News & Opinion on Terrorism & Strategic Communication — October 10, 2007

Leak Compromises al Qaeda Sources. “The SITE Intelligence Group says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.” (Washington Post, 10/9). And Al Qaeda’s Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark (New York Sun, 10/9).

Conservatives Plan Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week “During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses” including Arizona State (TerrorismAwareness, date unknown).

Globalization Fuels Fragmentation. “Globalization is making the world simultaneously unruly and connective, transnational and tribal, cosmopolitan and insular. The result, says Andrés Ortega, is a potent, transformative fusion of identity-formation and power-capacity.” (OpenDemocracy via Intelibriefs, 10/9).

Strategic Communication a Key Tool in Terrorism Fight. “We are living in an entirely new information environment and are engaged in the first war of the information age. We are fighting our first networked enemy and that enemy has a highly professional and sophisticated propaganda machine that exploits electronic media, most notably the Internet, to disseminate messages globally, to recruit adherents, and to provide pre-recorded videotapes and audiotapes to sympathizers. The enemy’s center of gravity lies in the information domain and it is there that we must engage it.” (Small Wars Journal, 10/6