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Recent Appearances...

Terror Networks

IS captives forced to sing ‘Hotel Osama’: hostage

2022-04-08

The trial testimony continues.

[Dawn] A French journalist held by the bad boy 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....
group in Syria has testified that he and other hostages were forced by their captors to sing a depraved parody of the Eagles song "Hotel Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party," called "Hotel Osama".

"It was terrifying for us, a joke for them," Nicolas Henin said at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, a 33-year-old former British national, on Wednesday.

Elsheikh is accused of involvement in the murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig. Henin is one of several former hostages who have testified at the trial in federal court of the alleged member of the notorious IS kidnap-and-murder cell known as the "Beatles".

Henin said the words to "Hotel Osama" included the original lyrics from "Hotel California" about checking in but never leaving, but with a twist.

"If you try, you’ll die Mr Bigley style," the lyrics went, a reference to British engineer Kenneth Bigley, who was beheaded in 2004 by Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, head of the Al Qaeda terror network in Iraq.

Henin said he was captured in June 2013 on his fifth reporting trip to Syria. He was held alone for two days in a bathroom but managed to escape by breaking bars on the windows with a broom.

After running the whole night, he arrived at a village at dawn and spoke to two men in pyjamas.

"Unfortunately, they were IS fighters," he said. Returned to captivity, he was beaten and taken outside and "hung in the air for a couple of hours" with his hands and feet chained together.

Henin was later placed with other hostages, including Frenchie Pierre Torres and Danish photographer Daniel Rye Ottenson. British aid worker David Haines and Italian relief worker Federico Motka arrived later.

Link

Iraq

'BUT' Statement Alert: Baghdad sees tentative rebirth

2008-07-01

The streets of Baghdad are back in business. The teashops are busy. The shops and markets are bustling. After years when there seemed to be no end to the city's trauma, people are feeling more confident. Why, even property prices in Baghdad are rising. According to one estate agent we spoke to, they have doubled in the past four months.

Yes, things are better in Baghdad.
Here comes the 'BUT' statement.
But before we get too carried away, it is important to stress that the improvements, while real, are plainly very brittle. As US officials readily concede, comments about 'breakthroughs' and 'corners being turned' are premature.

Indeed, as an influential report from the US Congress stated a few days ago, Iraq's security environment 'remains volatile and dangerous'. It is just not quite as volatile and dangerous as it was this time last year.

Much of the credit for the improvements is undoubtedly due to the increase in US forces which began in the early months of 2007. American troops came onto the streets in greater numbers and confronted the insurgents and militia groups.

But it was not simply American force of arms which made the difference. The US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, adopted a new approach. It is instructive to read the 'Commander's Counterinsurgency Guidance' which was issued recently to all US forces in Iraq. These are some of the headings:

'Serve the population: give them respect: gain their support.'

'Live among the people: you can't commute to this fight.'

'Walk: stop by, don't drive by: patrol on foot and engage the population.'

'Promote reconciliation: we cannot kill our way out of this endeavour.'

By and large, that is what the Americans have attempted to do and, by and large, it appears to be working. From a peak last summer, when security incidents were occurring at the rate of well over 1,000 a week, there has been a steady decline until now they are, according to the Americans, at their lowest point for four years.

But the US strategy has involved more than putting more men in and among the Iraqi population. The Americans have also thrown money at Iraq.

As a recent BBC Panorama programme reported, huge amounts of this money appear to have disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials and unscrupulous companies. But, at grassroots level, large amounts have been getting through to shops and small businesses in the form of micro-grants distributed by local US commanders.

In reality, these grants can be quite substantial. For example, in one main street in west Baghdad, every shopkeeper has been given $2,500 (£1,250) for basic improvements. In addition, the Americans have been paying for neighbourhood defence forces, the so-called Sons of Iraq, which have offered employment and wages, and thus weaned people away from the temptation of joining the militia groups. In total, in that one main street alone, the Americans say they have invested $750,000 (£375,000).

