August 8, 2003
LibertyForum

Disinformation: CIA Posing as Al Qaeda?

This professionally managed website [Jihadunspun] with eyecatching design and graphics and daily news features, video store and reporters emerged on the net sometime after Sept. 11th 2001.

What really struck me as odd was all the professional glitz of the website as well as its deliberate attempt to look Arabic . . .

. . . So right in our backyard we have a semi Al Qaeda operation which unlike Azzam doesnt even lose its ISP, let alone get shut down.

...This is a very sophisticated operation and I am sure that even some of its own muslim reporters have no clue what is going on. . . .

FULL TEXT of allegations against jihadunspun.com posted at LibertyForum on August 8, 2003, received by The Wisdom Fund on August 21, 2003.

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William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Common Courage Press, 1995

Enver Masud, "Millions Spent Subverting 'Enemies', Stifling Dissent," The Wisdom Fund, February 15, 2001

Enver Masud, "Deadly Deception, Pretexts for War," The Wisdom Fund, July 30, 2001

[Some Web watchers, including Katz (Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute), believe the U.S. government may be using the Internet jihad to spy. They speculate that Jihad Unspun, an English-language site that appears to promote terror, may be a CIA creation, designed to find out who visits or orders videos glorifying bin Laden.--Scott Shane, "The Web as al-Qaida's safety net," Baltimore Sun, April 2, 2003]

Ian Cobain, "Firm Was 'Cover for CIA'," The Times (UK), May 14, 2003

Standard Schaeffer, "'Al Qaeda Itself Does Not Exist'," CounterPunch, June 21, 2003

[The Americans are secretly building two giant intelligence facilities in Iraq at a cost of some half a billion dollars, according to an exclusive report received from DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources. US engineering and construction units are setting up what amounts to an "intelligence city" on a site north of the oil city of Mosul in Kurdistan and a second facility in Baghdad's Saadun district on the east bank of the Tigris. Our military experts infer from the vast dimensions of the two projects and their colossal expense that it is Washington's intention to retain a large US military presence in Iraq in the long term, for a decade at least.--"Two Huge US Intelligence Centers Go up in Iraq," DEBKA-Net-Weekly, June 25, 2003]

Michael Hirsh, "Is Iraqi Intel Still Being Manipulated?," Newsweek, August 8, 2003

Kamel al-Sharqi, "Israeli Center Opened In Baghdad," IslamOnline.net, August 19, 2003

E-mail dated August 21, 2003 from The Wisdom Fund to bkennedy@jihadunspun.net: "We have received allegations that Jihad Unspun is a CIA web site. If you do not have CIA connections we would be pleased to make your rebuttal a part of the record."

E-mail dated August 22, 2003 from The Wisdom Fund to info@jihadunspun.net: "I would like to speak with Ahmed Yousef, Associate Publisher, and would appreciate his phone number. BTW, is he the Ahmed Yousef formerly with UASR?"

Email dated August 22, 2003 from Bev Kennedy, jihadunspun.com to The Wisdom Fund, and The Wisdom Fund's response.

GOOGLE SEARCH -- "Bev Kennedy" Canada publish -- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/813959/posts?page=35

TRACEROUTE and WHOIS results for jihadunspun.com show that: (a) jihadunspun.com is a front for something else because TRACEROUTE "fails to get packets through to the remote end system"; (b) Bruce (Bev?) Kennedy -- a fictitious name as stated in e-mail from Bev Kennedy -- is listed as Administrative, Technical, and Zone contact. Internet Service Providers are not likely to provide service to persons presenting fictitious names whose web site receives "over 800,000 viewers each day"; (c) WHOIS jihadunspun.com lists two servers -- NS1.YOURGALAXY.COM and NS2.YOURGALAXY.COM, and a TRACEROUTE on these leads to another dead end.

Purchases from the jihadunspun.com store can be made through PayPal. PayPal requires bank references, and will not issue merchant accounts to persons presenting fictitious names. It defies logic that jihadunspun can remain anonymous to any government agency with an interest in disabling the web site.

E-mail dated August 25, 2003 from The Wisdom Fund

E-mail dated September 26, 2003 from Khadija aka 'Bev Giesbrecht'

Why does the 'Bev Giesbrecht' resume omit a summer serving with Mennonite Disaster Service? Is this the same 'Bev Giesbrecht' who during this same period held positions at Trek Technologies Inc., Datacrafters Inc., and Newdale Systems Inc.?

[The political administration in Bannu Frontier Region is negotiating with elders of the Janikhel tribe for the release of a Canadian woman abducted along with three Pakistani guides on Tuesday, officials said. Khadija Abdul Qahaar was reported missing in the region near North Waziristan on Tuesday. She introduced herself as a free-lance journalist, but is not registered with National Union of Canadian Journalists. She converted to Islam after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and calls herself 'a supporter of Taliban' on her website www.jihadunspun.com where she posted her comments and reports about the Tribal Areas.--"Govt approaches elders for release of Canadian woman," Daily Times, November 13, 2008]

Mark Hume, "Vancouver journalist abducted in Pakistan," theglobeandmail.com, November 13, 2008

Syed Saleem Shahzad, "Taliban keep grip on kidnapped Canadian," Asia Times, May 30, 2009

Enver Masud, "Why Would Muslim 'Insurgents' Kidnap Beverley Giesbrecht?," The Wisdom Fund, November 5, 2009

Jihad Unspun shutdown: We attempted to visit http://www.jihadunspun.com/ on September 6, 2011. Why shut down a website that receives "over 800,000 viewers each day"? Because, as we suspected, it may have been a disinformation portal.