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Analysis of the construction of the cyberterrorist threat, with the core argument that US media outlets have been significant contributors not just to the dissemination, but to the actual discursive construction of the contemporary cyberterrorist threat and, further, that it is their emphasis on the (imagined) fatal connectivity between virtual networks and physical infrastructures that makes the concept of cyberterror so powerful.

The PKK/KONGRA-GEL terrorist group makes extensive use of the internet, notably for propaganda. The prominent PKK websites are listed in a dataset which shows the way these sites relate to each other with links. An overview of their content is given, then various software and analysis tools, notably Unicet, are used to reveal different aspects of this network of Websites; Centrality Analyses to show prominence and hierarchical structure, Density and Geodesic Distances Analyses, and Connectivity Analyses.

This article analyzes the possible relationship between terrorist groups and the media. As an example, a case study on the Al Qaeda organization will be used. Our methodology will involve analyzing the content of its public statements and examining the developments that have taken place during its history as an organization. Both perspectives suggest that terrorism’s view of the media, far from being composed of rigorous ideological or political principles, is shaped by their calculations of estimated opportunities. Its perception of the mass media, has depended on its perception of estimated media impact. This has determined three stages during its history: 1) Hostility toward media that it has held responsible for hiding or distorting its message; 2) Adaptation to a new environment where there are networks that are willing to interpret reality from a perspective similar to the jihadist point of view 3) Exploitation of the Internet as an indirect means of obtaining the mass media’s attention.

This brief study surveys a representative sample of Arabic- language jihadist* media from July 2007 and attempts to answer two simple, yet crucial, questions: What does the structure of jihadist media tell us about the relationship between Al-Qaeda central and the movements that affiliate themselves with it? And what can the priorities of jihadist media tell us about the operational priorities of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements?

This study aims to investigate how Al Qaeda uses the Internet for military training and preparation. What kind of training material is available on jihadi webpages, who produces it, and for what purpose? The article argues that in spite of a vast amount of training-related literature online, there have been few organized efforts by Al Qaeda to train their followers by way of the Internet. The Internet is per today not a “virtual training camp” organized from above, but rather a resource bank maintained and accessed largely by self-radicalized sympathizers.

The design of the Internet has made it an especially useful tool to terrorist groups. Using the Internet, terrorist groups have been especially successful in recruiting new members and exciting them into action. Previous works have provided comprehensive accounts of ways that terrorists use the Internet. This article expands on the understanding of this phenomenon by framing the previous works in a systematic model of terrorist’s use of the Internet through social learning theory. The article also offers counterterrorist strategies in accordance with the components of social learning.