Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi

Jihad and Tawhid Brigades

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

20060921

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Iraq

Iraq security forces arrest the new ISIS leader

2020-05-21

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

#BREAKING #Iraq security forces arrest the new #ISIS leader: reports
— Guy Elster (@guyelster) May 20, 2020

ISIS leader nominated to replace Baghdadi handed over to Iraqi authorities
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Iraqi Intelligence Service announced that the person nominated to succeed the terrorist leader and founder of the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS/ISIS/IS/ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been handed over to them.

According to the Iraqi News Agency, the Intelligence Service announced that their forces have taken custody Abdel-Nasser Qirdash, noting that he is the candidate to succeed Baghdadi as the leader of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Qirdash is the highest ranking Islamic State officer to ever be taken into custody.

It should be noted that while Qirdash was nominated to replace Baghdadi, the Islamic State ultimately chose to ’Abdul-Rahman al-Mawlah as the leader of the group.

He was first arrested in Syria last year, but was not handed over to the Iraqi authorities until recently.

The former Islamic State leader, Baghdadi, was killed during a special U.S. military operation in northwestern Syria in October of 2019.

Baghdadi was hiding in a jihadist-held town in the northern countryside of the Idlib Governorate; he refused to surrender during the U.S. raid and chose to detonate his own boom jacket.

Despite Baghdadi’s death in 2019, the Islamic State has remained active in both Syria and Iraq, often carrying out hit-and-run attacks against the Syrian and Iraqi armies, along with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Iraq claims capture of senior Daesh leader

[ARABNEWS] Iraq claimed on Wednesday it had arrested a ISIS leader considered a successor to the terror group’s former chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The National Intelligence Service told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) it had picked up Abdul Nasser Qardash.

He served as the head of one of the terrorist group’s commissions, INA said, and served under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led the group that preceded ISIS.

However,
man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them...
some reports suggested Qardash was captured by US or Kurdish forces in Syria last year and just recently transferred to Iraqi custody.

The US has previously identified Ameer Muhammed Saeed al-Salbi al-Mawla, as the new leader of ISIS. He is known within the group as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi.

Some reports said Qardash was the same person as al-Mawla, despite the photo used by INA of the captured holy warrior not matching that of al-Mawla.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Pudgy Transgender Activist Jessica Yaniv Loses ‘Brazilian Wax’ Lawsuit in Canada

2019-10-24

[BREITBART] A Canadian official ruled against Jessica Yaniv, the transgender Canadian plaintiff who had accused three women of unfair "discrimination" when they declined to give his testicles a "Brazilian wax" treatment.

But the official minimized the damage to Canada’s pro-transgender laws by suggesting that women may need to provide the sexually intimate service to male bodies if they have been trained for the task.

"Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax. ... There are differences between waxing the genitals of a person with a vulva and a person with a penis and scrotum," said the deciding official in the quasi-judicial British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

The 61-page decision implies that women will have to provide the intimate service to men if the Canadian licensing boards require cosmeticians to learn how to do the service.

Link

Arabia

Self-proclaimed ISIS 'emir' on trial in UAE

2016-01-27

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Emirati man accused of seeking to carry out attacks on targets including Abu Dhabi's Formula 1 circuit claimed to be the local leader of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, newspapers reported on Tuesday, citing a Federal Supreme court hearing.

A prosecution witness told the court that an Emirati and his wife had taken an oath of allegiance to ISIS through social media, Gulf News reported.

He was married to Alaa Bader al-Hashemi, an Emirati woman executed in July for the krazed killer-inspired murder of U.S. school teacher Ibolya Ryan, 47, in the washroom of an Abu Dhabi shopping mall in December 2014.

The witness said the defendant's computers showed he used speeches of ISIS leader Abu Baqr Al-Baghdadi and late head of Al-Qaeda Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi to spread the radical krazed killer ideology among youth and recruit them.

"The man set up a website named 'the media battalion' to promote the terrorist ideology of these terrorist organizations and recruit young people for them," the witness added.

