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Abu Musab al Zarqawi

Abu Musab al Zarqawi

al-Qaeda

Arabia

Jordanian

Deceased

20060228

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Home Front: WoT

US wants Israel to try Gitmo prisoner for 2002 Kenya bombing — report

2016-12-10

[IsraelTimes] Mohammed Bajabu allegedly confessed to attack at Israeli-owned Mombasa hotel; process said held up by FBI reluctance to share evidence. The United States has reportedly asked Israel to accept and prosecute a Kenyan man held at Guantanamo Bay over his alleged involvement in a deadly 2002 bombing at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa. According to US government documents, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, 43, has confessed to a role in the terror attack, as well as an unsuccessful attempt to down an Israeli passenger plane that same day, the Miami Herald reported. Thirteen people -- 10 Kenyans and three Israelis -- were killed and 80 others were maimed when a boom-mobile went off at Mombasa’s Paradise Hotel on November 28, 2002, shortly after a large group of Israeli tourists checked into the beachfront resort. At around the same time, a surface to-air missile targeted but missed an Arkia plane carrying 271 people as it took off from Mombasa airport. Kenyan authorities incarcerated I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! Bajabu in Mombasa in 2007, and turned him over to the US. He has been held at the US military prison without charge. The Herald reported that US officials traveled to Israel in April this year to discuss the possibility of transferring Bajabu to Israel for prosecution over his role in both attacks. Though Israeli authorities had expressed interest in accepting Bajabu, the transfer has been delayed for months by the FBI refusal to share the prisoner’s confession from his 2007 interrogations. "The government of Israel has repeatedly asked for information to support their possible prosecution. But, for reasons that are unclear, the FBI has declined to provide the information that has been requested by senior Israeli prosecutors," an unnamed US government official told The Herald. "They want to see the incriminating statements. And that’s where we are stuck -- and have been for many months -- which is frustrating." That ought to change shortly after January 20, 2017. Kenya has unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute the other alleged suspects in the 2002 attacks. In 2005, a High Court justice acquitted four Kenyan nationals accused of involvement in the attacks over lack of evidence. The attacks were credited to al-Qaeda’s east Africa affiliate, but Kenyan Judge John Osiemo said state prosecutors were unable to connect the four suspects to the bombing or the terror group. This is why jihadis should be treated as spies instead of criminals, something a PoliSci/Harvard Law guy with limited experience might not be equipped to understand. This article from 2005 lays out some of the connections between the local miscreants and Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

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Arabia

Ex-wanted Saudi was Qaeda commander, returned from Iran

2016-10-26

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Wanted Saudi man Osama Ali Abdullah Damjan -- who surrendered himself to police in early October--was reportedly a senior al-Qaeda commander who likely fled to Iran. Damjan left Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... to Afghanistan in 2001 before the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, sources speaking to Alarabiya.net revealed. The sources claimed that Damjan was admitted to al-Qaeda’s Al Farooq training camp near Kandahar, one of the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... 's key bases. Damjan had been training at the camp during bin Laden’s presence. Bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra... and Abu Musab al Zarqawi -- the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq -- also received training in the same place. After the United States waged war on al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, Damjan joined the terrorist group’s commanders who fled to Iran. In 2003, Damjan -- who was also known under the Islamist alias "Abu Jawahir" -- appeared in Iraq fighting along Al Zarqawi, and was later appointed as the emir of the Iraqi city of Qaem. Conflicting reports on websites affiliated with al-Qaeda reported that Damjan was killed in 2010 in Wazoo, Pakistain. Other websites said he died inside a prison in the ISIS-stronghold Syrian city of Raqqa, which could reflect that the al-Qaeda commander was not on good terms with ISIS. However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... Damjan was still alive and surrendered himself to police in early October, the Saudi Interior Ministry stated Tuesday. The ministry said he "had contacted the security authorities in the Kingdom and expressed his wish to return and surrender himself to security authorities," according to a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency. Damjan arrived in Saudi Arabia on October 4, 2016.

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Arabia

Zarqawi's nephew killed in Yemen

2012-06-24

Nephew of one-time (now completely dead) leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi has joined his uncle in complete deadness. Looks like he was zapped in early May.

