Blogs target jihadis online

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Ordinary Americans are tracking down U.S. Web sites used by al Qaeda and jihadi sympathizers and then using the Internet to persuade the service providers to snuff out the sites.

"I do this because it has to be done," says one blogger who calls himself a "counter-cyberjihadist" for his campaigns to post on the Web the Internet service providers (ISPs) that host the pro-jihad sites.

A perfect storm of complaints forced several ISPs to shut down Web sites just days before al Qaeda released a tape of Osama bin Laden in August, says Aaron Weisburd, director of the Society for Internet Research and host of the Web site Haganah.us. He released a list of 19 pro-jihad Web sites, some of which were shut down in August.

The tactic was so effective that al Qaeda later said it was forced to disseminate the video directly to the networks, Mr. Weisburd said.

Mr. Weisburd's group and other Internet users say they are regular citizens who want to help in the war on terror by acting in cyberspace against Islamist jihadis.

The cybersleuths focus most of their attention on bloggers who use servers in the U.S. to post recruitment propaganda and show violent videos of American servicemembers being killed. Once located, they encourage people to contact the service providers to shut down the Web sites.

However, Mr. Weisburd cautions that only sites that contain a low level of intelligence should be targeted. Otherwise, federal law-enforcement officials may lose actual evidence when a server company shuts a site down.

"Shutting down Web sites is a tactic, and done wisely in support of a particular objective, it can be a good thing," Mr. Weisburd said.

"Done blindly as an end in itself it only serves to breed a resistant pest, much like the overapplication of insecticide will do," Mr. Weisburd said.

Mr. Weisburd said in a recent report to U.S. intelligence agencies and private companies that the August surge "severely degraded" a stable network of nearly two dozen Web sites and that jihadi efforts to rebuild have had only limited success.