Expert: Internet used by terrorists

BOISE _ An internationally known terrorism expert testified Wednesday that terrorists now use the Internet to raise funds and draw recruits – by posting materials exactly like those sent out on Web sites linked to University of Idaho student Sami Al-Hussayen.

Reuven Paz, an Israeli researcher and professor, said Muslim extremist groups, which he studies, turned to the Internet in 1998 to advance their cause. “The Internet became kind of, I would say, the university of global jihad,” Paz said, adding that it “provides them the largest audience possible in order to recruit people to their ideology or doctrine.”

The key to the groups’ success, he said, is to draw recruits, funding and support from Muslims all over the world, and regional conflicts like those in Palestine and Chechnya provide the rallying point.

Paz reviewed the fatwas, lectures, news items, articles and poetry that prosecutors have linked to the 34-year-old Saudi student, much of it discussing the religious merits of suicide attacks or Muslim victories in ongoing fighting in Chechnya and Israel.

“This extreme jihad content was placed on the Web site in order to promote support for suicide operations, ” Paz told the court. “Part of the content in their fatwas … was supposed to promote the willingness of Muslim youths to be recruited and contribute to the jihad by violence. The content was meant also to promote donations and financial support for these Islamist conflicts.”

That’s exactly what prosecutors have charged Al-Hussayen with doing – helping terrorists drum up recruits and funds by operating Internet sites. However, Al-Hussayen maintains his innocence, and says he merely volunteered his computer skills and time to help a legitimate Islamic religious outreach group.

His attorneys also have maintained that publishing articles, lectures and the like on the Internet is free speech protected by the First Amendment. But prosecutors say Al-Hussayen is guilty of providing material support to terrorists if he either knew or intended that his activities would help with their fundraising and recruiting.