Amidst claims that New Zealand is on high alert and there is heightened vigil on terror and more anti-terror laws in the pipeline, news about the clandestine operations of a couple of terror websites supporting the Islamic State, has broke out.

The disclosure about the terror sites and their registration to an Auckland address has shocked all. Initially, the site was traced to a web hosting company in Iceland named as ISNIC. But its director Jens Petur later told media that the domain was actually registered on Sept. 14th to a man living in New Zealand and the web-host is located in Hamburg, Germany, reported TV.NZ.

The Icelandic authorities' confirmed that the domain khilafa.is site originally belonged to Private Box, which is a mail forwarding company in Auckland. One more extremist website named as "qa.af" also had the same address. The second site was online till Tuesday night.

Government Tight Lipped

The government sources refused to comment. In fact, the media queries were not answered, Rather they were deflected to various agencies such as Police, Internal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Chris Finlayson, Minister for the Security Intelligence Services (SIS) and the Government Security Communications Bureau (GCSB).

A security expert said the operations of a terrorist website showed that New Zealand lacks seriousness in monitoring websites. Security analyst and political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan said the case reminded him of criminals, who in the past used shell companies registered in New Zealand, reported NZ Herald.

Security Lapse

Buchanan said he was puzzled why Iceland uncovered the Auckland connection long before the local authorities could do it. He said agencies in New Zealand have the necessary powers under the GCSB and Telecommunications Acts to monitor the Internet traffic. He called the incident a grave security lapse. Meanwhile, the revelation about the terror website jolted Mr. Gareth Foster, Managing director of Private Box. He told media persons that he was "horrified" to know some terror websites been registered in his company's name.

The ISNIC managing director Jens Petur Jensson suspects that the domain name ending in .is might be attracting the ISIS cadres. ISNIC hosts 50,000 domain names and said it was the first time it deleted a domain name because of its content.