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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IS Secretly Near Israel Border, Syrian Rebel Group Says
2014-09-17
[IsraelTimes] The Islamic State terror group is operating sleeper cells in southern Syria near the border with Israel, a front man for the opposition's Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
 charged Sunday.

The front man, speaking to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to communicate with Israeli media, said that some of the 6,000 Islamist fighters who fled southward toward the borders with Israel and Jordan in July actually belong to the Islamic State, not to the less extreme Nusra Front as previously believed.

The two Islamist organizations had clashed militarily in a struggle for control over oil-rich northeastern Syria, in which the Islamic State triumphed. The Times of Israel could not confirm the information, which was recently conveyed to the front man from a number of different sources.

While both are opposed to the rule of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
, the Free Syrian Army, a moderate rebel group, and Islamic State have fought a number of fierce battles in Syria.

"There are sleeper cells in the south, which are hidden. They don't do anything [military] at all," the front man said of IS. "Many people [in the moderate Syrian opposition] are following them and will strike at them before they organize."

According to the intelligence agency of the Free Syrian Army, Islamic State activists would approach individuals in the area, offering them basic food staples or financial aid.

"They say: 'Stay at home, no one will know about you. The moment we need you, we'll call.'" The front man said that many locals refused the IS overtures, but that could change given the region's grave poverty.

Prices have skyrocketed recently, he added, with a liter of diesel fuel costing $15, for example.

Two villages where IS representatives made such proposals are Hayt and Sahem Al-Jawlan, near the Syrian-Jordanian border, the front man said.

"They were sent by the Islamic State to control the largest portion of land possible," he said. "We are against them wholeheartedly. They have nothing to do with Islam, which they merely use as a cover."

Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria at Tel Aviv University, said he was unaware of the IS presence in southern Syria, but was not surprised by the new information.

"The Islamic State is trying to establish itself all across Syria," he told The Times of Israel. "The organization is going through a process of transformation. Other groups [in Syria] are trying to associate themselves with it and pledge allegiance to it. Some do so out of fear of IS, while others hope to benefit from it in the future."

Zisser doubted, however, that the holy warrior group currently had a military presence in the south.

Focused against Assad
The FSA front man said relations between his group and al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate vanquished by IS in northern Syria, were "tense" and could erupt in armed confrontation at any moment. For the time being, however, the field commanders of the Free Syrian Army have decided to focus their limited military capabilities on the Assad regime, he said.

Al-Nusra Front is still holding Sharif as-Safouri, the commander of the FSA's Al-Haramein Battalion kidnapped in July, who has confessed on video to military collaboration with Israel. Another FSA commander, Colonel Ahmad Al-Ni'meh, has been held captive by Al-Nusra Front since early May.

The Free Syrian Army currently controls the entire border between Israel and Syria, including the Quneitra border crossing, wrested from the Assad regime by opposition forces including the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in late August, the front man said.

The Assad regime still controls areas further inland, between Quneitra and Daraa, including Tel Al-Hara and As-Sanamayn. Further east, the regime controls the 52nd Brigade in Daraa and two military airports in the area.

A new military corps is being formed in southern Syria by the Free Syrian Army to incorporate some 40 fighting units in the Daraa region, and will be known as "Failaq (Corps) 1." The battalions that will form the core of the new unit are Karamah, Special Operations, Ahl As-Sunna and Al-Haramein.

The front man said that the Free Syrian Army was conducting daily negotiations with Western donor states in a bid to arm the new unit, which will be headed by Colonal Ziad Al-Hariri, commander of the Karamah Battalion.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Rebel Commander Says He Collaborated With Israel
2014-08-15
[IsraelTimes] A Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
 commander, jugged
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
 last month by the Islamist militia Al-Nusra Front, told his captors he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week.
"I'll say it. I'll say it! Only don't show anyone that photo of me with frilly underpants on my head!!!! AIEEEEE! *sob!*
In a video uploaded to YouTube Monday by the Executive Sharia Council in the eastern Daraa Region, an Islamic court established by Al-Nusra in southern Syria, Sharif As-Safouri, the commander of the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
's Al-Haramein Battalion, admitted to having entered Israel five times to meet with Israeli officers who later provided him with Soviet anti-tank weapons and light arms. Safouri was kidnapped by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in the Quneitra area, near the Israeli border, on July 22.
Guess what he's got?
"The [opposition] factions would receive support and send the injured in [to Israel] on condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israel authorities," Safouri said in the video.

