Al-Qaeda Goes Dark After Video Leak

October 9, 2007 · Filed Under Technology, Terrorism, Terrorists, World News

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.

This tipped of Al-Qaeda’s Internet security apparatus that their had been a breach. U.S. intelligence officials then watched in real time as the terror group shut down there network within minutes.

What U.S. intelligence had been monitoring was Al-Qaeda’s internal communications on what amounted to a corporate intranet. This was also the method in which the terror groups media arm known as As-Sahab disseminated freshly made Jihadi videos to Al-Qaeda members for them to distribute around the world.

In addition to As-Sahab, this intranet also dealt with matters such as expense reporting and clerical memos to mid- and lower-level Al-Qaeda operatives throughout the world. This communications network is known to intel officials as Obelisk and it took years to penetrate.

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.

The leaking of the Bin Laden video a full four days before it was supposed to air has dealt a major blow to U.S. intelligence gathering operations.

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.

UPDATE:

The organization that provided the video to U.S. intelligence early was the SITE institute which is a private intelligence firm that tracks terrorist on the Internet. They often provide official intelligence agencies with information uncovered about Al-Qaeda.

U.S. agencies have responded by saying they have their own sophisticated means of watching al-Qaeda on the Web.

“We have individuals in the right places dealing with all these issues, across all 16 intelligence agencies,” said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

-Chris Jones