Al Qaeda's Web Presence

October 29, 2008 9:53 AM

I am always seeing these stories about statements made by Al-Qaeda on various Al-Qaeda websites. What are the URLs for these websites? I want to looksee myself.
posted by zzazazz to Law & Government (5 answers total)

You can probably get some ideas digging around in the links on this post.
posted by marxchivist at 9:57 AM on October 29, 2008

I realize this isn't a direct answer to your question but I just thought I'd point out something that you should be aware of - if you are visiting these sites with any regularity and your internet provider and/or computer itself is in the United States, I'd say its not even a probability so much as a certainty that all of your online activity (and perhaps even some of your offline, at some point) will come under much closer government scrutiny.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:43 AM on October 29, 2008

A lot of these sites are short-lived and rely on word-of-mouth to advertise. Many are message boards/forums that require a login that can only be obtained if someone vouches for you. You will usually need to understand Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, or other foreign languages in order to make sense of the messages. That being said, here's the Islamic Army in Iraq's English website.

allkindsoftime's warning is a good one. Unless you are an academic who studies terrorism, a government official, or whatnot, it's probably not a good idea to spend a lot of time visiting these sites.
posted by proj at 11:20 AM on October 29, 2008

Yeah, this is a quick ticket to the place under the magnifying glass at the very least. Ask yourself if you really want DHS seriously considering whether you're aiding and assisting terrorist cells within the United States.
posted by baphomet at 2:26 PM on October 29, 2008

Tor if you do look and are paranoid.
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:00 PM on October 29, 2008