videos and other communications posted to the Internet from Iraq, Bacon says. Recent U.S. efforts have made it difficult for al-Qaeda's Internet operations, but such successes are hard to define and may only be temporary, says Rita Katz of the SITE Institute, which monitors terrorist websites. The SITE Institute noted al-Qaeda in Iraq's recent distribution of a 20-minute video, called "The Astray Arrow," alleging the failure of the coalition's offensive in Diyala province, Operation Arrowhead Ripper. Al-Qaeda's media output in Iraq dipped starting five or six weeks ago, Katz says, but it has since recovered. The terrorist group's media centers are nondescript from the outside but jammed with production equipment, Bacon says. One house raided recently in Samarra, north of Baghdad, included 12 computers, 65 hard drives and a filming studio. The U.S. military says it has uncovered media operations in the past, but not as many as in recent months. It is not clear how many centers exist, Bacon says. Posted by: ryuge 2007-10-05 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=201350 |