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NEWSWEEK Magazine, October 15, 2001 issue
International News
Holy War On the Web
Islamic militant groups turn to the Internet to promote their cause
By Melinda Liu
The Muslim militants engaged in a blood feud with Christians in Indonesia’s fabled Spice Islands arm themselves with spears and machetes. But their leaders are literate, media-savvy—and wired. The Laskar Jihad, a Java-based group that claims to have raised 15,000 fighters across Indonesia, has also put together an impressive media operation that includes daily, weekly, biweekly and monthly publications, as well as a radio network and Web site. Leaders claim that they receive up to 2,500 hits a day from surfers looking to chat with like-minded Muslims, send donations or download nifty mujahedin screensavers with a logo of two crossed scimitars and the motto ready to die.
SUCH DETAILS may sound amusing—more of the trivia that thrives in the undiscriminating chaos of the Web—but few people are laughing anymore. Many of the young men who make up the bulk of Islamic militants also fit into the demographic that tends to be the most wired globally. Most Laskar Jihad members are between 19 and 30 years old and are “intellectuals with a need for modern communications,” says communications chief Hardi Ibnu Harun; one third of recruits have bachelor’s degrees. The site links to other Web pages related to Chechen rebels, the Taliban and Hamas. Such sites are too public to be of much use in planning terrorist operations, of course. (“We are not terrorists,” says a Laskar spokesman.) But they are a great aid to communications and logistics—both within and across organizations—for groups with few other resources.
The Laskar Web site has been around as long as the group has been bearing arms. Webmaster Arif Rahman, now 24, was a medical student when he decided to take leave from Diponegoro University in April 2000 to help launch laskarjihad.or.id. The site carries Quranic readings, religious instructions and news from the Moluccas, where as many as 3,000 Laskar Jihad warriors have been battling Christian “mercenaries.” More than 9,000 people have died in the area since communal clashes broke out in 1999.
It’s easy to see how the Internet helps “holy warriors,” even in remote battlefields, feel empowered—and united in outrage. The Laskar Web site’s message board overflows with motivational exhortations (“Never surrender!”). Like sites managed by Muslim activists in Aceh, another Indonesian hot spot, the Laskar Web page carries gory accounts (“his body was cut, his penis was put in his mouth”) and photos documenting anti-Muslim atrocities. A gallery of pictures from an alleged killing field on Sulawesi includes such captions as floating dead bodies and mass graves 1 through 4.
The Internet can generate more than anger, too. Soon after Laskar launched its site, the group’s leadership was pleasantly surprised to see how many users followed the online instructions on how to deposit zakat, or donations, in three different Indonesian bank accounts. Large sums have poured in, , mostly from people using cybernyms. The group receives more than $6,000 in monthly donations—sometimes 10 times as much—and one third arrives via the Web instructions. “I was really surprised to see a message from an Indonesian in Japan saying he was going to deposit 40 million rupiah [about $5,000],” says Arif. “It turned out to be true.”
Being wired also helps members feel connected to the global jihad movement. The Laskar Jihad has members in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, France and the United States (“especially California”), says Hardi. A Western diplomat in Jakarta says that “hundreds of foreign mujahedin have fought with the Laskar Jihad in the Moluccas.” Hardi denies the numbers are that high; he says a couple of Yemenis fought alongside the Laskars last year in Ambon—and were killed by Christians. Once a French Muslim who had joined the Laskar Jihad also came to fight in Ambon. “He was a white-skinned, blue-eyed Frenchman who converted to Islam in Yemen,” says Hardi, who recalls that the foreigner had to go home after three months “because his tourist visa had expired.”
Even before Sept. 11, a proliferation of radical Islamic Web sites—from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, linked to terrorist godfather Osama bin Laden, to something called the Hardcore Moslem Hacker Elite (cyber-djihad.net) —had caught the eye of U.S. intelligence agencies. Hamburg resident Said Bahaji, a suspected accomplice of the hijackers, was on the mailing list of one European-based site (qoqaz.de); several related Web pages that included instructions on “training for jihad in your local country” (work out at the gym but avoid women and rock and roll) and where to send money have since been shut down by authorities. “The Laskar site and a number of others have been taken note of,” says one Asia-based foreign diplomat. “Their messages and architecture are similar, as if the same Web experts designed them.” Obviously the Net has become another weapon in today’s holy wars.
With Joe Cochrane in Jakarta and Stefan Theil in Berlin
© 2001 Newsweek, Inc.
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