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Terror Networks

The New Mastermind of Jihad

2012-04-12

A taste. A recently freed Islamist thinker has long advocated small-scale, independent acts of anti-Western terror Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Islamist gunman who hunted down three Jewish children and a rabbi after murdering three French paratroopers in Toulouse last month, didn't act alone. In his journey from the slums of Toulouse, to the local mosques, to the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan that he described to French police, to filming his murder of the terrified children in order to post video clips on the web, Mr. Merah was following a path marked out years earlier by the coldblooded jihadist theoretician Abu Musab al-Suri. According to the baby naming sites, Musab is an uncommon name in Islamic communities. It is a masculine name of Arabic origin and is said to mean 'Undefeatable'. In Islamic belief Musab was the name of a 'Sahabah', a disciple of the prophet Mohammed. Perhaps that last is why al Zarqawi's full nom de guerre was Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Once called "the most dangerous terrorist you've never heard of" by CNN, Mr. al-Suri, whose real name is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, served in the days before 9/11 as the facilitator who took Western reporters to meet with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Photographs of him from those trips show a well-built man with pale white skin, a red beard and blue eyes who--Afghan garb aside--would not look out of place in an Irish pub or a cafe in Brussels. Mr. al-Suri's plans for a wave of "individual jihad" in the West are contained in "A Call to a Global Islamic Resistance," a 1,600-page book that he published on the Web in 2005, shortly before he was apprehended in Pakistan with a $5 million CIA bounty on his head. The manifesto combines strikingly clearheaded historical analysis with trenchant commentary on what he saw as two decades of strategic and operational failures by jihadists. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a short-term public-relations success for al Qaeda, Mr. al-Suri conceded, but American cruise missiles had made short work of the group's havens in Afghanistan, and Western special forces and intelligence agencies had decimated the ranks of its fighters and crippled the global jihadist movement. What Mr. al-Suri learned from the Afghan debacle and from al Qaeda's subsequent defeat in Iraq was that jihadists were all but helpless in battle against modern Western armies. In place of old-fashioned hierarchical terror organizations, which had failed, he called for a global struggle in which shadowy motivators and facilitators would prompt jihadists to train and arm themselves in independent, self-generating terror cells that would target Western civilians. His goal: a relentless campaign of exemplary acts of violence under a single ideological banner, culminating in the use of weapons of mass destruction. Read the whole thing. Also click on each name to see more articles on the gentleman in the Rantburg archives -- we've been following his exploits for quite some time. And for the really curious, Mr. al-Suri has a nice write-up in Wikipedia.

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Afghanistan

Jordanian al Qaedan Blown Up in Afghanistan

2011-06-15

Killed by air raid or artillery, or both. A martyrdom statement for Mahmoud Hamdan Nizal, who was known as Abu Dher al Urduni, was published by a member of the Shumukh al-Islam forum, which is frequented by members of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The statement was released on June 12, 2011 and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. Nizal was from the Jordanian city of Zarqa, the home town of slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Doesn't speak well of that town, does it? According to the statement, Nizal was killed during US air and artillery strikes in the Bermel district of Paktika province "where the lions of al Qaeda were in an operation against a base belonging to the Crusaders." The date of Nizal's death was not disclosed. Nizal was "preparing rockets to launch at the filthy base of the Crusaders" when he and his team were discovered by US troops, who launched a counterattack. Well, pre-emptive strike, more than a counterattack, but who's quibbling.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan puts on trial pro-Taliban terrorists

2011-01-18

[Pak Daily Times] The Paleostinian-born mentor of slain al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi pleaded innocent. No, no! Certainly not! at the opening of his trial on terrorism charges in Jordan on Monday. Isam Muhammed Taher al Barqawi and three other Jordanian-Paleostinians, including a runaway who is being tried in absentia, are charged with recruiting Islamic fascisti in Jordan to join a "terrorist organisation" identified as the Taliban in Afghanistan. The four are also charged with attempting to harm Jordan's relations with Afghanistan. If convicted, they face 15 years in jail. The prosecution indictment said the Jordanian cell sought to help the Taliban in its "terror attacks" against US and other troops in Afghanistan. It said the four raised funds from unspecified donors in Jordan and tried to go to Afghanistan to join the "terrorist" Taliban, but that their plan failed because al Barqawi, being the prime suspect, was jugged last September.

