Jihad Joe

by J. M. Berger

  Jihad is mostly a boy’s game, both in the United States and abroad. From time to time, jihadist organizations will trumpet the formation of a women’s brigade, equipped with Kalashnikovs and modest, body-covering uniforms, but these are the exception rather than the rule. A handful of women have also volunteered as suicide bombers, mostly to exploit the security hole created by expectations that a terrorist will be male. In the United States, women jihadists have mostly been confined to the sidelines, raising small amounts of money for groups like Al Shabab and providing moral support to jihadist husbands.90

  So when a blue-eyed, blonde woman from Pennsylvania emerged as an accused terrorist, it made headlines across the country. Colleen LaRose was born in 1963 and lived a life “like a country music song,” as one investigator told the Philadelphia Inquirer. She grew up in Texas, married at sixteen, divorced, married again eight years later, then divorced again. Her life was dotted with fights, drunken escapades, bad checks, and at least one suicide attempt.91

  Moving to Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, in 2002, she continued to struggle with her inner demons, finally converting to Islam late in life with little fanfare. She didn’t stop drinking and brawling, but she did start surfing the Web. Her Internet postings—under the username “JihadJane”—were a strange combination of love and hate. On the one hand, she was desperately seeking a Muslim husband (unbeknownst to her live-in boyfriend in Pennsburg), but on the other, she steadily posted scenes of jihadist violence on YouTube.92

  Through connections made online, LaRose met like-minded people in Europe and Asia. One of them promised to marry her if she just took care of one little task—find and kill a Swedish cartoonist whose work had been deemed offensive to Islam. In August 2009, investigators alleged, LaRose flew to Sweden and began stalking the cartoonist but did not complete her mission. When she returned to the United States in October, she was arrested.93

  One of LaRose’s online correspondents was Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, an American woman from Colorado. Paulin-Ramirez had converted to Islam after learning about it online. Using e-mail and chat, she communicated with Muslim men in Europe, hiding her interactions from her family.

  LaRose encouraged the Colorado woman to join her for terrorist training in Europe. On September 11, 2009, with her six-year-old son in tow, Paulin-Ramirez got on a plane and flew to Europe. Two days later, she married one of the men she had met online. With her new husband and several other men allegedly linked to the Sweden plot, she moved to Ireland.

  In March 2010 investigators in the United States and Europe, following leads from the LaRose investigation, arrested four men and three women in rural Ireland for complicity in the assassination scheme. Paulin-Ramirez was pregnant when she was returned to American soil and indicted.94 LaRose pleaded guilty to her role in the assassination plot in early 2011. As of this writing, Paulin-Ramirez was awiting trial.

  LaRose and Paulin-Ramirez were extremely unusual examples of women involved in operational terrorism, but the manner in which they were radicalized has become disturbingly common. Although American Muslims have made great strides in driving radical recruiters out of bricks-and-mortar mosques, on the Internet, extreme forms of Islam are only a click away.

  11

  The Keyboard and the Sword

  The jihad movement is fueled by propaganda. In the earliest days, it was mostly ephemeral— flyers, newsletters, short handouts, and live English translations of speeches by jihadist figures visiting the United States.

  Over time, more sophisticated products began to emerge, including Al Jihad magazine from Abdullah Azzam’s Services Bureau, the Al Hussam newsletter, and the Islam Report (see chapter 5). Many of these publications fell by the wayside, due in part to shifting tolerances among American Muslims, as well as the arrest and incarceration of the publishers. By September 11 a significant amount of jihadist propaganda already had moved online; this accelerated after the attack.

  For many years jihadists’ use of the Internet and computer technology had tracked closely with the wider world’s. Some specific organizations, including al Qaeda, were early adopters, keeping digitized records on computers and using e-mail to communicate by the mid-1990s.

  After September 11 and even more after the invasion of Iraq, terrorists began to use the Internet in increasingly innovative ways. The decentralized nature of the Internet offered terrorist leaders real promise as a way to bypass the media and distribute their message on a global scale, far more affordably than through traditional print media. The Al Hussam newsletter ran upward of $1,000 per month to publish and distribute.1 In contrast, a website might cost only a few hundred dollars per year.

  For a time, a number of terrorist and jihadist organizations tried to maintain traditional static websites, but starting around 2003, and corresponding to a rise in social media generally, online message boards and forums became the dominant outlet for jihadist talk and propaganda. When a server was knocked offline, the forum’s database could be restored quickly on a new site.

  The forums also had a democratizing effect on the jihad movement, allowing the audience to participate and bring their own thoughts and opinions to the table. Would-be jihadists and curiosity-seekers could interact directly with leaders of terrorist and jihadist organizations, asking questions, having their dreams interpreted, and requesting fatwas to reinforce their intentions.

  Some interesting personalities have emerged over the course of the online jihad, and a smaller percentage of these figures have become involved in more than talk. Terrorism expert Jarret Brachman coined the term “jihobbyist” for those who engage in jihad talk online without taking direct action to become involved in violence. But jihobbyism has increasingly emerged as a gateway to violent action.