Israel has never admitted to arming moderate Syrian rebels, who have been engaged in battle against the Assad regime and its allies since March 2011. In June, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, head of Military Intelligence research, told the Herzliya Conference that 80 percent of Syria's oppositionists are Islamists of various shades, indicating that Israel was reluctant to collaborate with them.

Thousands of al-Qaeda-linked rebels reached southern Syria over the past month, fleeing the Islamic State which had captured large swaths of land in northern and northeastern Syria. While Al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
 have collaborated in the battlefield against the Assad regime, friction has intensified as the Islamists began to implement their stringent version of Islam in the area, establishing local Sharia courts.

In the edited confession video, in which Safouri seems physically unharmed,
"Be convincing, or we'll get out the lacy ones..."
he says that at first he met with an Israeli officer named Ashraf at the border and was given an Israeli cellular phone. He later met with another officer named Younis and with the two men's commander, Abu Daoud. In total, Safouri said he entered Israel five times for meetings that took place in Tiberias.

Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with "basic medical support and clothes" as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian [rifles], 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.

While opposition websites denied that Safouri was a collaborator, claiming his entries into Israel were for medical purposes alone, regime media celebrated Safouri's confession as proof of the Free Syrian Army
... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund...
's treachery. On August 1, dozens of demonstrators erupted into the streets of the village of Hayt, Safouri's hometown near Syria's borders with Jordan and Israel, to protest his abduction, condemning Al-Nusra Front for the act.
Link


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
FSB director confirms death of Abu Omar al-Saif
2005-12-16
FSB director Nikolai Patrushev reported that that special services in Dagestan had eliminated an envoy of the Al-Qaeda international terrorist network in the North Caucasus Abu Omar.

Al-Qaeda’s leading representative in the North Caucasus, international terrorism ‘ideologist’ sheikh Abu Omar As-Seif was eliminated in Dagestan in November,’ FSB director said at the meeting with leading media groups in Moscow on Friday.

According to him, the documents confiscated from Omar and planned for sending abroad, ‘outlines his vision of prospects of the Islamic terrorist movement worldwide and offer recommendations concerning strategy and tactics for the development of the so called ‘green international.’

According to FSB, in Russia Abu Omar was sent to the North Caucasus nearly ten years ago by Osama bin Laden.

Omar helped organize underground terrorist cells in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia using the Al-Haramein Islamic Foundation international non-governmental organizations as a cover.

FSB spokesman said that Omar had been a so called ‘chairman of the Shariah judges’ committee of the Chechen republic of Ichkeria in the last few years.’ The late militant leader Aslan Maskhadov’s successor Sadulayev discussed with Abu Omar all appointments in the armed groups.

Abu Omar ‘received and distributed funds coming from abroad to stage terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage in Russia’, an FSB spokesman said. Abu Omar met with Maskhadov, Basaev, Hattab, Sadulayev and other leaders of the armed groups and financed their terrorist activity.

‘The Al-Qaeda envoy played an active part in plotting terrorist attacks as well as in promoting extremist religious and political ideas’, the FSB representative said.

According to the Russian special services information, Omar lived in Ingushetia before 2005, but moved to Dagestan the same year ‘to tackle the strategic task of making this republic the main venue for terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage’, the FSB representatives further said.

As was reported earlier, Omar, a Saudi national, was appointed Al-Qaeda’s envoy to Chechnya after another international terrorist, Abu al-Walid, was killed in April 2004.

Adam Dekushev, a suspect in the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, said the terrorist attacks had been masterminded by Omar. Dekushev confessed he was trained as a shot-firer in the Omar’s camp.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Dagestan investigation focusing on the role of Jordanian al-Qaeda member
2005-08-20
The law enforcement bodies of Daghestan (a Russian constituent republic on the Caspian Sea) investigated the September 29, 2004 attack on policemen in Khasavyurt. The Daghestani Interior Ministry said that the attacker was Jordanian Abu Jarah Urduni. This international terrorist was eliminated on May 17, 2005 during a special operation near Khasavyurt (a town in northwestern Daghestan on the border with Chechnya where the second Chechen campaign began in 1999).

