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Recent Appearances... Rantburg
Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi al Ghurabaa Britain 20051119 Link
Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi Sheik Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi al-Qaeda Iraq-Jordan 20050712  
  Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi Supreme Council of Global Jihad Terror Networks 20030813  
  Abu-Mohammed al-Maqdisi Learned Elders of Islam Iraq-Jordan 20050704  
  Sheik Abu-Mohammed al-Maqdisi Learned Elders of Islam Iraq-Jordan 20050706  
  Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi Learned Elders of Islam Terror Networks 20031123  

Olde Tyme Religion
Al Qaeda Ideologue Calls For Freeing British Hostage
2014-09-21
Al Q vs. ISIS, round 3:
[IsraelTimes] A renowned jihadi ideologue on Saturday urged the Islamic State group to release British aid worker Alan Henning, saying Islam forbids harming non-Moslems who work with relief agencies.
"But tourists, journalists, and those working for neutral parties are fair game," he added. "Jihadis have to find some reward for their sacrifices."
Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who was released by Jordan in June after serving a five-year sentence on terror charges, said in a statement posted on his website that non-Moslems who aid needy Moslems should be protected.

The Islamic State group has released grisly videos showing the beheading of two American journalists and a British aid worker. It has threatened to kill Henning -- a British former taxi driver who was taken captive in December shortly after crossing into Syria from Turkey in an aid convoy -- in retaliation for US and European military action against it.

Also known as Essam al-Barqawi, al-Maqdisi was the mentor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in a US Arclight airstrike in 2006.

Al-Maqdisi said Henning worked with a charitable organization led by Moslems which sent several aid convoys to help the Syrian people. "Is it reasonable that his reward is being kidnapped and slaughtered? ... He should be rewarded with thanks."

"We call on the (Islamic) State to release this man (Henning) and other aid group employees who enter the land of Moslems with a guarantee of protection... according to the judgment of Shariah law," he said, adding that he hoped to "protect the image of Islamic Shariah law from being disfigured."

Al-Maqdisi said Abu Qatada, a locked away
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
 Jordanian preacher described as a onetime lieutenant to the late Osama bin Laden
... who used to be alive but now he's not...
, had asked the Islamic State group eight months ago to release Henning. He said Abu Qatada's son told him that the group denied holding Henning.

Al-Maqdisi went on to criticize the group for attacking fellow Moslems in Iraq and Syria, where it has carved out a self-styled caliphate by seizing territory from Syrian and Iraqi forces as well as Syrian rebels fighting to oust Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
The Islamic State group has its roots in al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate but was expelled from the global terror network over its brutal tactics and refusal to obey orders to confine its activities to Iraq.

The hard boy group has been widely denounced by mainstream Moslem authorities.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Zarqawi mentor detained in Jordan
2010-09-19
AyPee: The Spiritual Guide and former cell-block-buddy of AQI murderman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was detained, according to his relatives.

Jordan's state intelligence agency picked up Palestinian-born militant Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi late Friday and no one knows where he is now.
Or where they'll find the body ...
There is 'No Comment!' from Jordanian security officials.

Jordan freed this clown from prison in 2008.
Link


Terror Networks
Transformation and mutation of Al Qaeda
2007-01-02
Khaled Ahmed
Al Qaeda began as a pan-Islamic movement of jihad first, in embryo, against the Soviet Union and then against the United States and the West. Before its establishment in 1989, Osama bin Laden was fighting against the Soviet Union in the tutelage of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian intellectual.

Abdullah Azzam believed in using jihad as a way of achieving world domination and designated the non-Muslim West as the enemy to be attacked.
Abdullah Azzam believed in using jihad as a way of achieving world domination and designated the non-Muslim West as the enemy to be attacked. He taught in Saudi Arabia and during that period attracted a lot of students, notable among whom were Osama bin Laden and Pakistan’s Hafiz Said. Later he also counted Harkatul Mujahideen’s Fazlur Rehman Khaleel among his devotees.

In 1986, Azzam arrived at the Islamabad’s International Islamic University. From there he began to make his trips to Peshawar, finally opening his Afghan Bureau Service as a centre of pan-Arab jihad.
As a memory jog, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
He could have been the father of Al Qaeda but he was – with good reason – not ready to retreat in the face of Osama bin Laden’s wealth. However, despite Azzam’s multi-volume encyclopaedia on jihad (what the world now terms terrorism), Osama let him go his own way. Azzam was murdered in Peshawar along with his two sons in 1989.
I've never heard anything on who actually dunnit. I suspect it was Ayman, but it could have been lots of other people, to include, I suppose, the Sovs, likely using Hekmatyar.
He was followed by the Egyptian Aiman Al Zawahiri, a doctor who weaned Osama from Azzam’s plan to attack only the West. Zawahiri also wanted to hit the Muslim states living in bondage to the West. This was the first departure of Al Qaeda from global to regional concerns. As part of that agenda, Zawahiri blew up the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad; Osama was in the loop and shortly thereafter fell foul of Saudi Arabia.

Al Qaeda in fact absorbed its complexion from where it was located. Osama did not have an intellect like Azzam with which to mould anyone. He just drifted along among flattering followers. The lack of a grand vision also meant he allowed his ancillaries, including those in Pakistan, to indulge in sectarianism. So while he hated Saudi Arabia, Osama did not care that his protégé militias in Pakistan were getting funds from that country and killing Shias.

The next turn was foretold. Al Qaeda went into sectarian mode mainly because Osama lacked the intellectual strength to resist it but also because Zawahiri, despite his books, was narrowly focused and was even trying to live down the guilt that he had betrayed a fellow-terrorist under torture in Cairo.

There must have been a wrench when Al Qaeda turned into a sectarian organisation.
During his Sudan sojourn, Binny had actually been targeted by takfiri for not being Islamic enough. Pakistan, on the other hand, has a long tradition of Sunni-Shia killings -- more Sunni than Shia, from what we've seen lately.
Some of it also sprang from local compulsions. Al Qaeda had good relations with Iran before the Taliban spoiled them but placating the Taliban was an essential quid pro quo given that they had provided sanctuaries to the organisation’s leaders and rank and file. Interestingly, Ayatollah Khomeini was acceptable to Zawahiri for having named a street in Tehran after Khaled Islamboli, the Egyptian artillery officer who assassinated President Anwar Sadat at a military parade in Cairo in 1981.

While most Wahhabi groups invoke the 13th century Muslim legist Ibn Taymiyya and Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, the Shia in Pakistan were killed by non-Wahhabi Deobandi groups who, despite following the Hanafi fiqh, have increasingly tended to become literalists and rabidly anti-Shia. Osama let these groups indulge in sectarianism because of local compulsions. In fact he never stopped training the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e Jhangvi boys in his camps. Part of this nonchalance arose from the fact that the Pakistanis slaughtered were not Arabs.
Not members of the Master Race, y'mean...
But then the youth from Jordan, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, took the killing all the way to the Arab world. And he did it single-handedly, after absorbing his first sectarian lessons from the Deobandi killers in Pakistan. This caused a lot of concern in Al Qaeda but Al Qaeda was not intellectually equipped to stop the new trend.