The local US officer who has been running the scheme believes it has been money well spent. 'The better economic situation feeds back into the security situation because now somebody doesn't have to go to the insurgency to get money to feed their family,' he said. 'They can work, they can go to their job, so it's created a positive cycle.'

That kind of local initiative, repeated many times, plus the painfully slow process of political reconciliation, the improved effectiveness of Iraq's own armed forces, and the cautious engagement of outside companies in the Iraqi economy (most notably in the oil industry) is starting to have an effect.

So, Baghdad is calmer and rather more confident. I have been here for rather less than a month a year, every year since 2003.

In the terrible days of 2005 through to 2007, when I recall reporting the tragic case of the British hostage Kenneth Bigley and when, virtually every day at the BBC bureau outside the fortified Green Zone, we could hear bombs going off in different parts of the city.

I can say that the Baghdad of mid-2008 is a place in which there is, finally, some tentative hope for the future.

A few days ago, one of the BBC's Iraqi producers here at our Baghdad office became a father for the second time. He is one of the team of courageous and committed people who live in this city, without whom the BBC News operation in Baghdad simply could not function.

He has seen many terrible things in his country. He has shared the collective doubt and despair that Iraq would ever emerge from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the turmoil of the years of the so-called liberation by America and Britain.

He told me that three years ago, when he and his wife had their first child, he felt there was very little hope for the future.

But now, very slowly, things are changing. He believes his new daughter has been born into a country which, finally, has something better to look forward to.

Link

Terror Networks

Al-Qaeda kingpin: I trained 9/11 hijackers

2007-11-25

From his Turkish jail, a senior terrorist claims a key role in atrocities around the world.

IN a small windowless cell lit by a single light bulb, Louai al-Sakka sits isolated from the world and fellow inmates for 24 hours a day.

His concrete box is in the bowels of Kandira, a high-security F-type prison 60 miles east of Istanbul, which was built to house Turkeys most dangerous criminals.

[..]
Sakkas only visitor is Osman Karahan, a lawyer who shares his fervent support for militant Islamic jihad.
[..]

By his own account he is a senior Al-Qaeda operative who was at the forefront of the insurgency in Iraq, took part in the beheading of Briton Kenneth Bigley and helped train the 9/11 bombers. He has been jailed in connection with the bombing of the British consulate in Istanbul.

Certainly, the intelligence services have shown a keen interest in the 34-year-old Syrian who says he was in Iraq alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the notorious insurgent who was killed last year in a United States air-strike.

But, as with many things in the world of Al-Qaeda, there might be smoke and mirrors. Some experts believe that Sakka could be overstating his importance to the group, possibly to lay a false track for western agencies investigating his terrorist colleagues.

[..]
Sakka had been planning to sink Israeli cruise ships off the Turkish coast using motorised dinghies. Despite having plastic surgery to disguise his face, he was easily identified by the Turkish authorities.

Police later discovered documents linking him to the Istanbul suicide bombings that killed at least 27 people after trucks exploded outside the British consulate, the HSBC bank and two synagogues. The court indictment described him as a senior member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation tasked with special high-level missions. It said he had met Osama Bin Laden, who had told him to organise attacks in Turkey.

But was this all? Last week his lawyer claimed his scope was much wider. He was the nnumber one networker for Al-Qaeda in Europe, Iran, Turkey and Syria, Karahan said.

[..]

When the Bosnian war opened a new front for jihadists in the early 1990s, Sakka left his job and headed for the conflict. He stayed in Turkey initially and established the mujaheddin service office, which provided medical support for Bosnia and later the two Chechen wars.

It soon became clear that more than medical help was needed. Sakka set up intensive physical training programmes in the Yalova mountain resort area, near Istanbul, to prepare the scores of young men heading for the conflicts. The memoir claims the volunteers came from Europe, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Gulf, North Africa and South America.

The Chechens needed trained fighters. Sakka was telephoned by Ibn al-Khattab, the late militia leader controlling the foreign fighters against the Russians. Khattab requested that Sakkas trainees should be sent on to Afghanistan for military training because conditions are tough.

