Hackers prevented Al Qaeda from releasing a videotape to mark the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Al Qaeda has traditionally issued a video or audiotape by either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri, the terror network’s two leaders, to mark their massive terrorist attack on the U.S.As-Sahab, Al Qaeda’s media unit, had indicated that it would post such a videotape on September 11. As-Sahab had banner images on the internet showing a silhouetted head with a question mark and the words, “Wait 11 September.”
The US-based intelligence group IntelCenter had speculated the video would be a message from Osama or Zawahiri with a recording of the last will and testament of Mohammed Atta, one of the leaders of the 9/11 attackers.
Sources close to U.S. intelligence said, “Hackers knocked out Al Qaeda’s online means of communication, thus preventing them from posting anything to commemorate the anniversary.”
Western intelligence suspects two hackers who have targeted Islamicist sites before were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa. Both have been active in ongoing Internet battle between Islamicist hackers and their opponents.
This is not the first time hackers have dented the plans of the world’s deadliest terror network. In 2004, a hacker group called TeAmZ USA had knocked out the websites of Abu Musal al-Zarqawi, late head of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, for showing tapes of Westerners being beheaded. The hackers left the image of a gun-toting penguin on the website.
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