Another witness said the defendant's computers had software to log on to sites teaching people how to make explosives with plans to target a shopping mall, a military site and to assassinate a leader.

Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Don Calamari's lawyer was getting even redder in the face...
The National daily cited a witness as telling a court during the trial that the defendant and his wife had performed a "symbolic ceremony to pledge allegiance" to Al-Baghdadi.

International media are not allowed access to the trial of the man, 34, at the Federal Supreme court in the UAE capital, which has upped security measures since the wave of Arab Spring protests that swept the region in 2011.

He is charged with joining ISIS and plotting attacks on Abu Dhabi's Formula 1 circuit. He is reportedly also accused of plotting to attack the Abu Dhabi branch of furniture chain Ikea, as well as preparing to assassinate an unspecified Emirati leader.

The United Arab Emirates is a member of the U.S.-led coalition that has been bombing ISIS since September 2014.

UAE authorities have enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and "takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
groups."

Link

Africa North

IS seizes Sirte's District No 3, executes locals, burns local medical centre

2015-08-15

[Libya Herald] Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(IS) forces have taken Sirte Residential District No. 3 today, Friday, and started executing young men in the area, mainly members of the Farjan tribe, according to sources in the town. Confirming the reports, a source at Ibn Sina hospital said that bodies, of women as well as men, shot in the head, execution style, had arrived there. Photos of others, "crucified" by IS have been circulating on social media. Other reports speak of 12 decapitated bodies being found near a school in No. 3 district.

There are also unconfirmed reports of the a medical centre in the district which was treating some of the maimed in the fighting being attacked and set on fire by IS.

The sources in Sirte claims that in the three days of fighting as many as between 100 and 160 people in District No. 3 died in the festivities, most of them members of the Farjan tribe. Others put the figure at 70. To escape the fighting, residents in the town are also said to have been fleeing, some reportedly toward Bani Walid.

One source has said that the IS have threatened to demolish the homes in District No. 3 of Farjan members. It is also reported that the Cordoba Mosque in the district has been taken over by IS and renamed "Masjid Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi" after the Jordanian murderous Moslem who was leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq from 2004 until he was killed in a targeted US air raid in 2006. The mosque was central to the outbreak of this week's fighting. The uprising was sparked by the murder on Tuesday by IS of its Salfist imam, Khalid bin Rajab Ferjani. He had refused to hand it over to IS.

District No. 3, with is large Farjani population, had been beyond IS' control since the Islamists took the town.

For its part, the Libyan government has accused the international community of ignoring the killings in Sirte and of betraying Libya.

Abdullah Al-Thinni, whose resignation as prime minister on Tuesday appears to have evaporated, accused IS of genocide and called to the international community to help Libya to crush the organization. He criticised the ban imposed by the Security Council on the supply of arms to Libya as being partly to blame.

It has been widely reported that those who were fighting IS in Sirte had nothing more than Kalshnikovs as weapons, while IS enjoyed the the use of massive heavy weaponry.

In a statement on the government's Facebook page, Thinni said the international community had a moral responsibility for what had happened, accusing it of double standards -- being prepared to fight IS in Iraq and Syria, but turning a blind eye in Libya.

Libya's UN ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi also demanded that the Security Council to act against the "unprecedented crimes" committed by IS in Sirte.

So far there has been no comment from any foreign government or international organization about the situation.

As for the response of the authorities in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, the president of the continuing General National Congress, Nuri Abu Sahmain, has asked the military prosecutor to investigate the withdrawal from Sirte of Misrata's Brigade 166 and other units in May.

Despite an announcement to that effect, Misratan forces have not arrived to relieve the town.

In Tobruk, Sirte member of the House of Representatives Abu Bakr Al-Ghazali called on all the people of Sirte to unite and "eradicate the Kharijites and the corrupt on earth". (The Grandi Mufti of 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...
has labelled IS supporters as Kharijites, an 7th century Islamic heresy.)

IS, Ghazali said, had gone too far in Sirte with its "killings, torture and slaughter of the innocent and the poor who are powerless." He called on Khalifa Hafter, the commander general of the Libyan armed forces, to back the uprising in Sirte by providing arms and equipment before it was too late.

