Videos showing insurgent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, long available in shops in Baghdad and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video.
Many of the videos, showing sniper attacks on Americans and roadside bombs exploding under U.S. military vehicles, have been posted not by insurgents or their official supporters but apparently by Internet users in the United States and other countries, who have passed along videos found elsewhere.

Among the scenes being viewed daily by thousands of users of the sites are attacks in which Americans are felled by snipers as a camera records the action and of armored military vehicles being hit by roadside bombs.
In some videos, the troops do not appear to have been seriously injured; in one, titled “Sniper Hit” and posted on YouTube by a user named 69souljah, a serviceman is knocked down by a shot but then gets up. Others, however, show soldiers bleeding on the ground, vehicles exploding and troops being loaded onto medical evacuation helicopters.
With the Bush administration restricting images of coffins of military personnel and the Pentagon keeping close control over coverage of combat operations, the videos give Americans an exposure to combat scenes rarely available before. Their availability has also produced some reaction. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended accounts of some users who have posted them – in response, it said, to complaints from other users.
More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by reporters for The New York Times have been removed in recent days. But many others remain, some labeled in Arabic, making them difficult for American users to search for, and new videos are added daily.
One YouTube user, who would not identify himself other than by his account name, facez0fdeath, and his location, in Britain, said by e-mail that he had posted a video of a sniper attack “because I felt it was information the U.K. news was unwilling to tell.”
“I was physically sickened upon seeing it,” he said, but added, “I am wholly opposed to any form of censorship.”
The Web sites also contain a growing number of video clips taken by U.S. soldiers. One shows the view from the back of a truck containing several members of a platoon, whose vehicle then hits an IED, or improvised explosive device, and is turned on its side.
A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq, said the military was aware of the use of common Internet sites by both insurgent groups and U.S. soldiers.
“Centcom is aware we are facing an adaptive enemy that uses the Internet as a force multiplier and as a means of connectivity,” Major Matt McLaughlin, the spokesman, said by e-mail.
While posting of Web logs, pictures and videos by U.S. troops is subject to military regulations, McLaughlin said, “al Qaeda uses the Internet and media to foster the perception that they are more capable than they are.”
David Gelles and Omar Fekeiki contributed reporting from Berkeley, California.
LOS ANGELES Videos showing insurgent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, long available in shops in Baghdad and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video.
Many of the videos, showing sniper attacks on Americans and roadside bombs exploding under U.S. military vehicles, have been posted not by insurgents or their official supporters but apparently by Internet users in the United States and other countries, who have passed along videos found elsewhere.
Among the scenes being viewed daily by thousands of users of the sites are attacks in which Americans are felled by snipers as a camera records the action and of armored military vehicles being hit by roadside bombs.
In some videos, the troops do not appear to have been seriously injured; in one, titled “Sniper Hit” and posted on YouTube by a user named 69souljah, a serviceman is knocked down by a shot but then gets up. Others, however, show soldiers bleeding on the ground, vehicles exploding and troops being loaded onto medical evacuation helicopters.
With the Bush administration restricting images of coffins of military personnel and the Pentagon keeping close control over coverage of combat operations, the videos give Americans an exposure to combat scenes rarely available before. Their availability has also produced some reaction. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended accounts of some users who have posted them – in response, it said, to complaints from other users.

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Filed under: Security - @ October 9, 2006 10:22 pm