Al-Qaida teaches terror on the Net

A bogus street address in Venezuela, a free e-mail account and a wire transfer to a bank in Malaysia were all that was needed to publish a militant Islamic Web site that promotes al-Qaida and asks readers to pray for America's destruction.

The nature of the Web hosting business allowed the Arabic-language site's operators to keep it alive and on the run -- despite an FBI investigation -- while disguising themselves, online and off.

Much as a fugitive lingers little in any one place, the militant pro-al-Qaida site has moved over six months among computer hosts based in Malaysia, Texas and Michigan.

The site's persistence exemplifies the Internet's ability to let anyone reach a global audience in relative anonymity, despite law enforcers' best efforts.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, speculated the site was being used by al-Qaida to spread low-priority information.

The site may also be a way for operatives to contact and direct each other toward other, more secure methods of communication, the official said.

The "Center for Islamic Studies and Research," was, until several days ago, on a Web site hosted by Liquid Web, a company based in Lansing, Mich.

The site appears to have first gone up in January through the Malaysian Web hosting firm Emerge Systems. Five months later, when the company said it began receiving complaints about the content, it disabled the site and filed a police report.

But the site resurfaced a few days later under a new address, this time hosted by CI Host, a Bedford, Texas-based company. Alerted to the site, CI Host said it launched an investigation, shut it down and called the FBI.

But in a demonstration of just how determined the unknown handlers of the site are, they were back up on a new address within hours.

Contacting sympathizers

Moreover, the operators seem to be able to contact sympathizers, possibly through e-mail and chat rooms, and notify them of the new address, allowing them to re-establish links to the site.

Experts say they're not surprised given the computer-savvy nature of al-Qaida and many of its supporters.

"The Internet basically gives them a global communication capability and al-Qaida is global, it represents the globalization of terror," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense and security policy group.

"When I first went looking for these sites 18 months ago, there were a lot of them. They had a number of Web sites that were used for propaganda," Pike said. "But this site appears to have a more operational focus."

Messages can be kept secret using encryption, a common scrambling technology. Experts speculate that al-Qaida may be using steganography, or embedding messages inside an otherwise unrelated file, such as an image.

A splashy logo above a horseman on the site's home page reads "No pride without jihad." The site's reports from inside Afghanistan discredit American military gains and inflate the number of U.S. and allied troops killed since October.

On June 23, the site said fires were burning in 19 U.S. states, when fires were actually burning in seven. A story said a "catastrophe" struck America: "God burned their houses and graves."

The section ended with prayers for the victory of Islamic fighters and a "call on God to destroy America sooner, rather than later."

Audio recordings

Audio recordings on the site, purportedly by bin Laden's spokesman, say the terrorist is alive and preparing to address the Arab world. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the recording resembled the voice of the spokesman, Suliman Abu Ghaith.

One recording said al-Qaida still has "the capability to threaten America and execute such threats. The few coming days and months will prove to the whole world, Allah willing, the truth of what we are saying."

Stories on the fate of suspected al-Qaida members held by the U.S. military appear along with religious edicts and poems, including one purportedly written by bin Laden. There is no way to authenticate the material.

Ren LeValley, a senior systems administrator with CI Host, said after receiving complaints about the site, his company determined that it was set up from Malaysia using fraudulent account information and translated its Arabic content. It was the third Islamic militant site the company had cut off and reported to the FBI since Sept. 11.

With more than 150,000 Web sites using their system from 179 countries, LeValley said it would "be impossible to look at the content of every single site on our network. But if something is brought to our attention, our abuse response team does investigate."

When the site re-emerged -- on the servers of Liquid Web, a small company with a 21-year-old chief executive -- there were no Arabic translators or response team to scrutinize it.

Liquid Web learned from The Associated Press that it was hosting the "Center for Islamic Studies and Research" site. The company later pulled the site.

In Malaysia, neither law enforcers nor officials at Emerge Systems would comment, saying the issue was under investigation.

For as little as $87 a year, Emerge allows anyone to publish a Web site. It accepts payment by credit card, check and hard-to-trace wire transfer.

Setting up a Web site can be done without the business and the customer ever meeting, thanks to e-mail, online registration and remote payment. Host companies rarely know whether a false registration identity has been used.

The site was originally registered in Malaysia using a phony address in Venezuela and a Yahoo e-mail address.

Pike, with GlobalSecurity.org, says there are plenty of ways to hide online and even more ways to keep in touch with sympathizers.

"If I was working with counterterrorism, I'm not sure that I'd want to shut the site down. I'd be very interested in monitoring who is using it and finding out who is putting it online -- 99 percent will be curiosity seekers and 1 percent is really worth keeping track of."