In the epic battle of The Jawa Report vs. The Taliban, the Jawas have won yet again!
Thank you to The Planet for taking the Taliban offline and all those who helped by writing letters of complaint. We only hope that next time the response will be quicker. I can't imagine it taking days and days if this were, say, a child pornography site.
Official websites of the Taliban: http://alemarah.info http://shahamat1.org http://alsomod.info
The NEFA Foundation has released a new chart by NEFA Senior Investigator Evan Kohlmann titled, "Charting the Ongoing Drought in Taliban Media." The chart helps illustrate how, over the past few weeks, the number of daily communiqués and statements issued online by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) has been dramatically curtailed without any explanation from the Taliban. Though neither the U.S. government nor U.S. military have commented on the issue, the major dip in Taliban communications activity seems to have occurred directly following the Taliban capture of U.S. soldier Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl and the release of an Internet video of Bergdahl. (See Chart Here PDF format)
Which is coincidentally about the same time the Jawas got to work on all those Taliban websites. The best part from the chart..
As of August 5th 2009 almost all the major propaganda websites and Jihad news feeds are either unresponsive or have been knocked off by unidentified culprits
Coincidence? I think not. The loss of websites means Dr. Talib Mujahadid is spending all his time rebuilding his outlets. And has less time to post his crap. And I think we make him paranoid. Especially when the Pakistani figured out just which person was registering all those URLs. It was the same person/customer according the Pakistani provider.
You're welcome.
As for why the Taliban have not said anything, either he can't find the email for all the bad gay porn spam, or else they just don't want to admit to being PWNED by a bunch of Zionist Star Wars geeks over their lunch hour.
As Ace would say, but mostly The Taliban don't want to admit to being PWNED by a bunch of Zionist Star Wars geeks over their lunch hour.
Did you know the Taliban are online? Did you know that American corporations provide essential services to the Taliban? Did you also know that you can help fight the Taliban?
The following post documents several of the Taliban's official websites and the companies that illegally facilitate them. It then turns to a popular yet unofficial English language website that is used by Taliban supporters in the US and Canada to spread propaganda produced by the internationally outlawed organization. Finally, we instruct the reader on what they can do to help fight the Taliban online.
Be assured that each website we target goes through a vetting process. We do not choose to fight all websites used by terrorists and their supporters, nor do we discount claims that such sites can serve a useful intelligence function. We, in fact, believe these concerns to be well founded. While we cannot publicly describe the specifics of our target selection process we can state generically that websites such as the ones listed below have little intel value but do a great deal in helping spread enemy propaganda.
Further, we have known about these official Taliban websites for months. In the case of the unofficial website, for years. The targets were not chosen on a whim and have been observed for some time now. It's time for them to go.
Yes, we know that they will probably pop up again in a few weeks, but so what? Kill one terrorist and another will take his place. That fact should not stop us from killing them. Because training a new terrorist takes time and resources and one never knows what this particular terrorist will do in the future. So too with setting up a new website. It takes time. It takes resources. And one never knows the extent to which propaganda will influence the next potential jihadi to become an actual jihadi.
The majority of us cannot kill a member of the Taliban, but you can play a small part in disrupting their propaganda operations.
This is Shahamat.org. It is one of several official websites run by the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" -- what the Taliban called Afghanistan when they were running it and the name they continue to use to make themselves seem like a shadow government. You will notice the Taliban's logo in the middle of the above screen capture. It is the same logo that appears on the Taliban video showing American hostage Bowe Bergdahl.
This particular website is affiliated with Mufti Abu Yasir (مفتي ابو یاسر ), the head of the Taliban's "information wing".
However, evidence found on the website suggests that it was designed and is administered by Taliban webmaster Adil Watanmal, from Pakistan.
Unlike previous Taliban websites, this one features a "private area". It's almost as if the Taliban had something to hide. I wonder what that could be?
Who is hosting the Taliban?
