New Terrorism and New Media

New Terrorism and New Media

by Gabriel Weimann

On the evening of March 1, 2011, Arid Uka, an Albanian Muslim living in Germany, was

online looking at YouTube videos. Like many before him, he watched a jihadist video

that presented the gruesome rape of a Muslim woman by US soldiers—a clip edited

and posted on YouTube for jihadi propaganda purposes. Within hours of watching the

video, Arid Uka boarded a bus at Frankfurt Airport, where he killed two US servicemen

and wounded two others with a handgun.

After he was arrested, investigators reviewed the history of Arid Uka’s Internet

activity. It showed—most obviously in his Facebook profile—a growing interest in

jihadist content, subsequent self-radicalization, and ultimately his viewing of the

aforementioned video, which led him to take action in an alleged war in defense

of Muslims.