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"Terrorists do not just focus on military success," Al Faram said.
"There is a third angle to the operation which is the glory of publicity,
which compensates for the failure of the operation."
Al Faram told the Information Technology and National Security
conference in Riyad that 900 new Al Qaida-aligned websites appear annually.
He said governments have encountered difficulty in tracking and monitoring
these sites.
"There are some 900 news sites appearing every year, and despite the
retreat of some media outlets specifically run by Al Qaida, extremist
websites are constantly on the rise," Al Faram said on Dec. 4.
Al Faram said Al Qaida has maintained websites despite an international
campaign. He said Al Qaida operators frequently change the addresses of
their websites or suspend activities once they have been infiltrated.
Officials said Al Qaida has invested heavily in propaganda via the
Internet. They said Al Qaida operates chat rooms to recruit operatives or
encourage independent Islamic attacks.
"The Internet, chat lines, text messages -- these are the new warriors,"
Alessandro Zanasi, an expert on Internet monitoring, told the conference.
The conference, which concluded on Dec. 4, recommended treaties that
would outlaw the use of the Internet to spread Al Qaida doctrine. The United
Nations was urged to help monitor the Internet and train personnel to
understand Al Qaida web-based messages and propaganda.
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