Osama bin Laden’s followers announced on Monday that they would commence an electronic “holy war” beginning November 11, according to debkafile. The electronic jihad will target Western, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate and Shiite websites, beginning with 15 specific sites and then expanding the operation by the thousands, according to the report.

debkafile’s sources say the al Qaeda offensive includes supposedly impenetrable e-mails, which teach cyber jihadists how to become “virtual martyrs,” experiencing the same euphoria as an armed Islamist fighter (October 30).

Following the announcement, multiple al Qaeda websites crashed, possibly due to American cyberattacks. Western agencies constantly monitor and disable terrorist sites as soon as they are online, but al Qaeda programmers are using better methods to keep their sites up longer, including posting dozens of sites simultaneously to keep Western intelligence busy.

Extremist programmers have launched the website Electronic Jihad 2.0, which is intended to coordinate its users to carry out mass attacks on sites its creators deem offensive to Islam. The site functions by offering a downloadable hacking program that, when used simultaneously and en masse, can disable a website.

Expect Islamic extremists to exploit Western reliance on technology in increasingly dangerous ways. For more on the subject of Western network dependence, the Trumpet recommends “America’s Achilles’ Heel.”