This brought Sakka into contact with Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking Al-Qaeda member, who ran a large terrorist training camp near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sakka was later to be sentenced in ab-sentia for involvement in the foiled Jordanian millennium bomb attacks in 2000 along with Zubaydah.

One of Sakkas chief roles was to organise passports and visas for the volunteers to make their way to Afghanistan through Pakistan. His ability to keep providing high-quality forged papers made Turkey a main hub for Al-Qaeda movements, his lawyer says. The young men came to Turkey pretending to be on holiday and Sakkas false papers allowed them to disappear overseas.

Turkish intelligence were aware of unusual militant Islamic activity in the Yalova mountains, where Sakka had set up his camps. But they posed no threat to Turkey at the time.
But a bigger plot was developing. In late 1999, Karahan says,a group of four young Saudi students went to Turkey to prepare for fighting in Chechnya. They wanted to be good Muslims and join the jihad during their holidays, he said.

They had begun a path that was to end with the September 11 attacks on America in 2001. They were: Ahmed and Hamza al-Ghamdi who hijacked the plane that crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; their companion Saeed al-Ghamdi whose plane crashed in a Pennsylvanian field; and Nawaf al-Hazmi who died in the Pentagon crash.

They undertook Sakkas physical training programme in the mountains and later were joined by two of the other would-be hijackers: Majed Moqed, who also perished in the Pentagon crash, and Satam al-Suqami, who was in the first plane that hit the north tower.

Moqed and Suqami had been hand-picked by Al-Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia specifically for the twin towers operation, Sakka says, and were en route to Afghanistan. Sakka persuaded the other four to go to Afghanistan after plans to travel to Chechnya were aborted because of problems crossing the border. Sakka [told Zubaydah] he liked the four men and recommended them, said Karahan.

Before leaving, all six received intensive training together, forming a cell led by Suqami, which was similar to the Hamburg group run by Mohammed Atta, another ringleader in the 9/11 attacks.

At one point, Sakka claims the entire group were arrested by police in Yalova after their presence raised suspicions. They were interrogated for a day but eventually released because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

Some of Sakkas account is corroborated by the US governments 9/11 Commission.

Go to the article and read the whole thing

Link

Europe

European governments sanctioned $45million in ransom

2006-05-22

That's $45 million in the pockets of the jihadis and their ilk, boys and girls. Think about it.

FRANCE, Italy and Germany sanctioned the payment of $45 million in deals to free nine hostages abducted in Iraq, according to documents seen by The Times.

All three governments have publicly denied paying ransom money. But according to the documents, held by security officials in Baghdad who have played a crucial role in hostage negotiations, sums from $2.5 million to $10 million per person have been paid over the past 21 months. Among those said to have received cash ransoms was the gang responsible for seizing British hostages including Kenneth Bigley, the murdered Liverpool engineer.

The list of payments has also been seen by Western diplomats, who are angered at the behaviour of the three governments, arguing that it encourages organised crime gangs to grab more foreign captives.

In theory we stand together in not rewarding kidnappers, but in practice it seems some administrations have parted with cash and so it puts other foreign nationals at risk from gangs who are confident that some governments do pay, one senior envoy in the Iraqi capital said.

More than 250 foreigners have been abducted since the US-led invasion in 2003. At least 44 have been killed; 135 were released, three escaped, six were rescued and the fate of the others remains unknown.

A number of other governments, including those of Turkey, Romania, Sweden and Jordan, are said to have paid for their hostages to be freed, as have some US companies with lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq. At least four businessmen with dual US and Iraqi nationality have been returned, allegedly in exchange for payments by their employers. This money is often disguised as expenses paid to trusted go-betweens for costs that they claim to incur.

The release this month of Rene Braunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, two German engineers, for a reported $5 million payment prompted senior Iraqi security officials to seek talks with leading Western diplomats in the capital on how to handle hostage release.