Zarqawi was converted to killing by a fiery preacher in Jordan, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi. Both admired each other. Maqdisi had the mind but envied Zarqawi’s strength and bravery albeit sans intellect. Zarqawi also upstaged both Maqdisi and Osama. He went into Iraq against the Americans but soon began to see the Shia of Iraq as the beneficiaries of the invasion because of the new system under which democracy would lead to Shia political domination. He began by abusing the grand ayatollah of Najaf, Sistani, and then launched more attacks against the Shia than the Americans who he had gone to Iraq to kill.

At one point, Zawahiri pleaded with him not to kill the Shia but Zarqawi did not pay heed to these calls. His mentor Maqdisi also wrote to him reprimanding him for wrongdoing against Islam but Zarqawi wrote back saying Maqdisi was never his teacher and that what he was doing was right. Zarqawi then began destroying the mausoleums of the Imams in Iraq until the Americans finally got him.

Zarqawi was like Khaled Sheikh Muhammad; he would behead his victims with his own hands. But it is a measure of the compulsions as well as the internal fault-lines that Al Qaeda owned him after his death and denied that he had ever killed the Shia. This line was also taken by the rightwing in Pakistan. In owning Zarqawi, everybody was diminished, most of all Al Qaeda. But the act also completed the transformation of Al Qaeda as a sectarian organisation taking pride in killing fellow Muslims.
Link


Arabia
Soddies rely on holy men to prevent terrorist attacks
2006-05-07
Saudi Arabia has mobilized some of its most militant clerics, including one Osama bin Laden sought to recruit as his spiritual guide, in a campaign to combat the continuing appeal of al-Qaeda's ideology in the kingdom.

The effort has targeted hundreds of young Saudis whom security forces here have tracked down and arrested as sympathizers or potential recruits. They are then subjected to an intense program of religious reeducation by clerics that sometimes lasts for months.

Saudi authorities say that about 500 youths have completed the program and been freed since it began in 2004. They remain under close surveillance. "None has been found to get reinvolved in terrorism so far," said Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, which runs the program together with the Islamic Affairs Ministry. "Their ideology has changed, and they are convinced they were wrong."

Ministry officials denied a request to interview any of the young people. The Saudi who relayed the decision said officials worried about what they might say to a foreign reporter.

Mohsen al-Awajy, an Islamic lawyer who is known here as a former radical, was skeptical of the effect. "I'm afraid about 85 to 90 percent of those who claim they are changing their minds as a result of this dialogue might not be truthful," he said.

Turki conceded that Saudi authorities were having great difficulty curbing the appeal of al-Qaeda's ideology among young people, who he said are incited by "the daily killings in Iraq" and a constant barrage of appeals to holy war on Internet sites run by Islamic extremists. Hundreds have crossed into Iraq to join the insurgency there. "As long as the ideology is alive," Turki said, "we cannot guarantee no new terrorists will come along."

Abdel Mohsen al-Obeikan, a former militant cleric now playing a prominent part in the reeducation program, compared the challenge to the war on drugs in the United States. "You cannot stop drugs, either," he said. As soon as one terrorist group is eliminated, he said, another pops up that is even more dangerous: "We need a long time. We should be patient."

Still, Saudi authorities argue that they have made real progress in uprooting al-Qaeda inside the kingdom and that part of the reason is their efforts with the young people. But a foiled attack on Feb. 24 against the world's largest oil terminal at Abqaiq sobered U.S. and Saudi officials. "Abqaiq shows the problem is not over," said U.S. Ambassador James C. Oberwetter in an interview here.

The Internet has become the main battleground in the struggle against al-Qaeda ideology, according to three members of the counseling committee that the Interior Ministry set up to run the reeducation program. The body has 22 full-time members, who get help from 100 Islamic clerics and 30 psychiatrists.

Islamic counselors selected by the committee have succeeded in infiltrating a number of extremist Web sites and Internet chat rooms. Islamic Affairs Minister Saleh al-Asheikh told reporters in February that the government had established dialogue with 800 al-Qaeda sympathizers this way and succeeded in changing the thinking of 250.

The Saudi government established the reeducation program in 2004 after conducting three-hour interviews with 639 prisoners, according to one committee members' account of the program's origins. "We asked, 'Who do you like? Who do you read? Who are the top models for you?' " said Abdulrahman al-Hahlaq, a U.S.-educated Saudi who is on the committee.

They discovered, he said, that the most influential person was not bin Laden, a Saudi, but the Palestinian-Jordanian cleric Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who was the initial spiritual guide for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Both come from the same Jordanian village, Zarqa.

Maqdisi has written a treatise titled "Clear Evidence on the Infidel Nature of the Saudi State." He declared the Saudi government to be a kafir , or nonbeliever, thus justifying its overthrow on religious grounds. He is currently in a Jordanian prison.

"Maqdisi is a very important figure. They listen to him," said Hahlaq.

To attempt to counter his teachings, the committee sends teams, made up of three clerics and one psychiatrist or psychologist, to see individual prisoners. Visiting almost daily for months, the team engages the prisoner in religious discussions that last for hours at a time. Some detainees attend five-week courses in the fine points of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist sect of Islam that dominates Saudi society and lends crucial support to the ruling Saud royal family.

The prisoners, most of them under 30 years of age and without high school diplomas, must pass an exam before being released. The committee then helps them find jobs, go back to school or even get married. But they are required to report to the police every two weeks.

By bringing into the program well-known Wahhabi radicals who in the past have denounced the Saudi government for its close association with the United States, Saudi officials hope to give it credibility with young people. With its control of the finances of Islam in the kingdom, the government can bring pressure by threatening to close the mosques of individual clerics or withdraw their funding.

Perhaps the two best-known Wahhabi radicals are Salman al-Ouda and Safar al-Hawali. They both spent about five years in prison in the 1990s for criticizing the ruling Saud family for inviting U.S. troops into the kingdom during the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq. They were among 26 Saudi religious figures who delivered a sermon in November 2004 declaring that Iraqis had a "right" and a "duty" to fight U.S. forces in Iraq.

After the sermon, Saudi authorities pressured Ouda and Hawali in particular to moderate their tone and to help the government combat al-Qaeda inside the kingdom. Hawali, the more radical of the two, suffered a stroke last year and is no longer active. Ouda has largely complied, officials said.

Another participant is Obeikan, a former radical Islamic jurist who has publicly challenged Maqdisi and bin Laden to debate their ideology with him.

In an interview at his elegant marble-faced home on the northern outskirts of Riyadh, Obeikan recounted that he twice met bin Laden here just before he was expelled by Saudi authorities to Sudan in 1991. The al-Qaeda leader sought to convince him to become the spiritual leader of a movement to overthrow the Saud royal family, "like Khomeini," he said, referring to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The gray-bearded sheik, dressed in a flowing white robe and a red-and-white checked scarf, said he had declined. He did make an eight-day trip to Afghanistan in 1989 to lecture in three of bin Laden's camps and join in a "token" detonation of some explosives, he said.

Now, he says he is lecturing on "why there is no need for jihad" in Iraq or elsewhere at this time. "There is a misunderstanding of Islamic jihad," he said. "What is meant by jihad is the spread of the call to Islam through peaceful means."

Whether Saudi youth are listening is far from clear. Awajy, the onetime radical lawyer, estimated the influence of clerics such as Obeikan as "insignificant."