The Libya air force has carried out raids against IS target in Sirte but to little effect.

Link

Terror Networks

Daesh wants to take over Middle East, India, Pakistan by 2020

2015-08-11

The Daesh plans to take over large parts of the world, including almost the entire Indian subcontinent, by the next five years, according to a chilling map that features in a new book on the dreaded terror group.

According to the map, the Daesh group plans to take control of the Middle East, North Africa, most of the Indian subcontinent and parts of Europe, within the next five years, to complete its caliphate. The caliphate --- a state governed by Sharia law which Daesh plan to claim - covers areas from Spain in the west to China in the east, the Mirror reported citing the map.

The map reveals the calculated way Daesh plans to take over the world by 2020.

Let's just say that the hard boys at Daesh are a little .. optimistic. Not even the French and Italians can surrender that quickly. Though Obama might help it along...

According to the map, Andalus is the Arabic name given to the parts of Spain, Portugal and France that were occupied by the Moors from the 8th to the 15th century while the Indian subcontinent would come under 'Khurasan'.

BBC reporter Andrew Hosken, who includes the map of the targeted areas in his new book 'Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State', said Daesh wants "to take over all of what they see as the Islamic world.

A seven-step Daesh programme, dating back almost 20 years, includes the US being provoked into declaring war on the Islamic world between 2000 and 2003 and an uprising against Arab rulers between 2010 and 2013, the report said.

Daesh have up to 50,000 members and cash and assets of nearly 2 billion pounds, partly due to their control of oil and gas fields in Iraq and Syria, it said.

"They want to take over all of what they see as the Islamic world. Once they have their caliphate, they plan to turn against the rest of the world. They envisage the whole world being under their rule," Hosken was quoted as saying.

"They have 60 nations against them, including the United States and Russia, so one would think that is pretty unlikely. But one would have thought the first steps were unlikely as well," he said.

Hosken says in his book that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who founded the terrorist group that would later become Daesh, in 1996 described the seven-step programme that would lead to Muslim victory by 2020.

"We were so close to destroying them back in 2010-11. Eighty per cent of their leaders had been captured or killed and they ended up as a little rump. We didn't finish them off and like a cancer they came back," Hosken said.

Thanks Barack...

Link

Arabia

Preacher imprisoned for praising IS

2014-09-01

[ARABNEWS] Riyadh's special criminal court has sentenced a Saudi preacher to five years in prison for praising and supporting terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State (IS), during an Eid sermon at a local mosque in Riyadh in August 2013.

The defendant was also slapped with a five-year travel ban. The defendant was convicted of using Friday sermons to provoke and encourage dissidence, while glorifying terrorist groups and turban ideas propagated by Al-Qaeda terrorists.

He was also convicted of financially supporting terrorism with more than SR1 million and harboring wanted terrorists. The defendant had previously received a letter from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs ordering him to stop delivering sermons at the mosque.

He was tossed in the clink
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
at the end of the Eid sermon he had delivered. The preacher had called on Islamic scholars and the Moslem Ummah to support young people fighting in revolutions during the sermon.

The preacher had also prayed for the release of a Saudi woman, known as the "Lady Al-Qaeda," who was imprisoned for 15 years for ties with Al-Qaeda hard boyz in Yemen.

"The defendant had been banned from delivering sermons in mosques or public spaces," said Tawfik Al-Sudairy, undersecretary at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

The defendant's lawyers said they plan to appeal the ruling.

"His calls to release hard boyz from prison and for Moslems to support fighters militarily and financially defy Islamic principles," said Al-Sudairy.

The defendant had also told followers that the Egypt crisis could not be resolved through the ballot box, but rather, through providing weapons and launching attacks on legal authorities.

He had also referred to the situation in Iraq, boasting that His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
, IS leader, is a student of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed by an American ~~Arclight~~ airstrike in 2006. He said Al-Baghdadi fulfilled his promise and obligations to release "jihadists" by attacking prisons so that they can continue in their so-called line of duty.