When the men returned home, Alaa al-Hashimi, the Iraqi Ambassador to Germany, revealed that the German Government handed over a large amount to free the pair after 99 days in captivity. The kidnappers are understood to have asked for $10 million.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, called last night for an immediate end to the practice. The idea that Western governments would have paid ransoms is extremely disturbing, he said. It is essential that governments never give in to blackmail from terrorists or criminals if security is ever to be maintained.

Michael Moore, a Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: These governments have created a kidnappers charter. Everyone from outside Iraq working in the country becomes more vulnerable as a result.

Police say that about 30 people a day are abducted in Baghdad. Most Iraqis taken are returned once their families pay a ransom. An Iraqi counter-terrorism official, who asked not to be named, said that local experts are usually excluded from negotiations involving Westerners. He said: Too often governments and their military keep secrets from each other , and certainly from us, and do what they want including paying out millions, no matter what their stated policy on ransoms.

Western diplomats claim that the reason for their secrecy is the suspicion that some in the Iraqi security apparatus are too closely associated with militias and some of the criminal gangs to be trusted.

The family of Bayan Solagh Jabr, who was Interior Minister until the announcement on Saturday of a provisional government, was among the victims of the kidnap gangs when his sister, Eman, was abducted in January. She is said to have been freed a fortnight later after a ransom was agreed. Mr Jabr is now Finance Minister.

The mutual distrust is hindering efforts to wage an effective war against the underworld gangs responsible for most of the abuctions of Westerners, the Baghdad official said.

At least two crime gangs are alleged to have sold on some of their foreign captives to militant groups who use the hostages for propaganda purposes rather than obtaining ransoms.

Britain has never paid to free its citizens, despite pressure from the employees of some hostages, but is understood to have paid intermediaries expenses for their efforts to make contact with the kidnappers.

British officials have been criticised for giving the kidnappers of the peace activist Norman Kember time to escape to avoid the risk of a gun battle with Special Forces troops sent to rescue him and his two fellow captives from a house in central Baghdad in March.

Only when Jill Carroll, an American journalist, was freed eight days later did intelligence experts discover that she had been held by the same notorious crime family, who were working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the wanted al-Qaeda leader in Iraq. That revelation infuriated US officials in Baghdad, who had let Britain take the lead in tracing and freeing Professor Kember, 74, and his two Canadian colleagues.

FBI agents are investigating claims that this gang sold some of its hostages, including American contractors and aid workers, to militant Islamic groups. The gang is reported to have had a hand in organising the abduction of three British hostages, Margaret Hassan, Mr Bigley and Professor Kember, and three Italian journalists.

Figures involved in secret talks to resolve hostage cases told The Times that Mrs Hassan, an aid worker who had converted to Islam and taken Iraqi citizenship, was murdered soon after Tony Blair made it clear in a television broadcast seen on an Arab satellite channel that the Government would not pay a ransom. Wealthy benefactors had signalled their readiness to pay for her release.

A key figure in brokering some of the deals has been Sheikh Abdel Salam al-Qubaisi, a militant Sunni cleric and senior figure in the Association of Muslim Scholars. Professor Kember and his party had just visited the group when he was abducted last November.

details of payments at the link

Link

Europe

Turkish police detain 6 Qaeda militants

2006-04-24

Turkish police have detained six suspected Al Qaeda militants they say were planning an armed attack in Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported on Sunday. The six - five Turks and a foreign national - were detained in the southeastern city of Gaziantep in a police raid on a house, the agency said. It did not say when the raid took place, but said police had been watching the group for some time. One of the suspected militants, whom Anatolia identified as Fahad Abdurrahman El Cakmak, had travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the report said.

The new hajj. Made his trip to the Promised Land and back...

Police seized several passports and identification cards and were inspecting a computer used by the militant group. Police in Gaziantep.

"We got nuttin' to say."

More than 70 suspected Al Qaeda militants including a Syrian national are on trial in Istanbul for alleged involvement in a series of suicide bombings that killed 58 people in the city in 2003. The Syrian, Loai Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, was allegedly the president of an informal court that sentenced British engineer Kenneth Bigley to death in Iraq in 2004. Al-Saqas lawyer told reporters on Saturday Bigleys body was buried in a ditch at an entrance to the city of Fallujah in Iraq. The British Foreign Office said it was investigating the claim.

