given the limitations of technology when the Chechens began producing their videos or required of Hezbollah, with control over its own television network), was to film individual attacks as short video segments, perhaps lasting only as long as a few seconds, so that, for example, many attacks on American convoys have been filmed by terrorists hiding in what amount to duck blinds. These segments are then uploaded individually to the web, rather than the terrorists waiting until they have assembled a large collection. This practice likely started in Iraq as a result of a confluence of technology—the easy availability of portable digital cameras and laptops—with opportunity—a combat theater where attacks on American soldiers were, in fact, taking place with some regularity. And once uploaded, of course, these videos become available to anyone who cares to download them. This made possible a radical change in the way terrorist websites were structured: previous sites, even those of groups which were quite violent, had avoided all references to violence, they certainly would not have featured actual images of brutal attacks.[1]
Susan B. Glaser and Steve Coll, writing in The Washington Post, argue that one reason abu Musab al-Zarqawi rose above the pack of terrorists and insurgents operating in Iraq to achieve international stature within the Islamist movement is that he and the people around him understood the possibilities intrinsic to the various technologies coming together at the same time, how to harness the specific technological moment if you will, in service to terrorism. And they further suggest that the way his group has done so makes clear the generational divide between Zarqawi's group and bin Laden's.
14
- ↑ Ibid., p. 53.
