The expertise of jihadists and Osama bin Laden’s supporters took the US by surprise, and their websites were influential in radicalising Muslims around theworld.

“Increasingly governments are taking criminal justice measures to control websites that instigate hatred and solicit murder,” he said. “We are seeing a new brand of terrorism that we call the loner terrorist — these are Muslims who read these websites and get inspired to instigate attacks.”

Patricia Karvelas

US intelligence services may have already started the war in cyberspace — many of the world’s jihad sites are off line.

The expertise of jihadists and Osama bin Laden’s supporters took the US by surprise, and their websites were influential in radicalising Muslims around theworld.

Australia’s support for the US has led to an increasing number of mentions.

Now out of service are such major sites as Taliban Online, which was at www.muslimthai.com on a Bangkok server, and islammemo.com, regarded as a reliable source of al-Qa’ida information.

Anti-US, anti-Christian and extremist websites such as jehad- online.com, eljihad.com, mojahedoon.com and khayma.com are all off line.

In Australia, the Islamic Youth Movement site at islam.org.au has not been updated for months.

Australian National University director of terrorism studies Clive Williams said it was “well within the realms of possibility” that the US Government had been closing the sites, but it could also be hackers at work.

Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said many jihad sites were under increasing pressure from law enforcement authorities and moderate Muslim leaders.

“Increasingly governments are taking criminal justice measures to control websites that instigate hatred and solicit murder,” he said. “We are seeing a new brand of terrorism that we call the loner terrorist — these are Muslims who read these websites and get inspired to instigate attacks.”

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