Link

Iraq

Bigley 'is buried near Fallujah'

2006-04-23

ISTANBUL: British hostage Kenneth Bigley was buried near the restive Iraqi town of Fallujah after he was beheaded by his captors, the Turkish lawyer of a suspected Al Qaeda operative who claims a role in the killing said yesterday. "Kenneth Bigley is buried near the entrance to Fallujah city ... As you enter the city on the left there is a ditch, and his body is in this ditch," lawyer Osman Karahan told a Press conference in his office here.

The lawyer distributed to reporters copies of a rough hand-drawn sketch of the ditch which he said was drawn by his client, Louai Sakka, a Syrian national and alleged associate of Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. "This information came from my client and other sources and I have no doubt of its authenticity," Karahan said.

But he had nothing to do with anything of it, of course.

Karahan said Sakka was "in charge of the team that held and interrogated Kenneth Bigley" as well as the Islamic trial which convicted the Briton. But Sakka played no part in Bigley's execution, Karahan argued.

"No, no! Certainly not!"

"There is no connection between my client and the execution," Karahan said. "We do not know who actually carried out the execution."

"I know nothing! Tell them, Hogan!"

Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was kidnapped in Baghdad on September 16, 2004, along with two Americans who were subsequently killed.

Link

Europe

Sakra's life was shaped by demagogues, plastic surgeons

2006-04-20

Of all the fearsome and unfathomable figures who have waged jihad for al-Qaida, Louia Sakka has emerged as one of the most perplexing.

He is a man whose thinking was shaped by Islamist preachers and demagogues in Damascus and Kabul, while his face was shaped by a series of plastic surgeons in Turkey, Syria and, possibly, Germany.

Sakka stands trial next month, accused of financing four suicide bombings in Istanbul. Sixty-one people died in the November 2003 attacks on the British consulate general, the local headquarters of HSBC bank, and two synagogues. More than 600 were injured; some survivors still receive psychiatric help.

He admits attempting to build a massive bomb for a planned attack on an Israeli cruise liner in the Mediterranean. He also says he fought alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at Falluja, proudly acknowledges killing a number of American soldiers, and is alleged to have been involved in the beheading of a Turkish truck driver.

While he denies any role in the Istanbul bombings, Sakka makes no attempt to conceal the blood on his hands. Appearing in court in Istanbul last month he refused to stand before the judge. "Why should I?" he shouted. "I have fought the jihad. I have killed Americans!"

Now Sakka also claims to have played a role in the death of Kenneth Bigley. The terrorist's lawyer, Osman Karahan, says his client was a member of the gang that held the 62-year-old contractor from Liverpool for three weeks before murdering him in October 2004.

"He was one of the men who interrogated Bigley. He says they put Bigley on trial, found him guilty and executed him," Mr Karahan told the Guardian. "My client was the chief of the court. He wants Mr Bigley's family to know that he was not killed for no reason. This was justice. If he had committed a serious offence in the United States, he would have been executed, and it was the same for him in Iraq."

What "charge" Mr Bigley faced during the mock trial is not clear. Nor has Sakka revealed the whereabouts of the Briton's remains, although his lawyer says he knows where they lie.

Sakka says Zarqawi ordered Mr Bigley's death when he realised the British government would not agree to his demands for the release of all female prisoners being held by US and British forces.

Mr Karahan, a fellow Islamist, is happy to confirm many of his client's worst offences. Indeed, being interviewed at his sixth-storey office overlooking the Galatasaray football stadium, he said: "He's a master of disguise. He's another Carlos."

Mr Karahan says that his client has a wife and three children and, until the mid-1990s, worked for his father, a successful detergent company owner in Aleppo, northern Syria. It was while working as the company's salesman in Damascus that he appears to have come into contact with those who were to propel him towards Afghanistan.