Jarah was an Al Qaeda emissary in the North Caucasus and had links with the Muslim Brothers and Al-Haramein terrorist organizations, as well as terrorist leaders Shamil Basayev, Aslan Maskhadov, Khattab, Abu al-Walid, etc. He was involved in many terrorist acts in Chechnya, the regional operative headquarters for the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus said. Jarah was trained to make and use explosive devices and poisons in a Talib camp in Afghanistan. He also helped organize a terrorist training network in Chechnya.
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Europe
Dutch Court states Dutch Al Haramein doesn't support Al- Qaeda
2005-03-31
(Translated from Dutch Article)
A Dutch court of "law" has stated that the Al Haramein foundation in The Netherlands doesn't support al qaeda. The existance of the Dutch subsidary of the Saudi organisation is there for not prohibited according to the court. The State prosecutor asked the court to prohibit the existence as the foundation,according to the UN and US, is said to be financialy supporting al qaeda. The court stated that there was not enough evidence to proof this. The financial assets of the foundation will stay frozen as long as the organistion is on the UN sanction list.
Link


Europe
Paris: Creating state-supervised "Foundation for Islam"
2004-12-17
From the Wall Street Journal. Req's registration. Posted in full. DeVillepain hopes to control flood of jihad-supporting funds from abroad (read Saudi Arabia, among others), but this conflicts with the government's desire to generate business with those countries, a difficult dilemma.

Money is the oil of ideological warfare. With fortunes, one can buy and corrupt the souls of the faithful. Like other Western societies, France is discovering that it lets cash gush uncontrolled into its mosques and charities at its own peril.

So last week Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin announced the creation of a state-supervised "Foundation for Islam in France." By next April, this institution will manage financial contributions from Muslims abroad. The European Court of Justice forbids EU countries from blocking the flow of donations, wherever they come from. The idea here is not to stop the money from getting to France from the Muslim world, but to better regulate it -- to separate the wheat from the chaff, distinguish support for legitimate educational and religious causes from support for jihad.

For too long, radicals in the Middle East and beyond have been able to spread their views in a free and open Europe. Islamist groups hand out poisonous gifts to Muslim associations that, often penniless, accept them without asking too many questions. The problem is that those who hand out the money end up with control of Muslim organizations and mosques in France.

Until now, the French state had handled cases one by one. By coincidence, two advisers to the interior minister had an appointment at the Saudi Embassy in Paris on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, to discuss support given by the Al-Haramein Foundation to a Paris mosque. Since then, the U.S. has blacklisted Al-Haramein for its links to al Qaeda. That's good tactics, but not much of a strategy.

* * *
France has recognized the challenge posed by violent Muslim fundamentalists in at home since a series of terrorist attacks in Paris in the mid-1990s. Now Spain, after the Madrid train bombings, and the Netherlands, after last month's murder of Theo van Gogh, are also moving more seriously against this threat. But why do all these European countries meet difficulties in putting in place their ambitious plans? Simply put, the fight against the Islamists often comes into direct conflict with other government priorities.

Let's take the example of Saudi Arabia and France. For nearly a decade, Paris has been negotiating a €7 billion contract with Riyadh to provide the kingdom with border-protection services. French authorities are clearly wary of spitting on such a market and the jobs that would come with it by seeming to be overly critical of foreign sponsors of domestic Muslim groups. No senior French politician will ever criticize King Fahd or Crown Prince Abdullah for allowing stoning in Saudi Arabia. In fact, in October 2002, then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- a politician to whom a great future has been promised -- received with great honors the general secretary of the Islamic World League, Abdullah al-Turki, a supporter of the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam that holds Western values in contempt and whose dream is to introduce Sharia law to the heart of Europe.