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Home Front: Politix

Petraeus brings change in leadership but similarity in style

2010-06-27

On paper, it appeared to be a winning team for President Obama and his new plan to fix Afghanistan: a celebrated general, a master of counterinsurgency strategy overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as head of CENTCOM, with his his protege running the war in Afghanistan. The two -- Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal -- had enjoyed success because of their military minds. Ask around the Pentagon, and the phrase most often used in connection with both is "brilliant." While coming from different paths, both generals have a good deal of similarities. After the now-infamous Rolling Stone article, however, it is clear that Petraeus alone has the savvy to survive in Washington. An academic with political deftness, Petraeus approaches combat with a mix of military and diplomacy, the essence of counterinsurgency. Petraeus made his first big mark with a successful air assault in northern Iraq in 2003 and kept the region U.S.-friendly while the rest of the country spiraled into chaos. He then used the counterinsurgency strategy to help bolster the U.S. war effort in Iraq for President George W. Bush. His reward: running Central Command, which oversees both wars, as well as being responsible for other tricky spots like Yemen and Iran. A year ago, McChrystal was appointed the head of Afghanistan operations, highly recommended by both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The nail-chewing Special Operations officer made a name for himself in Iraq by hunting down and killing the country's most-wanted terrorist, al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He also was familiar with Afghanistan after leading Special Operations Forces there. U.S. military officials who know him tell CNN he is a minimalist who prefers to stay in the field with his men and has a dislike for "flash and flair," according to one Army official familiar with McChrystal's work, but who would not speak on the record. McChrystal expected something similar from his troops, stripping his headquarters of the in-house cafe and ordering the closure of fast-food restaurants on the biggest base, Bagram. Petraeus, according to an Army official close to the general who was not authorized to speak on the record, likes a bit more comfort and does not mind some "flash." Troops that have worked with both generals say the one thing they have in common is they are loved by the lower-ranking troops because they both make constant, direct contact with them in the field. McChrystal was known to visit troops on the front line and literally eat, drink, and sleep in the same areas with them, according to officials. Petraeus is known to also go into the field, commending good work and encouraging troops to contact him directly to discuss it, according to Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman for three years. The leadership style of the generals has been similar as well, according to Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution military analyst who has advised McChrystal and knows Petraeus well. "I think that both are extreme workaholics, very energetic. Both of them are good communicators," according to O'Hanlon. "Both are extraordinarily respected. Petraeus is, of course, known now to be a historic figure, not only in terms of his accomplishments but as a public profile, and McChrystal has been a quieter figure through the years," he said. Generals are also as good as the people they have surrounding them, and sources seem to agree that both men have surrounded themselves with extraordinary staff. "He had and has a diverse staff," Boylan said of Petraeus. "He likes to bring in people for their abilities, not necessarily their backgrounds," he said. But Petraeus has a doctorate and does keep a staff with other Ph.D.s. "He likes getting everyone out of their comfort zones, because he believes that is the best way to get good ideas and more diverse thoughts and potential solutions to problems," according to Boylan. McChrystal surrounded himself with a staff of similar backgrounds as his own from Special Forces, according to military officials. "There are different, specific individuals, but they are not totally different types," according to O'Hanlon. "They're all cerebral, hardworking. Frankly, they're quite loyal, quite respectful, despite this magazine portrayal," he said. However, one military official who would not speak on the record thinks McChrystal's undoing may have been that his staff was from a similar Special Operations background. Special operations forces as tradecraft stay out of the limelight and the media to keep their anonymity. "Gen. McChrystal and the special operations community have not been offered the opportunities to learn the art of dealing with the media. They tend to avoid media engagements at all levels," the official said. "His staff either did not understand the differences, didn't care about the differences, or were so frustrated [with the administration] that they were blinded by the differences," the official said when referring to the rule of working with reporters. Despite how the article's tale of the staff played out, O'Hanlon said it is a "reflection of bad judgment on the staff." But, he says, "I've seen him [McChrystal] in action and been around him in private settings, and he doesn't act like this typically, nor does his staff." And ROEs. Don't forget the ROEs.

