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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
Annual Jihadi Cyberbattle Sees Return of Ikhlas
Thomas HegghammerSeptember 11th, 2009 | Better Know a Forum, technology
Like last year, this year’s 9/11 anniversary is the occasion of a major cyberbattle over jihadi forums. At least three of the top jihadi discussion forums - Faloja, Shouraa, Shumukh - have been down for the past couple of days, and I bet my left arm they have been hacked for the occasion. Other big forums such as Ana Muslim and Ansar were reportedly down for a while (though I didn’t see it and they are back up again now). Minor forums such as Tamkin, Madad al-Suyuf and al-Tahaddi seem to have been untouched.
The other fascinating development, which must be connected in some way to the former, is that the good old Ikhlas forum is back up again after an absence of - guess what - a year. The old passwords are still working. The return of Ikhlas is being presented by the administrators as “Usama bin Ladin’s Ramadan gift to the Umma”. The online jihadi community is suspicious, and people are warning against using Ikhlas. Frankly, I would be suspicious too - something fishy is going on.
Naturally, Haganah is on the ball and I am counting on Aaron to solve this mystery for us.
PS: FFI’s excellent researcher Cecilie Finsnes helped me with this post.
PPS: You will see that for once I have included direct links to all the forums. It is my departure gift to our readers as I leave the stage for a while.
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