用社交媒體追蹤恐怖分子

On New Year’s eve, Pieter Van Ostaeyen hung out with his brother’s family before skipping the midnight celebrations and going home to work.

新年前夕，彼得•範奧斯塔延(Pieter Van Ostaeyen)與哥哥一家呆在一起。之後，他沒有參加午夜的慶祝，直接回家工作了。

This pursuit — toiled over at night and in his holidays — is not overspill from his day job as an enterprise architect and business analyst. Rather it is an all-consuming passion: to use Twitter and Facebook to track principally Belgian radicals fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria.

範奧斯塔延的正式職業是企業架構師和商業分析師。他在晚上和假期辛苦從事的這份工作並不是他白天沒幹完的部分，而是一份他熱愛的、並傾注全部精力的事業：使用Twitter和Facebook來追蹤極端分子的動向，主要目標是效忠伊拉克聖戰組織“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)以及敘利亞聖戰組織Jabhat al-Nusra的比利時極端分子。

As jihadis take to social media to find new recruits and broadcast their activities, so bloggers are able to track their activity from afar. Some do it as part of their job, but others such as Mr Van Ostaeyen, who is not recompensed for this work, hope one day to make it pay.

隨着聖戰分子開始使用社交媒體招募新成員並宣傳他們的活動，博主們可以遠程追蹤聖戰分子的動向。對一些人而言，這是他們工作的一部分。然而，範奧斯塔延等其他人不從這份工作中領薪水，他們希望有一天自己能得到回報。

After last week’s attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo magazine’s office and a kosher supermarket, Mr Van Ostaeyen, who lives in Mechelen, Belgium, waded through his social media feeds, trying to detect significant information about the threat from Belgian fighters. Amid the feeds, he says, was one Belgian Isis fighter in Iraq calling on people back home to follow suit.

今年1月7日，法國巴黎發生了《查理週刊》(Charlie Hebdo)雜誌社槍擊案和猶太超市襲擊案。此後，住在比利時梅赫倫(Mechelen)的範奧斯塔延瀏覽了他關注的社交媒體源發佈的大量信息，嘗試從中發現來自比利時極端分子的威脅的關鍵性線索。他說，在這些消息源中，有一名身在伊拉克的比利時籍ISIS戰士呼籲人們在本國發動類似襲擊。

Mr Van Ostaeyen says his feelings on the attackers are summed up in a blogpost by Clint Watts, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Many, if not most, western jihadis are deeply troubled souls, at times more confused about their intentions and motivations than we are.”

範奧斯塔延說，他對這些襲擊者的看法可以用美國外交政策研究所(FPRI)高級研究員克林特•沃茨(Clint Watts)博文中的一句話總結。“就算不是大多數，至少有很多西方聖戰分子是飽受困擾的人，有時他們對自己的意圖和動機比我們還迷惑。”

There is a remarkable amount of information to be found about home­grown radicals and those who go to Syria and Iraq to fight, he says. Some research has been relatively straightforward — once, for example, Mr Van Ostaeyen created a false identity of a fictional foreign fighter. He picked a photo of a man, his face concealed, waving an Isis flag on a mountain. Pretty soon he got 1,400 “friends” from across Europe.

範奧斯塔延表示，關於成長於本國的極端分子，以及那些到敘利亞和伊拉克參戰的人，還有相當數量的信息有待發掘。他進行的一些調查相對簡單。比如，有一次他創建了一個外國聖戰戰士的虛假身份。他挑選了一張蒙面男性在山上揮舞ISIS旗幟的照片。很快他就擁有了1400個來自歐洲各地的“朋友”。

“Syria is the most social mediated war ever,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen. “Social media is a propaganda channel.”

“敘利亞戰爭是迄今爲止受社交媒體影響最大的戰爭，” 範奧斯塔延說，“社交媒體是一種宣傳渠道。”

This comes at a time when journalists have become trophy targets, shown vividly by the Isis beheadings of American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 79 reporters have been killed in Syria since 1992, and in Iraq the death toll stands at 166.

最近這段時期，記者成了聖戰戰士向外界炫耀的戰利品，ISIS斬首美國記者詹姆斯•弗利(James Foley)和史蒂芬•索特洛夫(Steven Sotloff)的事件鮮明地體現出這一點。保護記者委員會(Committee to Protect Journalists)的數據顯示，自1992年以來，有79名記者在敘利亞被殺，而在伊拉克身亡的記者達到了166名。

The new breed of researcher analyses fighters at a distance rather than in the conflict zone. Currently writing a book on the Middle East from the crusades to today, Mr Van Ostaeyen sees Eliot Higgins, who became known by his blogging name Brown Moses, as a game-changer, demonstrating that the work can provide an income.

新型調查者並不親臨衝突一線，而是從遠離衝突的地方分析這些戰士。範奧斯塔延最近在撰寫一本書，主題是從十字軍東征到當代的中東。在他眼中，以博客“布朗•摩西”(Brown Moses)出名的埃利奧特•希金斯(Eliot Higgins)是一個改變遊戲規則的人，他向世人展示這份工作能夠提供收入。

Mr Higgins, a video games enthusiast and stay-at-home dad, who had previously worked in finance ad­ministration, has become a munitions expert, tracking the Syrian war from his home in Leicester in the UK. “The work he has been doing [on Syrian weapons and the downing of the MH17 plane] has been groundbreaking,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen. “He’s a good example of an independent, writing what he wants.”