Toby Jones, who has written several reports on Saudi politics for the Brussels-based research and advocacy organization the International Crisis Group, said that Obeikan has solid religious credentials. "When he speaks, even the radicals listen," he said. Jones said he doubted, however, that the cleric was changing many minds among those "leaning toward jihad or at least supporting jihadism." He noted that the Islamic jurist has been pilloried regularly by Islamic militants in satirical Internet postings.
Link


Iraq
Anbar turning against Zarqawi
2006-02-06
Sheikh Osama al-Jadaan, head of the influential Karabila tribe in Sunni Arab-dominated western Iraq, is more politician than traditional sheikh these days. He's given up his dishdasha and Arab headdress for a pinstripe suit with a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket.

He's also turned away from supporting Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and other foreign fighters in Iraq. "We realized that these foreign terrorists were hiding behind the veil of the noble Iraqi resistance," says Mr. Jadaan. "They claim to be striking at the US occupation, but the reality is they are killing innocent Iraqis in the markets, in mosques, in churches, and in our schools."

In Anbar Province, an insurgent hotbed that borders Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, US and Iraqi officials say they have a new ally against the Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists: local tribal leaders like Jadaan and home-grown Iraqi insurgents.

"The local insurgents have become part of the solution and not part of the problem," US Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told reporters at a press conference last week.

Until recently, many of the Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar and local insurgent leaders collaborated with Islamic extremist groups whose funding and manpower is thought to come largely from abroad. They had a common goal: drive out the Americans.

But Mr. Zarqawi's indiscriminate killing of innocent Iraqis has alienated many of his erstwhile Iraqi allies. His shadowy militant group, known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, is believed to have assassinated four prominent Anbar sheikhs. And in January when hundreds of Anbar men turned up at an Iraqi Army recruiting depot in Ramadi, the provincial capital, a suicide bomber killed 70 would-be soldiers.

Zarqawi's brutal methods have stirred controversy beyond Iraq, as well. When he declared an "all out war" on Shiites last September, his former mentor, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, publicly rebuked him and Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned him against alienating the Muslim masses.

But Zarqawi appears to have done just that. Last month, a poll of 1,150 Iraqis throughout the country, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, the website World Public Opinion, and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, revealed that just 7 percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on Iraqi government security forces.The same poll, which over sampled Sunni Arabs, found that only 1 percent of Iraqis support attacks on Iraqi civilians.

"There is a change," says Mithal Alusi, a secular Sunni Arab parliamentarian. "After these attacks, and after the elections, we find the people are eager to be rid of the terrorists."

Analysts say the participation of Sunni Arabs in the December elections, and the tripling of that sect's seats in parliament, has convinced local leaders like Jadaan that political participation can bear fruit, such as infrastructure, jobs, and an end to US military operations in their cities.

"We are caught in the middle between the terrorists coming to destroy us with their suicide belts, their TNT, and their car bombs, and the American Army that destroys our homes, takes our weapons, and doesn't allow us to defend ourselves against the terrorists," says Jadaan.

It was that frustration that first pushed Anbar's elders to take a stand against outside terror groups, which set up camp there and turned Anbar's highways into rat lines for foreign fighters coming in from Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

US and Iraqi forces launched a series of offensives throughout the province last year. Caught in the crossfire, Anbar's residents began looking for a way out.

"A sheikh from the Samarra tribe, which had suffered a lot from the military operations, came to see the minister of defense, and he said, 'Give me two weeks to get rid of the foreigners from our city,' " recalls Mohammed al-Askaree, an adviser to Iraq's Sunni Arab Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaymi. "The minister said, 'Take a month. If you get rid of the foreigners and the terrorists your city will avoid further problems.' "

Other tribal sheikhs followed suit. About three months ago, Mr. Dulaymi, intent on exploiting the rift between the tribes and the foreign insurgents, convened a series of meetings with Anbar's tribal sheikhs, religious leaders, and local elders. The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, attended some of the meetings.

The provincial leaders made a number of demands in return for their cooperation, Mr. Askaree says. They asked for weapons to fight the terrorists with, but the minister refused. Instead the minister agreed to step up recruitment of Anbar residents to the Iraqi security forces.

"If you want to participate in attacking the terrorists, you have no choice but to send your sons to volunteer for the Army and give the Army information on the terrorists," Askaree says the minister of defense told the gathered Anbar notables.

Those negotiations seem to have unsettled Zarqawi and his allies. But it remains difficult to gauge just how effective and how widespread the new wellspring of tribal support for the Iraqi government is.

A report released last September by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that 4 to 10 percent of the country's combatants are foreigners. However, the report points out that this element represents a virulent strain of the militancy responsible for the most violent attacks. Furthermore, local insurgents have pragmatic demands and are more willing to compromise than Zarqawi-led fighters, who view the struggle in Iraq as part of a global jihad.

"If you can get real progress here, then it's a lot easier to end the insurgency by having the insurgents join the government than by hunting them down," says Anthony Cordesman, coauthor of the CSIS report.

Other military analysts have pointed to a decrease in US casualties in Anbar to show that the strategy is working.

Still, many Sunni Arab hard-liners remain defiant, and downplay the apparent rifts between foreign elements and local insurgents. "These are just a few sheikhs who want to get political power by claiming to be fighting the terrorists, and to be speaking for the resistance," says Sheikh Abdel Salaam al-Qubaysi, a leading member of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line Sunni group that draws much of its support from Anbar. "They are slaves in the pockets of the occupation. They have no weight in the streets."

Mr. Qubaysi scoffs at suggestions that Anbar's tribes are starting to turn against the resistance. Last month's suicide attack on Sunni Arabs in Ramadi was not the work of the "noble Arab resistance," he says. "We know that 40,000 militants from Iran have to come to Iraq," he says. "I don't rule out that they did this to prevent Sunni Arabs from joining the Iraqi Army."

Sunni Arab politicians from Anbar also warn that this measured progress could wither just as quickly as it blossomed if the country's Shiite and Kurdish leaders don't respond to key Sunni Arab demands in negotiations to form a government.

Tariq al-Hashimi, leader of the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Islamic Party, laid out a 10-point ultimatum for the US and Iraqi governments last week. He demanded the release of political prisoners and the resignation of Iraq's controversial Shiite interior minister. He threatened "a massive civilian uprising" if his demands were ignored.

Another top Sunni demand, with a direct impact on negotiations with tribal sheikhs in Anbar, is ending the stringent debaathification law, which prohibits ex-Baath Party members above a certain rank from holding government positions.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Defense suddenly implemented a six-month-old order from the Iraqi Debaathification Commission that demanded the dismissal of 18 Iraqi generals, colonels, and majors. Most were Sunni Arabs from Anbar.

At a time when the government is trying to bring the provincial leaders on board to fight the insurgency, the decision sends the wrong message, says Mr. Alusi, the secular Sunni politician. "You're telling these sheikhs in Anbar that there's a place for their children in the new Iraq, but your actions say otherwise," says Alusi.