In most EU countries, foreign policy seems to set the agenda for interior security policy. The idea of a "French Islam," constantly put forward by the government, is a vast masquerade. Though it would be absurd and criminal to regard French Muslims as some sort of a fifth column, it remains a problem that every Muslim institution in France has links with foreign powers, and, more often than not, tight ones. France has believed for too long that it could let the countries of origin keep their emigrant communities under their control. At the headquarters of Muslim organizations in France, businessmen, diplomats and secret agents from the Middle East and North Africa -- where most French Arabs hail from -- are omnipresent.

Forget abstractions. Facts have to be addressed. Consider France's two biggest Muslim organizations, which are regarded as "fundamentalist" by intelligence services. The religious affairs attaché at the Saudi Arabian Embassy long behaved like a tutor for the leaders of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), not hesitating to "frequently bring them back to the path of rigor," according to a report from the French secret services. The UOIF relies on Persian Gulf states for its financial survival, and on Sheik Qardawi, the radical who preaches on al-Jazeera, for its theological guidance.

The other large group, the National Federation of Muslims in France (FNMF), which won the most votes in the 2003 election held in mosques for the new French Muslim council, is intimately linked to Morocco. Agents of His Majesty in Rabat try to play the puppet masters, as people familiar with that organization have noticed. Recently, the president of the federation, sent by France to Iraq to help with the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to free two French journalists taken hostage there, committed the mistake of visiting a hotel in Doha to kiss the forehead of Abassi Madani, the founder of the Algerian Islamic Front of Salvation, the ultra-radical movement. To the government in Algiers, it seemed as if this Frenchman of Moroccan origin, one of the most important representatives of "French Islam," had somehow wished to irritate them and show favor to Rabat.

* * *
More "moderate" federations are no different. The government in Ankara runs and holds the purse strings for the Turkish-Islamic Union of Theological Affairs (DITIB), the main organization for Muslim Turks in France.

At the Paris Mosque, the oldest and most venerable institution of Islam in France, Algeria remains the lord of the land. The Algerian regime achieved a sort of associative "coup" when it took over the place in 1982. "We are at home here," the former French colony's religion minister said back in 1989. Since 2003, the mosque's rector, Dalil Boubakeur, has presided over the council that represents Islam in France. But until a few years ago, a colonel from the Algerian military security services was writing, or at least controlling, some of his speeches.

This is the reason it is so difficult for France to cut off the pipelines of shadowy money from the Arab world. The creation of the foundation is merely another half-measure by a government only half-committed to fight this menace. By wishing to avoid any quarrel, successive governments have allowed a threat to the Republic to grow unchallenged on its own territory. Dominique de Villepin's entourage insists that foreign countries are interested in the foundation he is planning. And delegates from the French state will sit on its administration board. But it will take a constant and flawless will to prevent France from being contaminated yet again by the disease of Islamism. Placebos aren't enough to eradicate epidemics.

Mr. Deloire, a journalist at the Paris-based weekly Le Point, and Mr. Dubois, of the daily Le Parisien, are authors of "Les Islamistes Sont Déjà Là" (Albin Michel, 2004).
Link


Caucasus
Basayev gets $10 million from al-Qaeda
2004-04-14
It's RIA Novosti via Pravda, so you know it's true.

Foreign extremist organizations, which are linked with Al-Qaeda, have set aside nearly $10 million for Shamil Basayev's gangs, reports the regional operational staff for controlling the counter terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.

Some rank-and-file bandits and leaders of illegal armed formations were detained or turned themselves in some time ago. Their subsequent interrogations revealed that such extremist organizations as Brother Moslems, Al-Haramein and the Center For Fighting Infidels, which have close ties with Al-Qaeda, had set aside nearly $10 million for Shamil Basayev's gangs and those of Abu Al-Walid, RIA Novosti learned from the staff's report April 8.

The aforesaid international extremist centers, which have their headquarters in some Arab countries, don't even bother to conceal their activities, the headquarters report reads in part. Extremists finance terrorist activities in Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with the silent consent of such countries, the report goes on to say.

According to the regional headquarters, 90 percent of this $10-million sum total crossed no borders because these funds were invested by the leaders of illegal armed formations, who have been staying abroad for quite a while, as well as by Basayev and Al-Walid, into their own business operations through their foreign relatives and cronies.

Not more than $500,000 out of the $10-million sum were delivered to Chechnya; this amount apparently includes $400,000 in counterfeit bills, the report notes.