A royal decree issued earlier this year calls for imprisoning anyone involved in fighting abroad for three to 20 years.

Link

Iraq

Back to Fallujah

2014-01-09

[DAWN] ONE can only wonder whether there was an element of déjà vu involved in this week's urgent despatch of armaments by the US to the Iraqi military as the latter prepared to re-conquer Fallujah.

After all, it was 10 years ago that four American contractors working for Blackwater were ambushed by one of the many gangs resisting the US occupation, and their charred corpses were subsequently suspended from a bridge across the Euphrates. This grotesque display led to some of the most vicious battles of the Iraq war. It was several months before Fallujah could be retaken.

The names Anbar and Ramadi -- the western governate encompassing about one-third of Iraq, and its capital city -- may also ring a bell. The province was insurgency central until the occupying army coerced, cajoled and bribed tribal leaders into what was dubbed the Sunni Awakening, which made it much harder for the outfit known as Al Qaeda in Iraq to use the area as a base for its operations.

That modus vivendi was falling apart even before the US completed its military withdrawal, with the successor regime of

Nouri al-Maliki
... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party....
reluctant to cultivate the tribal sheikhs it viewed as sectarian adversaries, just as it diverged more broadly from American recipes for relative Shia-Sunni harmony.

Resentments have consequently been building up, and the attack by government forces on a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi -- not for the first time -- brought matters to a head. It also offered an opportunity for the reincarnation of Al Qaeda in Iraq, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS), which stepped into the breach and occupied large parts of Fallujah and relatively smaller segments of Ramadi.

Maliki responded by threatening military action unless local forces drove out what is invariably referred to as an Al Qaeda affiliate. It appears, though, that many of the tribal sheikhs are as wary of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
's army as they are of the jihadists aiming at a caliphate encompassing Iraq, Syria and possibly even Leb.

When ISIS took control of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi at the turn of the year, an Iraqi government source suggested its immediate intent was to declare a caliphate encompassing Anbar and segments of Syria. Nothing of the sort had come to pass at the time of writing, but it wasn't an inaccurate assessment of the ISIS aim, with the 'Al Sham' part of its nomenclature assumed to include Leb.

It is widely believed that during the initial Iraq conflict, Syria's President Bashar Al Assad facilitated the influx of Salafist jihadis into the war zone. It is possible, of course, that he merely turned a blind eye to the phenomenon. The point, however, is that the Iraq-Syria border hasn't become particularly less porous in the interim (although it has been reported that Turkey has been the most popular conduit for jihadis into Syria), and ISIS has long been active on the Syrian side.

It has lately encountered a few road bumps, though, with even Salafist elements in the Syrian opposition choosing to combat it in rebel-held areas of the country. Internationally, though, its leading role in the Syrian conflict has prompted some rethinking, with the likes of Ryan Crocker -- a former US ambassador in Damascus, Storied Baghdad, Kabul and Islamabad -- suggesting that Assad should not be written out of the picture, and vociferous local opponents of the Syrian president admitting that, given a choice between ISIS and Assad, they would opt for the latter.

During the Iraq war, it was claimed more than once that Al Qaeda had been more or less eliminated from the country, without, not surprisingly, any mention of the fact that its very genesis in Iraq was a direct consequence of US intervention. That claim was at the very least a gross exaggeration.

It could be argued that ISIS and its predecessor organization were only whimsically offshoots of the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now beyond all cares and woe...
's and 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. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
's outfit, given that neither Abu Musab Al Zarqawi nor Abu Bakr Al Storied Baghdadi were inclined to strictly follow instructions, but that is somewhat besides the point in view of the broad ideological convergence. Notwithstanding the strategic and tactical differences, the obscurantist goal is generally the same.

It was a long time ago, or so it seems, that US determination to invade Iraq spurred warnings of what it would mean for the 'Arab street'. That street remained fairly quiet for a while. And when it erupted, it did so in a manner that threw Washington off balance. The crucial venue, it has turned out, is not the street but the battlefield, where the Islamist equivalents of the ideologically driven American neocons are now determined to have their way.