And even if Zarqawi and his ilk can be defeated in Iraq, this is no guarantee that the rest will be smooth sailing for the US. The same poll that showed Iraqi disapproval of attacks on fellow Iraqis, also reported that 88 percent of Sunni Arabs and 41 percent of Shiites approved of attacks on US forces.
In case anybody has any comments, let me just say that I am becoming more and more dubious of the practice of polling in the Arab world the same way we do here in the US or other long-established democracies. All of the polls going into the Palestinians election had Fatah winning the election and now we have a Hamas super-majority.
It's a statistic that Jedaan, the tribal sheikh, is well aware of. "Iraq has its men, its honorable resistance, and we will drive out the Americans and liberate our country ourselves."
Link


Britain
New Islamist group to launch this week in London
2005-11-19
The founding of a new militant Islamist group will be announced at a press conference in Walthamstow, East London on Friday. Anjam Choudry a lawyer and the former leader of al Muhahjiroun, an extremist organization which disbanded itself in October 2004, told Asharq al Awsat on Wednesday he had invited the group’s 700 ex- members to unite under the banner of “Ahl al Sunnah and al Jamaa” (the community following the teachings of the Prophet.) Arab and foreign journalists are expected to attend the conference.
Hey! Just like Pakland! The organization gets banned, you break out the false noses and moustaches and keep doing business at the same old stand.
Choudry also expected several students of Omar Bakri Mohammad, the spiritual guide of the banned al Ghurabaa who currently lives in Beirut, to attend the launch. The new group “will concentrate on preaching and not jihad” (armed struggle), the lawyer indicated. It aims to unite British Muslims under one roof, away from more secular organizations. Bakri will be one of the religious figures consulted for their fatwas (religious edicts) but will not hold any other responsibilities.
"See? Nothing to ban us for. We're not what we used to be. We're something different."
Choudry, who was sent back by the Lebanese authorities with three other Islamists after he visited Bakri in Beirut earlier this month, indicated, “We will be part of the group Ahl al Sunna and al Jamaa which exists worldwide. Amongst our sheikhs are Omar Bakri, Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi [detained in Jordan], the Palestinian Islamist Abu Qatadah, [real name Omar Mahmoud Othman, currently in a London jail accused by the British authorities of being al Qaeda’s spiritual leader in Europe].”
That kinda gives an idea of what their philosophy is.
Meanwhile, in a telephone conversation with Asharq al Awsat on Wednesday, Bakri revealed internal divisions amongst his students as Abd al Muid, a Pakistani Islamist and the former Amir (leader) of al Ghurabaa had refused to join the new organization. “Ahl al Sunna and the Jamaa are the victorious sect”, he said.
Link


Terror Networks & Islam
Ex-Clinton official on Brisard's book on Zarqawi
2005-09-18
THERE is no substitute for war as a way of separating out talented field commanders from the rest. In Iraq, America's terrorist enemies have benefited from these winnowing effects as much as any conventional force. Now the jihadists have a hardened cadre of leaders, and none is more brutally distinguished than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

With a $25 million price on his head and the United States military desperately trying to corner him, Zarqawi has become the face of the insurgency, if not exactly "the new face of Al Qaeda," as the subtitle of Jean-Charles Brisard's disjointed biography, "Zarqawi," asserts. His organization may be committing only a fraction of the attacks in Iraq, but, as Brisard and his collaborator, Damien Martinez, rightly observe, "His are the ones that are commented on throughout the world." These attacks have included the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and large-scale bombings of Shiite targets in Najaf and Karbala, which have helped speed the way toward wider sectarian violence and the current undeclared civil war.

A Jordanian with a background as humble as Osama bin Laden's is grand, Ahmad Fadil Nazzal al-Khalayleh (Zarqawi's nom de guerre is taken from his hometown near Amman) traveled a route sharply different from that of Al Qaeda's first generation of leaders. Unlike the patrician surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri, the group's second-in-command and chief ideologist, or bin Laden himself, a member of the Saudi elite who studied engineering and economics, Zarqawi was a high school dropout, an abuser of alcohol, a drug dealer and possibly a participant in an attempted rape.

According to Brisard, this rebel from a criminal background went to fight in the Afghan jihad in 1989 after a quarrel with his father, a minor city official. He missed the glorious struggle against the Soviets but saw action in later battles among the various Afghan factions. He was arrested in his native country in 1994 for trying to bring the jihad home. In prison, Zarqawi came under the tutelage of a prominent radical imam, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, and matured into a hard-edged takfiri, a believer in the excommunication - and slaughter - of Muslims deemed guilty of apostasy. He became the leader of a jailhouse Islamist cell, acquiring a reputation for being relentlessly aggressive against those he opposed and extravagantly devoted to those who supported him.

These qualities have served him well in Iraq. While bin Laden, who is fastidious about the details of his violence, has been off making video addresses from the caves of Waziristan and casting himself as a world leader, Zarqawi is claiming credit for a dozen bombings a week. His videos show him personally beheading captives, like the young American Nick Berg. His passionate hatred of Shiites, whom he has compared unfavorably to Americans, has made him perfectly suited to be the catalyst for an Iraqi civil war - a role that probably could not have been filled as well by bin Laden, since Al Qaeda has historically sought to avoid provoking Shiite Iran.

Zarqawi could be an excellent window into understanding radical Islam's appeal to the Arab world's swelling underclass, the various currents running through the movement (including its powerful anti-Shiite sentiment) and the way the jihadist struggle has been changed by the war in Iraq. But this biography has little to say about any of this. Nor is it helpful in explaining Zarqawi's volatile relationship with Al Qaeda. In the period preceding the war, while the Bush administration was portraying Zarqawi as the key intermediary between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, many Western intelligence services saw him less as a lieutenant of bin Laden than a rival - a view now widely accepted. (The charge that Zarqawi was collaborating with Hussein's regime has long since crumbled.) The merger of his Tawhid and Jihad group with Al Qaeda in 2004 was a case of mutual exploitation. Zarqawi was able to show that he had the blessing of the greatest jihadist and bin Laden could create the illusion that he was a real presence in today's central field of battle.

Brisard describes a chaotic series of conspiracies, mostly failed, and he provides the names of legions of insignificant co-conspirators, but he scarcely explores Zarqawi's differences with the Al Qaeda leaders over doctrine (it may be hard to believe there are people more radical than bin Laden, but takfiris, with their "slaughter them all approach," are just that). There is also little discussion of the disagreements over strategy, in which Zarqawi pushed for bringing the jihad to the Middle East to topple Jordan's rulers and attack Israel, while bin Laden favored a global focus on the United States.

What's more, numerous errors of fact and a shabby use of sources makes this a self-undermining book. For example, Brisard refers to a mid-90's plot "to crash several airplanes simultaneously over the United States"; the goal of that plot was actually to blow up 12 wide-bodies over the Pacific. Brisard appears not to know that Pakistan's ruler in the late 90's was Nawaz Sharif, and he identifies Benazir Bhutto as the victim of Gen. Pervez Musharraf's 1999 coup, when in fact she was in exile at the time. Most bizarre is Brisard's claim that the United States has been trying to incite a "direct clash" between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq "so as to justify its presence in Iraq."

