Palestinians launch on-line resistance

Source: Jerusalem Post, 18-1-2007
Hamas`s armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, launched its first English language Web site on Wednesday. The group already has a Web site in Arabic [www.alqassam.ps].
Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that the new site was launched thanks to money raised by Hamas leaders during their recent visits to some Arab and Islamic countries.
"Hamas has collected millions of dollars to improve its information campaign," said one official. "Hamas`s official web site, The Palestinian Information Center, recently underwent a major face-lift that cost tens of thousands of dollars."
In addition to Arabic, English, French and Russian, The Palestinian Information Center, which was inaugurated in 1997, also publishes in Melayu, an Austronesian language spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand, and Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Pakistan and some parts of India.
Izaddin Kassam is not the first Palestinian armed group to publish its own Web site. Fatah`s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, also has a Web site, but it is only in Arabic. In 2004, the Aksa Brigades accused the CIA of closing down its Web site on the Internet under pressure from "Jewish groups."
Other armed groups that already have [Arabic language] sites on the Internet include the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the [Fatah-affiliated] Abu Rish Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees and Islamic Jihad.
Both the Kassam and Aksa sites publish "military communiques" detailing daily "resistance operations against the `Israeli` enemy." Each group also has a list of its "martyrs" who were killed during the second intifada, including the Fatah and Hamas self-sacrifice bombers.