The most part of funds were appropriated by medium-level and top ring-leaders, whose gangs are still hiding in Chechnya's mountain areas.
Link


Caucasus
The Chechen Connection
2004-01-22
Below are just some of the overlaps between Chechen-Arabs who fought (or sought to fight) in Chechnya and Al Qaeda which are credible:
--1995. Sudanese Al Qaeda defector Jamal al Fadl testifies that Osam bin Laden offered $1,500 per person (to be used for the purchase of Kalishnikov rifle and travel expenses) for jihad volunteers willing to travel to Chechnya to assist the Chechens in their struggle against the Russian ’infidels.’

--December 1996. Ayman al Zawahiri, leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and member of Al Qaeda’s ruling troika, travels to Dagestan in search of a new base of operations for his organization in response to its expulsion from Sudan. Zawahiri’s plans are foiled by Russian security services which arrest him and hold him in jail for several months.

--1999-2000. The US government claims that prior to 9/11, the Islamic Benevolence Foundation (a US-based charity that sent $700,000 to the Chechens) and Al Haramein (an international charity based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia which channeled funds to Khattab’s aide, Abu Duba, via its offices in Baku, Azerbaijan) also siphoned money to Al Qaeda. Another charity known to have sponsored the Chechen resistance was the Kifah refugee center which had close links to the Al Qaeda bombers in the 1993 WTC attack.

--September 2001. Ahmed al-Ghamidi, a Saudi jihadi who fought in Chechnya after studying engineering in Mecca, is one of the hijackers of United Airlines flight 175 which hit the south WTC tower. Another 9/11 hijacker on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon (Nawaq al Hamzi) also fought in Chechnya. Ahmed al-Haznawi, a hijacker on United Ailines flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11 is reported to have left his home in the al Baha region of Saudi Arabia in 2000 telling friends he was going to train in an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan for jihad in Chechnya.

--September 2001. Several minutes after the September 11th attack on the USA, American intelligence registers a mobile phone call from Afghanistan to the Pankisi Gorge, an inaccessible valley in Georgia that was known as the home
base for ’Chechen-Arabs’ who trained new recruits for jihad in neighboring Chechnya.

--September 2001. Mounir El Motassadeq, a member of the 9/11 Al Qaeda support network arrested in Germany, claims that Mohammad Atta, the mission leader for the attack, "really wanted to got to Chechnya to fight because of the massacre the Russians were committing there."

--August 2002. Sweeps of the Chechen-inhabited Pankisi Gorge in Georgia by American-trained Georgian forces nab one Saif al-Islam al-Masry, a member of Al Qaeda’s shura (council) and disrupt a plot by Arab jihadis training there to bomb or use improvised chemical weapons against Western (not Russian) targets in Russia and Central Asia. Interpol and Western intelligence agencies also believe that Abu Khabab (Al Qaeda’s ’mad scientist’ seen experimenting with poison gases in an Al Qaeda video seized by coalition forces in Afghanistan) transferred his operations to the Pankisi after the destruction of the Taliban.

--January 2003. British authorities arrest six North African Arabs in London accusing them of attempting to produce ricin poison in their flat. Several of those arrested are later found to have trained in the Pankisi Gorge camps with the aim of eventually fighting jihad with the Chechen-Arabs in Chechnya.

--May 2003. The Saudi mastermind of the Al Qaeda bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (which galvanized the Saudis to move against domestic Al Qaeda influence) is found to have fought in Chechnya before later traveling to Afghanistan to fight the USA and coalition forces at Tora Bora.

--November 2003. Turkish authorities claim that a deadly wave of bombings in Istanbul of British and Jewish targets were carried out by domestic militants belonging to the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders Front who were trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Several of this group’s members previously fought jihad in Chechnya.

