

Terrorist groups use the Internet to drive every aspect of their business: psychological warfare, data mining, fund-raising, recruitment and mobilization, planning and coordination, and Internet indoctrination. Radicalization of individuals is a dynamic group process often activated or boosted by radical Islamic websites. Terrorism and anti-terrorism are based on narratives, and whichever story is able to persuade the majority of people will win. I argue that the West is losing the war on terrorism because our story is not persuasive enough, and because we do not use the gateway of mass persuasion—the Internet—effectively enough. Fighting radical terrorist groups will take more than firepower; the battle of ideas has to be fought and won in the digital battlefield. The terrorists' infrastructure and their belief system has to be attacked in the air, via the Web and on the ground. The goal of this chapter is to provide an analysis of possible tactics tailored for countering Islamist narratives on the Internet, and to emphasize elements of strategy for countering those narratives. The first part of the tactical analysis will discuss methods of neutralization of terrorist websites and chat-rooms. The second part of the tactical analysis deals with the Web as a counter-propaganda tool. The basis of the findings has been a broad analysis of political Internet campaigns.