  It’s important to understand the following case studies in context. None of the figures profiled here have a particularly large following or any real credibility as scholars, religious leaders, or fighters. They tend to orbit around more established authority figures, such as Anwar Awlaki or Jamaican cleric Abdullah Al Faisal. They are fringe personalities within American Islam and even within the jihadist movement itself. They are symptoms rather than causes.

  But they are not insignificant. They reflect and sometimes amplify and interpret the views of real opinion leaders and are themselves candles around which lesser moths may flit. They are the loudest voices in an angry mob. As such, they help make the mob sound louder and look angrier.

  Perhaps most important, they tend to disclose a lot of information about themselves, from which we can learn. They provide a window into what attracts Americans to radical beliefs, and when they move from jihobbyism to jihadism, they leave a trail we can follow.

  RISE OF THE FORUMS

  After September 11, “official” websites for the Taliban and other jihadist outlets in the West were among the first casualties of the war on terror. One of the most prominent, Azzam.com, was shut down and its London-based operator arrested.2

  The change in jihad media during the last decade reflects the change in the broader media. Organizational strength has been eroded by Web 2.0—media outlets are more disjointed, and individual voices can be dramatically amplified. Most jihadist organizations online have abandoned static websites in favor of anonymously administrated Web forums that allow for “official” announcements, along with direct user interaction.

  Any Internet user with average to high skills can create an online message board quickly and with relative anonymity. Visitors to the site can read messages or register as users to post their own comments, news, or files. A host of jihadist and jihad-accepting forums have sprung up since September 11, most of which are strictly fan sites. A smaller number of these forums operate with the direct involvement of active jihadists such as al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Shabab, the Taliban, Chechen mujahideen, and so on.

  In addition to hosting conversations by individuals around the world who are interested in jihad, these officially sanctioned forums—usually ru
n by noncombatants in nonconflict zones—frequently post official communications from their affiliated groups. This allows readers to feel confident that they are reading authentic messages from jihadist figures, who range from the famous to the obscure.

  The top-tier forums have password-protected sections that active jihadists can use to communicate and where those who are interested in moving from talk to action can contact jihadists abroad and sometimes arrange to join them.

  The most important forums operate mostly in Arabic, but a few have English sections or separate forums for English-language users. The Al Ansar forum, which has Arabic, English and German versions, and the Somali-language forum Al Qimmah, which features an English section, have some of the closest ties to jihadists in the field.

  A larger number of English-language forums, static websites, and blogs espouse jihadist thought and encourage radical or extremist conversations but are careful to stay within the limits of American First Amendment protections. The number of these sites is estimated to be between the hundreds and the low thousands.

  Within the last couple of years, these English-language outlets have become important incubators for the radicalization of American Muslims. They have also caused fundamental changes in the patterns of radicalization, which, combined with the U.S. war on terrorism, have led to shifts in the profile of American jihadists generally and American terrorists in particular.

  ISLAMIC AWAKENING

  IslamicAwakening.com is jihad for beginners. It describes its aim as “correcting” Muslims who have gone astray, fighting off the “ideological onslaught” against Muslims, and “[reviving] the abandoned and forgotten obligations without which the victory to the Ummah remains impossible”—a reference to jihad, which often called the “forgotten duty.”3

  The site has an extensive news and commentary section and a lively forum. Much of the discussion is devoted to Islamic life, culture, and jurisprudence, but the most active area by far is the “Politics, Jihad and Current Affairs” forum.4 Participants in the IA forums skirt the edge of legality but rarely cross over. Moderators keep a lid on discussions about committing terrorism or threats of violence. Within those parameters, participants on the site are palpably angry.

  One forum topic, which the moderators keep at the top of the first page of posts, is titled “America is a sick place” and consists of links to news stories showing various immoral acts by Americans, such as murder, child abuse, and sexual promiscuity.5 (The fact that Muslim countries such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia have similar problems, including a massive trade in child slaves who are often sexually abused, does not have its own topic.6)

  Other topics, selected from a range over time, included

  • Fatwas from Anwar Awlaki

  • “Are we Muslims or Munafiqeen [hypocrites]?”

  • “Long live the Mujahideen!”

  • “Atrocities of the real terrorists” (meaning Americans)

  • “Israel using nude female soldiers to seduce Palestinian youth”

  • “Where to find jihad videos?”

  • “Fatwa on jihad in Chechnya”

  Some of this material is repurposed from other, more aggressive jihadist sites; other topics are based on news stories. In some cases, topics reprint individual letters and e-mails from jihadist clerics such as Anwar Awlaki or from Muslim prisoners accused or convicted of terrorism.

  The overall effect of all this posting by users based mostly in the United Kingdom and the United States is to create a giant echo chamber of complaints of Muslim victimization, as well as explicit jihadist incitement, including overt examples and “precursor” rhetoric such as comments on the misdeeds of Americans, both individually and collectively. Disliking America does not make one a jihadist sympathizer, but virtually all jihadist sympathizers dislike America.

  The forum boasts of such celebrity members as the American founders of the radical website Revolution Muslim, al Qaeda propagandist Samir Khan, and would-be jihadists Zach Chesser, Daniel Maldonado, and Tarek Mehanna.

