DEBORAH AMOS, host:
We're going to take another look at the Internet now and the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan. Long before that attack, the bomber, Humam al-Balawi, was an active and prominent voice on extremist Islamist Web sites.
Jarret Brachman, who teaches at North Dakota State University, closely monitors many of those Web sites. He'd been following the radical postings of al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor, who wrote under an assumed name. Brachman says that both al-Balawi and the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day are now regarded as heroes on those Web sites. Good morning.
Professor JARRET BRACHMAN (North Dakota State University): Good morning.
AMOS: You have posted some of this new material on your own Web site, and show us some of those postings that you've found about these two men. Just describe some of the things that we're seeing as we're looking at the web here.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Sure. Well, Abu Dujana al-Khorasani - this is the Jordanian triple agent, as he's become known. He's very quickly become a hero on the al-Qaida Web forums. And so people have been making their own photoshopped posters and celebratory banners.
AMOS: These are like sports posters.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Yeah. They show this Abu Dujana in positions, he's, you know, the martyr in heaven. He's in paradise. Other times, they show it superimposed with the logo of the CIA, you know, with bullet holes in it to show that, you know, he committed an operation that was very successful in their eyes.
AMOS: I'm looking at your Web site, and I'm seeing a headline that says more on A/Q - al-Qaida - finding success among the failures.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Right. So there's - you know, within the Western community, we look at the Nigerians' attempt to blow up the plane as a failure. He didn't follow through with the operation. For them, the fact that he was able to penetrate security, that he got to the point in which he did is almost just as good.
They have a fundamentally different understanding of what success is. For them, as long as they're in the fight, they've succeeded. As long as they're generating media attention, as long as this dominates our minds, they're winning. They don't have to actually execute the attack.
AMOS: Does the Internet bring these people together? Does it give a way for an angry young person in one country to communicate with people to feel like he's part of a bigger community?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Yeah. Many of these individuals who use the al-Qaida forums are desperately searching for meaning and identity and social relationships. They feel ostracized. They feel distanced, usually, from their family and from their religion. And so they're searching for something bigger than themselves.
You saw this with the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in his postings there was two things reflected: One is that he was desperately lonely. He was living away from his parents. He couldn't find people who were similarly pious as him. But the other thing was that he was so morally righteous. Despite the fact that he had no idea who he was, he felt that he was in a moral position to lecture people on how they should be. And I think that's a really telling indicator of the kinds of people who are drawn to this movement.
AMOS: But that's a very important question. You read these Web sites a lot and study them. Is it clear to you? What is it that makes somebody walk that extra step from being angry, from posting, from having very strong opinions to saying all right, now I must do something?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Right. And that's the question. I think it's the human touch. I don't think the Internet's a sole sufficient reason for somebody to go out and blow themselves up. I think it certainly gets you pretty far down that road, but at some point, you need an intervention to come take you, kick you in the butt and push you into action.
AMOS: How do you counter this kind of propaganda on the Web?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Well, you know, there's a big debate about this. Some people advocate pulling down the Web sites altogether. At the same time, it's our only window into the mindset of people who believe in this, and so there's a lot of both intelligence and just, you know, sense of what's in the head of al-Qaida supporters that you can gain from these Web sites. The best expert on al-Qaida is al-Qaida. I mean, they make it easy for us to get to know them. All we have to do is take a little time and read what they're talking about.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Thank you.
AMOS: Jarret Brachman is the author of "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice." He teaches at North Dakota State University.
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AMOS: This is NPR News.