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Iraq

Abu Ayyub al Masri in Iraq since 2002 for Al Qaeda

2010-04-21

Will we hear that the rest of the Al Qaeda in Iraq leadership was killed over the next few days? Nb: The original article has embedded links to supporting documentation which I did not reproduce here. Click on the headline to go there. The U.S. military has confirmed that the two most senior members of al Qaeda in Iraq were killed in a joint raid conducted with Iraqi forces Sunday morning. The two terrorists killed in the raid are: Abu Ayyub al Masri (aka Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir, the military leader of al Qaeda in Iraq) and Hamid Dawud Muhammad Khalil al Zawi (aka Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, the overall leader of AQI). But here is one fact the press is not likely to trumpet: Abu Ayyub al Masri set up shop in Saddam's Iraq roughly ten months prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. His presence there was tracked by the CIA. The agency was even concerned that al Masri and his al Qaeda compatriots might be planning terrorist attacks outside of Iraq from Baghdad. In his book, At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet details some of the evidence the CIA collected on the relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda prior to March 2003. Tenet revealed that the agency, which was divided on the extent of the relationship, had compiled "more than enough evidence" connecting the two. In other words, contrary to what is now the conventional wisdom, there was a relationship between the Baathist regime and the jihadist terror network. The CIA just wasn't sure how close the relationship was. In particular, the CIA tracked Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who would go on to lead al Qaeda in Iraq, as well as an al Qaeda affiliate named Ansar al Islam (AI). Tenet says that AI established training camps in northeastern Iraq and as many as 200 al Qaeda terrorists relocated to the camps, which became a "hub for al-Qa'ida operations."

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Arabia

Combating Al Qaeda Means Protecting Islam

2010-01-12

By Tariq Alhomayed Many among us ignored Al Qaeda's infiltration of Yemen despite the continuous warnings of the threat that this poses. As soon as the US President spoke about the Al Qaeda threat in Yemen, some people began to warn against US intervention. In fact they used this to blackmail the Yemeni government and expose it, internally and externally, and to criticize the Jordanians and the Saudis because of their cooperation with the West in the war on terror in a clear case of blackmail. The question here is: who has been harmed the most by what Al Qaeda is doing, the West or the Arabs and Muslims? Who is being subjected to harassment and suspected at the airports, Westerners or Arabs and Muslims? Who is facing difficulties in their studies and in their work, and whilst undergoing treatment or whilst on holiday, the West or the Arabs and Muslims? It is the Arabs and Muslims, of course, who have been suffering since the outbreak of violent terrorist acts as they have become suspects and they are being harassed more and more. As a result, we must realize that the war on terror has to be our war before anyone else's war. When we wage war on Al Qaeda we are protecting ourselves and our reputation and we are protecting our children who extremists are trying to turn into time bombs. Above all, we will be protecting our religion that Al Qaeda has hijacked. For instance, when Jordan cooperates with the West, or the Americans let us say, then they should be credited for this action. Are the Jordanians expected to wait until other violent explosions take place in their country like those that targeted their hotels, or should they wait for another Abu Musab al Zarqawi or Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi to rise from among them? The same applies to the Saudis; is Riyadh expected to remain silent in the face of intimidation and media incitement and let whoever wants to trade in the lives of our children do so, or should it wait for whoever to come out and carry out new destructive terrorist attacks in the country, or wait for a new Bin Laden or a new Abdulaziz al Muqrin to emerge? The game of treachery and branding [others] as traitors has been revealed and it must be confronted instead of going along with it or [merely] observing it. When the state cooperates with the international community this means that the state is doing its job. States do not negotiate with or seek to please terrorists. Above all, as mentioned previously, our duty is to protect our reputation and the reputation of our innocent religion against Al Qaeda and its actions. What we must realize is that every time we give in to intimidation and media incitement we give Al Qaeda and others more space to move about freely and, consequently, to recruit more of our children and target our stability and security, our reputation and the reputation of our religion. For that reason we say and we repeat that a serious ideological war, not a superficial war, is necessary to combat terror, its Sheikhs, its instigators, and its media. Equally, international cooperation is very important whether this is through training, [sharing] information or combating funding [of terrorism] and even cooperation in military operations. What we want to say is that we must not give into blackmail and campaigns of incitement and suspicion. In fact we must confront these campaigns and refute them for one very simple but important reason; when we fight Al Qaeda, physically and mentally, we are defending the reputation of our religion. It is our battle first and foremost. We must realize that and not be ashamed, and we must expose the instigators and the blackmailers whether they are states, groups or even individuals.

