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| Home Front: WoT |
| Behind Enemy Lines With a Suburban Counterterrorist |
| 2007-10-30 |
| Interesting profile of a soccer mom who taught herself Arabic and goes online at jihadi websites to gather information and sow confusion. One story that tickled my fancy: Much of Rossmiller's success can be credited to her understanding that the chattiness and chumminess that often cinches digital friendships applies in terrorist chat rooms just as it does in Yahoo Nascar forums. This skill was on display when she struck up an online correspondence with a jihadist in the Middle East named "Hakim" (for Rossmiller's protection, his name has been changed). On this mission, Rossmiller assumed the identity of a particularly murderous terrorist known as Abu Musa. She befriended Hakim, who lived in a country bordering Iraq and was looking to travel there, possibly for martyrdom, with 10 other people. The talk quickly turned to personal travails, and soon Hakim was complaining about the biggest obstacle to his desired glory as a martyr: his mother. Hakim, it turned out, lived alone with her, and, because of that, was having trouble finding the time to go fight in Iraq. "I am trying to send her to live with a brother of mine who lives in a country close by," he wrote, "if Allah will." (The cliché of the reactionary blogger as angry vigilante plotting schemes from his mother's basement appears to be universal.) Hakim seemed to be a big fan of orotund flourishes, and Rossmiller happily indulged him. "Brother in Allah... I still pray to Allah that my message arrives to you and you are in the more perfect of the health and the good health and protected from the eyes of the spies and polytheists and the cross slaves," she wrote him in Arabic. Hakim also happily filled out the bayat form, giving Rossmiller all his real data, including address and phone numbers. As usual, Rossmiller, aka Abu Musa, bragged about participating in events at which her presence couldn't easily be corroborated (such as fighting in Fallujah a few weeks before). But then Abu Musa made a mistake: He told Hakim he was located in a village that turned out to be just a cab ride away from Hakim, who then wanted to visit. Rossmiller had already alerted her contact in the federal government about Hakim. Now, this contact explained, he needed her to play for time while he contacted local authorities. Suddenly Abu Musa found himself summoned to Syria for an important mission. When Abu Musa returned after a week, Hakim was briefly suspicious but then returned to being chatty and revved up for jihad. Abu Musa had ordered him to create a new email account and a new password so they could be safe. "And he's a good boy," Rossmiller says. "Here, he's made an email account. I love the password. 123456." Soon, Hakim is comfortable enough to tell Abu Musa that he and his friends are ready to go to Iraq and that he needs some ingredients for a bomb . This email is amazingly long, detailed, revealing, and inadvertently funny. Sure, he'd need "1000 sulfur Match sticks," potassium nitrate, acetone, glycerin, and potassium permanganate. But he also wanted a food processor, a fan, a hair dryer, two cell phones, a remote control, a knife, and Scotch tape. Abu Musa agrees to send a contact to meet in the public area of an upscale neighborhood, and Hakim gives specific details as to his dress and appearance. Hakim is hopeful, praying for "Allah's mercy and its blessings and pray to Allah that it keeps us and protects us from the cunning of the enemies." And then, his last words: "We meet on our date God willing." "All I know," Rossmiller says, "is that he showed up, and it played out to script." He led his new contact to a warehouse where the other brothers were training. The local authorities took over from there. . . . Go read it all. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #6 See also FREEREPUBLIC/WORLDNEWS > AL QAEDA DECLARES INTERNET JIHAD. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-30 21:55 |
| #5 DEBKA > AL-QAEDA LAUNCHES CYBER-JIHAD AGZ WEST. Plans to target 15 sites and begin hacking into anything and anyone. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-30 19:44 |
| #4 Rossmiller is both genius and heroine. If ever a movie about one individual is in order, this would be the individual, but it's not yet time. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-10-30 14:59 |
| #3 i resnt being compared to a terrorist |
| Posted by: NASCAR chatter 2007-10-30 13:44 |
| #2 Aren't the Israeli's sort of organized around this? I believe they have a number of agents doing cyber-spying and entrapment [the good kind of entrapment as far as I am concerned.] Also, these Jihadis are really wannabees it seems and probably young kids in Paleoland, Pakiwakiland and Europe trying to act tough. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-10-30 12:30 |
| #1 It gives me chills just to think of her daring. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-10-30 08:46 |