Webcast news gives al-Qaeda view

Radical Islamists have started webcasting their own weekly news bulletin.

It is the latest effort to use cyberspace to get their anti-American and anti-Western message across, bypassing mainstream media outlets.

The webcasts have been posted on a variety of forums on Islamist websites - the customary mode of getting news and video material across to its intended audience.

They have been produced by a group calling itself The Global Islamic Media Front, which wants to act as a clearing house for the many communiques coming from Islamic extremists linked to or inspired by al-Qaeda.

The first bulletin featured a masked newsreader, with a video screen showing news footage in the background.

"First, the Sawt al-Khilafa team sends its best wishes to the Islamic nation for the defeat of the Zionist occupation in the land of Palestine," he says.

Aside from the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the other stories featured in the bulletin are the latest militant attacks in Iraq and statements from the man believed to be behind many of them, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

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