September 16, 2026: Al Qaeda is a major Islamic terrorist group that still survives in small numbers. It has survived mainly because it relies on the internet. Islamic terrorists became a major problem in 1979, when the Iranian monarchy was deposed by Islamic terrorist groups. Iran has been a religious dictatorship ever since. In the same year, Pakistan armed and supported the Afghan Taliban Islamic terrorists who played a major role in driving the Russians out of Afghanistan. The Taliban then offered other Islamic terrorist groups, like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, sanctuary. That enabled al Qaeda to plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks against the two World Trade Center towers, killing more than 3,000 Americans, including several hundred American Muslims. Al Qaeda calls any Muslim victims of their attacks. Involuntary Martyrs

Between 1979 and 2024, there were nearly 67,000 attacks and a quarter million deaths. Over 96 percent of the attacks took place in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. By 2025, counter-terrorism efforts reduced deaths to 5,600, with the 2026 number continuing the downward trend.

Islamic terrorist groups were not easy to eliminate, and the terrorists used many tactics to avoid extinction. The Internet saved al Qaeda from complete obliteration. Al Qaeda never became the international terror threat that was feared in the West and hoped for in the Islamic world. Under heavy attack for over a decade, al Qaeda has lost most of its sanctuaries and leadership. Thousands of al Qaeda foot soldiers have died, often in futile attempts to strike a blow for Islamic world conquest. Meanwhile, a growing Internet presence has enabled al Qaeda to keep getting its message out and recruiting new zealots. This activity has been noted and is now under increasing attack.

Al Qaeda's attitudes towards the Internet eventually changed. Nearly a decade of warning, in the West, about Islamic terrorists using the Internet to launch attacks has come to nothing. At most, there have been some defacing of web pages, often by hackers driven more by nationalism than religion. The Internet Jihad (struggle) has been mostly smoke, and very little fire.

Attempts by terrorists to recruit hackers have had seemingly poor results, but enough people have been attracted to join Islamic terrorist groups to keep al Qaeda visible. Using the Internet to keep al Qaeda's ideas in the news has become very important. Al Qaeda is, after all, a creature that feeds on attention.

A growing number of programmers and Internet specialists in the Muslim world have legitimate jobs in software firms or maintain software and Internet services for companies. Some are involved in Internet crime, and very few spend time trying to start Internet-based terrorism. But nearly all the Muslim black hats (criminal hackers) are reluctant to get on a terrorism watch list, or worse, join some terrorist outfit. Moreover, Islamic terrorists recruit mainly from the young and clueless and angry and unemployed. Internet penetration in the Islamic world is very low, as is literacy itself. The Islamic cyber threat is largely fiction, because the potential pool of Islamic Internet Jihadis is so tiny. Al Qaeda has had its greatest success among Islamic expatriates in the West, and among the children of well-off Islamic families. These Muslims have access to the Internet, more education than their peers back in the old country, and are wealthier, even if they are considered poor in their adopted country. In Europe and North America, police are finding and arresting more terrorists among Muslim migrants, or their children. Fortunately, most of these expatriate terrorism recruits are reluctant to carry out attacks. They are more enthusiastic about talking about it, which they do to great lengths and with much enthusiasm.

Counter-terrorism organizations know why there have not been more Internet-based attacks by al Qaeda, or any other self-proclaimed Islamic warriors, nor a huge number of suicide bomber recruits via Internet recruiting. The fact is that the Islamic terrorists are not nearly as well organized or skilled as the mass media would lead you to believe. Terrorists could carry out many types of attacks, not just those involving the Internet, but don't. It doesn't happen because the terrorists cannot get it together sufficiently to do it. That should tell you something. The potential is there, and that is scary. But we must also recognize reality, and that's a lot less scary.

Islamic terrorists have been early and energetic adopters of social media on the Internet. But the terrorists soon found that the messaging went two ways, and those who disagreed with them had no trouble or inhibitions about responding with hateful messages or violent retaliation.

Three decades ago, the al Qaeda Internet media operation, mostly in Iraq but in other countries as well, was taken apart. This was an aftereffect of the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, where many of their key Internet people were operating. These terrorist internet specialists were either captured or killed. Some escaped and joined the many Islamic terrorist Internet specialists who don't get their hands dirty. These men are smart and have useful Internet skills. They quickly rebuilt the al Qaeda network, maintaining 15-20 sites that are designed to be difficult to shut down. These sites frequently shift their IP addresses and the servers they operate from. This effort employs the same tools and techniques that Internet criminals use to stay ahead of the police.

The al Qaeda internet specialists need these evasion techniques not to avoid the police, but to protect themselves from continuing efforts by anti-terrorist hackers (individuals and groups) to shut down pro-terrorist web sites. Sometimes these vigilantes are exceedingly effective, and lately they may have shut down all but a few of sites used as distribution points for important new terrorist videos. The dozen or so main al Qaeda sites are needed to provide distribution for terrorist propaganda (especially videos) and recruiting materials (which the videos are also a big part of) are under constant attack. It's a war you don't hear much about, but it's pretty fierce and has been going on for years.

That brings up another point. Islamic terrorists are often described as having more than 5,000 websites. But nearly all of these are basically fan sites. Only a dozen or so sites conduct terrorism. While anti-terrorism hackers attack these sites, many intelligence agencies and a few private anti-terrorism organizations also monitor them closely.

Islamic terrorists have been reaching out to their supporters on the Internet, openly asking for ideas and information. This is a dangerous thing for terrorism fans to participate in. If the local police catch someone sending suggestions or information to terrorist groups, it can get you arrested and jailed. Apparently, it puts many people on the police radar and eventually leads to arrests.

The intelligence agencies prefer that the Islamic terror sites stay online, so their users can be watched and identified. But the anti-terror vigilante hackers want to fight back, and no one has the heart or the means to stop them. The intel people know that Osama Bin Laden believed, from the beginning in the 1990s, that electronic communications would be an essential element in keeping the jihad (struggle) going. Because of this, Arab speaking (or literate) intel operatives have long participated as users on these websites for over a decade, collecting much valuable information in the process.