Sakka, 33, who has a Turkish grandfather and speaks Turkish, is thought to have helped train would-be terrorists at a camp for Turkish mujahideen on the Afghan-Pakistan border. He says he met Osama bin Laden, and it appears likely that he would have come into contact with the man who would mastermind the Istanbul attacks, Habib Akdas, a Turkish veteran of the Afghan jihad.

At some point in the late 90s Sakka moved to Turkey, where he began acquiring forged and stolen passports to aid the passage of other militants. He claims to have obtained passports for some of the 9/11 attackers. Turkish police believe he entered the country 55 times over 10 years, using 18 different identities.

After comparing photographs in some of the passports used by Sakka, and then examining him at Istanbul's Kandira high- security prison, police realised he had undergone extensive plastic surgery.

His main role in the Istanbul attacks, according to prosecutors, was to provide $160,000 to allow Akdas and others to rent safe houses and a workshop, buy the material and components needed to build four massive bombs, and then buy the small trucks that would carry them to their targets.

Others recruited the bombers. Mesut Cabuk, 29, a Kurd from the eastern city of Bingol who had spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, targeted the Beth Israel synagogue in the north of the city. His friend Gokhan Elaltunas, 22, the manager of an internet cafe in Bingol, detonated his bomb at Neve Shalom synagogue, three miles away. Five days later Ilyas Kuncak, 47, a grandfather who had two homes and a profitable shop in Ankara, ploughed his bomb-laden truck into the front of the 18-storey HSBC building. It later transpired that he was driven to murder by Turkish press reports about American soldiers raping 4,000 Iraqi women. The reports, entirely erroneous, had been based upon a misreading of a blog posted by a Californian "sex therapist".

At the same time Feridun Ugurlu, 27, who had fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya, detonated his bomb near the entrance to the consulate. The building was chosen at the last moment, partly because of relatively lax security, according to prosecutors. Among those who died were Roger Short, the consul, Lisa Hallworth, his secretary, Nanette Kurma, a translator from Ayrshire, and seven Turkish members of staff. Most of the dead and almost all of the injured were Muslims, and some observers believe that the attacks, mounted during Ramadan, would have been seen by al-Qaida's supporters as a disastrous own goal. Mehmet Farac, a Turkish writer and journalist who monitors al-Qaida, said: "All four attacks were big strategic mistakes."

When news broke of the first blasts, however, Sakka and Akdas were safe in Aleppo, and according to the testimony of one witness both burst into cheers. By the following March, the two men were fighting alongside Zarqawi in Iraq. Akdas is thought to have died during one of the US assaults on the insurgents' stronghold at Fallujah, where he is said to be buried under a football pitch. At least two other men involved in the Istanbul attacks are being held in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad according to Turkish authorities.

Shortly after Mr Bigley's murder Sakka returned to Turkey. He was armed, according to Mr Karahan, with $500,000 from al-Zarqawi and a plan to kill as many Israelis as possible in an attack so far out at sea that no Muslims would be endangered. He bought an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean at Antalya, rented a 27ft yacht, and acquired a small submersible, a sort of underwater jetski that divers can ride at depths of 75ft. He also bought enough hydrogen peroxide, aluminium powder and acetone to assemble a one-tonne bomb, telling suppliers that he was working for a Damascus timber-bleaching company.

He fled Antalya on August 4 after a fire in his apartment triggered a small explosion that sent debris showering into the street. In his haste he abandoned many of his fake passports. A few days later he was arrested at an airport in the south-east of the country by a policeman who had a copy of his most recent photograph.

Sakka initially admitted financing the Istanbul attacks, but has since withdrawn his confession. His lawyer says he made that admission after Turkish police threatened to hand him over to US authorities. "He knew that if the Americans got him he could end up in a Jordanian prison where he could be cut into little pieces," Mr Karahan said.

