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North Carolina Web Site Said to Be 'Gateway Drug' To Terror
 When former Guantanamo inmate Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi blew up an Iraqi police station and himself in April, a U.S.-based Web site was quick to post a reaction. "This is what you call a success story," Revolution.Muslimpad said of the homicide attack, which killed six. It described al-Ajmi as a hero, a "martyrdom bomber" who sacrificed "his life for the sake of Islam." The site is believed to be the brainchild of a 22-year-old American Samir Khan of Charlotte, N.C. When the blog, also called "The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge," listed its top "scholars of Islam" and people to "take knowledge from," it wasn't hard to notice that the list of 63 names contained mostly known terrorists including Usama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The site provides links to their works, all translated into English. Revolution.Muslimpad's sleek, modern style includes collections of the latest videos of U.S. military Humvees exploding from roadside bombs in Iraq, as well as pro-jihad messages aimed at radicalizing readers. But terror experts say it is unique because it is written in English for a Western audience and makes accessible radical Islamic content and context found mainly on Arabic-language sites. "This Web site is one of the premiere English-language sites promoting terrorism," said cyberterrorism expert Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Jewish human rights group the Wiesenthal Center. Sites like Revolution.Muslimpad are common in other countries, but there are a few that target American Muslim audiences, and this is "among the best," he said. Brachman and others believe Khan is the brains behind the site. According to The New York Times, which interviewed Khan in 2007, he launched his blog in 2005 under the name "Inshallahshaheed," or "a martyr soon if God wills," from his parents home in Charlotte, N.C. It's unclear if Khan operates his site alone; despite repeated attempts by FOXNews.com, he could not be reached for an interview. In the "About Us" section, Revolution.Muslimpad describes the site as being run by a handful of "bloggers of inshallahshaheed," and says their mission is to "attempt to bring to our readers the reality on the ground in the lands of Jihad, and exposing the lies and deceptions of the disbelievers, hypocrites, and tyrannical Governments," including that of the U.S. "Blogs offer a high level of anonymity," Eaton said, giving a blogger the ability to work incognito and to pull from multiple sources. Intelligence experts told FOXNews.com that Khan may be working with other radical Muslim bloggers based in the U.S., such as Yousef al-Khattab. Khattab, an American citizen born with the name Joseph Cohen, runs a Web site from Queens, N.Y., that promotes terror. Posted by: ryuge 2008-05-17 |
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