Terrorism Probe Points to Reach Of Web Networks

So far this is shaping up to be a case of "home grown Jihadi" deciding to help the cause of establishing a global caliphate. The article gives a good look into the mindset of Islamists bent on the destruction of the West.
FROM THE WASHINGTONPOST.COM:

Terrorism Probe Points to Reach Of Web Networks
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 24, 2008; A01
In April 2005, police swarmed the U.S. Capitol to confront an erratic Australian man, carrying two suitcases, who they feared was a suicide bomber. After blowing up one of the bags, officers realized he was harmless.
The police never noticed the two nervous young men on a nearby sidewalk filming the Capitol during the standoff. But they might have been the real threat, according to newly released documents.
The men, ultraconservative Muslims from Georgia, were making surveillance videos that could help extremists plan "some kind of terrorist attack," as one man later acknowledged, according to court documents disclosed last week. One of their videos was sent to a notorious al-Qaeda publicist in London, authorities said.
New details about the videos -- featuring such sites as the World Bank headquarters, the Pentagon, fuel tanks and the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria -- emerged in pretrial hearings in Atlanta. The pair are charged with providing support to foreign terrorists and could be sentenced to 60 years in prison if convicted. They have pleaded not guilty.
The two men were detained in 2006, before they reached "the point that they posed an imminent threat to the United States," according to a statement by U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias in Atlanta. But the case underlines the continued appeal of Washington as a terrorist target.
Analysts said it also provides a glimpse of the growing threat posed by radical networks that have sprung up as a result of the Internet. One of the men, Syed Haris Ahmed, told authorities that they got to know extremists through Web forums and chat rooms, and they uploaded their D.C. surveillance video to "Jihadi people" online.
For a terrorist organization, "it doesn't matter anymore where your location is, and how many visa requirements" a country has, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which researches Muslim extremists and their online activity. "Being on the virtual network, [terrorists] have people virtually all over the world."
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