希金斯是一個電子遊戲愛好者和全職父親。他之前從事財務管理的工作，後來成爲了軍火情報專家，從位於英國萊斯特(Leicester)的家中追蹤敘利亞戰爭。“他做的（關於敘利亞武器和MH17航班墜機事件的）調查是開創性的，”範奧斯塔延說，“他是一個獨立寫手的典範，他撰寫他想寫的東西。”

Mr Van Ostaeyen got into this work through his interest in history and Arabic culture, which he studied at university. When the popular uprising in Syria began in 2011 — a country he had visited — his work intensified.

範奧斯塔延對大學裏學習過的歷史和阿拉伯文化很感興趣，這讓他投身於這份工作。2011年敘利亞發生動亂，這是一個他曾經踏足的國家，他的工作量也因此變大了。

“I tried to make people in the west understand what was going on. I found it shameful that no one was doing anything.” He zoned in on foreign fighters. “Social media is my main source of information. It’s unbelievable how much information is out there.”

“我試圖讓西方的人們理解正在發生的事情。可恥的是，誰也沒有在這方面有所作爲，”他將外國戰士鎖定爲關注對象，“社交媒體是我的主要信息來源。從中獲得的海量信息讓人難以置信。”

There is also a vast array of fake material. To make the switch from amateur to professional, bloggers must be scrupulous.

其中也有大量虛假內容。要從業餘愛好者轉變成專業人士，博主們必須一絲不苟。

Reputation is everything, says Mr Higgins, who now gives talks to journalists. “It’s all you have. You have to be so careful. It requires a lot of work to produce reliable material.”

希金斯表示，信譽就是一切。他現在爲記者開講座。“這是你擁有的一切。你必須非常小心。需要很多工作才能產生可信的材料。”

Obsessiveness is a trait Mr Higgins looks for in collaborators, although he is cautious that it is not ideology fuelling their passion.

對這份工作的強烈興趣是希金斯在尋找合作者時看重的特質，不過他很謹慎地避免讓意識形態成爲驅動這份事業的動力。

A hazard of the work is witnessing horrifying acts of violence. “The first beheading I felt very sick — now I am numb to it,” says Mr Van Ostaeyen.

這份工作的危險之一是目睹可怕的暴力場面。“第一次（看）斬首的時候，我覺得非常噁心——現在我對斬首已經麻木了，”範奧斯塔延說。

Mr Higgins says anyone who works with this sort of material has to “learn to mentally compartmentalise”. It is, he says, the small things that catch you off-guard.”

希金斯說，任何在工作中要和這種材料打交道的人都必須“學會在心理上與之隔開”。他說，讓你措手不及的是一些小事。

Professional res­earchers deploy their own strategies. JM Berger, the author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, started life as a journalist and combines traditional reporting techniques with social media analysis. He has learnt to make a quick and efficient assessment of violence in videos. At key mo­ments, he mutes the sound. “The most important thing is to frequently connect with life outside of work and remember that even when extremist movements are most successful they still only represent a tiny [section] of people.”

專業的調查者運用他們自己的策略。JM•伯傑(JM Berger)是《聖戰者喬：以伊斯蘭之名奔赴戰場的美國人》(Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam)這本書的作者。他最開始做過記者。現在他將傳統的新聞報道技法和社交媒體分析結合在一起。他已經學會對視頻裏的暴力行爲進行快速有效的評估。在關鍵時刻，他會把視頻靜音。“最重要的事是經常與工作之外的生活保持聯繫，記住即使極端分子的行動非常成功，他們也依然只是人羣中的很小的（一部分）。”

Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who writes the blog Hizballah Cavalcade, which focuses on Shia Islamist militarism in the Middle East, notes that some groups want analysts to reproduce their content to legitimise and publicise it. “I very rarely disclose [which] social media accounts I follow, and I don’t publicly redistribute their propaganda,” says Mr Berger, whose next book will focus on Isis.

來自馬里蘭大學(University of Maryland)的研究人員菲利普•史密斯(Phillip Smyth)撰寫一個叫“Hizballah Cavalcade”的博客，主要關注中東什葉派伊斯蘭好戰主義。他提到，一些羣體希望分析人士將它們發佈的內容重新撰寫出來，以使其合法化和公開化。“我極少公開我關注哪些社交媒體賬號，我也不會公開發布它們的宣傳內容，”伯傑說。他下一本書的主題是ISIS。

The majority of people do not need to view it, believes Mr Berger. “This violent material is intended to push viewers’ buttons and provoke emotional reactions that serve the extremists’ interests.” However, policy makers and re­searchers should see some of the material, he says, in order to understand the cult of violence that Isis in particular is propagating. Mr Van Ostaeyen sees such videos as source materials to be used by historians, human rights watchers and possibly future war crimes prosecutors.

伯傑認爲，大多數人不必觀看這些內容。“暴力內容的目的是惹急觀看者，引起情感上的反應，爲極端分子的利益服務。”然而，他表示政策制定者和研究者應該看一些這種內容，以便理解ISIS特別着重宣傳的暴力崇拜。範奧斯塔延認爲，歷史學家、人權觀察者、可能還有未來的戰爭罪檢察官應該使用這類原始材料。

The work is important, he believes. “I want people to be aware why people go to fight in Syria,” he says. Nonetheless, there is a cost to the 38-year-old’s work. The intensity he devotes to his extracurricular job has meant he has lost social contacts. “It’s not a life. I live alone with a cat.”

範奧斯塔延相信，這份工作非常重要。“我希望人們意識到，爲什麼有人會去敘利亞參戰，”他說。儘管如此，對38歲的範奧斯塔延來說，這份工作還是有代價的。他對這份業餘工作投入甚多，這意味着他失去了社會接觸。“這稱不上生活。我和一隻貓孤獨地生活在一起。”