--November 2003. Yemeni authorities arrest Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, a 32-year old Saudi citizen responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen in 2000. Al Ahdal, one of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders, previously fought in Chechnya, where he lost a leg (currently he has a prosthetic leg).
As this sampling of evidence of ’Chechen-Arab’ involvement in Al Qaeda terrorism clearly indicates, the FBI and other Western intelligence agencies should focus their investigations on the ’Chechen-Arab’ alumni of the ’jihad’ in the Caucasus.The author has found many further such examples of Chechen-Arab involvement in Al Qaeda terrorism and this group of fighters, like the Afghan-Arabs before them, represent a clear and present danger to US and Western interests.
So says Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, assistant professor of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
Link


Caucasus
Chechnya: Unravelling the links
2003-02-18
Extracted from a longer article, that's worth the read...
With the outbreak of the second Russo-Chechen War in October 1999, the Wahhabi militants formed several jamaats (Arabic 'communities', but in this context the term actually means 'platoons') which operated under the auspices of Amir Khattab's Islamic Battalion. These groups were tasked with some of the most difficult (almost suicidal) military assignments in the defense of Grozny and many of the Wahhabis had 'funerals' before going into combat as they considered themselves already to be shaheeds (martyrs) for Allah.
And good riddance to them...
Military analysts put the total number of Arab mujahideen fighting in Chechnya at no more than 200-300, but they are well armed and financed by Wahhabi charities in the Gulf, such as Al Haramein. The U.S. State Department claims that as much as 100 million dollars have been channeled to the Chechen resistance fighters from the Middle East. The international Arab fighters bribe their way into Chechnya at great risk. They often combine the romantic notions of defending an oppressed people of the sort espoused by American idealists (such as Ernest Hemmingway) who went to fight against Franco's fascists in Spain, with notions of perpetual jihad of the strain espoused by Arab fighters in Al-Qaeda's 055 International Brigade in northern Afghanistan. In an interview with this author, Abu Hamza al-Misri, the extremist Imam of the notorious Finnsbury Park Mosque in London claimed to have directed several devout Muslims from his mosque to defend the Chechen Dar al-Islam (Realm of Islam) from the Russian infidels. Graphic videos sent back to London by these fighters have been distributed throughout the Middle East where they serve as recruiting promotionals for jihad against the Russians. I have also witnessed Muslim congregations in the Middle East collecting money to be sent to Chechnya for humanitarian purposes, some of which certainly falls into the hands of the militants who control the cash flow into the region.
"Humanitarian purposes" includes ammunition shipments...
With the mysterious poisoning death of Emir Khattab in the Spring of 2002, whose exploits were romanticized by Arab supporters throughout the Middle East, analysts nevertheless speculate that the flow of money to the Wahhabi jamaats operating in the mountains of Chechnya may have been temporarily disrupted. That was until Khattab's right hand man, Abu al-Walid, rose to be Emir (Commander) of the Wahhabi fighters in Chechnya. According to the London-based Islamic Observation Center, 'Abu al-Walid' is in fact a 34 year old Saudi citizen named Abd al-Aziz al-Ghamdi who originates from the town of Al Hal in the province of Baljrasi in southern Saudi Arabia. Like Khattab, Abu al-Walid received his 'education' on the battle fields of Afghanistan. Abu al-Walid next appeared in Chechnya via the jihad in Zenica, Bosnia, and then partook in Khattab's videotaped ambush and slaughter of a Russian column of the 245th motorized rifle regiment in April 1996. In the current war, Walid was named commander of the eastern front by Maskhadov in a summer 2001 war council, and his forces made headlines when they shot down and captured the crew of a Russian Mi 24 Hind gunship. Following the December 27, 2002 bombing in Grozny, the Russian government has accused Walid of the crime and of being supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. This accusation may be nothing more than 'agitprop' blustering on the part of the Kremlin, and it should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a militant jihadi organization of the variety of Ayman al-Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad or Al-Qaeda, rather it is recognized as a legitimate opposition group made up of doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. in Egypt and Jordan.
It's a "funnel" organization, like Hizb ut-Tahrir, that finds and indoctrinates the jihadis without getting involved in operations itself...
Regardless of the source of his funding, Abu al-Walid demonstrates the fact that Russia's continued brutality in the region will continue to make Chechnya a magnet for Wahhabi financial sponsors and devout Muslims throughout the world who see Russia's crimes against humanity in Chechnya as crimes against the Muslim umma.
On the other hand, if they let up, the jihadis will throw them out and set up their own khalifate, and they'll be subverting their neighbors before you can say "Ivanov."
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