Pak terror groups using Facebook to expand reach

Once highly secretive, Pakistani hardline militant groups like Jamat-ud-Dawa and the pro Al Qaeda Sipah-e-Sahaba are plugging into western social networking sites like Facebook to expand their reach.

Jamat-ud-Dawa, blamed by India for 2008 Mumbai massacre, has also been banned by the United Nations and a number of western countries.

It is going public intending to influence 'netizens' to advocate violence against non-Muslims or 'Kafirs'.

The information they have posted online with photographs clearly show men and women at their congregation brandishing guns and hi-tech assault weapons.

Internet pages of Sipah-e-Sahaba, a banned militant Sunni Islamic organisation, openly preach their anti-Shiite bias.

The groups are being allowed to operate without censorship by the Pakistani authorities, who recently restricted access to hundreds of Internet pages for anti-Islamic contents.

Pakistan has recently launched military campaign against the groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba, but Islamabad's double-dealing is exposed by allowing them access to cyber space.

JuD, which claims to be a charity group, has been helping in flood relief work in Sindh and northwestern region. The JuD in its 'Facebook' page continues its India-bashing claiming that Indian intelligence was behind the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore last year.

The US, the UK and other western nations are already worried over the influence these campaigns are having on Muslim youths.

There have been arrests recently of a number of youths in the US who claimed they were going to join Jihad against American forces in Afghanistan and Somalia.