US pulls the plug on Muslim websites

[MsMagnificent]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,549590,00.html

Islamic groups have condemned a government crackdown on a Texan telecoms company as part of a "witch-hunt", writes Brian Whitaker

Monday September 10, 2001

Five hundred websites - many of them with an Arab or Muslim connection - crashed last Wednesday when an anti-terrorism taskforce raided InfoCom Corporation in Texas.
The 80-strong taskforce that descended upon the IT company included FBI agents, Secret Service agents, Diplomatic Security agents, tax inspectors, immigration officials, customs officials, department of commerce officials and computer experts.

Three days later, they were still busy inside the building, reportedly copying every hard disc they could find. InfoCom hosts websites for numerous clients in the Middle East, including al-Jazeera (the satellite TV station), al-Sharq (a daily newspaper in Qatar), and Birzeit (the Palestinian university on the West Bank).

It also hosts sites for several Muslim organisations in the United States, among them the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

In addition, InfoCom is the registered owner of ".iq" - the internet country code for Iraq.

A coalition of American Muslim groups immediately denounced the raid as part of an "anti-Muslim witch-hunt" promoted by the Israeli lobby in the United States.

*clip*

Hi all, brand new to this forum!

Found this --note the DATE-- and was wondering if you guys had already discussed this, and if so what the consensus was.

The timing, the types of websites, and the .iq country code all rolled into one. Exceedingly strange... yet convenient.

I've read just a little bit of the conspiracy debate, and never really bought into it to too much but there seems to be an awful lot of straws laden on one certain camel.

[spooked911]

1. Weird-- never heard of that. But it's interesting.

Might have something to do with shutting down Arab/Islamic reporting on the 9/11 attacks?

[MsMagnificent]

2. Lot's of questions

Well I haven't thought about or researched this extensively so I hope what I have come to wonder is cogent, and certainly I'm sure there are more questions behind this. Plus I'm not, as I mentioned, big into the 9-11 conspiracy so there probably are alot of things I'm missing.

With this in mind, my first questions just off the top of my head are:

--why the suppression of the muslim (& Iraq!) sites at that time? The government knew there was more 'chatter' then, right? Did they want to cut that down -- ie if the word on the street became a (contemporary) whisper that wouldn't at all be beneficial to the plot, therefore should be stopped post haste.

--why didn't the * administration tout this as they conducting action (*ANY kind of 'swatting-fly" action*) against terrorists? They sorely needed that, to combat their apathy to everything the FBI, CIA, Clarke etc. knew and were reporting to them. So why not brandish this as proof they were fighting terrorism? Why the silence on this?

--if this was "a criminal investigation... not political" & they were "hoping to find evidence of criminal activity" what are the results?

--lots about Israel in that article. There were Israeli spies in the US who appeared to know what was going to occur. However I've read both
1) the Israeli's tried & tried & TRIED to warn us and we wouldn't listen
2) the Israeli's knew it was going to happen and did their own LIHOP, to some actually HOPING it would happen; even to watching, filming, and celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Towers

so which is it?

Like I said, I'm sure there are many more questions than this; some that probably fit in well with some theories.
It'd be interesting to find out more.

[spooked911]

3. Good questions-- but I just don't know the answers

as far as the warning from Israel-- I'm not sure any warning was particularly useful considering 9/11 was a government job. Israel no doubt had some foreknowledge of the attacks. It is also clear Israel benefited from 9/11. Benjamin Netenyahu (sp?) basically said so on the morning of 9/11. The story of the Israelis dancing on the van across the river when the towers went down seems to be true.