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Arabia

Popular Arab TV program exposes the real Al Qaeda

2009-09-03

The show is called "Death Making" in Arabic, hardly the way Al Qaeda probably wants itself described. But that is how the powerful pan-Arabic satellite channel Al Arabiya casts the terror organization and its foot soldiers in its popular television program. Hosted by female correspondent Rima Salha, the Dubai-based show is heading into its third year on Al Arabiya and aims to influence how the Arab world views Al Qaeda. "As we know, there are lots of Muslims who are brainwashed so they believe in terrorism but there are also big sections of Muslims who sympathize with terrorists," says Salha. "We are targeting those people and trying to explain to them that terrorism is not a good thing." It is a unique program that lets jihadists tell their stories, and then shows the results of their actions. "It's not enough to tell you that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. You have to understand why, what it means, how everything works, and what the end goal is for them," Al Arabia's general manager Abdul Rahman al-Rashed explains. For her work, Salha, who is Lebanese, gets death threats, including when Osama bin Laden's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, singled the show and Al Arabiya out, by weaving video of both into one of his multi-media diatribes against mass media. Al Rashed said that the video made "a lot of problems for Al Qaeda," because "they have different factions within Al Qaeda." "There are a lot of programs debating the issue of terrorism, a lot of debating," says al Rashed. "But this is the only program with field trips, with special footage, with a lot of revelations in it." Despite the threats, Salah is undeterred. She goes to the jihadists, where they are: in refugee camps off limits even to security forces and to Iraq. She and her team convince subjects to talk to them. It's not easy, but some of these militants apparently think they stand to benefit from a bit of publicity. She's interviewed the family of the late leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Kamal Habib who was one of the organizers of the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Habib has since renounced violence and went on Salha's show critical of his old associate al Zawahiri's continued use of violence. The topic of terrorism is so hot that Salha gets attacked from all sides. "They accuse me of fighting jihad, they accuse me of destroying the image of Islam. This is not true. We are not distorting the image of Islam," says Salha. "The program is just trying to show some facts about terrorism and these so-called jihadists. Of course I receive threats on a regular basis, but that does not prevent me from doing my mission." "We also, in the show, highlighted victims of terrorism, and when I say victims, I also include the terrorists themselves and their family because they are also victims of brainwashing and radical views," says Salha. She says though the name of the program is "Death Making," she hopes its effect is ultimately the opposite. "We also target youngsters and the aim of the program, and I said, is to help try to get these poor people get over these radical views."