Charges like this only reinforce the reputation for reckless conspiracy theorizing that Brisard acquired with his last book, "Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden." (There he alleged that the 9/11 attacks were a response to American pressure on the Taliban to permit oil and gas pipelines to be built in Afghanistan.) In a letter early this year, Osama bin Laden asked Zarqawi to start work on an operation against the United States. The world's foremost jihadist evidently thinks the Jordanian upstart has the resources to carry out such an attack, and surely this is reason enough for us to know more about him. But "Zarqawi" is a squandered opportunity.
I've got my own copy of the book and tend to think that Benjamin's selling it quite a bit short. While I agree with him on the factual errors (substituting Bhutto for Sharif), I think that this more than a hatchet job intended to sell Benjamin's own views on Zarqawi rather than to actually critique Brisard's.
Link


Terror Networks & Islam
Abu Musab al-Suri and Third Generation Jihadis
2005-08-28
The decimation of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 had many long-term implications, the most pernicious of which was the emergence of a particularly extreme form of Syrian Salafism. At the center of this is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, better known as Abu Musab al-Suri (the Syrian), who is widely believed to be the most prolific al-Qaeda ideologue and trainer alive. Currently working closely with the Zarqawi network, and probably based in Iraq, Nasar also allegedly exercises operational control over several al-Qaeda linked networks in the West.

Despite his strenuous denials, Nasar is widely believed to have masterminded the Madrid attacks in March 2004 and probably had an important role in the recent London attacks. Notorious for his online teaching courses, in which he expertly equips the new generation of jihadis and al-Qaeda loyalists with knowledge, insights and useful practical training, Nasar is the most important live link between the old al-Qaeda and the emerging new al-Qaeda. Understanding Mustafa Setmariam Nasar is key to gaining a better insight into the evolving universe of Salafi-jihadism.

Abu Mus’ab al-Suri is the nom de guerre of Mustafa Abdul-Qadir Mustafa Hussein al-Sheikh Ahmed al-Mazeek al-Jakiri al-Rifa’ei whose family is known as “al-Set Mariam” after their grandmother. [1] He was born in Aleppo in 1958, where he studied mechanical engineering and is also known by the name of Omar Abdul-Hakeem.

Nasar was initiated into al-Tali’a al-Muqatila (Fighting Vanguard), a Jihadist group linked to the Syrian Muslim Brothers, founded by the late Marwan Hadeed. Nasar received training from Egyptian and Iraqi officers and additional training in camps in Jordan and Baghdad during an era when Arab regimes were on a collision course with the Syrian Ba’athists. He was also a member of the higher military command of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement that was established in Baghdad after the Syrian Brothers fled from their country. According to unverified sources Sheikh Saeed Haowa was head of that military command.

Following the events in Hama in 1982, when the Syrian army successfully suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood uprising, Nasar left the movement, after declaring his opposition to the Brotherhood’s alliance with sectarian movements and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. He headed for Afghanistan where he met with Abdul-Kader Abdul-Aziz writer of the book entitled The Master of Preparations, which is regarded as a reference point for the jihadis, and also met with Sheikh Abdullah Azzam.

After taking part in the war against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan, Nasar traveled to Spain and subsequently joined the embryonic al-Qaeda organization in 1992. [2] In due course Nasar left Spain for Britain and began associating with Algerian Islamic militants. According to some reports, Nasar attended the initial meetings which led to the creation of the Algerian al-Jama’a al Islamiyah al-Musaliha (Armed Islamic Group). Also in London, Nasar established a center called Conflicts of the Islamic World and it was reported that he had arranged – through that center – two interviews for CNN and the BBC with Osama Bin Laden.

In 1998, he moved back to Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar. He worked at the Arabic section of Kabul radio. After the ouster of the Taliban regime, Nasar took time to research and write on the Jihadist experiment. According to Nasar, he was not active in any movements during this period and he describes the U.S. State Department’s reward of $5 million leading to his capture as simply “ridiculous”.

In the State Department warrant, Nasar was accused of running the Derunta and al-Ghoraba camps located in Kabul and Jalalabad. The camps allegedly specialized in imparting training and expertise on toxic materials and chemical substances. The State Department voiced concern over Nasar’s association with WMDs, and he was also accused of being a close ally of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi. Moreover, he was associated with the Madrid explosions on March 11, 2004 and was alleged to have had close association with Abu al-Dahdah (Muhi-deen Barakat Yarkas).

Nasar wrote a long reply in response to the State Department’s accusations denying any role in the September 11th attacks, claiming that he had not heard of the attacks until news of them was broadcast by the media. However, he voiced strong support for the attacks. He also claimed that he had not visited Spain since 1995, and that he has no connection to the Madrid explosions whatsoever. Furthermore, Nasar denied any association with Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, with the qualification that he would consider any such association an honor.

Nasar urged the European governments to distance themselves from the aggressive policies of Americans and Israelis as much as possible. He also called upon jihadist fighters to differentiate between an aggressor country and others, and to listen to the more experienced elder Jihadists. Strangely enough, Nasar paid tribute to the innocent victims of the Madrid explosions, but at the same time voiced his sorrow for the absence of WMDs in the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, despite the fact that he expresses reservations about striking mainland European countries, Nasar excludes Britain from such calculations. On the contrary, Nasar places Britain firmly within the American-Israeli alliance.

An important feature of Nasar’s work revolves around what he terms the “third generation” of Salafi-Jihadists: “I believe that a new generation of Jihadists is born today in the post 9/11 climate, where Iraq is occupied and the Palestinian uprising has reached a climax, thus leaving it at a crossroads. We are at a juncture where the believers have exhausted all their resources, and the nation stands by as a spectator in relation to their sacrifices because of the compelling silence of the ulama, the oppression of its rulers, and the inability to retaliate.” [3]

Through his writing, Nasar is clearly trying to use his position as a “second generation” militant to connect the emerging “third generation” to the accumulated experiences and expertise of the “first generation” as represented by the senior leaders of al-Qaeda, who today are either dead, captured or dispersed around the world. Nasar describes his objective eloquently: “In this book, in my capacity as one of the survivors of the second generation, I have tried to hand down part of this mission to whoever walks in our path. This work is a systematic intellectual summary, and a historic insight that aims to assist those who are prepared to continue the mission, to continue in the path of light without forgetting the great lessons of a noble path that is paved with the blood of thousands of martyrs, and the suffering of a whole generation that strived against tyrants and withstood the most severe repressions.” [4]

This generation is most probably represented by those who carried out the post 9/11 attacks in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid and London. Most importantly are the foreign Arab fighters in Iraq who exemplify the third generation as they mostly lack any military experience whether in Afghanistan or anywhere else. They are the vanguard of the emerging Salafi-Jihadist networks, gaining useful experience in American occupied Iraq, and will in due course be recognized as the “Arab Iraqis” in the same vein as the “Arab Afghans”.

This radicalized third generation will in due course create security problems in their own countries. And as the Syrians allegedly form the second highest group amongst the Arab volunteers, Nasar’s analysis on the situation in Syria, which he published on the Internet in two volumes, may grow increasingly popular. In his book Ahl as-Sunna fil-Sham fi Muwajihat al-Nusairia wal-Salibeen wal-Yahoud, which he wrote following the death of the late Syrian president Hafez al-Asad, Nasar focuses on two fundamental issues: the Nusairi (Alawi) sect and its unjust dominion in Syria and the Syrian state apparatus in its entirety, which according to Nasar, is supported by the West to establish peace with Israel.