Hopefully, in this case too, their ambitions will ultimately be thwarted. As before, though, it may take a while.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

This New Roommate is Driving Me Nuts

2011-05-07

Iowahawk Guest Commentary
by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi
Former Senior VP, Al-Qaeda In Iraq

Yo brosephus, what's crackalackin' with the booty smackin'? Longtime no fatwa. Like what's it been, 5 years? Yeah, I know, I got a whole inbox full of emails from you infidel fags all like, "yo Zark, holla at a playa, how's that paradise shit workin' out witchu?" And by the way, you can stop sending me them stupid LOLgoat pictures, I seen 'em all. Listen chump, Zarkman ain't got time for your internet jibber jabber, or twitter twatter, or whatever that latest earth shit is. And stop asking me to friend you up on FagBook to play MafiaWars or Cowville and all that gayass computer shit. Yo cuzz, Zarkman gots bigger problems.

Let me help you out son: this paradise resort is a straightup kick in the dick. I ain't playin' with you holmes, this shithole is worse than the Ramadi Inn during Taliban convention week. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be Allah's own 5-Diamond eternal reward getaway, peace be upon him, blah blah blah. But for fuck sake, can't he afford to hire a better staff? Look, Zarkman don't like to bitch, but if these fuckers don't give me a room upgrade real soon I got half a mind to drop them a nasty rating on Priceline.

Yeah, I got all the brochures. The all-you-can-eat buffet, the beach volleyball, the 24-hour poontang room service. But every time I ask about it, that fat sunburned asshole desk manager Lou is all like, "oh, I'm sorry Mister Zarqawi, that part of the property is currently under repairs." And then he starts laughing again like some damn idiot and stabs me right in the nutsack with a frickin' pitchfork. Customer service, my ass. Even the fire alarms don't work in this dump.

And don't get me started on their "famous 72-flavor virgin menu." Cuzz, I ain't had no snappa in so long my nards look like a pair of bearded 5-pound plums. Not that I'm experiencing lack of nookie, though. Wordlife cracka, the last 5 years has been one non-stop muthafuckin' prom night. With Zarkman as prom queen. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if my goddamned mystery dates bought me a corsage once in a while. Or if they didn't uses cheese graters as condoms.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Extremists attack Jordan loyalists

2011-04-16

[Arab News] Hundreds of protesting religious hard-liners clashed with supporters of Jordan's king on Friday, wounding dozens, in the latest move by the thug movement to assert itself amid the country's wave of anti-government demonstrations.

A crowd of about 350 hard boyz faced off with a slightly smaller group of loyalists in the town of Zarqa. The hard boyz beat the government supporters with clubs and fists, and the two sides hurled stones at each other, leaving people bloodied on the ground.

The Salafi movement is banned in Jordan, but it has grown in strength in recent years and members of the group have held a series of rallies in various parts of the country in recent weeks.

Their demonstrations are separate from the 14-week-old wave of anti-government protests by leftists and others demanding democratic reforms in the country.

More than 2,000 Jordanians erupted into the streets throughout the country Friday to press their demands for a greater political voice. About half of them demonstrated outside Amman's municipal building after Friday prayers.

They held a huge Jordanian flag and chanted, "We sacrifice our blood and soul for Jordan. Reform the system now." Police separated them from a small group of government loyalists who shouted threats: "Those who fight us, beware! Our rocks will smash your heads."

The violence in Zarqa began when a crowd of hard boyz rallied in front of the town's Omar ibn Khattab Mosque. A crowd of government supporters gathered nearby to watch. One of the government loyalists waved a framed portrait of King Abdallah in the air and marched toward the crowd.

The hard boyz started to push him back, then beat him and he fell to the ground, his face bloodied. Other hard boyz rushed to nearby cars, pulled out clubs and cables and attacked the rival group.

Stone throwing and fistfights erupted, leaving many bloodied, until police intervened and convinced the government supporters to move farther away from the mosque.

