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Monday, June 21, 2004
Beheading website shut down
This image taken from an Islamic Web site shows a frame from a video of blindfolded American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr. being held in Saudi Arabia. Johnson, 49, was beheaded Friday.
Dubai - Administrators have shut down an internet forum that carried statements by militants - including the photos of the beheaded American hostage in Saudi Arabia - as well as opinions of Saudi dissidents and supporters of the fight against Westerners.
Users who tried to access www.qal3ati.net/vb/ found "a note to the media" by the webmaster, in English and Arabic, explaining that the site is a public discussion board and the webmaster "is not responsible for any posting unless it is posted by the administrator."
The move was apparently aimed at distancing the site from militants after several claims of responsibility from Islamic militants appeared there, notably grisly photos of slain American hostage Paul Johnson , letters allegedly by killed al-Qaeda associate Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, and his group's claim of responsibility for the May 29 Khobar attack that killed 22 people.
Often, the authenticity of the statements was hard to verify.
Websites carrying similar material have been frowned on as propagators of violence. In May, an al-Qaeda-linked site, www.al-ansar.biz, was shut down by the Malaysian company that hosted it after it posted the video of American Nicholas Berg's beheading in Iraq.
The webmaster of Qal3ati - Arabic for "My Fort" - said the opinions on the site did not reflect the administrator's views and that it was the site's policy to remove any material that "contains incitement for violence."
"However, moderators are not in the site 24 hours and postings can stay for some time before being removed," the statement said.
"We would like to confirm that this unintentional temporary stay of the postings in no way means approval of their content."
# ANTENNA SHARON | 11:45:00 am |
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