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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paret who wrote (10070)	10/2/2005 10:05:36 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 32591

Webcast news gives al-Qaeda view By Sebastian Usher BBC World media correspondent news.bbc.co.uk On-screen graphics and images make the producers' message clear Radical Islamists have started webcasting their own weekly news bulletin. It is the latest effort to use cyberspace to get their anti-American and anti-Western message across, bypassing mainstream media outlets. The webcasts have been posted on a variety of forums on Islamist websites - the customary mode of getting news and video material across to its intended audience. They have been produced by a group calling itself The Global Islamic Media Front, which wants to act as a clearing house for the many communiques coming from Islamic extremists linked to or inspired by al-Qaeda. The first bulletin featured a masked newsreader, with a video screen showing news footage in the background. "First, the Sawt al-Khilafa team sends its best wishes to the Islamic nation for the defeat of the Zionist occupation in the land of Palestine," he says. Aside from the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the other stories featured in the bulletin are the latest militant attacks in Iraq and statements from the man believed to be behind many of them, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. 'Wrath of Allah' The third item is on the hurricanes in US, with the newsreader openly gloating over the suffering of Americans, calling Hurricane Katrina a "divine punishment". Senior Al-Qaeda figures regularly release video broadcasts "Broken and completely humiliated, George Bush, a fool who is being obeyed, announced his obvious incapability of dealing with the wrath of Allah that visited the city of homosexuals." The producers of this and a subsequent shorter broadcast say they will produce them weekly. An advertisement for The Voice of the Caliphate on Islamist websites shows the logos of news channels such as CNN and Fox News in flames alongside those of Arab broadcasters like al-Arabiya. The slogan reads: "An accurate word in the face of injustice". Exposure Neil Doyle, a British analyst who studies Islamist websites, told the BBC what he believed to be the aim of the group behind the broadcasts, the Global Islamic Media Front. "They have decided to wrap up all the different communiques and videos from radical Islamic networks in a weekly broadcast." It is not clear where the group is based, though there are suspicions that it may be operating from western rather than Arab countries. It remains difficult for intelligence services to trace the source of such videos, although in recent weeks a number of the sites hosting extremist material appear to have been targeted and closed down. Beyond its immediate audience of radical Islamists, the Voice of the Caliphate appears to be trying to appeal to the wider Muslim community. But the editor of the UK-based magazine Muslim News, Ahmed Versi, told the BBC that he did not believe that they would succeed in this. He said their key aim, though, was to get publicity for their views and in this - thanks to a number of articles about the site in the Western media - they had been more successful