Zarqa, an industrial city north of the capital, Amman, is the birthplace of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Link

Africa North

Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a harsh and violent leader within AQIM

2010-09-24

[Ennahar] Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, who holds the French hostages kidnapped in Niger, is one of the most radical and violent leaders of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who gradually extended his field of action in the Sahara, according to experts.

"For two years," said French researcher Jean-Pierre Filiu, author of "Nine Lives of Al Qaeda," Abu Zeid has dramatically expanded his field of action, with great mobility, kidnapping of tourists in southern Tunisia, opening the front of Niger which did not exist before."

Born 44 years ago in the small town of Touggourt (600 km south of Algiers), he joined at the age of 24 the local committee of the Islamic Front (FIS) and then switches to the armed activity in late 1991.

"According to his family," says Algerian journalist Mohamed Mokeddem, who runs the daily Ennahar, "he went into hiding shortly after the attack on the barracks of Guemmar (November 1991) He was accompanied by his brother Bachir, who was killed by the Algerian army in 1995. Until the end of year 90, he operates in the bush of Batna (eastern Algeria).

In 2003, during the spectacular kidnapping of 32 European tourists in what was still known the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat
... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb...
(GSPC) in southern Algeria, Abu Zeid appears for the first time as an Assistant Chief of the kidnappers, Abderazak the Para.

"The first pictures of him were taken by those hostage who have published them in the German media after their release," adds Mohamed Mokeddem, specialist of Algerian jihadist networks.

These images show a small man, almost frail, with a short beard. In an amateur shot film by a member of AQIM in 2007, AFP was able to view in Mauritania, Abu Zeid appears briefly, looking somber and disapproving, alongside jihadists who play in the water around a their Toyotas stuck in a river.

In 2006, when a quarrel broke out between Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the principal leaders of the GSPC in the Sahara and the organization's supreme leader, Abdelmalek Droukdal, installed in northern Algeria, Abu Zeid aligned the direction of movement.

As an assistant of the "Emir of the Sahara" Yahia Djouadi, he commanded Katiba (group of jihadists) Tariq ibn Ziyad, some 200 men (mainly Algerian, Mauritanian and Malian) well equipped and highly mobile, based mainly in northern Mali.

"He has a direct connexion with al Qaeda, including with the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, known for anti-French virulence," said Jean-Pierre Filiu.

"This abduction will last, but what is worrying is that there were two cases of kidnappings in which it has ended badly," he recalls, referring to the English tourist Edwin Dyer, killed in June 2009 and the French Germaneau Michel, who died this summer, both captured by Abu Zeid and his men.

A concern shared by Louis Caprioli, former assistant director in charge of the fight against terrorism to the DST (French intelligence).

"Abu Zeid will make every effort to mediate the matter. He will set ultimatums. He builds on the strategy of terror (of the former head of Al Qaeda in Iraq) Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and this is very worrying."

Shortly after the announcement of the death of Edwin Dyer, a Malian official who had participated in the negotiations told AFP: "Abu Zeid is a violent and brutal man. he is very hard in negotiations. He has criticized us for working for whites, who for him are infidels ".

Link

Britain

Jordanian terror suspect speaks about life under 'house arrest'

2010-06-17

A man judged to be a threat to national security has decided to break his strict bail conditions so he can speak out about the difficulty of his life under virtual house arrest. Hussain Saleh Hussain Alsamamara, a Jordanian living in London, has been filmed over the past six months by two independent film-makers who then passed the material to the BBC's Newsnight programme.

The government says Mr Alsamamara is a committed Islamist extremist and a danger to Britain. Almost all of the evidence against him is thought to be intelligence material which neither he nor his lawyers have seen.

Mr Alsamamara arrived in Britain in 2001 and claimed asylum. That claim was rejected and in 2004 he was arrested by police and imprisoned, pending deportation to Jordan. The Jordanian intelligence department has told the British government it wants to question him in relation to alleged contact with the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and over claims that he underwent paramilitary training in Afghanistan. Mr Alsamamara denies any links with terrorism and says he faces torture if he is returned.

