Yahoo Continues to Host al Qaeda Mouthpiece
Funds Managed by Fidelity Investments Account for 7 Percent of Yahoo Stock Ownership

June 4, 2004

Editor's Note: MND does not link to terror-related websites. We have replaced "." with the word "(DOT)" in the web address to defeat search spiders.

With only two members, the new Yahoo sponsored Global Islamic Media Center might at first be considered to be a far cry from the 6,500 members the group used to boast.

However, Global Islamic Media (GIM) still has every indication of being just as much an al Qaeda affiliate as when it had thousands of adherents.

Its messages also point to a new al Qaeda web site, located at www(DOT) hostinganime(DOT)com/neda2/page /alakat(DOT)htm. At press time this site was still on line.

The fact that Yahoo continues to allow this group to stay on line is puzzling. Like any business Yahoo depends on consumer confidence and the public's willingness to buy what it offers. As a Hoover Company Profile noted, "Yahoo generates most of its revenue from banner advertising sales and sponsorship ads, but is diversifying its revenue streams; the company also sells search engine result listings to advertisers, collects subscription fees, and charges for business services such as Yahoo Personals and Yahoo Mail."

Rotating advertisements for companies that include Verizon Wireless run behind a number of messages (http://finance(DOT)groups(DOT) yahoo(DOT)com/group/globalislamicmediacenter/message/77)

Verizon Wireless did not respond to a request for comment, but in a previous interview concerning placement of Verizon Wireless advertisements on the GIM site, Jim Gerace, a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless, said "We have to figure out how this happened and I have to do our own diligence. If this is true this is not what we intended to do, and we would protest."

Yahoo has not commented on its continued hosting of the GIM group other than to send out this statement (in response to a previous request for information) from Mary Osako, Yahoo's Director of Communication. She said that those wishing to use Yahoo Groups "agree to not use the Service to upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable. When notified of content that may be in violation of our Terms of Service, we are committed to reviewing each report and taking appropriate action, generally within 24 hours."

However, GIM remains on Yahoo.

Interestingly, portfolio managers of some funds managed by Fidelity Investments, a huge mutual fund company, have chosen to invest quite substantially in Yahoo. Money from funds managed by Fidelity Investments (also known as FMR Corporation) according to public filings account for 7.3 percent of Yahoo's common stock ownership (Yahoo co-founders David Filo and Jerry Yang own 6.9 percent and 5.6 percent Yahoo common stock respectively).

According to an online description "FMR Corp. is ‘semper fidelis' (ever faithful) to its core business. The financial services conglomerate, better known as Fidelity Investments, is the world's #1 mutual fund company. Serving some 18 million individual and institutional clients, Fidelity manages nearly 340 funds and has approximately $775 billion of assets under management. Among its notable offerings is the Magellan Fund, which was for many years the US's largest. The founding Johnson family controls most of FMR; Abigail Johnson, CEO Ned's daughter and heir apparent, is the largest single shareholder with about 25%."

A spokesman for Fidelity said the organization does not comment on companies where funds are placed, but added that the choice where to invest is made by portfolio managers.

GIM's al Qaeda connection is routinely accepted by many analysts. Paul Eedle, a British investigative reporter who specializes in radical Islam, was interviewed by CNN in March. He commented, "The Global Islamic Media list .... puts out a stream of statements, 30 to 50 a month, explaining the group's strategy and claiming responsibility for its actions, including the Madrid (train) bombings ... "

In his interview with CNN Eedle also referred to a statement published on GIM that referred to the then upcoming train bombings in Spain. He said, "This was a strategy document published in December by the Global Islamic Media list which described in enormous detail a strategy for driving America out of Iraq by attacking what al Qaeda thinks is the weakest link in the coalition, that is, Spain. So it prefigured the Madrid bombings. I think that shows us just how, even though there are semi- independent cells of al Qaeda around the world, it's the strategy coming from the center, from particularly Ayman al-Zawahri, that is really keeping the whole group on course."

According to Eedle, the Internet has been a wonderful creation for al Qaeda. "The Net creates a virtual meeting place, a glue that holds together al Qaeda, even though its leadership has been holed up in the mountains and is now surrounded."

The Yahoo GIM site is well known for the distinctive parchment type background on all of its messages. Analysis of the sending data of one of the messages showed that the parchment is being stored on the servers of www.jihadunspun.net, a controversial pro-Islamic site that has been run out of Canada by an individual who allegedly converted to the Islamic faith after 9/11.

E-mails to administrators of www(DOT)jihadunspun(DOT)net asking for information about whether the group has a relationship with the administrators of Yahoo's GIM were not answered.

GIM made use of another Internet service provider to store its distinctive logo. It was housed at www(DOT)bayanit(DOT)com/upload/protected/psddd1.jpg, a Sudanese online upload service. The site's U.S. registrant and administrator is listed as being in Peoria, AZ.

A company spokesman – originally from the Sudan – was not pleased when he learned from a reporter that the GIM logo was being stored on his company's servers. After removing the logo he said, "This is very nasty. I feel bad when I found that these terrorists used this service. I love (America) and want to help it. I (have fought) Islamic fundamentalism since I was in high school. I am a Muslim but not like this. They are criminals."

Jeremy Reynalds

He was honored with the prestigious Jefferson Award in 1994. Reynalds emigrated from England to the United States in 1978 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1999. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico and is a candidate for the Ph.D. in intercultural education at Biola University, located in La Mirada, California, just outside Los Angeles.

He is also the author of two books and a contributor to a third, which deals with the media's images of the homeless. He may be reached by e-mail at reynalds@joyjunction.org.