050307Felter.pdf (application/pdf Object)

THE INTERNET: A PORTAL TO VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM

The most important thought leaders in al-Qa`ida are not Usama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa`ida’s most well-known operational leaders. Rather, they are people unknown to most Americans, people like Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Basir al-Tartusi, Abd al-Qadir ibn Abd al-Aziz and Abu Qatada al-Filistini.

There is clear evidence that the grand ideas developed by these scholars and other ideologues lesser known in the West informs and inspires terrorist attacks worldwide. For example, the Spanish indictment of the Madrid train bombers identifies more than 50 electronic books that had been downloaded from the internet and were found on the hard drives of the bombers’ computers. The authors of those books track very closely with the list of the most influential Jihadi authors developed by our researchers at West Point. Their writings are being exported around the globe thanks to the internet. Thus, an electronic book by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, the most influential Jihadi ideologue based on our empirical assessment, is one the most translated texts in Indonesia today.