Bellevue firm tied to pro-Hamas Web site

A Bellevue company has helped support a Web site dedicated to advancing Hamas, an Islamic organization the U.S. government considers a terrorist group. The site features videos of Humvees blowing up and U.S. soldiers being killed.

The site was down temporarily yesterday but was working again last evening. Content included a training video of the "Mujahideen Army" and a message to the American people that said in part they had "elected criminals and are responsible for their actions."

The Bellevue company, eNom, apparently is one of the Web's largest registrars. That means it sells Internet addresses, or domains. Records show the registrar for the pro-Hamas site is eNom.

John Kane, eNom's vice president of business development, yesterday said the company has 4 million registered users, and that it was impossible to police each one.

Web-site content is a freedom-of-speech issue, he said, and the company can't act as "judge and jury." Unless the company hears from the federal government, it has no plans to cut off the site, Kane said.

Juan Carlos Zarate, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary dealing with terrorist financing, said yesterday Hamas appears on the government's list of 400 individuals and entities designated as "foreign terrorist organizations."

It is illegal for U.S. companies and citizens to do business with such groups, he said. Zarate said he could not speak specifically to the situation involving the pro-Hamas site and eNom. "But in theory, that is a problematic transaction," he said of the business relationship.

Commercial transactions include sending, paying or receiving money or offering other types of services in exchange for money to a recognized terrorist organization or to a designated terrorist supporter, Zarate said.

In addition to charging for Internet addresses, eNom also hosts Web sites, though it's not clear whether it hosts the pro-Hamas site.

Zarate said it's "not common, but not unusual" for Internet companies to provide services to terrorist groups. On top of First Amendment issues, Zarate acknowledged that it could be difficult for such companies "to know what an organization is or who they are."

"But from our perspective," he said, "it's very important that Internet service providers and others in the U.S. business community not interact and not support in any way terrorist groups."

The pro-Hamas site's content has included the videos of last year's beheading of U.S. contractor Nick Berg and of the helicopter shot down by missile fire north of Baghdad earlier this week, killing 11 people, including six American contractors.

Mark, a man who runs a Web business in Wisconsin and asked that only his first name be used, said he learned of the site yesterday and contacted eNom to bring it to the company's attention. He said he reached an eNom tech-support worker who told him he was disturbed by the content, partly because the worker had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq as a Marine.

"I could tell he was upset but very professional," Mark said.

Times staff reporter Sonia Krishnan contributed to this report. Peter Lewis: 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com