Jewish woman threatened through Facebook
By Richard Kerbaj
April 05, 2008 02:05am
The Australian
* Jewish woman rejects man's online 'friendship request'
* Police documents allege man said he was Hezbollah
* Claim man then threatened to kill woman and family
COUNTER-TERRORISM agents have launched an investigation into a multi-national terror threat made against an Australian using internet social networking website Facebook.
The first investigation of its kind was prompted by a death threat emanating from the Middle East against a Jewish woman and her family from an alleged member of the Iranian-backed terror outfit Hezbollah.
The woman received the death threat from the self-proclaimed terrorist through the website after she declined the man's online "friendship request".
The Weekend Australian understands the man - who described himself as Ibrahim Dirani and a member of a Lebanon-based Facebook group - was banned by the network after police launched their investigation this week.
The victim - who lives in Melbourne and is a member of an Israeli-based Facebook group - told police the alleged Lebanon-based Hezbollah operative promised to kill her and her family.
According to police documents, the man wrote: "I am Hezbollah and I am going to kill you and all of your family - promise you."
The investigation comes as security agencies question their ability to address serious online threats made against Australian citizens by foreign culprits.
"The international nature of the website makes it very hard for agencies to ... physically track down those involved," a security source said.
"People on those website often set up their pages under false details."
Counter-terrorism expert Anthony Bergin yesterday warned Facebook users that terrorist networks might also be using the website to attract recruits, "in the same way a pedophile might look at those sites to potentially groom would-be victims".
Melbourne University's information technology senior lecturer Shanton Chang said Facebook members often left themselves exposed to being targeted by terrorists and urged against indiscriminately inviting anyone to be an online friend.
"The issue with having friends on Facebook, whether you know them or not, is once they're your friend, they can access and have a look at anything about you listed on there," Dr Chang said.
"And a lot of these people ... they actually haven't met in real life.
"And so it becomes easier, whether you're a terrorist group, a marketing group, whether you're spying on people, to actually look through people's profile because there's just a lack of understanding of who may be looking at your profile."
Dr Chang's comments follow reported warnings by the Canadian Defence Department in February that al-Qaida operatives were monitoring Facebook.
Dr Chang said Facebook and social networking sites users would over time become more savvy in identifying genuine members from troublemakers.
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