Global Islamic Media Front

rdf:langString Global Islamic Media Front

rdf:langString The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) is an Islamist propaganda organization that is associated with the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist groups. The GIMF is known by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "underground media" organization. The GIMF specializes in production of jihadist material for distribution. It is one of several organizations that jihadists use to spread information via the Internet, including the well-known As-Sahab. Their slogan that is used on their materials is "Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers." There is no indication who the leader of this organization is. The GIMF has a direct precedent in two "sister" propaganda platforms: the Global Islamic Media Group (GIMG) and Global Islamic Media Centre (GIMC). The former was a distribution list set up on June 29, 2001, in one of the virtual groups spaces offered free of charge by Yahoo to its e-mail account users and was followed later by a website. Access to its materials required a password. Six monthsafter it was created, GIMG had over 600 subscribers, a figure that grew constantly until it reached 7400 by the time the group disappeared in the spring of 2004. The list was administered from Canada by a man nicknamed "Abu Banan" to distribute ideological and propaganda manuals and texts. In May 2004, following the publication of the video showing the beheading in Iraq of American contractor Nick Berg by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the website disappeared after being targeted by anonymous hackers.The second group, the GIMC, was closely linked from its beginnings to Ahmad al-Wathiq Billah, the anonymous author of numerous Internet texts on the global jihad strategy. The Global Islamic Media Front was first recognized as an extension of Al Qaeda in March 2003 when GIMF published a strategy paper on its Yahoo! Groups account suggesting a terror attack in Spain, which ultimately occurred 3 months later. The group was called Global Islamic Media (GIM). In 2004, GIM had 7,400 members which Al Qaeda was communicating with. It has since been deleted. Yahoo! Groups was a medium for Islamist extremist communications as a group profile can easily be deleted. GIM was used to release statements and was recognized by Al Qaeda and its followers as the only veritable source of Al Qaeda communications at the time. Al Qaeda leadership informed its followers that all information released on the internet must be routed through its Yahoo! Group to be valid. Since the dismantling of the GIM Yahoo! Group, GIMF material can be found in jihadist threads across the internet. The GIMF provides translation, repackaging, and dissemination services of jihadist and extremist videos. They distribute material directly from the mother sites of jihadist organizations as well as collect leadership-authorized material from jihadist websites and put it together for distribution. The repackaged videos are converted to various sizes and formats and uploaded to free file-hosting sites for easy download for viewers. The process used by GIMF to produce and disseminate videos is pictured in the figure to the right. The other major task that the Global Islamic Media Front undertakes is to provide testing and confirmation services for validating that the materials it releases are authentic. GIMF translates its productions from Arabic primarily into German, but translates into English and French as well.