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Katharina von Knop
Islamist websites the users can soon easily develop have the illusion that the whole
world shares their beliefs” (von Knop, 2007).
The Internet has certainly become an invisible hand in the organization of terrorism
and specifically terrorist cells. The analysis of female al-Qaeda adherents’ online
activity therefore presents a logical point of departure. An analysis of the web
allows the observation of “Tiefenströmungen”, i.e. flows of information and
communication that are hardly visible at the surface and take place in definable
subsets. These flows reveal general and specific trends inside cyberspace and
Islamic websites, forums and blogs. Radical Islamic web forums with a high degree
of female activity belong to the subset providing the data for the analysis.
An analysis of the online activity of radical Islamist women presents many
challenges. Terrorist websites are extremely dynamic and unstable. They suddenly
emerge, frequently modify their formats, and then swiftly disappear or change their
URLs (Weimann, 2004). Al-Qaeda’s website locations and contents, for example,
change almost daily. Furthermore, because of their politically controversial nature
and depiction of graphic details in some video clips, they are often attacked by
various actors. These factors make a long-time quantitative and qualitative analysis
difficult. Second, and as a consequence, we have only a very limited number of
women who share the belief system of al-Qaeda to analyze. The women involved
must be able to read and write, have access to a computer and the Internet, know
how to use the technology and, at a very personal level, they must feel or be
impelled by the need to communicate their world view outside their direct and
culturally defined social environment. At this point it should also be mentioned that
there is no assurance that only private persons are visiting these websites and
becoming active in the forums; [...may also be engaged as participants]. At any
rate, attempting to analyze these web forums has research value because it can
allow the scientist to identify trends inside the radical community.
A first observation is that women who adopt radical ideological views do indeed
utilize the Internet and that the Internet is being employed to encourage women in
their radical views. Extremist Islamist websites generously dispense advice on how
women can and should participate in the Jihad. Specific websites contain many
suggestions on how Muslim women should bring up children to be good Shahids
(martyrs) and what books mothers should read to their children to make them
devout Muslims and brave fighters. These websites also advise the mothers, wives
and sisters of Jihadi fighters on how to be supportive of their men’s decision to
become a Shahid and how they should provide food, shelter and care for all
Shahids. That women must be willing, indeed eager, to sacrifice their sons and
husbands is a recurrent theme in much Jihadi literature.
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