  REVOLUTION MUSLIM

  When you widen the circle out from the members of the Islamic Awakening forum, it doesn’t take long to arrive at Revolution Muslim.

  Spun off from a British extremist group, Revolution Muslim and its lesser-known offline affiliate, the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS), are based in and around New York City, with supporters and members scattered throughout the country.7 The core group is usually fewer than twenty people, and the names often change, due to vicious “office politics” and backbiting among key members.8 Adherents and fans are believed to number in the thousands.9

  Both groups claim to be nonviolent political organizations that oppose U.S. policies and corrupt Arab regimes, while promulgating an aggressive version of Islam. Both have been widely condemned by mainstream Muslims. And both organizations are predominantly American.

  “We’re all just regular kids in New York City,’’ said Ariful Islam, a spokesman for ITS, in 2005. “We grew up here.’’10

  ITS is the original group, operating in New York as early as 1986. Revolution Muslim is a more recent and wide-reaching spin-off, centered around an active and controversial blog that promotes English-speaking jihadist ideologues such as Syrian Omar Bakri Muhammad, American citizen Anwar Awlaki, and Abdullah Al Faisal, a Jamaican-born cleric. All of them have large followings in the West.11

  Faisal plays a direct role in counseling the site’s operators and takes part in regular online chats with Revolution Muslim’s readers. He was convicted in the UK in 2003 of inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder for speeches in which he told adherents that they would go to heaven for killing non-Muslims. After serving four years in prison, he was deported back to Jamaica.12

  RM was founded by Yousef Al Khattab, a Brooklyn Jew turned Muslim convert who was born in 1968 with the name Joseph Cohen, and Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a younger Caucasian American born Jesse Morton.

  Deeply engaged with his Judaism, Cohen turned to Orthodoxy in his twenties and moved to Israel with his wife and children in 1998, but he became frustrated with the complexity and inconsistency of competing rabbinical interpretations of the religion.

  Like many converts, he found simplicity in Islam. “In the Koran, it says not to ask so many questions,” he explained to a reporter in 2003.13 Many converts to Islam are attracted to an impression of simplicity and absolutism, although in reality the history of disputation and interpretation in Islam is at least comparable to that of other religions.14

  Revolution Muslim’s content is mostly tedious. Postings alternate between pedestrian news items that describe—or can be interpreted as describing—the persecution of Muslims in various contexts, and discussions of Islamic law and tradition that range from esoteric to obscurantist, in an effort to establish the site’s religious credibility.15

  The site enjoyed bursts of notoriety for praising terrorists. Khattab famously told CNN that he “loved Osama bin Laden,” a video clip that was replayed endlessly as Revolution Muslim and its associates became more and more known for their extremism.16 In 2009 Khattab wrote a post praising Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, shortly after the attack.

  An officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack. Get well soon Major Nidal. We love you. [ … ] Rest assured the slain terrorists at Fort Hood are in the eternal hellfire.17

  Khattab dropped out of the organization in 2009, when he moved from the United States to Morocco with his family and, by his account, experienced a change of heart regarding the use of violence in Islam—at least up to a point. According to Khattab, he had come around to the view that Muslims should use “the democratic process” to advance the spread of Islam. According to a post on his personal blog,

  I denounce my previous misunderstanding that the rulers and tyrants that reign over the Muslim lands should be killed. I prefer less bloodshed and establishment of Islam via schools, media, and medical facilities etc. This does NOT mean I love the rulers, no it
means that I will try to hold the higher moral ground & change by example rather than by bloodshed.18

  Khattab passed the baton to another Revolution Muslim blogger, who was subsequently forced out by cofounder Younus Abdullah Muhammad, to Khattab’s displeasure. The two founders had a very public falling out, with Khattab accusing Muhammad of luring young Muslims into situations that would lead to their arrest, and Muhammad claiming to have fired Khattab and accusing his former colleague of trying to get him arrested.19

  Muhammad became the main public face of Revolution Muslim, appearing as a speaker at its functions and in regularly staged “street dawah” events in New York City. During these events, which are usually videotaped, RM members accost passersby, both Muslim and non-Muslim, with a barrage of anti-American rhetoric. Barack Obama is one of Muhammad’s favorite targets:

  As Barack Obama slaughters Muslims in Afghanistan, you remain silent. You are supposed, this is the change we’re supposed to believe in. This is the change that you all believed in. This is the change the imams, the so-called leaders of this community, stood up at the pulpit and told you to go and vote for. This is what you believed in and this is what you got.

  This is what you got. The change that the Muslim must believe in must be Islam, it must be shariah. It must be jihad fe sabeelillah [military jihad, that is, violence]. This is the change for the Muslims. And only if Barack Obama adheres to these terms of peace will there be peace. Anything else will be his destruction by the hands of the Muslims.20

  It’s difficult to pin down Muhammad’s views, because they shift with the wind. Under media or government scrutiny, Muhammad backs away from his more extreme statements and attempts to recast himself as the victim of distortion. Yet in event after event, as well as on the site, Muhammad clearly works the jihadist side of the aisle.