( This is an update of a paper titled From Internet To Islamnet that I had presented at an international conference at Bali, Indonesia, in October, 2005)
What we have been seeing since May, 2012, is a proxy jihad through the Internet and modern means of communications such as the cellphone and iPad being waged by a new generation of IT savvy jihadis still unidentified.
It started in the Rakhine state of Myanmar following violent clashes between some Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims whom Myanmar looks upon as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The clashes resulted in about 80 fatalities from both the communities and the internal displacement of a large number of Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.
Following these clashes, a group of as yet unidentified Islamic elements, possibly based in the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India region, started a vicious campaign through the Internet and the new social media sites for the demonization of the Myanmar government and for promoting Islamic solidarity.
President Thein Sein of Myanmar was reported to have told a delegation of the OIC that visited Myanmar last week that through the Internet and its social media sites these elements circulated highly exaggerated reports of what they called a genocide of Muslims in Myanmar with the help of morphed pictures of violent incidents in other countries not related to Myanmar.
This Psy-jihad was meant to destabilise not only the Rakhine state of Myanmar, but also the Sheikh Hasina government of Bangladesh, which has refused to allow the Rohingyas enter Bangladesh and use it as a rear base for their destabilisation operations in Myanmar.
One noticed a similar Psy-jihad being waged in India through the Internet and its social media sites by a group of unidentified Muslim extremists after the outbreak of violent clashes between some Bodos and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in Kokrajhar and other Bodo areas of Assam last month.
These elements used the Internet and its social media sites for the dissemination of exaggerated accounts of the violence in Assam and for re-circulating the fabricated Psy-jihad material produced by or on behalf of the Rohingyas of the Rakhine state.
These sought to inflame the passions of impressionable Muslims in different parts of India during the holy fasting period of Ramadan. It resulted in incidents of shocking violence and vandalisation by some Muslims during and after a public meeting held in the Azad Maidan of Mumbai on August 5, 2012, to protest against the violent incidents in Assam and in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.