Mark Hosenball
Dec. 17, 2001
Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic are nervously reviewing recent postings on an Islamist Web site that features virulent condemnations of the United States. The Web site, Azzam Publications, includes links to recruitment pitches for "martyrs," a frequent euphemism for suicide bombers. Some intelligence sources believe the Web site may also contain hidden instructions for Al Qaeda terrorist operatives. Investigators say the site is operated by Osama bin Laden supporters in Britain. It is named after Abdullah Azzam, a militant Islamic leader who was killed in a 1989 bomb attack in Pakistan. The site’s main offerings are stirring tales of jihad fighters, going back to 1997. Shortly after September 11 the Web site vanished from the Internet. European hackers who broke into its German subscriber list discovered an alarming lead: an e-mail address for Said Bahaji, a fugitive identified as the computer geek of the 9-11 hijack cell based in Hamburg.
Last month the Web site suddenly reappeared with a "farewell message" exhorting Muslims to drop everything and support the Taliban. The message warns Muslims not to collaborate with spy or police agencies hunting terrorists. Readers are urged to click on a link to an Azzam speech titled "Martyrs: The Building Blocks of Nations." Also posted: an open letter to President George W. Bush by a Saudi cleric who helped found a Dublin-registered charity that was implicated in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. British and U.S. intelligence sources suspect some of the site’s lurid jihad photos and graphics contain secret messages embedded through a technology called steganography, for which free software can be downloaded from the Internet. Some of the coding is so sophisticated, sources say, that intelligence agencies have found such messages difficult to decrypt. U.S. officials confirm the Web site is being monitored, and suggest that its recent reappearance lends support to the Bush administration’s decision to go public with its latest warning about possible terrorist attacks on the American homeland.
(c) 2001 Newsweek, reprinted for fair use only.