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He circulated videos depicting the mutilation of the body of an American soldier in Iraq, referring to it as “Texas BBQ.” (The soldier was supposedly killed as retaliation for the alleged rape of a Muslim woman by a U.S. serviceman.)80 In online chat sessions with a friend, he joked about beheadings. In a chat with Abousamra, he suggested that a female Muslim leader who had spoken out against extremism “needs to be raped with a broomstick.” Referring to Mahdi Bray, a leader of the Muslim American Society, Mehanna said, “I wish I could [ … ] cut off his testicles.”81

In short, Tarek Mehanna was a nasty piece of work. He was arrested in 2009 for lying to the FBI about Maldonado then indicted for material support of terrorism. Abousamra was also indicted, but he had already fled the country after he was interrogated by the FBI in 2006. He is today believed to be living in Syria, where he has family ties.82

Despite the ugliness of his private rhetoric, Mehanna became a cause célèbre, both within the local community in Boston and online, particularly on the Islamic Awakening forum. Mehanna’s letters from prison, including poems and drawings, were posted online by IA members who knew him before his arrest. Campaigns were organized through the forum to write letters and provide other shows of support, including a savvy social networking effort mounted by Mehanna’s brother.83

All of these efforts together have built a mythic picture of Mehanna as a political prisoner, drowning out the sordid details that were laid out in page after page of court documents. At the time of this writing, his case had not yet gone to trial, but it seems unlikely that further revelations will make a dent in the narrative created by his defenders, especially given the absence of overt violence in the charges against him. The most serious allegation was that he had appointed himself the “media wing” of al Qaeda in Iraq, but as of this writing, no evidence had emerged to suggest he had a direct connection to the terrorist organization.84

SERIOUS BUSINESS

Evaluating the threat posed by jihobbyists online is a game that journalists often play to extremes. Either they ignore it, or they hype it to the skies. For example, Revolution Muslim has been around for years but garnered only sporadic coverage until the South Park incident, which inspired an explosion of stories lacking context.

The release of Samir Khan’s Inspire in July 2010 prompted an incredible wave of hysterical and wildly inaccurate coverage from normally responsible news outlets, including stories claiming that the magazine was a website (it wasn’t), that it had been published on glossy paper (it wasn’t), and that it was the first English-language publication targeting Western recruits (it wasn’t). None of the reporters and few quoted analysts had even heard of Al Hussam or the four issues of Jihad Reflections published just months earlier. In fact almost none of the reporters had even read Inspire—the PDF was corrupted when it was first uploaded, prompting jihadists and journalists alike to panic and assume that the file contained a virus (it didn’t).85

Given the series of setbacks and failures described in this chapter, it might be tempting to dismiss the online jihad as a comedy of errors, a gang that couldn’t shoot straight. It’s easy enough to underestimate the significance of the jihadist Web, especially when so many of its celebrities are young and inept like Zach Chesser, or when they don’t appear to be taking direct action toward violence, as in the case of Tarek Mehanna. But there are several levels on which these forums and websites are fundamentally transforming the face of American jihadists.

It’s not simply a question of volume, at least not yet. Although the data set is sketchy, it appears the number of American jihadists and jihad sympathizers in 2010 is not exponentially higher than it was at the end of the 1980s. The perception of an increase is due, in part, to the fact that Americans are paying more attention