Defusing Terror Threats from Sheik Google

The Straits Times

24 January 2014

JUST when Muslim cleric Leyaket Ali Mohamed Omar felt he was getting a handle on rehabilitating detainees from militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), he found himself sitting with a different type of detainee – a lone wolf, brainwashed by “Sheik Google”.

Sheik Google is a personification of the way charismatic Islamic ideologues use fiery speeches on jihadist websites to poison minds and entice converts to join them in a war against the United States and its allies.

Ustaz Leyaket, who used the term Sheik Google as a convenient shorthand, says that SheikGoogle’s terror footprints are easily found on the Internet.

… Security expert Kumar Ramakrishna says that with the spread of Al-Qaeda ideology via the Internet, “the threat of terrorism has metastasised”.

“Some military strategists even talk of so-called Fifth Generation Warfare in which ‘super-empowered’ lone wolves may in the coming decade exploit digital technology to mount crippling cyber attacks on national infrastructure. They may even deploy small radiological devices against cities,” he says.

It is important to have effective counter-ideological campaigns aimed at undermining the violent extremist ideology that sustains them, he adds.

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