Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Internet Warrior Rallies Women to Support al-Qaeda   [Gregory S. McNeal]

Tomorrow's New York Times features a story about Malika El Aroud, who distinguishes herself by browbeating "Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause."  This type of activity — encouraging others to fight, but not actually fighting — is one of the most difficult challenges facing counterterrorism officials.  Where does one cross the line from advocate or supporter (of a cause) to material supporter or terrorist?  Apparently Belgian authorities tried to shut down Ms. El Aroud before, but they had to release her after failing to bring charges.  So now she's back on the Internet continuing to encourage (and perhaps facilitate) terrorist acts.  If she lived in the U.S., she could have faced immigration charges, or officials could have found a lesser non-terrorism related offense to charge her with.  This would have served the goal of incapacitation, yet drawn the criticism of many who fail to make the connection between non-terrorism-related charges and the preventive goals of counterterrorism prosecutions. 

I've attempted to grapple with some of the Internet-related issues in a law review article here, but I've really only scratched the surface.  The complexity of fighting individual perpetrators and countering the ideology that drives them is one of the greatest challenges facing our nation.  NRO's own Andy McCarthy does a great job outlining the threat in his new book Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad.

05/27 06:46 PMShare