A 23-year-old Morocco-born computer expert calling himself “the jihadist James Bond” was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for running a network of extremist websites teaching others how to become terrorists.
Younis Tsouli used the online ID “irhabi007” - the Arabic word for terrorist and fictional British spy James Bond’s code- in his online activities of teaching would-be terrorists how to make suicide vests, car bombs, how to cause explosions and produce poisons, among other things.
Tsouli’s accomplices were also sentenced, Tariq Daour to 6 ½ years and Waseem Mughal to 7 ½ years. The three men offered advice to would-be terrorists as well as motivation, via Web pages from their London homes, prosecutors said.
All three pleaded guilty to inciting others to commit acts of terrorism. Daour, 21, was born in the United Arab Emirates, Mughal, 24, in Great Britain. They were all arrested in 2005. Until then, they had been very busy distributing terrorist material over the Internet.
“There are people, including law enforcers, who initially thought these guys were computer geeks or hackers,” Evan Kohlmann, an American-based terrorism consultant who gave evidence in the case, said. “But they were a lot more dangerous, they were the key aides to al-Qaeda. There was no one more skilled at what they did.”
Among their Internet messages was one reading, “We are 45 doctors, and we are determined to undertake jihad and take the battle inside America,” prosecutors said.
British police said the three are not connected to the recent attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow.
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