Saudi arrests are effort against Web jihad

WASHINGTON, June 15 (UPI) -- In arresting three men suspected of spreading al-Qaida propaganda on the Web, Saudi authorities are trying to take the battle against extremism to the Internet.

Earlier this month, the official Saudi Press Agency reported that the Ministry of the Interior had "arrested three people involved in promoting deviant thoughts through the Internet to undermine the security of the country."

It identified two of those arrested as Saudis who had used the online aliases Abu Aseed al-Falluji and Abu Abdallah al-Najdi. It said the third man -- who was not identified -- was a foreigner arrested in Medina and was responsible for the publication of the online jihadist magazine Sada al-Jihad, or "Echoes of Jihad."

The June 5 report, citing an unnamed "official source" at the ministry, did not say when the men had been arrested.

An analysis from the SITE Institute, a non-profit that tracks the online activities of Islamic extremists, says that al-Najdi was the publisher of Sawt al-Jihad, or "Voice of Jihad," effectively the official online organ of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia -- and the head of the group's Information Department.

According to SITE, al-Falluji was one of the administrators of the Eklhaas forum, an online, password-protected chat room which it described as "one of the leading jihadist message boards which release primary source information, propaganda, and training manuals from established jihadist groups like al-Qaida."

Both the SITE analysis and the Saudi Press Agency report stressed that al-Falluji's role was not limited to cyberspace.

"He had an important role extending beyond the media aspects to operations planned by members of the deviant thought (group) inside the homeland and abroad," read the Saudi Press Agency Report.

SITE said al-Falluji "acted as the liaison for jihadist groups needing to communicate with each other ... provid(ing) an important layer of security between the strategists with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and the leaders of jihadist groups in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and elsewhere," including the recently prominent Fatah al-Islam group in northern Lebanon.

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Shaun Waterman, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor