ABSTRACT
Al Qaeda, accordingly, evolved into a global terrorism movement that functioned equally well with top-down and bottom-up components: commanding and directing terrorist operations while remaining at the vortex of an increasingly decentralized structure populated by newly created, autonomous territorial extensions. Accordingly, in the years following September 11th it was no longer possible to equate the global terrorism threat solely with the threat posed by Core Al Qaeda. As it evolved due to the pressure and success of international countermeasures, the global terrorism threat diversified both geographically and organizationally in order to survive. Despite having suffered the greatest onslaught directed against a terrorist organization in history, the Al Qaeda movement's ideology and brand nonetheless both thrived and prospered. The advantages of the new social media to terrorists are manifold. Ease, interactivity and networking, reach, frequency, usability, stability, immediacy, publicity, and permanence are benefits reaped by those terrorist groups exploiting and harnessing these technologies.