CIA officers have interviewed Sakka, but did not question him about Mr Bigley, according to Mr Karahan. "The Americans aren't interested in Bigley, they have 50 Bigleys." However, British authorities investigating the abduction and murder of Mr Bigley are now hoping to interview Sakka in prison. The Foreign Office said: "This case and similar cases are not regarded as closed."

Next month Sakka goes on trial alongside 70 other people accused of playing a part in the suicide bombings. If convicted he faces a minimum of 27 years behind bars.

Link

Europe

Sakra sez he beheaded Bigley

2006-04-20

A SUSPECTED al-Qaeda operative in custody in Turkey claimed to have been a member of a gang that kidnapped British hostage Kenneth Bigley in Iraq and beheaded him, a newspaper reported today.

Louai Sakka, a Syrian national and alleged associate of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda head in Iraq, said he presided over a mock trial of Bigley, who was snatched in Baghdad in September 2004, The Guardian said.

His defence lawyer told the newspaper he was convinced the claims were true.

"My client has been a warrior for Islam for the last 10 years," said the lawyer, Osman Karahan.

"He was one of the men who interrogated Bigley. He says they put Bigley on trial, found him guilty and executed him," he said.

"My client was the chief of court. He wants Mr Bigley's family to know that he was not killed for no reason. This was justice. If he had committed a serious offence in the United States he would have been executed, and it was the same for him in Iraq."

The Guardian said it was unclear what "charge" the British engineer had faced. The paper also noted that Sakka has failed so far to reveal the whereabouts of Bigley's remains, despite apparently knowing the location.

The terror suspect said Zarqawi ordered Bigley's execution when he realised Britain would not agree to his demands to free all female prisoners held by US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

The Briton's grisly beheading in October 2004, three weeks after his kidnapping, sent shock waves across the world.

Sakka is thought to have been in Iraq at the time, but the newspaper emphasised that his claims were hard to substantiate.

Foreign Office officials contacted by the daily were unaware of the man's confession, first made during questioning about his alleged role in suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul in 2003 that left 63 people dead.

Sakka, who was arrested in August last year, is due to stand trial next month accused of financing the deadliest terror acts on Turkish soil.

Link

Britain

British Muslim Jailed for Plotting to Kill Iraq Hero

2006-01-28

A MUSLIM who plotted to hunt down and kill a soldier who was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire in Iraq was jailed for six years yesterday. Abu Mansha, 21, drew up his plan after reading a newspaper report that Corporal Mark Byles, of The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, had been awarded one of the Army's highest honours after leading a bayonet charge in which three Iraqi rebels died. In the article, Corporal Byles stated that he had killed as many as twenty insurgents during his six-month tour of duty.

When police searched Abu Mansha's flat in Thamesmead, southeast London, they found a blank-firing gun in the process of being converted to shoot live rounds, a balaclava with eye-holes cut out and a newspaper cutting detailing the soldier's exploits. DVDs featuring "virulent anti-Western propaganda" were also recovered, Southwark Crown Court was told. Some featured Osama bin Laden and another depicted the beheading of the British hostage Kenneth Bigley. A poem that the defendant had written describing George Bush and Tony Blair as "dirty pigs" was also found.

Abu Mansha, the British-born son of a Pakistani-born travel agent, had also researched the personal details of two businessmen, one a Hindu and the other a Jew. The market stallholder was convicted last month under the Terrorism Act of possessing information "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". He remained impassive as Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said: "The information found in his possession included Corporal Byles's past address. That information was in your handwriting, as was a request by you -- and I underline that -- for information about prominent members of the Jewish and Hindu communities. The jury rejected your claims that these were just journalistic inquiries. The maximum sentence for this offence is ten years' imprisonment. You have never faced a charge for conspiracy to kill or cause harm and I do not sentence you for that, but when that information came into your possession and was recorded by you, you crossed the boundary into terrorism." Abu Mansha has a previous conviction for affray as the result of a racial confrontation with another market stallholder three years ago.

