ALBUQUERQUE, NM (Talon News) — Iraq’s first democratic elections in 50 years are being hailed as being a great success. While insurgents threatened to wipe the streets of Baghdad with the blood of voters, the election terror tally was 10 suicide bombers, 44 people reported killed, and numerous mortar shells launched on polling sites and the nation’s government center. Another success was the removal of what for a few weeks appeared to have been one of the hottest jihadi terror sites on the Internet.
Just a few hours before the Iraqi elections, the web site www.mawsuat.com was taken down by its American Internet service provider.
In addition to providing links to files of al Qaeda publications, www.mawsuat.com also had about 40 jihadi “snuff” videos of killings, reportedly committed by supporters of Iraq’s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, available for download.
These were mostly three to five minute videos of masked insurgents reading some sort of proclamation to a prisoner followed either by the individual’s head being cut off or the prisoner being shot in the head execution style.
Despite the al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda materials available on the site, a disclaimer read, “We would like to inform all the media outlets, all the governments and agencies that Mawsuat.com is not affiliated with any group or organization. The sole purpose of this project is to inform.”
The address provided for contact on the site was mawsuat@hotmail.com.
When asked by Talon News for a description of what the site was supposed to achieve, the recipient responded, “To tell the other side’s story without bias at the contrary of the most major networks in your land.”
“[For] example, if you check some of the videos of some operations in Iraq, you’ll find that the number of casualties of the American forces is far greater than what your Pentagon and your Fox News report,” the individual wrote. “First of all, the cyber space doesn’t belong to anybody the last time I checked. What I put in my website is my business. To be honest with you, I find it kinda amazing that you will be offended by my web site and its content, yet the thousands of porn sites that show women of all ages displaying themselves all over the Internet seem to be fine by you ‘people’ — assuming you are an American.”
Mawsuat.com is hosted by an American Internet service provider — Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com). When alerted of the site’s content, the company initially removed it for a short time. However, it was back on line by the next morning — pending, company officials said, a more thorough investigation.
A couple of days later, the site was again down. Visitors are now greeted with the words, “This site is currently unavailable. If you are the owner of this site, please contact us at 1-480-505-8855 at your earliest convenience.”
A Go Daddy representative said after the company finished an internal investigation of the site contents, it appeared that the site was violating the terms of service and so it was taken down.
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