From a strategic perspective, Nasar offers interesting insights into the failure of what he calls the “Jihadist experience in Syria”. In short, the failure is attributed to a lack of strategy and planning, unified ideology, jihadist theory and weaknesses in informational and media groundwork. While Nasar does not offer any ready-made solutions to the jihadis in Syria and the wider Islamic movement in that country, it is clear that the inspiration he exercises over Iraq returnees, coupled with wider dynamics, could pose serious problems for the Syrian Ba’ath regime. Meanwhile, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar continues to educate, train and inspire jihadis the world over.

Notes:

1. His biography has been crafted together from three different sources: Jihad and Tawheed Forum (Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi’s Website), al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper 20/11/2004 – Page 9 and his reply entitled “A letter to Bush and his nation” – December 2004, which was published on the Middle East Transparent website.

2. “A letter to Bush and his nation” – December 2004, published on www.metransperant.com.

3. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Da’wat al-Moqawma al-Islamiyah” ‘Global Islamic Resistance Call’ – a book that is over 1,500 pages long, thus constituting his largest and most important product. In it he discusses the ‘Afghan Jihad’ and the Islamic movements which it inspired. Nasar also reviews military methods, propaganda, and fund raising. Moreover, the author reviews an important book on Central Asia and presents his perspective on the region as a suitable platform to center global Salafi-Jihadist activities and consequently “liberate” the Middle East, thus imperiling American interests in the region and beyond.

4. Ibid.
Link


Arabia
Saudi bio of the late, unmourned al-Muqrin
2005-06-20
No one could have predicted, back in the early ninteies, that the young skinny Saudi youth, Abdul Aziz bin Isa bin Abdullah Muhsin Al Muqrin would become an al Qaeda sympathizer and mastermind of the Khubar and al Mahya bombings in 2003. Classmates at the Al Imam al Bayhaki intermediate school in the conservative district of al Suwaidi, West of the capital, Riyadh, remember how al Muqrin joined the al Tawiya al Islamia (Islamic awareness) religious group and isolated himself from student activities, except for his favorite pastime, football, as he was the goalkeeper for the school football team. One pupil, a few years older than al Muqrin, remembers them joking in school, adding "the thin sideburns growing on his face were a sign of an early religious devotion". Al Muqrin's lighthearted personality soon disappeared, replaced by religious fervor and an affiliation with fundamentalist groups; he was still a teenager at the time.

Al Muqrin left school at an early age, despite some inconsistent reports to the contrary. He traveled to Afghanistan, for the first time, in 1991, aged 17. His classmate, however, is adamant that, they were in school together for three years, starting in 1992. He doesn't believe al Muqrin visited Afghanistan during that time. "He was too young. I don't remember him talking or showing excitement about jihad (holy struggle)." Could Abdul Aziz al Muqrin have kept this matter secret from his fellow pupils?

A fellow militant, known by his initials, MD, who is ten years older than al Muqrin, and a religious hardliner in the past, though never involved in violence, remembers him as "a marginal figure. I was never too interested in al Muqrin. I felt uneasy about him because he was reckless. I never imagined he would become the leader of al Qaeda inside the Kingdom." He continues, "He was a young man who couldn't recite the Quran without making mistakes. I never saw him interested in reading or learning."

According to an expert on al Qaeda and security matters in Saudi Arabia, al Muqrin, "was never a man of leadership. He was merely a facade for the group." In effect, he added, "The person who ran and masterminded the militant networks in the Kingdom was the Yemeni Khalid al Hajj. He was killed on 16th March 2004 in the al Naseem neighborhood, East of Riyadh. He had all the contacts with the overseas al Qaeda leadership."

In the expert's opinion, "perhaps the only person who could rival al Hajj was the Saudi national Yousif al-Ayeeri, before he was killed trying to flee from a security patrol near the Northern city of Hail, on 1st June, 2003.

Here are a few highlights in al Muqrin's life as an Islamic militant:

On visits to Afghanistan, between 1991 and 1994, al Muqrin was trained to use a variety of weapons. He then became an instructor at military camps for Arab fighters such as the Al Faruk and Wal Camps. It is believed that, during his sojourn in Afghanistan, al Muqrin made the acquaintance of many Arab fighters and militant leaders. He had a reputation for being hard on his trainees, to the degree that other militants nicknamed him "al Mukrif" (Mr. Nasty) instead.

Soon after his return to the Kingdom, al Muqrin traveled to Algeria and smuggled arms on behalf of militant groups with the border with Morocco. He was arrested by the Algerian police but managed to escape. Some say he received help from fundamentalist groups. He returned to Saudi Arabia.

Al Muqrin continued his world tour and visited Bosnia to train a group of fighters in Arab camps. It is unknown whether he joined the camp of Algeria militant Abu al Maali or the non- official, more violent camp of al Zubair al Haili. According to some sources, eight Arab men he trained later died in combat.

After returning to Saudi Arabia and leaving for Yemen, al Muqrin joined the fighters of the Somali Islamic Union, based in Ethiopia, who were calling for the independence of the Ogadin region. He was captured by the Ethiopian army after a chase he never tired from recounting.

News of his arrest then reached the Saudi government who asked he be handed over. After spending two years in prison in Ethiopia, al Muqrin was transferred to the general prison, al Hayir where he served two years of a four year sentence. He was released early because of his exemplary conduct and studies of the Quran. I remember meeting al Muqrin soon after his release. He turned away and refused to greet me, for he thought I was an infidel.

After staying in Saudi Arabia for some time, al Muqrin left for Yemen and then, once more, to Afghanistan . His arrival coincided with an influx on Saudi and non-Saudi groups to the country, as the US was about to begin fighting in Afghanistan. Many of those fighters were killed or captured, with some flown to US Camp Delta, in Guantanamo Bay .

He then decided to return home to join al Qaeda, and play a leading role in its activities in the Kingdom. His name featured on the list of 19 most wanted militants published in May 2003 and the list of 26 most wanted announced in December of the same year.

Terrorist activity erupted in Saudi Arabia on 18 th March 2003, in an apartment in Al Jazira, in Riyadh, when bomb- making material exploded prematurely, killing Fahd Samran al Saidi, aged 29.

Weeks later, Saudi police raided an apartment in the Ishbiliya neighborhood and found forged identity cards and passports, in addition to weapons and explosives, with a weight exceeding 700 kg. In May 2003, some of the names on the most wanted list carried out suicide operations against residential compounds in Al Hamra and Granada residential compounds.

After the escalation of violence, al Muqrin was to be propelled into the limelight, if only for a brief time. He had started to make himself noticed, under the protection of al Ayeeri and al Hajj, who was also known as Aby Hazim al Shair. Among the operations al Muqrin participated in were the bombings of al Muhayya residential complex in the capital in November 2003, and al Waha in Khubar, in May 2004.

He was proud of his group's activities, which included killing foreign hostages. He justified targeting the oil industry by citing orders from Osama bin Laden who had mentioned, in one of his speeches, the US company, Haliburton, who had contracts in Iraq.

Perhaps the most violent and peculiar confrontation with Saudi security forces occurred by a building in the al Suwaidi neighborhood where al Muqrin was born and raised. Clashes broke up one morning in November 2004 between elements of al Qaeda and the Kingdom's police. One operative, Amer Al Shahri was badly injured and later died. He was buried in the desert near Riyadh . Ironically, the building where the exchange of fire took place was erected on the rubble of the al Imam al Bayhaqi intermediate school where a young al Muqrin was busy trying to keep the ball out of his net, playing for his school football team and starting.

