The Internet has long been a critical domain of terrorist and extremist groups around the world. Perhaps the most notorious cyber terrorist was an individual know as “Irhabi 007.” He was later identified as Younes Tsouli is a 23-year-old son of a Moroccan diplomat.
For nearly two years, Younes Tsouli was sought by global intelligence sources. The online terrorist communities Tsouli created trained terrorists who congregated in those cyber communities. The training included hacking, programming, executing online attacks and mastering digital and media design. He suddenly went underground in September 2007 after Scotland Yard arrested a 23-year-old West Londoner believed to be tied to Younis Tsouli.
Scotland Yard believed that Tsouli participated in an alleged bomb plot they were investigating. British counter-terror agents and investigators stormed Tsouli’s top floor flat and discovered stolen credit card information which is believed to have funded much of his activities. They also found that the cards were used to pay American Internet providers on whose servers he had posted jihadi propaganda.
In addition, Tsouli Irhabi used countless other web sites as free hosts for material that the jihadists needed to upload and share. The true extent of his material distribution network is still not known. He is credited with the large scale distribution of a film produced by Zarqawi called “All Is for Allah’s Religion.”
His arrest struck a significant blow to al Qaedas cyber terrorism weaponry.
With cyber weaponry only requiring widely available knowledge and skills and the only equipment required a computer that can be purchased anywhere, cyber weapons proliferation cannot be controlled. These facts coupled with the recent cyber attacks on utilities that blackout cities and regions show this is a serious threat.
Spy-Ops profile on Irhabi 007:
Younes Tsouli is a 23-year-old male and studied computers at a London college. Tsouli is a computer nerd from Shepherd’s Bush, West London. He is the son of a Moroccan diplomat and arrived in London in 2001. He was recruited by al Qaeda in 2002 when he began his cyber campaign of propaganda and terrorist training. is online legend (cover name) was “Irhabi 007″ derived from combining the James Bond reference with the Arabic word for terrorist. He published a manual on computer hacking on one of the many al Qaeda’s web sites. He joined the closed message forum known as Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami that provided military instructions, propaganda and recruitment.
He became the web master for al-Ansat, a forum used by 4,500 extremists to communicate. He rose to become the top cyber jihadi expert and directed all Internet-related activities. He also posted a 20 page website hacking manual called “Seminar on Hacking Websites,” on the Ekhlas forum.
Tsouli used stolen credit card information on 37,000 cards to pay American Internet providers on whose servers he had posted jihadi propaganda. He was apprehended as he was in the process of building and deploying a new website called YouBombIt.
Captured in his London top floor flat was a PowerPoint-style presentation on how to build a car bomb. His capture led to the arrest of several Islamic terrorists around the world, including 17 men in Canada and two in the US.
His hacking skills are categorized as moderate to advanced compared to todays standards. In December of 2007 his sentence was increased from 10 years to sixteen years in prison.
– Kevin Coleman
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
haha, they need to ship him to Guantanamo. Looks like he got a little scuffed up.
People like that can bring the war back home. I wonder who is next?
hehehe send im to us in tennessee hehehehe we can have us a hangin dam the federal laws boy
hehehe send im to us in tennessee hehehehe we can have us a hangin dam the federal laws boy
What a load of crap. The Cyber terorism scarecrow again? Boy, oh boy! Those Washington boys realy need our Google accounts. :P
Reading the last few threads here all I can say is y’all need to up your meds.
he looks sad.
roy smith and insaint, poor satire on both of you.
Young Younes is looking like he’s really, really sorry. He might even cooperate with the authorities.
Either way, he’s going to have to lose that page boy before he hits Brixton, or Dartmoor.
It does appear he is a bit roughed up. I did seek to find out if he resisted but I was unable to get an answer. What is troubling to me is how absent a sense of need for proper information security exists in businesses and how they still cover up their own systems breaches even though there are about 40 data breach notification laws on the books.
i’m sure anyone associated with AQ isn’t going to be taken quietly (by either his or the authorities’ accord). that’s his folly regardless
The ACLU will maybe represent him and asked why is he bleeding and why did they hit him. Hell bring him to Bushwick in Brooklyn, so we could ask him ourself. We could posibly help him with his line of repentance. Tie a rope around his ankles, drop him the a top of the Empire State, not to kill, we will make sure the rope is at least 2 feet of the ground..We just want to quetion him..oh I forgot he might have diplomatic inmunity. Hell fry him quickly.
hmmm, somehow I expected him to be more…nerdy. Of course, looking like you lost a fight with Sylvester Stallone can make you look tougher.
well.. no wonder he get cough if he had so big ego & showed off in internet. Like posting crap messages to boards etc.. im sore there is a way better hackers who keep it quiet and more an0nym0us :)
(damn hes beaten up well, cant authorities do any better? :D)
good stupid jihad ******* hope he dies in prison
sucks for him