August 17, 2006
Terrorists are becoming increasingly adept at producing high-quality videos. DVDs depicting bloody beheadings are now available at markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They're also on the Web.
AFP
Terrorists are fond of filming executions, like this one of a Russian diplomat in Iraq.
The man is 38-years-old and has only one leg -- war is his life. His name is Mullah Dadullah and he is considered the Taliban's second-in-command in Afghanistan. And he is a brutally savage man.
His victims lie on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs. The self-appointed holy warrior grabs one of the men by the hair and slits the "traitor's" throat. He does the same with the next. And the next. A total of six times. The butchered men are accused of having collaborated with the "infidels." Death is their punishment.
This is no execution. It is bloody slaughter. And the carnage is available for the world to watch. The act was recorded with a digital camera the resulting DVD is sold at markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is also available on the Internet. The purpose? To strike terror into the hearts of Western "crusaders" and those of their collaborators.
It's a phenomenon Markus Kaiser, a senior official with Germany's domestic intelligence agency, is well aware of. For the past seven years, he has combed the Internet for Islamist battle rhetoric and terrorist documents. Kaiser suggests that it's likely not a coincidence that the video showing butcher Mullah Dadullah was released now, almost concurrently with the deployment of new NATO force in southern Afghanistan. Kaiser has noticed that the level of brutality in these propaganda films is on the rise. "I have never before seen such a disgusting slaughter," he says.
That the Internet has become a communication platform for terrorists -- as well as for their supporters and their adversaries -- is nothing new. These days, though, a close monitoring of the Web reveals the increasing brutality of the international jihadist movement. The radicals' isolation and desperation is also on full display. The images, though, also document the vulnerability of Western armies in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the challenges they face in dealing with the realities of the countries in which they operate.
Terrorism experts routinely monitor about 20 Web sites which are used to circulate videos and other propaganda material. Then there are a number of password-protected forums and blogs. But despite the constant surveillance, comparably little is known about the people behind these sites.
One of the sites even announces its terror videos as if they were entertainment. Global Islamic Media Front presents "Mujaheddin's Hidden Camera -- Blood Comedy." In that video, the Russian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq on June 3 beg for their lives. But their appeals are in vain. Thirty seconds later, the men are brutally beheaded. The film goes on to show US soldiers collapsing in Iraq after being mortally wounded by snipers, Navy Seals being massacred in Kunar in eastern Afghanistan and military vehicles being blown up. The credits read: "In the name of the merciful, oh Allah, let the shots hit their mark and strengthen our steps."
On their long marches through the forbidding landscape of the Hindukush, the Taliban wear old sandals and simple, traditional clothing, and carry nothing but light handguns. Their roadside bombs are handmade and they live in primitive mud huts. And yet, when it comes to technology, the Taliban are completely up-to-date. Their short films can be downloaded in various formats from Web sites, even onto mobile phones. And the chronicle of horror is constantly updated, with new material added daily from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, Chechnya and Indonesia.
Intelligence services believe that the Pakistani city of Quetta is home to what is probably the most professional media workshop of terror. The city, in the state of Beluchistan in the Pashtun border region, is considered a Taliban stronghold. And it plays host to al-Qaida's propaganda headquarters, the "Foundation for Islamic Media Production," or "Al-Sahab."
The most important statements issued by godfather of terror Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida's Iraq division until he was killed in June, were edited and processed here. What began as an amateur operation producing poor-quality videos has since turned into a highly professional outfit.
The organization released its most polished video to date more than five weeks ago, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the London bus and subway bombings on July 7, 2005, in which 52 people were killed and almost 800 injured. Using the format of a professional news report, the tape depicts the chaos of the rescue effort and crisis meetings, interrupted by messages from Zawahiri and a previously unknown clip featuring suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer.
The quality of terrorist videos are rapidly improving.When analyzing the film, experts paid particular attention to a man whose face had never been shown before: Azzam the American. The 28-year-old is considered an important figure in al-Qaida's broadcasts.
Azzam's real name is Adam Gadahn and he's a native of California. The son of a goat breeder, Gadahn converted to Islam and went to Pakistan in 1998 where he married an Afghan refugee. Appearing on a video aired on ABC News last September, he issued the following threat to his fellow Americans: "Yesterday London and Madrid, tomorrow Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing!" He wore the Taliban's trademark black turban and his face was covered. Gadahn is wanted by the FBI.
Just how to handle Islamist propaganda videos is an issue the media has yet to reach consensus on. The discussion -- sparked by the broadcasting of excerpts showing the April 2004 execution in Iraq of businessman Nicholas E. Berg -- is ongoing. CNN now refuses to broadcast the demands of kidnappers in hostage-taking situations. The head of the news department at CNN's competitor, Al-Arabiya, on the other hand, has said he prefers to decide on a case-by-case basis what is news and what is propaganda.
This has left the Internet as the most reliable medium for Islamist radicals. Intelligence official Markus Kaiser, whose job it is to watch the terrorists' gruesome videos from beginning to end, says that the increasingly high quality of the extremist media professionals' work is already making an impact. More improvements, he thinks, could be on the way. "It won't be long," he says, "before one of those turbaned men from the Hindukush will be speaking to us in German."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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