Acme Commerce, a Kuala Lumpur-based web hosting firm, told the Associated Press that the site that hosted the grisly video has been removed, and would have been shut down earlier if its alleged al-Qaeda links had been known.
The web site www.al-ansar.biz, a politically oriented Arab-language site critical of Saudi Arabian policies and supportive of al-Qaeda, was not accessible on Friday. Al-Ansar means The Helpers in Arabic.
The domain al-ansar.biz, a Whois lookup shows, is registered to a Danish physical address, a Hotmail email address and a phone number in Kuwait. Inaccurate Whois data is frequently provided by people wishing to remain anonymous.
The domain was registered with Go Daddy Software Inc, the second-largest domain name registrar. A spokesperson confirmed that the domain had been registered through Go Daddy and said that the firm is on it. She would not elaborate.
The domain appears to have been registered in violation of the policies of NeuLevel, the .biz registry operator, which forbids .biz domains being used for noncommercial purposes such as political commentary.
