Hamas' Turkish website

By Ethel C. Fenig

Indicating that its brutal takeover of Gaza was well-planned in advance, and just the first step in extending its ideology and conquering the remainder of the Moslem world, is this ominous wake up notice from Hamas, via the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel.

Hamas announced its intention to launch a Turkish version of its Website in the near future, the site's eighth language. It is part of the organization's efforts to upgrade its Internet network, one of the most important weapons in its battle for hearts and minds.

Not the primitives as its apologists make them out, after all, they're invited to write op-eds

in the Washington Post and the New York Times with the best--or worst--of them and they set up sophisticated web sites to expand its empire, Hamas and other Jihadis (holy warriors) have grand, long term plans.

In our assessment, adding a Turkish version is recognition by Hamas of the importance of the Turks as a target audience.. That is because there is a large population of Turkish radical Muslims who for a long time have been struggling against the country's secular nature and the legacy of Ataturk.

It should be noted that during the past year Hamas upgraded its Internet network (snip)

Turning suicide bombers into role models to be imitated: Abd al-Basset Auda, the Hamas suicide bomber who carried out the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover Eve, March 20, 2002 (the deadliest Palestinian terrorist attack, which killed 30 civilians and wounded 144. He is commemorated in a special section dedicated to shaheeds , where he appears with other suicide bombers (the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades English Website, June 19, 2007 ).

All of this is just a small part of the Jihadis' long term evolving strategy of adapting to a new age of a seemingly kinder, adaptable--reasonable liberator. But don't be fooled, their goals are still the same, their methods savage.

Al Qaeda has long sought to throw the West, and primarily the United States, out of Muslim land so it could attack and defeat the individual governments (snip).

But there has long been disagreements in the strategic thinkers on how to best achieve this. Until recently, al Qaeda's leadership has thought their goals would best be achieved by attacking the 'far enemy' - the U.S. and her allies - directly in order to force the nations to withdraw the support from the Middle East. This strategy has shifted over the past several years, as al Qaeda is now focusing operations and their organization primarily in the Middle East and the Muslim crescent. Al Qaeda's operations show it now wishes to focus its energy primarily on the 'near enemy.'