[Mb-civic] Briton Used Internet As His Bully Pulpit - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Briton Used Internet As His Bully Pulpit

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A01

Second of three articles

LONDON -- Babar Ahmad, a 31-year-old computer whiz and mechanical 
engineer, was hailed as a big catch by U.S. law enforcement officials 
when he was arrested here one year ago on charges that he ran a network 
of Web sites that served as a propaganda and fundraising front for 
Islamic extremists, including Chechen rebels, the Taliban militia and al 
Qaeda affiliates.

Since then, Ahmad has been locked up inside British prisons as he fights 
extradition to the United States. But the imprisonment has done little 
to silence the British native of Pakistani descent. Rather, it has given 
him an even bigger megaphone as he continues to churn out anti-American 
manifestos and post them on the Web, turning him into a minor celebrity 
in Britain.

<>His case shows how a well-educated engineer operating in London could 
allegedly use the Web to project a message of Islamic extremism to a 
global audience. While an earlier generation of radicals might have led 
protest rallies, Ahmad found a way to make the Internet his bully 
pulpit, magnifying al Qaeda's reach far beyond the handful of radical 
mosques that had previously propagated Osama bin Laden's message.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080700890.html 

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