Al Qaeda’s Internet Communications System Has Suddenly Gone Dark

October 9th, 2007 Posted By Pat Dollard.

sahab_20070919.jpg

Yes, it’s because of this.

NYSUN:

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden’s September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy’s system.

The intelligence blunder started with what appeared at the time as an American intelligence victory, namely that the federal government had intercepted, a full four days before it was to be aired, a video of Osama bin Laden’s first appearance in three years in a video address marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On the morning of September 7, the Web site of ABC News posted excerpts from the speech.

But the disclosure from ABC and later other news organizations tipped off Qaeda’s internal security division that the organization’s Internet communications system, known among American intelligence analysts as Obelisk, was compromised. This network of Web sites serves not only as the distribution system for the videos produced by Al Qaeda’s production company, As-Sahab, but also as the equivalent of a corporate intranet, dealing with such mundane matters as expense reporting and clerical memos to mid- and lower-level Qaeda operatives throughout the world.

While intranets are usually based on servers in a discrete physical location, Obelisk is a series of sites all over the Web, often with fake names, in some cases sites that are not even known by their proprietors to have been hacked by Al Qaeda.

One intelligence officer who requested anonymity said in an interview last week that the intelligence community watched in real time the shutdown of the Obelisk system. America’s Obelisk watchers even saw the order to shut down the system delivered from Qaeda’s internal security to a team of technical workers in Malaysia. That was the last internal message America’s intelligence community saw. “We saw the whole thing shut down because of this leak,” the official said. “We lost an important keyhole into the enemy.”

By Friday evening, one of the key sets of sites in the Obelisk network, the Ekhlaas forum, was back on line. The Ekhlaas forum is a password-protected message board used by Qaeda for recruitment, propaganda dissemination, and as one of the entrance ways into Obelisk for those operatives whose user names are granted permission. Many of the other Obelisk sites are now offline and presumably moved to new secret locations on the World Wide Web.

The founder of a Web site known as clandestineradio.com, Nick Grace, tracked the shutdown of Qaeda’s Obelisk system in real time. “It was both unprecedented and chilling from the perspective of a Web techie. The discipline and coordination to take the entire system down involving multiple Web servers, hundreds of user names and passwords, is an astounding feat, especially that it was done within minutes,” Mr. Grace said yesterday.

The head of the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors Jihadi Web sites and provides information to subscribers, Rita Katz, said she personally provided the video on September 7 to the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter.

Ms. Katz yesterday said, “We shared a copy of the transcript and the video with the U.S. government, to Michael Leiter, with the request specifically that it was important to keep the subject secret. Then the video was leaked out. An investigation into who downloaded the video from our server indicated that several computers with IP addresses were registered to government agencies.”

Yesterday a spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center, Carl Kropf, denied the accusation that it was responsible for the leak. “That’s just absolutely wrong. The allegation and the accusation that we did that is unfounded,” he said. The spokesman for the director of national intelligence, Ross Feinstein, yesterday also denied the leak allegation. “The intelligence community and the ODNI senior leadership did not leak this video to the media,” he said.

Ms. Katz said, “The government leak damaged our investigation into Al Qaeda’s network. Techniques and sources that took years to develop became ineffective. As a result of the leak Al Qaeda changed their methods.” Ms. Katz said she also lost potential revenue.

A former counterterrorism official, Roger Cressey, said, “If any of this was leaked for any reasons, especially political, that is just unconscionable.” Mr. Cressey added that the work that was lost by burrowing into Qaeda’s Internet system was far more valuable than any benefit that was gained by short-circuiting Osama bin Laden’s video to the public.

While Al Qaeda still uses human couriers to move its most important messages between senior leaders and what is known as a Hawala network of lenders throughout the world to move interest-free money, more and more of the organization’s communication happens in cyber space.

“While the traditional courier based networks can offer security and anonymity, the same can be had on the Internet. It is clear in recent years if you look at their information operations and explosion of Al Qaeda related Web sites and Web activities, the Internet has taken a primary role in their communications both externally and internally,” Mr. Grace said.


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20 Responses

  1. Mr. Standfast

    Loose lips sinks ships. History repeats itself. Sort of like the Clintons. Any bets on a third party candidate swinging the election in favor of Clinton?

  2. Mike in Dallas

    This sort of thing really pisses me off. I’ve known plenty of people that work in the federal government in various agencies and they all agree that this sort of thing is why all the conspiracy theories are dead wrong. You have dumb asses that work there just like anywhere and it would be impossible to keep anything a secret for very long. I worked in a top secret facility while in the Navy so I can also tell you from personal experiences that WAY too many dumb asses get clearances.

  3. Jarhead68

    Notice how this is big news because they assume someone in the Bush administration leaked this info? Well, whoever it is should be tried for treason, along with the entire democRat leadership AND some folks over at State and the CIA. When the hell are we going to enforce the Constitutional definition of TREASON? If it was Bush himself who leaked this, try the bastard. Too many leaks coming out of that sink hole called Washington, DC.