76.74.186.4 = Canadianwebhosting.com, but the information is physically being hosted by Peer 1 Network on the second floor of 75 Broad Street in New York, NY. That's right, the Taliban are being facilitated within spitting distance of Ground Zero.
In all likelihood the Canadian internet service which sold the space and is providing DNS service to the Taliban, nor the American company which is hosting it for them knows that they are facilitating and internationally recognized terrorist organization. These type of internet webhosting accounts are usually automated. But you'd think that it would not be too difficult to take a second look at websites registered from Karachi, Pakistan?
Bonus: email the Taliban (REALLY). Say whatever you want. Give them a piece of your mind. I really don't care what you say to them. No words could ever be as vile as their deeds.
This is www.alemarah1.org/, "The Voice of Jihad", the oldest of the Taliban's official websites. We've battled this one so many times -- and won -- that I've literally stopped counting. Adil Watanmal also once used the website to spread a computer virus. Sorry Adil, it didn't work.
The website is affiliated with two Taliban spokesmen, Zabihullah Mujahid and Qari Youssef Muhammad Ahmadi.
The website's registration info is masked by the Dutch company PrivacyPost, used most often by pornographers. But we know who is behind the website, the Taliban. There is no covering it up. They say so right on the front page of the website.
And if you don't believe me, just check out the banner flying at the English link.
The same DNS and webhost service are being used by this website as the one formerly mentioned. Contact info is below.
Update II by Howie: I've used our prior posts on Taliban websites to collect up the various US laws, executive orders and UN sanctions and designations that will give your complaint a basis to stand upon. You can take the letter word for word or you can use the information below the fold to construct your own.
The main thing is that we all write as many polite business like complaints as possible. If that doesn't work well I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that I save for the stubborn ones. But please take the time to write your complaint. Rusty and I can sometimes get these things ourselves, but the volume of complaints can be critical.
Your emails are the most important factor if we are to be successful in this effort.
We've more Taliban websites to get to shortly, so get busy ;)
Update III by Howie: You can stop emailing for now because.....
http://www.shahamat.org/ and www.alemarah1.org/ are DOWN BABY!
Like I said, we've more targets saved up and the go ahead to take em down. Great job everyone. More to come.
Their website may still be up, but Aden Hashi Ayro the leader of al-Shabaab has been killed by a U.S airstirke!
Via Report on Arrakis: Aden Hashi Ayro the leader of al-Shabaab, a terrorist group linked to al Qaida has been killed in an airstrike along with 30 other terrorists. Aden Hashi Ayro trained in Afghanistan with al Qaida before 2001, and is responsible for linking al-Shabaab to al-Qaida. He is also implicated in the murder of an Italian nun back in 2006.
UPDATE by RS: It's official, al-Shabaab's website declares Ayro (Aadan Xaashi Cayrow) a shahid (martyr). The al-Shabaab website continues to operate illegally in the U.S. Don't bother calling the FBI, this is a Dept. of Treasury OFAC enforcement matter.
The U.S. military killed a man believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Somalia and 10 others in an airstrike overnight, an Islamic insurgent group said Thursday.
The U.S. military confirmed an attack on a suspected al-Qaida target but did not identify the target.
Aden Hashi Ayro was killed when the airstrike struck his house in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb, about 300 miles north of Mogadishu, said Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the Islamic al-Shabab militia.
The AP story goes on to quote a number of "experts" who claim that killing al Qaeda's #1 ally in Somalia might be a bad thing since it could alienate so-called 'moderates' within the movement. Reuters had a similar take, see Ed's commentary. The main worry from the 'experts' is that Ayro's death could derail upcoming peace talks.
What neither mention is that Ayro and the al-Shabaab had threatened to murder any of these same 'moderates' who attended the peace talks. So, we risk alienating moderates by killing the man who threatened to behead them? Gotta love that logic.
Aden Hashi Ayro in hell's elevator! I'll see you later.
