Experts: ‘Virtual Battlefield’ Is Just As Important As Real One

Erin McCann/Stars and Stripes

From Stars And Stripes:

WASHINGTON — In the days following the deadly suicide attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan last month, CIA officials scrambled to figure out who the bomber was and how they could have been deceived.

At the same time, al-Qaida media specialists were making the bomber’s online sermons available for Kindle and the iPhone.

"Al-Qaida has transformed from a terrorist organization that uses media to a media organization that uses terrorism," said Jarret Brachman, former director of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center. "We think we’ve got it, and so we go to kill and capture these guys. But that’s not their only fight."

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My Comment: For the Islamic extremists, their target audience is only a small fraction of the Muslim audience, and it is this segment that they are targeting their propaganda and news information. As hard as we may try, this small fraction will never renounce what they believe in .... making any battle in which we hope that the exchange of ideas may change their opinions pointless and a waste of time.

On the bright side, many of these web Jihadists are now making the decision to commit martyrdom .... thereby thinning their collection of web specialists.