  4. Zachary

    It could have been worse. Instead of shutting the network down they could have used it to distribute misinformation to intelligence agencies.

    We still lost an important advantage needlessly but it could have been worse.

  5. Lamplightere

    OK, they say they gave it to the deputy director, Michael Leiter. He’s responsible. Maybe he needs to be fired, after an investigation into with whom he shared it. This is a huge blunder and people need to be held to account.

  6. Al Qaeda’s Internet Communications System Has Suddenly Gone Dark

    […] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here […]

  7. LadyAngler

    This is eeire to me. How could all their communications go down virtually at the same time? Lots of people had their chit together, boys. That’s what’s spooky. I’m hoping they just go back to camel carriers, but I’m doubtful that will be that case.

    Of course MSM would fuck it up, they want us to lose!

  8. PhilNBlanx

    So let me get this straight.
    Someone in the demedia leaks national security secrets such as, say electronic eavesdropping on terrorists techniques and they get a Pulitzer.
    Yet, supposedly someone in the Bush Administration supposedly leaks eavesdropping on terrorists techniques to the media and the demedia are aghast?
    What’s wrong with that hypocritical picture? Oh that’s right, it’s called Bush Derangement Syndrome - never mind.
    I agree there is definitely some bucketheads that have high-level security clearance (Sandy Burglar comes straight to mind); however something smells about this story. Kind of like the smell of an upcoming 2008 Presidential election. Sit back and watch this story grow some enormous legs…

  9. Birdddog

    I think it’s eerie too. I don’t underestimate those bastards. They saw this coming for a long time. :???:

  10. drillanwr

    While I have my support behind this Administration, I am not lacking to throw harsh criticism their way on many issues … Most especially my BIGGEST complaint is that NO SERIOUS attempts have been made in THIS country to investigate and/or prosecute the numerous leaks of vital information and secret programs during this war on terror post 9-11 … Had the media, such as the g-damn! NYTimes, done what they have (during the last few years of the war on terror) regarding such irresponsible actions as publishing secret programs during WWII, FDR would have had them shut down, if not imprisoned. The stakes are even higher this time around … due to the technology at hand. Priorities are DEAD wrong when they push a dead-horse, straw man of a non-story of a non-covert CIA worker celebrity-hungry babe’s non-outing as a high crime of breaching national security. Not only is this country laying its neck atop the chopping block, but the media seems to have its foot on our heads to keep us down … This Administration needs to grow some brass balls and slam into this leaking BULLSHIT! before the damn breaks and we are all drowned in the flood of denial.

  11. BW

    www.hotair.com has a posting indicating that this story is bogus. ABC apparently already had the video by Sept 6—a day before SITE says it gave it to the Government.

    Let’s look before we leap (to conclusions).

  12. POD1

    Hold on people, don’t get in a frenzy just yet.
    There’s more to this,

    http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/189700.php

  13. POD1

    There’s more to this story than initially reported.

    http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/189700.php

  14. Ted B

    One can only hope that this was a canary trap on something that was compromised anyway. Or perhaps I’m delusional…

  15. ShortFuse

    They don’t say anything worth listening to anyway. We just need to hunt them down and kill them. No network needed then.

  16. Dan (The Infidel)

    SITE does a good job tracking AQ. But they are not the only intel asset that the US has. There are many intel assets. And as far as who is the better at Net Security? AQ will never surpass the US. Whatever AQ does, we counter.

    However, leakers should still be prosecuting. This is war, not a game.

  17. Comment on Al Qaeda’s Internet Communications System Has Suddenly …

    […] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here […]

  18. Lamplighter

    OK, so the MSM is trying to make the Bush Admin look stupid again by saying someone within “leaked” the info. The fact remains, too many “leaks” have occurred without any consequence. For instance, Mary McCarthy of CIA was fired in 2006, but not prosecuted for leaking classified info. She has a law license, but I wonder if she has gotten in trouble with the bar, because leaking classified info and getting fired for it is certainly something that would cause you to put your law license in jeopardy.

  19. mess

    I guess that since the government spent so much time on that all important investigation as to who leaked Valerie Plame to the news we don’t have the time to investigate something really important such as traitors actions like this that get innocent Americans killed.

    Valerie Plame - Remember her, She was the employee at the CIA that claims the Bush administration outed her undercover status. However, everyone in the MSM ignored the fact that she was not an undercover agent for 7 years and went to work at a building in the United States - not some hidden remote over seas location as one might think.

  20. I’m A Pundit Too » Blog Archive » Jihad Central 10-09-2007

    […] Al Qaeda’s Internet Communications System Has Suddenly Gone Dark — Pat Dollard […]

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