Islamabad claims virtual win against extremism

Tough home-grown cyber laws and internet crime-fighters have kept terrorist and jihadi websites off Pakistan's internet service providers.

Islamabad // As Pakistan struggles to contain violent militancy spilling down from its remote frontier lands to its cities, it claims success in eradicating militancy from one part of its territory: cyberspace. Tough home-grown cyber laws and a vigilant squad of internet crime-fighters has kept terrorist and jihadi websites off its internet service providers (ISP), according to the country's top cybercrime sleuth. "In Pakistan no one can host a terrorist website. No one dares to because they know either we will find them or someone will tell us and we'll swoop on the service provider immediately," said Ammar Hussein Jaffri, the director of the Cyber-Crimes Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency, in an interview. Of the vast numbers of terrorist and jihadi groups using the internet to spread ideology, post messages, recruit followers, solicit funds and exhort violence, not one is hosted in Pakistan, Mr Jaffri said. Yet other governments allow terror websites to be hosted by ISPs in their countries, despite the ease of tracing internet servers and the credit card payments made to them. Mr Jaffri is baffled: "It is not hard these days to trace the people behind a certain website. Just follow the money trail, as there is always someone paying for these sites to be hosted." Pakistan banned 13 militant groups under Pervez Musharraf, the former president. A report by the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies identified 25 terrorist or sectarian groups still operating, including the reorganised banned groups. But they do not operate in Pakistani cyberspace. "Tell me one ISP in Pakistan which is hosting a terrorist website. I can show you 200 websites which are hosted in the US and other western countries. Just google terrorist websites," Mr Jaffri said. Pakistan was among the first countries to develop online regulation, and its first cybercrime law was in place before the September 11 attacks: the Electronic Evidence Act 2000. That was upgraded to the Electronic Transactions Ordinance 2002. The most recent upgrade, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2007, is so tough and far-reaching that some civil liberties groups consider it draconian. The sender of a lewd SMS, by one of the 88 million mobile phone subscribers now registered in Pakistan, can be jailed for up to seven years. The offence falls under cyber-stalking. The sentence can go up to 10 years if the victim is a minor. A convicted "cyberterrorist", which includes anyone hosting a jihadi or terrorist website, can be executed if his actions result in a person's death. The first laws were the brainchild of Mr Jaffri, an IT adviser to government and intelligence departments for more than 35 years, who became alerted to the potential threat to computer network security during a training session in the United States 10 years ago. "Pakistan stood against cybercrimes in 2000, much before the advanced world. When I returned from the US in the late 1990s I looked around at the potential number of internet users in this region, counting China, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh - almost two-thirds of the world's population. So I started pressing the government of Pakistan to do something. We came forward with regulations, laws, we put the right people in the right positions, all much before the western world." Mr Jaffri said it is obvious that virtually all terrorist organisations are not only using cyberspace, they are also using qualified IT professionals. He cited a Turkish-based website he browsed last week, in which the group showed videos of its training camps and weapons and invited donations via credit card. "If you see the websites and quality of services they are providing, it appears that they've hired professionals. These groups are fund-raising via websites, they're propagating their ideas via websites. Such websites are hosted on ISPs, they have a web server, they have a network, they have a country. Someone is paying money and using a credit card and writing e-mails to the ISP." Terrorist and jihadi sites can still be accessed in Pakistan, but authorities have ensured they are not hosted in Pakistan. "The question I'd like to pose with western countries is: 'Where are the terrorist websites hosted?' I think the West are the best judge. Who is making payments to run the websites? What credit cards are being used for these purposes? Instead of asking us: 'Where are they [the terrorist groups]?' I think the technologically advanced world can answer these questions very well. Ask the owners of the credit cards on which the payments are made to the server. Ask Visa and MasterCard." The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority puts the country's number of registered internet subscribers at 3.8 million. More than 60 ISPs are operational and some 20,000 websites use the .pk domain. However, unofficial estimates suggest 22 million users have been online regularly this year, about 13 per cent of the population. "We have told other countries' agencies about the hosting of terrorists websites abroad. We're interacting regularly with a number of international crime forums, but none of them has ever told us: 'This website is hosted in your country'," Mr Jaffri said. "With some countries it's not just a lack of online regulation, it's because they just won't co-operate. Everything revolves around the economy - ie, around money. I would not spare a single person if we found he is responsible for hosting a terrorist website on a server in Pakistan. But how can we move against such a person or group if they are not in Pakistan? The West needs to understand these things." [e-mail]