Al Muqrin changed strategies, after the death of his protector al Hajj, and kidnapped the US Engineer Bob Marshall Johnson. His beheaded corpse was shown on an al Qaeda website on 16th June 2003 . Two day afterwards, al Muqrin and his assistant, Faisal al-Dakhil, and Ibrahim al-Duraiham, and Turki al-Mutairi, were killed during a raid on 18th June 2003 . It was al Muqrin who appeared, veiled in black, giving the Saudi authorities a 72 hour deadline to release militant detainees and expel foreigners from the Kingdom.

After contesting al Muqrin's death, al Qaeda later admitted its leader in Saudi Arabia had, indeed been killed. In a message broadcast on the internet, it added that the loss would not deter the organization from continuing its jihad in Saudi Arabia.

Al Muqrin's story raises an important question. How did a young man from the Eastern al Ahsa region, whose family migrated to Riyadh , like many others, become an extremist militant Islamic fighter?

The answer requires us t take a step back in time to al Muqrin's first involvement with militant activity inside the Kingdom, when in November 1995, a group he was related to blew up the training grounds of the Saudi National Guards, in the upscale Al Alia neighborhood in Riyadh . The architects of the attack, Khalid al-Saeed, Riyadh al-Hajiri, Abd al Aziz al Muthim, confessed live on national television and were sentenced to death. Al Muqrin was closest to al Muthim, whose name was used to refer to the group.

Sources close to Saudi militant groups reveal that al Muthim's group was radicalized after meeting a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, Sheikh Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi, the theorist on Salafi jihad (struggle following the methods of early Muslims) and teacher of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. For his part, al Muthim visited the Sheikh in Jordan on many occasions in 1995. In turn, al Maqdisi paid several visits to Saudi Arabia where he met with a number of young supporters.

In 1989, I saw al Maqdisi in Mecca , at the end of the month of Ramadan, with a group of religious Saudis. It was the first and last time we would meet. At the time, the Sheikh wasn't, yet, speaking of the duty of jihad or military action against the authorities. He did, however, talk, fervently, about bad governance and the infidelity of Arab regimes, since they didn't follow the rules of God and were biased towards the West. Openly, at least, the Sheikh didn't mention armed struggle.

He retuned to the Kingdom in the mid 1990s and stayed for some time, giving lessons and providing excuses for denouncing government and fighting it. It appears that his discourse was divided into two: a theoretical attack on Arab regimes, in public, and a more militarized talk of fighting those in power, in private. This is probably where al Muthim and his group found the inspiration to attack the National Guards base.

The expert M.D who was in contact with these militant groups thinks the main reasons they "became indoctrinated with the belief in armed confrontation is Khaled al Said, the eldest member, ho had visited Afghanistan, met with Algerian and Egyptian militants and agreed with their beliefs in exporting jihad outside on Central Asia."

Our review of the activities of al Muthim and the role of al Maqdisi in providing the group with religious reasons to move from opposing the regime to fighting it, aims at understanding how al Muqrin chose the path of violence. A keen supporter of al Muthim, he encouraged the group to adopt more militant ideologies, to the degree where it opposed all recognized Sheikhs in Saudi Arabia because they didn't believe the teachings of al Maqdisi. When a dispute erupted between al Muthim's group and other militant fundamentalists, al Muqrin sided with the former.

These early days in al Muqrin's life were decisive and a warning of a bloody future. He is buried in the small cemetery Mansuriya cemetery in Riyadh.
Link


Terror Networks
The Supreme Council of Global Jihad?
2003-08-13
In April 28th 2003, a forum of 225 Islamist clerics, scholars, and businessmen established in Makkah, Saudi Arabia a new body of supporters of global Jihad against the United States and the "Crusader" West. They opened a special web site — www.maac.ws — in both Arabic and English, and published their existence through the Al-Jazirah TV channel. The new forum was meant to be the first global Islamist reaction to the American war against Iraq.
Actually, I think the first reaction was jumping up and down, rolling their eyes and having gun sex. This would be the second.
The secretary General of the forum is the known Saudi Dr. Safar al-Hawali, who is regarded by many scholars as one of the main mentors of Osama bin Laden. The campaign is not limited by time, and according to its founders "The Campaign will continue as long as necessary to achieve its goals. Any projects or committees issuing from it will only be endorsed or developed after consultation with and study by the thinkers and scholars of the Islamic World." By reading the English translation of the official announcement, it seems that the founders are attempting at establishing a non-violent global front against what they primarily perceive as Western cultural imperialism, led by the Jewish-American alliance. The key element, as stated by them is: "To repel the aggression of our enemies with all possible legitimate means".
We might point out here that Islamists have their own definitions of "legitimate."
So far it looks as a political gathering, which is trying to unite Islamic Anti-Western efforts,on the background of the American-led efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The basic point of view, which is not new, is the nature of self-defense of the Islamic reaction. But, the web site includes in its Arabic section, a letter that was not presented in English so far, written by the secretary general, Dr. Safar al-Hawali. In his letter Hawali returns to the typical language of radical Islamist scholars. His main theme is that the Islamic nation should acknowledge the fact that they are facing a global infidel campaign (al-batil), which can never meet or compromise with the true faith (al-haqq). The last "Crusader campaign" should wake the Islamic nation up from its indifference and cause it "uprise to resist its enemy, either voluntarily or by force."
That would seem to reiterate the cannon fodder status of all good Muslim men. They have an obligation to die for The Cause™...
The voluntary way is that of the "secured and victorious community," — Al-Ta’ifah al-Mansourah — in the usual Islamic terms, those who have never believed in the Western values, where "the Crusader spirit lies under the sand of the Humanist slogans." The enforced way is through the Western anti-Islamic campaign, where "the enemy revealed its masks and uncovered its beastly teeth, destroying every doubt and eliminating every optimism. Hence, they found themselves in one line with their brothers from the first group, who believe that this nation has no glory or honor but by investing their soul, their property, and their words in favor of Allah." According to Al-Hawali, this global campaign is not a target but a means "to achieve better means. The campaign should serve also as a platform for unity."
Anybody up to doing a quick analysis of the semantic content of that statement? It doesn't seem to make any sense...
The list of the founders of the new forum includes several prominent Learned Elders of Islam clerics and scholars who belong to the Saudi Islamist opposition, such as Ibrahim al-Harithy, Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, the brothers ’Awadh and ’Aeidh al-Qarni, or Dr. Abdallah al-Shanqiti. Many of the Saudi founders are university lecturers, businessmen, and lawyers, who could very well represent the elite of the Saudi society. The same with the Yemeni and Egyptian founders. A new element to note here are 21 Iraqi clerics and scholars, among them several Shi’is,who could join such an initiative only following the release of Iraq from Saddam Hussein by "the American enemy." Another issue to note is the absence, so far, of persons from Jordan, Algeria, Syria, and Lebanon, and the very few from the Gulf States.
I had a look at their list of founders, and although the English spelling of a lot of their names didn’t look very accurate, I did recognise Qazi, Fasl, Sami and Shamzai in the Pakistan section. The other country sections also seem to be full of pious holy men, politicians and ’intellectuals’, most of whom would undoubtedly become part of the governing Shura when the Khilafah finally makes its come back.
Some of the interesting persons are Islamic figures from Western countries. The most prominent phenomenon, though not surprising, is the dominancy of the Arab origin of the vast majority of them. 15 of the founders are from Australia, and 9 of these are Imams in Australian mosques. Only one of the founders is from the United Kingdom, and he is not a known figure there. There is no one from the quite large Saudi Islamic opposition in London, what might hint for us that there is no linkage between these two parts of this opposition. There are two Americans of Arab origin, quite known figures - Dr. Ahmad Sharbinia lecturer in the American Open University in Colorado, of Egyptian origin, and Sheikh Walid Manisi, the Imam of the mosque in that university. The Belgian "representative" is quite known, Sheikh Muhammad al-Tijkani, of Moroccan origin. Another "European" is Sheikh Ahmad Abu Laban from Denmark. It should be noted that there are no Islamists from France and Germany. In any case, the core of the list of founders are persons who are known for supporting the anti-Western Islamist struggle of the school of global Jihad. Some of them are very popular among the generation of young supporters of Al-Qaeda in the Arab world.
And some of them are likely part of the "brain trust" behind al-Qaeda and the rest of the cannon fodder.
The combination of the letter of al-Hawali, in addition to his known positions, and the list of founders where the Saudi oppositionist element is dominant, seems to be a potential of a supreme council to back politically and ideologically a global struggle, either against the West and its presence in the Muslim world, or the Muslim governments that cooperate with the United States. It might mark also a further step in the march of the Saudi Islamist opposition, which seems to act with growing freedom in the kingdom, with almost no steps taken by the authorities to limit it, not to mention to block it. It is difficult to say whether it is a result of weakness, or part of the double game the Saudi regime is playing.
This was written before the May attacks in Riyadh, so it remains to be seen what the Saudis will do, but I tend to think that the government will crack down on the hard core Jihadis and the young clerics who rile them up, rather than the big fish behind the scenes. The Jihadis probably jumped the gun, with Hawali and the rest willing to wait a few more years before making their big move.
The new forum might also mark a further step in establishing the united Salafi-Jihadi trend in radical Islam, that will use the tremendous sympathy and support it gained through Al-Qa’idah operations. It might be premature, but it might also be an attempt to promote a political-ideological anti-Western struggle, as a result of the operational difficulties of Al-Qaeda to launch attacks against Western target, as was expected from it following the war in Iraq. In any case, the fact that this global forum is led by Dr. Safar al-Hawali should be worrying and a test case for assessing the new body. Hawali is known also for his writings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the endless effort to link between the various Islamist fronts.

