[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
Muhammad Jibril Abdul Rahman, known as the Prince of Jihad,
Presumably because of his raspberry beret.
is designated as a terrorist on US, EU, and UN sanctions lists and is subject to an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. He is a prominent member of Jemaah Islamiyah.
But his jihadi propaganda website, Arrahmah.com, has been making thousands of dollars by hosting advertisements from global companies. The ads were delivered to the website, which includes images of beheadings and hangings, by intermediaries including Google's AdSense, the biggest online ad network, which take a portion of the revenues.
There is no suggestion that the advertisers or Google knowingly funded a designated terrorist, a criminal offence in the US that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison or a $1m fine.
After being contacted by the Financial Times, Google cancelled Arrahmah.com's account and advertisers asked to be removed from the site. However, ads for major western brands continue to appear on the site through other intermediaries.
Arrahmah.com illustrates the increasing sophistication of Islamist propaganda networks and the expanding range of funding sources they have been able to tap into. Large technology groups including Google, Twitter and Facebook have come in for criticism by security services in recent years for not doing enough to keep extremists off their platforms.
The website, which promotes its views in sections such as "Jihad Zone", attracts about 600,000 visits a month. Arrahmah.com discloses prominently that Abdul Rahman is its chief executive.
In 2010, Rahman was sentenced to five years in an Indonesian prison for concealing information related to the terrorist attacks at two prominent hotels in Jakarta, which killed seven people and wounded around 50.
Continued on Page 47
[Zamboanga Today] Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants lobbed a hand grenade at Philippine troops in Sulu province on Wednesday morning, injuring at least seven soldiers.
Military spokesman Filemon Tan Jr. said the soldiers were aboard a truck when a grenade lobbed at them. Tan said, "Initial investigation revealed the soldiers were about to go back to their camp from Jolo port after buying supplies and fetching their companions and upon reaching Plaza Marina, a grenade hurled at their truck and exploded."
The incident, which occurred in Jolo town, comes a few days after the Abu Sayyaf threatened to behead their lone surviving Canadian hostage if their ransom demand is not paid within four weeks.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: ryuge ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago. Meanwhile, President Obama is so noble he never considers getting anything in return for releasing 'ailing' militants from prison. In fairness, the man doesn't know how...
Luis Jalandoni, the insurgents' exiled chief peace negotiator said, "We applaud the plans and programs announced by president-elect Duterte. We believe these would be key factors to achieving peace."
Jalandoni said the rebels were expected to shortly exchange delegation visits with Duterte's people "as part of the process for preparing the resumption of peace talks" as well as to work out terms of cooperation.
Duterte on Monday welcomed plans by Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison to end nearly 30 years of exile in the Netherlands to participate in the peace talks. Sison and Jalandoni both said no guerrillas would actually serve in Duterte's cabinet before reaching a political settlement, when the insurgents hoped to cease fighting and join a coalition government. Jalandoni also said the insurgents would consider a ceasefire and would ask the Duterte government to release 543 "political prisoners."
Incumbent leader Benigno Aquino ended talks with the communists in 2013 over the militant demand for the unconditional release of their detained comrades that his government would not grant.
Continued on Page 47
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago.