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Science & Technology

How robot drones revolutionized the face of warfare

2009-07-24

CNN- Barely an hour's drive from the casinos of Las Vegas, a group of unassuming buildings have become as important as the trenches were to WWI. The big difference? Today's warriors are fighting without getting in harm's way, using drones to attack targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Major Morgan Andrews is one such combatant. He kisses his wife goodbye, drives to Creech, a tiny desert air force base in Nevada, and within minutes could be killing insurgents on the other side of the world. Andrews fights not from the seat of the F16 he joined the air force to fly but from a darkened ground control station. He pilots a remote-controlled Predator, a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) which can spy on and attack positions and personnel without risk to its controller, shooting deadly Hellfire missiles at enemy fighters in support of fellow soldiers. "You're talking to them on the radios as if we were in a normal airplane flying overhead," says Andrews. "You see the imagery, you know what's going on, you see what you're looking at. It's very easy when something like that is happening to project yourself there and feel a part of the battle. Like I said, your heart starts racing a little bit." Is remote-controlled warfare a good or a bad idea? Tell us what you think. Meanwhile, intelligence analysts get to see images in real time and can identify personnel on the ground. There are now more than 7,000 UAVs ranging from the workhorse, the Predator, and its beefier, deadlier kin the Reaper, to army drones like the tiny hand-launched Raven and the larger Shadow. The drones are dramatically tilting the war in favor of the United States. Predators, for example, played a key role in killing al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi in 2006. UAVs are credited with killing more than half al Qaeda's top 20 leaders. Now U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wants more UAVs. Already he has said that the next generation of fighter planes -- the F-35 that took decades to develop at a cost of more than half-a-billion dollars each -- will be the last manned fighter aircraft. Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF, explains that the next phase will enable a single drone to provide as many as 60 simultaneous live video feeds directly to combat troops. Some new drones will be as small as flies, others walk -- all appear destined to work with decreasing human input. "The future of how you use these un-manned systems or remotely piloted systems is really unlimited," says Deptula, based at the Pentagon and racing to keep pace with battlefield needs as well as Gates's demands. "We need to open our minds and think more about capability and impact we are going to achieve as opposed to how we've done business in the past." At Creech, frontline requests surged when weapons were first put on the Predator. In Iraq and Afghanistan drones have become so indispensable that missions are cancelled if they are not available

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Iraq

Former civilian senior adviser to Iraq’s MoI talks

2009-07-16

Matthew Degn worked as a civilian interrogator attached to the U.S. Army in Iraq before working as a Senior Policy/Intelligence Adviser to Deputy General Kamal and other top intelligence officials with the Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Degn continues to argue against those that feel there was no link between terrorism and Saddam Hussein's regime based on his involvement with hundreds of interrogations in Iraq and his involvement with many of the Iraqi Intelligence officials with the Ministry of Interior. Degn says that much of the public perception about Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorism are incorrect. When asked about recent media reports citing Saddam Hussein's denial to the FBI about links to al Qaeda Degn viewed these reports as part of an ongoing attempt to rewrite history saying these reports stand in stark contrast to what he saw and heard firsthand in Iraq. In fact, Degn said that to many of the detainees links between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups including al Qaeda was not even a point of contention but freely acknowledged. Many of the high value detainees took it as a given that their captors were aware of Iraq - al Qaeda links. Some even bragged about those links. When pressed for specifics Degn said that Hussein's regime, like many other Middle Eastern groups, used the "Hawala" system to secretly move money to al Qaeda and made it nearly impossible to "prove" in a legal system that the transfers took place. The "Hawala" system uses multiple layers of middle men couriers to transfer money and leaves no paper trail, making tracing such transactions virtually impossible. Degn said that Iraqi assistance given to al Qaeda also included safehaven. Degn said al Qaeda used that safehaven for at least two training camps in Western Iraq and the Anbar province. Degn argued that Saddam Hussein's government was certainly aware that the provision of safehaven was being used for these camps. Degn said he had heard reports that indicated that al Qaeda affiliates had multiple, possibly competing, cells in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's Iraq. One cell was affiliated with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who had not yet "officially" sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Another al Qaeda cell, linked to Ayman al Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was reportedly simultaneously operating in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This detail appears to match up with that of former CIA Director George Tenet's and Major General William Caldwell on the topic. He cited this as an example of the ability of al Qaeda's cells to operate independently, a theme he heard more than once during his interactions. Degn said that from what he saw it was true that many al Qaeda operatives got directives and money from al Qaeda's core closest to Osama bin Laden but many were capable of making independent decisions and relationships. Degn said that while Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda did have mixed feelings for one another, at best, Hussein praised nearly all of al Qaeda's attacks as well as anti-Western attacks committed by other terror groups. Degn argued that if he didn't have some kind of hand in these attacks that he certainly wanted to as he definitely considered the U.S. an enemy (as well as Iran) and thus supported a number of Sunni groups. Degn says that at least some of the U.S. intelligence community likely knew of the support for regional anti-Western Sunni groups all along.

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