Link

Britain

Jailed Terror Suspect makes TV appeal for British hostage's life

2005-12-08

A high-profile terror suspect has made a television appeal from prison in England for the release of a British hostage being held in Iraq. Abu Qatada was allowed to film his plea as part of an unprecedented effort to secure the lives of Norman Kember and three other Western peace activists. Officials admitted that it was a unique broadcast but, with the kidnappers threatening to kill their captives within the next few days, they were prepared to take the desperate measures. Their hope is that the intervention of such a prominent Islamic militant may succeed in persuading the kidnappers from the Swords of Truth group after efforts by more than 20 Muslim groups have so far failed. Last night the kidnappers extended the deadline for killing their hostages by 48 hours to Saturday night and released new footage of Mr Kember pleading for Britain to pull out troops from Iraq and for help to free him.
"Not enough desperation that time, Mr. Kember. Let's try it again!"
British diplomats are reported to have used more intermediaries than they did during the failed attempt to save Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan. But few could have expected that ministers would turn to a man described by judges as âa truly dangerous individualâ. Officials insist that they have offered no leniency to Abu Qatada in return for his role. They claim that it was he who approached prison staff with an offer to intervene. Both the Home and Foreign secretaries gave permission after first checking with diplomats in Baghdad that Abu Qatadaâs plea would not jeopardise undercover efforts to save Mr Kember from Pinner, northwest London, two Canadians and an American. The Prime Minister was also informed.

Link

Iraq

Gunmen told: take British hostages

2005-10-02

THE radical Shiâite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has authorised his militia to kidnap two Britons in Iraq in the hope of swapping them for two of his senior officials who are held in Basra by British forces. A senior official from al-Sadrâs Mahdi army in Baghdad said that al-Sadr had given the order after last monthâs dramatic rescue of two SAS men whom he had been hoping to use as bargaining chips. The source said al-Sadr had given British authorities until yesterday to release his men, but they had failed to do so. âIn return for our two officials, two Britons will be taken,â the source said. The two need not necessarily be from the British military, but could be civilians, he added.

The source claimed that the Mahdi army had already pinpointed two British targets working for private security companies in the affluent Mansour district of Baghdad. Several British security firms have bases in the area. Last year two British nationals â Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan â were kidnapped and executed by Sunni extremists. The detained men â Sheikh Ahmed Majid Farttusi and Sayyid Sajjad â have been accused by coalition forces of involvement in attacks that killed at least nine soldiers, including two Britons, in the past two months. Their arrests provoked protests by dozens of Mahdi army members with assault rifles who marched to the provincial governorâs office. When the two SAS men were arrested shortly afterwards by Basraâs security forces for âsuspicious behaviourâ and allegedly shooting a policeman in the leg, they were handed to al-Sadrâs militia â with the apparent intention that they would be bartered for the detained militiamen.

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Iraq-Jordan

Zarqawi's colorful past

2005-06-06

Private family photographs of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader, are to appear in the first biography in English of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The book includes pictures of Zarqawi with his Jordanian bedouin mother and father, both of whom are now dead. Other photographs show him shortly before his journey to become a fighter in Afghanistan and in prison in Jordan in the 1990s.

Zarqawi's group in Iraq has been linked to numerous insurgent atrocities, including the beheading of Kenneth Bigley, an engineer from Liverpool. The biography, Zarqawi: The New Face of Terrorism, will be published by Polity later this month. It claims that Zarqawi, as part of an attempt to build a Europe-wide network of sympathisers, has developed close links with an Islamic cleric under house arrest in Britain. "With Osama bin Laden out of circulation or incapacitated, Zarqawi ... is probably the most important figure within the radical Islamists,"said Jean-Charles Brisard, the book's author and a French terrorism investigator. Brisard recounts how Zarqawi, now 37, was expelled from school. He worked in a paper plant and then as a maintenance worker before drifting into crime. According to the book: "Those who knew him in those years say that he drank like a fish and covered his body with tattoos, two practices condemned by Islam. They called him 'the green man' on account of his many tattoos."

Zarqawi was later convicted for wounding with a knife. He was also arrested for shoplifting, drug dealing and a rape allegation.

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