Manager Says He Will Investigate
TAMPA — One of al-Qaida supporters’ oldest and most stable Web sites is being hosted in Tampa and contains a 21-minute audio clip calling for Palestinians to attack Jews and the United States, according to organizations that track jihadists online.
The site — www.alhesbah .net/v/ — is the “principal and largest jihadi forum of supporters of al-Qaida and global jihad, and the oldest existing forums,” said Reuven Paz, director of the Jerusalem-based Project for the Research of Islamist Movements. “However, it is much more than just a forum and includes many other functions of very comprehensive and thorough indoctrination, guidance, recruitment for support, virtual military training and creation of global Islamic solidarity.”
The site, which has administrative contacts in Vancouver, was created in June 2002 and is registered through June. It is unclear how long it has been hosted in Tampa by a company called Noc4Hosts, which has offices in the same building as the U.S. attorney. Last month, the company took down another al-Qaida site it was hosting after being contacted by The Tampa Tribune.
The 21-minute audio recording was posted on the site Feb. 12 by Abu “Abd Al-Rahman Al-Ghazzawi,” according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington group that keeps “Western audiences informed about the steadily growing phenomenon of jihadist sites on the Internet, which are used by terrorist organizations and their supporters to spread their extremist message and to raise funds and recruit activists.”
Al-Ghazzawi is the commander of Fath Al-Islam in Palestine, according to MEMRI.
In the recording, he “urges the Palestinians to participate in the war against ‘the unbelievers, headed by the U.S., Europe and Iran’ who are attacking Islam. He stresses that they must begin by fighting the Jews, who are their nearest enemies,” according to MEMRI.
The recording also calls on Muslims to fight alongside Osama bin Laden as well as with Iraqi insurgents.
Steve Eschweiler, Noc4Hosts’ general manager, said Monday that he would investigate the Web site.
“Anytime we are notified about anything questionable, we contact authorities and follow their instructions,” he said.
Last month, he said Noc4Hosts “is not in cahoots with al-Qaida.”
He said that site “was one of several hundred thousand the company hosts.”
Web-hosting companies keep banks of computer servers where individual Web sites are based.
“If there is anything anti-American, we will take them down,” Eschweiler said last month. “We work closely with authorities any time something like this comes up.”
Note: Following print publication, this article was updated online “Jihadist Web Site Taken Down.”
