Israel Matzav

Bye-bye AqsaTube

On Wednesday, I reported on a new video sharing site for terrorists called AqsaTube. I am pleased to be able to report that the site has been taken down by its host, the French internet provider OVH.

According to the BBC, OVH initially denied hosting AqsaTube, but later confirmed that it had hosted the Web site and had now taken it off-line.

The disappearance of AqsaTube follows Google's removal of its AdSense program from the Web site following a query filed by the Post to Google Israel.

...

According to the ITIC, AqsaTube was only one of over 20 Web sites, in eight languages, managed and directed by Hamas.

According to Alexa Internet traffic statistics, most AqsaTube users were from Saudi Arabia, followed by Iraq and Germany. It had more users in Israel than in the Palestinian territories.

Noah Shachtman, an editor at the technology magazine Wired, reported Thursday that this incident was the second time in a little more than a month that an extremist video distribution network had been taken off-line. "The al-Ekhlaas network of sites had long been a primary distributor of videos from al-Sahab, al-Qaida's propaganda arm. Then, on September 11, al-Ekhlaas.net was suddenly re-registered. All of its content vanished.

"As in the case of the al-Ekhlaas takedown, militant forums blamed Western intelligence agencies for the unplugging of AqsaTube. But it appears a little sunlight may have done the trick, instead," Shachtman wrote, referring to the recent media exposure.

The overwhelming majority of AqsaTube videos were supplied by Hamas, but it was possible to find those of other Palestinian terrorist organizations. The videos were divided into subcategories: the Hamas movement, Fatah, the children of Al-Aqsa (i.e., children motivated by Hamas ideology), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others.

Note that 'our friends the Saudis' continue to lead the world in supplying terrorists and their funding. But of course, the Saudi royal family had nothing at all to do with 9/11.

It also amazes me how OVH could have buried its head in the sand and pretended that it didn't know what was going on. Surely if the Post found out, they could have found it too.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:07 PM