So what is the nature of the evidence against Mr Alsamamara? Very little is in the public domain but some indications are given in a document published in 2007 by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). Back then, SIAC dismissed his appeal against deportation, largely on the basis of secret intelligence which was excluded from Mr Alsamamara and his lawyers.

However, SIAC's judgment does refer to two open strands of evidence. Police found two CDs in a rack on his bedroom floor when they searched his house in 2004. The contents were discussed in closed sessions so we cannot be sure what was on these CDs, but it is likely to be propaganda material. Mr Alsamamara denies any knowledge of these CDs.

Police also found a will in an envelope on a notice-board. SIAC said it was written in "lurid terms". It includes references to "jihad" and records his wish "to slaughter" members of the Jordanian government and the police. Mr Alsamamara does not deny writing this will but argues it simply quotes from the Qur'an and the hadiths, and it reflects his natural hatred of the Jordanian authorities who tortured him in the past.

SIAC disagreed, stating: "This is the will of an Islamist extremist... it is a declaration by an Islamist extremist that he wishes, if possible, to meet his fate in fighting the enemies of Islam."

Newsnight showed the wording to an imam and expert, Dr Usama Hasan. He knows the jihadi mindset, having volunteered as a young man to fight with the Afghan mujahideen. Now he works to counter radicalisation in the UK. Dr Hasan told Newsnight: "This is someone who is clearly inspired by jihadi ideas, what I would call al-Qaeda ideas, and is very passionate about the jihad, going as far as to regard the Muslim governments and police and armies as legitimate targets... not a normal will at all."

Link

Arabia

Saudi suspects seeking revival of Al Qaeda

2009-02-08

One of the men on Saudi Arabia's new most-wanted list is married to Osama Bin Laden's daughter while another was involved in a plot to kill the US ambassador in Yemen. A third had smuggled militants into Iraq from Syria.

Documents provided to AP on Saturday, profiling the 85 men -- 83 Saudis and two Yemenis -- on the list, reveal that many of them had either taken part in planning possible attacks targeting oil, security and other installations in the kingdom or had provided Al Qaeda members with weapons, safe haven, false documents and money.

The documents shed light on the extent of Saudi participation in the extremist networks struggling to rebuild themselves in the Arabian Peninsula after a series of crackdowns in the past years. All the men on the list are hiding abroad, many in Yemen. The men were of different ages and from throughout the kingdom, according to documents provided by a Saudi official. The youngest, 16-year-old Abdul-Ilah Al-Shihri, was only 12 when the September 11 attacks took place. He was smuggled into Yemen to join Al Qaeda there by his uncle, Youssef Al-Shihri, according to the documents.

Active members: The official said the men were active members of Al Qaeda or local offshoots of the group and had planned to re-establish the terror network in Saudi Arabia following the kingdom's aggressive campaign that netted hundreds of its members.

Saudi Arabia issued the list on Monday and has asked Interpol for help in arresting the men. They include 11 who have been released from the Guantanamo Bay and have attended the kingdom's much-touted extremist rehabilitation programme. Among them were two Saudis who have emerged as the new leaders of Yemen's branch of Al Qaeda. Another man on the list, Muhammad Aboul-Kheir, 34, is married to the daughter of Al Qaeda leader Bin Laden and worked as his bodyguard. He had links to Ramzi Binalshibh, one of five co-defendants facing murder and war crimes charges for their alleged roles in the September 11 attacks. The documents mentioned his whereabouts either in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran.

Another wanted Saudi, Saleh Al-Qaraawi, has been dubbed by the local media as one of the most dangerous men on the list. The documents say Al-Qaraawi, 27, had provided Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in June 2006, with money and recruits. Qassem Al-Reemi, 30, meanwhile, one of the few Yemenis on the list, has "links to a plot targeting the US ambassador in Sanaa", the capital of Yemen.

The release of the most-wanted list is part of the kingdom's fight against Al Qaeda. The network's attacks have targeted expatriate residential compounds, oil installations and government buildings.

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