Conflict Blotter

Al Qaeda’s Internet communications system went suddenly dark to American intelligence after the leak to ABC News of Osama bin Laden’s September 11 anniversary speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that the US had penetrated the enemy’s system, Eli Lake reports in today’s NY Sun. The Washington Post also has the story, though with somewhat less dramatic details. Here’s Lake:

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.

This is the dramatic and, if true, quite remarkable detail from Lake’s account:

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.”

What’s unusual about this incident is that the leaked video was first uncovered by the SITE Institute, an independent organization that monitors Jihadi Web sites. The institute’s founder and director is Rita Katz, an Iraqi-born Israeli citizen whose father was killed by Saddam Hussein. Upon finding the video Katz promptly turned it over to the US government and within hours it had been leaked to ABC News. The NY Sun article suggested Michael Leiter, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center was to blame. The WaPo pointed the finger at the Bush Administration.

First of all, this is another example of private citizens’ ability to gather cutting edge intelligence thanks to the internet (would this be called iInt? Intint?). Katz has apparently done a better job at infiltrating the Jihadi web than the US government has. It also illustrates the perils of having such an effective private intelligence gathering network. Though the leak appears to be absolutely not Katz’s fault, had the video originated within the US intelligence establishment it would have been much less likely to leak.

How does Katz beat our government at intel gathering on the net? She goes undercover with more savvy and cunning than our government. Katz is the author of the book Terrorist Hunter, an account of her undercover campaign to infiltrate Hamas and other Islamic groups operating in the United States. In that book Katz describes how she spent months or years dressing as a devout Muslim woman and attending fundraisers for assorted violent Islamist groups. Today, with the SITE Institute, Katz and her team are doing much the same thing: posing as jihadis on the internet, building up credible virtual Salafi personalities, and slowly working their way into Jihadi Web forums and bulletin boards.