Congressional Forum on Islam: Jihad Online

The Arab media environment has become so diverse that it has displaced Al Jazeera from its central place in Arab political life, Professor Marc Lynch told a Capitol Hill group on June 18, 2007. The Internet, with its chat rooms, blogosphere, and streaming video, has become the most important node of intellectual expression. Lynch, an associate professor at George Washington University, spoke to Congressional staffers as part of the CSIS Congressional Forum on Islam in a talk entitled “Jihad Online: Radicalization and the Internet.” He explored the ways in which Internet chat rooms and websites have become the new loci for debates in the Arab world, including many on the justifications and accepted tactics, targets, and goals for jihad.