Extracted list courtesy Dan Darling and Rohan Gunaratna...
Mohammed Omar
Younis Khalis
Jalaluddin Haqqani
Saifur Rehman
Towha
Obeidullah
Hassan Akhund
Usmani

Algeria:

Abassi Madani
Abu al-Haitham
Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud
Qaricept al-Jaziri
Abdel Haqq Layada

Australia:

Fehmi Naji al-Imam
Abdul Rahim Ayyub

Belgium:

Mohammed al-Tijkani

Bangladesh:

Shaukat Osman
Bangla Bhai

Cambodia:

Essam Mohammed Khadr Ali
Abdul Aziz Haji Thiming
Mohammed Jalaluddin Mading

Caucasus:

Abu Omar al-Saif
Habib Abdulrahman
Movladi Udugov
Magomed Khazhiyev
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev

Central Asia:

Tahir Yuldashev
Abdul Ahad

Denmark:

Ahmad Abu Laban

Egypt:

Omar Abdul Rahman
Abu Fahdl al-Masri
Sayyid al-Masri
Yassir al-Sirri
Hani al-Sebai
Sayyid Imam al-Sharif

Eritrea:

Mohammed Amir
Abdul Bara Hassan Salman

Germany:

Metin Kaplan
Abdul-Kaddim Zalloum
Abderrazak al-Mahjoub
Yunis bin Salem

Indonesia:

Abdullah Sungkar
Abu Bakar Bashir
Abdul Wahid Kadungga
Abu Daud
Umar Jafar Thalib
Mohammed Kolono
Abu Jibril

Italy:

Abu Omar
Ridwan Benghazi
Fall Mamour

Iraq:

Ayoub al-Iraqi
Mubarak al-Douri
Abu Fahdl al-Iraqi
Wuria Hawleri
Ali Bapir

Jordan:

Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi
Mohammed Ahmed al-Chalabi

Kenya:

Ali Shaei

Kuwait:

Suleiman Abu Ghaith
Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shuebi
Jamal al-Kandari

Libya:

Saif al-Libi

Malaysia:

Nik Adli Nik Aziz
Nik Aziz Nik Mat
Subki Abdul Latif

Mauritania:

Mahfouz Ould Walid
Jemil Ould Mensour
Ould Mohammed Musa

Morocco:

Abdessalam Yassine
Mohammed Fizazi
Noureddine Nfia
Damir al-Maghribi
Abdel Haqq Moulsabbat

Nigeria:

Nafiu Baba Ahmed
Datti Ahmad

Norway:

Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin

Oman:

Khalifa al-Muscat

Pakistan:

Nizamuddin Shamzai
Abdul Razzaq Sikander
Aslam Beg
Azzam Tariq
Mufti Jamil
Fazlur Rehman
Fazlur Rehman Khalil
Masood Azhar
Sami ul-Haq
Qazi Hussein Ahmed
Sadatullah Khan
Umar Farooq
Abdul Samad Sial

Philippines:

Hashim Salamat
Al-Haj Murad

Qatar:

Yousef al-Qaradawi

Saudi Arabia:

Safar al-Hawali
Ibrahim al-Harethi
Awadh al-Qarni
Aeidh al-Qarni
Abdallah al-Shanqiti
Saad al-Faqih
Abd al-Rahman al-Sudays
Salman al-Awdah
Saad al-Buraik
Ali al-Hudaifi
Ahmed al-Hawashi
Mohammed bin Mubarak al-Tawwash
Nasser al-Hamid
Suleiman al-Uman
Saeed bin Zuhair
Abdul Aziz bin Baz
Abu Musab al-Saudi
Abu Fahdl al-Makki
Yousef al-Ayyeri
Louis Attiyat Allah
Abu Saad al-Ameli
Abu Ayman al-Hilali
Ali bin Khadr al-Khadr
Ahmed bin Hamid al-Khaldi
Khalid al-Harbi

Singapore:

Haji Ibrahim bin Haji Maidin

Sudan:

Hassan Turabi

Thailand:

Ismail Lufti

Uganda:

Jamil Tabliq

United Arab Emirates:

Ali Abdallah al-Emirati

United Kingdom:

Abu Qatada al-Filistini
Abu Hamza al-Masri
Abdullah al-Faisal
Abu Izz al-Din
Omar Bakri

United States:

Ahmad Sharbinia
Walid Manisi
Abdulrahman Alamoudi

Xinjang:

Hassan Mahsum

Yemen:

Abdulmajid al-Zindani
Mohammed Ali Hassan Sheikh al-Mujahid
Abdullah Satar
Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar
Link



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