I constantly read articles in the US press which include the phrase: “published on an Islamic website.”
There is *never * any URL. This is highly unusual. I have the impression that the media doesn’t *want * people in the US to view these sites. Could this be true?
That’s the current headline on Al Jazeera’s Arabic homepage. Any militant Islamic site is likely to be as similarly-meaningful to most Americans (or Europeans).
That aside, no, there’s probably a tacit understanding that it’s not a good idea to publicise such sites. When they come to such prominence, one of several things will happen:
The site might be taken down very quickly. This would probably be the most likely occurence if it wasn’t actually directly connected to the militants - often the ‘claims of responsibility’ etc. are posted on message boards.
The relevant authorities will be very keen to analyse traffic to the site, and so the media publishing the address would be damaging
The site contains unsuitable material, such as graphic videos
The site in question links to such material
And other things I can’t think of at the moment