Insurgency in the Media

Iraq's Networked Insurgents

What I learned from this article was how insurgents use the internet to create conflict as well as in the real world with bombs and guns. What the insurgents also use their internet sites for is to recruit foreign fighters, raise money, incite violence, and foment religious hatred. On these sites they post statements of successful attacks, comments on politics, but the most potent material is their video posts. The videos contain recordings of suicide bombings as well as feature-length Arabic-language films full of Islamist rhetoric, many of which are subtitled in other languages such as English, German, Kurdish, Turkish, and Urdu. An example of these video posts is a clip posted to the Islamis Fallujah Forums depicting "the destruction of a $3.2-million U.S. armored vehicle with a bomb that supposedly cost only $32, implying that insurgents can get a $100,000 return in damage for each dollar they invest in destruction in a matter of seconds.

A research study on two Iraqi insurgent used forums, the World News Network and Mohajroon showed that in March of 2007, "1,000 press releases documenting operations and commenting on politics" were posted by insurgents. 1,000 posts in just one month! Albeit, many of these posts were just cut and pasted from other sites, but even with all that it still amounts to approximately 30 original posts per day!

This is also a battlefront with the Iraqi insurgents, so it is an important issue to address. U.S. has put its efforts into this cyberbattle as well as the real war going on. However, for every site the U.S. pulls down another pops up, usually with archived content from the last site. The insurgents are putting so much effort into maintaining their position in the virtual world because to some groups “media is half the battle”. So they will continue to fight for their place in the virtual world as they will continue to fight with bombs and guns in the real world.

Some Questions I had while reading this article:
What Insurgency groups are most prominently using the internet?
Who are the Fallujah?
What is Mohajroon?
Is there an estimate as to how many websites are being used by insurgents?