SITE Intelligence Group: the secretive company that filters Islamic State propaganda to the West

ONE woman has taken it upon herself to uncover terror hidden in the deepest corners of the web, publishing it for the world to see.

WHEN the news breaks of a terrorist attack in the heart of a global city, a tense wait begins.

The world’s eyes turn to the media, seeking answers to the questions: How many are dead and wounded? What is being done? Who is responsible?

As the devastating Paris attacks unfolded, strong suspicions that Islamic State was behind the slayings were confirmed when global media outlets published a statement from the jihadi group claiming responsibility.

Written in Arabic and French, the statement warned that the deadly gun and bomb attacks that killed 129 people were only “the first of the storm”, and called France a “capital of prostitution and obscenity”.

While many did not mention the statement’s original source, major outlets like Time and The New York Timesreferenced the SITE Intelligence group, a little-known private research organisation that monitors jihadi activity online.

While the group may not be well known, most people are likely to have seen its work.

SITE has been the first source of some of the world’s most publicised news events — like the beheading video of American journalist Steven Sotloff last year.

The organisation lurks in the dark corners of the internet — including jihadist channels on the encrypted chat service Telegram — and look for intelligence, which staff translate and email to a list of paying subscribers.

Sitting outside government intelligence organisations means SITE can release footage that may be held up if it were in the hands of a state-run security organisation.

French Islamic convert Fabien Clain, identified as the voice in IS audio claiming responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Steven Sotloff appears with “Jihadi John” in a still from the Islamic State beheading video released by SITE Intelligence.

So who is behind this secretive group, and what is their agenda?

An acronym for Search for International Terrorist Entities, SITE is a private, non-profit research organisation based in Maryland in the United States.

Co-founded and run by 52-year-old Rita Katz, an Iraq-born Jew whose father was executed as an alleged Israeli spy, SITE provides intelligence about terrorist groups to paying clients in business and government, according to The Washington Post.

Ms Katz publicly tweets about major discoveries, like Friday’s video of Islamic State’s threat to bomb the White House, last year’s beheadings, and the Paris attacks.

#ISIS claim on #ParisAttacks : "France remain at the top list of #ISIS targets" pic.twitter.com/qNJuNtEF0K

— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 14, 2015

When she gave a rare interview to the New Yorker back in 2006, the operation was run out of a tiny three-room office at a secret location that she forbade the reporter from naming.

Her mission was described as being “to convince Americans of the seriousness of the threat by building a direct conduit to the terrorist mind”.

She appears to have succeeded.

Last September SITE published images of American journalist Steven Sotloff dressed in an orange jumpsuit, being beheaded by Islamic State.

Just days after that video made headlines, US Secretary of State John Kerry secured the support of his NATO allies — including the United Kingdom and Australia — for air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

SITE’s website states that Ms Katz “has studied, tracked, and analysed international terrorists, the global jihadist network and terrorism financing for more than a decade” and has been briefing United States government and spy agencies “since well before September 11”.

“As part of her work, Ms Katz, has gone undercover to numerous terrorist’s front group gatherings, collecting crucial information, and working to expose those groups in the United States,” the website says.

“Ms Katz received special recognition in 2004 from FBI Director Robert Muller for her ‘outstanding assistance to the FBI in connection with its investigative efforts’.”

In 2003, she published an anonymous memoir titled Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America, which she promoted on 60 Minutes wearing a wig and a fake nose, and with her voice altered.

When terror strikes, all eyes turn to Rita Katz’s Twitter feed.

Ms Katz is not without her critics; there are those who argue she gives organisations like Islamic State a greater platform to spread their message, while leftists accuse her of propagandising war.

Some conspiracy theorists claim that the beheading videos are fake, created by the CIA to drum up public support for British and American military operations.

It is widely accepted that the similar video depicting the beheading of journalist James Foley is likely to have been staged —although most experts believe it was produced by Islamic State, with the actual execution carried out later.

Feminist writer and pro-Palestinian activist Naomi Wolf questioned SITE’s agenda in a Facebook post bemoaning the media’s reliance upon the organisation in its reporting on the Paris attacks.

“There is one internet. We should be able to check these destinations online for ourselves with no trouble at all,” Ms Klein wrote.

“We can translate them for ourselves ... It is not undermining but honouring the victims of a terrible tragedy to make sure that gatekeepers with their own agendas are not distorting the events to serve their own lucrative purposes.”

But former Australian spy and terrorism expert Warren Reed said commentators often failed to understand the nature of espionage.

“People who have never worked in intelligence think everything is black or white,” Mr Reed told news.com.au.

“But most intelligence is neither black nor white; it’s in the grey area.”

Former spy Warren Reed says intelligence agencies are curtailed by red tape.

Mr Reed said the work done by organisations like SITE Intelligence was “invaluable” in the fight against terrorism.

“Their outstanding value is that they’re nimble, they’re fast moving and they can often get into certain intelligence that the agencies get, often, far too late,” Mr Reed said.

“The great usefulness of an agency like SITE in the vital role they often play is that they’re outside the silo system.”

He said America’s intelligence apparatus was bogged down in bureaucracy and political agendas, which slowed the flow of information.

“Very rarely does raw intelligence gathered by spies in the field get distributed,” Mr Reed said.

“It goes through the huge filter of the analysts, and they feed on it like a shark frenzy.”

US National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. Picture: Saul Loeb

He described an “ivory tower” of bureaucrats who filtered intelligence based on their own agendas, who “can’t stand spies in the field getting something that contradicts what the analysts have concluded”.

“When you work in an agency, you become part of a particular mindset or disposition,” he said.

“They use ‘intelligence speak’, Washington jargon. Rita’s group is completely free of that.”

One of her greatest assets, he said, was the linguistic and cultural fluency needed to pick up on “the inflections that often carry the essence of the meaning” in conversations among jihadis, uncovering intelligence that spy agencies and government found useful.

“Clearly Rita has been able to play that role on a significant number of occasions,” he said.

“If she can do that, I can tell you that’s the tip of the iceberg. There’ll be a wealth of other stuff that we’ll never hear about.”